ã€ŠShota&#x27;s Isekai NTR Adventureã€‹


 Chapter 1 Madame Rose

    "Where is this ce?"

    The first thing that I was when I opened my eyes was¡­darkness.

    It was hard for my eyes to adjust when I opened them, but with the dim light of the torches outside, I was able to slowly see my surroundings.

    The thing that caught my attention the most was¡­that wall madepletely of bars.

    In this room that I found myself in, there was nothing but a pile of straw, a bowl of clearly dirty water, and what seemed to be a few pieces of¡­bread? Though with the mold that was on it, it was more fitting to call it a piece of mold than a piece of bread.

    No matter how you looked at it, this was a prison!

    "What is going on here? I was just in my room ying that crappy H-game, so how did I suddenly get transported to this dungeon?" I shouted to myself.

    But the only response that I received was the sound of my own voice echoing in this dungeon.

    After a slight pause, there was a sound that sounded like a door being opened. Then there was a door that opened and a bundle of mes appeared.

    It was a torch that was currently being held by someone.

    From what I could see, I saw two guards in full leather armour and wielding spears that came through that door.

    They red at me beforeing over.

    It was clear by their expressions that they didn''t have any good intentions.

    As I expected, they came right up to my cell and stood there looking at me.

    For some reason, they seemed taller than normal. Or at least they seemed taller than what people would normally look likepared to me.

    Could it be that people in this world were naturally tall?

    As I was thinking this, one of the guards suddenly stabbed his spear through the bars at me and shouted, "Oi, you brat, what do you think you''re doing! How dare you make all that noise! Do you need me to teach you a lesson?!"

    Having a spear suddenly thrust in front of my face like this was definitely shocking and I couldn''t help stumbling back, falling onto my butt.

    The guards had stern looks on their faces, but the sparkles in their eyes made it clear that they were having fun at my expense¡­

    So without hesitation, I fell down to my knees and said, "Please don''t hurt me! I promise that I''ll keep quiet!"

    As I kneeled there with my head down, I secretly peeked up and watched their faces.

    As expected, when they looked down at me, there were hard to hide smiles on their faces

    Based on how they were dressed and how old they looked, it was clear that these were bottom of the barrel guards. But they still liked feeling superior to others so they would usually bully whatever prisoners that they got.

    As long as you stroked their egos a bit¡­

    As I expected, the guards gave another cold snort before saying, "Be quiet or else we really will teach you a lesson."

    Then they walked off, but as they walked away, I could see that there was a spring in their steps. It was easy manipting people like this when they were so predictable.

    But the problem was¡­I was still stuck in this dungeon.

    Why was I in this dungeon?

    Thest thing that I remembered was that I was in my room ying that crappy H-game that everyoneined about for being too hard, so how did I get here?

    As I was looking around, I realized thatpared to normal, everything seemed a bit taller than usual.

    It was almost as if¡­I had be shorter.

    So I turned to the bowl of water on the side and looked into it. Even though it was a bit murky, it still was clear enough that I was able to see my reflection.

    It was hard to see at first, but then my chin couldn''t help dropping as I saw the reflection.

    This was a face that I was unfamiliar with¡­but at the same time, was familiar with.

    This was a young face with blonde hair and blue eyes, it was the face of a beautiful shota!

    This was the face of the main character in that crappy game that I had been ying, Zwein!

    What was happening here?

    That was my first thought, but I quickly figured out what happened.

    After all, this was a verymon thing in the literature of my previous world¡­

    Transmigration.

    I had somehow transmigrated into that crappy game!

    That meant that I had somehow died in my past world and now had been thrown into this game world¡­

    But where was my system or where was the god that was supposed to give me my special powers?

    Wasn''t that usually the norm?

    If I didn''t have a system or some kind of special power in this game world¡­wouldn''t I just be waiting to die?

    Damn, it was such a short life¡­

    But as I looked at my face, I had to admit that it was a beautiful face.

    It was a face that was a bit feminine, but that slight feminine look made me look beautiful to both male and females.

    After staring in a daze at my own face for a while, I suddenly shook my head and focused on the situation at hand.

    If I remembered correctly, the first event in the game should be happening soon and there was no way that I would be able to survive it if I was stuck inside of this dungeon.

    So before anything, I had to think of a way to get out of here.

    But in the end, I wasn''t someone with special powers, so there really wasn''t a way out of here for me. After all, it wasn''t as if I could rip my way out of this prison with this tiny body.

    Though one thing to note was that¡­there was something very special about this body.

    It was that for this tiny body, there was a dick that was so big that it clearly didn''t fit. It wasn''t an exaggeration to even call this thing a third leg and that was even when it wasn''t erect.

    It would be terrifying to think how big it was when it did be erect.

    It was so big that it even made it hard for him to walk around¡­

    Still, I bore it all and went around the dungeon, looking for a way to escape.

    But before he could find one, there was one that came to him on its own.

    While I had been searching the dungeon, there was the sound of a door creaking open as light poured into this dungeon again.

    I immediately stopped my search and sat down in the middle of the dungeon. If it was the guards again, I had to show a weak side to stroke their egos again so that they would leave me alone.

    But to my surprise, I found that it wasn''t them.

    Well the two guards from before were still there, but there was also a beautiful nature woman who came in with them.

    This mature woman had a long flowing head of red hair and beautiful piercing green eyes that seemed like they could see right through one''s soul. Her skin was as fair as snow and her figure seemed to have been hand carved by the gods with a full waist and an even fuller chest.

    Just the way that she walked looked so enticing that one couldn''t help bending over when seeing her.

    This woman came right up to my cell and looked in at me before asking the guards, "This is the one?"

    The guard quickly nodded in response to this before one of them came forward to stab their spear through the bars of the cell.

    As they pointed their spear at me, they also said, "Get up you piece of trash! Can''t you see that the madame is here? Why aren''t you getting up and bowing?"

    I had been sitting there in a daze before he shouted this at me.

    That was because I recognized this beautiful red haired woman who had walked in with the guards.

    This was the madame of the noble house that I was currently in, the wife of the Lord Baron, Madame Rose.

    And she was the first introductory event in the game.

 Chapter 2 Big Surprise

    The story of the game as I remembered it was that Zwein had been captured from his vige by invaders of his country before being brought to this country to be sold as a ve.

    The one who bought him was Baron Mordo who was the owner of thisnd and the husband of this Madame Rose.

    As for the reason he was bought¡­it was as a sex ve to satisfy Madame Rose.

    The game hadn''t been clear about the reason, but the Lord Baron was unable to sleep with his wife, which was why he had bought her this sex ve.

    After being bought by the Lord Baron, Zwein was used by Madame Rose for the first few nights before¡­

    The beast wave came and destroyed thesends.

    That was the big first event that I had to escape from!

    But before that was the introduction scene with Madame Rose. After all, Zwein had spent quite a few nights with her.

    The developers of the game knew how difficult their game was, so they had been very generous with their CG sets. They had given several CG sets just for Madame Rose in her introduction.

    I was proud to admit that I was one of those that had reyed those scenes quite a few times.

    She was just too enticing to pass up!

    But the spear that was pointed at my face pulled me out of my thoughts in the end.

    As I was going to bow, Madame Rose suddenly raised her hand to give a wave before saying, "It''s fine, he doesn''t need to bow."

    The guards were caught off guard by this, but the one that had his spear pointed in the cage quickly pulled it out from the bars. Then both of them gave a slight bow before saying, "Yes, madame!"

    Madame Rose just ignored them as she looked down at me before asking, "So this is the one?"

    Both the guards looked at each other with bitter looks in their eyes as they clearly knew what she was implying, but they didn''t dare hesitate as the one guard from before said, "Yes, madame. This is the one that the Lord Baron has prepared for you."

    Madame Rose gave a nod before saying, "Open it. I''m taking him with me."

    This time, the chin of both the guards dropped as they both knew what she meant by this, but they couldn''t help stalling when receiving this order.

    Seeing them stand in a daze like this, she narrowed her eyes to look at them and asked, "Is there something wrong, did you not hear what I just said?"

    The guards trembled back to their senses when they heard this. Even though they were still doubtful, they had to follow Madame Rose''s orders.

    So the guard that had poked his spear in grabbed his keys and opened the door. Then he came over to me and grabbed my arm to lift me up as he shouted, "Did you not hear what Madame Rose just said? Get up youzy bum or don''t me me for what happens next."

    As he said this, he also waved the spear in his other hand at me.

    Seeing this, I quickly stood up in front of him, but that just made the guard click his tongue.

    It was clear that he wanted to vent his anger on me, but now that I''ve stood up, he couldn''t do that. After all, we were currently in front of Madame Rose.

    When Madame Rose got a good look at my face, she couldn''t help being surprised.

    This was her first time seeing the ve that her husband had bought for her, so naturally she was surprised. This was a face that could even make the male guards waved¡­

    But Madame Rose quickly revealed a calm look again as she waved her hand and said to me, "Follow me."

    The guards let go of me when they heard this, but it was clear by the looks on their faces that¡­they were envious of me!

    They all knew what I was bought for and why Madame Rose was taking me away. The fact that I could sleep with such a beautiful woman, even if I was being used by her, was enough to fill them with the mes of envy.

    I knew that it was better to not provoke the guards when they were like this, so I lowered my head and followed Madame Rose.

    As we walked through the corridors of the castle, the servants looked at me with looks of disdain. However, since Madame Rose was with me, they didn''t dare say a thing.

    It didn''t take us long to reach her room.

    Madame Rose was quite the tall woman with long and beautiful slender legs, so she walked much faster than I did. I even had to do a little jog just to keep up with her.

    When we arrived in her room, she just sat down on the bed before turning to look at me. The way that she was looking at me made it clear that she was waiting for something, but I didn''t know what she was waiting for.

    So in the end, I was just awkwardly standing there without doing a thing.

    She narrowed her eyes to look at me before saying, "You were bought for one reason and now you''re telling me that you can''t fulfill that one duty?"

    My expression couldn''t help turning strange when I heard this.

    I knew exactly what she was talking about, but it was very strange hearing something like this from a beautifuldy.

    Seeing that I just stood there in a daze, Madame Rose suddenly made to stand up as she said, "Since you don''t seem to want to do this, then there''s no need to keep a defective product."

    I couldn''t help being filled with panic when I heard this.

    I quickly raised my hands to stop her as I said, "Wait, wait, please give me a chance to show off my abilities."

    Madame Rose was halfway standing when she heard this, but after taking a look at me, she sat back down again. Then she said with a raised brow, "I''m waiting."

    There was a slight moment of hesitation before my hand started moving.

    I knew that if I was abandoned here, there wouldn''t be a good ending. After all, I would be a used ve even if she never used me, so I doubt anyone would buy me and I would be dumped.

    I couldn''t let that happen.

    So my hand came to my shirt and I slowly took it off.

    When my smooth and white chest was revealed, Madame Rose just sat there with a calm and indifferent look on her face.

    It was as if she couldn''t be moved by anything.

    It really was a strange feeling since this would normally be done the other way¡­

    It wasn''t until I took my pants off that she finally reacted.

    There was no reaction at first, but as I slowly took off my pants to reveal what was inside, she couldn''t help revealing a look of growing shock.

    Finally when I took it all out, her chin had dropped down.

    After a momentary pause, she couldn''t help saying, "Is that real?"

    I just gave a simple nod in response.

    There were different emotions that filled Madame Rose''s face, but that expression slowly stabilized.

    It was a look of both worry and excitement.

 Chapter 3 Wonderful Technique

    After staring at me for a bit as I awkwardly stood there, Madame Rose suddenly went backwards andid on the bed.

    Then she said, "Show me your skills. You have my permission to start."

    I just stood there in a daze as my brain couldn''t keep up with this situation.

    Though when I thought about it, I could vaguely remember the CGs of the game going somewhat like this¡­

    Looking at her lying there, I couldn''t help giving a gulp.

    As sheid there in the bed, her twin peaks were standing tall and proud there. Just with a quick nce, I could tell that it was at least an H cup¡­

    No, it was an H cup ording to the official guide that came with the game. I had read it enough times to at least remember this, though most of the time¡­I was looking at the pictures in the guide¡­

    The best and most shocking part of it all was¡­

    This was a medieval world, so there weren''t things like bras.

    Madame Rose was wearing a rather light dress, so I could see two small tips that were poking out atop these peaks.

    The cloth was so thin that I could even see a bit of the pink of the tips peeking through her clothes.

    The moment that I saw this, I couldn''t help giving another gulp.

    Madame Rose had closed her eyes when sheid down, but not feeling anything, she opened them once again to look at me.

    Seeing this, I immediately gave a jolt and went into action.

    I walked over to the side of the bed and slowly reached my hands out towards her body.

    My hands couldn''t help trembling as I moved closer and closer.

    After all, I never had this experience once in my old world! This was something that I had only seen through the screen, so it was my first time doing it in real life!

    It was impossible not to be nervous!

    But when Madame Rose saw me like this, she couldn''t help revealing a faint smile.

    I was just too focused and nervous to notice this.

    My hands eventually reached her chest and after a moment of hesitation, they went forward to grab those breasts.

    The moment that they made contact, I felt the most amazing soft feeling. It was like I was grabbing onto clouds.

    With how big they were and how small the hands of my new body were, they couldn''t grab all of it. If I used a bit of force, I could even see my hands disappearing into those soft mounds.

    As I did use a bit more force, Madame Rose couldn''t help giving a moan.

    That was when I realized something¡­

    Her nipples had been standing up¡­

    Didn''t that mean¡­?

    And the moan that she gave just now¡­

    Could it be that she was turned on by all of this?

    As this thought passed through my mind, there was a bit of confidence that filled my heart.

    Since she was getting turned on by this, then¡­

    Without hesitation this time, I pulled down the bit of cloth that was in front of her chest, revealing those bare nipples.

    The moment that they appeared in front of my face, my chin dropped in shock.

    These nipples, they were a beautiful pink shade that wasn''t too strong or too light. At the same time, they were just perky enough to stand up without being too big.

    In short, they were perfect.

    My mouth was open for a while before I brought them forward andtched onto one of those proud peaks. Aftertching on, I started sucking on it while using my tongue to y with the tip.

    As I did this, I heard a moane from in front of me which gave me even more confidence. So I brought up my hand and started ying with the other breast, using my finger to y with the hard pink tip.

    After a while, I could feel the body under me start to tremble and I knew that this was a good sign. So I moved my free hand down towards her lower half.

    But her dress was aplicated dress that nobles wore, so there were many different parts to it that made it hard for me to find what I was looking for. As I was distracted by this, my mouth and other hand stopped moving.

    Feeling this, Madame Rose opened her eyes and looked down at me still with my mouth around her breast. The way that I wastched onto her made her think that she was feeding a baby which made her smile.

    Then feeling how I struggled around with her dress, she smiled even more as she found this funny and cute.

    Madame Rose raised her hand as I was upied and surprised me by suddenly cing it on my hand. Feeling this sensation, I started to panic as I thought that I had done something wrong.

    As my mouth came off her breast and opened and closed as I tried to say something, she said, "Alright, alright, there''s no rush. Take your time and slowly learn how to do this."

    While saying this, she patted me on the head as if she wasforting me.

    This made my cheeks strangely blush.

    It was almost as if I was being looked down on.

    While I was a bit stiff because I was nervous, that didn''t mean that I wanted to be pitied for it. Even if it was a little, I still did have my pride as a man¡­

    So I tried taking off her clothes again, but it really was tooplicated for me to figure out, whenever oneyer came off, there was anotheryer underneath.

    Finally, I had to get Madame Rose''s help to take it all off.

    Once it was all off, the beautiful picture underneath was revealed.

    Long slender legs, a curved waist, and a pair of breasts that didn''t fit the slender figure that she had¡­They were allid out there in front of me.

    As I stated at this, there was something that couldn''t help rising in my lower half.

    As it rose, it also cast a shadow downwards over Madame Rose.

    As she watched this shadow grow, Madame Rose''s eyes opened wider and wider in shock until there was only utter disbelief on her face. She looked at it and couldn''t say a thing since she couldn''t believe that this was real.

    I was the one that recovered first in the end.

    With this beautiful body ced in front of me, I couldn''t hold back at all.

    I jumped onto her, but my hands didn''t go wild likest time. This time, I controlled myself so I wouldn''t be the one at a disadvantage, but rather the one in charge.

    One hand went up to her chest and started ying with her breasts, kneading them and teasing the pink tips. The other hand went down between her legs to her private ce, but that hand didn''t go in as it went to her clit, rubbing and teasing it.

    Madame Rose was caught off guard by this sudden move from me and she didn''t know how to feel at first. However as the waves of pleasure filled her, her moans started leaking out and her body also started trembling.

    Feeling this, I couldn''t help getting even more into it as I moved my head forward over her other breast. I leaned in andtched on again, sucking on it while using my tongue to y with the little pink tip.

    Her moans became more and more intense along with the trembling with her body until¡­

    She finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    There was a pause before her body suddenly started shaking at an intense rate. At the same time, I could feel a wet feelinging from my hand right on her clit as if it was being sprayed by something.

    I knew that she had climaxed, so I was about to pull back.

    But before I could, she suddenly grabbed my head and my hand in between my legs before saying, "You''re not done yet."

    I was shocked by this, but I was also scared as she pulled my head and hand back down.

    With no other choice, I continued doing what I did before as she started moaning again.

    It didn''t take long before she climaxed once more.

    Only after another three times did she finallyy down on the bed while panting with a look of satisfaction on her face.

    Madame Rose couldn''t help thinking to herself, "Where did he learn these techniques? I''ve never experienced anything like this before."

 Chapter 4 Can We Do It Again?

    As sheid there, I couldn''t help slowly getting up after being let go.

    But when I saw her body in full again, I was once again shocked.

    Instead of the pure and pristine picture from before, she was now covered in sweat and her chest heaved as she panted.

    This scene was even more eroticpared to before.

    As soon as I saw this, my dick couldn''t help rising once more. As it rose, it created a shadow that covered Madame Rose''s face.

    She was surprised by this and when she opened her eyes, she couldn''t help staring up at me in shock.

    That was because my dick¡­was right over her face.

    The smell of it wafted down on her and the moment that she smelled it, she couldn''t help trembling again as her body felt like mes were burning inside of it.

    She immediately moved her head up and before I could even react, her lips fell onto the tip of my dick. There was a surprisingly cold feeling that came from it at first, but then as she wrapped her lips around the tip and pushed in, there was a feeling of being caressed by something warm that came from it.

    This was a feeling that I had never felt before.

    This feeling was so much more satisfying than touching myself.

    As this feeling came from below, my face couldn''t help twisting in pleasure.

    Madame Rose had been trying to fit more of it into her mouth, but it was just too big that she was having trouble pushing it in. This extinguished the mes that burned inside of her a bit and she calmed down a bit.

    She looked up at my face and seeing the look of pleasure on that immature face, she couldn''t help revealing a beautiful smile even with my dick in her mouth.

    She had been overwhelmed by my techniques, but now that she had calmed down a bit, it was her turn to be in charge again.

    When I was filled with pleasure, there was another new feeling that suddenly came from my dick.

    It was different from the feeling of her lips wrapping around it.

    It was like having a slippery snake wrap around the tip of my dick.

    When I looked down, I saw the tip of something pinking from out of her mouth.

    It was her tongue!

    She had started using her tongue!

    This feeling was just too much for an inexperienced person like me and before I could do anything else, I could feel the pressure building down below as I was about to climax.

    However, before I could climax, I felt something strange once again.

    Opening the eyes that had been forced closed in pleasure, I looked down to find that her tongue had disappeared back into her mouth.

    Even though it was gone, I knew exactly where it was still¡­

    It was pressed right up against the tip of my dick, right where the opening to my urethra was.

    It was pushed up right against it and it even started digging into it a bit.

    With it there, it felt like I couldn''t finish as the cum that was about toe out felt like it was being pushed back into my dick.

    I looked down at Madame Rose and found that she was looking up at me with a strange look¡­But even though it was a strange look, I could tell what she meant by it¡­

    So I said in my most pleading voice, "Please let me cum, madame."

    Hearing this, Madame Rose revealed a smile again as her tongue moved off the tip of my duck. Then it started moving around the tip, licking it slowly and filling me with pleasure.

    I had already been close to cumming earlier, so with this extra stimtion, I couldn''t hold back at all as I blew my load in her mouth with a grunt.

    Madame Rose was caught off guard by this sudden shot, but her eyes quickly narrowed and she revealed a smile as she swallowed it all in her mouth. Then with one final suck after I was finished shooting, she pulled her mouth off my dick and gave a gulp before opening her mouth to show me.

    It was almost as if she was teasing me with the way that she did this.

    But it had the effect that it was supposed to have and my dick started getting hard again.

    Madame Rose had let go and had turned around, as if she was preparing to put her clothes back on. As she did this, she said, "You did good tonight. You satisfied me quite a bit."

    After she said this, I couldn''t help asking, "Are we done already?"

    Madame Rose revealed a smile when she heard this, but she still said, "It can''t be helped. You already finished, so you''ll probably need your¡­"

    As she said this, she had turned around to look at me.

    Since she was sitting down on the bed and I was still standing there on the bed, there was a long shadow that was cast over her. It went right in between her eyes and above her head.

    When she saw this, she swallowed the words that she had been about to say.

    This was apletely new experience even for her.

    She wasn''t a virgin by any means since she did have a husband, but whenever they did it, he would neverst more than a single round. So this was what she thought was normal.

    She never thought that men would be able to stand up tall again this fast.

    But now that it was in front of her like this, she couldn''t stop herself from dripping.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help asking again, "I''m ready. So are we done already?"

    Madame Rose looked at the way that I was asking and she couldn''t help revealing a smile. Then she waved her hand and said, "Come over here."

    I listened to her and went over to where she was lying in bed.

    When I came over, she took me in her arms and held me. With my head ced in her soft pillowy mounds, I couldn''t help getting even harder.

    When she felt it poking her suddenly, she couldn''t help looking down before bing even more wet.

    So with a smile she said, "Let''s see if you can satisfy me again."

 Chapter 5 So Full

    I gave a strong nod when I heard this and then I pushed myself up over her.

    This was my first time, so I wasn''t that skilled at it.

    I took my dick in one hand and carefully aimed it so that it was aligned with hers before slowly moving it forward.

    During this time, Madame Rose had been watching with a smile on her face, like she was watching something cute.

    However, the moment that I prated her, the expression on her face immediately changed.

    It went from a smile to a wide open mouth of shock. It was almost as if she couldn''t believe what was happening.

    That was because¡­it was just too full!

    This was a feeling that she had never experienced before, even with her husband. When she had done it with her husband in the past, it had always felt like something small was entering her, but now¡­

    It was like she was beingpletely filled by this thing that had suddenly entered her.

    However, when she looked down, she found that it was still just the tip that had entered her. It was only a tiny bit of the entire thing and she was already feeling this full.

    She couldn''t help feeling a bit fearful and a bit expectant of the whole thing.

    However, for me, it was apletely different feeling.

    For me, who had never had sex before, this was the best feeling in the world and I couldn''t hold myself back as I came close to finishing.

    But before I could, Madame Rose reacted and grabbed my dick by the shaft so I couldn''t finish as she said, "It''s not over yet, you can''t finish all by yourself this quickly."

    I couldn''t help being shocked by this sudden grab from her and with her hand on my dick, I couldn''t help getting even closer. However, when I tried, she gripped even harder on my dick and it was forced back inside just like when she used her tongue.

    I looked at her with a pleading look and said, "Please let me finish."

    But she just revealed a smile and said, "Not until you pleasure me as well."

    Her legs wrapped around my waist and then with a sudden pull, she brought me forward, pushing my dick even deeper inside of her.

    When it went deeper, she suddenly revealed a look of pleasure and gave a moan of satisfaction.

    She was slowly getting used to this feeling and it was starting to turn from pain to pleasure. Especially with how full she felt, this kind of pleasure couldn''tpare to the pleasure that her husband gave her.

    Finally, once it was halfway in, she couldn''t push it in any further.

    Once it was halfway in, it was already hitting her womb.

    As it tapped it, she couldn''t hold herself back anymore as she felt the waves of pleasure filling her and she couldn''t help cumming.

    As she climaxed, her hand holding my dick suddenly let go and I felt the pressure being relieved. As soon as her hand let go, I couldn''t help cumming as well, shooting my shot deep inside of her.

    It was a feeling that I had never felt before in my days of gratifying myself.

    This was the feeling of having sex!

    But after cumming, I realized a big mistake¡­

    I had just climaxed inside of Madame Rose¡­

    If the baron were to learn about this¡­it would be hard to guarantee that my head would stay on.

    So my only hope was that Madame Rose wouldn''t say a thing.

    Without hesitation, I started to pull my dick out and I was about to bow down, but Madame Rose looked at me with a confused look that stopped my actions.

    She had also calmed down from the rush of pleasure that she felt and was reaching for a handkerchief on the side. She slowly brought it over between her legs and wiped off the cum that was dripping out.

    As she did this, she couldn''t help admitting¡­

    It really was a big load!

    I was just dazed for a bit, but then I started to bow down to apologize.

    However, before I could, Madame Rose suddenly said, "You don''t need to apologize for anything. That man won''t care."

    My body froze when I heard this and I couldn''t help looking up at her with a look of disbelief. However, the serious look on her face made it clear that she wasn''t kidding.

    But this was just too unbelievable.

    A noble wouldn''t care that a sex ve came inside his wife?

    That was impossible.

    After all, the most important thing to nobles would be their bloodline and this was a chance to taint that bloodline. If anything, this should be the thing that they would deem uneptable the most.

    So why would the baron not care about his wife?

    It also raised the same question as before.

    Why did the baron buy a sex ve for his wife¡­?

    Madame Rosepletely ignored my stunned appearance and just focused on cleaning herself. As she did, she couldn''t help looking at the cloth that had my cum on it with a strange look¡­

    It almost seemed like she was attracted to it¡­

    But once she finished cleaning herself, she looked at me and said with a smile, "You must be finished now, right? You can go clean up and¡­"

    Before she could finish, she saw my dick that was slowly rising again and she couldn''t help revealing a shocked look once more.

    This¡­this vitality¡­wasn''t it too much?

    I didn''t say anything, but the look on my face made it clear what I wanted.

    Madame Rose revealed another smile and reached her arms out before saying, "Come here."

    Without hesitation. I went into her arms and soon¡­we were at it again.

    We kept going for several more rounds before my dick finally settled down.

    When we finished, we were both exhausted and weid there on the bed together with my head in her arms, resting on herrge breasts.

 Chapter 6 System?

    When I woke up, I found that I was alone in bed.

    The suning from the window made it clear that it was already morning and that it was getting quitete.

    However, I justzilyid there, not knowing what to do.

    After being used by Madame Rosest night like that, I really didn''t know what my purpose was now.

    After all, I was just a sex ve.

    But after lying there for a bit, I felt that it was inappropriate to lie there any longer and couldn''t help getting up.

    Since there were no clothes for me, I could only put on the rags that I had worn back in the prison.

    When I came out of Madame Rose''s bed chambers, I was surprised to find that there was an old man in a suit standing there waiting for me. When he saw me, he couldn''t help letting a sh of disdain appear in his eyes before he quickly calmed himself.

    I was surprised by the fact that this old man was waiting for me, but it was clear based on his appearance that he was some kind of butler.

    Before I could say anything, the old man said, "You''re finally up. It seems like you really don''t know your ce."

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit annoyed when I heard this, but I restrained myself. After all, I knew that while I belonged to Madame Rose, I also had the lowest status in this entire manor.

    This butler was certainly someone that had a high position based on his clothing and his aura.

    So I lowered my head and said in a low voice, "I''m sorry, I was tired afterst night."

    The butler''s face couldn''t help twisting slightly when he heard this, but once again, he quickly hid that expression.

    The butler just gave a cough to calm himself before saying, "I am the head butler assigned to Madame Rose by the Lord Baron, you may refer to me as Sir Klein."

    After saying this, he paused as if he was waiting for some kind of praise or acknowledgement, but I didn''t say a thing.

    Seeing this, the butler Klein just looked at me with a look of disdain again before continuing, "The madame has instructed me to prepare some clothes and a bath for you. You may follow me."

    Without even waiting for a response, butler Klein just turned around and walked towards an adjacent room.

    I just followed him without saying anything.

    When I arrived in that room, I couldn''t help being surprised by how luxurious it was.

    Seeing the look on my face, butler Klein said, "This is the madame''s private bathroom. You should consider yourself lucky to be able to use this ce."

    I couldn''t help nodding along in a daze.

    He was right, this was definitely more than what a sex ve like me deserved.

    It was clear that Madame Rose was satisfied with my performancest night, or else I wouldn''t be treated this way.

    So I couldn''t help secretly letting out a sigh of relief.

    Butler Klein once again looked at me like I was a street urchin before saying, "I and the maid are all busy, so you can just wash yourself. The clothes that have been prepared for you, so you can just put them on afterwards. As for what you''ll be doing¡­" There was a pause as a clearly unwilling look appeared on his face, but he still said, "The madame has said that you can rest for the day."

    Once again, without waiting for a response from me, he turned to leave.

    As he left, I could hear a snorting from him.

    It was clear that this butler didn''t like me, but I didn''t mind it.

    All I cared about now was taking a nice hot bath since I really was dirty. I was so dirty that I was surprised that Madame Rose had even been willing to do all those things with mest night.

    Since this was a medieval world, there were no such things as taps for hot water.

    The water had been drawn, but it waspletely cold.

    Luckily, this was also a world where magic existed, so I was able to use the heat magic stone attached to the tub to heat up the water. Once it was just right, I sat down in the tub and let the hot water soothe my body.

    The moment that I sat down in the tub, I realized my mistake.

    I had forgotten to wash myself first before sitting down in the tub.

    So the moment that I sat down, the water in the tub turnedpletely brown from all the dirt covering me.

    But it was toote, so I just sat there in that brown water.

    As I was rxing, I couldn''t help seeing something appearing out of the corner of my eye.

    I tried to ignore it at first, but it kept popping up and annoying me.

    So I had no choice but to pay attention to it.

    However, whenever I tried looking at this thing in the corner of my eye, it moved along with my vision. So no matter how I tried looking at it, I wasn''t able to focus my vision on it at all.

    Finally, I forced my eyes forward and then slowly moved my vision towards the corner.

    It took several tries, but I was finally able to see what the thing in the corner of my eyes was. When I finally saw what it was, I couldn''t help revealing a shocked look.

    That was because in the corner of my eye, there was a box that had a single word inside of it.

    As for what that word was¡­It was¡­

    System.

    I couldn''t help sitting there in a daze for a few seconds before suddenly saying out loud, "System."

    I hadn''t been expecting anything at first, but when I said this, there was a screen that popped up in front of me.

    As expected!

    One really was supposed to get a system whenever they transmigrated into another world!

 Chapter 7 What Kind Of System?

    The screen that popped up in front of me waspletely empty except for one thing.

    It was just a box that had an envelope right in the center that also had a red one on it, just like some kind of notification.

    I couldn''t help staring at this screen with a confused look and I didn''t know what I was supposed to do.

    But I found that with a single thought, I was able to open the envelope.

    When the envelope opened, there was a letter that appeared in front of me.

    "Dear Lin Fan, or should I say Zwein, I hope that you are having a good time in your new life. I am the God of your previous world, the world called Earth. You were one of the unluckiest people to exist on my, so I couldn''t help taking pity on you and granting you this divine grace. After all, you are the only person that I''ve known to die from masturbating themselves to death."

    When I reached this part, my chin couldn''t help dropping down and I had to read that part a few more times.

    "Masturbating myself to death?" I couldn''t help repeating in a stunned voice.

    "What does that mean?!" I suddenly shouted.

    I couldn''t help reading the next part after this, which for some reason had a deliberate spacing put there as if there was a dramatic pause.

    "Masturbated yourself to death, that''s probably what you''re wondering, right? It''s very simple actually. You had a very special disease that drained your vitality whenever you came. As long as you didn''t masturbate or have sex, then you would have been perfectly fine. This is a disease that even the doctors wouldn''t have noticed because it wasn''t fatal until you ran out of vitality. So that was why you masturbated yourself to death."

    My face couldn''t help being filled with three ck lines when I read this¡­

    But that wasn''t the worst part of it all¡­

    "As for sex¡­well there was no chance for a cherry boy like you (lol)."

    This god!

    This god really liked to hit where it hurt the most!

    But then again, I can''t say that I was a cherry boy anymore after what happenedst night¡­

    Still, being made fun of like this¡­it was hard not to get angry!

    After calming down, I kept reading the letter, but I was surprised by the next line.

    "Now, now, isn''t it because of me that you were able to have your first time? Shouldn''t you be thanking me?"

    I couldn''t help looking around myself when I read this.

    Could it be that god was still watching me?

    But then again, this should be a letter that was written beforehand and it didn''t seem to change while I was reading it.

    As expected of a god, they could even predict my reaction¡­

    "Anyway, I''ve transported you to a world that I created myself based on the game that you were ying before you died. This world will give you what you desire, so I hope that you will enjoy your life from now on."

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit emotional after reading this.

    Even if this god was a bit yful, they were the one that gave me a second chance, so I should be grateful for this.

    So I said to no one in particr, "Thank you."

    "To help you in this new life, I have provided you with a system to help you make your way in this world. It will activate once you finish reading this letter."

    I was filled with excitement after reading this.

    I knew it, there had to be a system!

    After all, this was a transmigration into another world, so there should be a system given to me!

    "Good luck in your new life and I hope you enjoy yourself."

    Once again, I couldn''t help saying, "Thank you."

    After I finished reading the letter, it disappeared by itself before the screen in front of me changed into the interface of a system.

    However, when I saw it, I couldn''t help being surprised by how simple it was.

    There were only three buttons that were there, each one with a different word on them.

    There was one for "Inventory", one for "Shop, and one for "Quests".

    The first one that I opened was naturally the "quest" tab since I wanted to see if there was anything that I could do. However, I was disappointed when I opened it since there was nothing there.

    Then I opened up the "inventory" tab and as expected, there was nothing there either.

    But when I opened the "shop" tab, I was surprised to find that¡­it was also empty!

    What was going on here?

    Had I been scammed?

    I couldn''t help asking, "System, are you there?"

    There was a mechanical female voice that sounded like the AI assistant of a certain brand of phone in my past life that rang out, "Host, how can I help you?"

    "Why isn''t there anything in any of these tabs?"

    "Host, the system will unlock new features depending on the host. When the host meets the conditions to unlock new features, these new features will be released."

    "..."

    That was my only response to this¡­

    It seemed like this system was just as fickle as the god that made it¡­but still, it was a system, so I didn''t think that it would be that bad.

    After thinking about it, I couldn''t help asking, "System, what kind of system are you?"

    "Host, this system is the Sex Toy System."

    I couldn''t help being stunned when I heard this.

    It took me a while toe back to my senses as I slowly asked, "I''m sorry¡­I seemed to have misheard. What kind of system did you say you were?"

    "Host, this system is the Sex Toy System."

    "..."

    I had the same response as I didn''t know how to react to this.

    Finally, I couldn''t help asking, "What can you do?"

    The system was silent for a minute this time before suddenly saying, "Congrattions to the host on losing their virginity. You will now receive a special reward."

    "Huh?" I couldn''t help being taken aback by this sudden notification, but since it was something free, it wasn''t as if I was against it.

    So I opened my inventory to see what it was, but my expression couldn''t help twisting when I saw this.

    "This is¡­"

 Chapter 8 Rumours

    Over the next few days, my life just went like this.

    Because I was Madame Rose''s belonging, no one tried to do anything to me and I was just allowed toze around all day.

    Of course, there was always plenty for me to do at nights.

    Madame Rose...really was insatiable.

    However, since I received the special treatment from Madame Rose, it was hard for others not to be jealous. So it was hard for me to talk to anyone else in this manor since they all avoided me.

    Most of the time, they even looked at me with eyes filled with disdain.

    It wasn''t hard to guess what these maids and butlers were thinking, but I just ignored them.

    What was on my mind was somethingpletely different.

    I knew that something bad was about to happen to this ce, so I still had to find a way out.

    I was currently living a good life because of Madame Rose''s favour, but that wouldn''tst long.

    So I decided to move around the manor in my free time.

    I wasn''t able to find much, but I was able to hear a few interesting rumours.

    "Did you hear? The monsters have been more activetely. There are even rumours that a monster wave will being to this city soon."

    "Really? Where did you hear that?"

    "My husband is in the guards. He said that they were holding extra training sessions and sending out extra patrols into the foresttely."

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help piquing my ears.

    These two maids had ignored me when they came into the library where I was reading and had started gossiping on their own.

    I had ignored them at first, but then I couldn''t help paying attention when I heard this.

    After all, I knew how this would end.

    That monster wave woulde and it would destroy the entire city. Now that there were signs of it, I knew that I didn''t have long before it came.

    So I couldn''t help listening more carefully to the two of them.

    "Did your husband say if they found anything yet?"

    The first maid shook her head before saying in a mysterious voice, "They haven''t found traces of the monsters, but they have found traces of something else."

    The second maid revealed a confused look before asking, "What?"

    The first maid looked around herself as if she was worried about something beforeing in closer to say, "They found traces of demons."

    Demons, that was one of the key elements in the plot of this H-game.

    Since this was a game that was based in a medieval fantasy world, demons naturally existed here. There were also many different fantasy races such as elves and such that were also here.

    The demons were rted to one of the main storylines that yers could follow.

    It was a storyline about fighting the demons that were trying to take over the world.

    It was a storyline that was filled with danger and it also had a terrible ending, so most people didn''t do it. It was only done when people had wanted a challenge, which is what I did.

    So I had a good idea of where the demons would show up, but I never remembered any mention of the demons in the tutorial scenario.

    Could it be that there was something that even I, thepletionist, had missed?

    I couldn''t help thinking about how I had always been excited when I found all kinds of new things while ying, but at the same time, I also felt a bit worried since that meant that I didn''t know what the best move was.

    If the demons really were involved, this had be much moreplicated.

    "Demons!" The second maid shouted out.

    The first maid immediately waved her hand for her to keep quiet before looking around them. Only after making sure that there was no one there, she said in a cryptic, "That''s not all..."

    The second maid didn''t say anything as she waited for the first maid to continue.

    But in the end, the first maid stopped what she had been about to say.

    She even turned in my direction, so I quickly put my head into the book that I had been reading.

    It was a good thing that she didn''t look too carefully or she would have noticed that the book was upside down in the first ce.

    After that, the two maids finished up their cleaning and headed out.

    After they left, I couldn''t help wondering what the first maid was about to say.

    It was clear that it was something important with how cautious she was being, but she didn''t say it in the end.

    After hearing all of this, I really wasn''t in the mood to keep reading. There were many things that I had to n out after hearing the news of the demon and this ce wasn''t a good ce for that.

    So I headed back to the room that Madame Rose prepared for me.

    But on the way, I heard another piece of information.

    It was from two butlers who were discussing things in the hall.

    I had been about to pass by when I heard them talking, so I hid myself around the corner and eavesdropped on them.

    "You''re saying that the Lord Baron hasn''t sent a request to the capital for help with the beast waves?"

    "What? Those monsters are already on their way and the Lord Baron hasn''t sent a request for reinforcements? Does he really think that we''ll be able to take care of all those monsters by our..."

    Before he could finish with his agitated rant, the first butler covered his mouth and made a gesture to be quiet.

    The second butler realized his mistake and gave a nod to show that he was calm. When the first butler took his hand off, the second butler said in a more calm voice, "Does the Lord Baron want all of us to die?"

    The first butler was silent for a bit before shaking his head, "The Lord Baron has his own ns, he won''t let us all die."

    The second butler didn''t look convinced as he said, "How can you be so sure?"

    The first butler looked like he was hesitating a bit before saying with a sigh, "Do you want to know the real reason why the Lord Baron hasn''t requested reinforcements?"

    The second butler was caught off guard by this sudden question. After looking at the first butler in a daze for a few seconds, he responded with a nod.

    The first butler looked around before saying, "It''s rted to Madame Rose."

    "Madame Rose?" The second butler asked with a confused look.

    The first butler hesitated for a bit before saying, "They''ve found traces of Madame Rose being involved in the beast wave."

    The second butler was about to shout out again, but the first butler was ready this time and he quickly covered his mouth with his hand. Only when he saw that the second butler had calmed down did he release his hand again.

    The second butler looked around after this before saying, "You''re saying that Madame Rose is rted to the beast wave? How could that be possible?"

    The first butler shook his head and said, "This isn''t something that we need to involve ourselves with. It is the Lord Baron''s matter." His voice was very serious when he said this.

    The second butler understood what he meant by this and the two of them quickly headed off.

    I just stood there in a daze as I couldn''t process what I had just heard.

    Madame Rose was involved in the beast wave?

    This was something that I had never heard of before in the game.

 Chapter 9 Sad Eyes

    Aftering back to my senses, I didn''t waste any time in returning to my room.

    I had to n things out or else it would be the end of me.

    Unlike the game, I was sure that I only had a single life. So the moment that I died, this would all be over.

    I was stepping into territory that I had never experienced before, so this was something that couldn''t be taken lightly.

    After returning to the room, I immediately pulled out the book that I had been writing my ns in.

    I had made sure to write in anguage that no one in this world could read, I had written it all in Chinese. That was because the mainnguage of this world was English and they had never heard of Chinese before.

    I only noticed this when I had first entered the library.

    When I read my first book, I found that while I was able to read it without a problem, there were only a few words that I was actually familiar with.

    I wasn''t the most studious person in my past life, but I did learn some English.

    So I was able to tell that the god that sent me here must have given me some kind of trantion power.

    Even if someone were to find the book with all my ns, they wouldn''t be able to understand it. But hiding it was still best since it was unknown what people would think when they found a book filled with unknown script.

    However, I didn''t get that long with the book as Madame Rose came in.

    When she did, she just walked past me without saying a word and then sat down on the bed as if she was lost in thought.

    I couldn''t help being surprised, but I didn''t say anything.

    After a while of waiting in silence, Madame Rose suddenly stood up and locked the door before saying, "Strip."

    I couldn''t help being even more surprised, but I took off everything like she wanted and just stood there waiting.

    She looked at me and pulled me onto the bed, pushing me down onto it. Then without a word, she got on top of me and started taking her clothes off as well.

    Normally, I would wee this since we''ve been doing this over the past few days, but it seemed different today. The look in her eyes was something that I just couldn''t get out of my mind.

    It was a pair of eyes that seemed to be filled with sadness¡­

    I couldn''t tell where it was from, but I could clearly see it¡­

    But I just couldn''t ask anything with the way that she was acting.

    Once she had taken all her clothes off, she didn''t even wait a single second as she put herself over my dick and pushed herself down.

    As soon as it entered, my body was filled with joy.

    She had an aggression that she had never had before and it was apletely new feeling, but it wasn''t a bad feeling.

    But after that initial feeling of pleasure, I couldn''t help looking up to see something that shocked me.

    There were tears in her eyes that were falling down onto me.

    I didn''t know how to react to this at first, but I slowly reached my hand up to wipe the tears from her eyes.

    Madame Rose was surprised by this before looking at me with narrowed eyes, as if she was scrutinizing what I was doing.

    I didn''t know how to react once again, but then I reached out and took her in my arms.

    There was a clear surprised look on her face when she felt my arms around her, but she soon rxed herself and allowed me to hold her in my arms.

    The two of us justid there in silence for a bit before she suddenly said, "What is your motive?"

    I didn''t know how to respond at first, so in the end, I responded with the only thing in mind, "You."

    There was another visibly surprised look that appeared on her face as she looked at me before she suddenly broke out in a smile. She couldn''t hold herself back as she startedughing, clearlyughing at me.

    I didn''t know why she was doing this, so I just revealed an awkward look on my face.

    Afterughing for a bit, she wiped the tears from her eyes before saying, "You really don''t know how to lie at all, do you?"

    My lips just twitched when I heard this, but I didn''t deny it.

    In this kind of situation that was clearly out of my depths, I really didn''t know how to act at all. So the only thing that I could do in my daze was tell the truth.

    But then she suddenly revealed a serious look and asked me, "Did you seriously mean what you said?"

    I was taken aback because of how serious she suddenly became, but I still gave an honest nod.

    Seeing this, Madame Rose didn''t say a thing as she just looked at me.

    But then she gave a nod and said, "Then from now on, you are my man, understand?"

    As she said this, there was a trace of happiness that appeared in those sad eyes that I still couldn''t understand.

    But I gave a nod in response to this.

    In the first ce, I wanted to get closer to someone so that I would be able to escape from the beast wave. The best case scenario would have been the baron, but the baron was just too hard to get to.

    So Madame Rose was my second choice.

    Now that this opportunity was in front of me, I wouldn''t let it go.

    Even though it was a bit dangerous with how she said that I was her man¡­that would certainly put me against the Lord Baron, but that was a problem for another time.

    Seeing my response, Madame Rose revealed a satisfied smile before saying, "You should know what you''ll be facing by siding with me."

    I couldn''t help being surprised by this, but I nodded in agreement.

    Madame Rose revealed a serious look again and said, "My husband is colluding with the demons and is causing the beast wave. He will destroy this town and then frame me for it."

    My chin couldn''t help dropping when I heard this.

 Chapter 10 Demon Order

    I had never heard of any quest like this before in the game.

    Even with all my hours, I had never seen anything simr to this.

    But then again, I had never sided with Madame Rose in the game since that was always the one route that I had failed. Just starting it was too hard for me since I couldn''t figure out how to get closer to her.

    But now...

    Seeing the shocked look on my face, Madame Rose didn''t say anything as she had already expected this.

    She just waited for me toe back to my senses.

    When I recovered, I asked, "How do you know that he''s working with the demons? Why would he frame you, you''re his wife?"

    Madame Rose just revealed a smile without saying anything.

    I couldn''t help feeling strange seeing this smile.

    After a period of silence, she said in a bitter voice, "You don''t know how those devil worshipers think. They do things that normal people would never think of."

    I didn''t know how to respond to this, but I could tell that there was a story hidden in that bitter voice.

    So I said, "Then what do you want me to do?"

    That was right, what did she want from a sex ve like me? What would I be able to do?

    Madame Rose looked me right in the eyes and said, "All you have to do is be by my side and support me."

    I couldn''t help trembling when I saw this...

    Those eyes had turned a bit strange...

    If I had to describe them...they were like the eyes of a woman scorned who wanted to take revenge. But at the same time, it was like she had found something new to fill the void in her heart, like she had found something new to ce all her affection on...

    It seemed a bit dangerous, but I really didn''t have a choice right now...

    So in the end, I gave a nod in response to this.

    Madame Rose patted me on the head with a gentle smile when she saw this and she said in a soft voice, "Good boy."

    After thinking about it, I couldn''t help asking, "You mentioned demon worshippers...what does that mean?"

    Madame Rose revealed a serious look again after hearing this and she said, "Demon worshippers...As the name suggests, they are the ones that worship the demons. They even go as far as creating an organization all about worshipping and helping the demons conquer our human race. It''s called the Demon Order."

    Then after a pause, she added, "My husband is a part of that order."

    I didn''t say anything else in response to this, but my mind was turning.

    I had already guessed that this was the case since this was just like the plot of the game. I had only asked just to confirm since this was a route that I was unfamiliar with, so I wanted to be sure that nothing had changed about it.

    As expected, the overarching elements of the plot were still the same, but I never expected the Lord Baron to be a part of the Demon Order.

    This was something that I had never encountered in all my hours of ytime.

    But still, this would exin all the things that the baron had done...

    No matter what, this was still an opportunity.

    It was clear that I wouldn''t be able to get closer to the baron in the first ce. Between the fact that I was a sex ve for his wife and the fact that I didn''t even have a chance to meet him, it would be impossible to rely on his help to escape this ce.

    Even if there was the risk of going against the baron by siding with Madame Rose, I could use her resources to learn more about the situation and slowly make my n to escape.

    So I just gave up and epted the situation for what it was, giving up all intentions of asking more questions.

    It was at that moment that I realized that my dick was still inside of her.

    I had been so focused on my thoughts that I hadpletely forgotten about this.

    But the moment that I was reminded of this, I felt the pleasure that wasing from my dick being squeezed inside. As I felt this pleasure, my face couldn''t help twisting and filling with a look of ecstasy.

    Seeing this look on my face, Madame Rose revealed a smile as she also remembered what we had been doing before. She put her hands on my chest and then she started moving up and down again, pushing and pulling my dick in and out of her.

    She moved slowly at first, but then she started getting faster and faster.

    After a few days of having sex, I had slowly gotten better and better at controlling myself. I no longer came as soon as I put it into her and could go for a few minutes before cumming, but she was still too amazing for me to hold on for long.

    So it didn''t take long for me to climax.

    But before I could, she suddenly stopped moving and just stared down at me.

    I had been lost in the pleasure, but the moment that I saw the way that she looked at me, I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine.

    The way her eyes looked down at me, the strange affectionate look that she had...It felt dangerous...

    However, I didn''t dare say anything since I knew that it would be worse if I did.

    She just looked at me like this for a bit before suddenly saying, "You won''t leave me, right?"

    I felt another chill run down my spine when I heard this, but my instincts told me to...

    "No, I promise that I''ll be with you forever."

    I knew that it would be dangerous if I said anything else.

    Hearing this, the strange look in her eyes disappeared and she revealed a faint smile before moving up and down again. She said in a gentle and loving voice, "Good boy, here''s your reward."

    With her moving like this, I couldn''t hold back anymore and released my load into her.

    But as I did, I knew that something had changed...

 Chapter 11 Rubbing Through The Sheets

    The next morning, when I woke up, I found that Madame Rose was still in bed with me.

    Normally, she would have left, but today she was lying there by my side.

    In fact, when I woke up, I found that she was watching over me with unblinking eyes¡­

    But the moment that she saw me open my eyes, she revealed a smile and said in a gentle, "Good morning."

    All I felt was a chill running down my spine instead of feeling touched like I should have. I could see the look in her eyes still that didn''t have the same smile that she had on her face¡­

    But I still revealed a smile and said "Good morning."

    She patted me on the head after hearing this and then got out of bed.

    When she came out from under the covers, I was given the full view of her beautiful body. When we fell asleepst night after our love making session, neither of us put our clothes back on. They were even still scattered all over the floor.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t control my natural reactions and there was a tent that was pitched in the covers.

    When Madame Rose saw this, she said with a teasing smile, "Are you still raring to go?"

    My face couldn''t help turning red from her teasing, but I still gave an honest nod.

    Madame Rose came over with that teasing smile on her face, but she didn''te onto the bed. She just reached her hand out and suddenly grabbed the pole of the tent through the sheets.

    I couldn''t help giving a yelp when she grabbed it suddenly, but this just made her teasing smile go wider.

    She said with that same teasing smile, "Unfortunately, we don''t have time for it, so you''ll have to make do with this for now."

    After saying this, her hand started moving up and down, stroking the pole of the tent.

    Even though it was through the sheets, I could still feel the warmthing through.

    The way that she stroked it¡­I just couldn''t hold myself back as I let out a moan.

    Hearing this, she started using her other hand to start teasing my dick. Stroking it, teasing it, poking it, doing all kinds of things to it.

    But the way that she did it was very skilled and filled me with pleasure, so it didn''t take long for me to¡­

    "Ah!" I let out a cry as I came all over the sheets.

    Madame Rose looked down at the mess that I made and then said, "Are you calm now?"

    I looked down awkwardly before giving a nod in response.

    She patted me on the head and said, "Alright, get ready. We still have things to do today."

    "We?" I couldn''t help repeating.

    Normally, she just left me alone in the room to do what I wanted. But now she was saying that "we" had things to do.

    Madame Rose gave a nod before saying, "We have someone to meet today."

    Then she said with another smile, "Since you''ve said that you were going to support me, that means that you''lle with me and do what I want you to do, right?"

    The look in her eyes made it clear that she brokered no argument. I knew that it was useless to say anything since she had already made a decision, so instead I asked, "Who are we meeting?"

    Madame Rose revealed a mysterious smile this time and said, "It''s a secret."

    Seeing this, my heart couldn''t help skipping a beat since I had never seen her acting cute like this before.

    Even though I knew that she was dangerous, I couldn''t help thinking that she was cute when I saw her acting this way.

    After getting dressed, the two of us left the room together.

    The maids who had been waiting outside didn''t dare show any disrespect to Madame Rose, but I could tell that there was disdain for me in their eyes.

    I just ignored them all as we made our way through the halls.

    We went out of the main building and into the gardens, but even then we still didn''t stop.

    We kept going until we went to a different building to the side of the main building.

    As we approached, I could hear the sounds of metal nging against each other and the shouts of men. It was clear that there was some kind of fighting that was happening in this building.

    When we finally entered the building, I saw that this was a guard garrison and the sounds of fighting that I heard were the sounds of the guards training in the field.

    There were two men who were currently facing each other while everyone else stood in a circle watching them.

    They had been so focused on the two who were fighting that they didn''t even notice using in. But as we got closer, there were a few guards who noticed us.

    The moment that they did, they immediately poked the other guards near them and all of them turned to look at us. Theypletely lost interest in the two men who were fighting in the center.

    The two men who were fighting noticed this as well and stopped their sparring to turn in our direction.

    The moment that they saw us, they quickly sheathed their swords and stopped their spar.

    Then all of a sudden, the men in front of us suddenly bowed to us¡­or rather they bowed to Madame Rose.

    The direction that they were bowing in made it clear that they were bowing to her and that they didn''t care about me at all.

    At the same time, they said, "Greetings, madame."

    Madame Rose just waved her hand for them all to stand.

    Hearing thismotion, someone came out from further in the building and when she saw who it was, she revealed a surprised look.

    She bowed just like the rest of the guards and said, "Greetings, madame."

    Madame Rose ignored the guards and focused on this female knight who came out.

 Chapter 12 Knight Captain (1)

    Looking at this female knight, Madame Rose said with a smile, "Captain Cecilia, I wanted to talk to you."

    The female knight Cecilia was caught off guard when she heard this, but then she asked, "Madame, what did you want to talk about?"

    Madame Rose said with the same smile, "It''s a private matter, so I was wondering if we could discuss it in private."

    All the guards who had piqued their ears to listen to this conversation jolted when they heard this. They all quickly turned their eyes away and pretended like they didn''t hear anything.

    Cecilia narrowed her eyes to look at them before saying, "All of you can go run fiftyps."

    The jaws of all the guards dropped when they heard this.

    They looked at Cecilia with unwilling looks, but faced with the stern look that she had on her face, they had no choice but to listen to her.

    So they all ran off to the field to run fiftyps.

    Of course, not a single one of them dared to show their dissatisfaction and just ran with their full devotion.

    As they headed off, there were a few of them who looked back. Their eyes were looking right at Cecilia and the look in their eyes made it clear what they were thinking.

    After they had been sent off, Cecilia brought me and Madame Rose into the building before bringing us out the back. We continued along a path until we came to a smaller building that was further away from the main building.

    When we came in and I saw how the room was decorated, I knew that this was her private office.

    Cecilia sat down at the desk before gesturing to the sofa and table in front of the desk for us to sit down on.

    Once we were all seated, she looked at Madame Rose and waited for her to speak.

    Madame Rose revealed a beautiful smile before saying, "Cece, I need your help."

    Cecilia couldn''t help being taken aback when she heard this before she couldn''t help knitting her brows.

    Cecilia was someone who had served Madame Rose''s family beforeing here to be the knight captain for the baron. So it could be said that she was Madame Rose''s childhood friend.

    But it had been a long time since Madame Rose had addressed her like this.

    After all, they were now both adults who had important positions. They couldn''t just go back to the way that they were before.

    So for Madame Rose to address her like this...It must mean that something very bad must have happened.

    Cecelia looked at me with those knitted brows, but she still didn''t say anything. However, it was clear what she was implying with that look in her eyes.

    Madame Rose also understood and said, "He''s mine, so he won''t ever betray me."

    Cecilia had a trace of doubt in her eyes, but since Madame Rose had spoken, she didn''t say anything else. After looking at Madame Rose with narrowed eyes for a bit, she finally said with a sigh, "Ro Ro, what is it?"

    Even if they were now adults and they both had important positions, Madame Rose was still her childhood friend who she cared about, so she couldn''t just ignore her.

    Madame Rose looked right at her and said without any hesitation, "My husband is a demon worshiper and he''s nning on framing me for the beast wave."

    "Huh?" Cecilia''s chin dropped down and she couldn''t close them as she stared at Madame Rose with wide eyes filled with shock. There was a clear look of confusion on her face as if she couldn''t understand what she had just said.

    She tried to close her mouth several times, but it just kept opening and closing as if she didn''t know what to say.

    After a long period of silence, Cecilia finally recovered enough to say, "Ro Ro, what kind of a joke is this?"

    Madame Rose shook her head and said, "It''s not a joke."

    Cecilia once again couldn''t say anything as she looked right at Madame Rose, as if she was trying to read her. However, she couldn''t see a single thing that was off with Madame Rose.

    So instead of looking at Madame Rose, she turned to look at me with sharp eyes.

    It was clear by the look in her eyes that she was ming me. She thought that I was manipting Madame Rose in some way that was making her act this way, but I wasn''t in the end.

    When she couldn''t find anything from me either, she finally said with a sigh, "Ro Ro, tell me that you have some proof at least. You can''t just make ims like this without any proof."

    Madame Rose revealed a smile and she told Cecilia everything that had happened.

    This was also my first time hearing this.

    She had only told me that the Lord Baron was a demon worshiper and what his ns were, but she had never told me why she thought this.

    It turned out that she had found letters between the Lord Baron and the demon order, detailing their ns. This was found in the Lord Baron''s private study, so there was no mistaking them.

    At the same time, she had also found a dagger that was filled with demon magic in the same drawer, so she was certain that these were real.

    After hearing all of this, Cecilia couldn''t help asking, "Could it be that the Lord Baron is being framed?"

    Madame Rose shook her head and said, "From the very beginning, that man never touched me since our wedding night. It''s clear that he only married me to use me as a tool for his ns."

    Cecilia wanted to say something, but she didn''t know what to say.

    I also felt very ufortable being there since I never knew that this was the rtionship between the Lord Baron and Madame Rose.

    Seeing that neither of us said a thing, Madame Rose looked at Cecilia and said, "Cece, how is your sex life?"

 Chapter 13 Knight Captain (2)

    Cecilia looked at Madame Rose with a dazed look of confusion when she heard these words.

    It was as if she could understand what the words meant, but at the same time, she couldn''t understand what she was saying.

    After a moment of silence, Cecilia''s face turned red and she said in a slightly angry voice, "Ro Ro, what are you saying? Why are you suddenly asking this?"

    After saying this, she red at me as if it was my fault.

    I just sat there with a bitter and awkward smile on my face as I had no idea what was even happening.

    Madame Rose was the calmest person in this situation as she revealed a smile and asked, "Has he still not touched you yet?"

    Cecilia''s face turned even more red, but she lowered her head and didn''t say anything.

    It was almost as if she was confirming that this was true.

    I couldn''t help being shocked when I heard this.

    It wasn''t a surprise that this beautiful knight captain was married, but the fact that her husband hadn''t touched her yet shocked me.

    Cecilia was the perfect example of the beautiful knight captain trope in any game or manga.

    She had beautiful long flowing blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, a pair of beautiful sharp eyes, perfectly lush and soft red lips, and a busty figure that was perfectly outlined by the armour that she wore. She was the beautiful knight captain that everyone wanted to ravage...and yet her husband hadn''t touched her?

    There was a silence that filled the air as no one said a thing.

    Finally, Cecilia calmed herself down enough to say in an angry voice, "Ro Ro, even if you are a close friend, you can''t say things like this. You should know better than to get involved in the matters between husband and wife."

    Madame Rose didn''t seem bothered by these words at all as she said, "But he leaves you so frustrated, it must be hard for you."

    Cecilia''s face turned red once again, but this time, she quickly said, "It''s the same for you, isn''t it? You just said it, the Lord Baron doesn''t touch you either."

    Madame Rose didn''t get angry when she heard this. Instead, she just revealed a calm smile and said, "That is true, but that''s not the case anymore. I''ve found a new way."

    Cecilia couldn''t help revealing a confused look before turning to look at me and saying, "Him?"

    Madame Rose said with a nod, "Him."

    Cecilia narrowed her eyes to look at me for a bit before suddenly looking like she realized something, "He''s the sex ve that the Lord Baron bought for you?"

    Madame Rose gave another nod before saying, "Yes, he''s the one that''s been satisfying me."

    When she put it so bluntly, Cecilia couldn''t help feeling embarrassed again. She lowered her head as her face was covered in a blush.

    Madame Rose didn''t mind this as she stood up and came over to the desk to take Cecilia''s hands. Then she said with a smile on her face, "How about I have him satisfy you as well?"

    Both Cecilia and I couldn''t help revealing shocked looks as we just looked at Madame Rose in a daze. Neither of us could understand what was happening now.

    Madame Rose didn''t stop as she said, "That man isn''t interested in you, he''s just interested in using you to increase his own position. He will never be able to satisfy you like a real man could."

    Cecilia''s face turned more and more red as Madame Rose spoke, but she still forced herself to say, "What kind of nonsense are you saying? You''re telling me to cheat on my husband? How could I do something like that?"

    Even though she said this, her voice couldn''t help bing softer as she spoke. It was almost as if she was conflicted over something...

    Madame Rose''s smile became even wider when she heard this. She pulled Cecilia up by the hand and said, "Cece, let''s go to my room."

    Cecilia could have resisted, but since it was Madame Rose, she didn''t dare use her strength. She could only let Madame Rose pull her out of the room.

    As they headed out, Madame Rose waved her hand at me as if she was telling me to follow her.

    I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine.

    Even if I was confused as to where this was heading, I had some vague ideas...but I didn''t dare believe that those vague ideas woulde true.

    After all, if they did, then it would be too crazy for me to follow.

    Aftering back to the main building, we attracted the attention of the men who were still running in the field.

    They turned to look at Cecilia and they couldn''t help being shocked by what they saw.

    That was because the current Cecilia waspletely different from the knight captain Cecilia that they knew. This Cecilia had a shy blush on her face as she was being pulled away by Madame Rose.

    This Cecilia was anything but the valiant and powerful woman that they knew.

    This Cecilia was a woman who was bashful like a young girl.

    All of them couldn''t stop the fires deep inside of them from being stoked as they all wanted to...

    But of course, not a single one of them dared to do a thing because it was Cecilia and Madame Rose. If they had tried to do anything, it was very likely that they would have been executed.

    So they just turned their attention back to running, only peeking at the three of us from time to time.

    When we made our way back to Madame Rose''s room, Madame Rose sent off the servants who had been there before bringing Cecilia into the bedroom.

    When it was just the three of us, she had Cecilia sit on the bed while having me stand in front of it.

    Then she said to me in a calm voice, "Strip."

 Chapter 14 Knight Captain (3)

    Cecilia waspletely stunned when she heard this, but I was already used to this.

    So with a bitter smile on my face, I started taking my clothes off.

    However, this was where Cecilia couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Stop right now."

    She even went as far as pulling out the sword that had been at her waist and she pointed it at me.

    When I saw this sharp sword in my face, I immediately stopped moving and raised my hands to show that I meant no harm.

    Cecilia held the sword in my face as she turned to Madame Rose and said, "Ro Ro, even if this is a joke, you''ve taken it too far. What do you have to say for yourself?"

    Madame Rose didn''t panic at all as she revealed a calm smile.

    She looked at Cecilia with that calm smile and said, "Who said that this is a joke?"

    Cecilia couldn''t help being taken aback when she heard this. But then she said with a serious look, "Ro Ro, you can''t do something like this. I know that you''re hurt, but you can''t just lose your rationality like this."

    Finally, there was a bit of a reaction from Madame Rose. There was a sharp sh in her eyes, but that also quickly disappeared before anyone could notice it.

    She just said with the same calm look, "Cece, this is my care for you. I haven''t lost my rationality at all."

    After saying this, she stood up and started moving towards Cecilia.

    Cecilia raised the sword to point it at Madame Rose at first, but as she came closer and closer, she had no choice but to put the sword down. After all, this was her childhood friend, she couldn''t bear to point a sword at her like this.

    But she didn''t hold back her words as she said, "Ro Ro, I''ll find a way to help you out of this, so you don''t need to do this. We can ask for help from your family if we need to."

    Madame Rose just kept moving forward with a smile on her face without saying a thing.

    Seeing hering towards her, Cecilia couldn''t help feeling a chill run down her back, but she still didn''t do a thing.

    Finally, Madame Rose was standing right in front of her and Cecilia couldn''t help taking a step back. Before she could though, Madame Rose reached her hands out and took hold of Cecilia, drawing her closer into a hug.

    Cecilia was caught off guard by this, but she also reached her arm out to hug her.

    Madame Rose then suddenly grabbed the straps of her armour on her back and pulled.

    Then all of a sudden, the straps of the armour became loose and the chestte on her chest fell down onto the ground.

    Cecilia was caught off guard once again by this and she didn''t know what to do in response to this.

    When the chestte fell off, it revealed the bounty that was underneath.

    Since it was tight fitting armour, the clothes that she wore underneath was quite light so that it didn''t impair her movement. This was just a thin undershirt that didn''t even cover her arms that she was wearing.

    But the most shocking thing was¡­her chest.

    It was as if they had suddenly been freed of the pressure that they had been under and they suddenly popped out.

    It turned out that her chest had been squished down under that chestte and they popped out the moment that they were freed. They were even bigger than what the figure of the chestte had shown.

    At first, Cecilia just stood there in a daze as she didn''t know what was happening, but then she realized what had just happened. She gave a shriek that was unlike what a female knight like her should make and then she quickly put her hands over her chest to cover it up.

    But it was already toote since I had already gotten quite the view.

    The most shocking thing that I saw wasn''t actually how big her chest was or what it looked like when it suddenly popped out, but rather¡­her nipples had been standing up when the chestte had been taken off¡­

    Did that mean that she was¡­?

    After Cecilia covered her chest, she suddenly red at me.

    When this re fell onto me, I couldn''t help looking away with an awkward look.

    The moment that her breasts burst out from under her armour, it had dealt a blow to me as well.

    Cecilia red at me for a bit before looking down at the tent that was in my pants. The moment that she saw this, she couldn''t help being shocked by it.

    Wasn''t this just too big?

    That was the thought that passed through Cecilia''s mind.

    It wasn''t as if she had seen many dicks before, but she had at least seen her husband''s and thought that it was average sized¡­However, when shepared this little boy''s dick to her husband''s¡­

    Her husband''s dick almost didn''t exist.

    She didn''t know why, but she couldn''t help feeling a blushe over her face, as well as a desire for¡­

    No, she couldn''t let herself be influenced that easily!

    So Cecilia immediately shook her head to throw out all these impure thoughts and she tried to focus her mind.

    But Madame Rose had already caught her reaction and she revealed a smile.

    This was the exact reaction that she wanted to see.

    So Madame Rose turned back to me with a smile and said, "Strip."

    Cecilia was still flustered that she wasn''t able to do anything and I couldn''t resist Madame Rose''s orders, so I started taking off my clothes.

    When Cecilia finally managed to calm herself down, I had already finished taking off my clothes and she couldn''t do anything about it.

    When she looked over at me, her chin dropped down as she muttered to herself, "Is this real?"

 Chapter 15 Knight Captain (4)

    Madame Rose smiled again when she heard these words from Cecilia.

    She didn''t let her recover at all as she waved her hand at me and said, "Come over here."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter look when I heard this, but I still followed her orders for now. After all, I didn''t know what Madame Rose would do if I didn''t y along, so I had no choice but to y along for now.

    But it was very clear that she was just...using me.

    Cecilia came back to her senses toote again. When she recovered from her daze, I was already standing right in front of her and she was able to see everything clearly.

    She once again looked down at my dick and couldn''t help muttering, "It really is this big..."

    But then she shook her head and said, "No, stop this now!"

    She was about to reach for her sword again to scare me off, but before she could grab it, Madame Rose grabbed the hand going for the sword.

    Cecilia was caught off guard by this sudden move by Madame Rose and wasn''t able to react in time. By the time that she had reacted, Madame Rose had already taken the sword from her belt and thrown it to the side.

    So even if she wanted to use the sword to threaten me, she didn''t have a sword anymore.

    The only thing that she had left were her hands...so she clenched them in a fist and was about to raise them to threaten me with them.

    But before she could, Madame Rose made her move again.

    Madame Rose grabbed Cecilia''s hands and she wouldn''t let Cecilia raise them.

    There was no way that Madame Rose was able to overpower Cecilia, but Cecilia wasn''t willing to use too much power out of fear of hurting Madame Rose. So in the end, Madame Rose was able to subdue Cecilia with one hand.

    With the other hand, she started taking off Cecilia''s clothes.

    Cecilia panicked when she felt Madame Rose''s wandering hands and she quickly said, "Wait, Ro Ro, what are you doing?"

    Madame Rose didn''t answer this question as her hand moved to the belt that was around her waist. In one swift movement, she unbuckled the belt and pulled it out of the pants.

    Once the belt was removed, the pants suddenly started to droop and seemed like they would fall off.

    These pants were actually male pants, so they were much too big for Cecilia to wear.

    Unless she had this belt on, it would fall off on its own.

    As for why she was wearing male pants...it was because she wanted to present herself not as a female, but a powerful male knight.

    But when these pants were about to fall off, Cecilia didn''t care at all as she gave a shriek and tried to grab at them to pull them up. It was just too bad that Madame Rose was still holding her hands, not letting them go.

    So in the end, the pants did fall off to reveal a pair of perfect legs.

    Not everything was shown though since there was a pair of underwear under those pants.

    To my surprise, I found that the underwear that she wore was actually still quite feminine.

    After pulling out the belt, Madame Rose''s hand went to the tank top that was on Cecilia''s chest.

    She slowly reached her hand into the bottom of the shirt before lifting it up as if she was about to take it off.

    Cecilia looked at me before saying in a panicked voice, "Ro Ro, I''m begging you, please don''t do this. I''ll listen to anything you want, just don''t do this."

    But Madame Rose said with a gentle smile, "Cece, this is for your good. I''ll help you feel the pleasure that you''ve never experienced before and I''ll help you be a true woman."

    Cecilia wanted to say something, but before she could...

    In one swift motion, Madame Rose pulled the shirt up over her breasts and over her head, taking it off of her.

    The moment that it was pulled off, everything came into view.

    This was a world without things like bras, so the moment that the shirt was taken off, her breasts were revealed to me.

    They were even bigger than Madame Rose''s!

    Madame Rose had big breasts that fit her perfect figure, but Cecilia''s was on apletely different level. It really was hard to imagine that these giant breasts had fit inside of that tight fitting armour earlier.

    Once these beautiful breasts were revealed...I couldn''t stop my dick from standing up.

    Madame Rose saw this as well and with a smile, she said, "Come over here."

    I was in a daze from this sudden scene that I had been shown, so I walked over without even thinking about it.

    When I was right in front of them, Madame Rose suddenly said, "Stop."

    So I stopped.

    Madame Rose then turned her attention back to Cecilia and said, "Cece, kneel down."

    Cecilia had been panicking and didn''t register what Madame Rose said at first, but then when she understood what she said, she couldn''t help saying, "Ro Ro, what do you mean?"

    When Madame Rose heard this, she didn''t hesitate at all to push Cecilia down with her hands.

    Cecilia could have resisted, but she didn''t want to hurt Madame Rose, so she had no choice but to fall onto her knees. As she kneeled down, she came closer and closer to my dick.

    She did her best to stay as far away as possible, but Madame Rose didn''t let her stay away. Madame Rose used her hands to guide Cecilia towards my dick, so that she was ced right in front of it.

    Cecilia was about toin again, but Madame Rose just suddenly said, "Go on, lick it."

    The chins of both Cecilia and I dropped when she heard this.

    Just what was Madame Rose nning on doing?

 Chapter 16 Knight Captain (5)

    I was the first one to recover from this shock.

    Aftering back to my senses, I looked down at Cecilia who was kneeling down in front of me.

    Seeing the way that she was kneeling, seeing how perky her nipples were, seeing the look on her face in this situation, I just couldn''t stop myself¡­

    My dick started getting harder, standing up on its own.

    Soon, it rose up to the point where the tip was right in front of Cecilia''s mouth.

    When Cecilia came back to her senses and saw the dick right in front of her face, she even felt the urge to p it away. But her hands were still being held by Madame Rose, so she couldn''t do so in the end.

    As she tried to resist, she found it harder and harder to do so¡­

    That was because there was a strange smell that wasing from in front of her.

    It couldn''t be considered a good smell, it was a smell that was very much like squid. However, even though it was a very strange smell, Cecilia couldn''t help being attracted to it.

    The more that she smelled it, the more that it filled her with¡­excitement.

    Soon, there was a liquid that came from between her thighs that started dripping down her legs.

    But she used herst bit of willpower to say, "Ro Ro, don''t do this."

    Madame Rose just said with the same smile on her face, "Cece, this is for your own good. Go on, lick it."

    Cecilia finally couldn''t take it anymore as there was this strange feeling that filled her mind. As this feeling clouded her thoughts, she started moving her head forward willingly.

    Finally, when her mouth was right in front of it, she slowly reached her tongue out towards it.

    But before she could touch it on her own, the dick suddenly grewrger.

    When I saw her in front of my dick like this, I couldn''t help getting more turned on. As I became more and more turned on, my dick just couldn''t help gettingrger andrger until it was almost touching her tongue.

    But it didn''t stop growing¡­

    It had only been at half mast before, but now, it was getting closer and closer to full mast.

    When Cecilia saw the dick in front of her growingrger andrger, she couldn''t help wanting to move away from it. It was just too bad that Madame Rose still had her hand on Cecilia''s hand that stopped her from doing this.

    So with no other choice, she started licking it.

    As soon as her tongue touched it, she couldn''t help feeling a warm feelinging from it that filled her entire body.

    The taste of the dick¡­wasn''t good, but this feeling was something that she had never felt before.

    However, the dick didn''t stop growing¡­

    When I felt her tongue touch the tip of my dick, there was also a warm feeling that filled me, but I knew what this feeling was. As the burning feeling filled my stomach and reached my crotch, my dick couldn''t help getting bigger at a faster rate.

    Since Madame Rose still had her hand on the back of her head, Cecilia couldn''t move back at all.

    As the dick grew, it pushed more and more against her tongue and against her mouth, giving her no room to move. So she had no choice but to¡­open her mouth and let it in.

    I was shocked to see her opening her mouth and swallowing my dick like this, but that shock was blown away by the pleasure that followed as my dick entered her mouth. I couldn''t help giving a moan even when she was only just over the tip.

    However, it was different from Cecilia.

    Just from putting the tip in her mouth, it was almost like her mouth was being ripped open. It was as if her jaw was being ripped in half by the thing that had been suddenly thrusted into it.

    It filled her mouth so much that it even made it hard for her to breathe and she couldn''t stop her spit from dribbling out onto the dick.

    But that just made me feel even better.

    As she made me feel even better, the dick became even bigger in her mouth and pushed deeper inside of her. This feeling was almost like torture for her¡­but she also couldn''t help feeling a very strange feeling deep inside of her.

    This was a burning sensation that wasn''t unpleasant¡­Rather it made a certain ce between her legs even hotter and even more liquid started dripping down her leg.

    She just couldn''t stop herself as she wanted to move one of her hands down to rub that ce, but it was just too bad that Madame Rose was still holding her hands.

    Madame Rose saw the look on Cecilia''s face and the look in her eyes and she couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    The hand that was on the back of Cecilia''s head¡­slowly started pushing forward, forcing more and more of the dick into her mouth.

    Cecilia''s eyes opened wide when she felt this and she tried to make a few sounds of protest, but she couldn''t do it in the end as her mouth waspletely filled with the dick.

    As she tried to make those sounds, her mouth and tongue started moving around my dick, which made it feel even better.

    She wasn''t able to take all of the dick in her mouth, but the movement from her mouth and tongue, along with the breath that she released onto it, filled me with more and more pleasure until¡­

    I finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    I ignored the pleading look in her eyes and grabbed the side of her head.

    Cecilia''s eyes opened even wider as I pulled her head forward, cramming as much of my dick into her mouth as I could.

    Then I shot my load right into that sweet and sulent mouth, coating her throat with that rich liquid.

 Chapter 17 Knight Captain (6)

    When this strange liquid entered Cecilia''s mouth, she couldn''t help choking on it.

    With therge dick inside of her mouth and the strange liquid mixing with her saliva, itpletely blocked off her airpath and she started to choke.

    I didn''t notice this at first since I was still lost in the moment of pleasure, but hearing the choking soundsing from her, I couldn''t help panicking. So I quickly pulled my dick out of her mouth.

    When the dick came out, Cecilia immediately bent forward and vomited out a mixture of my cum and her saliva. After spitting this all out onto the carpet, she started coughing and gasping as if she was trying to catch her breath.

    Madame Rose didn''t stop her this time and let her fall forward on her knees and chest while still holding her arms behind her.

    When I looked down at her, I couldn''t help being shocked by the pose that she took¡­

    As I watched her like this, my dick couldn''t help bing hard again. Even though I had already cummed, it still grew without stopping.

    Even though I had taken a few steps back, it grew to the point where it was once again right in her face.

    Once Cecilia recovered enough to stop panting, she looked up to find¡­therge dick was in her face once again.

    No, it was even bigger than before!

    She had thought that she had seen how big it could be, but it seemed that it hadn''t been its true size just now. This dick was a real monster and she couldn''t help thinking about if it went into her¡­

    It was certainly much bigger than the fingers she normally used.

    But then again, at this length, it was very likely that it would rip her in half!

    Still, she couldn''t stop the liquid from dripping down her leg when she saw this.

    Cecilia gave a gulp before mustering up the bit of reasoning that she had left to say, "Ro Ro, please stop. I know that you are scared right now, but you can''t let your fear control you like this. I promise that I''ll help you with whatever it is you are dealing with as long as you let me go."

    Madame Rose wasn''t moved when she heard these words as she stood over Cecilia with the same smile on her face.

    She then looked down at Cecilia''s flushed face and she couldn''t help revealing an even wider smile as she said, "Cece, did it feel good?"

    Cecilia couldn''t help feeling a chill run down her spine when she saw this look on Madame Rose''s face.

    But she still said in a slightly angry voice, "My jaw was almost ripped apart and I almost choked on it, do you think that it felt good?"

    Madame Rose didn''t react at all when she heard this.

    Instead, now that she had a hand free because she no longer needed to hold Cecilia''s head, her hand went to the top of Cecilia''s underwear. She pulled down in one swift motion and pulled the underwear off.

    There was another chill that ran down Cecilia''s spine when she felt the sudden breeze that hit her private parts and she couldn''t help revealing a look of panic.

    However, her hands were still being restrained by Madame Rose.

    This time she was no longer holding back and was struggling with all her might, but she found that she wasn''t able to break free at all.

    It wasn''t that Madame Rose was strong¡­it was that she had lost all of her strength after having her mouth vited like that. She couldn''t even use a tenth of her original strength, so she couldn''t break free at all.

    Madame Rose just firmly held her hands with one hand while her other hand moved in between her legs. They went right up to the private part in between those two beautiful thighs and in one swift motion, she ran two fingers through it.

    The moment that Madame Rose touched her in her private ce, it was like there was a bolt of lightning that ran through her body.

    Cecilia couldn''t take it all as she started shaking from the shock of being touched like this.

    Madame Rose once again ignored her as she raised the hand that she ran across her private ce in front of her face. When she saw that there was a liquid zing her fingers, she couldn''t help revealing a smile again.

    She leaned in atop Cecilia and put her fingers in front of Cecilia''s face before saying, "Then what''s this? Can you really tell me that you''re not turned on right now?"

    When Cecilia saw the liquid on Madame Rose''s fingers, she couldn''t help revealing the strongest blush that she had revealed so far.

    She opened her mouth and closed it again and again as if she was about to say something, but nothing came out in the end.

    Madame Rose''s smile just became even wider when she saw this.

    She brought her fingers right in front of the mouth that was opening and closing before saying, "Look at how dirty you''ve made my hand. Lick it off."

    Cecilia''s face filled with shock when she heard this and she just stared at Madame Rose in disbelief. But seeing the look on Madame Rose''s face, she knew that she wasn''t kidding.

    So after resisting for a bit, she had no choice but to lick it when Madame Rose basically pushed it into her mouth.

    Her tongue went across those fingers and there was a strange taste that filled her mouth.

    However, even then, she couldn''t help feeling a burning sensationing from her naval that reached the deepest parts of her. She didn''t know why she was feeling this way, but it was slowly bing unbearable.

    Once she finished licking off the fingers, Madame Rose helped her up before bringing her over to the bed.

    She turned back to me and said with a wag of her finger, "Come over here."

 Chapter 18 Knight Captain (7)

    Seeing this, I had no choice but toe over, but there was a wry smile on my face as I walked over.

    Once I came over to the bed, Madame Rose pulled me by the hand until I was right behind Cecilia.

    Cecilia who had been in a daze was pulled out of that daze when she saw me standing there. Especially since she could see the monstrous rod that was still rock hard ced right over her...

    With how I was standing, it was clear what was going to happen next.

    Cecilia immediately said in a fierce voice, "Don''t you even dare!"

    I jolted when I heard this, but then Madame Rose said, "You know what to do."

    Looking at the two of them like this, I didn''t know who I was more afraid of...No, I did know who I was more afraid of. So I started moving forward towards Cecilia lying on the bed in the end.

    When Cecilia saw this, there was a chill that ran down her back and a feeling of panic. She knew what was going to happen and she was afraid of it happening...

    With how big that dick was, it was clear that it would rip her in half if it went into her.

    But at the same time, there was a trace of excitement that was inside of her heart...

    What would it feel like if such a thick thing was inside of her?

    As I came closer and closer, the look on Cecilia''s face started to change. It was fierce at first, but when she came to ept the reality of the situation and the more imminent it seemed, she became more and more afraid.

    Finally, she couldn''t take it anymore as she said in a small pleading voice, "Please, don''t do this..."

    But that just had the opposite effect on me.

    When I saw the strong knight acting weak like this, I couldn''t help thinking of all those doujins that I read before. The moment that I saw her acting like this, I couldn''t stop my dick from...suddenly growing.

    It had shrunk a bit after seeing the fierce looks of the two women, but now...it couldn''t help growing once more as I became more turned on by Cecilia acting like this.

    Cecilia had been scared, but she was now terrified when she saw my dick suddenly growing. There were even tears that wereing out of her eyes as she realized what was about toe.

    When I was right over her, I lined up my dick right with her and then in one swift motion...

    I thrusted forward.

    Even though she hadined and cried, she was actually very wet. It was so wet that there was very little resistance as I thrusted forward. It was so wet that I pushed way deeper than I was nning on pushing.

    I had only given a small thrust so that just the tip would enter, but I couldn''t stop myself as almost half of it filled her.

    Cecilia had been begging me not to do it when she suddenly felt the dick entering her. The moment that it entered her, her words left her and her mind just emptied as she felt herself being stretched open by the dick.

    It was painful!

    That was her first thought after the dick entered her.

    This was her first time after all, so this was a feeling that she had no experience with at all.

    Even a knight who was used to being injured in fights couldn''t take this pain.

    She was about to scream out in pain, but Madame Rose''s hand came right over her mouth to block it. All she could do was muffle in pain as tears came down her face.

    I couldn''t help being shocked by how easily I went in and at the same time, I couldn''t help being lost in the pleasure that followed.

    This feeling waspletely different from Madame Rose.

    The feeling inside of Cecilia was much tighter than how it had felt inside of Cecilia. I could feel the walls of her vagina just wrapping up around my dick, hugging it tightly, filling me with pleasure.

    As I was lost in pleasure, I also couldn''t help looking down at the good deed that I had just done. However, I couldn''t help being shocked by what I saw.

    There was blooding out of her vagina that covered my dick...

    Could it be that she really was a virgin?

    But she was a married woman, so how could she be a virgin?

    Seeing that I had stopped moving, Madame Rose said, "What are you doing just standing there?"

    I jolted once again when I heard this, so I didn''t hesitate anymore as I grabbed Cecilia by the waist and held tight as I thrusted forward with my hip.

    However, I found that I couldn''t go any deeper...

    It felt like I was hitting up against something that wouldn''t let me in any deeper even though my dick was only halfway inside of her.

    So with no other choice, I could only move my hip back to pull my dick out before thrusting again.

    Cecilia wanted to cry out in pain again after being thrusted into again, but they only came out as moans of pain as Madame Rose was covering her mouth.

    Once again, my dick only went halfway inside of her before it was stopped by something again.

    So I could only thrust back and forth, letting only half my dick go into her.

    There were muffled moans of pain at first, but soon those moans of pain started to change. They went from muffled moans of pain to muffled moans of pleasure.

    Even the look on Cecilia''s face started to change as I kept thrusting into her.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help revealing an ecstatic look on my face from the pleasure that she gave me.

    All during this, Madame Rose watched with a smile on her face.

 Chapter 19 Knight Captain (8)

    As I continued thrusting, I could feel that I was close to cumming.

    Cecilia on the other hand had already climaxed several times, squirting onto my waist again and again. She waspletely lost in her own world of ecstasy, so much so that Madame Rose no longer had to cover her mouth anymore.

    When I was about to cum, I went to pull my dick out of Cecilia, but before I could...

    Madame Rose''s legs suddenly came around my waist and pulled me in so that I waspletely locked into Cecilia. I could have pulled back, but the look on her face made it clear that she didn''t want me to.

    So I had no choice but to keep thrusting into Cecilia as I was about to cum.

    Cecilia noticed the twitching of the dick inside of her and even if she didn''t know exactly what it was, she had an idea. As this idea spread through her mind, she couldn''t help revealing a fearful look since she knew what would happen if this idea came true.

    Cecilia quickly looked up at me and said, "Please, don''t do it. Please, anything but that! I''ll do anything you want if you just don''t do that inside of me!"

    Even though she begged, I really couldn''t do anything as I waspletely locked inside of her.

    So in the end, I ignored her pleading and shot my load deep into her.

    Cecilia''s face filled with shock at first, but then it was quickly filled with pleasure as she felt the warm liquid filling her. This was a burning sensation that came from her naval that quickly spread to every part of her and soon, she couldn''t help cumming as well.

    The load that I shot into her was very big and thick, so my dick was inside of her for a while as I kept shooting my load into her.

    As she felt this warm feeling being pumped into her for so long, Cecilia couldn''t help cumming again from being creampied.

    The pleasure that filled her brain was so strong that...she couldn''t help crossing her eyes as her tongue came out and she let out a strange sound that was filled with pleasure.

    It was almost as if her brain was melting from this pleasure.

    Once she finished orgasming, she couldn''t help falling back on the bed while panting, looking like she was exhausted.

    Madame Rose also felt the end of my shaking, so she released the grip that she had on me and I was able to pull my dick out of Cecilia.

    As I stood there, I couldn''t help looking down at my dick covered in cum and looking down at Cecilia who had an ahegao look on her face. There was a small trace of pride and a domineering feeling that filled me when I saw this.

    When I had sex with Madame Rose normally, she would be the one that took the lead.

    Even though she had taken the lead this time as well, I had yed a part in dominating Cecilia just now.

    This was a different feeling from the sex that I had with Madame Rose.

    I couldn''t help wanting more of this.

    Cecilia waspletely out of it after being fucked to the point of cking out, but she was also a knight that had been well trained. It didn''t take her long toe back to her senses.

    When she did, she couldn''t help looking down at her own body and then she started crying once again.

    She knew that with this, it was all over.

    There was no going back from this.

    She also wanted to get angry, but she really couldn''t get angry since it was Madame Rose who did this to her.

    Seeing this look on her face, Madame Rose knew that all it would take is another push to topple this all over. So she turned to me and said, "Keep..."

    Before she could say anything though, I had already leaned forward to ce a kiss on Cecilia''s lips.

    Cecilia''s eyes opened wide in shock when this happened and she couldn''t help revealing a trace of anger. However, the kiss was so deep and strong that she couldn''t help getting lost in it.

    It didn''t take long before Cecilia was reciprocating this kiss.

    Her arms weakly wrapped around me and she hugged me tightly as she responded in turn to this kiss.

    Finally, when we both ran out of breath, we had no choice but to let go of each other.

    When I looked closely at Cecilia''s eyes now, I could have sworn that I saw some hearts inside of them.

    I looked at her and asked, "Do you want more?"

    Cecilia couldn''t help being taken aback when she heard this, but there was a small part of her that did indeed want more.

    Spurned on by the mes of passion that came from the kiss, she couldn''t stop herself as she suddenly gave a nod.

    When I saw her like this, I couldn''t help revealing a smile. I reached my hand out to pat her head before saying, "Good girl."

    There was a blush that appeared on Cecilia''s face when she heard this, but she didn''t say anything in response to this. She just shyly lowered her head as if she was happy about this.

    Seeing her like this really made my dick hard again.

    So I took her by the waist and brought her right up against my dick before thrusting forward in one push.

    She was still filled with cum and she was soaking wet from how turned on she was, so my dick went all the way inside of her with a single push.

    She couldn''t help raising her head again and giving out a moan of pleasure when she felt herself being filled with thisrge dick.

    To the side, Madame Rose had aplicated look on her face.

    While this was what she wanted to see, she couldn''t help feeling a bit...jealous.

    She didn''t know why she felt jealous, but she could tell that it was indeed jealousy that she was currently feeling.

 Chapter 20 Knight Captain (9)

    As I was thrusting into Cecilia, I couldn''t help feeling a strange gaze on my back.

    When I turned around, I saw Madame Rose there staring at me with thatplicated look in her eyes.

    I could clearly see what she was thinking, but I ignored it for now.

    After all, I was doing what she wanted me to do right now, so she couldn''t say anything.

    So I suddenly stopped thrusting and reached my hand out to p Cecilia''s face. Cecilia''s eyes had been rolled back in pleasure, but she was woken up again by my ps.

    I looked at her and said, "I''ve been doing everything so far. I think it''s your turn."

    Cecilia was taken aback when she heard this, but her mind was still filled with pleasure that she just nodded in a daze. So she sat up suddenly and then turned me around while my dick was still inside of her before pushing me down so that I was on the bed and she was above me.

    Then she started moving up and down, doing all the work while I justid there.

    I was surprised that she had agreed to this so easily, but seeing her like this, I couldn''t help getting more and more turned on. Especially when I saw her tits flopping up and down above me.

    They were so big that they were even bigger than my head and seeing them flopping around in front of me...this was a rare scene that I had never seen before.

    I couldn''t help staring up in a daze at those perfect breasts for over a minute before slowly reaching my hand up.

    Cecilia was still focused on moving up and down on my dick that she didn''t notice my handsing up at all. That is until they suddenly...grabbed her breasts.

    When my hands grabbed them, she felt something that was like electricity running through her from her breasts,ing from where I was touching them.

    As I gripped her breasts, she slowed down as her head tilted back to show her pleasure.

    I was also shocked when I grabbed these boobs since I never thought that they would be this soft. It was like the softest pillow I had ever touched, no, it was even softer than that!

    This feeling could only be described as heavenly!

    But as I massaged her breasts, she started slowing down and I started feeling less pleasure from down there. So I gripped her chest and said, "Don''t slow down now."

    When I gripped and pulled on her chest, Cecilia couldn''t help letting out a cry of pleasure before she suddenly squirted. After she climaxed, she fell forward and leaned against my chest with thoserge boobs of hers.

    As she leaned against me, I could feel the soft feelinging from them and I couldn''t help letting myself enjoy them.

    But I still focused my mind and pushed her off before pping her gently on the face to wake her up.

    After being pped, Cecilia did wake up from her daze, but then she couldn''t help touching her face again as if she couldn''t believe what had just happened. She just touched her cheek as she sat there without moving.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help saying, "Hey, are you going to move or not? If not, then I''ll stop." I said this as if I had some kind of control over this matter.

    But Cecilia''s mind was so shaken from the pleasure that she had felt that she was no longer thinking straight. She started moving again without even thinking as she still had one hand on her cheek as if she was thinking about something.

    This was her first time being pped like this by anyone.

    Even when she was a child, her parents had never pped her like this. No matter what kind of things she did, they would nevery a single hand on her.

    So this was something that she had never experienced, not even once.

    The first time that she was experiencing this, she didn''t feel angry like she thought she would be. But rather...she couldn''t help feeling a bit of heat that came from where he had pped her that went right to her chest.

    It was the same feeling as when he grabbed her breasts or when he stuck his dick inside of her...

    She didn''t know why she was feeling this way, but she...felt like she wanted more.

    So after being lost in thought for a while, she looked down at me and asked in a small voice, "Can you do that again?"

    I had been focused on rubbing and pinching her chest when she asked this, so I wasn''t able to react right away. But after processing what she had asked me, I couldn''t help looking at her with slightly confused eyes as I asked, "What did you say?"

    Cecilia''s face turned a bit red, but she said in a soft voice, "Can you do that again?"

    I still couldn''t believe what she was saying, but the look on her face was serious. I could tell that she wasn''t kidding about this.

    I never would have thought that this beautiful and strong female knight would be into something like this...

    But of course I couldn''t just give it to her because she was asking for it.

    So I said in a strong voice, "As long as you do well, I can give it to you."

    Cecilia''s heart skipped a beat when she heard this.

    She had never been talked to like this by a man before since they were mostly all afraid of her. So when she was being spoken to like this for the first time, her heart couldn''t help skipping a beat and she couldn''t help getting excited.

    This was even more exciting than all the pleasure that he gave her.

    So she started moving faster and trying different things to please him, all in hopes of getting another p.

 Chapter 21 Knight Captain (10)

    She was clumsy in what she did since it was her first time, but she was definitely enthusiastic.

    It didn''t take long before she was able to make me cum.

    When I was about to cum, I suddenly grabbed Cecilia by the waist and pulled her back and forth atop of me, making her go faster than she was already going.

    As she felt my dick going into her at this increased speed, she also couldn''t hold herself back as she reached a climax as well. Then together, both of us came at the same time with me pumping my thick and creamy liquid inside of her while she squirted on me.

    After we climaxed together, we both fell back in the bed feeling exhausted.

    I recovered my energy first since I had beenying there longer than she had, so I pushed her off of me and sat up, looking down at Cecilia''s exhausted form.

    But then I turned to look at Madame Rose who was just standing there watching the whole thing.

    It wasn''t hard to tell what she was thinking based on the look on her face, so I waved my hand at her and said, "Come over and let''s do it."

    Madame Rose was surprised when she heard this, but she still obediently came over in the end.

    The liquid dripping down her leg was getting too much for her that she couldn''t take it anymore. She was just too turned on to think about this properly, so she followed my orders without any resistance.

    When she was standing in front of me, I slowly reached out my hands as if I was teasing her before grabbing her clothes. She was wearing a one piece dress, so it took a single pull down to pull it off of her.

    As she stood there exposed, she couldn''t stop a blush froming over her cheeks.

    This waspletely different from how they had been before this.

    Normally, it would be her who was the dominant one, but now I was the dominant one.

    But surprisingly, Madame Rose found that she wasn''t against it.

    After stripping her of her clothes, I pulled her over in front of me and forced her to bend over.

    To my surprise, she just went along with all of it.

    Once she was down on her knees in front of me, I took her by the shoulders and positioned her so that she was right in front of me. Then after she was in ce, I took my hands and ced them on her¡­chest.

    I grabbed her boobs and brought them right up to my dick.

    This was something that I had been wanting to do for the longest time, but I never had a chance to do so.

    I positioned her so that her boobs wrapped around my dick and then I started moving up and down with my dick, pushing it in between them.

    Her chest was big, but it wasn''t big enough topletely smother my dick in between them. So the top of my dick kept poking out of her boobs and moved back and forth in front of her face.

    There was no denying how good this feeling was, so I couldn''t help dripping a bit at the tip of my dick.

    As the tip of my dick moved in front of her face, the smell of it entered her nose.

    It was off putting at first, but as she smelled it more and more, she couldn''t help falling for it. This was a smell that one would slowly get more and more attracted to until they couldn''t take it anymore.

    This smell ignited the mes inside of her and she couldn''t hold back as she suddenly moved her head forward.

    As the dick moved in between her boobs, when the tip came up to her mouth, she stretched out her tongue to lick it. The moment that I felt the tongue touching the tip of my dick, I couldn''t help trembling from that feeling.

    It was a feeling that onlysted a single second, but it was a feeling that I just couldn''t get enough of.

    So I pushed faster and faster in between her boobs, hitting her tongue again and again until finally she lowered her head even more and caught my dick in her mouth. With the tip in her mouth, moving back and forth, she used her tongue to lick it in a circle.

    It was almost like being licked with a serpent''s tongue the way that she wrapped around my dick.

    I really didn''t know how she had learned this kind of technique, but the pleasure that came from it was something else.

    It didn''t take long before I couldn''t hold back anymore.

    When I was about to cum, I was going to say something to Madame Rose, but then¡­I suddenly had a feeling of wanting to see what she would look like if I surprised her, so I closed my mouth in the end.

    Madame Rose did have a warning of me cumming as my dick twitched with excitement when I was about to cum, but she wasn''t able to react in time to this.

    So when I came, it was right when my dick hade out of her mouth.

    The cum shot out and sprayed her right in her face, covering itpletely.

    It was aplete facial.

    I didn''t know what to say at first since I didn''t know how she would react to this. I was even a bit afraid that she would have me¡­executed for this.

    But to my shock, she raised a hand and used a single finger to wipe off some of the cum that was on her face. Then in front of my shocked gaze, she brought that finger to her mouth and licked it off before revealing a smile.

    Then to my further shock, she went over to Cecilia who was lying on the bed in a daze.

    She pped Cecilia on the face to wake her up before saying, "Come and help me clean this off my face."

    Cecilia looked at her in a daze as if she couldn''t understand what she was saying before she asked, "How?"

    Madame Rose looked at her lips and said, "How else?"

    Cecilia still had the same confused look for a bit before suddenly understanding what Madame Rose was implying. She looked at her with a shocked look when she heard this, not moving a single inch.

    Madame Rose then took Cecilia by the cheeks before suddenly bringing her face in close.

    Before Cecilia could react, Madame Rose kissed her on the lips.

    Cecilia was in even more of a daze when this happened, as she couldn''t understand what was happening.

    Madame Rose just looked at her with the same smile as before as she asked, "Are you going to do it now?"

    After a few seconds, Cecilia gave a nod in response before moving forward to lick the cum off her face.

    She couldn''t help winging at first at the taste, but as she licked more and more of it off, she couldn''t help wanting more. It wasn''t a good taste, but it left a burning feeling deep inside of her.

 Chapter 22 Knight Captain (11)

    Seeing the two of them like this ignited the me of desire deep down inside of me again.

    So without hesitation, I came forward again and pushed the two of them onto the bed again.

    They were both surprised when this happened, but they also couldn''t help staring at my dick that was hard again.

    Before they could react, I suddenly pulled Madame Rose over so that she was atop of Cecilia.

    Madame Rose was surprised to be put in this position, but she also couldn''t help feeling a bit turned on like this. Likewise, Cecilia was also turned on by Madame Rose being on top of her.

    When I saw their perfectly round butts together like this, I couldn''t hold myself back at all.

    I grabbed Madame Rose''s butt and then inserted my dick in between the two of them.

    My dick didn''t enter into either of their pussies, but rather went in between them so that it rubbed against both of them.

    The two of them were caught off guard by this sensation, but as my dick rubbed against the folds of their pussies, they couldn''t help being more and more turned on. Their faces turned red and their breathing became faster as I pushed faster and faster in between them.

    The bodies of the two of them were also pushed forward, so their breasts kept rubbing against each other. When their breasts came together, their nipples that were hard couldn''t help brushing against each other, turning them on even more.

    Finally, Madame Rose couldn''t take it anymore and leaned down towards Cecilia.

    Cecilia was immediately caught off guard by this and she couldn''t help feeling stunned.

    As shey there stunned, Madame Rose''s hands came forward to grab her face again before she ced her lips on hers, giving her another kiss.

    As the two of them kissed, it was clear who was the dominant side.

    Cecilia''s eyes were wide open and her face waspletely red, while Madame Rose had closed her eyes and there was some movement from her lips.

    As they kissed, the look in Cecilia''s eyes changed until she waspletely lost in the kiss.

    When the two of them separated, her tongue couldn''t help sticking out and bits of drool dripped down the side of her mouth. However, it looked like she didn''t care at all as her face was filled with enjoyment.

    Madame Rose just had a smile on her face when she saw this.

    I couldn''t see exactly what was happening on that side since there were two pairs of perfect buns in front of me, but I didn''t need it since I was alreadypletely turned on by these two pairs of perfect buns.

    As I pushed in between the folds of their pussies, I couldn''t help feeling more and more pleasure until I¡­finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    The two of them could feel the trembling of my dick, so they couldn''t help looking down at the dick that was poking through their legs. Then as they stared at it, I suddenly released my load at them.

    The force of the shot was quite strong, with some of it coating their bodies and most of it¡­shooting right into their faces.

    Both of them couldn''t help closing their eyes instinctively when the cum shot onto their faces, but then they opened them again to look at each other.

    Madame Rose was the one that took the initiative to lean forward and lick some of the cum off Cecilia''s face before waiting for Cecilia to do the same.

    Just like this, the two of them licked the cum off of each other''s faces.

    My dick that had climaxed several times had finally shrunk a little, but that quickly changed when Madame Rose pressed down on it again. She moved her hips so that their pussies kept stroking the shaft of my dick, making it hard once more.

    Just like this, we went on to do it several more times.

    ¡­

    After a long love making session, all three of us were lying in bed looking exhausted.

    Cecilia was the one who was the most exhausted even with the strongest body out of all three of us because she had been put in all kinds of different positions. But even then, she had a satisfied look on her face as if she didn''t mind at all.

    But once it was over, the rational thoughts came back and there was a look of guilt that appeared on her face.

    After all, she was still a married woman and what she had done was considered an affair.

    Madame Rose saw this look on her face and said with a smile, "Do you love me, Cecilia?"

    Cecilia waspletely caught off guard when she heard this and she looked at Madame Rose in a daze. But as if some kind of thing spurred her on, she couldn''t help giving a nod.

    This was the secret that had been hidden deep in her heart for the longest time, which was also why she had allowed Madame Rose to do everything that she had done.

    Madame Rose smiled when she saw this and she reached a hand out to stroke Cecilia on the face before saying, "I love you too."

    Cecilia''s heart almost jumped out of her chest when she heard this and she had the urge to hug Madame Rose, but her body wasn''t in the shape for it. So when she jumped forward to hug her, she fell midway.

    The thing was¡­I was lying in between them¡­

    So when she fell down, shended right on me¡­

    The soft feeling of thoserge boobsnding on me like that, it really was hard to describe, but it once again made my dick stand up tall, creating a tent in the sheets.

    Cecilia was taken aback when she saw thisrge thing create a shadow over her and she couldn''t help feeling a bit fearful. But then, she recovered her courage as the knight captain and said, "You''re still getting turned on in this situation, that''s disgusting."

    This was the one w in her n now.

    Now that Madame Rose had dered that she was also in love with her, as long as they could elope together¡­then it would all work out.

    But there was also this sex ve that they had been using¡­They would have to dispose of him, or else¡­

    At the same time though, there was a small part of her that didn''t want to do that.

    It would be hard to find someone else who had the samerge thing that he did¡­

    But Madame Rose said in a firm voice, "He''s my thing, I won''t let you talk to him like that."

    Cecilia was surprised by this sudden firm tone from Madame Rose, but seeing the firm look she also had, she could only say, "I''m sorry."

    Madame Rose knew that this was a good first step, so she didn''t push the issue and said, "As long as you know."

    Cecilia was strangely silent for a bit as if she was thinking about something before suddenly turning to me and saying, "What about the thing that you promised me?"

    I was surprised by this sudden question from her and confused what she meant, but then I remembered what I had said¡­

    I looked at her with a very strange look, but seeing the way that she looked at me¡­I had no choice but to raise my hand and p her across the face.

    When the pnded, she revealed a very strange look as well, but this was different from my expression.

    Madame Rose just watched with a smile on her face before saying, "Let''s take care of that."

    "That" which she was referring to was the tent that had formed in the sheets.

    So once again, the three of us went at it again.

 Chapter 23 Next Steps

    When we woke up the next morning, all of us had sore bodies fromst night.

    We had started in the morning and had gone all the way to night, so of course our bodies would be sore after all that.

    At the same time, all three of us were also hungry since none of us had anything to eat during this time.

    It was just sex and sleep during this time.

    So Madame Rose called the maids and had them bring a full spread.

    As we sat in the room eating, we started discussing what to do next.

    Madame Rose was the one who took the lead in this since she was the one that had the most information.

    She said, "We need to find some conclusive proof that links my husband to the demon order or else we won''t be able to do anything. The letter and the dagger are too circumstantial and he can easily argue against them."

    Cecilia nodded in agreement to this before saying, "But what kind of conclusive proof can you get? The Lord Baron will surely make sure that everything is taken care of and he won''t leave any evidence for you to find. How are you nning on getting this evidence?"

    Madame Rose knitted her brows when she heard this.

    She didn''t need Cecilia to say this since she already knew that there was this problem.

    She had only recently learned about her husband''s allegiance to the demon order, so naturally she didn''t know enough to n her next move. She had been looking into this during this time, but she still hadn''t gotten enough information yet.

    So she was actually hoping that Cecilia would have something for her.

    Cecilia could also see this, so she knitted her brows to think for a bit. Then she looked like she had suddenly thought of something as she said, "There''s this meeting that my husband said that the Lord Baron is bringing him to, perhaps that''s where they''ll be meeting?"

    "Meeting?" Madame Rose repeated before saying, "What meeting? Tell me more."

    Cecilia gave a nod in response to this before telling her what she had heard from her husband.

    ording to Cecilia''s husband, there was a meeting that was being held by the Lord Baron that invited all of the important people on hisnd, as well as some other nobles. So he had no choice but to attend this meeting.

    The only thing that he didn''t tell her was where this meeting was.

    Madame Rose deeply knitted her brows when she heard this as if she was deep in thought.

    Seeing this, neither of us said a thing as we waited for her to gather her thoughts.

    Finally, she said, "We need to send someone to this meeting."

    Cecilia nodded in agreement to this, but she also asked, "How? It''s not like we know anyone that can go, right?"

    Madame Rose turned her eyes to look at me before saying, "We have one right here."

    Cecilia also looked at me and asked in a confused voice, "Him? How?"

    I was of coursepletely stunned by this suggestion as I had no idea how they expected me to infiltrate a ce like this.

    Madame Rose said with a nod, "In ces like this, one would be expected to hide their appearance. We just need to find someone and have him take their ce at the meeting."

    Cecilia knitted her brows as she asked, "Where are you going to find someone who will let him take their ce? I don''t think that anyone is willing to go against the Lord Baron like that¡­"

    Madame Rose understood Cecilia''s worries, but she shook her head and said, "You don''t need to worry, I have someone that I can use."

    Cecilia knitted her brows even more when she heard this, but she gave a sigh in the end and said, "Don''t try to force everything on yourself, I will help you with anything that you need."

    Madame Rose nodded and revealed a grateful look as she said, "Cece, I know that I can always count on you."

    Cecilia''s face couldn''t help revealing a blush when she was praised by Madame Rose like this.

    That grateful look quickly disappeared from Madame Rose''s face and she turned to look at me. She could see the disturbed look on my face and she could guess what I was thinking, so she said to me, "You said that you would be mine, right?"

    I couldn''t help trembling when I heard this.

    I knew that there was no way out of this. If I were to say anything other than yes at a time like this, there was no doubt that she would get rid of me.

    But at the same time, I couldn''t help seeing a different kind of emotion in her eyes as she said.

    It was almost as if there was a kind of dependence.

    But that also didn''t make sense since we didn''t know each other that long¡­

    So just where did this feeling of dependencee from?

    I couldn''t help feeling a chill as I thought about the different possibilities.

    I had thought that I would be able to escape using the route that the game prepared for you if this didn''t work out, but now it seemed like that would be a bad idea. It seemed like if I were to abandon her, she would chase me down to the ends of the world¡­

    This thought really was scary, so I did my best to throw it out of my mind.

    After taking a deep breath, I gave a nod in response to this without saying anything else.

    If I were to say anything, it was certain that I would be exposed¡­

    So it was better not to say anything at this point.

    Luckily, that was enough for Madame Rose, so she came over to me with a smile on her face and she said in a very tempting voice as she rubbed my head, "Good boy."

 Chapter 24 Cloak And Mask

    I was left alone for the rest of the day as Madame Rose and Cecilia both went off to take care of things.

    From what I heard before they left, it seemed like they would be getting things ready for me to go to this demon order meeting.

    The demon order¡­I had finished the quest line and it was one of the hardest quest lines because of how powerful the demons were.

    If I had a choice, I certainly wouldn''t want to deal with them now that I had reincarnated in this world.

    But when I thought about it, getting into contact with them this early was also a good thing.

    After all, if I could get some information on the demon order from this event, then I would be able to avoid them even better in the future.

    So I braced myself to go and meet them.

    It was just too bad that I had braced myself for nothing.

    Neither Madame Rose or Cecilia came back that evening and even the next day, neither of them came back to see me.

    It was only on the third day that they finally came back.

    When they entered the room, there were visible looks of exhaustion that were on their faces.

    It wasn''t hard to guess that they had been running around taking care of things.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help feeling sympathy for them. I poured two sses of water and came over with them as I said with a smile on my face, "Wee back."

    When the two of them saw this, both of them couldn''t help being surprised. They looked at me with strange looks, almost as if they were trying to figure out what I was doing. The way that they looked at me, it was as if they were doubting if I had ulterior motives for doing this.

    But in the end, they still took the sses of water and drank it all before saying, "We''re back."

    It was hard for them to hide the ghost of a smile on their faces when they said this.

    After they finished drinking, they sat down on the couch in the middle of the room and just rxed on it as if they didn''t have a care in the world.

    However, I couldn''t help noticing that something was off.

    There was a faint tense feeling in the air that was different from usual.

    After a long time, they sat up and turned to look at me. Madame Rose raised the cloak that she had been holding towards me, as if she wanted me to take it.

    When I took it, I found that it wasn''t just a cloak, but rather also a mask.

    This was clearly some kind of disguise, but why was she handing it to me?

    I revealed a confused look as I looked at Madame Rose.

    However, she didn''t exin as she just said, "Put it on."

    I was even more confused when I heard this, but it was clear that she wasn''t nning on exining. So with no other choice, I put the cloak on.

    It was a cloak that was for a grown man and currently I had the body of a shota, so it really was too big for me.

    Seeing this, Madame Rose gave a nod before saying, "As expected, it really was too big."

    Then she stood up and started rolling up the ends of the cloak in an attempt to make it fit my body.

    Cecilia also stood up, but instead of using reasonable means of trying to fix this, she pulled out her sword. Just one look made it clear that she wanted to use this sword to trim the edges of the cloak to make it fit.

    At the same time, I could see that there was a part of her that wanted to make it seem like a mistake if she identally cut something she wasn''t meant to cut¡­such as my body.

    So to stop that, I quickly asked, "What is going on here?"

    Madame Rose was still fixing the cloak as she said, "I have someone who received an invitation to the meeting my husband is holding. He gave me this cloak and this mask so that I can let someone sneak in for me."

    I couldn''t help being shocked when I heard this.

    Madame Rose actually knew one of the demon worshipers and they were willing to help her over their devotion to the demons?

    Why did I not know about this at all?

    Seeing the look on my face, she knew what I was thinking. So with a smile, Madame Rose exined, "This person was sent by my family to watch over me, so his devotion is to me rather than my husband or even the demons. He had been trying to figure out a way to warn me about my husband and the demons, but he didn''t know if they had gotten to me too. When I told him everything that I knew, he immediately came clean and helped me devise a n to take down my husband."

    I couldn''t help being even more shocked when I heard this, but then I asked, "How are you sure that he won''t betray you?"

    Madame Rose finally revealed a serious look as she said, "You don''t need to worry about that. I have no doubt about his loyalty because I have my ways."

    I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine when I heard this. Still, I knew better than to ask questions that I shouldn''t ask, so I didn''t go any further with this topic.

    I looked down at the cloak on my body and the mask I held in the my hands with aplicated look before asking, "Since you''re having me try the cloak on, does that mean that you want to send me in?"

    Madame Rose simply responded with a nod.

    I turned to look at her with a serious look before asking, "Why are you choosing me?"

 Chapter 25 Good Judgement Of Character

    Madame Rose wasn''t fazed at all when she heard this, she just revealed a smile as she looked right into my eyes.

    But Cecilia on the side wasn''t as calm as Madame Rose.

    She could feel the slight tension that arose because of this and she gripped her sword a bit tighter.

    With the way that she was moving slightly towards Madame Rose and the way that she was looking at me, it was clear that she would support Madame Rose in this matter.

    But I didn''t mind this and continued looking at Madame Rose.

    Madame Rose was silent for a bit before suddenly saying, "You''re smarter than you seem."

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this. After a moment''s pause, I asked, "What do you mean?"

    Madame Rose looked right into my eyes and said, "You seem like you don''t know a thing, but I know that you''re usually waiting for an opportunity to make your move. You''re much more intelligent than you make yourself appear and you know how to be patient. Normally, that kind of person would be very dangerous¡­"

    She let her voice drift off when she said this.

    I felt another chill run down my spine when I heard this.

    I never thought that she would be this direct with her answer, I had thought that it would at least be another reason. But it seemed like she was much more observant than I thought¡­

    After she said this, Cecilia had narrowed her eyes to look at me, as if she was appraising me for the first time.

    Cecilia had never thought much about me, she had made it clear. However, when she heard what Madame Rose said, she couldn''t help feeling that she hadpletely underestimated me.

    So she moved closer to Madame Rose and even slightly pointed the sword in my direction.

    I wanted to say something, but before I could, Madame Rose raised her hand to stop me.

    She looked at me still and said, "I don''t mind that you''re like this¡­because you are mine, right?"

    The slight pause and the upward inflection of thetter part of words, it was clear that she was¡­threatening me. But at the same time, it was almost as if there was a pleading tone to me to make things clear.

    I looked at the way that she looked at me and I couldn''t help feeling strange.

    In the end, I gave a nod in response without saying anything.

    When Madame Rose saw this, she revealed a happy smile. At the same time, she stood up and patted my head. It was almost like I was being treated as some kind of dog, but I didn''t seem to mind it that much.

    Cecilia still had a distrusting look on her face, but she could see the look on Madame Rose''s face. She knew that if she did anything, she would be making things worse.

    She put away her sword, but there was a clear unwilling look on her face.

    After this had been settled, Madame Rose continued by saying, "I trust that you''ll be able to make the best judgement for yourself once you get in there. I don''t think that I need to tell you what kind of things to be looking for."

    I hesitated for a second before slowly giving a nod.

    Since she had already exposed me, there was no reason to pretend any longer.

    Since she valued me for my intelligence, then it was better to fully disy this intelligence so she wouldn''t abandon me.

    But there was still one issue that was biting the back of my head.

    I couldn''t help looking at her with an unsteady gaze before suddenly asking, "Why do you trust me like this?"

    Madame Rose was surprised that I would suddenly ask this, but then she said with a smile, "I like to think that I have a good judgement of character and I feel that you''re someone that I can trust. That is unless you are saying that you aren''t someone that I should trust?"

    I quickly shook my head in response to this.

    Madame Rose couldn''t help chuckling when she saw this before saying with the same smile, "I know that you aren''t, you don''t need to worry that much. It''s not as if this little thing would change what I think of you."

    I felt a bit touched when I heard this, but then I remembered what she wanted me to do.

    She was clearly not someone that I should let myself rx around.

    Until we took care of the Lord Baron, until I found a way to escape this monster wave, until I found a way to stop being her sex ve, I couldn''t let my guard down.

    She stood up after trying to fix my cloak to no avail and said, "You''ll just have to go like this. It might look a bit strange, but with the cloak and the mask, people shouldn''t question you."

    I nodded in agreement to this.

    Even if this cloak was a bit too big for me, that should be expected.

    This was a secret society that this cloak was associated with, this wasn''t a ce where they customized cloaks for each of their members. So the one that she received was most likely the standard issued cloak and no one would think too much of it if it was too big for my body.

    The only problem might be if they questioned why someone as short as me was in their meeting.

    But I could take care of that when that came.

    I''m sure that it wouldn''t be hard toe up with some kind of excuse to exin this.

    This was a society where the identities of most of the members were hidden.

    After that was settled, Madame Rose suddenly came forward to take me in a hug. She brought my head up against her chest, almost smothering me as she said in a soft voice, "Come back safely to me, alright?"

    I was caught off guard by this, but I said in a muffled voice, "I will."

    When she heard this, she hugged me even tighter.

    On the side, Cecilia just watched all of this with aplicated look on her face.

 Chapter 26 Demon Order Meeting (1)

    Night fell and I headed to the location of the meeting.

    It wasn''t in the town, but rather in a manor that had been built outside of town.

    This was a private manor for one of the Lord Baron''s subordinates and was regarded as a summer manor, so normally there wouldn''t be anyone here. That gave it the perfect cover as the meeting ce of the demon order.

    When I arrived at this ce, there were already many carriages gathered.

    But at the same time, since it was a secret, there were also many guards gathered as well.

    When they saw the carriage that I borrowed from Madame Rose approaching, the guards immediately came up to surround me.

    I could see that the other carriages weren''t being surrounded, so at the very least it seemed that they recognized the ones that came regrly. At the same time, it told me that there was a hierarchy of seniority in this demon order.

    The guards came forward to surround the carriage and then they asked me to open the door.

    The moment that the door was opened and they saw me sitting there, they immediately dropped their tough act and became humble.

    That was because they recognized the cloak and mask that I was wearing.

    These were guards that were chosen to guard the demon order gathering, so there was no doubt that they knew about the demon order. Since they knew about the demon order, it wasn''t strange that they would recognize this cloak and mask.

    As I looked at the guards, I couldn''t help being surprised by something.

    I actually recognized two of these guards.

    These two were the ones that had guarded my cell when I was in the dungeon, the ones that had tried to torture me for their own ego.

    They had acted tough back then, but now¡­they were almost groveling at my feet after seeing the cloak and mask that I was wearing.

    I had the urge to torture them, but I held myself back in the end since that wasn''t my goal ining here.

    If I were to take things too far, it would be very easy for me to expose my identity.

    So I held it in and headed towards the manor, leaving the carriage to the driver and guards.

    As I was heading in, I couldn''t help wondering why these two guards were in this ce.

    When I was in the cell, they acted like they were guards that had been forced into watching over me. The way they talked made it seem like they were two low level guards that had drawn the short straw.

    But when I thought about it, I realized that wasn''t the case.

    I was the sex ve that the Lord Baron had just bought for a decent amount of money, so I could be considered valuable merchandise. It wasn''t as if the Lord Baron would leave me unattended, so he would send some guards that he trusted.

    That meant that these two were actually high ranking guards that had the Lord Baron''s trust that had been sent to watch over me.

    With what kind of personality they had, it wasn''t strange that these people worked closely with the Lord Baron.

    After walking into the manor, I was surprised by how luxurious it was.

    Even though this was a manor built for secret meetings, they didn''t hold back at all in decorating it.

    In the main hall, there were also a bunch of other men in the same cloak and masks as me who were currently talking to each other.

    To my surprise, I found that there were also masked servants who were walking amongst them with trays in their hands. When I looked closely, I found that there were appetizers and sses filled with wine atop these trays.

    It was almost like I had walked into a ball instead of a secret meeting for the demon order.

    The way that these people acted didn''t seem like they were here to discuss evil things, but rather just to rx.

    At first, no one really noticed me as I walked in, but soon there were a few people that turned their attention to me.

    As for the reason¡­it was because my cloak was too big.

    They couldn''t help finding it strange that I was basically dragging my cloak behind me as I walked, so they hade over to see what was wrong. When they came closer, they realized that I was just short and the cloak didn''t fit me.

    Of course, that didn''t cause them to lose interest as they were curious how someone as short as me had gotten into their group.

    But they didn''t doubt that I was in their group because I had the cloak and mask.

    As I had suspected, this cloak and mask were the standard issue uniform for this demon order, so they didn''t doubt me as long as I had this.

    The ones that came up to talk to me were some of the newer members of the demon order. These were the ones that had only been inducted a few meetings before this, so they didn''t know many people here either.

    But they didn''t hesitate to introduce themselves to me.

    It was as if they didn''t care about the fact that they were a secret society at all.

    I found out that these people were either merchants or knights from the surrounding area that had flocked under the Lord Baron since he was the most powerful noble in the area.

    The knights were in charge of the viges under the Lord Baron''s town and the merchants were in charge of the economy of these viges by trading between them.

    With these people, it could be said that the demon order had full control of this surrounding area.

    It seemed that the Lord Baron had been thorough with his choice of people that he added into the demon order.

    At the same time, it seemed like the demon order''s influence spread way further than we had expected.

 Chapter 27 Demon Order Meeting (2)

    After chatting to them for a bit, I was able to learn quite a bit about the demon order.

    It seemed that they didn''t have any sense of secrecy, or at least in this ce. When facing people who were in the demon order like them, they just talked without any filters.

    I could see that there had to be a certain level of trust in the demon order in these people that they were able to act this way.

    But just what kind of trust was it?

    Was it worship in the demons or was it something else?

    If it was something else, then would I be able to escape when it came for me?

    But that did help me since I got a lot of information.

    The demon order was actually founded by the Lord Baron when he met one of the demons during one of the monster extermination missions.

    The Lord Baron had brought a bunch of his knights and his soldiers to exterminate a group of monsters. But this had caused a disaster as only a few of the knights and less than half of the soldiers returned.

    I had also heard some things about this during my time in the manor, but I never thought that it would be rted.

    ording to these demon order members, it turned out that the Lord Baron and his troops had been ambushed by the demons. It only took a single demon to wipe out all of the Lord Baron''s troops and suppress all of his knights.

    In the face of this power, they had no choice but to beg for their lives.

    The soldiers were scattered, so only the Lord Baron and his knights were left standing in front of the demon.

    It was then that the demon gave the Lord Baron and his knights a choice.

    The demon could spare the Lord Baron and the knights, but they had to swear loyalty to the demon.

    It was their lives or being degraded into dogs.

    And their lives were naturally the most important things, so they swore their loyalty to the demon.

    When they returned, they were linked to the demon order through the demon and they started establishing a demon order branch in this area. Over the years, they gathered many different people until it became what it was today.

    I really couldn''t help being surprised by the fact that I was able to get all of this information.

    There was the chance that this was all fake, but with the facts that I already knew and the way that they said it, it didn''t seem like it was fake.

    But why would these random inductees to the demon order know all of this?

    It didn''t seem to make sense.

    As we chatted, I was able to get some even more shocking information.

    The Lord Baron''s n, or rather the n of this demon order branch.

    It was to use the monster wave to sacrifice human lives to the demon and then pin it all on Madame Rose, the Lord Baron''s wife.

    I forced my face to be calm when I learned this, but I waspletely shocked deep down.

    That was because even these newest members knew the n of the entire demon order branch.

    My first thing was, "Doesn''t the person who Madame Rose got this cloak and mask from also know the n then?"

    If that was the case, they should have told Madame Rose everything¡­But she didn''t tell me a single thing.

    So did that mean that the person that Madame Rose trusted was actually betraying her or was it that she knew and¡­she didn''t tell me?

    Regardless of what it was, it was dangerous for me either way.

    I needed to think of a way to deal with this.

    However, that was for after this meeting.

    Since they had the information that I wanted, I took this chance to get them drunk and got them to talk.

    I used my special ability of pretending to drink to make sure that I didn''t get drunk.

    This was a trick that I had developed over many college drinking parties, so it wouldn''t fail here. It didn''t take long before they became more and more drunk.

    Of course that couldn''t be med on them.

    I did take a tiny sip of the wine and I had to admit that it was delicious. It was better than any wine that I had had before.

    As expected of wine prepared by a noble.

    As they became more drunk, the looser their lips became.

    I was able to easily guide the conversation the way that I wanted it to go and I got the information that I wanted.

    I learned the real reason behind the Lord Baron''s marriage to Madame Rose.

    From the very beginning, it had been a marriage of convenience and he had nned on using her.

    Madame Rose''s father was a count, someone with a much higher status than the Lord Baron. This was what the Lord Baron was aiming for.

    By having Madame Rose, the daughter of a count take the fall for colluding with the demons and starting the monster wave, he would be able to force the hand of hand of the count.

    Even if Madame Rose had gotten married and left the count''s family, she was still considered a member of the count''s family.

    If it was known that a member of the count''s family was involved with the demons and had even started a monster wave to hurt the humans, there would be no doubt that the count would suffer a bacsh.

    The count would never allow that to happen.

    So without a doubt, the count would suppress the news of this matter as much as he could.

    He wouldn''t be able topletely suppress it, but it would be suppressed to the level that none of the other great nobles would learn of this.

    This was exactly what the Lord Baron wanted.

    The reputation of Madame Rose being a traitor would be established in his territory while he minimized the damage from it with the influence of the count. At the same time, he would be able to use the monster wave to sacrifice his citizens to his demon masters.

    It was a perfect way of killing two birds with one stone.

    Even I couldn''t help praising the Lord Baron for his n even though I was on the opposing side. This Lord Baron was certainly much more intelligent than I thought.

    Which brokered the question¡­how did he get sloppy enough that Madame Rose was able to find evidence against him?

    Was it intentional or was it¡­?

    I really couldn''t help feeling unsettled when this thought passed through my mind. Then adding in the other thoughts that I had, I couldn''t stop myself from reaching a single conclusion that would exin everything.

    That I had been led into a trap¡­

    As I was contemting whether I should make a break for it, that opportunity was cut off by a voice that boomed through the hall.

    "Let the meeting begin!"

 Chapter 28 Demon Order Meeting (3)

    When this room rang out through the hall, everyone suddenly fell silent.

    I looked in the direction of the voice and I saw someone leading a group of people onto this stage that had been prepared.

    Everyone in this group was wearing the same cloak and mask as the rest of us, so I wasn''t able to see who these people were. But it made it clear by the way that everyone looked at them that they were the ones that were in charge of this branch.

    As for the one leading them all, if I had to guess, it was the Lord Baron.

    After they walked up onto the stage, the others behind the leader of this group went to the side while the leader of this group came to the center of the stage.

    This person didn''t speak right away as they looked over the crowd in front of them.

    As their eyes swept over the crowd, they fell onto several people in the crowd¡­including me.

    When I saw these eyes looking at me, I couldn''t help feeling a bit awkward and nervous. It was almost as if those eyes had a special reason for looking at me which made me even more certain that my identity had been revealed.

    I really wanted to get out of this ce, but I couldn''t with all of these people staring at me.

    After those eyes swept through the crowd, the person cleared their throat and said, "I want to thank everyone for taking time out of their busy schedule toe to today''s meeting."

    Everyone nodded to this and muttered a few words of agreement in response.

    After the crowd settled, that person continued by saying, "We''ve all gathered here because we have a few important things to discuss today."

    After saying this, that person''s eyes fell onto me and they said, "This brother, why don''t youe up here?"

    As he said this, everyone turned to look at me.

    When this happened, I tried to act like this wasn''t rted to me at all, but I really couldn''t with the leader staring at me and with everyone looking at me like this.

    So without a choice, I had to walk up to the stage.

    As I stood there in front of the leader, he looked at me with a smile before saying, "This brother, wee to your first meeting. I''ve heard that you are the new brother that brother Richard has introduced to our cause?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this since Richard was the name of the man who gave Madame Rose the cloak. However, I had never heard of anything like this before.

    It really felt like I was about to be exposed and then killed¡­

    Since I had no other choice, I could only nod in agreement to this.

    Seeing this, the leader gave a satisfied nod before saying, "Brother, there is nothing to be afraid of. We are simply introducing you to the rest of the brothers."

    The leader then raised a hand and took off his mask, revealing his true identity.

    I wasn''t surprised at all when I saw who this person was, but I was surprised that he pulled off his mask and pulled back his cloak so easily to reveal who he was.

    Naturally the leader of this group was the Lord Baron.

    I recognized him immediately because there were plenty of paintings of the Lord Baron in the manor for me to look at.

    Not to mention, he was the enemy, so I would be a fool to not memorize what he looked like.

    The Lord Baron then waved his hand at the rest of the people and they all took off their masks and pulled down their cloaks as well, revealing what they looked like to me.

    I was very confused when I saw this.

    Why would they reveal all of their identities to me like this?

    But thinking about it, I came to one conclusion.

    They were about to kill me, so they didn''t care if I saw their faces.

    I braced myself for what would follow, but it caught me off guard again.

    The Lord Baron walked over to me and ced his hand on my shoulder as he said, "New brother, will you reveal what you look like to us?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile deep down when I heard this, but I forced my expression to remain calm. Then I said in a calm voice with a bit of awkwardness, "This¡­I actually currently have a wound on my face, so if possible, I wouldn''t want to reveal it. Can I do it next time instead?"

    The Lord Baron narrowed his eyes to look at me, as if he was doubtful of me.

    But in the end, he suddenly revealed a smile and said, "Brother, that''s not a problem at all. Take care of yourself, we''re all brothers here."

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this.

    I was certain that this was a public execution, but the Lord Baron was actually covering for me¡­

    Just what was happening here?

    But before I had any time to think about it, the Lord Baron patted me on the shoulder and said, "Brother, you can go back down now."

    I just nodded in a daze and walked off the stage.

    When I came back to the group that I had been with before, they looked at me with looks of awe. It was as if they had been impressed that the Lord Baron had personally called me onto stage.

    It just made me even more confused as to what was happening.

    But after I was sent down from the stage, the Lord Baron wasn''t finished.

    He raised his hands and the crowd immediately fell silent.

    Once they were silent, the Lord Baron continued, "Everyone, I want to wee some special guests today."

    Special guests?

    I couldn''t help being surprised by this, but it was clear that I wasn''t the only one as I could see surprised looks all around me.

    The people who had been standing to the side came over and stood there with the Lord Baron.

    Then they slowly pulled back their hoods and took off their masks to reveal who they were.

 Chapter 29 Demon Order Meeting (4)

    As soon as they pulled these hoods back and masks off, everyone was surprised by what they saw.

    Three beautiful faces appeared in front of them.

    When they appeared, all of the men who were in the crowd couldn''t help looking stunned.

    Interestingly enough, there wasn''t a single woman among the demon worshipers. It was all men dressed up in cloaks and masks.

    But this was a medieval society, so it wasn''t that strange that men were more dominant here.

    After these three revealed themselves, the Lord Baron continued, "We have three emissaries here from the demon race who havee with a message for us."

    The one beautiful woman in the center came forward and took the stage from the Lord Baron. The Lord Baron didn''t mind this and just moved to the back to give the full stage to her.

    With how beautiful she looked, one wouldn''t think that she was a demon¡­that is until they saw the small horns that were on her head and the small wings that had poked out the back of the cloak. They were small, but they clearly marked her as one of the demons.

    The beautiful woman looked over the crowd before saying with a charming smile, "Such a bunch of handsome men here, it really turns me on."

    All of the demon worshipers in the crowd couldn''t help being caught off guard by these words.

    Some of them couldn''t help turning to look at the Lord Baron, but he just stood there without any expressions.

    Then the beautiful woman gave a sigh before saying, "It''s too bad that I''m here on business and not pleasure."

    She then revealed a serious look before saying, "The count is very impressed with your progress and is satisfied with the offering that you will offer. He wanted us to bring the message that your efforts will be rewarded and more beads will be sent."

    When the demon worshipers heard this, their eyes couldn''t help lighting up.

    The key thing in what this beautiful woman had said was the "beads" that she mentioned.

    I could see that everyone''s eyes started filling with excitement the moment that they heard about these beads.

    I didn''t know exactly what these beads were, but it wasn''t hard to guess with my understanding of the game''s plot.

    When I destroyed other demon order branches as part of the questline in the game, I would find traces of things like this. Weapons and items that the demons gave as rewards, these things would either make one stronger and increase one''s lifespan.

    Judging by the average age of the people here, it wasn''t hard to guess that these "beads" were most likely items that would increase one''s lifespan.

    What they didn''t know and I knew was that¡­these items were a double edged sword¡­

    They increased one''s lifespan, but they also changed one''s physiology slowly but surely. Once one was changed enough, they would be a monster that would fall under the control of the demons.

    I had seen this many times in my demon order questline y through.

    After she finished saying this, the beautiful woman looked over the crowd again before saying, "In addition to this, I would like to offer a more personal reward."

    The demon worshipers couldn''t help revealing confused looks when they heard this.

    The beautiful woman waved her hand at the other two who were with her and they came over to where she was. Then together, all three of them pulled off their cloaks to reveal what they were wearing.

    When the crowd saw this, they couldn''t help being shocked.

    These women¡­were very scantily d and were basically wearing what seemed to be underwear. Not to mention, they had beautiful figures under the cloaks that made these men drool.

    The leader had a very curvy figure, one of the others had a slightly curvy figure, and thest one had a figure that was like a child''s¡­there was something here for every kind of taste.

    I couldn''t help being even more surprised since this was something that seemed very familiar¡­

    With what they were wearing, it almost made them seem like the subi that I encountered in the game before¡­

    After taking off the cloaks, the one who spoke before said, "We would like to offer our bodies as reward for your hard work."

    Every jaw in the crowd couldn''t help dropping when they heard this.

    They never would have imagined that these beautiful women would give themselves to them so freely.

    There were a few that were moved in the crowd and they couldn''t help moving towards the stage.

    If one looked clearly, they would be able to see the almost dazed looks that were in their eyes as they stared at these three beauties.

    But before it could go any further, there was a sudden noise that cut through the air.

    "p!"

    It was arge p that suddenly shook everyone out of their daze and they came back to their senses.

    When everyone looked in the direction of the pping sound, they found that it was the Lord Baron who had given this sudden p.

    The Lord Baron had a calm look on his face even when faced with all these gazes.

    He moved over to the beautiful women and said, "Miss Morrigan, I thank you on behalf of the others for this reward, but unfortunately we can''t ept this. We still haven''t aplished our goal yet, so it wouldn''t be right for us to ept this reward."

    The leader of the beautiful woman who the Lord Baron called Miss Morrigan looked at the Lord Baron with narrowed eyes before saying, "You are a good man as well." Then her tone changed to a teasing tone as she said, "You don''t need to be this reserved, the count has already seen the great contributions that you have made. I feel that you deserve this personal reward the most."

    If it was anyone else, they would have been moved by the beautiful disy of flirting that Miss Morrigan had given, but the Lord Baron had a stone cold look on his face.

    He bowed his head slightly and said, "I am not worthy of this honour."

    Miss Morrigan was about to keep teasing the Lord Baron, but the Lord Baron looked up and said with a calm look, "Miss Morrigan, would you please excuse us for a bit. We have something that we need to discuss."

    Miss Morrigan was taken aback by this sudden request from the Lord Baron, but she didn''t fight back.

    She knew how valued this Lord Baron was for the count, he might even be more valued than her¡­So she knew that it wouldn''t be best to push this Lord Baron''s buttons too much.

    So in the end, she gave a nod and waved her hand at the other two beauties.

    There were also a few of the cloaked figures on stage that followed these three out.

    It was clear by theirrge figures that they were guards that the demon race had deployed for this Miss Morrigan.

    Once they were gone, the Lord Baron revealed a serious look and said, "Everyone, please be careful of those three, they are subi."

 Chapter 30 Demon Order Meeting (5)

    A subus, a demon of lust.

    They were demons that fed on the lust of humans, using sex to drain humans of their life essence.

    If they had taken the offer of the subi just now, it was very likely that they would have been drained by them...

    Hearing this, all of the demon worshipers couldn''t help letting out sighs of relief.

    If it hadn''t been for the Lord Baron protecting them, then they really would have fallen prey to the grasps of those subi.

    There had been a few that had cursed the Lord Baron for interrupting their good time, but that resentment immediately turned into gratitude after learning the true identity of those three women.

    Not a single one of them doubted the words of the Lord Baron since he had no reason to lie to them.

    Plus, he was their leader and he had personally invited each of them to this organization, so there was an innate level of trust in the first ce.

    After exposing the identities of those three women, the Lord Baron had nothing else to say and dismissed the group. But before ending it, the Lord Baron gave a warning, "Everyone, be careful of being caught alone with those three. They have charm magic at their disposal, so it''ll be hard to refuse when you''re charmed by them. I''ve sent people with resistant items to take care of their needs, but it''s also possible that they will sneak off to prey on you all. I hope that you will move together and be careful."

    He had sent those three women away so he could warn the rest of them about them being subi, but there was nothing else left for them to discuss in the first ce. Or at least there was nothing else left for them to discuss together.

    The n was already in progress, so there wasn''t much that they needed to discuss together.

    As long as everyone did their own part, there wouldn''t be a problem with the n.

    So they would now split off into separate groups and talk amongst themselves.

    As for the Lord Baron, he called a few of the people and headed off into a different room with them. Based on the look on their faces, it was clear that they had something important to discuss.

    The rest of the people in the hall also broke off into groups and started heading into different rooms to discuss things.

    This was arge manor with many different rooms, so there was plenty of space for everyone to go off in separate groups.

    I was new here, so there wasn''t really a group for me to go with.

    In the end, it was the group that had approached me before that invited me to go with them.

    I was hesitant at first, but then they told me that they didn''t have anything to do either. Since they were new to the demon order, they hadn''t received any orders and were just here to help out in case anything went wrong.

    So what they were nning on doing now was to drink and talk.

    I didn''t mind this since I also needed a cover before I started snooping around the ce.

    Since they were going to drink, that made it even easier for me.

    It wouldn''t be strange at all if they were to ck out from drinking too much.

    As long as I guided them with the skills that I had picked up in college, it wouldn''t take much for me to get them ck out drunk.

    In fact, they were already drunk to begin with since they had been drinking since the start of the meeting. I had been getting them drunk while we were still in the main hall so I could get information from them.

    It took less than fifteen minutes to get thempletely drunk and they all cked out in the end.

    When I was the only person who was still left awake in the room, I made sure that they were all knocked out before heading out the door.

    The corridors of the manor werepletely empty, but I could hear soundsing from the other rooms in this hallway.

    Based on the sounds that I heard, it was clear that these people were using their "talks" as excuses to have fun. But that didn''t matter since the more noise that they made, the easier it was for me to sneak around.

    I didn''t know theyout of the manor, so I could only head down the hallway in hopes of finding something. I went in the opposite direction of the main hall that I just came from and continued down the hallway.

    As I went, I could hear many different soundsing from the various rooms that I passed.

    It seemed that there really wasn''t any soundproofing to these rooms.

    I heard a few interesting things, such as different ns that they had once the monster wave n was over, but I didn''t stick around to listen to those.

    For now, my top priority was still to prevent the monster wave.

    As long as the monster wave was stopped and Madame Rose was saved, they wouldn''t be able to put these ns in progress. So I had to get information on the monster wave and the demons first.

    The other thing that I heard the most was...the sounds of women moaning.

    I had seen quite a few maids in the hall earlier and now...there wasn''t a single one of them wandering around in the halls.

    It was very obvious what they were doing in the rooms with the members of the demon order.

    I just ignored all of this and continued down the hall until I came to the end where there was a set of stairs waiting.

    Looking around and seeing no one there, I went up the stairs to reach the second floor which lookedpletely different from the first floor.

    First of all, this ce waspletely silent.

    It was clear that there wasn''t anyone here.

    Second, this ce was very luxurious and clean,pletely different from the rough decorations on the first floor.

    This should be the ce where the secrets of the demon order were hidden.

    But before I could take a single step forward, there was a voice that suddenly said, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

 Chapter 31 Demon Order Meeting (6)

    I immediately froze when I heard this.

    Then before I could react, the voice said, "Turn around and let me see who you are."

    I considered my options and even thought about running away, but in the end, I turned around to face the person who was speaking. When I saw who it was, I couldn''t help being shocked.

    Standing there was the Lord Baron who was holding a sword pointed at me in his hand.

    When the Lord Baron saw that it was me, he was also surprised.

    But then the Lord Baron suddenly revealed a smile as he asked, "What are you doing here?"

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this.

    It didn''t seem like there was any anger in his voice, rather it seemed like he was pleasantly surprised and amused to see me. It was almost as if he was expecting me¡­

    But why would he be expecting me?

    After a short pause, I said, "I was just looking for the bathroom and I got a bit lost. I hope that you can tell me where the bathroom is."

    "The bathroom?" The Lord Baron asked in an amused voice.

    I was very confused why he said it like this, but I still gave a nod with a straight face in the end.

    The Lord Baron then suddenly took a few steps forward until he was right in front of me. As he walked over, he sheathed the sword that he had in his hand.

    When he was in front of me, his hands suddenly came forward to grab my shoulder.

    When his shoulders were on my shoulder, I couldn''t help trembling slightly.

    The Lord Baron had also felt this and he said with a gentle smile on his face, "Now, now, there''s no need to be scared."

    But these words just sent a chill down my spine.

    No matter how you looked at it, this situation wasn''t normal. It was almost as if the Lord Baron was interested in me in a different manner¡­

    Then as if on cue, the Lord Baron''s hands started moving. They went from my shoulders and started moving down my body.

    They went across my chest at first before slowly making their way¡­further down. It was clear what his intentions were with the way that his hands moved.

    It was when his hands were at my stomach that I couldn''t take it anymore.

    I suddenly shuddered and broke free of his grasp, quickly taking a step back.

    There was a trace of displeasure that shed in the Lord Baron''s eyes when this happened, but it quickly disappeared. With the same gentle smile, he asked, "Is something wrong?"

    However, this time, there was a subtle pressure that was in the back of his voice.

    It was clear what he wanted and what he would do to get what he wanted.

    But it was not something that I could ept.

    So I gave a cough to calm my nerves before saying, "I really need to go to the bathroom first."

    The Lord Baron looked at me with narrowed eyes as if he was sizing me up, but seeing that I didn''t say anything else, he gave a nod and said, "The bathroom is just down there. Go on then."

    As soon as he said this, I quickly turned to leave as if I had been pardoned.

    But as I was leaving the Lord Baron added, "I''m looking forward to seeing youter."

    I couldn''t help trembling again when I heard this, but I acted like I didn''t hear a thing.

    I could guess what he meant by this, but I never thought that the Lord Baron swung that way. There had been no indications of this from Madame Rose or even from the game when I yed it.

    But it was no wonder he wasn''t interested in a beautifuldy as Madame Rose¡­

    Then when I was walking away, I also heard¡­

    "He is such a tease, but he really is like what Richard described. I can''t wait to see what he looks like underneath¡­I wonder if he really is the monster that Richard said he was."

    A shiver ran down my spine when I heard this.

    The Lord Baron said that Richard was the one that told him all of this¡­

    Just what kind of things did that confidant of Madame Rose tell the Lord Baron?

    Not to mention, if he really did tell the Lord Baron all of this¡­didn''t that mean that he already knew about the Lord Baron''s taste before this?

    So why didn''t he tell Madame Rose about this?

    There were many bitterints that filled my mind as I walked away, but I shook them out of my mind quickly and focused my mind.

    This was deep in the enemy territory and even if I was able to fool the Lord Baron, that didn''t mean that I would be able to fool the others that found me. I had to be careful not to get caught again, or else¡­it wouldn''t go like how it had ended with the Lord Baron.

    As I continued down the hallway, there were many doors that appeared in front of me, but there was no sound that came from them telling me what was in them.

    So I had no idea what I was even looking for.

    But in the end, I came across a door that looked different from the rest.

    This door was much bigger and much more luxuriouspared to the rest, so that meant that whatever was here should be very important, right?

    Seeing this, I figured that I could peek my head in to see if there was anything that would be helpful to my cause inside of there.

    When I peeked in, I¡­couldn''t see anything because it was too dark in this room.

    It was a good thing that there was a window here and there was a bright moon outside tonight.

    When I pulled the curtains up, I was surprised by what I saw.

 Chapter 32 Demon Order Meeting (7)

    There wasn''t a single thing special in this room other than the thing that was on the desk.

    I could see the dark energy swirlsing from the thing that was on the desk, making it clear that there was some kind of dark magic there.

    When I looked closely, I found that it was a piece of paper surrounded by dark tendrils.

    There was a bad feeling that came from this piece of paper on the desk, but I also couldn''t help feeling that this thing was important.

    After all, no matter how one looked at it, this should be proof that they were coborating with the demons.

    If I could bring this thing out, it should help prove the Lord Baron''s guilt.

    The problem was how to get it out of here¡­

    No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like it would rot my hand the moment that I touched this thing. The tendrils even looked like they were slowly crawling towards me, even though I was standing so far away¡­

    But I couldn''t find a single thing that would help me pick this thing up.

    So in the end, I had no choice but to try it with my hand.

    To my surprise, I found that I was able to easily pick it up without any problems. Even though the dark tendrils around the piece of paper seemed to wrap around my hands, they didn''t seem to do anything to me.

    It was almost as if they were tickling me instead of hurting me.

    Since I was able to pick it up, I quickly put it away under my cloak and then I was about to head out.

    But before I could, I heard the sounds of voicesing from outside.

    Without any hesitation, I immediately hid myself under the desk.

    Luckily, the voices only passed by the room and didn''t seem toe in.

    Still, they were loud enough that I was able to hear what they were saying. At the same time, the moment that I heard these voices, I immediately recognized who they were.

    They were the three subi that had been at the meeting just now.

    "Senior Morrigan, are we really not going to do anything?" A soft voice said.

    "We can''t do anything here or else we will incur the wrath of the count. Even if they were mere humans, they have been doing good work which has pleased the count. If we were to disrupt that¡­" The voice of Miss Morrigan from before trailed off.

    A mature voice said, "Ah, but there''s so many of them out there that are just filled with energy, I can feel it. They want to release themselves, but they can''t find the right outlet. It would be so delicious if we could take them for ourselves."

    There was a sigh that came before Miss Morrigan said, "I know how you feel, but that is just how it is¡­"

    There was a pause that came from outside the door before¡­

    The soft voice said, "Ah, did you see how those old men were looking at me? The way that their eyes fell onto my body, it was just absolutely disgusting." After she said this, there was augh that followed.

    The others alsoughed when they heard this.

    The mature voice then said, "Right, right! There''s also all those virgins who kept looking at my body. It''s clear that they''ve never even had a chance to touch a woman before and they want me? It''s clear that they don''t know their ce."

    Then Miss Morrigan said, "You two, you''re letting your bad habits show again."

    The mature voice quickly quipped, "Isn''t it the same with you, Senior Morrigan? I saw the look in your eyes when you saw those knights. You wanted to y with them, didn''t you?"

    There was a pause before a charmingugh rang out. Following this, Miss Morrigan said, "I can''t help myself you know? It''s been so long since we''ve had ourst meal."

    There were sounds of agreement that followed before the three subi started discussing what they wanted to do to those men who had looked at their bodies.

    There really were all kinds of things that they would do to them¡­things that even I who was well versed in these things couldn''t help finding kinky¡­

    I had seen many videos and games with subi before, but hearing the things that they would do firsthand really was a new experience.

    But at the same time, I couldn''t help feeling anxious.

    After all, they weren''t moving from their spot. They were just standing outside the door to this room, discussing this the whole time.

    I couldn''t help wondering if they had discovered me and were just talking like this to distract me so that they could catch me¡­

    But eventually, they ended their talk

    Miss Morrigan was the one who ended it by saying, "We have to get back or else they''ll start worrying. That Lord Baron, he''s a sharp one¡­He posted all those people just to watch us, so he''ll surely think we''re up to something if we''re gone for too long."

    The other two also expressed their disappointment when they heard this, but they still agreed with her.

    So the voices from the three of them started getting further and further away from the door until I couldn''t hear them anymore.

    However, even after the voices had disappeared, I didn''te out from my hiding spot.

    I didn''t know if they were truly gone or not, so I didn''t dare take that risk.

    It was only after the voices had faded for a while that I came out from under the desk.

    I looked around the room and after seeing that there was no one else here, I went to the door to put my ear against it. As I listened for sounds outside, I wasn''t able to hear a single thing.

    At this, I let out a sigh of relief.

    I had been scared that I had been discovered, but it seemed like it was just a coincidence that they were passing by this room.

    But after calming down, I couldn''t help thinking about all the things that the subi had said. Especially about how they were quite backed up and wanted some release¡­

    It seemed like they really wanted to drain these demon worshipers of their life energy, but there was the Lord Baron holding them back. But if there was something that made them lose control¡­what would happen then?

 Chapter 33 Demon Order Meeting (8)

    As these thoughts passed through my mind, I couldn''t help thinking of a certain thing that I had received from my system.

    This was an item that I had received as a reward after my threesome with Cecilia and Madame Rose, but I had never thought of a way to use it.

    But now¡­it seemed like there was a perfect opportunity.

    The more that I thought about this, the more that I felt that this was the right chance to use this item.

    So with a wave of my hand, there was a round thing that appeared in my hand.

    This was a thing that was made of y, with a metal cover over it. The bottom y part waspletely covered, but the metal cover over it had holes in them, as if they were meant to release something.

    Inside of this thing, under the metal cover, there were these small sticks that were lying there.

    This thing was clearly an incense burner and the small sticks inside were incense sticks, but these weren''t normal incenses.

    I couldn''t help looking carefully at the incense sticks that were inside the burner and then I couldn''t help taking a whiff of it. There wasn''t really a smell that came from this incense burner, but when I sniffed it, I couldn''t help feeling a bit of heat filling my body.

    I quickly took a deep breath to calm myself down which helped a bit in the end, but I could still feel the heat inside of my body.

    Especially in my lower parts¡­

    That was what this incense was for.

    This wasn''t an incense that was designed to help one calm down, but rather it was one that would heat people up. As for the heat that it would provide them with, it was a heat that came from down there¡­

    This was an aphrodisiac incense, henceing from the Sex Toy System.

    As long as this was lit and it gave the subi a push, it was very likely that they would lose control of themselves.

    As for what they would do when they lost control, that wasn''t something that I knew, but I could make a guess. Especially since this ce was filled with people that they already wanted to prey on.

    Not to mention, ording to the introduction from the system, it said that this aphrodisiac incense was very effective on demons of lust like the subi¡­

    So it wasn''t hard to imagine what would happen when they lost control.

    If I was going to light this aphrodisiac incense, I wouldn''t want to be in this ce when it affected the subi.

    Before lighting this thing, I had to make sure that I had everything that I wanted from this ce.

    After thinking about it, I realized that I did indeed already have everything that I wanted.

    My goal ining to this ce was to infiltrate and find something that could be used to reveal the Lord Baron as the demon worshiper that he was. I had already found that in the piece of paper covered in dark energy, so there was no need for me to stay here any longer.

    Not to mention, the Lord Baron himself wanted me to do something that I definitely didn''t want to do.

    There was no better time to leave now while everyone was upied with their own things.

    Once things settled and people had more free time, it would be harder for me to leave.

    So I made up my mind to light the incense and leave.

    But before lighting the incense, I brought something else out of the system''s storage.

    This was a small red pill.

    This pill was something that had been given by the system with the aphrodisiac incense. This pill was an antidote that would counteract the effects of the aphrodisiac incense.

    I wasn''t certain if I would be able to get out of this ce in time before the aphrodisiac incense spread, so I wanted to make sure that I didn''t get affected by the aphrodisiac incense.

    The best way to do that was to take this pill.

    As I was about to light the aphrodisiac incense, I suddenly realized another problem¡­

    I didn''t know if the smoke from the incense would be enough to cover the entire manor.

    This manor was huge just from what I had seen outside and after walking around in it, I knew that it was much bigger than it seemed from the outside. With how big this ce was, it was hard to guarantee that this aphrodisiac incense would spread all over it.

    If it didn''t spread all over the manor, then it was very likely that my n would fail since there would be people who could escape its effects.

    I really couldn''t tell how far the aphrodisiac incense would spread without lighting it first, but lighting it right away without knowing how far it spread would be counterproductive¡­

    While I was agonizing over this, the system suddenly said, "The incense''s smoke will spread to every room in the manor."

    I couldn''t help being surprised by the fact that the system had suddenly spoken.

    However, I still couldn''t help asking in a doubtful voice, "Are you sure that it''ll cover the entire manor?"

    The system gave a snort before saying, "Are you doubting the professionalism of the system?"

    "Eh?" That was all I could say in response to this.

    This system of mine really was different¡­it kept giving responses that would make it seem like it had a soul, rather than being a mechanical system.

    But since the system was so confident, I chose not to question it and trust that the system knew what it was doing. After all, this system was something that came from god, so it should be a powerful thing.

    I went to light the aphrodisiac incense, but I ran into one more problem¡­

    I didn''t have anything to light it with.

    As I stared at the aphrodisiac incense there, I couldn''t help reaching into my cloak, touching a dagger that was in my chest pocket. But in the end, I pulled my hand out of that pocket and decided against using it.

    Luckily for me, I was able to find a pack of matches in one of the drawers that I used to light it.

    As soon as I lit it, I immediately swallowed the pill before standing there watching the smoke drift off.

    To my surprise, the smoke almost vanished immediately from my sight as it quickly floated out of the room.

    It seemed like the system really knew what it was talking about.

    With this feeling of trust in the system, I began walking out of the room.

    That is until I noticed something else out of the corner of my eye.

 Chapter 34 Demon Order Meeting (9)

    It was a small thing, so I missed it earlier, but my attention couldn''t help being grabbed by it.

    As soon as I saw it, I couldn''t help walking over to take a closer look at this item.

    This was a small locket that was lying on a small table beside a couch. However, it wasn''t the small locket itself that attracted my attention.

    It was the dark energy that surrounded this small locket.

    It was the same dark energy that had been around the piece of paper from before.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by the fact that I had missed this earlier, but since it was an item that had the same dark energy as the piece of paper, I assumed that it was something rted to the demons just like the piece of paper.

    Since it was something that was rted to the demons, it was also a piece of evidence that I could use against the Lord Baron.

    Since that was the case, there was no reason for me not to take it.

    But as I was picking it up, the locket suddenly opened up and revealed what was inside.

    As soon as I saw what it was, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    There was this strange feeling that filled me when I saw the picture that was inside of this pendant.

    It was a beautiful picture of Madame Rose smiling.

    This was a smile that I had seen before, but the eyes were different.

    Instead of that slightly dark look in her eyes, there was only happiness from the bottom of her heart.

    This painting should have been made when she first married the Lord Baron, when she didn''t know anything about his ns.

    Back when she could feel truly happy about getting married.

    But now¡­

    When I saw this painting, I couldn''t help feeling a strange feeling in my heart.

    With how the Lord Baron treated Madame Rose, with what kind of tastes he had, for him to keep a locket like this just didn''t seem right.

    From an objective third party view, it would have seemed like¡­jealousy.

    So without a thought, I took the locket as well.

    However, I didn''t have any ns of handing it over to Madame Rose. The only thoughts that I had for this locket was to destroy it as soon as possible.

    After all, it would just cause Madame Rose pain if she were to see this.

    After grabbing the locket, I turned and headed out the door.

    I could see that there was more and more smokeing from the aphrodisiac incense, so it wasn''t a good idea to stay here any longer. Even if I had swallowed the pill that was supposed to negate the effects of the incense, it wasn''t a good idea to test it like this.

    So with that, I left the manor.

    To my surprise, there wasn''t a single person who stopped me. It was as if they were all upied with something else.

    ¡­

    I am a simple knight who guards the border of Baron Mordo''s territory.

    Through a stroke of luck, I was invited to the secret group that was headed by the Lord Baron.

    Though I was shocked to find that this secret group was a group of demon worshipers, that didn''t change the fact that this was a group that had close ties to the Lord Baron. As long as I was a part of this group, I would have a chance to move up in this world and no longer be stuck guarding the border.

    Tonight was the night of a meeting called by the Lord Baron, so we came to the manor as usual.

    Then as per usual, we split up to go drink¡­discuss our ns with our individual groups.

    The group that I was a part of included one of the ministers who was highly valued by the Lord Baron, so as long as I was in this group, I would be able to make my way up in this world.

    As we were drinking, I suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom, so I excused myself from the room.

    When I came out, I couldn''t help stopping for a second.

    For some reason, it felt like something was lighting a me deep down inside of me. I didn''t know why I was suddenly turned on, but it was a good thing that there were also those maids for anyone to use.

    First though, I had to take care of that urge to pee.

    I walked through the corridors of this manor, not bothered by the fact that it waspletely empty.

    That was normal since this was a secret society, so there were only a few servants that were in this manor in the first ce.

    As I walked along, I couldn''t help whistling a song.

    Our ns were about to reach fruition and we had just been told that the demons were nning on rewarding us, so it was hard not to feel happy.

    But as I walked along, I couldn''t help feeling the burning sensation inside of me getting stronger and stronger.

    I didn''t know why I was suddenly this turned on, but it was getting harder and harder to resist.

    So I started moving faster.

    The sooner that I finished taking care of my business, the sooner I could go back and take care of this fire deep inside of me.

    There was this one cute maid that had been in the room with me that I had wanted earlier, but I didn''t have the courage to do so. Now with this me lit inside of me, I could only think about the things that I would do to her.

    With this lewd smile on my face, I moved even faster towards the bathroom.

    That was until I suddenly felt a presence behind me.

    As a knight, I was very sensitive to things like this.

    I immediately turned around and reached towards my waist for my sword, but then I remembered that I had left it at the entrance.

    So I said in a loud voice in hopes of alerting the others in the rooms around me, "Who''s there?"

    There was a seductive voice that replied, "Look at this handsome young man, I really love meals like this."

 Chapter 35 Demon Order Meeting (10)

    This voice came from right behind me and when I turned around, I couldn''t help being shocked.

    There was a beautiful face that was right there in front of me.

    This face was very familiar¡­it was the face of one of the subi that was with that Miss Morrigan earlier.

    But as soon as I saw this face, I immediately raised my guard.

    Since I knew that this woman was subus, I knew that they didn''t have any good intentions sneaking around like this. If I let my guard down, it would be very likely that they would drain me of my life essence right away¡­

    Still, it was getting harder and harder to resist the mes burning deep inside of me.

    The subus also noticed this, so she licked her lips and said, "Handsome young man, how about youe and have some fun with me?"

    When I saw this, I really couldn''t stop myself from getting hard.

    Even though I was a knight, I was a young one that hadn''t been knighted for long, so I didn''t even have a wife yet. I was also someone who had devoted myself to my training, which was why I had be a knight at such a young age, so I had never been with a woman before even though all my peers had.

    Without that experience, I really had a weak resistance against beautiful women like this.

    But with my strong will, I forced myself to stay calm as I said, "Beautiful miss, it pains me to say this, but unfortunately I cannot have any fun with you today. I have some other business to¡­"

    Before I could finish what I was saying, the subus suddenly said with a seductive smile, "That wasn''t a question."

    I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine when I heard this and I immediately knew that something was off.

    I said with a serious look, "Miss, I''m afraid that I have to leave now. I have some other business to take care of."

    As I was about to leave, the subus suddenly reached her hand out as if to grab me.

    With how slow she was going, there was no chance that she would catch me.

    I quickly moved out of the way, but¡­I found that her hand had somehow grabbed my arm. I hadn''t been able to see the speed at which she went, but when I realized what happened, she was already grabbing my arm.

    Seeing this, I knitted my brows and said, "Miss, please let go."

    But she just stood there with a seductive smile on her face without saying a thing.

    I knew that she wouldn''t let go with just words after seeing this, so I tried pulling my hand away.

    When I pulled my hand away, I only used a bit of strength since I thought that with the difference in physiques, it would be easy for me to pull my hand away. But when I pulled my hand, I found that I wasn''t able to break free of her grasp.

    When this happened, I couldn''t help knitting my brows even more.

    The subus just stood there with the same smile on her face as if she didn''t feel anything at all.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit angry when I saw this, so I gathered all my strength and decided to pull as hard as I could. I didn''t believe that this frail looking woman would be able to take my full force.

    But to my shock, I found that I wasn''t able to break free of her grasp at all.

    It was like pulling against an iron shackle as her hands tightly gripped around my wrist.

    I tried pulling again and again after the first time, but her hand didn''t even budge an inch from my pulling. It was as if she was a statue made of stone that wouldn''t break no matter how much force I used.

    I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine when I saw this.

    I had known that there was a difference between humans and demons, but I never thought that the difference would be this great¡­

    Since I wasn''t able to pull my hand away, the only thing I could do was¡­

    "Please let go of me, miss. This could be considered an act of aggression if you keep acting like this." I said in a calm voice.

    Since I couldn''t win with force, I used my words.

    This was something simple that even a fool like me could understand.

    After all, there was a reason why the Lord Baron was able to scare off the subi earlier. It was clear that they had a reason why they didn''t act aggressively towards us humans, so I wanted to use that to pressure her.

    But to my surprise, the subus said, "Cute little thing, you really are teasing me like this."

    She didn''t let go of my hand when she said this.

    I knitted my brows and was about to say something, but before I could, the other hand of the subus came forward to push me down. I was barely able to stop myself from falling t on the ground as Inded on my butt.

    At the same time, it was also partially because the subus was holding my hand so that I didn''t fall too hard.

    Afternding, I couldn''t help looking up at the subus, but I found that she was gone from where she had been.

    I quickly looked down and found that she was currently leaning forward in front of me, with her head being right where my crotch was.

    I couldn''t help asking in a shocked voice, "What, what are you doing?"

    She didn''t answer that question as her hand suddenly grabbed the hem of my pants and pulled down. As soon as my pants were pulled off, my dick suddenly came flying out in front of her, but the subus didn''t mind at all.

    Instead of being surprised, she just revealed a seductive smile.

 Chapter 36 Demon Order Meeting (11)

    Even though it was a beautiful smile, I could see that there was a hint of teasing in it.

    As for what she was teasing¡­it was naturally the size of my dick.

    Compared to others, it was a bit smaller than usual, but for her tough at it really hurt my feelings.

    But before I could say anything, her hand let go of the hem of my pants and came up to where my dick was. She reached a single finger out and flicked the tip of my dick.

    "Ah!"

    This pained cry that had a hint of pleasure in it escaped my mouth before I could even stop myself.

    This was not a sound that I would normally make, but I couldn''t stop myself after she flicked my dick.

    It was a painful feeling, but it was also one that filled me with pleasure. I didn''t even know why it felt this way¡­

    After hearing this cry from me, her smile couldn''t help bing even wider.

    I was about to say something as I came back to my senses, but looking down, I couldn''t help being stunned. That was because I could see right down her top and see the pink tips that were there.

    The moment that I saw these pink tips, my dick couldn''t help bing even harder.

    It was already hard from being teased by her, but after seeing this beautiful sight, it couldn''t get any harder.

    When it stood tall and proud, the subus looked at it before a teasing tone filled her smile and she said, "Is that it?"

    I was filled with rage from shame when I heard this, but I still didn''t get a chance to say anything. That was because her hand came forward and¡­grabbed the shaft of my dick.

    Well, it wasn''t the full hand, but rather two fingers because that was all that would fit¡­

    She didn''t stop there as her hand started moving up and down with that teasing smile on her face.

    As she rubbed me off, I couldn''t help letting out moans of pleasure.

    Even if this wasn''t consensual, her technique was something else. One could say as expected of a subus, a demon of lust¡­

    At the same time, I couldn''t help feeling more and more turned on.

    I was already turned on before bumping into her for some unknown reason, but as she stroked me, I couldn''t help getting more and more turned on. So even if I was against this, I couldn''t help thinking that I wanted more¡­

    She continued to stroke me off and the pleasure pushed me closer and closer to climaxing. However, before I was able to climax, the subus'' hand suddenly stopped stroking and all the pleasure stopped.

    I had been so close, but she had suddenly stopped.

    At that point, I had beenpletely taken by the pleasure and I couldn''t stop myself from saying, "Why did you stop?"

    When she heard this, the subus suddenly revealed a teasing smile as she said, "Cute little boy, you''re saying that you want more? What about earlier how you were saying that you were too busy?"

    I opened my mouth to speak, but I found that I couldn''t say anything as I remembered what the situation was.

    That was right, I was supposed to get up and leave at this moment¡­But I also really didn''t want to leave.

    The feeling that came from having her rub me off was just too good that I couldn''t resist, that I didn''t want to resist. For some reason, I really wanted to go all the way with her¡­

    So in the end, I said in a soft voice that was unbing of me, "I have some time now."

    The subus'' teasing smile became wider as she suddenly started moving back. As she was about to stand up, she said, "Unfortunately, I don''t have the time right now."

    My mouth dropped when I heard this, but my hand moved faster than my brain as I grabbed her arm and said, "Wait, you can''t go like this."

    The subus looked back at me and said, "Why can''t I?"

    But even though she said this, she didn''t move any more.

    If my brain was working properly, I would have realized that this was all a trap. After all, the subus was stronger than me, so it wasn''t as if I could grab and stop her.

    But it was too bad that my brain wasn''t moving properly since I was just too infected by my libido.

    Without even thinking, I said, "Please, let me finish."

    Hearing these words, the subus'' smile became a wide smile as she said, "So you''re saying that you want me to keep going?"

    It was as if her voice went right to my head and I couldn''t help nodding in a daze.

    Seeing this, the subus came forward to pat my head as she said, "Good boy." Then she leaned down towards my dick again, but this time¡­she didn''t use her hand!

    Instead, it was her mouth that came right up to my dick.

    I could even feel her breath on the tip of my dick.

    Then in one smooth move, her head came down over the tip and then the shaft before taking my entire dick in her mouth.

    The moment that her lips wrapped around my dick, I really couldn''t take it anymore.

    I was already close to climaxing because of her handjob earlier, but now that her mouth was around my dick, it was just too much for a virgin like me.

    So before she could even react, I suddenly shot my load in her mouth.

    The eyes of the subus opened slightly wider in surprise as she didn''t expect me to shoot my load all of a sudden, but then she had the same seductive look as before as she suddenly went even deeper. She went so deep that I was able to shoot my load right into the back of her mouth, right down into her throat.

    Then when I finished, she pulled her mouth off my dick and swallowed before opening her mouth to show me.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help feeling even more turned on.

    It was just too bad that there was a sinking feeling that suddenly filled me.

 Chapter 37 Demon Order Meeting (12)

    This sinking feeling came from the very depths of my body and as it filled me, I could feel the strength leaving my body.

    I wasn''t able to remain sitting up and I couldn''t help falling down onto the ground.

    As I stared up at the ceiling, I couldn''t help wondering what had happened to me.

    No matter how I tried moving my body, I found that I wasn''t able to muster the strength at all. It was as if my body had beenpletely drained of all energy, like it waspletely out of fuel.

    But then I remembered something¡­

    Subi were demons of lust that drained men of their vitality through sex¡­

    What we did just now could be considered sex¡­

    So the reason for my body losing all of its energy and being unable to move should be¡­

    I looked up at the subus who was over me with a look filled with a bit of fear, trying to look for my answer.

    The smile on her face made it very clear what the answer was.

    I wanted to say something, I wanted to say anything to make her stop, but I found that I wasn''t able to make a single sound. All of the energy had beenpletely drained from my body, to the point where even my lips wouldn''t move anymore.

    As this sensation filled my body, fear started to creep into my heart slowly but surely.

    If this continued, there was no doubt that I would¡­die!

    I couldn''t let that happen!

    I still had so much to live for!

    So I started doing everything that I could to struggle, but it was a shame that I wasn''t able to move a single finger in the end. All I could do was lie there on the ground and shake as if I was having a seizure.

    After watching me for a bit, the subus'' smile started filling with disappointment as she said, "Is that really it? Is that really all the vitality that you have?"

    She just paused as if she was waiting for an answer from me, but I still didn''t have the energy to move or even say anything. So the only thing that I could do wasy there.

    But as I wasying there, I looked at her with a pleading look to spare me.

    I knew that there was no chance of breaking free with force, so the only thing that I could do was try to appeal to her feelings and get her to let me go.

    Of course, that didn''t work at all.

    The worst part of it all was that whatever was turning me on kept working on me and I couldn''t help getting hard again. As I got hard, my dick rose up right in front of her, so it was impossible for her to miss it.

    As she saw this, the subus revealed an even wider teasing smile as she said, "Even in this situation, you''re getting turned on? You really are a pathetic man."

    My pride was being torn to pieces without any mercy, but all I could think about now was how to survive.

    After staring at me for a bit, the subus suddenly grabbed me by the cor and lifted me off the floor. She looked at me for a bit before saying, "Let''s go, at least you''ll make a good appetizer before the others."

    Just like this, I was carried off by the subus.

    I was brought into one of the rooms and I was surprised to find¡­that they were currently in the middle of an orgy in there.

    The men who were inside were shocked when they saw the subuse in while carrying me, but then one of them said, "Do you want to join?"

    The subus revealed a sweet smile before waving her hand.

    Then the men and women who had been in this room suddenly stood up. Their eyes werepletely zed over as if they had been enchanted by something.

    Then with another wave of her hand, everyone started following the subus out of the room.

    Just like this, the subus went to many other rooms and collected a bunch of followers.

    As for where we were all going¡­I had no idea.

    I just knew that there wouldn''t be a good ending.

    ¡­

    The Lord Baron knitted his brows when he felt the burning sensationing from deep inside his core.

    As soon as he felt these feelings, he realized that something was wrong with this manor.

    Without any hesitation, he immediately excused himself from the meeting that he had been in and went to find the source of this.

    However, as he walked through the halls, he couldn''t help feeling more and more bothered by this burning sensation.

    At the same time, he couldn''t help thinking of the new member that had arrived today.

    As it got stronger and stronger, he knew exactly what this burning sensationing from deep inside of him was.

    He was getting turned on.

    He didn''t know why this was happening, but he had a guess as to what the cause was.

    Subi were demons of lust and now that feelings of lust had filled him, he guessed that it was most likely rted to those three who had been sent by the count.

    But if it really was them, why would they do this?

    Did they do this on the orders of the count or was it their own personal action?

    No matter what it was though, the Lord Baron wasmitted to making them stop.

    So after thinking this through, he changed directions and started heading in the direction of the room that he had left the subi in.

    But before he could take more than a few steps, there was a voice that came from behind him.

    "If it isn''t the Lord Baron, it really is a surprise seeing you here."

    As soon as he heard this seductive voice, he immediately recognized who it belonged to.

 Chapter 38 Demon Order Meeting (13)

    As he turned around, he saw that it was Miss Morrigan who was walking towards him.

    Seeing this, the Lord Baron narrowed his eyes for a bit as if he was ring at her, but then he quickly changed his expression to reveal a calm look.

    The Lord Baron calmly said, "Miss Morrigan, I wonder, what are you doing out here? Is there something that you are dissatisfied with in the room I''ve prepared for you?"

    Miss Morrigan didn''t answer and just looked at the Lord Baron with the same seductive smile.

    Normally, the Lord Baron wouldn''t feel anything seeing this since he knew how to deal with her, but for some reason, he couldn''t help feeling that something was off about this smile. It was almost as if she knew something that he didn''t know¡­

    Seeing that she wouldn''t say anything, he didn''t n on ying with her.

    The Lord Baron said, "Miss Morrigan, if you don''t need anything, then please return to the room that has been prepared for you. I still have some other matters that I need to attend to."

    The Lord Baron was about to turn to leave, but before he could, Miss Morrigan''s hand came forward to grab him by the shoulder.

    The Lord Baron was caught off guard by this and almost fell over.

    Though the main reason he almost fell over was because she was much stronger than him.

    Even if he were to use his full force, he wouldn''t be able to break free since she was stronger than he was in the first ce. So he knew that there would be nothing to gain from trying to break free.

    Instead¡­he decided to use his pressure to force her to let go.

    The Lord Baron narrowed his eyes to look at Miss Morrigan and said in a stern voice, "Miss Morrigan, what are you doing?"

    However, Miss Morrigan''s expression didn''t even twitch when he said this. It was as if she wasn''t bothered by the tone in his voice at all.

    Seeing this, the Lord Baron couldn''t help knitting his brows.

    Miss Morrigan then said, "Lord Baron, if the guest of honour doesn''te, we can''t start the event."

    "Guest of honour?" The Lord Baron repeated in a confused voice.

    Miss Morrigan didn''t answer as she started pulling the Lord Baron by his hand.

    The Lord Baron knitted his brows even more, but since he couldn''t break free in the first ce, he could only let her pull him along.

    The two of them walked through the corridor until they came to the same main hall as before.

    Before they came in, the Lord Baron could smell something strange in the air. It was an almost fishy kind of smell that he thought that he had smelled before, but he couldn''t exactly tell what it was.

    When they walked in, he was shocked by what he saw.

    That was because there was arge orgy that was currently happening inside of the hall.

    There were many naked bodies all wrapped together and in the center of them were the two subi that came with Miss Morrigan.

    At the same time, he could see that to the side, there were people lying there with eyes that werepletely zed over.

    These people¡­it was clear that they had beenpletely drained of their vitality by the subi.

    The Lord Baron didn''t waste any time in turning in Miss Morrigan''s direction and saying, "What is the meaning of this? Do you know what you''ve done here?"

    Miss Morrigan just revealed the same seductive smile as she said, "Ah, that''s the look that I wanted to see."

    The Lord Baron''s face twisted, but he wasn''t able to say a thing.

    Miss Morrigan then continued, "I wanted to see that look for so long. Ever since I first saw how arrogant you were."

    The Lord Baron didn''t say a thing, but his eyes were darting around, as if he was looking for a way out.

    But at the same time, he could feel the heat inside of him getting stronger.

    If it wasn''t for his strong will, he might have really fallen to this magic from the subi.

    Miss Morrigan snapped out of her daze and came forward to ce her hand on the Lord Baron''s crotch. But when she did, she was surprised to find¡­that he wasn''t hard at all.

    She looked at him with a strange look before suddenly taking off her clothes, revealing her perfect body. At the same time, she looked at him with a seductive smile, doing her best to seduce him.

    But even then, she was shocked to find that¡­he still didn''t get hard.

    It was as if he wasn''t interested in her perfect body at all.

    As this fact set in, she couldn''t help feeling like her pride had been dealt a blow. This was a feeling that she had never experienced before, so it was hard for her to ept.

    But the burning sensation inside of the Lord Baron was getting stronger and stronger, so it was getting harder for him to resist. In the end, he couldn''t help peeking to the side and when he did, he started getting harder.

    Miss Morrigan followed the Lord Baron''s gaze and when she saw what he was looking at, she couldn''t help revealing a smile again. But this time, there was a trace of ridicule that was in her smile.

    That was because the Lord Baron was looking at a handsome young man who looked slightly feminine on the side who was being toyed with by one of the subi.

    As he looked at this feminine young man, he was getting harder¡­that meant that the Lord Baron¡­

    The more she thought about this, the more Miss Morrigan thought that it was funny.

    She said, "I never thought that the strict Lord Baron would be into that kind of stuff."

    The Lord Baron was pulled out of his daze when he heard this and he revealed a serious look once again without saying a thing.

    Miss Morrigan just had the same smile as she suddenly gave a snap.

    After this snap, the Lord Baron''s expression couldn''t help changing.

 Chapter 39 Demon Order Meeting (14)

    Subi were demons of seduction and they had many tools at their disposal for making this happen.

    Charm magic was the one thing that peoplemonly associated with subi, but it wasn''t the only thing that they could use.

    After all, there were people with many different tastes and subi had to be able to amodate those tastes.

    So subi had the ability to also use illusion magic and transformation magic.

    As she snapped her fingers, Miss Morrigan used her illusion spell to change her appearance. What appeared in front of the Lord Baron now was a feminine young man who was simr to the one that he had been looking at.

    When he saw this, he couldn''t stop himself even though he knew that this was Miss Morrigan in front of him¡­

    When Miss Morrigan saw that he was getting hard, she beganughing. Afterughing for a bit, she turned to look down at the dick in front of her before going down on her knees.

    She brought heard forward and in one smooth move, she took it all the way to the base.

    This dick was quiterge, so it reached all the way into her throat, but she didn''t gag on it. It was as if she didn''t have a gag reflex as she took it all the way in her mouth.

    When the Lord Baron felt this feeling, even if he wanted to resist, he wasn''t able to resist at all.

    She was a subus for a reason¡­she had techniques that people just couldn''t resist.

    As it entered her mouth, her tongue had also wrapped around his dick like a snake, curling all around it and giving him a very warm, pleasant feeling. It was a feeling like he was being rubbed by something soft.

    She didn''t stop after taking it all and she started moving her head back and forth as she sucked him off like a vacuum.

    It didn''t take long before the Lord Baron couldn''t take it anymore and he released his load inside of her mouth.

    But unlike the others, he didn''t fall with just a single load.

    This just went to show just how much vitality he had.

    After swallowing this load that was shot in her mouth, Miss Morrigan couldn''t help licking her lips before revealing a satisfied look. She then said, "As expected of the one that I had my eyes on. The amount of vitality that you have is something that others can''tpare to."

    When the other two subi heard this, they couldn''t help looking over at the Lord Baron with tempted looks.

    It seemed like they also wanted a taste of the Lord Baron, but the only reason they weren''t was because of Miss Morrigan.

    Miss Morrigan enjoyed this taste for a bit before suddenly waving her hand in front of her crotch.

    With the illusion, there was a dick that was there, but that was just an illusion.

    After she waved her hand, there was an actual dick that appeared there.

    This wasn''t just an illusion, but an actual dick that had grown at her crotch.

    This was the result of the transformation magic that subi could use.

    After changing her body, she suddenly stood up and grabbed the Lord Baron by the arms before saying, "It''s time for you to repay me."

    The Lord Baron was caught off guard, but he couldn''t stop himself from being turned on again.

    Seeing this, Miss Morrigan started pushing the Lord Baron down to his knees.

    ¡­

    After having her way with him for a bit, Miss Morrigan waved at the other two subi toe over.

    Seeing this, the two of them happily came over.

    With a snap of their fingers and a wave of their hands, the same thing happened where they both transformed into the appearance of feminine looking handsome young men.

    Aftering over, the three of them surrounded the Lord Baron who was on his knees.

    ¡­

    After leaving the manor, I didn''t head back right away.

    Instead, I had the driver stop the carriage by the side of the road before heading into the forest alone.

    This driver had been prepared by Madame Rose, so he listened to my every word without questioning me once.

    When I was alone in the forest, I took out the locket that I had swiped from the manor.

    As I held it in my hand for a bit, staring at it, that feeling from before came back and it was even stronger.

    I didn''t know what it was, but I felt like I didn''t want this locket to exist in this world.

    So I reached into my chest pocket and pulled out a dagger.

    I put the locket down onto a rock and then brought the dagger over the locket.

    After a moment of hesitation, I waved the dagger at the locket.

    mes appeared around the dagger as I waved it before it suddenly shot out a ball of mes at the locket.

    When the ball of mes hit the locket, the dark energy around the locket seemed to block this ball of mes. However, the ball of mes slowly burned away all of the dark energy that was around the locket until there was nothing left.

    Once the dark energy was gone, the mes swallowed up the locket and melted it until it turned into metal g. At the same time, the picture that had been in the locket was turned into ashes by the mes.

    After the locket had been melted, the ball of mes exploded.

    After the explosion, there was only silence around me in this dark forest.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by how much power this dagger had.

    This dagger was a special item that Madame Rose gave me to protect me at this meeting. It was a special magic item that she had been given by her family that contained three fireball spells that could be cast just by waving it.

    Seeing magic being used for the first time, I couldn''t help being shocked by just how much power these magic spells had.

    I also couldn''t help wondering if I would be able to use magic in the future¡­

    But I threw those thoughts away and headed back to the carriage.

    When I came back, the driver couldn''t help asking, "Sir, what was that sound just now?"

    The sound that he was referring to was the explosion that had rang out in the woods.

    But of course, I wasn''t going to tell him anything. So I just said, "It was nothing."

    Seeing that I wasn''t going to say anything, the driver just nodded and went back to his seat.

    I also sat back down in the carriage and then we started driving off.

 Chapter 40 Aftermath (1)

    When the sun rose, the beams of light came through the ss windows of the manor.

    These beams of light fell onto the three subi whoid there naked.

    As these beams of light fell onto them, the three of them couldn''t help slowly opening their eyes and waking up.

    After waking up, the three of them looked around themselves in a daze before suddenly knitting their brows. At the same time, the memories ofst night came back to them.

    The three of them just sat there for a bit before the other two subi looked at Miss Morrigan.

    The look in their eyes made it clear that they knew that they had messed up, but at the same time, they couldn''t believe that they had lost control like this. It was as if something had forced them to act this way¡­

    But they didn''t have time to figure out what it was since this was a disaster for them.

    The count was looking forward to all of the human sacrifices that would have been offered, but now that the Lord Baron and the rest of the demon worshipers were dead¡­there was no way that would happen.

    As for these three subi who were the cause of it¡­they would without a doubt be punished.

    So the first thing that they had to do was figure out an excuse to give to the count.

    They had a limited time since they were expected back by the count the next day, so they had to nt all the evidence so that it wouldn''t be seen through.

    In short, they had a very limited time to do a lot of things.

    After a long period of silence, Miss Morrigan said, "The humans found out that they were demon worshipers and they destroyed this branch of the demon order."

    The way that she said this sounded like she was just stating a fact.

    The other two subi didn''t say anything and just nodded in agreement to this.

    After that, all three of them stood up and started heading off in different directions.

    But before leaving, they each created a fireball that they threw back at the manor, lighting it on fire.

    Not a single one of them looked back as they walked away from the burning building.

    ¡­

    When I arrived back at Madame Rose''s manor in the morning, I found that both Cecilia and Madame Rose were waiting there for me.

    The moment that I came into the room, Madame Rose suddenly came forward and took me in her arms, catching me by surprise. When I looked up at her, I couldn''t help being even more surprised since there was a look in her eyes that I had never seen before.

    It was a gentle look that was very different from those eyes that had a hidden darkness that she had the entire time.

    I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, she patted me on the head and said, "I''m d that you''re safe."

    My mouth stopped and the words that had beening out were stuck in my throat. I really couldn''t help being surprised since she was actingpletely different from before¡­

    I was even wondering if this really was Madame Rose.

    But that feeling that came from my chest told me that it was indeed her.

    This was a feeling that couldn''t be faked.

    After she calmed down and we sat down, I took out the piece of paper that I had and ced it on the table.

    When Cecilia and Madame Rose saw this piece of paper, their eyes immediately lit up.

    Seeing the dark energy that was around the paper, they knew immediately that this was what they were looking for. As long as they had this piece of paper, they would be able to prove that the Lord Baron was conspiring with the demons.

    After being in a daze for a bit, Madame Rose suddenly came forward to take me in her arms again. This time, Cecilia also couldn''t help herself and came forward to take me in her arms as well.

    As they both hugged me, I could feel their chest pressing against me.

    The pressure that came from both of them at the same time really was something else.

    But the two of them quickly came back to their senses and turned their attention back to the piece of paper.

    After thinking for a bit, Madame Rose said, "I''ll take this to my father and have him deal with this matter."

    Cecilia couldn''t help being surprised when she heard this.

    Before this, she had suggested that Madame Rose go to her father for help, but Madame Rose had firmly rejected this proposal. But now, she was saying that she would go to her father without anyone saying anything.

    She also couldn''t help feeling that Madame Rose had changed, but she couldn''t tell exactly how she had changed¡­

    Still, she agreed to this n since the count had more than enough power to take care of the Lord Baron and this was the safest way for Madame Rose to survive this.

    After deciding this, Madame Rose turned to me and said, "You go and rest up, I''m sure that you''re tired after that long night."

    I nodded in agreement to this while swaying a bit.

    Staying up all night like that in that high tension situation definitely wasn''t rxing. I was close to falling asleep right on the spot, but I forced myself to stay awake.

    Madame Rose didn''t leave right away and she helped me over to the bed. Only when I was lying down did she leave with a concerned look on her face. She also turned back several times as she was leaving.

    This caring appearance that she had now waspletely different from themanding appearance that she had before, but it wasn''t a bad feeling.

    As she left, I could also see Cecilia standing there with a concerned look on her face which made me smile.

    With this warm feeling inside of me, I fell asleep with a happy smile on my face.

    However, when I woke up several hourster¡­it wasplete chaos.

 Chapter 41 Aftermath (2)

    It was night when I woke up.

    The room waspletely dark, so it took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but I remembered that I had fallen asleep aftering back from the demon order meeting.

    I was going to lie in bed for a bit after realizing that it was all over, but I could hear voicesing from outside. The tone that they had made it seem like they were worried about something.

    As I listened closely, I recognized that it was the voices of Madame Rose and Cecilia.

    It was clear that there was something wrong.

    So I put on my clothes and walked out.

    When I came out, the voices suddenly stopped as both of them suddenly turned to look at me.

    I couldn''t help being surprised, but it wasn''t because they were both looking at me. It was because they were looking at me with strange looks.

    There was even a trace of what seemed to be fear in their eyes as they looked at me, but that quickly disappeared. All that was left was worry and confusion.

    I couldn''t understand why they would look at me like this, so I asked, "What''s wrong?"

    Neither of them said a thing when they heard this as they kept looking at me with that strange look.

    There was a long and awkward silence that filled the air as they just sat there without saying a thing.

    I also stood there awkwardly since it didn''t feel right sitting down while they were looking at me like this.

    Finally after a long silence, Madame Rose said, "My husband, the Lord Baron Mordo is dead."

    There was no hesitation and no sadness in her voice, she said it like she was just stating a fact as she looked right at me.

    "Huh?" That was my only answer when I heard this.

    I wasn''t able to react at first since it was just too shocking, but after I understood what these words meant, I couldn''t help asking, "He''s dead? When did he die?"

    Seeing this look on my face, the expressions on the faces of the two rxed a little before they became serious again.

    Madame Rose didn''t answer my question as she reached her hand out and said, "Let me see the dagger I gave you."

    I was caught off guard when I heard this, but I still went back into the room to take the dagger out of the cloak on the chair. I brought it back out and handed it over to Madame Rose.

    As soon as she took it, she brought it up to her face and looked at it carefully before putting it down in front of her. After putting it down, she looked over at Cecilia and said, "It''s been used."

    Cecilia knitted her brows when she heard this.

    I also noticed that her hand slowly moved over to the sword at her waist.

    Madame Rose also saw this and quickly added, "It''s only been used once."

    Cecilia was surprised by this before turning to look at me.

    I couldn''t help beingpletely confused when I heard this.

    Madame Rose saw this look on my face and exined, "The manor that they were in was burned down with a magical me. The only one that I could think of was the dagger that I gave you."

    I was taken aback when I heard this.

    It didn''t take a genius to put it all together.

    She most likely thought that I was the one who killed them all and burned down the manor, but I didn''t do anything like that.

    But then I couldn''t help asking, "Why does it prove that I''m innocent if I only used it once?"

    Madame Rose nodded in response to this and exined, "There were three distinct marks of magical mes, so there were three different magical mes used."

    "Ah!" I couldn''t help saying.

    It was no wonder she thought that it was me.

    After all, this dagger had three shots and there were three signs of fireballs being shot, so this would fit perfectly.

    But as I thought about it, I couldn''t help thinking of something.

    There were three subi and three signs of magical mes, so could it be that¡­?

    As this thought passed through my mind, I didn''t rush to speak and knitted my brows to think.

    Seeing this, Madame Rose and Cecilia both knew that I had thought of something, so they waited for me to speak.

    After a bit of silence, I told them about what had happened at the manor and about the three subi that had shown up at the manor.

    After hearing this, the two of them revealed confused looks as they said, "Why would the subi do something like this?"

    I revealed an awkward look before telling them about the aphrodisiac incense that I used.

    As soon as she heard about this, Cecilia pulled her sword out to point at me as she said, "Where did you get this incense? What were you nning on using it for?"

    I immediately raised my hand to show that I meant no harm, but before I could say anything, it was Madame Rose who protected me by saying, "Cece, calm down. I''m sure that he didn''t mean anything by it and will exin where he got it from."

    I revealed an awkward look again before saying, "I can''t tell you where I got it from, but I can tell you that I was never nning on using it. It was just that it was the right situation that I used it in the first ce."

    Madame Rose looked right into my eyes after I said this and I didn''t look away this time.

    After looking into my eyes for a bit, she finally said, "Alright, I believe you."

    Cecilia had an unwilling look in her eyes, but she was calmed down by Madame Rose in the end.

    After calming down, Madame Rose then asked, "Why did they burn down the manor though?"

 Chapter 42 Monster Wave

    I couldn''t help looking at Madame Rose with a strange look.

    I couldn''t tell if she was asking this question on purpose or if she really didn''t know¡­but judging by the look on her face, it seemed like she really didn''t know¡­

    So I had no choice but to exin, "Well, since the subi were incited by the incense, they most likely attacked the demon worshipers. As demons of lust, they¡­most likely drained them of all of their vitality and then killed them. But since it wasn''t what they were supposed to do, they burned the manor down to hide the evidence."

    Madame Rose nodded in response to this before saying, "I also thought of that, but that seems like it would be too crude. After all, there were many different ways they could have taken care of the evidence that didn''t involve burning down the entire manor. They could have created fake evidence that pointed the me away from them and then followed up on that¡­"

    She continued on to give many different ways that the subi could have covered it up much more efficiently.

    As she said all of this, I couldn''t help feeling that I had misjudged Madame Rose.

    I had underestimated Madame Rose, but it seemed that she had been thinking much deeper than me. She had thought of many different ways that all seemed feasible and I couldn''t help being a bit scared of her after hearing this.

    But she didn''t know what the subi were like, so it couldn''t be med on her.

    The subi seemed like they were the kind that panicked easily, so they must have thought of the simplest thing and gone with it. That was most likely why they had chosen to burn down the manor.

    I just said with a smile, "I''m sure that they were panicking after realizing what they had done and chose the simplest solution because of it."

    Madame Rose looked at me with a doubtful look as she said, "Is that so?"

    I just nodded with the same smile.

    She looked at me for a bit before giving a nod as well, as if she epted this answer, but then she quickly knitted her brows again.

    I asked in a surprised voice, "Is there still something else wrong?"

    Madame Rose didn''t answer right away, but she eventually said with a nod, "Un, it''s the monster wave."

    "Monster wave?" I repeated in a confused voice before suddenly realizing what she was talking about. However, after realizing this, I couldn''t help feeling even more confused as I asked, "Shouldn''t the monster wave have dissipated because the demon worshipers were killed? After all, if the demon worshipers are gone, there''s nothing for them to gain from sending this monster wave at the town, right?"

    That was right, the main goal of this monster wave was to sacrifice humans to the demons.

    However, since the demon worshipers were gone, it wasn''t as if the human sacrifices could be prepared for the monster wave to capture. So the demons that should have learned of the death of these demon worshipers should have given up on this monster wave n.

    Madame Rose didn''t answer right away as she gave a sigh and just sat there with knitted brows.

    After a long time, she gave another sigh before saying, "The problem is that without the interference of the demons, the monsters are now just moving on their own."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this.

    No matter how you looked at it, that seemed like a good thing since these monsters would naturally dissipate without the interference of the demons.

    But then Madame Rose said, "Without the demons controlling them, a few of the monsters have scattered, but a group of them are still heading towards the town."

    I finally realized what Madame Rose was worrying about.

    The monster wave threat still existed, even if the wave had be smaller.

    The bigger problem was that with the demon worshipers here and the demons controlling the monster wave, the damage would have been minimalized because they wouldn''t want to destroy the town.

    But without anything controlling them, the monsters would cause great damage to the town since they would just follow their instincts to survive.

    A cornered beast was the most dangerous after all.

    After a long pause, I couldn''t help asking, "How big is the monster wave now?"

    Madame Rose didn''t answer this and instead turned to Cecilia who had been silently sitting there. However, that wasn''t strange since Cecilia was the captain of the guards and the one who should know the situation with the monster wave the best.

    Cecilia was silent for a bit before saying with a heavy look, "30% of the monster wave has dissipated, but the remaining 70% is still heading towards the town. At the current size of the monster wave, it will take the lives of half the guards and half the town will be destroyed for us to wipe them out."

    After a pause, she added, "But there were signs of more monsters leaving the wave, so those estimates could be wrong. We''ll keep monitoring the situation and we also have other ns to make more monsters leave the wave before they reach the town."

    Though it seemed a bit hopeful the way that she said this, at the very least, it meant that there were still options that were avable. As for how feasible they were, I chose not to think about it.

    Madame Rose gave a nod in response to this before saying with a concerned voice, "Cece, don''t push yourself too much."

    Cecilia''s expression rxed a bit as she just gave a simple nod.

    With all of this settled, there was nothing else to discuss, so I went back to rest up some more.

    But I couldn''t fall asleep as Iid there in bed lost in thought.

    Could it be that this was a remnant from when this world was still a game?

    The town being destroyed by the monster wave was a key event in the game. So even if I destroyed the demon order branch here, could it be that they were still destined to attack and destroy the town?

    Was there anything that I could do to stop this or was this something that couldn''t be stopped?

    After all, in this forced event in the prologue, both Madame Rose and Cecilia disappeared and they were never seen again.

    This wasn''t something that I could allow to happen.

 Chapter 43 Baroness (1)

    When the sun shined in through the window and fell onto my eyes, I couldn''t help waking up.

    When I opened my eyes, I saw that it was morning and that I was all alone in this room.

    I had expected Madame Rose to be with me, but it seemed like she had gotten up early in the morning for something.

    I wanted to keep lying in bed, but as I remembered everything that we talked aboutst night, I just couldn''t stay lying there anymore. So I got up and got dressed before walking out into the living room.

    When I walked out, I found that Madame Rose and Cecilia were both there along with a bunch of maids.

    These maids were running around helping Madame Rose put on her dress, but this wasn''t a normal dress. This dress was much fancier than anything that she had put on before.

    It was as if it was a special dress for a special asion, but I didn''t know what that asion was.

    At the same time, I was also surprised to find that Cecilia was here in full armour.

    Normally, she would either wear light armour or wouldn''t have any armour on at all, but now she was fully dressed in heavy armour.

    I couldn''t help thinking that something was wrong.

    When Madame Rose and the maids saw me, she didn''t say a word as she gave a snap and pointed at me. The maids all gave nods to show that they understood beforeing over to grab me by the arms.

    I couldn''t understand what was happening and I couldn''t help panicking, but before I could do anything, I was taken away by those maids.

    An hourter, I had been fully washed and dressed in fancy clothes before being brought back to Madame Rose''s room.

    Remembering all that happened, my face couldn''t help turning red.

    It had been an ordeal trying to convince the maids to let me wash myself.

    They refused to let me do it until¡­they saw the size of my dick.

    When thatrge python appeared in front of them, they couldn''t help revealing shocked looks before their faces turned red. Seeing this, they finally decided that it would be better for me to wash myself, but as they left, I could see that almost all of the maids who came with me couldn''t help sneaking a peek.

    It was the same when I changed into these fancy clothes.

    I could feel their gazes falling on me as I changed¡­

    But when it was all over and I was back in the room, my chin couldn''t help dropping when I saw Madame Rose standing there.

    She was wearing a beautiful red dress that perfectly entuated her figure, but that alone wasn''t it. She also had her long flowing hair tied up into a perfect ponytail that ran down her back, giving her a powerful feeling.

    She was the perfect representation of a powerful woman.

    Seeing the way that I was looking at her, she suddenly revealed a smile. She raised her hand up and wagged a finger before saying, "Come over here."

    I heard her voice, but I didn''t process it until a few secondster.

    When I did process it, I walked over in a daze until I was standing in front of her.

    She came forward to look at me before reaching her hands out to help fix the tie that I was wearing. After that, she also dusted off a few parts of the suit that I was wearing before moving up to fix my hair.

    As her hands moved across my body, they couldn''t help touching a few sensitive spots.

    She didn''t mean anything by it as she was just fixing my outfit, but when her hands touched it, I really couldn''t stop myself¡­

    So there was a tent that was slowly being pitched in my pants.

    The maids to the side noticed it and they couldn''t help covering their mouths as their faces turned red.

    Cecilia also noticed it and her face filled with a bit of anger, but at the same time¡­it also turned a bit red. There was also a trace of interest that could be seen at the bottom of her eyes.

    But Madame Rose waspletely focused on helping me fix my outfit that she didn''t notice.

    When she finished, she stood up and looked me over before saying with a satisfied smile, "Looking good."

    It was only then that she noticed that there was a tent being pitched in my pants.

    She was surprised, but she acted like she didn''t see anything.

    She just leaned in and said, "Unfortunately we don''t have any time for me to help you. You can get it under control yourself, right?"

    The way that she asked me this almost had a slightlymanding tone to it that I couldn''t help being attracted to.

    But since this was a solemn request from her, I responded with a nod and said, "Un."

    Then after some thinking of things that would turn me off, I was able to get rid of the tent that was pitched.

    As it disappeared, the maids couldn''t help revealing slightly disappointed looks.

    It was the same for Cecilia who still acted like she was angry.

    Seeing that I was able to control myself, Madame Rose patted me on the head and said, "Good boy."

    If it wasn''t for me controlling myself, I would have popped another boner hearing this¡­especially with the natural seductive way that she said it.

    She then reached her hand out to me and said, "Let''s go."

    I was surprised to see this, but then remembering my manners, I took her hand.

    It was just too bad that I had no idea where we were going, so I couldn''t lead even if I wanted to.

    Madame Rose also knew this, so she led me along, though she walked slowly to make it seem like she was being led.

    We walked through the halls of the manor and came out to a carriage that was waiting for us.

    This carriage quickly took us to the center of the town where there seemed to be some kind of ceremony that had been prepared.

 Chapter 44 Baroness (2)

    Around the stage that had been prepared, there were many people who looked to be peasants standing around, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

    At the same time, to the side, there were some people who were dressed in fancier clothes that were sitting down in chairs that were also waiting for the ceremony to begin.

    Seeing all of this, I couldn''t help feeling even more confused.

    But I didn''t have time to ask anything as the carriage suddenly stopped.

    When it stopped, the driver came over to open the door, but Madame Rose didn''t go out.

    Instead, she reached her hand out to me once again.

    I was in a daze at first since this situation overwhelmed me, but I still took her hand in the end. Then the two of us came out of the carriage and walked up to the stage together.

    As soon as we appeared, we became the center of attention.

    Everyone was dazzled by Madame Rose''s beauty at first, but then they quickly turned their attention to me.

    As for the kind of attention that I received, it wasn''t the positive kind.

    After all, I was some unknown kid who was escorting Madame Rose, walking alongside her like I was her equal.

    For these people, they naturally thought that I was some upstart who was above my position.

    Seeing this, I wanted to move a few steps back so that I was following Madame Rose, but she suddenly grabbed my arm and stopped me from doing this. When I looked at her, she looked back at me with a firm look that stopped me from doing anything else.

    The two of us walked right up to the stage and once I escorted her to the main position, I wanted to move to the side. The people gathered here were here for Madame Rose''s ceremony, so they wouldn''t want someone like me on stage with her.

    But once again, she grabbed my arm and forced me to stand beside her.

    I could only stand there with a bitter smile on my face.

    I didn''t know what she wanted to do, but the piercing resing from the crowd really did hurt.

    After a short silence, Madame Rose said, "As you are all aware, the Lord Baron has perished."

    As soon as her voice fell, everyone''s chin couldn''t help dropping in shock, including my own.

    It wasn''t shock over the news, but rather over the fact that she had announced something like this as bluntly as she did.

    Normally, one would try to hide something as vtile as this for as long as possible and not announce it in such an open fashion. However, Madame Rose went against the norm and announced it without hesitation in such an open ce.

    Seeing the shock on everyone''s face, Madame Rose didn''t seem to care as she continued, "Since the Lord Baron has perished, it is my right as his wife to inherit his title since we do not have an heir."

    Everyone slowly came back from their shock and slowly nodded in agreement to this.

    There wasn''t anyone that seemed to be opposed to this statement.

    Among thesemoners, Madame Rose had quite the good reputation.

    It wasn''t just because she was beautiful, although that was a big part of it. It was because she had enacted many different policies that had improved the lives of thesemoners.

    Others didn''t know, but I knew that it was all part of the Lord Baron''s n as well for her to have this reputation.

    After all, it would be even more devastating for her to be framed as a demon worshiper if she had this good reputation.

    So he wanted to build this good reputation for her.

    But it all backfired in the end since he was now dead and she was in prime position to take over his title.

    As I listened, I realized what this ceremony was all about.

    It was a ceremony for Madame Rose to take over the position of Baroness formally so that she would be able to do what she needed to do.

    This was something that needed to happen as soon as possible since there was the looming threat of the monster wave on this town. So that was why she had announced the death of the Lord Baron without any hesitation.

    It seemed like Madame Rose had already nned everything.

    Seeing that most everyone was in support of the session that she had just announced, Madame Rose gave a satisfied nod before turning to someone who had been waiting on the side the entire time.

    This person was the priest from the local church who was here to preside over the session ceremony.

    As the priest from the church, he had the divine right from God to bestow these noble titles and preside over session ceremonies.

    The priest came over and stood in front of Madame Rose, raising the staff in his hand before saying, "Do you swear to protect your subjects ording to the title that has been bestowed upon you? Do you swear to uphold your responsibilities to the people as one of the nobles chosen by God?"

    Madame Rose said with a nod, "I swear."

    The priest brought the staff forward and Madame Rose bowed slightly for the priest to tap the staff over her head.

    The priest brought his hands together and said, "I bestow upon you the title of Baroness in ordance with the will of God."

    There was silence that followed this, but then the crowd broke out in cheers.

    Madame¡­Baroness Rose stood up and waved her hand at the people to acknowledge this.

    To the side, I also pped along with the crowd.

    I knew that with this, the plot of the story had changed and now there was a chance that¡­

    Before I could think any further about this, Baroness Rose came over and took me by the arm, pulling me in front of the crowd and the priest.

    The crowd and the priest all fell silent as they were stunned by this, but that wasn''t the greatest shock that they received yet.

    Baroness Rose suddenly said, "This man will officially be my new husband and the new Lord Baron."

 Chapter 45 Baron

    As soon as her voice fell, not a single person was able to say a single thing in response.

    That included me who just stared at her in a daze.

    But then the crowd exploded withints.

    There were countless people that were cursing me out for being a demon and using some kind of magic to control the new baroness.

    But in the end, they were all quieted down by the guards that had been at the ceremony.

    The priest looked at me with a strange look, but then he shook his head to deny the allegations of the crowd.

    This man might be a priest, but he was also a powerful light magic user since he was able to be a priest. The priests in this game were all powerful clerics that relied on power to reach their position, so not a single one of them could be looked down on.

    This tranted to this world that was based on that game.

    So with the prestige that this priest had, it quickly cleared up the allegations of me using magic to control the baroness.

    But that still didn''t exin why Baroness Rose would want me as her husband and the new baron.

    The priest looked carefully at Baroness Rose and asked, "Baroness, are you sure of this? Do you understand what you are asking for?"

    Baroness Rose had been looking at me the entire time,pletely ignoring the crowd around her as she was waiting for my reaction. But since it was the priest who asked her this, she had no choice but to turn to him to respond.

    "I am fully aware of what this decision means." Baroness Rose said in a firm voice.

    The priest had a strange look on his face, but he still gave a nod of acknowledgement in the end.

    After all, he was able to see that she wasn''t affected by a single trace of magic.

    So this was indeed something that she was saying of her own will.

    But of course, even if the priest epted this, that didn''t mean that the others would.

    Especially those people who were sitting on the side with fancy clothes. These were the rich and powerful people in the Lord Baron''s territory who hadn''t be demon worshipers, so they had survived the purge.

    These people were fine with Madame Rose taking over as the baroness, but for someone like me who came out of nowhere to go over their head and be the new baron¡­That was something that these people definitely couldn''t ept.

    Not to mention, there were some of them who knew my true identity.

    They knew that I was the sex ve that the Lord Baron had bought for Madame Rose.

    Someone of this background definitely wasn''t suited to bing the new baron!

    So they were about to make a fuss and use their prestige to pressure Baroness Rose.

    But before they could, there was someone who took the lead to stop them.

    It was Richard, the one that had supported Madame Rose and had given me the disguise to infiltrate the demon order.

    "All of you, do you understand what you are doing? Baroness Rose is the new ruler of this domain and all of you are thinking of overstepping your bounds! I will not forgive anyone that shows disrespect to the baroness!" Richard said in a fierce voice.

    When these people heard this, they couldn''t help cowering a bit.

    That was because after the purge, with many positions of power being vacated, Richard had gained quite a bit of influence in this territory. Not to mention, he was someone who was loyal to Madame Rose, so she had helped him im quite a bit of power.

    So they didn''t dare offend Richard right now.

    At the same time, Baroness Rose had also turned her gaze away from the priest and was ring at these people.

    When this gaze was on them, they couldn''t help feeling the pressureing from Baroness Rose that suppressed them.

    So they had no choice but to back down and ept Baroness Rose''s decision.

    Richard gave a snort after seeing them cower and he turned back to look in our direction.

    Though it seemed like he was looking at Baroness Rose, I could tell that his gaze was on me¡­

    For some reason, I could also feel a bit of hostilitying from that gaze.

    If I remember correctly, this Richard wasn''t married and didn''t have a fiancee¡­Though he was significantly older than Baroness Rose¡­

    After the crowd fell quiet, Baroness Rose turned back to look at me as if she was still waiting for a response from me.

    But I was in a terrible position right now.

    I could feel the gazes of hostility, anger, and envying from the crowd.

    Baroness Rose was a beautiful woman and she was someone that now had the title of baroness, so she was the dream lover of countless people. The fact that I had swooped in out of nowhere and imed her would definitely create many enemies.

    But there really was nothing else that I could say in this situation.

    So I could only give a nod in response to this.

    Baroness Rose revealed a happy smile before bringing me over to stand in front of the priest.

    The priest had a very awkward and strange look on his face, but under the pressure of Baroness Rose, he had no choice but to do the same ceremony that he did for her with me.

    After he finished asking me the same questions, I couldn''t help looking at Baroness Rose.

    Seeing that smile on her face, I could only nod and said, "I swear."

    With that, I was named Baron Zwein.

    Once the ceremony was over, Baroness Rose didn''t spend any more time here.

    Under the angry and distrusting look of the crowd, we headed back to the carriage and drove off back to the manor.

    Of course, not a single one of these looks were aimed at Baroness Rose.

    All of them were aimed at me.

 Chapter 46 Itâ€™s Been A While

    When we came back to the manor, the first thing that happened was¡­we changed out of those outfits.

    They might have been fancy, but they definitely were notfortable.

    After we got out of those outfits, we gathered in the room again and Cecilia joined us.

    The maids served tea and some snacks before being dismissed by Baroness Rose.

    But after they left, not a single one of us said a thing.

    Baroness Rose just calmly sipped her tea while the two of us just sat there in front of her.

    Finally, she said to me, "It seems like you have something you want to talk about."

    I nodded before saying with a serious look, "Why did you make me a baron?"

    Baroness Rose didn''t respond to this and instead looked at me with a quizzical look, "Did you not want to be the baron? Be my husband?"

    I couldn''t help being taken aback by this, especially since I was shocked that she was acting cute like this.

    This definitely isn''t something that she would have done in the past, or at least the her that I knew wouldn''t have done that. It really did seem like she had changed¡­but I couldn''t tell how she had changed.

    But I couldn''t let myself fall into her pace like this.

    I gave a cough before saying, "It''s not that I don''t want that, but it''s too early for this, don''t you think?"

    Baroness Rose didn''t respond when she heard this as she just took another calm sip of her tea.

    I could see that she didn''t intend to answer this, so I kept pushing by saying, "You should know how dangerous it is doing something like this. Not just for me, but also for you as the new baroness. Doing something like this will just destabilize your own position and make it harder for you to take over as the baroness."

    Baroness Rose just calmly sipped her tea as she listened to meining to her, but then she suddenly put the tea down. The way that she put it down was a bit hard, so there was a loud sound that rang out.

    As soon as this loud sound rang out, I couldn''t help swallowing the words that I had been about to say and just stood there with my mouth wide open.

    Baroness Rose looked at me, but this time she didn''t have the same gentle look as before. Instead, she revealed a look that I was more familiar with from our time together.

    It was a look that had a trace of darkness in it, but it was mainly filled with a kind of jealousy.

    Looking at me like this, she said, "If I left you alone, who knows how many girls will flock to you."

    I couldn''t help being even more stunned when I heard this.

    I never thought that she would¡­act jealous like this.

    She normally kept her feelings much more guarded, so for her to act this way really was shocking.

    I revealed an awkward look before saying, "You know it''s not like that. I wouldn''t do anything¡­like that."

    Though I said this, it was clear by the awkward tone in my voice that I didn''t really mean it.

    But I couldn''t mean it!

    This was my precious new life given to me by God, so I wanted to live it how I wanted to live it.

    Not to mention that I had been sent to this world of the H-game that I wanted to be in when I was still back on Earth. There were still many things that I wanted to do in this world, many women that I wanted to meet and sleep with!

    I didn''t want to be restrained this early!

    Baroness Rose narrowed her eyes even more when she heard this, but then she gave a sigh in the end. She then said, "I know that I won''t be able to stop you and it would just hurt you to use force against you. But I do hope that you will look at me more."

    Seeing her look at me like this, my heart couldn''t help trembling.

    After all, it would be a lie to say that I didn''t feel anything towards her.

    So I couldn''t help unconsciously saying, "I''m sorry."

    Hearing this, Baroness Rose revealed a faint smile before suddenly standing up, catching both of us off guard. Then in a further shock, she crawled onto the table and started moving towards me.

    Seeing her act this way, I could only stand there in a daze as I couldn''t understand what she wanted to do.

    She crawled across the table until she was right up in front of me and then she grabbed me by the shirt, pulling me in closer. Her hands didn''t stop there as they started moving into the shirt and they moved up, rubbing against my chest.

    As her hands moved up, they got closer and closer to their target¡­

    When she arrived, she suddenly pinched¡­on my nipples.

    When she did this, it was as if there was a bolt of lightning that ran through my body.

    I couldn''t help saying, "What are you¡­"

    Before I could finish, she suddenly lifted up my shirt and exposed my chest. Then her face came forward until her mouth was¡­over my nipples.

    Her tongue came out first and she did a quick lick to tease them.

    This time, the electric feeling was even stronger than before. This time, It was like my entire body was going numb from the feeling of her licking my nipple.

    As soon as she licked it, I couldn''t hold back anymore as a tent was pitched in my pants.

    Seeing this, she didn''t stop as she continued teasing my nipples.

    One was being teased by her fingers while she licked the other one.

    I couldn''t help letting out moans of pleasure as this happened.

    Finally, when the tent in my pants reached a size that she was satisfied with, Baroness Rose stopped teasing my nipples and looked up to say with a charming smile, "It''s been a while, hasn''t it?"

 Chapter 47 Something Different

    Even a fool would be able to understand what she was implying in this situation.

    Not to mention, I was already about to burst out of my pants with how much she had turned me on.

    So without hesitation, I grabbed her by the shoulder and then suddenly pulled her close.

    Baroness Rose waspletely caught off guard by my sudden action and her body just went along with it.

    Then in one smooth move, I grabbed her legs and her back, picking her up in a princess carry.

    Even though this was a small body, at this moment, I was filled with adrenaline.

    With that adrenaline coursing through me, I had power that didn''t suit this small frame of mine.

    Baroness Rose''s face turned red when I picked her up, but she didn''t struggle at all. Instead, she just focused on looking at my face with that same blush on her face.

    After picking her up, I carried her into the bedroom to the side and then plopped her right onto the bed. Then without her saying a thing, I started pulling her clothes off of her.

    Baroness Rose was once again surprised by this, but she didn''t struggle.

    In fact, she couldn''t stop her heart from beating fast.

    This was definitely a different feeling from before, but it wasn''t as if she disliked it.

    Even if she was someone that liked being in charge, she also wanted to be taken care of from time to time like this. She still had the heart of a young maiden¡­not that she was that old in the first ce.

    As for me, after taking off her clothes and seeing the beautiful body lying there under me, I couldn''t stop this feeling from filling me. There was a feeling of wanting to dominate this beautiful body that stirred deep inside of me.

    If it was before where she was still the madame and I was still a sex ve, I wouldn''t have acted on this feeling, but now¡­

    It was all different since she was now the baroness and she had made me the baron, her husband.

    Since I was the baron and her husband, shouldn''t I take charge?

    If I was a man, shouldn''t I act like one?

    So I allowed this feeling of domination to fill me and take me away.

    I pulled off my clothes and revealed therge prize that was hidden underneath.

    When Baroness Rose saw thisrge prize appear, her eyes filled with anticipation and there was a small wet spot that appeared on the bed where the spot between her legs was.

    But I didn''t give it to her right away.

    I reached out and turned her body so that her head was facing me.

    Once she was like this, I stood at the edge of the bed so that my dick was right over her head.

    Seeing this dick casting a shadow over her, Baroness Rose couldn''t help giving a gulp as her eyes filled with even more excitement and anticipation.

    I grabbed the side of her head and then said, "Suck it."

    Baroness Rose was surprised by this sudden order from me, but she also quickly opened her mouth. After that, her tongue started reaching out, moving towards my dick as if she couldn''t wait to lick it.

    I revealed a faint smile when I saw this and then I moved my dick down slightly so that her tongue could touch it.

    When it was ced in front of her, Baroness Rose''s tongue immediately started moving up and down.

    This time, there was no technique at all.

    This time, she was just trying to lick it as much as she could, as if she wanted to savour the taste of it.

    But her passion carried through and pleasure came from my dick.

    While there wasn''t a special technique used, the way that her tongue danced on my dick as she tried to lick it as much as possible was just as good as any proper technique would be.

    The more that she licked, the better it felt.

    I came closer and closer to a climax, but I pulled back before I could.

    She looked up at me with a disappointed look as if she wanted to keep licking it, but that disappointed look quickly disappeared as I stuffed the dick into her mouth.

    When she felt it enter her mouth, her eyes opened wide as it felt like her jaw was about to be ripped apart. But she pushed through the pain and started licking it again.

    Feeling this, I couldn''t help looking at her with amazement.

    I could see the tears in the corner of her eyes, but even then she was still licking my dick.

    Since she was so into it, I didn''t hesitate to say, "Take it deeper."

    Then in one smooth move, I pushed about a fourth of my dick into her mouth.

    I would have pushed even further, but I was scared that it would be too much for her, so I didn''t push it too deep.

    However, I was quickly surprised by the feeling that came from my dick.

    Even though her mouth waspletely stuffed, Baroness Rose didn''t stop her tongue from moving around the part of my dick that was inside of her. It was like a snake''s tongue as it danced atop my dick, going around it again and again.

    As she did this, I really couldn''t take it anymore.

    Her licking it earlier had already pushed me close to the edge, but now¡­she had pushed me over the edge.

    So I grabbed her head and said, "I''m about to cum!"

    Baroness Rose''s eyes opened wide when she heard this, but her expression quickly rxed and she revealed an expression that seemed like she was ready to take it.

    So with a tremble of my waist, I shot my load into her mouth.

    As I shot it, her tongue didn''t stop at all as it continued to lick all the parts of my dick.

    As she did this, the pleasure that I felt made sure that I shot out every bit of that load into her mouth.

    When the trembling of my waist stopped, I realized my mistake and I quickly pulled out my dick from her mouth.

    There was a mix of slobber and cum that came dripping out of Baroness Rose''s mouth, but she didn''t mind as she started gasping for air. After all, her throat had been jammed shut with a dick just now, so it was hard for her to breathe.

    But she quickly caught her breath.

    After catching her breath, her hands came up to scoop the semen that was on her face off before¡­she brought it to her mouth and licked it all up out of her hands like it was the most delicious meal.

    She swallowed all of it while lying there on her back and then when she finished, she opened her mouth for me to see.

    I was shocked to see her doing all of this, but at the same time¡­my dick couldn''t help getting hard again seeing this.

    Since she was still ready to go, I got onto the bed and stood there over her, letting my dick cast a shadow over her face before saying, "It''s time for the second round."

 Chapter 48 Pressed Down

    After hearing this, Baroness Rose just revealed a smile as she said, "I''m ready."

    I didn''t hesitate at all after hearing this as I bent down over her.

    But before putting it into her, I grabbed both of her legs and brought them up over her head so that she was presenting herself perfectly for me.

    After bringing those legs up, I said to her, "Hold them."

    Baroness Rose was surprised and confused to hear this, but her hands still came up to hold her legs as I hadmanded.

    As she held her legs and presented herself like this, I couldn''t help feeling emotional.

    This was a position that almost every game had, but actually seeing it in front of me¡­was something else.

    It was the mating press!

    After a moment of being stunned by this beautiful scene, I immediately went forward and took my position above her.

    When I was there above her, Baroness Rose couldn''t help bing even more wet and she moved her hip, as if she wanted to get closer. However, holding her hands like that forced her to stay lying there.

    With a smile, I said, "Be good."

    Baroness Rose couldn''t help revealing a surprised look, but then she said, "Un."

    Then in one swift move, I thrusted my hip forward, inserting it as deep as it would go.

    With how wet she was, I was able to push all the way inside of her.

    However, I couldn''t get all of my dick into her as there was something that seemed to block me from going any further. It was almost as if I had reached the back of her vagina and couldn''t push any further.

    So instead of trying to push, I just pulled out.

    Baroness Rose had been in a daze as she muttered, "So full." But when she felt that I was about to suddenly pull out, she couldn''t help saying, "Wait, not so¡­"

    Before she could finish, I had already pulled my dick out of her.

    With this sudden movement, Baroness Rose wasn''t able to keep up and she was filled with so much pleasure that she couldn''t help¡­spraying all over me.

    I couldn''t help revealing a look of pride when I saw this.

    I had gone from someone who didn''t know a thing to someone that could make a woman cum with just a single thrust¡­I had reallye a long way.

    But there was no letting her rest as I suddenly thrusted into her again.

    Baroness Rose had been in the middle of her climax when she was suddenly filled with my dick once more.

    As the wave of pleasure assaulted her brain, she couldn''t stop her eyes from rolling back and her facial muscles rxed as her tongue came out of her mouth.

    Once again, I was filled with a sense of pride after seeing this.

    Just two thrusts was enough to get an ahegao out.

    It seemed like I really was improving my technique the more that I had sex.

    I pushed all the way into her and then the same thing happened where I was stopped from pushing any further.

    Since I had reached the back, I was about to pull out again.

    But then I suddenly remembered something.

    Wasn''t there supposed to be another space inside of a woman''s vagina?

    Then did that mean that I could push even further?

    With this thought, I looked down at Baroness Rose who was drowning in pleasure before deciding that I would give it a try.

    So even though it felt like there was something blocking my dick from going any further, I still pushed forward. After using a bit more force than I did before, I found that my dick was indeed slowly going forward.

    The feeling that came from my dick was like it was being inserted into another hole.

    Baroness Rose had been out of it from the waves of pleasure that were attacking her brain, but then she suddenly snapped out of it when she felt the sensation that came from down there.

    She looked up at me and said, "Wait, don''t! If you push any further, you''ll¡­"

    She wasn''t able to finish as her face suddenly twisted in pleasure.

    I had been able to push through that hole and reached even further inside of Baroness Rose.

    I knew it, there was still the womb that was inside of her that hadn''t been reached yet.

    So I thrusted all the way into her and she once again revealed the same ahegao face as she muttered, "Ah, it''s even deeper¡­"

    This time, I found that I was able to reach all the way inside of her with my dick.

    At the same time, I could see that there was a little bulge that appeared on her stomach.

    I had thought that it was just a myth that bulges could be created, but it seemed that it wasn''t a myth.

    With this, I couldn''t help revealing a smile before going to pull my dick out of her again.

    But this time, I didn''t pull all the way out. Instead, I pulled just enough so that I reached the entrance of her womb before thrusting forward again, hitting the very back of her womb.

    Instead of doing her vagina, I was doing her womb.

    Again and again, I pressed my weight down on her, thrusting into her again and again.

    With every thrust, there was a spray that hit my waist as she came again and again.

    During this time, I also brought my face down to her face and ced a firm kiss on her lips. However, her facial muscles were so rxed that she didn''t even feel it. I could just feel her tongue flopping around in my mouth, almost as if she hadpletely lost consciousness.

    But I could see that wasn''t the case as her eyes kept reacting from every thrust that I made into her.

    Finally after thrusting for a bit, I could feel that I was about to climax.

    So with onest thrust, I pushed my dick all the way up inside of her before shooting my load deep into her womb.

    This time, Baroness Rose reacted once again as she snapped out of her daze and she looked up at me with a slightly fearful reaction. But as soon as my load was shot into her, pleasurepletely filled her face as she said, "Ah, it''s filling me up! It''spletely filling me up! There''s so much of it!"

    After shooting my load into her, I slowly pulled my dick that waspletely drenched in cum out of her.

    Looking down at her pussy and all of the cum that was dripping out, I revealed a satisfied look.

    But at the same time, I couldn''t help getting more turned on and once again my dick started getting hard.

    However, it didn''t seem like Baroness Rose had the energy to keep going¡­

    It was a good thing that Cecilia was there on the side.

    So I waved my hand at her and said, "Come over here."

    Cecilia had been standing there in a daze, watching the two of them go at it like animals.

    The way that he had thrusted into her made her think of animals who only fornicated for the pure instinct of reproduction. It was as if he had only wanted to get her pregnant.

    Some might be turned off by this pure disy of lust, but it made Cecilia very turned on.

    Her legs were already soaked from watching the two of them.

    So when he called her over, her heart couldn''t help skipping a beat before she slowly made her way over.

    When she came over, I presented my dick to her and said, "Clean it up."

    The smell that came from the dick in front of her assaulted her nose and went all the way to her brain,pletely wiping out her sense of reason. It wasn''t a pleasant smell, but for some reason, it became more and more attractive the more she smelled of it.

    So she fell to her knees and started licking the dick clean.

    Once it was clean, I said to her, "Get on the bed, it''s your turn."

    Cecilia''s heart couldn''t help skipping a beat after hearing this, but she still obediently got into the bed andid there beside Baroness Rose.

    As sheid there, it was as if her heart was about to jump out of her chest.

    Seeing the way that she looked, I really couldn''t stop myself¡­

    I really wanted to make a mess of her!

    So I went over her and started doing to her what I had done to Baroness Rose.

 Chapter 49 Special Armour (1)

    When I woke up the next morning, I was hit with the scent of cum and sweat mixed together.

    After the animalistic sex that we hadst night, no one had the energy to clean up and we had fallen asleep just like that.

    After I had finally had my fill, I hadid there in between these two beautiful women and had fallen asleep.

    When I woke up, I found that both of them were still lying there in the same position that I had left them inst night.

    Both of them wereying there with their legs still up above their heads in the same mating press position. Of course, their arms were no longer holding them there since they were both asleep.

    But when they felt the movement that I made to look at them, both of them slowly opened their eyes as they woke up.

    After waking up, the first thing that they did¡­

    "Ah!"

    They both gave pained cries as they slowly brought their legs down from over them.

    Sleeping in this position hadpletely cut the blood flow to their legs, so they werepletely numb now. It was very painful for them to slowly bring their legs down and it took a long time before the feeling came back to their legs.

    Both of them revealed bitter smiles as this happened, but they also revealed fond looks as they remembered what had happenedst night.

    After recovering, both of them looked at me with a strange look.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by the strange way that they looked at me, so I asked, "What? Is there something on my face?"

    Both of them slowly shook their heads before suddenly revealing smiles.

    I justid there with a confused look as I couldn''t understand what was happening.

    It seemed that I really would never understand what women were thinking¡­

    After getting out of bed, the first thing that we did was go take a bath.

    The cum and sweat that had dried on our bodies left a very unpleasant feeling, so a bath would be perfect right now.

    But of course, we went into separate bathrooms.

    I had wanted to use the same bath, but the two of them knew what I was thinking and rejected it. They still had work to do today, so they couldn''t just spend time with me right now.

    But Baroness Rose had whispered in my ear, "Just wait until tonight."

    I couldn''t help feeling excited, but I restrained myself and nodded in agreement to this.

    After I had finished my bath, the maids couldn''t help looking at me with strange looks.

    They had been looking at me with these strange looks since they saw mee out of the bedroom with both Baroness Rose and Cecilia.

    It wasn''t hard to guess what they were thinking, but I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile at this thought.

    When we gathered again in the living room for some breakfast, I learned what the two of them were nning on doing today.

    Baroness Rose was going to handle the matters of this barony which was to be expected, but what Cecilia was nning on doing surprised me. At the same time, I couldn''t help feeling worried when I learned what she was heading out for.

    She was going to lead an offensive strike against the monster wave with her soldiers.

    They would be leading a gueri strike where they would attack the stragglers of the monster wave. By picking off the stragglers, they would slowly whittle down the monster wave to a point where it would be manageable.

    But of course, there were risks that came with this.

    After all, they were still fighting the monsters and the monsters were anything but weak.

    Even if they were stragglers, they were still powerful.

    Not to mention, it was a gueri strike, so it was all about speed. If they were stopped by the monsters that they attacked, they would be immediately trapped by the monster wave and decimated.

    In short, there were many different ways that this could go wrong.

    So there was no doubt that this was a very dangerous mission.

    I couldn''t help looking at Cecilia with a worried look after learning this.

    Seeing this look from me, Cecilia revealed a firm look and said, "It''s my duty as a knight to fight to protect the people."

    She was making it clear that she wouldn''t be convinced out of heading this gueri attack.

    Of course, that wasn''t my intention in the first ce.

    I knew that this was important for our survival since if the monster wave were to reach the town in its current state, there was no doubt that we would all be ughtered. I had already seen this happen before in the game, so I didn''t want to see it happen in this new life as well.

    Still, it was hard not being worried for her.

    So after thinking about it, I decided that I would do something.

    There weren''t many things that I could do, but there was something that I had that no one else in this world had.

    My system.

    I looked at the system inventory and after hesitating for a bit, I still decided to pull it out.

    If this was my previous world, it would be considered harassment to give something like this to a woman, but it was different in this world. Mainly because this thing didn''t exist, so they didn''t know what this thing was in the first ce.

    They wouldn''t know why it was wrong to give it to a woman.

    I ced the two round shaped things on the table in front of me and said, "Take these with you when you go fight the monsters. It will help you."

    Both Baroness Rose and Cecilia were surprised when they saw what I had ced in front of them.

    Cecilia couldn''t help picking up one of them and asking, "What is this?"

 Chapter 50 Special Armour (2)

    Seeing her hold it up in front of her face like this, I really couldn''t help revealing a strange bitter smile.

    After all, it was very strange seeing a woman hold this thing like this.

    When she saw the strange smile on my face, Cecilia couldn''t help feeling something was off. So she put the round thing back on the table and narrowed her eyes to look at me as she said, "What''s wrong? Why do you have that strange look on your face?"

    The bitter smile became bigger for a second, but then I quickly forced myself to calm down before saying, "Nothing, it''s nothing."

    Cecilia looked at me with the same re, as if she was still doubting me while she said, "Really?"

    I gave a calm nod before saying, "That thing is a special item that I want you to use."

    Cecilia looked back down at the round things on the table before asking, "How do I use these things?"

    Once again, I couldn''t help revealing a strange look when she asked me this.

    After all, being asked how to use these things by a woman really gave me a strange feeling.

    Cecilia noticed this look again and said, "What''s wrong with you? Why do you keep revealing that strange look?"

    I shook my head and said, "It''s nothing, it''s nothing."

    She looked at me with a look that made it clear that she didn''t believe me.

    I just gave a cough and said, "Well, it''s awkward for me how to use this since this is special armour that goes in a special ce¡­"

    She narrowed her eyes to look at me before asking, "What special ce?"

    I couldn''t help looking down.

    My eyes went from her face down to her¡­chest.

    Cecilia''s eyes followed my gaze and she saw what I was looking at. When she realized what I was referring to, her face immediately turned red from embarrassment before turning red from anger.

    She pointed her finger at me and said, "What kind of nonsense are you saying? You want to tell me that this is special armour that goes on my chest? Who would believe that kind of drivel?"

    Once again, I couldn''t help revealing a strange smile.

    That was right, if it was anyone else that said that to me, I wouldn''t have believed it either.

    However, this was an item that came from the system that God gave me, so I had no choice but to believe it.

    Seeing this strange smile on my face, Cecilia thought that I was making fun of her, so she couldn''t control herself as she stood up. She came right in front of me and grabbed me by the cor, lifting me up off the couch I was sitting on.

    Then she lifted her fist as if she was about to punch me as she said, "I really should teach you a lesson!"

    But before she could punch me, Baroness Rose suddenly said, "Cece, calm down."

    Cecilia''s fist stopped in midair after she heard this and she turned back to look at Baroness Rose with a wronged look before saying, "Ro Ro, he''s clearly sexually harassing me! Why shouldn''t I punch him?"

    Baroness Rose patted her hand before saying, "You always do this. You should calm down and listen to what he has to say first. If he is harassing you, it isn''t toote to punch him after you hear him out."

    Cecilia had an unwilling look, but she still let me go in the end.

    I had thought that Baroness Rose would help me, but it seemed like she was just throwing me further into the pit¡­

    Still, I calmed down and started exining what this thing was to Cecilia.

    As she listened, her face couldn''t help turning more and more red from both anger and embarrassment.

    When I finished there was a moment of silence that followed before she burst out saying, "I knew it! He was just sexually harassing me!"

    She stood up once again and grabbed me by the cor, lifting me off the couch. Her other hand had already formed a fist in the air and she was about to punch me.

    But once again, Baroness Rose said, "Cece, calm down."

    Cecilia looked at Baroness Rose with the same unwilling look, but Baroness Rose continued by saying, "You can''t say that without trying it first."

    After she said this, Cecilia couldn''t help looking at her in shock. It was as if this was thest thing that she had expected her to say.

    After stuttering for a bit, Cecilia finally said, "Roro, you can''t be serious, right?"

    Baroness Rose just looked at her with a serious look and gave a nod.

    Cecilia''s mouth dropped after seeing this. It opened and closed a few times, but she wasn''t able to say anything in the end.

    Finally, she gave a sigh and picked up the two round things on the table. Holding them up in front of her face, she couldn''t help looking at Baroness Rose and asking, "Do I really have to do this?"

    Baroness Rose gave a firm nod in response to this.

    Cecilia gave another sigh before turning to re at me.

    I knew that it was best for me to keep quiet in this situation, so I tried to make myself as invisible as possible.

    In the end, Cecilia took off her shirt and revealed thoserge breasts.

    As they came swaying out, it couldn''t help turning to look at them. My head followed the swaying of thoserge breasts.

    Cecilia''s face turned a bit red when she saw this, but there was a bit of enjoyment that appeared in her eyes before she red at me.

    She didn''t even know why she felt this way, but if it was him¡­

    After ring at me, she brought those round things up to her breasts and brought them in front of her nipples before putting them on.

    Once she had put them on like I had taught her, she couldn''t help saying, "This, this, this is¡­"

 Chapter 51 Guerilla Attack (1)

    Cecilia suddenly raised her hand and said, "Stop."

    All of the men behind her stopped instantly and lowered their bodies to hide themselves in the brushes.

    At the same time, they all carefully looked in front of them to see the monsters that were standing there.

    There were only a few of these monsters, but everyone was tense when facing them.

    They knew that these monsters were stronger than the average person, so even if they outnumbered the monsters, it would be hard for them to take these few stragglers out. Not to mention that there were many more monsters just a bit further ahead that were currently marching through the woods.

    If they made too much noise and were stalled here for too long, it wouldn''t take long for them to be surrounded by those monsters.

    Cecilia narrowed her eyes to look at these monsters and carefully analyzed them.

    Fifteen goblins, ten ogres, fifteen orcs, and two goblin magicians¡­

    She had brought over a hundred guards and ten knights with her, so she should be able to take down this group of monsters with her troops. However, she couldn''t help feeling anxious because of the goblin magicians.

    Goblin magicians were specialpared to the other monsters since they were monsters that could use magic.

    What kind of spells they would use would be hard to predict since each goblin magician was different, but there definitely wasn''t a single weak goblin magician¡­There was no doubt that they would suffer if they were to let those goblin magicians cast their spells.

    So she would have to take down those goblin magicians first.

    But they weren''t easy to take down in the first ce since they had magic armours around them that were as strong as normal iron armour.

    In short, they were a pain to deal with.

    However, it wasn''t as if they could back down now that they had found these monsters.

    The men that she had with her also knew this, so many of them had looks on their faces like they were prepared for death.

    After thinking about it for a bit, Cecilia said, "I''ll circle around and take down those two goblin magicians, you will surround the rest and take them down one by one."

    Her men couldn''t help revealing concerned looks when they heard this.

    Her adjutant came forward and said, "Captain, let us go with you to take down the goblin magicians."

    But Cecilia shook her head to reject this before saying, "No, I''ll take care of it alone. I can move faster alone, so I''ll be able to get out of there if anything goes wrong."

    The knights all revealed slightly hurt expressions when they heard this, but they knew that she was right. Compared to her, their abilities were a bitcking, so they would just impede her instead of helping her.

    So all of them could only wish her luck before moving into position.

    Cecilia watched them go before turning in the direction of the goblin magicians.

    She slowly moved through the brush until she was in position behind them.

    With onest deep breath, she gripped her sword tightly in her hand before suddenly jumping out of the brush.

    The monsters immediately turned around when they heard this, but with Cecilia''s speed, they weren''t able to react at all. By the time that they had reacted, Cecilia was already in front of the two goblin magicians who were standing together and was swinging herrge sword horizontally.

    The swing was at a perfect angle to cut off the heads of both of these goblin magicians in one single swing.

    The goblin magicians had looks of shock on their faces, but they also quickly gathered their magic barrier.

    It was a faintyer of blue light that appeared on the surface of their skin.

    This was the magic barrier that was as strong as iron armour¡­perhaps even stronger depending on how much mana was gathered into the armour.

    Luckily for Cecilia, this magic barrier was a bit weaker since she had caught them off guard, but that didn''t mean that it wasn''t strong.

    It was as strong as an iron shield still.

    As the sword approached the magic barrier, she couldn''t help feeling nervous about the result.

    But to her shock, there was no resistance at all as she cut through the neck of the first goblin magician. The sword didn''t even slow down after it cut right through that neck as it continued to the neck of the second goblin magician.

    Then the same thing happened where the second goblin magician''s head was lopped off in one clean sweep of the sword.

    It was so smooth that Cecilia had lost control of herself in her shock and she couldn''t help spinning a bit too much as her sword mmed into the ground beside her.

    When she reacted, she found that both of the goblin magicians were lying there dead at her feet.

    There was only silence that followed as everyone looked at the two goblin magician corpses on the ground with shocked looks.

    Cecilia looked down at the sword in her hand before saying to herself, "Did I really do this?"

    Then she couldn''t help thinking of the special armour that she had been given by Zwein¡­

    She was wearing this special armour right now even though she felt that it was worthless, but it seemed that she had been wrong. That special feeling that she felt when she put on the special armour was real.

    After a pause, the monsters were the first ones to react.

    There had been several ogres near the goblin magicians. The moment that they came back to their senses, they immediately swung down at Cecilia with the clubs in their hands.

    The n was to have Cecilia kill these two goblin magicians and then the guards woulde forward to block the monsters from attacking her.

    But they had been too dazed toe and protect her.

    The guards immediately realized their mistake and wanted to charge out to protect her, but it was already toote as the ogres were already on her.

    However, Cecilia didn''t have a worried look on her face as she faced these ogres.

 Chapter 52 Guerilla Attack (2)

    When the first ogre''s club fell atop of Cecilia, she easily dodged out of the way.

    Then in one swift sh, she cut the ogre right across the chest, creating a deep wound that even exposed the bone underneath.

    The ogre''s eyes immediately rolled back in its head before it fell to the ground.

    With how still it was, it was clear that it had lost its life in one single sh from Cecilia.

    But she didn''t stop moving after taking down this first ogre.

    There were still three more ogres that were charging at her.

    The next ones to reach them were a pair of ogres that hade from either side of her. Both of them swung their clubs horizontally at her,ing from different angles so that she couldn''t dodge out of the way.

    Cecilia didn''t move at first when she saw this, but then she suddenly¡­jumped into the air.

    She found that she was able to jump much higher than normal as she had expected and she was able to jump right over the clubs of the ogres.

    However, since the clubs had already been swung, it wasn''t as if they could be stopped that suddenly.

    The two clubs mmed into each other.

    With the force that the two ogres had swung the clubs at, both of them couldn''t help being stunned by the force of the other ogre. Both of them just stood there in a daze with numb arms as Cecilia flew over them.

    Cecilia wasn''t idle during her time in the air.

    Holding her sword tightly, she started spinning in the air as she swung her sword at the two stunned ogres.

    Her sword was long enough to reach both of them, so she was able to cut both of them on the neck.

    The skin of ogres was thick, almost as thick as well made leather armour, so it was normally hard to cut through. But her sword cut right through the necks of these two ogres like a hot knife through butter.

    It was just like when she had cut through the necks of the goblin magicians.

    With arge "thud", there were tworge ogre corpses that fell to the ground at the same time before a smaller "thud" was heard as two heads fell to the ground.

    Thest ogre that had been charging at Cecilia couldn''t help hesitating after seeing all of this. It suddenly slowed down as it was charging at Cecilia, but then it decided to go all in.

    This moment of hesitation was all that Cecilia needed as shended and then swung down at the ogre.

    The ogre raised its club to block it, but this downward sh was just too powerful.

    The club was cut right in half and then the sword continued to fall,nding on the ogre''s head.

    There was no resistance at all as the ogre was cut right in half.

    Blood sttered all over from this ogre being cut in half like this, but Cecilia had quickly moved out of the way to dodge this blood stter.

    During this entire fight, she hadn''t gotten a single drop of blood on her since she had always dodged out of the way.

    After thest ogre fell, there was silence that followed right after.

    Both the monsters and the humans all stood there in a daze, staring at Cecilia with different expressions.

    The monsters had looks of shock and fear, while the humans had looks of shock and admiration.

    Cecilia saw the way that her men looked at her and she revealed an annoyed look before shouting, "What are all of you standing there for! There''s still monsters to take down!"

    The humans immediately came back to their senses after being snapped at by Cecilia and turned to face the monsters.

    The monsters were still in a daze as the humans charged at them, but they quickly came out of that daze when they saw the humans swinging their weapons. All of the monsters immediately dodged out of the way, but there were some that couldn''t dodge in time.

    So these monsters had no choice but to use their weapons to block the human weapons.

    They thought they were dead since they had seen how Cecilia had cut the ogre in half along with its weapon, but they found that this wasn''t the case. These humans were nowhere near as strong as that woman, so they couldn''t even dent their weapons.

    Seeing this, the monsters were filled with vigor once again.

    They knew that as long as they were able to avoid fighting Cecilia and could break free from these humans, they would be able to escape.

    Once they saw a path of hope, a path of life, the monsters started fighting again.

    The humans were weaker than monsters, so they had to group up to fight these monsters.

    Not to mention that these monsters were going all out since they would die otherwise, so they were fighting with more strength than usual.

    The saying that there was nothing more dangerous than a cornered beast applied to this situation very well.

    So if left alone, the humans would have been slowly pushed back by the monsters.

    That is if they had been left alone.

    Cecilia took only a moment to catch her breath before diving into the fight again.

    With the speed that she moved at, there wasn''t a single monster that was able to escape from her. Then with the strength that she possessed, she was able to cut through all of them with a single sh.

    She was like a monster herself with the way that she tore through this battlefield.

    But she didn''t let herself get caught up in the fight and she fought with her brain instead of with her brawn.

    She didn''t charge into the battle without a n, instead she only attacked when her subordinates were about to be defeated by the monster that they were fighting. She only made a move when she needed to save someone.

    Like this, they were able to clear out the battlefield and they were able to do it without a single casualty.

    Once they finished off the monsters, they immediately left since they were certain that the noise that they had caused would attract more monsters toe.

    Once they were surrounded, they would be finished.

 Chapter 53 Small Favour (1)

    When Cecilia and her team returned triumphantly from their gueri mission, they were met with the cheers of the townspeople.

    Even though it waste, Baroness Rose had gathered the townspeople on the street by the gate as they weed back Cecilia''s group.

    The townspeople were well aware of the monster wave, so they happily cheered for these people who had gone to protect them.

    While it was a risk to let them know about the monster wave, Baroness Rose knew that it was impossible to hide it from them forever. So instead of hiding it, she told the townspeople and with her prestige, she was able to win their support.

    In a situation like this, having the support of the people was worth much more than one would think.

    Seeing the people that they protected cheering for them, the morale of the guards and knights soared.

    At the same time, the families of the guards and knights had also been brought out.

    They were allowed to run forward to hug their loved ones who had returned from the dangerous fight and all of them could feel the warmth of family surrounding them. They once again realized what they were fighting for and were filled with the determination to fight the monster wave.

    This was the result that Baroness Rose had wanted when she had told everyone about the monster wave.

    She knew that it was impossible to get through this disaster just with the power of the guards and knights alone. She knew that if they fought without telling anyone, they would eventually be whittled down by the monster wave that wasing at them.

    Instead, they needed proper support, both physically and mentally.

    By telling the people, they were able to openly gather supplies without having to hide the existence of the monster wave from them. At the same time, they were able to provide morale support for the guards and knights in the form of familial bonds.

    By remembering what they were fighting for and being supported by those that they were fighting for, they would be able to show strength far greater than normal.

    This was the gamble that Baroness Rose had taken when exposing the monster wave threat to the people and judging by the determined look in the eyes of the guards and knights, this gamble had paid off.

    They were filled with motivation and determination to protect the ones that they loved.

    As for Cecilia, while there were people cheering for her, there wasn''t anyone that came forward to hold her like with her men.

    That was because she didn''t have family here like these people.

    Her family was on thend of Baroness Rose''s father, the count.

    The only one here that could have been considered her family was her husband. However, going all the way back, he had nevere out to wee her back.

    Not to mention¡­he was among the casualties in the demon order manor incident.

    When Cecilia had heard about the death of her husband, she hadn''t felt a single thing. It was mostly because in the first ce, it was a marriage of convenience and not love.

    As for her refusing Baroness Rose''s advances¡­that was because of her strong sense of duty and righteousness.

    But she had lost to her emotions in the end.

    Still, it wasn''t as if she regretted it.

    After making her way through the crowd, she headed to where she wanted to go.

    When she entered the room, there were a pair of arms that came around her, pulling her into an embrace.

    Cecilia was caught off guard, but seeing that it was Baroness Rose, she rxed herself and allowed herself to fall into that embrace.

    Baroness Rose patted her on the back as she said, "I''m d that nothing happened to you."

    I was silently standing on the side at first, but then I couldn''t help adding in a gentle voice, "Wee home."

    Cecilia''s eyes couldn''t help misting over when she heard this as a warm feeling filled her heart.

    Even though he annoyed her because of how close he was with Baroness Rose, she still couldn''t help feeling emotional when he said this.

    It was impossible for her to not feel anything after everything that they had done.

    After a long period of silence, Cecilia said, "I''m back."

    Baroness Rose hugged her even tighter after hearing this.

    I also couldn''t help walking over to gently pat her hand.

    After taking a while to calm ourselves, we sat down on the couch where Cecilia gave us a quick summary of what happened.

    Baroness Rose couldn''t help revealing a surprised look as she said, "How did you manage to take out all of those monsters at once?"

    Cecilia turned to look at me with a strange look before saying, "It was as if I was stronger than normal."

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this.

    The nipple covers that I had given her actually had this effect?

    No, I knew that they had this effect because of the description of these items I saw in the system.

    These nipple covers were magic items that gave an increase to both strength and agility, the perfect item for a warrior like Cecilia.

    But hearing how she had cut even ogres in half with her sword after receiving the buff from them, I couldn''t help being shocked.

    I never thought that a simple +5 to both strength and agility could do that much¡­

    After she had finished telling the story of her fight, Cecilia couldn''t help revealing a strange look as she looked at me.

    I saw this and couldn''t help asking, "Is something wrong?"

    She acted hesitant at first as if she didn''t know whether she should say what she wanted to say or not.

    But after hesitating for a bit, she finally said in a slow and awkward voice, "You see¡­actually¡­I, I have a small favour that I want to ask of you¡­"

 Chapter 54 Small Favour (2)

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard when I saw this.

    It was my first time seeing Cecilia talking to me like this¡­but it wasn''t as if I didn''t like it.

    In fact, I found it quite cute when she acted this way.

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, Cecilia started panicking a bit as she said, "You see, it''s like this¡­the circumstances of the situation are difficult to exin, but the gist of it is¡­"

    I suddenly raised my hand to cut off her rambling.

    The way that she used all thoserge words really was unlike her and¡­I couldn''t help finding her more cute when she acted this way.

    But I said with a serious look on my face, "If you ever need anything from me, you just have to tell me."

    Cecilia couldn''t help being taken aback as she immediately swallowed every word that her panicked mind had wanted her to say. She just stared at the serious look on my face in a daze before a blush came over her face.

    Then she gave a cough as she thought to herself, "How could this little shrimp ever be considered handsome?"

    She threw all those thoughts out of her mind before saying, "Un, thank you."

    Then she said with what seemed like a serious look, but was actually just a facade to hide her embarrassment, "Can you¡­help me take off the nipple covers?"

    It was just too embarrassing asking this!

    Her face couldn''t help turning red again after she asked this, no matter how hard she tried to keep a serious face.

    There was only silence that followed after she said this.

    My chin couldn''t help dropping when I heard her say this.

    I couldn''t help looking down at her chest and thinking, "She''s still wearing them?"

    Cecilia had already changed out of her armour beforeing here. Since she was in regr clothes, I had assumed that she had taken it off already.

    I never thought that she would be so kinky that she would wait just for me to take it off for her.

    Cecilia could see the way that I was looking at her and her face turned even more red.

    She lowered her head for a bit before suddenly looking up and saying in a loud voice, "It''s not what you think! It''s just that¡­"

    Her voice trailed off when she said this.

    Then after a moment of hesitation, she said, "It''s just that¡­I can''t get it off¡­"

    Her voice trailed off once more, but at least she was able to say what she wanted to say.

    I couldn''t help looking down at her chest again after she said this. This time she didn''t look away and faced me, as if she had mustered up the courage¡­though her face was still red.

    I turned to look at Baroness Rose for help, but she just looked at me with a bemused look. From beginning to end, other than that surprised look she had from Cecilia''s first request, she had been looking at me with that same bemused look the entire time.

    It was almost as if she was trying to figure out if I would have the courage to do it or not.

    With her spurring me on like this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit challenged.

    But before I could even say anything, Cecilia suddenly stood up and she took her shirt off.

    With how sudden she did this, her chest suddenly flew out in front of me before falling down and swaying a bit. Seeing them sway like this, I couldn''t help being mesmerized by the rhythm of it.

    I almost didn''t hear what she said.

    She sat back down and asked, "So, will you help me or not?"

    The tone was a bit confrontational, but there was also a hint of pleading under it. At the same time, she looked up at me with those strong, but also pleading eyes that were close to being on the verge of tears.

    With her teasing me like this, I almost couldn''t hold it back anymore and pushed her down.

    But I barely managed to keep it in.

    I looked down at her and said, "As long as it''s something I can do, I''ll do anything for you."

    I tried to say this in as serious of a voice that I could, but it was hard to hide the slight bit of happiness in my voice.

    I couldn''t help myself¡­it was hard not to be happy in this situation.

    One could even say that this was the kind of situation that would only happen in an H-game¡­Then again, this world was based on an H-game, so it did make sense.

    Cecilia''s face turned red again, but this time it was for a different reason.

    After a pause, she gave a nod in response to what I said.

    I walked up in front of her and then leaned in a bit so that her breasts were right in front of my face. Then looking at the two nipple covers that were right in front of me, I slowly reached forward to grab at them.

    Before I reached them with my hand, I couldn''t help giving a gulp as I thought to myself, "This is really happening¡­"

    But when I tried to pull them off, I found that they really were stuck onto her breasts.

    I tried pulling them off as usual, but it was like there was some kind of suction between her breast and the nipple cover that stopped me from pulling them off.

    So no matter how I tried, I wasn''t able to get a proper hold of the nipple cover to pull it off.

    I had no choice but to use force to push my finger under it so I could get a grip.

    When my finger pushed down on her breast, Cecilia couldn''t help giving a moan as she said, "Ah, not that hard."

    In the end, I was able to slip a finger under by being rough and pull off the nipple cover.

    What was revealed underneath surprised me though.

 Chapter 55 Small Favour (3)

    Standing there right in front of my face was a perfectly pink little bud.

    However, I could see that it waspletely rock hard as it stood there in front of me.

    When she saw this as well, Cecilia couldn''t stop her cheeks from filling with a blush.

    She hadn''t meant for it to happen, but when I was being rough with her breast as I was trying to get a grip of the nipple cover, she couldn''t help feeling good.

    This had caused her nipple to stand up straight and be as rock hard as it was now.

    Being presented with it, I couldn''t help myself as I brought my head forward and my mouth down over it. Aftertching on, I started sucking on it and ying with it with my tongue.

    When Cecilia felt this, she couldn''t stop the strange feelings that were inside of her.

    It was a good feeling, but there was also something else that was building inside of her as well¡­It was almost like a sense of maternity.

    While I was licking and sucking on her nipple, my other hand came over to her other breast and grabbed it with all five fingers. I grabbed right over the nipple cover so that I would be able to hold her entire breast, but it was just too big for me to hold in a single hand.

    As soon as my hand grabbed it, she couldn''t help giving a gasp as her head went back before moans of pleasure followed.

    My hand that was on the breast continued to mold and knead it, but not being able to feel and tease the nipple really was annoying. So with a strong grip, I grabbed the nipple cover and pulled it right off of her.

    Feeling this strong suction pull at her before suddenly releasing, Cecilia didn''t know how to feel, but she knew that it felt good.

    Then my hand continued ying with her breast, grabbing it, squeezing it, flicking the nipple, pulling the nipple, and doing all kinds of other things to tease her.

    The more that I yed with her breasts, the more ragged her breathing became. Soon, she wasn''t able to take it anymore as she suddenly let out a strong cry and her legs started to tremble.

    When she finished, I took my mouth off her breast and took a step back to admire my handiwork.

    She was lying there on the cough with one arm down and one arm over her face. Her shirt waspletely lifted up, with one breast covered in my spit and the other being covered in hand marks from being groped.

    This scene immediately made my dick stand tall and proud.

    I didn''t waste any time in freeing the beast and then standing over her, I grabbed her breasts again.

    These were beautiful specimens and it would be a waste to not use them.

    When Cecilia felt me grabbing at her chest again, she couldn''t help looking up a bit to say, "Wait, stop, I''m still sensi¡­"

    Before she could finish saying what she wanted to say, she felt something suddenly being thrusted in between her chest.

    This thing being thrusted into the valley of her chest was burning hot¡­so hot that its heat carried right through her skin and made its way to her heart and to her brain. She was quickly taken over by the heat and she started panting again as her lower part started to drip.

    I grabbed both of her breasts on the side and squeezed them together against my dick. The pressure that came from this was amazing and the feeling of them rubbing against my dick was indescribable.

    This feeling of pleasure was unlike anything that I had felt before.

    Especially since her chest was much bigger than a normal woman should have.

    It was so big that if my dick was a normal size, then it would havepletely been covered up by these breasts. Not even the tip would have been able to make their way out with how big they were.

    But it was different since my dick was also huge.

    As I kept thrusting, my dick also kept growingrger andrger, causing the tip of it to peek out over the top of her breasts. They went up and up until they started pping the bottom of her chin, waking her from her daze.

    Cecilia looked down at the tip of the dick that was poking her and she couldn''t help revealing a strange look.

    There was a smell that wasing from this dick that was hitting her that went right to her head.

    Instead of feeling disgust like she normally would when she first smelled this smell, this time, she couldn''t help feeling attracted by this smell as she stuck out her tongue towards the tip of my dick. She was doing her best to lick it, but the way that it kept moving back and forth just out of her reach made it impossible for her tongue to touch it.

    I could see this, but I kept teasing her with it, pulling it back and forth out of her reach so that she couldn''t touch it with her tongue.

    Finally, I decided that I would reward her, so I pushed forward with onerge thrust. The dick went all the way up to her mouth and I said, "Suck it."

    Cecilia''s tongue didn''t waste any time as it went around the tip of my dick before she forced her head down over it.

    The moment that her lips wrapped around my dick, it was like being pulled into a vacuum.

    She was sucking with all her might, as if she wanted to pull it as far in as possible. It was as if she wanted to drain every single drop of cum out of my dick with the way that she was sucking me off.

    This along with the pressure from her amazing breasts forced me over the edge and I couldn''t hold back as I suddenly came.

    As I came, I grabbed Cecilia''s head to her surprise and shot my entire load down into her throat.

    Her eyes opened wide in shock at first, but then she revealed an ecstatic look at having my cum being shot down into her throat. She looked like she was enjoying the finest delicacies as she swallowed all of the cum that had been shot into her mouth.

    All at the same time, she kept sucking on my dick even as I came.

    It was as if she didn''t want to miss a single drop of the cum that wasing out.

    Then once everything had been shot out, her tongue went all over my dick. She licked every part of it that she could reach, as if she was scared of missing even a single drop of cum.

    Only when she made sure that everything was gone, she finally let my dick out of her mouth.

    She looked up at me with eyes that were zed over and said, "It''s not enough."

    Seeing the way that she was only thinking about sex, I couldn''t help getting turned on again.

    Feeling the dick get hard in between her breasts, Cecilia looked down and looked like she wanted to start sucking my dick again.

    But instead, I picked her up and brought her over to the bed while saying, "We''re not anywhere near done yet."

    Hearing this, Cecilia revealed an excited smile.

 Chapter 56 Priest (1)

    The next few days that passed were filled with preparations for the monster wave that came.

    Cecilia went out several more times on gueri strikes on the monster wave and they were able to reduce the size of it quite considerably.

    There had been over a thousand monsters in the monster wave at first estimate, but through repeated strikes at stragglers of the wave, they had been able to reduce it by around two hundred monsters.

    That wasn''t considered much, but a fifth of the wave was arge boon when it came to fighting the wave as a whole.

    It would mean countless casualties being prevented as there would be less monsters to deal with.

    But the monster wave was also getting closer.

    Based on the scout reports, it would be reaching the town in just a few more days¡­

    So everyone was getting ready for the fight now.

    But today was a bit different.

    When I woke up in the morning, I found that Baroness Rose and Cecilia were waiting in the living room for me. Both of them had slightly knitted brows as if they were worried about something as they just sat there in thought.

    As I walked out, I couldn''t help asking, "Is something wrong?"

    Both of them jumped slightly when they heard me and then they revealed bitter smiles.

    Baroness Rose shook her head before giving a slight nod as if she couldn''t decide what she wanted to respond with.

    After taking a deep breath and giving a sigh, she said, "The priest wants to talk to us."

    When I heard this, I slightly knitted my brows as well.

    That was because I had heard the key word there¡­"us".

    It wasn''t that he wanted to talk to Baroness Rose or Cecilia who he normally had contact with, but he wanted to talk to me as well.

    I had been avoiding this priest because of the time that I had interacted with the demon order. I didn''t know what the priest would think about that, but someone who followed god and looked down on demons would definitely not like that I had interacted with them, even if it was just to infiltrate and get information.

    At the same time, I avoided him because I didn''t know if the artifacts that I had brought back had influenced me with their dark energy¡­

    Especially that locket that I never told anyone about.

    But after thinking about it, I knew that it was impossible for me to avoid this.

    After all, we needed the priest''s help in taking care of the monster wave. He was a powerful magician and if there was a rift that was created because we were avoiding him, that would not be good for us.

    We definitely needed his help in taking care of the monster wave.

    So I said, "Let''s go and meet him then."

    After hearing this, both Baroness Rose and Cecilia revealed worried looks as they looked at me, but Baroness Rose nodded in agreement.

    It was not something that could be put off, so it was better to rip it off all at once like a bandaid.

    The two of them both came with me to meet the priest since they wanted to be there just in case anything happened. Though in Baroness Rose''s case, she had to be there since the priest had also called her.

    When we arrived at the church, we found that it waspletely empty.

    Normally, there would be nuns or worshipers that were praying in this church, but there wasn''t a single person here.

    It was as if this church had been deliberately emptied and everyone had been sent off by the priest.

    No matter how one looked at it, it didn''t seem like a good sign.

    I even had the urge to leave, but I didn''t get a chance to act on that urge.

    That was because after we had arrived in the empty church, the priest suddenly came out of the back. It was as if he had sensed our arrival and came over to greet us.

    He had a warm and gentle smile on his face as he said, "Lord Baron and Baroness, it is an honour for you toe to our humble little church."

    This priest was the definition of a handsome middle aged man who worshiped god, but when I saw this smile, I couldn''t help feeling that something was off.

    The way that the priest was looking at me, it was almost as if he knew something¡­

    Could it be that he saw the residual dark energy from the magic items that I took and that was why he had summoned me here?

    If that was the case, did that mean that I would die here?

    I couldn''t help feeling more and more worried, but I forced myself to have a calm look on my face.

    Baroness Rose naturally also noticed this, but she was better at dealing with people than me.

    She revealed a professional smile and said, "Father, it should be our honour to have you invite us here."

    The priest gave a slight nod in response to this before turning slightly and gesturing towards the inner room of this church as he said, "Shall we have a seat?"

    We followed the priest into the inner room and then after sitting down on the couch there, he poured us all a cup of tea and ced some cookies on the table.

    The way that he acted, it seemed very normal and it didn''t seem like he had any ulterior motives.

    After he finished serving all of this to us, the priest sat down in front of us, but he didn''t say a single thing.

    Normally, one would look to Baroness Rose in this situation since it was clear that she was the one that was in charge. I might have the title of baron, but it was clear that she was the one who did everything.

    However, the priest just sat there in silence looking at me.

    There was an awkward silence that filled the air for a while before Baroness Rose finally couldn''t take it and asked, "Father, is there something wrong?"

    The priest didn''t turn to Baroness Rose and continued looking at me as he said, "My child, is there something that you want to tell me?"

 Chapter 57 Priest (2)

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this and I just looked at the priest with that surprised look.

    After all, I had no idea what he was talking about.

    The priest didn''t say anything as he just waited for me to speak.

    At the same time, both Baroness Rose and Cecilia looked at me as if they were waiting to see what I would say.

    After a long moment of silence, I said, "I don''t know what you want from me."

    The priest just calmly said, "Is there anything of demon origin that you want to show me?"

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this, but I wasn''t surprised. I had already expected this when I saw the priest the first time, but I never thought that he would be so blunt with it.

    In the end, I said with a sigh, "What if I still said that I don''t know what you''re talking about?"

    The priest just looked back at me with a knowing smile.

    It seemed like I really couldn''t fool this priest and I couldn''t keep ying the fool.

    So in the end, I had no choice but to bring out the item.

    After all, I could see that he didn''t have any ill intentions. He was just asking about it because he really wanted to see the item that I had.

    Since that was the case, I might as well show it to him to see what his opinion on it was. I had no idea what the locket was and I had only taken it because of¡­my jealousy, so it would be a good idea to know what I had destroyed.

    After it was ced on the table, Baroness Rose was the first one to react.

    It was an item that she had given to her husband, so of course she would be the first one to recognize it even if it had already been destroyed.

    It was the one thing that she had put quite a bit of effort into when they had first gotten married because she had wanted to make their marriage work. But after she gave this to him, she had never seen it again.

    That was the moment that she realized that the Lord Baron didn''t care for her and was only using her.

    After a long period of silence, Baroness Rose asked me, "Where did you get that?"

    The tone of her voice put a bit of pressure on me, but I looked back at her with a knowing and bitter smile. It was clear by the way that I looked at her what I meant by this.

    One of her hands came up to cover her mouth and her eyes couldn''t help misting over.

    But then the priest suddenly said, "Were you the one who destroyed it?"

    All three of us were caught off guard when we heard this and we immediately turned our attention back to him.

    Seeing that I wasn''t answering, the priest asked again, "Were you the one who destroyed it?"

    I looked at the priest and seeing the serious look in his eyes, I couldn''t help giving a nod.

    The priest raised one hand towards me and I couldn''t help flinching. The priest saw this, but he just revealed a smile and said in a gentle voice, "It''s alright."

    Hearing this, I calmed down a bit and let his hande over.

    He patted me on the shoulder as he said, "Good job destroying that evil artifact."

    I was confused by this, so all I did was nod in a daze.

    The priest didn''t say anything else even though he could clearly see the confused looks that we had. He just went back to keep looking over the remains of the locket.

    Finally, Baroness Rose was the one that couldn''t take it anymore as she asked, "Father, what is wrong with this thing?"

    Though she tried to keep her voice calm, there was a clear flutter to it, showing just how anxious she was.

    But one couldn''t me her since this was something that was very personal to her.

    The priest didn''t say anything at first as he continued staring at the locket on the table. There was a long silence that followed as everyone waited for the priest to speak.

    After a long silence, the priest finally said, "This is a cursed object."

    "Cursed object?" Everyone couldn''t help asking at the same time.

    The priest just gave a simple nod in response before he continued saying, "This object is a very evil object, it goes against all that our lord teaches. It twists the grace of all that is in being and all that is right in this world¡­" The priest continued on to give a sermon about just how evil this item was.

    They listened for a bit, but as he started dragging on, it was harder and harder for them to listen to.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Father, please just tell us what this thing is."

    The priest snapped out of his sermon and realized what he was doing. He revealed an awkward smile before giving a cough and saying, "This item is a cursed item like I said and as the name implies, it is used to ce a curse on a person. Can you tell me whose picture was in this locket previously? I need to check that person to see if there are still signs of that curse on them, though there shouldn''t be any since the curse should have broken when this item was destroyed."

    All three of us were shocked when we heard this.

    Both Cecilia and I couldn''t help turning to look at Baroness Rose who sat there with apletely stunned expression in her eyes.

    But at the same time, we could tell that there was a look of extreme pain in those eyes as well.

    I reached out to her and wanted to say something, but before I could, she came forward to hug me.

    In my ear, she said in a soft voice, "Thank you."

 Chapter 58 Priest (3)

    There was a moment of silence that followed as everyone was surprised by this sudden move by Baroness Rose.

    But after that moment of silence, I patted her on the back without saying a thing.

    That was because I was filled with guilt at this moment¡­

    She most likely misunderstood why I took the locket in the first ce¡­

    After all, I didn''t take it because I noticed the curse on it, I didn''t take it because it was a demon item, I simply took it because¡­I had been jealous. I didn''t think that the Lord Baron deserved to keep this item because of the way that he treated his wife, the woman who I had already taken as my own.

    The two of us stayed there like that for a bit before Baroness Rose slowly moved away.

    As she moved away, she was wiping away the few bits of tears that were left.

    I was about to move forward to wipe them for her, but before I could, Cecilia came forward to take Baroness Rose away from me. The look on her face made it clear that it was her turn tofort her.

    I just revealed an awkward smile, but I didn''t insist since I knew how close the two of them were.

    After that, I turned to look at the priest who was patiently waiting for us to finish with our thing.

    Seeing me look at him, the priest just revealed a gentle and kind smile before signalling for me to wait as well.

    I gave a slight nod before waiting for the two women to gather themselves.

    After a few more minutes, the two of them finally separated and sat there with calm looks on their faces. However, there was no hiding the swollenness and redness of their eyes.

    Neither I nor the priest said anything about this.

    Once he saw that they had calmed down, he reached his hand out towards Baroness Rose and asked, "Madame, if I may?"

    Based on the reactions of these three, it wasn''t hard for him to guess who had been cursed by the item. While he was surprised by this, he kept it in and just did what he needed to do.

    Baroness Rose looked at this hand reached out towards her and then with a nod, she ced her hand in his hand.

    There was a faint glow that appeared around the hand of the priest that spread across to Baroness Rose''s hand. This faint glow wrapped around her hand for a bit before it faded away.

    Once it faded, the priest gave a nod and said, "There''s no problem at all. The curse has beenpletely dispelled."

    After the priest said this, all of us let out a sigh of relief.

    But then I couldn''t help asking, "Father, do you know what kind of curse it was?"

    The priest nodded at this and said, "It was a curse to fill one''s heart with darkness. It would make a person more irrational and vtile until they blew themselves up. This is a dark curse that changes a person until they can''t recognize themselves anymore."

    I couldn''t help nodding after I heard this.

    After all, I had seen the darkness that had been inside of Baroness Rose when she had been cursed. It was that dark look that was in her eyes whenever we were alone¡­that look that was hidden between her normal expression.

    It turned out that this was the result of a curse.

    It was also no wonder I felt that she was apletely different person aftering back from the demon order manor.

    It turned out that it was because she had been released from the curse that had been ced on her.

    So the Rose that I knew now¡­was the real Rose.

    The real her¡­was quite good.

    After a moment of silence, the priest asked, "If I may ask, where did you find this demonic item? Do you know who the one to curse herdy is?"

    I didn''t answer this right away as I looked over at Baroness Rose.

    Up to this point, the priest had shown that he was quite trustworthy, but¡­I couldn''t make that decision on my own.

    Baroness Rose knew what I was asking her, so she gave a nod in response.

    Seeing this, I let out a sigh of relief before giving an appreciative nod back. Then I turned back to the priest and exined everything that had happened.

    The priest had a calm look on his face as he listened to the story until he heard the part about the demons. As soon as he heard that there had been demons nearby, he pulled out a cross from his pocket and started praying while holding it up.

    I was caught off guard when I saw this, but he also told me to continue the story.

    So I finished telling him the rest of the story, though there were a few parts that were omitted¡­such as my involvement with the aphrodisiac incense.

    Once he finished listening to the story, the priest suddenly said, "That evil Lord Baron, I never thought that he would be so depraved! He even plotted to harm his wife who he swore to protect in front of the lord and even went as far as cursing her! This kind of despicable person really is¡­"

    The priest went on to give another sermon, but we let it go on for a bit since it did feel good hearing someone bash the Lord Baron like this.

    But of course, he didn''t show any signs of stopping, so I gave a cough to interrupt.

    The priest was pulled out of his sermon and he gave an awkward cough when he saw us staring at him. He gave another cough to clear his throat before saying to Baroness Rose, "Madam, I promise that I and the clergy will do all that I can to help repel the monster wave. The evil actions of the demons will never be tolerated."

    This was the main goal in telling the priest the story and it seemed that the gamble had paid off.

    Baroness Rose gave an appreciative nod in response to this before patting the priest''s hand.

    The priest offered a prayer before turning to look at me again.

    He narrowed his eyes as if he was looking for something special.

    I couldn''t help feeling awkward as I sat there under his gaze until I couldn''t take it and asked, "Is there something wrong?"

    The priest didn''t answer at first, but then he shook his head as he said, "It''s not that something is wrong¡­It''s just that I feel something specialing from you."

    I couldn''t help but tremble when I heard this.

    This priest was a man of god and I was someone who reincarnated with a system from god¡­Could it be that he was able to detect this?

    The priest shook his head again in the end and just offered a simple prayer to me before sending us off.

    But as we were leaving, I couldn''t help staring at the cross that was inside of his office¡­

    As I looked closely at it, it was as if there was a bright light that appeared on it.

 Chapter 59 Mark Of God (1)

    As I stared at that lighting from the cross, it suddenly became stronger andpletely overwhelmed my vision.

    Before I could react, the light became so bright that I had no choice but to close my eyes.

    When the light faded and I was able to open my eyes again, I found that I was in apletely different location.

    Or rather, it should be said that I was in the middle of nowhere.

    There was nothing around me at all, only an empty white space.

    No matter which direction I looked in, I wasn''t able to find a single thing here. It was as if I was the only thing that existed in this ce.

    After looking around in a daze for a bit, I decided to pick a direction and start walking.

    While I had no idea where I was, it wasn''t as if I would be able to do anything by standing here. If I walked in one direction, at least it would seem like I was doing something.

    But before I could take a single step, there was another sh of light that appeared in front of me.

    I covered my eyes this time and slowly tried to peek at it, but I found that I wasn''t able to see anything.

    At the very least, this burst of light wasn''t as bright as the one that I had encountered when I was brought to this ce. Though a small part of me was disappointed since encountering the same burst of light might be the way back.

    After that light appeared for a bit, it suddenly dimmed and I was able to look at it.

    When I saw what had appeared in front of me, I couldn''t help being taken aback.

    That was because even though there was a figure of light in front of me, I wasn''t able to see their appearance. It was as if they were a being that waspletely made of light.

    It was just a good thing that the light wasn''t too strong that I was at least able to look at them.

    After a moment of silence, I couldn''t help asking, "Who are you and why did you bring me here?"

    There wasn''t an answer that followed as this figure of light just floated there.

    I couldn''t see what they looked like, so I didn''t know what they were doing. However, just based on the way that they floated there in front of me, it seemed like they were looking right at me.

    Finally, after another long silence, there was a voice that spoke. However, this voice didn''t speak like a normal person would, but rather it rang out in my head like they were my thoughts.

    "It''s you, it''s really you. I never thought that I would be able to meet you."

    Then the figure of light floated down in front of me and went all around me. It was clear that it was currently checking me out.

    "Meet me?" I repeated in a confused voice before asking, "Why did you want to meet me?"

    The figure of light stopped in front of me and seemed like it was looking down at me as it said, "It''s not every day that we get a transmigrator."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I quickly put it together.

    Then I bowed my head and said, "Thank you for giving me this second life."

    The figure of light seemed to tremble before it said, "Eh, I think you''re making a mistake here."

    I couldn''t help looking up at it with a confused look as I said, "Mistake? What do you mean?"

    There was augh that rang out in my brain before it said, "I''m not the god that brought you here."

    "You aren''t?" I said in a shocked voice.

    The figure of light gave what seemed to be a nod before saying, "I am not that god from Earth, but rather I am the God of Light of this world, Solista."

    I looked at the figure of light with an amazed look before saying, "Even if you''re not that god, you can still pass on my message to them, right? Not to mention, since you are a god of this world, you should have been involved in my reincarnation."

    There was an awkward cough that rang out in my mind before Solista said, "No, I''m not involved at all and I can''t contact that god at all because¡­" There was a short pause before Solista said, "I''m a creation of that god as well since it created this world just for you."

    My chin dropped the moment that I heard this.

    But then I remembered something from the note that the God of Earth had sent me.

    Indeed, they had written that this was a world that they had created just for me, so it would make sense that they had created this god as well.

    However, I couldn''t help wondering¡­just how powerful was the God of Earth that they were able to create an entire world and gods that came with this world?

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, Solista added, "Since this world was created for you and I am a god of this world created by the God of Earth, you could say that we''re somewhat like siblings."

    I was pulled out of my thoughts from the shock of thisment.

    Siblings?

    With a god?

    I wouldn''t dare think that¡­

    Seeing the shocked look on my face, Solistaughed again before saying, "There''s no need to be this stiff. I only summoned you here because I wanted to take a look at you."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this, but I didn''t discourage Solista. After all, this was a god¡­it was better to make a good impression on this god.

    Solista gave anotherugh before saying, "You should know that the gods can read your thoughts, right?"

    I jolted as soon as I heard this before quickly saying, "I''m sorry for anything rude that I''ve said."

    The figure of light raised a hand and waved it before saying, "It''s fine, it''s fine, I think that you''re quite the interesting person."

    Then the figure of light came closer to me, bringing their hand over my hand before Solista said, "In fact, I''ll make things a bit more interesting."

 Chapter 60 Mark Of God (2)

    As Solista''s hand was over my hand, there was a glow that suddenly appeared around that hand of light.

    That glow quickly spread from their hand to my hand and soon, my hand waspletely covered in that glow.

    I couldn''t help being taken aback, but since there was no strange feelinging from my hand, I didn''t pull it back right away.

    I wanted to see just what this God of Light was about to do.

    The glowsted a few seconds before fading. Once the glow faded away, Solista gave a satisfied nod before taking their hand off the back of my hand.

    Solista then said, "This should make things much more interesting."

    I couldn''t help looking down at the back of my hand to see what they were talking about. As soon as I looked down, I found that there was now something new on the back of my hand.

    It was a small mark that seemed to be glowing.

    From the shape that it took, it almost looked like a small pair of wings on the back of my hand.

    After a moment''s daze, I looked back up at the figure of light and asked, "What is this that you''ve put on my hand?"

    Solista gave anotherugh, but they didn''t answer this question.

    I knitted my brows when I heard this and I narrowed my eyes to look at this figure of light that was supposed to be the God of Light.

    I couldn''t figure out just what this God of Light wanted.

    But I forgot that this god was able to hear my thoughts because the next thing that rang out in my mind was¡­

    "I don''t want anything. I just want to make things a bit more interesting and give you a few more options just in case you want to take a different path."

    I knitted my brows again before asking, "What is this different path that you''re talking about?"

    The figure of light gave something that seemed like a shoulder shrug before saying, "That is for you to find out on your own. Only if you find out on your own will it have meaning."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows even more when I heard this.

    There were so many things that I had wanted to ask Solista, but before I could ask anything¡­

    "It''s about time to send you back. If I keep you here any longer, the others will notice and that won''t be good."

    "Others?" I couldn''t help whispering to myself.

    Solista was about to raise their hand to do something, but before they could finish, I suddenly said, "Wait! I still have other questions to ask!"

    Solista was caught off guard by this sudden outburst from me, but they also quickly came back to their senses. They were about to reject me when I suddenly added, "You owe me this after you arbitrarily pulled me here and gave me this mark."

    I couldn''t see their expression, but it was clear that they had an awkward look on their face.

    With a sigh, Solista said, "I can''t answer everything and we don''t have time for too many questions. I''ll only answer two of your questions, I can''t answer any more than that."

    Two questions¡­that was far from being enough¡­

    But I couldn''t do anything and this was already considered good enough.

    After all, the other side was a god.

    If they didn''t want to answer my questions, I couldn''t do anything about it.

    "Good that you know this."

    I revealed a bitter smile when I heard this.

    Right, gods could read my mind¡­

    Solista didn''t say anything, but there was a chuckle that rang out in my head that made their opinion clear.

    So after taking a deep breath to calm myself, I asked, "What is the purpose of this world?"

    Solista didn''t answer and there was even a jolt from the figure of light that showed that they were genuinely surprised by this question.

    There was a long period of silence that followed before a somewhat bitter voice rang out in my head saying, "I can''t answer that¡­"

    There was another pause before the voice said again, "That is a question that is very dangerous to ask. I would rmend that you forget about it if you want what''s best for this world and yourself."

    The tone turned a bit serious at the end of this sentence.

    It as almost as if they were giving me an actual warning instead of just giving me advice¡­

    I couldn''t help looking at the figure of light with a strange look, but since there was nothing else that followed, I had no choice but to just give a nod in reponse to this.

    After another moment of silence, I asked my second question, "Will the gods keep interefering in my life like you?"

    I had thought quite a bit about my second question and in the end, I chose to ask this.

    There were many things that I could have asked, but at the same time, it felt like many of these questions wouldn''t be answered.

    So I chose to ask a question that was rted to my future and would be rtively harmless enough that I would get an answer.

    After I asked this, there was an amusedugh that rang out in my mind before Solista said, "No, generally gods won''t interfere in the lives of mortals, even if they are reincarnators like yourself. It is against the rules of being a god after all. As for me, I just wanted to meet you, so I didn''t mind breaking that rule."

    Hearing this, I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    If the gods kept interfering in my new life, while it would be helpful at first, it was clear that it would reach a point where it would impact my new life.

    This was not something that I wanted, so I wanted to make sure that I wouldn''t be bothered by these deities.

    Since Solista had confirmed that there were rules in ce about contacting mortals, then I figured that should solve most of my problems¡­

    Seeing that I had finished asking my two questions, Solista raised their hand again and said, "I''ll be sending you back now."

    Hearing this, I nodded in response and waited for them to teleport me.

    The figure of light looked down at me before saying, "I wish you luck in your new life and remember that the gods will always be watching over you."

    Then with a wave of their hand, there was a sh of light that appeared.

    This sh of light was like the sh of light that I had encountered when I was first pulled into this white space.

    After that sh of light finished, the scenery in front of me changed.

    Inside of the white space, there was only the figure of light that was left floating there. This figure of light was looking right where Zwein had been standing and it didn''t move at all as it continued staring in that direction.

    Not long after though, there was a figure made of blue light that appeared that said, "Is he gone?"

 Chapter 61 Mark Of God (3)

    Solista turned around to look at this figure of blue light and gave a nod before saying, "You just missed them."

    Then before anything else happened, the figure of blue light raised their hand to grab Solista''s face.

    Solista shouted out in pain, "Ah, ah, what are you doing?"

    The figure of blue light said, "You know exactly what you did wrong and you''re trying to get out of it now? Do you really think that you would get away with this?"

    There was a bitter tone that appeared in Solista''s voice as they said, "Can''t you just let it go this once? You know that I wouldn''t do this if I didn''t have another choice."

    After Solista said this, the hand gripping their head increased the grip that they had on it, causing Solista even more pain.

    Solista quickly said, "Ow, ow, ow, I get it, I get it! I was wrong, I was wrong!"

    The hand gripping Solista''s head didn''t release, but it at least rxed a bit so it wasn''t causing them that much pain anymore.

    The figure of blue light then said, "Did you give him that thing?"

    Solista gave a nod before saying, "It was something that our creator prepared for him, so I had no choice but to give it to him."

    The figure of blue light fell silent, but in the end, they let go of Solista''s head.

    Solista fell to the ground and started massaging their skull, but they never looked away from this figure of blue light. After a long period of silence, Solista said, "If you keep acting this way, you might drive him away."

    The figure of blue light gave a cold snort when they heard this and kicked Solista in the side of the head before saying, "You can say what you want, but you''ll still be punished in the end. She already knows what you''ve done and she''s preparing your punishment right now."

    As soon as Solista heard this, they couldn''t help trembling.

    Then they grabbed the figure of blue light''s feet as they said, "You have to help me! I can''t survive what she calls punishment!"

    The figure of blue light looked down at Solista and after a long period of silence, they said, "If you help me contact him, then I can consider it."

    Solista hesitated a bit when they heard this since they had already told him that the gods wouldn''t bother him for no reason¡­and if they helped this figure of blue light do just that, it would be going against what they had said.

    But in the face of being punished, they really couldn''t do anything.

    It seemed like the gods were still going to mess around in his life¡­

    ¡­

    When the light cleared in front of me, I found that I was back in the priest''s office in the church.

    I couldn''t help stumbling where I had been standing and that caught everyone''s attention.

    Baroness Rose quickly came forward to support me as she asked, "Are you alright? Did something happen?"

    Cecilia didn''te forward like Baroness Rose, but it was clear by the way that she was looking at me that she was also worried about me.

    I didn''t say anything at first and looked at the cross on the wall. Seeing that I wasn''t able to see anything from it, I turned back and said, "No, nothing''s wrong at all."

    Both Baroness Rose and Cecilia still looked at me with worried looks after hearing me say this.

    In the end, Cecilia came forward and took me from Baroness Rose. Then in one smooth move, she lifted me up in her arms and held me in a princess carry.

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when this happened.

    She saw this and said, "It''s quicker this way."

    I wanted to say something, but in the end, she was right. It was indeed faster for her to carry me like this, though it would certainly be a blow to my ego as a man.

    It was just a good thing that we had dismissed everyone when we came here since we didn''t know what would happen. So at the very least, no one would see me being carried by Cecilia like this.

    As we were about to leave, the priest suddenly came forward to say, "Wait, can you let me check something first?"

    We were caught off guard by the sudden words from the priest, but by the time that we reacted, the priest was alreadying closer to us.

    Hepletely ignored Baroness Rose and Cecilia, putting his full attention on me.

    The way that he looked at me felt very strange, almost as if he was trying to undress me with his eyes¡­I couldn''t help feeling ufortable as he stared at me like this, almost wanting to move out of the way.

    But once again, before I could even react, his hand suddenly grabbed my hand.

    He lifted my hand up so that he could see the back of my hand and he looked carefully at it.

    I was surprised at first, but then I realized something.

    The hand that he was currently looking at was the hand that Solista had put the mark on.

    When I looked down, I found that there was indeed a mark that was currently on the back of my hand. This was also what the priest was currently looking at.

    The expression on the priest''s face quickly changed as he looked at the mark on my hand. It went from confusion to surprise, to shock, and finally to worship.

    The way that he looked at the mark on my hand in the end, it was almost as if he wanted to rub his face against it¡­

    I couldn''t help feeling scared again as this look appeared on his face.

    After a long time of muttering to himself, the priest finally said, "This is¡­this is¡­this is as the scriptures have described them¡­This is the Mark of God!"

 Chapter 62 Mark Of God (4)

    "Mark of God?" I couldn''t help repeating before asking, "What''s that?"

    Hearing my voice, the priest was pulled out of his daze and finally remembered where he was.

    He revealed an awkward look when he saw that we were all looking at him, but then he exined, "The mark on your hand is named the Mark of God. It is a special mark that only gods give to their chosen ones."

    Then without giving me a chance to ask another question, he started pushing us out of his office as he said, "I must report this to headquarters. I''m sorry that I don''t have more time to entertain you, I''lle and talk to you another day."

    Before any of us could say anything, we were pushed out and the door was mmed behind us.

    All we could do was look at each other with shocked and confused looks on our faces.

    There were plenty of questions that we wanted to ask the priest, but he just didn''t give us that chance¡­

    So with no other choice, we started heading back to the manor.

    As we headed back, there was only silence that hung in the air as none of us knew what to say. However, it was clear from the looks on our faces that all of us had many different emotions that we were feeling.

    When we came back to the manor, there was still silence that followed until we were sitting down in Baroness Rose''s room.

    As we sat there, there was an awkward silence that filled the air until Baroness Rose said, "I¡­"

    Before she could finish, I suddenly stood up and kowtowed in front of her.

    Both Baroness Rose and Cecilia were caught off guard before Baroness Rose quickly came forward to try and help me up, but I wouldn''t stand up even as she pulled on me.

    Baroness Rose looked at me with a worried look as she asked, "What are you doing? What''s wrong?"

    I didn''t say anything right away and hesitated for a while. Then I took a deep breath and said, "I need to apologize for something."

    Hearing the serious tone in my voice, Baroness Rose was even more taken aback.

    But after looking at me for a bit, she gave a nod and sat there waiting for me to say what I had to say.

    I hesitated for a long while again since I didn''t know how to start, but eventually I took a deep breath and said, "I didn''t take the locket for the reason that you think I did."

    Baroness Rose was once again surprised, but she held it back and waited for me to exin.

    I continued on to tell her about what happened when I found the locket and what feelings I had felt when I found it. Finally, I ended by telling her just why I had taken the locket.

    "I didn''t take it because I felt the curse from it, I didn''t even know about the curse. The only reason I took it was simply because of jealousy¡­I wanted you for myself and that was why I didn''t feel like he deserved to have this."

    After I finished saying all of this, I lowered my head and waited for her reaction.

    But to my surprise, she didn''t do a single thing.

    I thought that she would be disappointed or she would be angry, but she didn''t reveal any expressions at all. She just sat there looking at me with a calm look on her face, as if she didn''t even hear what I had just said.

    I couldn''t help feeling more and more anxious the longer she stayed silent. I finally couldn''t take it anymore and asked, "What are you thinking?"

    To my surprise, Baroness Rose suddenly revealed a faint smile as she said, "I''m thinking that it''s quite cute how you were jealous."

    Once again, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    I just looked at her with a strange look as I asked, "Is that it? Is that all that you''re feeling?"

    Baroness Rose said with a nod, "That''s right, what else would I be feeling?"

    I revealed an awkward look on my face when I heard this. After a moment of silence, I said, "Well¡­this was an important memento from your ex husband, so aren''t you angry that I destroyed it? Also, don''t you feel betrayed since you thought that I destroyed it because I did it to dispel the curse when in reality I just did it for my own ego?"

    Baroness Rose shook her head before saying with a bitterugh, "Important memento? That man never loved me and you should know that best since you remember what you were bought for, right?"

    I couldn''t help jolting when I heard this.

    That was right, I was bought as a sex ve to pleasure her¡­

    I just never thought that she would bring it up so bluntly¡­

    It should have hurt her much more than it hurt me.

    Seeing the look on my face, she shook her head and said, "You don''t need to worry about me. My feelings for that man have long died, so you don''t need to worry about that."

    A strange look appeared on my face as I looked at her before saying, "Then why did you smile?"

    That was the one thing that confused me the most.

    Baroness Rose revealed the same smile again as she said, "Well, now I know something very important."

    "What''s that?" I asked in a confused voice.

    "That you love me." Baroness Rose looked at me with that same smile on her face.

    When she said it like this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit embarrassed, so I looked away from her gaze.

    Baroness Rose didn''t stop as she continued, "I don''t want to be bound my entire life to what that man was, so I''ve decided to live my life as I wish. That includes living for new loves that I find."

    She stood up and came over to me, taking me in her arms as she said, "That includes my new life with you."

    She brought her hands to my head and turned it so that I was looking at her before saying, "I love you too."

    My chin dropped when I heard this, but seeing the genuinely happy look in her eyes¡­I knew what I had to do.

    So I brought my head forward and ced a kiss right on her lips.

    We just stayed like that for a few seconds before finally separating from each other, but now there were blushes on both of our cheeks.

    Even though we had done things that were much more intimate than this with our bodies, confessing our love for each other really was something that was new¡­It was a very warm and fuzzy feeling that couldn''t be reced.

    To the side, Cecilia was looking at the two of them with a strange look.

    She felt the same feeling as before whenever she saw the two of them getting intimate, but this time¡­it was a bit different.

    This time, this feeling wasn''t just aimed towards Zwein¡­this time, this feeling was aimed at the both of them.

    It was almost like feeling like she had been left out.

 Chapter 63 What Must Come Will Come (1)

    Over the next few days, we continued making preparations for the monster wave.

    Cecilia continued making skirmishes against the monster wave, slowly bringing down their numbers.

    In the few days that passed, they were able to take out another two hundred monsters out of the total over eight hundred that were left.

    From the original over a thousand monsters that were heading towards the town, there were now only over six hundred left.

    That was almost half of the monster wave that had been taken care of because of these skirmish attacks.

    But now was the hard part.

    These gueri attacks were fights against small groups of monsters that had wandered off, so they never fought a single fight where they were outnumbered. Every single time, it was the humans who had outnumbered the monsters.

    Now they would bepletely surrounded and outnumbered by the monsters¡­

    Humans were already weaker physicallypared to monsters, so they would be even further at a disadvantage.

    At the very least, they would have two hundred soldiers that would be able to fight.

    Cecilia had always only brought out a hundred with her so that half of their forces would remain in the town. That was just in case they were wiped out, the ones that were left in the town could help those that were still in the town run away to lower the number of casualties.

    There would be those that wouldn''t run, but at the very least, they would be able to save some of the women and children.

    If the women were caught by the monsters¡­they would be vited to the point where even their parents wouldn''t recognize them anymore. It was the same with the children¡­the monsters vited them regardless of their gender¡­

    Monsters were cruel like that, they didn''t discriminate.

    No matter how one looked at it, this was a losing battle still.

    But at the very least, they would have the walls of the town on their side.

    When they fought the monsters outside of the town, they fought in wide open spaces. But if they were to protect the town, they would at least have the thick walls of the town to depend on.

    Even if the monsters were powerful, it wasn''t as if they could break through the strong walls that the humans had constructed. That was why human towns were safe in this monster filled world in the first ce.

    From these walls, they would be able to shoot down at the monsters without taking any casualties.

    This would help make up for the difference in terms of numbers and strength.

    As we stood on the walls, Cecilia and I looked out at the monsters that were approaching with knitted brows.

    These monsters would be here soon, so it was toote to escape even if someone wanted to escape. The moment that they tried and left the town, they would bepletely surrounded by the monsters outside and killed.

    So the only path of survival was to take down these monsters.

    All of the other soldiers on the wall were tense, but I could tell that Cecilia''s expression was worse than normal.

    She might have had a bad look on her face facing these monsters, but it wouldn''t be as tense as this. It was clear that there was something new that she was worrying about¡­

    So I couldn''t help asking, "What''s wrong?"

    Cecilia didn''t say anything at first, but then she said with a sigh, "It''s worse than I thought."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised and confused look before asking, "What do you mean?"

    Cecilia was silent for a bit again before saying, "It seems like the scout reports weren''t urate. It seems that this wave is much stronger than we thought."

    I looked out at the monster wave spread out in front of the town and I slowly began understanding what she meant by that.

    Since I was now the baron, the amount of information that I had ess to was iparable to before. I was able to see all of the scout reports that were sent back, so I had a good idea of what the situation was.

    But the scout reports had only stated that there were low ss monsters that were a part of this monster wave.

    We had thought the same since only low ss monsters were encountered by Cecilia when she made her gueri attacks.

    However, that didn''t seem to be the case.

    Since I had seen them in the game before transmigrating, I was able to recognize them immediately.

    Out in the field in front of the town were several middle ss monsters that were standing amongst the low ss monsters. These were monsters that hadn''t been in the scout reports.

    There were hobgoblins, direwolves, goblin riders, barghest, and all kinds of other middle ss monsters.

    These were monsters that were much stronger than the average soldier and even when several soldiers worked together, they would still be defeated. These were monsters that could only be defeated by the knights working with the soldiers of the town¡­

    There were only twenty knights that had been trained in this town and as for these middle ss monsters¡­

    There were over two hundred of them.

    It was clear what would happen if they were to fight.

    But in the end, this couldn''t be med on the scouts.

    The job of the scouts was already very dangerous, especially so since they were scouting out thisrge monster wave. They wouldn''t have been able to approach this wave that easily and they could only scout out the outer regions of this wave.

    These middle ss monsters had been in the center of the wave, hidden behind the low ss monsters, so the scouts weren''t able to find them.

    But the fact that we were only learning about them now was a very disadvantageous thing for us.

    Cecilia said with a tense look on her face, "It seems like it will be a very hard battle."

    I could only nod in response to this.

 Chapter 64 What Must Come Will Come (2)

    After discussing this, I turned around to look at the soldiers that were posted on the wall.

    Based on the looks on their faces, it was clear that they too had noticed the difference with the monster wave.

    Many of them had gone out with Cecilia on the gueri strikes, so they knew what kind of monsters were supposed to be in the monster wave. So even if they didn''t recognize the middle ss monsters, they knew that these were new monsters that hadn''t appeared before.

    Judging by the fierce look of these monsters, they could also tell that these were powerful monsters¡­so they knew that their situation was grim.

    I knew that this would certainly have an effect on morale.

    I turned back to look at Cecilia with an inquisitive look.

    She looked right back at me, but this time she had a calm look even though she knew what I was referring to.

    She said in a calm voice, "It''s just pre battle jitters. They''ll get over it."

    I raised a brow as I looked at her, but seeing that she didn''t say anything else, I decided not to question it.

    After all, she was themander that had seen many fights before. She knew what she was doing and it wasn''t my ce to overstep.

    Cecilia turned back to look at the monster wave and just stared off into the distance for a bit. It was as if she was looking at the monster wave, but at the same time, she was looking at something that was beyond the monster wave.

    I couldn''t help feeling a strange feeling when I saw her like this.

    After a long moment of silence, I asked, "Is there something wrong?"

    Cecilia just kept staring off into the distance at first, not saying a single thing until she suddenly said, "I want to talk to you after the battle."

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard when I heard this, but seeing the serious look that she had, I couldn''t help feeling even more confused. Still, I gave a firm nod to show that I understood.

    Since she had something to talk to me about, then I wouldn''t run away and face it head on.

    Cecilia''s eyes wavered a bit when she saw this, but then she revealed a firm look again as she turned back to the monster wave.

    The two of us just stood there on the wall in silence for a bit before she finally said, "It''s time for you to go."

    I gave a nod in response to this.

    I could also see that the monster wave was getting closer and it was almost time for the fight to begin.

    As a nonbatant, the walls weren''t a ce for me to be.

    While I did have the desire to protect the things that were important to me, I knew that if I stayed up here, I would just be a distraction. Too many chefs would turn over the pot, so unless it was necessary, I shouldn''t be here.

    I turned to look at Cecilia and after a moment of silence, I brought my hand up to her head and patted it as I said, "Be safe."

    This would have been a beautiful scene if one looked at it from afar, but¡­it looked very strange since there was a difference in height here. In this new body of mine, I was quite short¡­

    So to actually reach her head, I had to stand on my tiptoes¡­

    But none of that mattered since all that mattered was what Cecilia thought.

    She looked at me with eyes that wavered once again before she said with a nod, "I will."

    After another moment of silence, she revealed a smile and said, "I have your special armour to keep me safe after all."

    As soon as she said this, I couldn''t help being taken aback. At the same time, I couldn''t help looking down at her chest.

    She had her armour on, so I wasn''t able to see a single thing.

    However, seeing that I was staring at her chest, Cecilia didn''t hide it or turn away like she normally would. Instead, she just stood there and allowed me to stare at her chest, like she was giving me permission to do so.

    After staring at it for a bit, I looked back up at her and said, "Don''t rely on it too much. Things like these can only do so much for you, you still have to rely on yourself."

    Cecilia was surprised to hear such a serious thing from me, but she still nodded in agreement in the end.

    She did know that items were only temporary and the only real way to increase one''s strength was to increase their personal power.

    But still, that didn''t mean that she didn''t appreciate the power that came from these items.

    After another long moment of silence, I took my hand back and turned to leave.

    Cecilia also turned around to look back at the monster wave.

    We''ve already said everything that we needed to say, so all that was left was for us to do what we needed to do.

    After all, what muste wille in the end.

    The job that I was given was to manage the residents of the town.

    Since it was a dangerous time, all of the residents had been evacuated to a safe location and they would remain there until the fight was over.

    When I arrived, I could see that many people were looking at me with looks of disdain.

    I just went over to the guards that had been assigned here with a calm look and asked what the situation was. The guards also couldn''t hide the look of disdain that they had, but they still briefed me on the situation.

    It wasn''t a surprise though, even I knew that I had been assigned here by Baroness Rose to protect me¡­.

    But I had also found a secret ce that would allow me to keep an eye on the battle. I still had something that I could do when the time came, but I wouldn''t bring it out unless I had to.

 Chapter 65 What Must Come Will Come (3)

    On the wall, the soldiers were all tense as they watched the monsters getting closer and closer to the wall.

    But at the very least, they were able to hold onto their bows and point them at the monsters. At the very least, they weren''tpletely overwhelmed by therge pressure of the monster wave and were still able to fight.

    Cecilia gave an appreciative nod when she saw this before focusing on the monster wave again.

    Her job was to repel this monster wave, but at the same time, her job was to also ensure that there were as few casualties as possible.

    If they lost too many soldiers, then it would leave them vulnerable to being invaded by the other lords around the area. So even if they were to repel the monster wave, they would still have to fight the other lords if they were to be too weakened.

    For that, she had asked for the help of the priest.

    The priest and several other clerics who could use healing magic were already standing by, just in case anything happened.

    Finally, when the monsters came within the range of their arrows, Cecilia raised her hand.

    The moment that they saw this hand go up, the soldiers all raised their bows and pointed it up to the sky. However, all of them only drew back the string and didn''t fire their arrows.

    They were all waiting for¡­

    Cecilia narrowed her eyes to watch the position of the monsters as they approached. Only when they reached a certain point did she drop that hand and shout, "Fire at will!"

    As soon as the soldiers heard this from Cecilia, they immediately shot all the arrows that they had nocked.

    These arrows flew high and true, creating a perfect arc in the air beforending on the monsters right behind the first line of monsters in this wave. They pierced right through the skins of the monsters with the momentum of gravity and several monsters fell down right away.

    There was still a line of monsters that were charging in front of this line, but the archers that were shootingpletely ignored them.

    They fired waves after waves of arrows at the monsters that were charging, but not a single one of them cared about the monsters that had made it through the first wave of arrows. They just let that line of monsters get closer and closer to the wall until¡­

    They were within the range of the secondary archers.

    These were specialized archery experts who had far greater power and uracy than these general archers. These general archers could only shoot in a general location, but these specialized archers were able to pick off any monster that they wanted with ease.

    It was just too bad that they didn''t have enough of them for an entire squad¡­

    Still, these were more than enough to pick off the ones that had made it through the rain of arrows.

    It took them no time at all to shoot down that first line of monsters before turning to a few monsters that were still approaching.

    These were the monsters that had survived the rain of arrows and had made it out of the area where the arrows were falling down. They were injured, but they were still able to fight.

    It was just too bad that their lives were ended by the urate and powerful arrows that flew through the air. Once those specialized archers shot, they didn''t miss.

    Seeing the monsters being whittled down like this, Cecilia gave a satisfied nod.

    This was all going ording to n.

    The first wave of arrows was to separate the frontlines from the rest of the pack so that the specialized archers could pick them off. Then they would pick off the stronger monsters that slowly made their way through.

    If they had shot the frontlines of the monster wave, it would have created a blocking force that would have stopped the entire wave. However, by shooting the middle of the wave, they were able to create enough momentum that the monsters were pushed into the rain of arrows while also making it hard for them to stop.

    This would force the monsters into the kill box.

    As time passed, more and more of the monsters were cut down with the arrows.

    By a rough estimate, Cecilia guessed that over two hundred monsters had already been killed with these waves of arrows.

    But as time passed, problems did ur.

    First, the monsters were slowlying to a stop and they no longer charged into the area where it was raining arrows.

    Second¡­they were running out of arrows.

    The soldiers had been shooting arrows without care, as if they would never run out of ammo, but that wasn''t the case. There was only a certain amount of arrows that were avable to them and they were slowly running out.

    They still needed to save a certain amount of arrows for those specialized archers, or else they wouldn''t be able to contribute.

    So as the monsters slowly stoppeding into the rain of arrows, Cecilia raised her hand again. As soon as she raised her hand, the archers stopped their shooting and put their bows down.

    The rain of arrows came to a stop and the few monsters that survived made their way forward to get shot by the specialized archers.

    Cecilia had expected some of the monsters to charge again after seeing the rain of arrows stop, but to her surprise, she found that this wasn''t the case. Instead, they all stopped in their tracks before splitting up into different groups.

    When Cecilia saw this, she couldn''t help knitting her brows.

    From the signs from the monster wave just now, she had figured that there was someone who wasmanding them. After all, the monsters had stopped charging into the rain of arrows too quickly¡­

    And now that they were splitting up into different groups and from what she could see, each of these groups was led by one or two of the middle ss monsters¡­it was clear that someone wasmanding these monsters.

    She didn''t know who it was, but she knew that there was at least a chain ofmand here.

    This was definitely not a good sign.

    Still, she didn''t panic as she had already expected this after seeing therge number of middle ss monsters in the wave.

    She had already expected something like this to happen eventually, so she had also prepared for what they were currently doing.

    After seeing that the monsters had split up into different groups that seemed like they were about to approach from different angles, Cecilia gave a hand gesture to her lieutenant beside her.

    As soon as this lieutenant received this signal, he immediately gave a nod of acknowledgement before running off to take care of something.

    It took him no time to run back with several figures in cloaks and several figures wearing holy robes.

    These figures didn''t need any instructions as they took their ces on the wall, evenly spreading themselves out so that they weren''t close together.

    Then they all raised their hands, causing mes to gather above them.

 Chapter 66 What Must Come Will Come (4)

    These mes quickly gathered in the air above them beforeing together to form giant fireballs.

    Once these fireballs had formed, these figures didn''t waste any time in bringing their hands down and shooting out these fireballs.

    The fireballs made their way through the air andnded urately on several of the groups of monsters, turning every single monster in that group to a pile of ashes. It didn''t matter if they were low grade monsters or middle grade monsters, they were all burnt to ashes in the might of these fireballs.

    The ones that threw out these fireballs were magicians and clerics that had been summoned by Baroness Rose to be used as special weapons against the monster wave.

    But the problem with them was that¡­they only had enough mana for one shot.

    Plus, their spells weren''t strong enough to destroy multiple middle ss monsters on their own, which was why Cecilia deployed them when these middle ss monsters spread out in these groups.

    There was no better chance than now to blow them up.

    But once again, the problem was that they couldn''t fire another shot since they were out of mana.

    The only one that still had mana left was the priest, but he didn''t fire another spell.

    He knew that he had to save his mana for the future, so he backed down.

    This would seem like it was firing their magic too early, but in truth, Cecilia knew better.

    She knew that this fight wasn''t something that would end quickly, so if she could use these spells to take care of some powerful enemies early, reducing the number of casualties that they would suffer, she wouldn''t hesitate to do so. After all, there would be plenty of time for the magicians to recover their mana, especially since they had prepared expensive mana potions for them.

    So Cecilia didn''t hesitate to have them cast their spells when given this opportunity.

    After being bombarded by the fireballs, the monsters quickly spread out so that they weren''t as packed together as before.

    The fireballs that hadnded had killed over fifty of them and injured another fifty or so, but the main thing was that most of the ones hurt were those middle ss monsters.

    The monsters that had been cut down earlier were mainly the low ss monsters that had been forced to charge, with a few middle ss monsters being shot down by the specialized archers.

    So these middle ss monsters being taken down was arge boon to them.

    But the fact that these monsters spread out so quickly was a disconcerting sign since it showed that there was someone who wasmanding the monster wave.

    The next thing that the monsters did put even more despair in the defenders.

    Instead of charging forward, the monsters moved back a bit so that they were at a safer range before spreading out to look for something. It didn''t take long for the monsters that had gone out toe back with a bunch of stones.

    There wererge stones and small stones, stones of all sizes that were piled up by the ones that were standing in the front of the monster wave.

    These were middle ss monsters that all hadrge builds and were quite powerful.

    When Cecilia saw the way that these middle ssed monsters were lined up with stones at their feet, she couldn''t help feeling a bad premonition. It was as if she could already guess what they were nning on doing¡­

    The monsters standing in front picked up the stones off the ground and then¡­they started throwing them at the city.

    With the powerful arm strength that these monsters had, the stones easily flew through the air, creating a perfect arc beforending on the city walls.

    It was a good thing that Cecilia had reacted as soon as she had seen the stones being brought over by the other monsters.

    As soon as she saw this, she had her men pull out their shields and spread out. With this that they created, they were able to use their shields to block the rocks that fell down.

    But of course, it was impossible for them to block all of the rocks that fell, so there were still some that hit the walls. The smaller ones didn''t do as much damage, but therger ones¡­started making cracks in the walls.

    Seeing this, Cecilia had no choice but to summon her specialized archers.

    Though they couldn''t hit the monsters with how far they were, they were still able to hit the rocks that flew at them.

    They aimed at therge rocks that fell and shattered them to smaller pieces with their arrows, but there were some that were just too big for their arrows to destroy. So instead of the archers shooting them down, the knights came up to cut thoserge rocks to pieces.

    Just like this, they were able to keep casualties down to a minimum.

    However, Cecilia knew that it was impossible for them to continue like this.

    She could see that the middle ss monsters were swapping themselves out as they threw the rocks, so just in terms of stamina, they would run out before the monsters did. It took them much more effort to cut down the rocks than it did for the monsters to throw them.

    The archers weren''t able to reach the monsters since they had moved out of their range. Even the specialized archers who had a longer range than normal archers couldn''t reach them.

    The only thing that could reach them were the magicians with their spells, but their mana had been spent and the only one that could still cast spells was the priest. However, Cecilia wasn''t willing to spend this trump card on this since she knew that there was still amander to this monster wave.

    So after thinking about it deeply for a bit, she finally said, "Saddle up! We''re riding out!"

 Chapter 67 What Must Come Will Come (5)

    It took no time for her soldiers and knights to saddle up.

    Half of them were still on the wall defending against the stones being thrown at them and the other half had saddled up with her.

    The one thing that they had over the monsters was their speed.

    The horses that they had were able to outrun the monsters and they had the cover of the archers if the monsters chased them too close to the walls, so they would be using this advantage to its full potential.

    Cecilia was going to lead a cavalry charge to disrupt the monsters from throwing rocks at the walls.

    Of course, this was very dangerous since it meant shing head on with the monster wave. This meant throwing away their advantage of being on the walls and avoiding a physical fight which the monsters had the advantage in.

    But there was no other choice.

    If they didn''t do this, they would be crushed by the flying stones eventually.

    Cecilia gave onest look at the men who were going to follow her out before saying with a nod, "I''m proud of you all."

    Not a single one of them responded, but they all had determined looks in their eyes.

    After all, they knew that many of them would not be returning from this suicidal charge.

    Still, they knew that they were doing this for their family, so not a single one of them backed down. Even if it meant death, they would do all they could to keep their families safe.

    Cecilia turned back to look at the gatekeepers and gave them a nod.

    The gatekeepers looked over the men on horses who were about to charge out with a heavy look on their faces before turning back to give Cecilia a firm nod.

    As the gate started dropping, Cecilia took a deep breath as she remembered who she was doing all of this for.

    Then as soon as the gate came down, Cecilia grabbed the reins with one hand to whip her horse into action while raising her sword in the other. As she charged forward, she roared out, "Charge!"

    The men behind her were all stirred into action when they heard this cry from her and they all started dashing forward on their horses.

    All of them gave battle cries as they charged out after her, shouting out so loud that they could even shake the ground under them.

    With the speed of their horses, it didn''t take them long to reach the monster wave that was heading towards the city.

    Of course, since they were on t ins and with how much noise they made in their charge, it was impossible for them to sneak up on the monsters.

    As soon as they came close, the monsters immediately focused on the cavalry that were charging at them. There were quite a few of them that came out from the center of the monster wave to face these cavalry head on.

    These were all middle ss monsters that wererge and powerful, perfect for stopping a head on charge from these cavalry units.

    But right before they collided, Cecilia gave the order, "Fire!"

    As soon as her voice fell, there were arrows that came from the back of this group of cavalry.

    At the back of these horsemen, there were some that had been holding bows that immediately shot at the monsters in front of them.

    However, none of these arrows proved to be fatal as these were normal archers that were firing at the monsters. The specialized archers were still on the wall dealing with the rocks.

    The arrows just simply bounced off the thick hides of the monsters without even causing a single scratch.

    There was a guttural sound that came from the monsters when this happened, almost as if they wereughing from being tickled. However, these monsters didn''t stop as they came forward to bear the brunt of Cecilia''s charge.

    It was just too bad for them that before Cecilia''s cavalry could hit them, she suddenly made a sharp turn. Then all of the cavalry followed her sharp turn and they immediately started to run away.

    The monsters were a bit confused when they saw this, but after a moment''s pause, they started chasing after the cavalry that was running away. Since they hade, they wouldn''t let these humans escape!

    But not a single one of the cavalry had a worried look when they saw the monsters chasing them.

    Instead, they all had looks of anticipation, as if they had already expected this and were even waiting for it to happen.

    Once they got far away enough from the main monster wave, Cecilia once again turned her men around and started charging at the monsters chasing them. She led the charge as she charged right into the center of these monsters.

    There were hobgoblins and ogres that met her head on, but her sword didn''t even stop for a second as they cut right through their thick hides.

    While she wasn''t able to bisect them like she had done to the weaker monsters, she was still able to cut deep into their flesh. Each wound that she left was a fatal wound, so each sh that she made cut down a monster in front of her.

    With each sh, she inspired the men behind her.

    It was just too bad that not a single one of these men could match her.

    Most of the men couldn''t even cut through the thick skin of these monsters and it was only the knights that were able to deal any damage to them.

    So other than that one path carved out by Cecilia among these monsters, the rest were all stalled right away.

    These middle ss monsters had a certain amount of intelligence and they were able to immediately recognize that it was only Cecilia that they had to be afraid of.

    So they quickly left some of their members to deal with the rest of the cavalry while most of them quickly came back to surround Cecilia.

    But even when she was surrounded by all of these monsters, she didn''t show any signs of panic.

    She just raised her sword and held the reins with her other hand, moving forward step by step towards them.

 Chapter 68 What Must Come Will Come (6)

    The first one to charge at her was an ogre, but it wasn''t just any ogre.

    This ogre''s skin waspletely blue.

    This was a special blue ogre variant that was much stronger than the normal ogre.

    But in the end, there was no hesitation at all as Cecilia''s sword cut right through the Blue Ogre''s club and the Blue Ogre''s chest.

    It wasn''t surprising to see it cut through the Blue Ogre''s club since that was just made of regr wood, but the Blue Ogre''s hide was as thick as iron armour. It was no easy feat cutting through it without any effort like this.

    The momentum carried that Blue Ogre back and itnded on the ground with arge thud.

    However, when she was surrounded by monsters like this, there were plenty of monsters to take the ce of that Blue Ogre.

    In no time, there were two more Blue Ogres that had taken the ce of the one that had fallen.

    This time, they didn''t charge right at her, but rather they went around to her sides. Then once they were there, the two Blue Ogres swung at Cecilia at the same time, trying to sandwich her between their clubs.

    Cecilia didn''t hesitate at all as sheid back on the saddle of her horse, letting the two clubs go right above her.

    Then once she was past the two Blue Ogres, she immediately sat back up. Turning around on her horse, she used one wide swing to cut down both of the Blue Ogres at the same time.

    Seeing how easily she had taken down the three Blue Ogres that had charged her, the other monsters started to feel a bit of fear.

    They had thought that it would be easy to take down Cecilia since they hadpletely surrounded her, but now it seemed like that wasn''t the case. It seemed like she was more than enough to pose a threat on their lives.

    But still, there was something that was even more of a threat to their lives if they didn''t take care of her.

    So there was only a single second of hesitation before more monsters charged forward.

    Cecilia''s sharp eyes didn''t miss the trace of fear that the monsters had shown before charging her.

    She couldn''t help thinking to herself, "Why are they so afraid? Or rather, what are they so afraid of?"

    As this thought passed through her mind, there was a bad premonition that filled her heart.

    But she didn''t have time to think this through right now as there were more monsters that were charging at her.

    This time, it was a mix of different monsters that came at her instead of just Blue Ogres.

    Before, the Blue Ogres had thought that they could overwhelm this small human female with their size and strength, but that n clearly didn''t work. The monsters took note of this and decided to use a different n.

    This time, there were still tworge Blue Ogres that came forward, but they didn''t charge right up to Cecilia.

    Instead, they created a wall around her so that she couldn''t escape.

    Behind those two Blue Ogres were Barghests and Hobgoblins.

    These Barghests and Hobgoblins had methods of attacking other than physical attacks, so they used these to bombard Cecilia while the Blue Ogres restricted her.

    The Hobgoblins had spears that they threw while the Barghests released mes from their bodies that came at Cecilia in a wave.

    Beingpletely surrounded by monsters like this, it didn''t seem likely that Cecilia would escape.

    But with her refined riding skills, she was able to dodge the spears that came flying at her. At the same time, she swept out with her sword, creating a wall of wind that mmed into the wall of mesing at her.

    This collision destroyed the wall of mes and she was able to make her way towards one of the Blue Ogres surrounding her.

    The Blue Ogre quickly moved backwards since it knew that it couldn''t beat her in a contest of strength.

    It was just too bad that the Blue Ogre couldn''t beat Cecilia''s horse in terms of speed. This was a special horse that had been bred just for Cecilia, so its speed was nothing tough about.

    It was the one thing that the Lord Baron had insisted on when he had brought Cecilia on as his head knight. Of course, he had thought more about appearance than usefulness, so this wasn''t what he had been thinking when he bought that horse.

    Still, it was a big boon to Cecilia since it allowed her to have the strength to protect the ones that she cared about.

    The Blue Ogre realized that it couldn''t run and swung its club at Cecilia.

    Cecilia saw this and swung her sword out to meet it. However, this time, she swung up instead of straight forward, which carried the Blue Ogre up into the air.

    The Blue Ogre flew right through the air and thennded on the Barghest that had been behind it.

    As soon as the Blue Ogrended, Cecilia didn''t waste any time in dashing out of the blockade of the monsters. She went through the small gap that had been created with the Blue Ogrending on the Barghest, trapping it.

    As she ran, it almost seemed like she waspletely abandoning the soldiers who had followed her out.

    When the monsters saw this, they couldn''t help hesitating once again¡­

    After all, even if they were monsters that didn''t have any sense of camaraderie, they never expected Cecilia to just abandon her men like this.

    But after that moment of hesitation, the monsters started chasing after Cecilia.

    Even the ones that had been engaging her men pulled away and started chasing after her.

    With them withdrawing, the men were far less pressured by the monsters and were able to catch their breath.

    Indirectly, Cecilia had been helping her men.

    After dashing out a bit, Cecilia suddenly turned around and swung her sword down at the monsters that were chasing her. They werepletely caught off guard by Cecilia suddenly turning around and charging into their lines.

    The monsters in front tried to hold her back, but all of them fell with a single swing of her sword. There weren''t any of them that were able to stop her.

    However, the momentum that she had only carried her so far and soon she was stopped by the monsters in the middle of this group. Once she was stopped, they had regained their positioning and were ready to face her head on again.

    It was just too bad that Cecilia didn''t have any ns of staying to fight them.

    As soon as they had regrouped, she immediately turned around and ran away again, leaving the monsters to stand there with stunned looks.

    After being in a daze for a bit, the monsters still decided to chase after her. After all, they had alreadymitted to taking her down, so it would be embarrassing for them to let her go. Not to mention, their lives would be in danger if they just gave up and let her escape like this.

    But after they chased her for a bit, Cecilia turned around once again to attack them head on, catching them off guard once more.

    The monsters were cut down by her sword and the worst part of it all was that her men had caught up. As soon as they caught up, they started attacking the back of the group of monsters.

    While they weren''t able to inflict much damage, it was still a nuisance that divided the attention of the monsters.

    Like this, Cecilia was able to make it even further before she was stopped.

    But this time, she didn''t run away again.

    That was because the group of monsters had been reduced to a point where it was manageable for her.

    There had been fiftyish monsters that hade out to face her and her men, but she had already in thirty of those monsters all by herself.

    With her men distracting ten of those monsters, it was easy for her to deal with the rest all on her own.

    Just like this, the monsters realized that they had beenpletely outyed by Cecilia.

    In short, it was a bait and switch tactic where they were lured into chasing her and whittled down slowly by her.

    They realized that now they were the ones being hunted.

    But before that happened, there was a roar that came from the main monster wave.

 Chapter 69 Last Boss (1)

    As soon as this roar rang out through these t fields, everything froze.

    This roar shook everything that was here to their core and it was as if there was something that came from the depths of their soul that froze them.

    Even Cecilia wasn''t an exception to this.

    As every human and monster froze, they all turned to look in the direction of that roar.

    They found that there was now a giant armoured goblin who was standing where this roar came from.

    As soon as she saw this giant goblin, Cecilia knew¡­that this was trouble.

    But at the same time, she realized who it was that had been guiding this monster wave the entire time.

    It was this giant goblin!

    That was because she recognized what this giant goblin was.

    As the head knight, she had done her study into what kind of monsters were out there and this one¡­this giant goblin was on the list of monsters that was rmended by all to run from.

    This giant goblin was a monster that could be called a disaster and if one was found in any town, they would be destroyed.

    If it was the previous her who hadn''t received the "special armour" from Zwein, then she too wouldn''t have stood a chance against this giant goblin.

    This giant goblin was the A Ranked Monster, Goblin General.

    Cecilia gritted her teeth when she saw this, but she then quickly turned to take care of the few monsters that were still around her. While they were dazed, it was the perfect time for her to take them down.

    After all, if she didn''t take them down, it would be impossible for her to focus on the Goblin General.

    It took her no time at all to cut down these monsters that were stunned by the Goblin General''s roar.

    Once they were all taken care of, she turned her attention to the Goblin General that had made its way to the front of the monster wave. She found that the Goblin General was looking at her just as she was looking at him.

    It was clear that the Goblin General knew that it was meaningless to send moreckeys at her, so it decided to personallye out and take care of her. But that also showed just how confident the Goblin General was in its own strength.

    When she faced this Goblin General, Cecilia knew that she waspletely outssed.

    She could instantly tell from the instincts that she had formed over years of fighting experience that in every way, the Goblin General was her superior. Unless something very unexpected happened, it was impossible for her to defeat this Goblin General.

    But even when faced with the despair of this reality, she didn''t back down.

    She just sat there on her horse, looking right at the Goblin General.

    As she sat there looking at the Goblin General, she took a deep breath and gathered herself. At the same time, she started thinking about all the things that she had to protect now.

    She might not have had these things in the past, but it was different now¡­

    In fact, if this was the past, she might have just tried to escape with Rose alone¡­

    After calming herself, Cecilia patted her horse on the back of the head and said, "Scarlet, I''m sorry, but we''ll do our best."

    She knew that it would be certain death for the two of them, but she didn''t have a choice but to head into battle with the horse.

    After all, she knew that it was impossible for her to stand a chance without the speed and maneuverability of her horse. The moment that she took a single hit from the Goblin General, she would be dead.

    So with onest pat on the head, she charged forward on her horse.

    But of course, she didn''t charge right at the Goblin General.

    Instead, she swerved at thest second so that she would go around the Goblin General instead of hitting it head on. The Goblin General swung right down at where Cecilia would have been and created arge hole in the ground.

    This was a hole that was more than three meters wide and three meters deep, more than enough to show just how much force there was in the sword that it had swung down. Not to mention that this was a sword, so it wasn''t even the sword that hit the ground, but rather just the pressure of the wind that it swung down with that created this hole.

    Cecilia''s brows knitted even more when she saw this, but she didn''t allow her to stop for a single second.

    She went around to the back of the Goblin General and swung quickly with her sword.

    She knew that her advantage would be quick strikes that the Goblin General couldn''t guard against, but she found¡­

    That her sword didn''t even make a dent in the Goblin General''s skin.

    She had urately cut in the gap in the Goblin General''s armour and had cut the skin, but it didn''t do a single thing.

    It was even harder than some of the iron armour that she had cut through before.

    Cecilia once again created distance as she narrowed her eyes to look at the Goblin General.

    She knew that it was impossible for her to hurt it unless she used her full power, but she needed a bigger opening for that.

    So she decided to risk it all.

    She dashed right at the Goblin General and decided to sh head on with it.

    The Goblin General decided to fulfil her request and swung down at her, but at the veryst second, Cecilia dodged out of the way.

    This was therge opening that she was looking for.

    She used that gap to swing her sword down with all of her strength as the Goblin General''s neck.

    It hit the Goblin General right in the neck with the full force of gravity, but¡­

    It didn''t make a single scratch!

 Chapter 70 Last Boss (2)

    Cecilia was caught off guard by this and couldn''t help being stunned for a second.

    Just that single second of being stunned was more than enough for the Goblin General to recover and get an advantage against her. While she was just standing there, the Goblin General brought its sword back and quickly shed out at her.

    Cecilia quickly reacted when she felt this and wanted to dodge, but she saw that the Goblin General''s swing was much faster than she had anticipated¡­

    She realized at that moment that just as she had baited the Goblin General, the Goblin General had baited her. It had used less strength in that swing just now so that she would be pulled into a range where she couldn''t dodge.

    Then it would take care of her with one good swing of its sword.

    Seeing the swording closer and closer, Cecilia realized that it was toote for her to do anything.

    The only thing that she felt was regret over being too confident.

    Even if she had be stronger because of the "special armour" that Zwein gave her, it wasn''t as if she had be the strongest person in the world.

    At this final moment, she epted her regret and her death.

    But if there was another chance, she would hope that she would be able to meet them again.

    Fortunately for her, it wasn''t her final moment.

    As the sword was about to cleave her in half, she suddenly twisted and moved out of the way of the sword sh.

    Cecilia didn''t understand how it happened until she realized that it was her horse that had saved her. In the end, her choice to go at the Goblin General with her horse was the right one.

    Though¡­it couldn''t be considered the right choice for her horse.

    Even though the sword didn''t cleave her in half, the force of the wind that was generated by the sword swing still caught her.

    This was wind that was strong enough to create a three meter wide and three meter deep hole in the ground, so it was like getting hit with a wall of bricks. This was the case for both Cecilia and her horse.

    Both of them had the wind knocked out of them as they were sent flying by the wind.

    Cecilia was able tond without suffering many injuries, only getting a few bruises from being mmed by the wall of wind and being thrown onto the ground.

    But it wasn''t the same for the horse.

    The horse had taken the brunt of the blow and had been sent flying even further than Cecilia. Even though she had been strapped to it, she was thrown off while they had been spinning in midair, so the horsended much further away.

    At the same time, since it had spun more from being hit with the brunt of the blow, itnded much harder than Cecilia had.

    The horsended right on its leg and that leg snapped cleanly.

    It was even so bad that the bone was peeking out of the leg.

    After recovering, Cecilia''s first thought was of her horse. Not just because she knew that she wouldn''t be able to escape the Goblin General without it, but she was worried since it had taken the brunt of the blow for her.

    Seeing the broken leg that it had, she knew that she was in the worst case scenario.

    There was no way for her to escape and at the same time, she didn''t want to escape.

    She at least wanted to protect her horse who had even tried to save her at the expense of her own life.

    Even though the horse had saved her life, she was still about to give up that life to protect the horse. Though, whether she would be able to do that was a big question mark.

    The Goblin General saw Cecilia who was struggling to stand up and it revealed what seemed to be a smile. At the same time, there was a lewd meaning to that smile as it looked at her curves.

    This was an H-game world, so of course the setting was that goblins, orcs, and other monsters captured girls and vited them. This Goblin General would naturally be the same, especially in front of a beautiful blonde knight captain like Cecilia.

    So instead of choosing to finish her off with therge sword that it wielded, it chose to do it another way. It stabbed its sword into the ground beside it and then came over with hands that were making a lewd gesture.

    It was as if the Goblin General was nning on having some fun before capturing Cecilia.

    Cecilia could naturally also see the gestures that the Goblin General was making and she couldn''t help feeling a chill run down her spine. Her pride would never allow her body to be vited by a monster like this, so she even had thoughts about killing herself before it could reach her.

    But her hands holding her sword stopped when she remembered who she was fighting for.

    As these thoughts passed through her mind, she revealed a determined look again.

    Even if she was going to die, she would at least die in battle.

    Even if she couldn''t kill the Goblin General, she would do what she could to at least injure it.

    After all, while she couldn''t cut through the hide of the Goblin General, she would at least be able to stab out an eye or cut through its mouth. It wasn''t as if this rock hard hide covered every single part of its body.

    The Goblin General slowly made its way over, looking like it had clearly won this fight.

    Cecilia''s men had tried to rescue their captain, but the monsters hade out to block them. Without Cecilia, they werepletely overwhelmed by the monsters and couldn''t approach her at all.

    The Goblin General came all the up to Cecilia and stood over her with its hand raised.

    With its two meter tall frame, itpletely overshadowed Cecilia who was only 1.7 meters tall.

    Cecilia took a deep breath when she saw this Goblin General standing right in front of her before suddenly giving a roar. With all of her might, she took a step forward and burst out towards the Goblin General.

    Her sword stabbed out urately right at the eyes of the Goblin General.

    It was just too bad for her that the Goblin General moved even faster and was already moving its hand over to grab her sword.

    It had no fear using its hand to grab her sword since it knew that she couldn''t cut it.

    As it was grabbing at the sword, the Goblin General''s swept over Cecilia''s body in a lewd manner, as if it was already imagining all the things that it would do with her. It was as if it could already see its victory.

    But that wasn''t strange since Cecilia was outssed by this Goblin General.

    However, before any of that could happen, there was a whistling sound that cut through the air¡­

    Then there was a sudden explosion that came from in front of Cecilia,pletely engulfing the Goblin General.

 Chapter 71 Last Boss (3)

    Cecilia couldn''t believe what she saw, but then she was pulled out of her daze by a voice.

    "Grab my hand!"

    This was a voice that she recognized which made her even more surprised, but she listened to this voice and reached her hand out.

    There was a small hand that grabbed her hand and pulled her up onto a horse that ran right past the mass of mes that was in front of her.

    Cecilia couldn''t help looking at the person riding on the horse with a shocked look as she said, "Why are you here?"

    The one on the horse who had grabbed her hand and saved her was none other than Zwein.

    But that shouldn''t be since Zwein should be safe in town.

    As they were riding past the mass of mes, before I could even answer her question, there was arge hand that grabbed out at us. Even though it had been hit with a mass of mes, the Goblin General didn''t seem that burnt.

    It grabbed out at us even though it couldn''t see us, it was just grabbing at the sound of the horse passing by it.

    But its ears were sharp enough that it was able to urately find where we were.

    I tried pulling on the reins of the horse to make it go to the side, but it was already toote as the Goblin General''s hand wasing towards us. This horse wasn''t anywhere on the same level as Cecilia''s horse, so it didn''t have the same agility and ability to dodge.

    It was impossible for us to dodge this p from the Goblin General.

    Before the Goblin General''s hand could p us down into a meat pancake, there was another whistling sound that cut through the air.

    This whistle was then followed by a ball of mes that mmed into the Goblin General''s hand, knocking it back.

    Seeing this, I didn''t hesitate at all to whip the reins of the horse and dash forward, moving away from the Goblin General.

    Only when we were far away did I turn back to look at the mass of mes that was the Goblin General.

    I also heard the sound of hoovesing over and turned to see the priest on a horse riding over.

    The priest had been the one that had shot the two fireballs in the first ce that had distracted the Goblin General long enough for me to save Cecilia. If it wasn''t for the priesting out with me and putting his life in danger as well, we never would have made it this far.

    Seeing that I had Cecilia with me, the priest looked at me with an appreciative look before saying, "As expected of the one chosen by the gods themselves. You truly are a hero among heroes."

    Ever since he had found out about the Mark of God that I had received, he had been strangely friendly with me. It reached the point where I couldn''t help being creeped out by how friendly he was¡­

    But still, there was no denying that he had been the one that had saved us.

    After stalling for a second, I shouted, "Let''s go! We''ll head back to the town and regroup!"

    The priest shook his head when he heard this and he turned to look at the mass of mes in front of us.

    I turned to follow his gaze and as I looked over, I saw the mes suddenly being shot out in every direction. It was like an explosion of mes, but instead of creating more mes, it just dissipated the mes that were already there.

    Once the mes had been scattered, the form of the Goblin General was revealed.

    It was standing there as if nothing had happened.

    There wasn''t even a single burn on its hide even though it had been covered in mes just a second ago.

    As soon as we saw this, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    I had thought that the mes would distract the Goblin General long enough that we would be able to escape, but it didn''t seem like it had an effect on the Goblin General.

    For us to escape, we needed to get past the Goblin General or face the wave of monsters with the Goblin General behind us.

    I had thought that it would be possible to run through the wave with the priest providing cover, but now¡­it seemed very unlikely.

    In the end, Cecilia was the one who spoke first, "Leave me here. I''ll cover you two while you run back into the¡­"

    Before she could finish, I hit her on the top of her head with my fist.

    Cecilia looked at me in a daze as if she couldn''t process what happened.

    During this, I said, "Don''t be a fool. If anyone''s staying behind, it''s me."

    Cecilia then quickly said, "No, I''m the head knight! It''s my job to protect everyone!"

    The two of us started arguing even though we were in this dangerous situation.

    The priest looked at us with a smile, letting us argue for a bit. But in the end, he cut us off when he saw that the Goblin General was about to move.

    The priest said one simple word, "Stop."

    Both of us were taken aback by the firm tone in his face.

    He looked at the two of us with a gentle smile before saying, "It''s this old man''s job to pave the way for you young people. The two of you should run while you still can."

    Before either of us could say a thing, the priest charged forth with two balls of mes in his hands.

    He didn''t even give us a choice in this matter as he took the role of being bait for the Goblin General.

    I couldn''t help biting my lip when I saw this.

    There was still something else that I could have done, but at this moment, I was still hesitating. By hesitating like this, I had put everyone in danger¡­

    Cecilia was about to jump off the horse to go help the priest, but I grabbed her arm and said, "Wait."

    Cecilia looked at me with an anxious look and was about to say something, but I said first, "Let me give you something first and then you can go help him."

 Chapter 72 Last Boss (4)

    Cecilia was taken aback when she heard this, but she gave a nod in response to this.

    She knew that when I said something like this, I would always take out something strange. But at the same time, the strange thing that I took out would also be very powerful.

    Just like the "strange armour" that I gave her.

    This time, I didn''t hesitate as I put my hand behind me and pulled out the thing that I was going to give her.

    As it came out, Cecilia couldn''t help being surprised by the thing that I pulled out.

    After all, it was just too big to miss normally.

    She couldn''t help being surprised and confused about where I had been keeping it the whole time.

    This was a thing that looked like a sword, but there was also a strange bend to it that was out of ce. It was a bend right in the middle of this thing that seemed like a sword. At the same time, she found that the overall colour of this thing was very strange, being purple in colourpared to the normal silver of a sword.

    Then to top it all off, she could see that this thing wasn''t made of metal, but this strange material that seemed like it was very smooth and sleek. This was a kind of material that she had never seen before.

    After looking at this thing with a strange look for a bit, Cecilia couldn''t help asking in a strange voice, "What is this thing?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a strange look when she asked me this because I really didn''t know how to exin this. After all, how were you to exin something like this to someone¡­?

    So I just gave a cough and said, "It''s a weapon for you."

    Cecilia looked at this thing with a very strange look. She didn''t reach her hand out to take it as she just sat there on the horse with that same strange look.

    But then there was an explosion that pulled them out of this strange atmosphere.

    Looking over, they saw that the priest had thrown another fireball at the approaching Goblin General.

    However, this fireball didn''t have any effect on the Goblin General as it emerged from the mes created by the explosion.

    Seeing this, the priest immediately created two more fireballs that he threw at the Goblin General.

    At the same time, Cecilia no longer hesitated as she grabbed the weapon out of my hand. As she held it, she couldn''t help moving it around a few times, as if she was getting used to the weapon.

    As she swung it though, she couldn''t help revealing a strange look.

    That was because the feeling of this weapon was just too strange for her to get used to quickly. It functioned like a sword, but the weight of it was off because of how much the tip of it flopped around as she swung it.

    Instead of calling it a sword, it was better to call it a il with how much it swung around.

    Still, Cecilia was the head knight, the strongest knight in this barony with plenty ofbat experience. She was able to get used to using this strange sword after a few swings.

    The one other thing that she had toin about was the hilt of this sword.

    This sword had a very strange hilt where there was only a hilt on one side. This hilt was veryrge and very round, almost throwing off her bnce with how one sided it was.

    At the same time, she couldn''t help thinking of a certain thing when she saw this sword''s hilt.

    The shape of the sword and the hilt that was on it reminded her of something familiar¡­.

    She couldn''t help turning to look at Zwein¡­particrly, she looked at his lower half.

    Seeing her look at me like this with that strange look, I couldn''t help asking, "What''s wrong? Why are you looking at me like this?"

    Being called out like this made Cecilia suddenly jump and she couldn''t help revealing a blush which made me feel even more strange.

    But in the end, she gave a cough to calm down before saying, "Nothing, it''s nothing."

    Cecilia turned her attention back to the priest who was fighting the Goblin General and then she jumped off the horse.

    When she jumped off, I quickly called to her, "Where are you going? Why are you leaving the horse behind?"

    Cecilia turned back to say, "Take the horse and get out of here."

    Without even giving me a chance to say anything, Cecilia ran forward to face the Goblin General.

    I wanted to say something, but I just closed my mouth and swallowed those words.

    I knew that anything I said now would just affect her when she had to fight the Goblin General. In this situation, it was better to just silently watch over her since I had already done everything that I could.

    I had to believe that the giant dildo bat that I gave her would work¡­

    Cecilia dashed forward, running up to where the priest was before running right past the priest, charging at the Goblin General.

    The priest had been in the middle of firing his spells and he was caught off guard when he saw Cecilia running past him. This caused one of his spells to stall, which gave the Goblin General space to move forward.

    Seeing this, Cecilia didn''t slow down and ran even faster at the Goblin General.

    The priest knitted his brows for a second, before gathering two more fireballs in his hands. But this time, he didn''t shoot those fireballs out right away and carefully watched the Goblin General.

    When the Goblin General was close to Cecilia, that was when he threw out these fireballs.

    They traveled through the air and came right up in front of the Goblin General before exploding.

    This time though, the mes had been greatly weakened so that they only provided cover for Cecilia.

    When the mes disappeared, Cecilia was already swinging down with the giant dildo bat in her hand.

    The Goblin General raised its hand to grab it when it saw this.

 Chapter 73 Last Boss (5)

    With the experience of fighting Cecilia before, the Goblin General didn''t think that Cecilia would be able to do anything to it even if she had a new weapon.

    That was its first and final mistake.

    As the giant dildo bat swung down at the hand, the floppy part at the very front of it

    suddenly started to glow before it swung down onto the Goblin General''s hand.

    As soon as it made contact, there was no hesitation at all as it¡­smashed the Goblin General''s hand.

    It cracked immediately under the pressure of the giant dildo bat and deformed under the weight of the blow. The arm only had form for a single second before it was crushed to bits by the hit of the dildo bat.

    The arm itself crumpled before bits of blood and flesh starteding out from under the skin. It kept copsing until even shattered bone came out from under the skin, sttering all over the ce.

    The Goblin General knew that it would be dangerous for it to continue pushing forward, so it gave up the idea of grabbing the dildo bat.

    Instead, it jumped back without any hesitation, choosing to sacrifice just the arm.

    When itnded, it slumped down on one knee while using the other hand to grab the stump that was left of the arm that had been shattered to pieces.

    After the Goblin General jumped back, the dildo bat continued falling down until it reached the ground. Once it mmed into the ground, there wasn''t arge impact as one thought, but rather a dull sound that rang out.

    There wasn''t arge hole that was created, there was just a single small dent around where the dildo bat hadnded.

    Cecilia couldn''t help looking down at the dildo bat in her hand in shock because she could see the bits of blood, flesh, and bone that had scattered around her. There was even a bit of it that hadnded on her face when she smashed the Goblin General''s arm.

    She didn''t know what happened, but she could guess what had caused it.

    So her gaze couldn''t help turning strange as she looked at the dildo bat.

    But then her attention was pulled back to the Goblin General when she heard a noise from in front of her.

    The Goblin General had stood up again, even though it had a winced look of pain on its face and it was still holding its arm. It looked at Cecilia like it still hadn''t given up and was nning on fighting.

    Cecilia immediately focused herself as she watched the Goblin General for its next move.

    She didn''t know what the Goblin General could still do with one arm destroyed like that, but she didn''t dare look down on it. After all, this was a powerful monster that could destroy the entire town if it wanted to.

    She wouldn''t give it a single inch.

    The Goblin General stared at Cecilia for a bit before¡­suddenly turning to run.

    It held its arm and ran with all of its might, without a single care about the pride that it had felt before.

    Since they had changed positions when they had shed previously, what was behind the Goblin General now was the wave of monsters that were left. There were over two hundred monsters that were still there that had been throwing stones at the walls the entire time, but that had stopped when they saw the Goblin General''s hand being blown off.

    Seeing the Goblin General running towards them, the monsters didn''t know what to do.

    That was until the Goblin General suddenly gave a roar.

    The monsters were taken aback, but then they went into action.

    They had divided into two different groups, one that was still throwing the rocks and one that was now charging out to cover the Goblin General.

    Cecilia had been caught off guard by the Goblin General''s sudden retreat, but she quickly reacted and chased after the Goblin General.

    She knew that she couldn''t let this powerful monster escape, or else it would mean leaving a hidden danger in the wild for them.

    So she immediately charged out after the monsters.

    But with the rocksing at her and the monsters that came out to block her way, there was a distance that was slowly being created between her and the Goblin General.

    As the rocks came flying towards her, Cecilia swung the dildo bat and crushed them all to pieces.

    The strange thing that happened was that the rocks shattered in a very strange way. When the dildo bat hit the rocks, it seemed to cut right through before the rocks shattered to pieces.

    There was even one time where she stabbed at a rock and the dildo bat pierced right through, creating a perfect hole before shattering the rock to pieces.

    But she didn''t have time to think about that as there were also monsters that wereing at her.

    It was just too bad for the monsters that not a single one of them were able to block a single blow from her. In fact, her attacks were now so powerful that the monsters were getting blown back with every sh from her.

    So they couldn''t stall her at all as she made her way through.

    Still, the rocks flying at her created arge problem.

    That is until there was a barrier that suddenly appeared around her.

    She turned back to see that the priest had his hands up and there was a magical glow around them. Seeing this, she immediately knew that he was the one that cast this barrier around her.

    Cecilia gave him a nod of appreciation before charging forward again.

    As she ran, the barrier blocked all of the rocks flying at her.

    But the problem was that the Goblin General ran faster than she did. Even when it was injured, the Goblin General was still faster than her, which created distance between them.

    That is until Cecilia suddenly heard a voice once more saying, "Grab on!"

 Chapter 74 Last Boss (6)

    Cecilia immediately recognized the voice because it was her second time hearing this voice say this.

    When she turned around, she saw that I was pushing my horse towards her.

    As soon as the monsters saw my horse running over, they didn''t hesitate toe and attack me.

    However, I had both the priest and Cecilia covering me.

    The priest shot fireballs that sted down the monsters that were close to me while Cecilia cut her way over to me. With the two of them working together like this, it took her no time to reach where I am.

    Cecilia didn''t waste any time in grabbing my hand and jumping onto the back of the horse.

    Once she was on, she knitted her brows and scolded in an angry voice, "What are you doing here? Didn''t I tell you to go back to town? What if you get hurt?"

    I just calmly said, "Is there any use in me going back if we lose? I''m here because I want to help."

    Hearing the calm and firm way that I said this, Cecilia couldn''t help being taken aback.

    She looked at my back with a strange look before saying with a nod, "Keep it steady, I''ll clear them out of the way."

    I nodded in agreement to this without saying anything.

    As for why I was here, I had been watching the fight the entire time.

    While I knew that I would just be a distraction if I went in with Cecilia when she charged the Goblin General, I knew that I couldn''t just do nothing. So I had been watching the entire time, waiting for my chance to strike.

    When I saw that Goblin General turning to run away, I knew that it was my time.

    That was because I had a horse with me.

    Cecilia wouldn''t be able to catch up to the Goblin General if she just chased it on foot, so I knew that I had to pick her up and catch it with the horse.

    Of course, this was dangerous, but it was worth taking this risk if it meant ending the Goblin General once and for all. After all, it would be too dangerous if we allowed it to escape.

    The Goblin General had been watching Cecilia even though it was running away.

    It had learned from its mistakest time and didn''t underestimate Cecilia.

    So the moment that it saw that she had gotten on a horse, it immediately gave out another roar.

    As soon as the monsters heard this roar, they immediately changed their attack pattern.

    The monsters that had been throwing rocks at the wall still stopped and turned their attention to Cecilia. They worked with the monsters that had already been throwing rocks at Cecilia to bombard her with even more rocks.

    Cecilia did what she could to knock all of the rocks down, but some of the smaller rocks started making through her swings. There were just too many rocks for her to block everything that was thrown at them.

    As more and more rocks were thrown, they were slowly pushed back by the wave of rocks and the wave of monsters that were swarming them.

    After all, they were two humans and one horse among hundreds of monsters.

    Seeing all of this and seeing the injuries that I had suffered, Cecilia bit her lip.

    She was about to open her mouth to say something, but before she could, there was another roaring from behind us. This time, it wasn''t the roar of the Goblin General.

    This time, it was the roar of the priest.

    Everyone couldn''t help being caught off guard by this gentle looking priest who suddenly roared out like a madman.

    Even the veins on his forehead bulged out when he roared out like this.

    But those with sharp eyes could see the flow of mana that was swirling around him. As the priest roared out, his mana and the mana around him gathered in his body, forming a spell.

    It was clear that the priest was pushing his limits with how much mana was being gathered, but he didn''t back down.

    After the mana had been gathered there were bright balls of light that formed in the air. These balls of light just floated there above him, not looking like anything special.

    However, I immediately recognized what these were.

    With how many hours I had put into this game, it would be a travesty if I couldn''t see this.

    All of those balls of light that had gathered were individual magic arrow spells.

    While the magic arrow spell was only a low grade spell that most magicians could use, it was not easy to gather this many magic arrows at once.

    The number of balls of light around the priest numbered in the hundreds while most normal magicians would only be able to cast in the tens.

    This was a testament of just how powerful and skilled the priest was. But at the same time, it was also a sign that he was nning on using all of his mana for one final attack.

    As for the goal of the attack¡­

    The priest suddenly shouted, "Run!"

    Both me and Cecilia were caught off guard by this at first, but then we realized what he was nning on doing.

    So with a nod to each other, I pushed the horse forward while Cecilia made one big sweep to clear out all the rocks in front of us.

    Then her sword came down when more rocks came at us.

    However, those rocks never hit us as they were all shattered by the magic missiles shot by the priest.

    These magic missiles didn''t just stop at these rocks and flew right past us to hit all of the monsters in front of us.

    They weren''t strong enough to kill all of them, just the low ss monsters. The middle ss monsters were still at least knocked back and pushed out of the way by these magic missiles.

    As he had ordered, I pushed the horse forward, getting closer and closer towards the Goblin General.

    The Goblin General had also seen all of this and wanted to run even faster, but there were also a few magic missiles that were also aimed at it.

    For this Goblin General, it wasn''t as if it would be hurt by these magic missiles. However, the force behind them would still stagger it a bit, especially since the priest had added a bit more magic to the ones he shot at the Goblin General.

    I made sure to follow the magic missile aimed at the Goblin General as closely as possible so we would be there when it hit, but I was still a bit behind since it was just too fast.

    But that didn''t matter since Cecilia still received the opening that she needed.

    She stood up on the back of the horse and gripped the dildo bat in both hands.

    When I saw this out of the corner of my eyes, I couldn''t help revealing a strange look since this was a strange sight for someone like me who knew what the dildo bat was¡­

    But still, I made sure that the horse ran steadily so that Cecilia had the foothold to jump from.

    When we got close, she suddenly jumped up into the air with all her might and swung the dildo bat down at the Goblin General''s head.

 Chapter 75 Last Boss (7)

    The Goblin General''s reaction was slow since it had been staggered a bit by the magic missiles, but it was still able to see Cecilia''s attack.

    It was just too bad that it was already toote for it to dodge out of the way.

    Since it had no other choice, it could only raise its final hand up to block it.

    After all, the dildo bat was aimed at its head.

    It was better to sacrifice an arm than to sacrifice its head. It would survive without both of its arms, but if it lost its head¡­

    Unfortunately, this blow from Cecilia was different as well.

    This was a blow that contained her very soul, plus it was swung down, adding in the power of gravity. This was a blow that was without a doubt much heavier than the blow from before.

    When the dildo bat made contact with the hand of the Goblin General, there was an immediate explosion of blood, flesh, and bones.

    The arm of the Goblin General was like a balloon that popped in an instant, spraying its contents all over the ce.

    The dildo bat didn''t stop with just blowing up the arm of the Goblin General, it continued falling down towards the head of the Goblin General.

    Seeing this, the Goblin General knew it was toote to dodge, so the only thing that it could do was¡­gather the remaining bits of magic that it had to create a barrier.

    That was the real reason why it had been able to stop Cecilia''s sword before. There was no way that natural hide could be this powerful.

    As a magic infused monster, this was an ability that it had even though it couldn''t use mana as spells.

    So the Goblin General gathered every bit of magic power that it had into its head. As it did this, it could feel the pressure from gathering this much magic power in its head. It almost felt like there was somethingpressing its head.

    But the Goblin General didn''t have time to think about this.

    It was now facing life and death, so it would do what it needed to do to survive.

    But¡­that didn''t matter in front of the dildo bat.

    As the dildo bat came closer, the life of the Goblin General shed in front of its eyes. This was a very short shback since it hadn''t lived that long.

    Goblins had a very short growth cycle in the first ce. It had only been alive for a single season.

    There was no pause at all as the dildo bat fell onto the Goblin General''s head, smashing it like a watermelon being crushed by a bat on the beach. There was stter that went all over the ce at the same time, just like with the stter of the arm.

    When it was over, the dildo bat didn''t stop as it continued going down through the Goblin General''s body. It kept crushing the body of the Goblin General until all of it was grounded up into a meat paste and the body was split in half.

    The two halves of the bisected body fell to the ground beside Cecilia.

    The sound that the two halves made as they fell to the ground wasn''t that loud, but it rang out clearly through this field. That was because it was so silent right now that even the sound of a pin dropping could be heard.

    There wasn''t a single person or monster that dared to make a sound.

    After a long silence, there was a monster that suddenly turned to run.

    As if Pandora''s Box had been opened, there was no stopping the tidal wave of monsters that followed after this. Once they all saw that the Goblin General had been killed, the monsters didn''t hesitate to turn and run.

    After all, it had been the threat of this Goblin General that had kept this monster wave together in the first ce.

    Once that threat to their lives was gone, they wouldn''t stay here any longer.

    The knights and soldiers didn''t stop the monsters as they started running away.

    Even if they were now retreating, there were still over two hundred monsters that were left and among them were powerful middle ss monsters. This was still a monster wave that could easily destroy their town.

    If they scattered, they wouldn''t pose a threat to the town, but if they were still all to charge at the town because they provoked them¡­

    So it was better to let them all scatter and run away.

    Seeing the monsters scatter, we all couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    There had been some fear that the monsters would still fight for their lives after the Goblin General was killed, but now it seemed that fear was unnecessary.

    There was no loyalty to the Goblin General in the first ce, they had only been afraid for their lives.

    The most important thing to these monsters in the end was their own lives, so they wouldn''t risk it fighting the humans. Especially not a terrifying human who was able to kill the Goblin General that had threatened all of their lives.

    In no time at all, all of the monsters scattered from the field and disappeared into the forest in the distance.

    During this time, both the priest and Cecilia had forced themselves to stand up straight and watch the monsters as they ran.

    When they saw that the monsters were gone, it was only then that they allowed their bodies to go limp and fall.

    After all, they had used up all of their strength in the fight just now. If it wasn''t for the fact that they knew that it would be dangerous to fall earlier since the monsters still had a chance of attacking, they would have immediately fallen over after the Goblin General died.

    Only the priest fell onto the ground. As for Cecilia, I immediately ran over to grab her as soon as she fell over.

    Looking up at me, she had an inquisitive look in her eyes.

    I looked into the distance and seeing that there was nothing there, I gave a nod and said with a smile, "It''s over."

    Only then did she reveal a smile before closing her eyes.

 Chapter 76 Itâ€™s Over

    After Cecilia closed her eyes, her body wentpletely limp in my hands.

    I was afraid that she had even stopped breathing, so I quickly put my finger under her nose.

    Feeling that she was still breathing and then checking that she still had a pulse, I let out a sigh of relief. However, I didn''t let myself rx just yet since I knew that she was injured.

    I quickly brought Cecilia up onto the horse and turned to ride back into the town.

    I had thought about getting the priest as well, but I saw that the other knights and soldiers had made their way over. When they saw me with Cecilia on my horse, they just gave a nod before turning to take care of the priest.

    Since they were going to take care of the priest, there was no need for me to care.

    Instead, that meant that I couldpletely focus on Cecilia instead.

    So without hesitation, I rode back into the town with Cecilia on the back of my horse.

    As soon as we arrived, the gates opened without any dy. The gatekeepers had even been waiting for us toe up to open the gate.

    They could have opened the gate before we came up, but they chose to follow orders and not do so. That was the kind of professionalism that they chose, even though it didn''t make sense to me.

    When we came in, everyone immediately surrounded us¡­or rather, everyone suddenly surrounded Cecilia to make sure that she was alright.

    I was thrown aside like chopped liver.

    But I didn''t mind since I was worried about her as well. Though I did at least keep certain people away at first. These were the ones that wanted to take advantage of the situation to let their hands wander a bit.

    When they tried to bring their hands forward, I firmly grabbed it and red at them.

    When I was protecting her, the strength that erupted from my hand was much greater than normal. At the same time, the people whose hands I grabbed couldn''t help shrinking back in front of my re.

    Eventually a doctor came over and everyone backed away to give the doctor space. With the doctor here, there was no one that had any excuse to do anything.

    The doctor quickly looked over her and found that other than a few bruises, she was fine. The only reason that she had fainted in the first ce was that she was exhausted and the line of her tension was cut.

    All she needed was to be patched up and she would be fine.

    The doctor suggested getting one of the clerics healing her, but I stopped them. The doctor looked at me with a strange look when I said this, but I still insisted.

    After all, all she had were minor injuries and there were still many others that needed healing from the cleric. There had been many casualties from the rock bombardment of the monsters¡­

    If it meant that even a single life couldn''t be saved because a cleric was healing her, I''m sure that she wouldn''t want that.

    I also wouldn''t let her bear that cross.

    So the doctor just wrapped a few bandages on her.

    As the doctor was doing this, Baroness Rose came over.

    She had been busy with managing the rest of this town and dealing with the citizens hiding, so the message of Cecilia being injured came to herte.

    But as soon as she received that message, she dropped everything to run over.

    When she saw Cecilia lying there, being wrapped up by the doctor, there was a mist that appeared in her eyes. She didn''t care about anything as she ran over, but I quickly grabbed her before she could get too close.

    Baroness Rose immediately revealed an angry look as she said, "Who dares? Let go of me this instant!"

    Part of that rage was from being stopped and part of that rage came from being grabbed by an unknown man.

    She didn''t want just any person touching her body.

    She didn''t recognize me because I hade up from behind her and she had been focused on Cecilia.

    So I said, "Calm down, it''s me, it''s me."

    Baroness Rose had been struggling until she heard this voice. She then looked at me with a confused look, as if she was asking, "What are you doing?"

    I calmly said, "She''s fine, she''s just exhausted. She has a few bruises and the doctor is wrapping her up right now. Don''t distract them."

    All the anger disappeared from her face and she calmed down a bit, but then she asked in a slightly hurt voice, "Why didn''t you get a cleric to heal her?"

    The way she said this, it almost seemed like she thought that I didn''t care about Cecilia.

    I didn''t know how irrational she was because of her worry, so I knew that words might not work.

    So instead¡­

    I didn''t answer her question and instead, I turned to look at one of the clerics that was currently healing someone on the ground.

    This person had suffered much heavier injuries as they had been crushed by one of the stones that the monsters had thrown.

    To his side was his wife who was in tears as she watched the cleric healing him.

    Baroness Rose followed the direction that I was looking in and she also saw this scene of the cleric healing this person.

    Her expression calmed down and she no longer had the same worry as before.

    She immediately understood what I was implying and she no longer had that look of me that she had.

    After a long while, she couldn''t help giving a sigh before turning to hold me. As she held me, she put her head into my chest and asked, "Is it all over?"

    I looked at the destruction that was all over the town and there was a sad feeling that filled me.

    But in the end, I patted her on the back and said, "Yes, it''s over."

 Chapter 77 Celebration (1)

    After Cecilia''s treatment was finished, the other soldiers and knights came back.

    They had brought back Cecilia''s horse and the priest.

    The priest was just unconscious because he had overused his mana. All he needed to do was rest up and he would be fine.

    As for the horse¡­it had a broken leg.

    Anyone that took care of horses knew that this was basically a death sentence for a horse. It would be very unlikely that it would recover from this and even if it did, it wouldn''t be able to run like it did before.

    The smarter thing would be to put this horse down to save it from suffering.

    But Baroness Rose wouldn''t allow that to happen.

    She had heard from the men how this horse had protected Cecilia and fought with her against the Goblin General, so she wouldn''t let them repay its valor with cruelty. She made sure that the horse got the best medical care that it could get.

    Over the next few days, everyone was kept busy even though the monsters had already been driven away.

    That was because there was a lot of cleaning up to do.

    The monsters hadn''t held back at all as they threw their rocks at the town.

    While the soldiers and archers had done their best to block as many rocks as they could, it wasn''t as if they could stop everything. There were plenty of rocks that had gone over their heads andnded in the town.

    The rocks that fell had destroyed several buildings, so they now had to clean them up and rebuild them.

    Normally, this would be the copse of one''s family with the amount that it would cost to rebuild, but Baroness Rose said that all of the construction costs would be paid for by her.

    This had gone a long way to increase her poprity with the people of the town, though it didn''t need an increase in the first ce since she was already very popr.

    But that did mean that there was a lot of work that had to be done so that the town could function again.

    So over the next few days, I had been running around ragged doing things for the town.

    During this time, Cecilia and the priest had both woken up and were showing signs of recovering.

    However, there were some people that didn''t wake up and there were many funerals that were also held during this time.

    The priest had wanted to get up for each and every one of those funerals, but I was able to convince him to lie down and rest in the end. I was actually the only one that was able to do so.

    The clerics had tried, but they hadn''t been able to stop the priest.

    So they had no choice but to ask me to stop him.

    If it wasn''t for the Mark of God, I most likely wouldn''t have been able to stop him.

    But because I had this Mark of God, he listened to me and stayed in bed. Though there were many praises that he said while I was there¡­

    It really made me wonder just what this Mark of God was¡­but the priest wouldn''t exin when I asked him about this.

    The other thing that happened during this time was that Baroness Rose held a celebration feast for everyone after the cleanup was done.

    This was a feast that was hosted by Baroness Rose, so everything was paid for by her. Once again, this increased the poprity of Baroness Rose, reaching a point where the townspeople were even ready to worship her.

    But this was something that the town needed since there was an air of sadness that lingered over them.

    The people needed a way to grieve over the dead and a way to celebrate the fact that they had survived.

    So everyone cut loose on the day of the feast and just focused on enjoying themselves.

    That included Cecilia and the priest who had recovered enough to join.

    The reason we had waited this long in the first ce was because we wanted to wait until the people who had been injured in the fight had recovered enough to celebrate with us.

    There were those that were seriously injured and would take several months to recover, so we couldn''t wait for them. But we tried to wait as long as we could so that those that suffered slight injuries could join in the celebration.

    The ones that were the most popr were Cecilia, the priest, and Baroness Rose.

    As beautiful women, it was natural that Cecilia and Baroness Rose were popr.

    However, the priest was also very popr as the one who led the clerics.

    The clerics had done a lot during the monster wave to heal people, so the townspeople all had good impressions of them. Since the priest was the one that led these clerics, he was the one that everyone respected the most.

    But those that tried to get close to Cecilia and Baroness Rose¡­had ulterior motives.

    They all came over with drinks and tried to get the two of them drunk so that they could take advantage of them. Even though I was by the side of these two, theypletely ignored me and still tried to take advantage of them.

    So I couldn''t ignore it anymore and stood up for the two of them, telling these people to back off.

    These people were soldiers of the town who were still single, so they were quite strong and didn''t back down from me telling them to back off. They even stepped up to me, as if they wanted to suppress me with their pressure.

    One of them who was the leader came forward and said, "What are you going to do about it then? Are you going to fight us if we don''t back off?"

    I was about to say something, but before I could, one of the knights came forward to push this person back as he said, "This is a celebration, don''t take it too far."

 Chapter 78 Celebration (2)

    The one that had tried to threaten me was only one of the guards, so while he was a bigger man than me, he didn''t have enough in him to threaten the knights.

    The knights were specially trained warriors after all.

    When this guard saw that the knight was stepping up for me, he couldn''t help being caught off guard. It was the same for the men who were behind him.

    But at the same time, it was the same for me.

    Before this, the knights and the guards had all looked down on me. None of them had any respect for me since they just thought that I was Baroness Rose''s boytoy.

    That wasn''tpletely incorrect, but still¡­I had be the Baron and should havemanded some respect.

    Still, there was no real conflict before me and the knights and guards before this, so I hadn''t really minded it.

    So seeing them stand up for me now¡­really was something else.

    After taking a moment toe back to his senses, the guard said with a careless smile, "We''re just ying around, there''s no need to be this serious."

    The guard was just trying to y it off now.

    He didn''t know why the knight was acting this way, but he wasn''t foolish enough to provoke someone who was stronger than him.

    Unfortunately for him, the knight wasn''t nning on letting this go that easily.

    The knight gave a coldugh before saying, "It was just ying around? Do you understand who you are ying around with?"

    The guard couldn''t help taking a step back when he heard this and he unconsciously shook his head.

    The knight waved his hand and several of his followers came forward to grab the guard.

    After being grabbed, the guard couldn''t help saying in a panicked voice, "What are you doing? Don''t touch me!"

    But those followers firmly held him and didn''t give him a chance to break free.

    The knight said in a cold voice, "This man is the baron, the noble title holder of thisnd. The words that you''ve just said to him can be considered a threat towards a noble, which is a crime punishable by death."

    The guard immediately felt a chill run down his spine after the knight said this.

    He knew that this was the case, but he also knew that no one respected the new baron. They all thought that he was nothing more than the boytoy of the baroness and didn''t have any power, so they were free to bully him however he wanted.

    After all, he didn''tmand any respect from the knights or the soldiers that would back him up. So even if someone were to do something to him, no one would be held ountable for it.

    But now that the knight was actually standing up for the new baron, the guard couldn''t help being confused.

    However, this wasn''t the time to think about this.

    What he needed to do now was figure out a way to get out of this mess, or else it really would be his life on the line.

    The guard immediately looked to hispanions, but he found that not a single person was looking in his direction. They even went out of their way to turn away from him, avoiding his gaze.

    It was as if they didn''t want a single part of this.

    Since that was the case, the guard said, "I wasn''t the only one who thought this! The others all thought the same thing!"

    As soon as he said this, hispanions all red at him.

    They never expected him to drag them all down with them.

    The knight''s eyes swept over the rest, but he didn''t do anything to them as he turned his gaze back to this guard. As he looked at the guard, he said, "You''re the only one that has shown disrespect to the baron and baroness today, so you will be the only one punished."

    The rest couldn''t help letting out a secret sigh of relief when they heard this, but then they held their breaths when they heard what the knight said next.

    After a pause, the knight added, "However, if anyone were to show the same disrespect for the baron and baroness in the future, understand that you will be punished just like this dissenter."

    All of them felt a chill run down their spines the moment that they heard this.

    Thepanions of the guards lowered their heads and started moving away from this scene, as if they were trying to escape from this ce as quickly as possible.

    Seeing that he was left all alone, the guard revealed a look that was like dying ashes. He knew that he had been abandoned by hispanions to suffer alone.

    As he was being dragged away, he couldn''t help ring at me.

    The way that he looked at me, it was as if he was ming me for everything that happened. This felt like it was a g for something that would happen in the future, but it wasn''t as if there was anything that I could do now.

    After the guard had been taken away, the knight came up to Baroness Rose and me and gave a slight bow as he said, "My lord, mydy, I apologize for this incident. I will make sure to personally take care of this matter."

    Both me and Baroness Rose couldn''t help being taken aback when we saw this.

    We had both known about the disdain that the guards had towards me all along, but we weren''t able to do anything about it.

    Baroness Rose had just taken over her husband''s title as the baroness and while she had her prestige, she didn''t have full control over the knights and soldiers.

    A noble''s power was only stable if they could satisfy the keys to their power, which was the military and their key officials. The knights and soldiers were considered the military in this case.

    She didn''t have fullmand over them yet and they all looked down on me, so she couldn''t just risk offending them by punishing those that offended me. That was why she and Cecilia had endured the advances of those men just now.

    But now this knight actually stood up for me¡­

    Just what had changed?

 Chapter 79 Celebration (3)

    But Baroness Rose was a graceful and smart woman, so she gave a simple nod before saying, "I''ll leave this matter to you."

    The knight gave another bow to ept this order.

    When we thought that the knight would leave after this, he suddenly came over to me. As he stood there in front of me, I couldn''t help being surprised by what was happening.

    I looked at him with a strange look, but I waited for him to speak first.

    Then in front of everyone, this knight gave a slight bow to me that caught everyone off guard again.

    Everyone just looked at the knight with a confused look as they waited for the knight to exin what was happening.

    As his head was slightly down, the knight said, "Thank you for saving the head knight. If it wasn''t for you, we would have lost her and maybe the entire town."

    Hearing this, I couldn''t help being even more taken aback.

    I never thought that anyone would mention that matter since it was the priest and Cecilia who had taken down the Goblin General together. What I had done was almost negligible.

    I looked over at Cecilia who had a blush on her face seeing the knight act like this and I knew that it wasn''t something that she put him up to.

    While this was happening, there were several knights and soldiers that also came over to bow to me.

    I just couldn''t understand why they were doing this until I took a closer look at them.

    I saw that there was sincerity in their stance and could hear the sincerity in their voice. They were thanking me for what they thought I did with the bottom of their hearts.

    I knew that these were subordinates that had followed Cecilia for a long time and had been personally trained by her, but I never thought that their rtionship would be this close.

    It seemed that Cecilia was an even bettermander than I thought.

    At the same time, I started to understand why they had stood up for me in the first ce.

    I came forward and took the knight by the shoulder, helping him up before saying, "There''s no need for this. If I had the chance, I would do the same."

    Hearing this, all of the knights and soldiers revealed surprised looks as they looked up at me. Then after a pause, all of them suddenly revealed smiles.

    These knights and soldiers were all part of the group that had been called out with Cecilia to attack the monster wave. They had been out on the field when I had gone out to save Cecilia and they had seen everything that I had done.

    So it wasn''t strange that they knew everything about what had happened.

    The knight looked at me with a serious gaze before he gave a nod and also revealed a smile.

    This was a celebration feast, so there was plenty of food and drink to go around.

    The knights and soldiers picked up a few sks and brought them over. The knight that led them also handed one of the sks to me and raised his own towards me.

    I immediately understood what he meant and we knocked our sks together before chugging it all down. Instead of fake drinking, I actually drank this time.

    That was because instead of being in a dangerous situation, this was a celebration feast for this town that I belonged to.

    If I didn''t take the lead to liven the festivities, then who would?

    The rest of the feast went on as nned, the guard that was taken away didn''t ruin anyone''s mood.

    But this time, no one dared to disrespect me like they had before.

    The townspeople never had a deep disdain for me in the first ce like the soldiers and knights had. Now that the soldiers and knights were showing that they were warming up to me, the townspeople couldn''t help bing curious about me.

    After drinking together and having fun together, the bad reputation that I had in the minds of the townspeople was written over and they started warming up to me.

    It wasn''t enough to make them love me as much as they did Baroness Rose, but at the very least they no longer looked down on me like before.

    By the end of it, I waspletely drunk.

    I didn''t remember how much I had to drink, but it definitely wasn''t a small amount.

    Baroness Rose and Cecilia had been watching from the side with a smile, almost as if they were holding back. They knew that if they came out now, they would take the spotlight away from me and it would make it harder to open up the hearts of the townspeople to me.

    So they decided to take the backseat this time.

    At the same time though, they were happy to see that everyone was starting to open up to me.

    After I passed out from being drunk, I didn''t know what happened to me.

    I could hear a few voices that were softly ringing out around me that sounded very familiar.

    Also, I remembered being carried by a few soft hands.

    When I woke up, I found that I was inplete darkness.

    After taking some time for my eyes to adjust to this darkness, I found that I was back in my room. Based on how dark it was outside of the curtains, it should be the middle of the night right now.

    As Iid there, I tried to remember what happened before I passed out.

    But as I was thinking, there was a throbbing feeling that came from my head.

    This throbbing feeling made me remember just how much I had to drink at the feast and I realized what had happened¡­

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile as I remembered this.

    But then I realized that something was off.

    Cecilia and Baroness Rose weren''t here with me.

    They normally slept with me when they were free and they had more free time during this time. So the fact that they weren''t here was strange.

    I was about to stand up and go look for them, but when I made noise as I sat up, the door suddenly opened.

    I looked over and my chin dropped when I saw what was waiting there for me.

 Chapter 80 Special Celebration (1)

    Standing at the door were two beautiful figures that I was very familiar with.

    It was Cecilia and Baroness Rose.

    But what shocked me the most was what they were wearing¡­since it was something that didn''t exist in this world. No, it did exist in this world that was based on the H-game, but at least it didn''t exist in this town.

    I should know since I had made sure to check this.

    They were wearing ck heels with ck sheer to waist pantyhose, a strapless corset, and a pair of bunny ears.

    It was the infamous bunny suit!

    But that wasn''t right¡­since I had checked with all of the town''s tailors in my free time.

    I was a man after all, so it was my dream to experience this just once¡­

    So where did these two get these bunny suits?

    Seeing the shocked look on my face, both Cecilia and Baroness Rose revealed happy smiles. These were smiles of people who had sessfully yed a trick on someone.

    The two of them came over and sat down on the bed, one of them on each side of me.

    After sitting down, they leaned in close to me so that their chest was pressed up against me.

    Just by looking down slightly, I was able to peek down into the valleys that had been presented to me. There was one that was bigger than the other, but both of them were without a doubt beautiful.

    It didn''t take long before there was a tent that was being pitched in the nket on me.

    Seeing this, both Cecilia and Baroness Rose revealed smiles before pressing themselves even closer to me.

    But I was able to keep my rationality as I pushed them back slightly and said, "What are you two doing? Where did you get those outfits?"

    The two of them pushed back against me and leaned against me again.

    As I felt them pressing up against me again, I couldn''t help getting even harder, causing the tent in the nket to get even bigger.

    Then Baroness Rose said, "We''re celebrating, but instead of celebrating with everyone, we''re having a special private celebration."

    Cecilia nodded in agreement to this before saying, "We even got these special outfits for this asion."

    Since she took the initiative to bring up these outfits, I couldn''t help asking, "That''s right, where did you get these outfits? I could have sworn that they didn''t exist¡­Or at least that was what the tailor told me."

    Baroness Rose revealed a confident smile as she said, "They didn''t exist¡­until now. Who do you think I am?"

    Cecilia nodded in agreement to this.

    I couldn''t help revealing a strange smile when I heard this, but then I still had to ask, "Yes, but where did you learn about this design?"

    As I said this though, I couldn''t help taking a closer look at the bunny suits that they were wearing.

    These bunny suits really seemed well made, down the very smallest detail. When I looked closer, I found that on their butts, there was even a small bunny tail made of cotton.

    No matter how you looked at it, this was a very intricate design that shouldn''t have existed in this fantasy medieval world¡­

    Baroness Rose revealed a confident smile again before saying, "Who do you think I am? Do you really think that you could hide anything in my territory from me? As soon as you asked for something, I was immediately informed."

    As soon as I heard this, I realized what had happened.

    The tailor had betrayed me and told Baroness Rose about the thing that I had asked him to make¡­

    But it wasn''t strange that the tailor had betrayed me.

    After all, there was no future for the tailor in this territory if he disobeyed Baroness Rose.

    Before I lost myselfpletely, I couldn''t help looking at Cecilia and saying, "Are you alright though?"

    She had recovered enough from her injuries to go to the feast, but that didn''t mean that she waspletely healed up yet. If possible, I wanted her to stay in bed as much as possible, but I knew that it was impossible since she would almost never stay still.

    Cecilia answered my question with action instead of words.

    She pushed me down and then got atop of me, taking off the top part of her corset. As soon as she pulled them free, thoserge breasts popped out in front of me and appeared in front of my face.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by what I saw on them.

    Cecilia''s face turned red, but she still said, "I think that I need your help again."

    I knew what she was referring to since they were right there in front of my face.

    On her breasts, there were the same nipple covers as before.

    With her tempting me like this, there was no way that I would be able to hold back anymore.

    So without holding back anymore, I grabbed her breasts in my hand and brought my head forward so that my face was right in between them.

    Cecilia was caught off guard by my sudden action, but then she was surprised even more by what I did next. With my face still in between her breasts, I started moving my head side to side.

    This was a dream that I''ve had since I first yed Dragon Quest¡­and now that it wasing true, I had no regrets.

    But for Cecilia, this was something that she was unfamiliar with and was very strange for her.

    At the same time though, it wasn''t as if she was against this.

    The feeling was strange, but it was also a feeling that she liked, especially when he was touching her.

    After enjoying the pafu pafu for a bit, I brought my head back and looked at Cecilia with a wicked look.

    Since she was offering herself to me, there was no reason for me to hold back anymore!

 Chapter 81 Special Celebration (2)

    After bringing my head back, my arms suddenly went down to grab Cecilia''s waist.

    Cecilia was surprised by this, but she didn''t resist as she let me do what I wanted with her body.

    It was just too bad that I didn''t do what she had expected me to do.

    Instead of drawing her in closer to me like she had expected, I pulled her over me, putting her over my shoulder. She leaned forward with her head over my shoulder and her butt pointed high up into the air.

    There was a bad feeling that filled Cecilia''s heart when she was put in this position.

    "What are you¡­" That was all that she was able to say before she was cut off.

    "p!"

    There was this loud pping sound that rang out through this room instead of her words.

    Cecilia''s body couldn''t help jolting forward a bit on my shoulders after this pnded. Then there was a tremble from her as she processed what happened.

    During this time, my hand was on that firm and supple bottom the entire time. The feeling that came from it was like a soft pudding as my fingers sank in, but then there was also a firmness to it.

    In short, it was a very pleasant feeling.

    I couldn''t help letting myself get lost in this feeling.

    But then Cecilia came back to her senses and said, "What are you¡­"

    Once again, before she could finish her words¡­

    "p!"

    There was another strong pping sound that rang out as my hand fell on her nice and supple butt again. Of course, this time my hand hadnded on the other cheek.

    Her body jolted again before she started trembling even more than before.

    This time, I didn''t let myself get lost in the soft and supple feeling and instead said, "You will speak when you are spoken to."

    When Cecilia heard this, she couldn''t help revealing a shocked look.

    It was almost as if she was meeting me for the first time when she heard this.

    But the firm tone in my voice¡­made her want to obey¡­

    At the same time though, there was this strange feeling that was filling her. It wasn''t an unpleasant feeling and if she had to describe it, she would have called it pleasant rather than unpleasant.

    Seeing that she wasn''t saying anything, I revealed an evesting wider evil smile as I said, "You naughty little girl. Did you really think that you can tease me like this and get away with it? Did you really think that you wouldn''t be punished?"

    Hearing the words that I said, Cecilia couldn''t help being shocked again¡­because she had never heard these kinds of words from me.

    But that didn''t mean that she was against it.

    When she heard this tone of voice and these words, the strange feeling inside of her became even stronger.

    As I was waiting for a response from her, I didn''t get a verbal answer in the end. Instead, I got a physical answer.

    My hand that was on her butt¡­there was a wet feeling that wasing from it.

    I didn''t even need to look to know where it came from. As soon as I felt this wet feeling, I became even more confident.

    After all, since she was getting wet, it meant that what I was doing was working. And since this worked, I would turn it up a notch and see how well it worked.

    So I took Cecilia off my shoulder and ced her in front of me. After she was ced on the bed, I stood up so I was standing over her and grabbed her cheeks with my hand.

    I forced her head to look up so that she was looking into my eyes. Then I said to her, "My punishments aren''t weak. Are you ready?"

    There was no immediate reaction after I said this as Cecilia just looked at me in a daze.

    But then I felt a tremoring from her¡­

    This wasn''t the tremor of fear, but rather the tremor of excitement.

    Her face also turned red as she looked at me, but she was still able to give a nod in the end.

    The evil smile on my face became even bigger when I saw this.

    I put her down in front of me and then in one swift move, I pulled the nipple covers off. They hadn''t been on as long as before, so there wasn''t as much suction and I was able to easily pull it off.

    However, having them suddenly pulled off really was a bit too much for Cecilia, so she couldn''t help giving a moan.

    I didn''t stop there as I leaned forward and grabbed her nipples, which I started to pull.

    To be honest, I didn''t even know what I was doing since this waspletely new to me, even if I had done plenty of research before¡­so I was just letting my instincts take over and do whatever I wanted to do.

    After all, doing research didn''t mean that I would be able to perform in real life that easily¡­

    It was a good thing that Cecilia was also new to this, so she also wasn''t used to this kind of stuff.

    Even though what I was doing was kind of tame when it came to punishment, she still enjoyed it. As I pulled on her nipples, it felt like there were streaks of electricity running through her body with each pull.

    After pulling on it for a while, Cecilia couldn''t help falling forward as her body started going soft. She fell onto both of her hands as she leaned forward.

    I had been about to pull even more when I suddenly had an idea seeing this. So I suddenly stopped ying with her nipples.

    Cecilia was a bit disappointed that the pleasure had stopped, so she sat back up and looked up at me as she asked, "What''s wrong? Why did you stop?"

    I looked at her with the same smile and said, "When do cows talk? And when do cows sit up? You should get on all fours like a good cow."

 Chapter 82 Special Celebration (3)

    Cecilia couldn''t help being taken aback immediately.

    In her entire life, there had never been anyone who had talked to her like this. Let alone call her a cow¡­

    But when she heard me call her this¡­she couldn''t help feeling strange.

    There was this strange feeling of¡­excitement that filled her.

    This was a feeling that she had never felt before.

    When she had been treated poorly by him before, she would always have a bit of resistance that stemmed from her own feelings towards Baroness Rose. However, sinceing back from fighting the Goblin General, her own feelings towards him had changed.

    When she saw him running out, risking his own life to save her, her opinion of him hadpletely changed. Especially since there had been feelings that had developed earlier.

    They¡­still hadn''t had the talk that they promised, but it felt like something had changed between them.

    This feeling of excitement quickly built up until she did what he told her to do and she fell onto all fours in front of him. She even looked up at him and said, "Moo."

    Seeing her like this, my excitement shot through the roof.

    I had only tried copying what I had seen before in an H-game, but I never thought that Cecilia would actuallyply.

    But now that she did do this, there was no need for me to hold back.

    I quickly pulled off my pants, which resulted in my dick flying out. As it was released from the bonds of my pants, it flew out with an incredible force that pped Cecilia in the face.

    I didn''t intend to do this and I couldn''t help being surprised by this ident, but I quickly found that¡­there was an excited look that appeared on Cecilia''s face after she had been pped by my dick. She was so excited that she was even panting.

    I also couldn''t help feeling excited by this as well when I saw this.

    So I moved myself so that I was standing right in front of her face before leaning in.

    I brought my dick right up to her mouth before saying, "It''s your turn."

    Cecilia immediately understood what I meant by this and there was a further look of excitement in her eyes when she saw this.

    The smell hit her right in the face, but this time, she no longer felt turned off by it. Rather, this was something that she had even been looking forward to.

    It had been a long time since she had this and she¡­was a bit pent up.

    So she moved forward and opened her mouth wide before taking it right in her mouth. She tried to move forward as much as she could, trying to take it as deep as possible.

    With her mouth wrapping around me like this, I couldn''t help taking a deep breath before letting out a moan of pleasure.

    Though she did her best to try to take it as deep as she could, it was just too much for her to take everything still. So she could only take it halfway before she started to choke.

    When she wanted to pull back a bit though¡­I suddenly grabbed her head and kept my dick in her mouth.

    Cecilia revealed a surprised look at first, but then she stopped moving and just let me do whatever I wanted with her. At the same time, her tongue started moving inside of her mouth.

    Although it was a bit too stuffed for her to move it a lot, she still did her best trying to lick it.

    Finally, when she started running out of air and showed signs of choking, I let her head go and she pulled it back.

    There was a bit of drool that dripped down the side of her mouth and there were tears in her eyes, but she still did her best to look at me with a smile. With one eye slightly closed, it really was a strange smile.

    However, this was also a scene that I had seen before in my research and it turned me on even more.

    I looked at her with a smile and said, "Good girl. Now you get a reward."

    I leaned forward again so that I was over her back and then I reached my hands down across her sides until I was grabbing her breasts. I didn''t grab them like I normally would, but rather I grabbed them as if I was holding a cup.

    Cecilia couldn''t help being confused when she felt this feeling, but there was also a trace of excitement that filled her.

    With the same voice, I said, "A good cow deserves to be milked."

    As soon as I said this, I started pulling on her breasts. I pulled like I was pulling on rope, pulling down as hard as I could on them, though there was no milk that came out in the end.

    But this sudden pull on her breasts made Cecilia give a surprised cry before that turned into moans of pleasure. She didn''t know why it felt so good even though it was painful, but the way that he grabbed at her like this¡­

    This was a feeling that she couldn''t describe.

    However, after milking her for a bit, I suddenly stopped. After stopping I stood up so that I was standing in front of her again.

    She looked up at me with a disappointed look as she said, "Why did you stop?"

    I looked at her with that same smile and said, "Well, that was a reward. Rewards are things that you have to earn."

    As I said this, I also thrusted my hip a bit forward so that the dick was right up in front of her again.

    She didn''t hold back this time and gobbled it down right away, doing her best to take it even deeper than before.

    She had only reached halfwayst time and now¡­she was over three quarters of the way. I could even see her neck starting to bulge a bit from taking it so deep.

    Since I promised that I would reward her for this, I leaned forward while my dick was still in her mouth and reached down to grab her breasts. I started milking her like I had done before.

    When Cecilia felt the feeling of my hands on her breast, she couldn''t help letting out a moan that just came out a muffled sound.

    But this distraction did stop her from taking it any deeper.

    Instead of being able to rx her throat to take it deeper, it started contracting from the sounds that she made and she started choking.

    It was just too bad that my dick waspletely in her throat and I was atop of her, stopping her from moving. She couldn''t take my dick out of her mouth no matter how she tried.

    And I¡­didn''t n on letting it out as I kept pulling on her breasts.

    Finally, when she seemed like she was about to faint, I pulled my dick out.

    There was arge pool of drool that fell onto the nkets when my dick was pulled out and then Cecilia''s face fell right into it. She didn''t even care that she was lying there in a pool of her own drool as she was just panting, desperate to fill her lungs with air.

    The look on her face, it looked like she waspletely spent.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit of pride when I saw this.

    So before she could even recover, I moved forward to keep ying with her body.

    But before I could, there was a cough that came from the side before a voice said, "Aren''t you forgetting about something?"

 Chapter 83 Special Celebration (4)

    When I heard this, I turned to look at Baroness Rose who was just sitting there on the side watching everything.

    Seeing her crossed arms and her impatient appearance, I revealed an awkward smile.

    I had indeed forgotten about her since I had been so focused on Cecilia¡­

    Even though she tried to appear tough, I could tell from the way that her legs were moving that she was hot and bothered.

    So with the same confident and evil smile, I said, "Come and join us."

    Receiving this invitation, Baroness Rose didn''t act tough any longer and immediately came over. She crawled on the bed over to where I was and ignoring Cecilia who was still lying in a pool of her own drool, she moved forward to take my dick in her mouth.

    But before she could, I raised a hand to stop her.

    When Baroness Rose saw this, she couldn''t help looking up at me with a frustrated look.

    Seeing this, I shook my head before pointing at Cecilia and saying, "You should help me punish this bad cow first."

    Baroness Rose revealed a surprised look at first, but then she revealed a smile that didn''t lose out to mine.

    With this, Baroness Rose went over to where Cecilia was and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head up off the bed. Then as she held Cecilia by the hair, she suddenly pped her on the face.

    As she pped her, Baroness Rose said, "What are you doing? Get up, you cow. Can''t you see that you''re leaving your master without service?"

    Cecilia had been out of it trying to catch her breath, but being pped like this brought her out of her daze. She couldn''t help looking at Baroness Rose with a look of surprise.

    As she was being pped, she also couldn''t help feeling the same strange excited feeling as before.

    After pping her for a bit, Baroness Rose let go of Cecilia''s hair and let her drop down onto the bed.

    Once she was dropped, Cecilia looked up at Baroness Rose who was still ring down at her before taking the same position as before. Seeing this, Baroness Rose stood up on the bed and she moved over so that her foot was right in front of Cecilia.

    Cecilia was confused when she saw this at first, but then she heard what Baroness Rose said.

    "Lick it. Show your subservience and lick it."

    Both me and Cecilia couldn''t help taking a deep breath before looking at Baroness Rose with wide open eyes. It was clear that neither of us could believe that she would suddenly act like this¡­

    But when I thought about it, it seemed about right.

    After all, she was a noble youngdy who had been raised to be above others since she was young. Even if she had a gentle personality now, there was still a part of her that remembered this training¡­

    So acting like this came naturally for her.

    Cecilia was only surprised for a moment before¡­she suddenly brought her head down to Baroness Rose''s feet. Then after a moment of hesitation, she brought her tongue out and started licking them as she had been ordered.

    Baroness Rose didn''t say a thing as she just looked down at Cecilia who was licking her feet.

    Then she suddenly leaned down and grabbed Cecilia''s head before pushing it down. As she pushed it down, she said, "What do you think you''re doing? Do you really think that just this little effort is enough?"

    She pushed Cecilia''s face right into her foot and wouldn''t let go until Cecilia started licking properly.

    After letting her do this for a bit, she gave a satisfied nod and pulled Cecilia''s head up. Holding her by the head, she turned back to me and said, "Master, she''s ready for you now."

    I couldn''t help being taken aback seeing this scene.

    I honestly had no idea what to expect when I called Baroness Rose over to join us, but she definitely gave me a surprise¡­

    She was the perfect example of a queen and not the kind that ruled over kingdoms, but the kind that ruled over men.

    Still, I put that thought into the back of my mind and went over to where they were.

    As I stood there, Baroness Rose pushed Cecilia''s head down to where my feet were. She didn''t say a thing, but Cecilia immediately understood what she wanted her to do.

    So her tongue came out again and she started licking my feet as well.

    This definitely was kinky, but¡­I just wasn''t into feet licking. In fact, it felt very strange getting my feet licked like this and not the good kind of strange.

    It honestly turned me off a bit.

    So I couldn''t help pulling my foot away from Cecilia''s mouth.

    When Baroness Rose saw this, she grabbed Cecilia''s head and pulled her back before pping her across the face. Then she pushed her head into the ground and said, "Look at what you''ve done. You''re supposed to please master and instead you turn him off."

    She raised her other hand and pped Cecilia again, but this time she didn''t p her face. Instead, she pped her exposed breasts that were hanging down in the position that she had taken.

    After being pped, they swung back and forth, creating a mesmerizing swing that I couldn''t help being enticed by.

    But when I recovered, I realized that Baroness Rose was taking it a bit too far¡­

    I wanted to say something about this, but I suddenly noticed something that made me close my mouth again.

    There was a faint smile on Cecilia''s face as she was being dominated like this.

    Her face was also a bit red, but that wasn''t from being pped¡­that came from the excitement that she felt over all of this.

    In the end, Cecilia really was the perfect embodiment of the masochistic knight captain.

    Even in this situation, she was enjoying herself¡­

 Chapter 84 Special Celebration (5)

    After watching for a bit, I realized that the two of them werepletely lost in their own world.

    It was the mistress and the dog that she was training¡­there was no room for me at all.

    It was fun to watch at first, but then I started feeling lonely being left out like this.

    It was simr to how Baroness Rose had been left out in the beginning.

    So I couldn''t help giving a cough to remind them that I was still here.

    This cough brought the two of them back from their own little world and they remembered that I was also here.

    Baroness Rose took her foot off of Cecilia''s head and gave a cough before saying, "Master, you should also punish this cow for her insolence."

    Cecilia was still on all fours with her head in the bed, but she looked up at me with an expectant look.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit awkward when I saw this.

    I had seen everything that Baroness Rose had done to Cecilia and I knew that I wouldn''t be able to top it. After all, even if I had my research to fall back on, I wasn''t someone who had ever done these things before.

    I could do my best to imitate them, but I really didn''t know what I was doing.

    So I could only fake it until I broke it.

    I went over and did the same thing as Baroness Rose, stepping on Cecilia''s face to press it into the bed. But I didn''t know where to go from there, so I just looked awkward with my foot on her head.

    Finally, I decided that it was better not to force it and just go with the things that I was familiar with.

    I grabbed Baroness Rose''s hand and pulled her over before pushing her down beside Cecilia. During this, I also took my foot off Cecilia''s head and let her look up at me.

    With the two of them in front of me like this, I stood there with my dick out in front of them.

    There was more than enough visual stimtion from before, so my dick stood tall and proud in front of their faces.

    It didn''t take much for the two of them to understand what I was expecting from them.

    Baroness Rose took the lead by bringing her head forward, but she didn''t lick the tip like she normally would. She went all the way to the bottom of the shaft and started from there as she made her way to the tip.

    Once she was done, she brought her tongue back in and revealed a faint smile, as if she enjoyed the taste of it.

    Cecilia was also stirred into action by this, but she was pushed out of the by Baroness Rose before she could do anything.

    Baroness Rose red at her before bringing her head down to where the balls were and she held her head there.

    Since she couldn''t do anything else, Cecilia could only lick the balls that were ced in front of her.

    When her tongue ran across it, it was apletely different feeling from getting my dick licked. It wasn''t as sensitive, but there was a feeling that came from having it licked. This softer feeling didn''t lose out to the intense feeling of getting a blowjob at all.

    While she was doing this, Baroness Rose imed my dick all for herself.

    With a greedy look on her face, she opened her mouth wide to take it all in.

    As she went deeper and deeper, she started pressing down on Cecilia who was still under her licking my balls.

    Cecilia found it harder and harder to keep herself up on all fours, but she persisted with a perverted smile on her face.

    As Baroness Rose took it deeper and deeper, Cecilia was finally pushed downpletely under her, but she didn''t allow herself to crumple. She held on and did her best to look up to lick my balls still.

    But that wasn''t what caught my attention the most.

    What caught my attention was that Baroness Rose was actually taking my entire dick in her mouth. Before I knew it, she had reached all the way to her shaft and there was a clear bulge in her throat.

    I didn''t know how she had done it, but somehow she had been able to take the entire thing that was over ten inches long.

    What I didn''t know was that Baroness Rose had been secretly training her mouth to take bigger things.

    The problem came after she took it all in her mouth.

    This feeling plus the feeling of Cecilia doing her best to lick my balls really was just too much for me to handle.

    So I couldn''t hold back anymore as I climaxed.

    As I did, I grabbed Baroness Rose by the head and didn''t let her move at all as I said, "I''m cumming!"

    Baroness Rose''s eyes opened wide and there was a clear look of fear in them as she felt my dick swelling inside of her mouth and her throat. As it expanded, she could feel herself starting to choke on it.

    She wanted to move back and pull it out so she could breathe, but she couldn''t move as I grabbed her head.

    So the only feeling that she could feel was the feeling of my cum being shot deep into her throat and into her stomach. At the same time, she was bing more and more out of breath until she almost fainted.

    It was only when I finished shooting my load that I finally let go, but I found that Baroness Rose wasn''t moving at all. I quickly grabbed her head and pulled my dick out of her mouth.

    But I could feel her body going ck in my hands and that her breathing¡­had stopped.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help panicking as I didn''t know what to do¡­

    So in the end, in my panic¡­I suddenly pped Baroness Rose across the face like I was trying to wake her up.

    After she was pped, there was a moment of silence before she suddenly took a deep breath and started coughing.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    After all, it would be hard to exin if I choked Baroness Rose to death with my dick. Plus, it would be hard to escape being executed after her body was found.

    Not to mention, she was someone that I cared about, so it wasn''t as if I would ever want to hurt her.

    So after seeing this, I couldn''t help being filled with regret over taking things too far.

    But after Baroness Rose recovered from being choked out like that, she suddenly revealed a smile and looked up at me. She opened her mouth and reached her tongue to show me what was inside of her mouth.

    With her ragged hair and streaks of tears in her eyes, it was apletely different look from her usualposed and beautiful look.

    Though there was no mistaking her natural beauty that still existed.

    This was a side of Baroness Rose that no one else would ever get to see.

 Chapter 85 Special Celebration (6)

    I gave a gulp to try and calm myself, but it really was hard with these two beauties pleasing me like this.

    Both of them were tired after everything that we had done, but I still hadn''t had enough yet.

    So I told the two of them, "Climb on top of each other."

    Both of them were confused when they heard this, but following the directions that I gave, they eventually took the position that I wanted them to take.

    It was Baroness Rose on top and Cecilia on the bottom.

    Cecilia was lying on her back while Baroness Rose was pressed down atop of her.

    When they were like this, I moved behind the two of them and took a moment to admire the view. The two pairs of cheeks ced atop each other like this created a beautiful blooming flower.

    And in the middle, there were two perfect slits that were soaking wet.

    I went right up behind them and then ced my dick atop Baroness Rose''s perfect bottom.

    When she felt the dick right in between her cheeks, she couldn''t help bing even wetter and her limbs turned soft. She fell down on Cecilia who was under her, pressing her further down into the bed.

    At the same time, when Cecilia felt Baroness Rose crushing down on her with her weight and the pressure that came from her chest, she also became more excited.

    However, I didn''t put my dick in right away.

    Instead I said to her, "Beg for it."

    Baroness Rose turned around slightly to look at me and seeing the look I had on my face, she revealed a faint smile at first. Then she revealed a pleading look as she said, "Please put it in me. I''ve been a naughty girl and I need to be punished."

    I once again couldn''t help being taken aback by this sudden change in Baroness Rose.

    She had gone through three different personalities today¡­

    She had gone from the gentle woman that she was normally to the domineering queen who had put Cecilia in her ce. Then finally, she became this submissive little girl who was asking to be punished¡­

    This really was an amazing talent for acting.

    I really couldn''t help wondering what other kinds of things that she had put on an act for.

    Could it be that she had been putting on a false persona in front of me?

    This thought onlysted for a single second in my mind before I threw it out. I trusted the person that I saw inside of Baroness Rose and I wouldn''t let myself doubt her.

    Since she had done what I had asked her to do, I didn''t hesitate in grabbing her by the waist and stuffing her in a single push. With how wet she was, there was no resistance at all as my dick slid into her.

    In fact, it almost felt like she had already conformed to the shape of my dick, but with how much we did it before, that wouldn''t be strange.

    As I pushed down on her, I pushed her onto Cecilia.

    With each thrust, Cecilia could also feel like she was being thrust into which filled her with a bit of pleasure. However, there was still that crucial thing that was missing with each thrust, so she couldn''t enjoy herself as much as Baroness Rose did.

    I didn''t want her to miss out, so I said to Baroness Rose, "I think that the cow needs milking."

    Baroness Rose was confused about what I said at first, but then she understood what I wanted her to do.

    So while she was moaning, her hands also grabbed onto Cecilia''s breasts and started squeezing. With each squeeze, she also pulled up on Cecilia''s breasts as if she was milking a cow.

    With each pull, there was a moan of pleasure that came from Cecilia.

    She even timed each pull so that it went in sync with each thrust of my dick. So in a way, it was like she was using the force of the thrust to pull on those breasts.

    Just like this, the three of us continued pleasuring each other until I finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    When I was about to cum, I grabbed Baroness Rose''s hip even harder and pulled her in so that I could shoot out deep inside of her. At the same time, I could feel her body trembling like she was climaxing as well.

    The two of us both came at the same time before both of our bodies rxed.

    I slowly pulled my dick out of her and there was my cum dripping out of her pussy.

    While at the same time, Baroness Rose fell face first on Cecilia and was panting hard.

    Both of us had satisfied looks on our faces.

    The only one who didn''t have a satisfied look was Cecilia who was justying there, waiting for someone to do something.

    After a moment of rest though, my dick was hard again.

    Unlike a normal person, this body had the sexual stamina of a H-game protagonist as I was able to get hard and cum multiple times.

    So I grabbed Cecilia''s waist this time and pushed right into her with a single thrust. It was just like when I thrusted into Baroness Rose, it was the same feeling of being wrapped perfectly inside of her pussy.

    She too had conformed to the shape of my dick with how many times we did it.

    As she felt the shaking under her, Baroness Rose slowly came back to her senses and looked down to find Cecilia''s face filled with pleasure.

    She revealed a faint smile before bending her head down and grabbing her breasts to start sucking on them. When she did, Cecilia couldn''t help looking up at Baroness Rose with a surprised look before taking her in her arms and holding her head to her chest.

    The three of us continued this again until finally we couldn''t take it anymore and I blew my load into Cecilia.

    Just like before, both of us climaxed at the same time.

    This was already my third shot of the night, but¡­my dick still didn''t go down after this.

    Seeing this, both of the girls revealed smiles before waving me over.

    By the time that we were finished, weid there with satisfied and exhausted looks on our faces.

 Chapter 86 New Problems (1)

    When we woke up in the morning, I found that both of the girls were still with me in bed.

    Both of them were cuddling up against me in my arms.

    For once, they chose to stay in bed with me instead of rushing off to take care of their duties.

    When I stirred, both of them also stirred.

    They both rubbed their eyes and looked up at me before revealing smiles.

    Seeing the two of them like this, I just couldn''t control the feelings that filled my heart.

    I ced a kiss on both of their foreheads before saying, "I love you."

    The way that I said it made it clear that this was said for both of them.

    When they heard this, their faces couldn''t help filling with a blush as well since this was the first time that they had experienced this. In their previous marriages, neither of them had experienced this kind of sweet love before.

    This sweet love filled their hearts with a warm feeling that they both loved.

    They looked up at me at the same time and then said together, "I love you too."

    The three of us just stayed there in each other''s arms, lying there and enjoying the feeling of being with one another.

    But in the end, we had no choice but to get up and work.

    There was still a destroyed town that needed to be fixed.

    ¡­

    The work over the next few weeks was quite hard, but it was very rewarding.

    The three of us held high positions in this town and that included me now that I had the support of the powerful knights and soldiers.

    The ones that had gone out and seen my bravery were the strongest knights and soldiers in this barony. They were special picked by Cecilia for their strength since it would be a suicide mission charging into the monster wave like that otherwise.

    So with the support of these strongest knights and soldiers, my position as the baron had greatly stabilized.

    I was even able to help Baroness Rose with many of the things that she would have done herself.

    Especially since the kingdom''s government had even sent an official notice epting me as the new baron.

    Neither Baroness Rose or I knew how that even happened until we met the priest. It turned out that he had arranged this for us.

    I couldn''t help being surprised after finding this out.

    It seemed that this priest had quite a bit of influence in the kingdom''s government. Not to mention that he was a powerful magician as seen by all the spells he had cast fighting the monster wave.

    So why was someone like this assigned to a small barony like this?

    There had to be another reason for his being here.

    But he didn''t tell me anything. In fact, he still hadn''t told me what the Mark of God was.

    So I couldn''t figure it out.

    The envoy handed me a piece of paper that certified me as the new baron and as Baroness Rose''s husband, which allowed me to do many things.

    Things that would have taken Baroness Rose''s signature before could now take my signature. Of course, I couldn''t sign for many of the big things since the title was still hers, but it allowed me to do many things to help her.

    That was important since there were many things to handle as the town rebuilt itself.

    Luckily it was still summer, so the weather cooperated with us and we were able to get many things ready before the fall harvest.

    But when the fall harvest came, there was a problem that arrived.

    One day, in the middle of the fall harvest, I went to Baroness Rose''s office to handle something. When I came in, I found not just her, but also Cecilia sitting there with knitted brows and worried looks on their faces.

    It was obvious that there was something bothering them.

    So I went over and teased, "If you keep making those faces, they will get stuck that way."

    They both looked at me with narrowed eyes.

    I could easily tell that neither of them were in a mood for a joke, but that also was a testament to how far our rtionship had developed.

    We had be like an old couple that could tease each other without worry, even though it wasn''t a couple, but rather a throuple.

    Seeing the way that they looked at me, I raised my hands in defeat and asked, "What''s wrong?"

    Both of them looked at me for a bit before giving sighs.

    They just both sat there in silence as if they were mulling over something. Neither of them seemed like they were going to answer my question.

    So I asked in a more firm voice, "I can''t help if you don''t tell me what''s wrong. So, what''s wrong?"

    They looked at me again, but this time they looked at me differently. There was a bit of adoration seeing me take charge like this, but they weren''t surprised.

    After all, I had taken charge quite a bit when we were in bed.

    This time, Baroness Rose took a stack of paper that she handed to me before saying, "See for yourself."

    I took this stack of papers from her and carefully looked over them. I found that this was a report on the farming area and the harvest that had been collected.

    It didn''t seem like there was anything off about it at first until I realized that there was an overhanging problem here.

    There was ack of food.

    It wasn''t because there was a bad harvest or something like that, it was rather because of the monster wave.

    Before the monster waves had arrived in town, they had swept across thends of the barony making their way towards the town. As they swept across thend, they moved across quite a bit of farnd.

    The people had been evacuated, but the farnd had been destroyed by the monsters.

    That was the cause of theck of food.

 Chapter 87 New Problems (2)

    With the current harvest and their supplies of food, there was no chance that they would be able to make it through winter.

    Their supplies would run out even before they reached the halfway point.

    Not to mention that no human could predict what would happen in the middle of winter.

    So there could be all kinds of natural disasters that happened that would require extra supplies.

    They couldn''t be just satisfied with getting enough supplies tost through winter. They had to also get extra supplies so they could be prepared for anything that happened.

    But where would they get those supplies from?

    After I finished reading the report, I understood the problem that the two of them faced.

    So I sat down with them and asked, "What ns do you have?"

    This question was aimed more for Baroness Rose than it was for Cecilia.

    I could see that her expression showed traces of having a n, but she hadn''t finished figuring them out yet. If I could do anything to help make it easier for her, then I would.

    After all, this was my home now too.

    Baroness Rose didn''t say anything at first as she was still deep in thought, but then she suddenly gave a sigh and said, "We have no choice but to buy them, but¡­I really can''t find any time to go and buy the supplies. This kind of thing requires a certain set of skills and there''s no one that I can spare to take care of this. But this has to be done or else we''ll start losing people during the winter."

    After she finished, she couldn''t help giving another sigh.

    I asked immediately, "What skills?"

    Baroness Rose thought about it for a bit before saying, "They need to have goodmunication skills, those merchants are all sly and tricky. They also need to have good mathematical skills so that they don''t make a mistake with the numbers. Also, they need a certain level of prestige so that they could represent the barony. And of course, the biggest thing is that they need to be free so that they can go and take care of this matter without affecting the rest of the barony. However, there''s no one like that."

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    That was because this was a perfect description of me.

    The things that I was currently doing were all simple things that could be done by others, the only thing that was truly required was the signature of a noble. However, that could be done by presenting the documents that I went over to Baroness Rose.

    That wasn''t to say that I wasn''t helping since having me do them personally meant saving time by having me take care of the entire process, instead of going from one person to the next for single documents.

    As for mathematical skills,ing from the more advanced Earth, my skills were better than most people here even though I was bad at math in the first ce.

    The only problem might bemunication skills since I was someone who had stayed cooped up most of the time on Earth. I could talk to others, but facing those sly merchants who only thought of profit, I might be a bit overwhelmed.

    But that could easily be solved by bringing an aide along to help me.

    So in the end, it was still a perfect description of me.

    After thinking about it, I said, "How about I go?"

    Baroness Rose looked at me with a surprised look before raising one brow in a doubtful manner and saying, "You? Are you sure that you''re up for it?"

    I said with a nod, "I''m sure that I''m up for it."

    Baroness Rose narrowed her eyes to look at me before asking, "Nine times nine."

    Without hesitation, I said, "Eighty one."

    There was a trace of surprise that appeared in her eyes before she asked, "One thousand fifty two plus three thousand nine hundred and twenty one."

    Once again, I said without hesitation, "Four thousand nine hundred and seventy three."

    This time, her eyes opened wide in surprise since she never expected me to answer it this quickly. In fact, she had to write something down just to make sure that it was the right answer.

    When she finished solving it and saw that I had the right answer, she couldn''t help ring at me even more. As she red at me, she asked, "Why didn''t you say anything earlier?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile and saying nothing after hearing this.

    To say that I hadn''t hidden it on purpose would have been considered a lie.

    I knew that if she knew about my math skills, then I would have been given a much heavier workload.

    So for the sake of cking off, I had chosen to mishold this information from her.

    But now that it involved the future of the town and the safety of the people, I had no choice but to reveal it.

    After ring at me for a bit, Baroness Rose lost interest in ming me and focused on nning the future. She muttered to herself and I heard a few things that made me shiver.

    "Work to death¡­for the good of the people¡­punishment¡­"

    Those were just a few things that I heard.

    I now knew what kind of things my dad felt whenever my mom was angry with him¡­but this was a good kind of feeling as well.

    Once she finished gathering her thoughts, Baroness Rose looked right at me and said, "You''re going to have to go on a journey. I''m going to work you to death for hiding these secrets from me before."

    I once again revealed a bitter smile, but I knew that these were the consequences of my own actions and I couldn''t avoid them.

    Not to mention, I did want to help the town that was now my territory and home.

    So I gave a simple nod in response.

 Chapter 88 Heading Out

    Two days after that meeting, I was heading out of the town with a simple caravan.

    But that caravan also had a luxurious carriage traveling amongst it.

    Since I was now a noble, I did have to care about things like image.

    In the carriage with me were two women.

    One of them was dressed in a simple outfit of a finely designed shirt and pair of pants. The other one was dressed in full armour with a sword at the side of her hip.

    These two were thepanions that Baroness Rose had sent out to help me with this mission.

    One of them was a knight that was directly under Cecilia and could be considered her prodigy. The other one was an up anding aide who had been showing off her skills.

    There was no doubt that these two were the best people that could be chosen for this mission.

    But of course, the best part was that both of them were also beauties.

    The aide was a tomboy short haired beauty while the knight was a strong long haired beauty.

    Neither of them said a thing as we sat there, but I could see from their nervous expressions that they were thinking something. Also from time to time, the two of them couldn''t help peeking at me, especially my lower part.

    I had an idea of what they were thinking since I had also heard the rumours that were spreading about me.

    Everyone was curious why both Cecilia and Baroness Rose were willing to share a man, so they all tried to figure out just what it was about me that was so special.

    The one rumour that was most prevalent¡­was one that was spread by the maids of the manor.

    Though I mainly dressed and washed myself since I insisted on it, the maids had helped me before. So they had seen what my body was like, especially the lower part.

    So there were rumours that spread about the third leg that I had.

    At the same time, there were rumours that spread saying that I was a womanizer. Added in the cute face that I had as a shota and my peerage as a noble now, I was considered quite the catch.

    In this world, no one questioned polygamy since it was legal.

    At the same time, no one even found polygamy strange.

    In fact, it was as if polygamy was just considered a part of life here.

    I didn''t know what it was, but I had a theory¡­

    This was something that was left over from when this world was still an H-game.

    In H-games, things like polygamy were just epted since that was what the target audience wanted. This game especially since it gave the yer plenty of freedom to choose the girls that they wanted.

    There was an ending where one could have a giant harem and there was an ending where one could marry a single woman.

    But to give the yers more freedom, the concept of polygamy had to be epted by everyone in the world.

    That was a concept that was passed on to this world that was created based on that H-game world.

    It was a veryplicated thing that I didn''t understand very well, but that was my guess of why this world was the way that it was.

    Or it could even be said that the God of Earth who created this world was beingzy and didn''t properly set the settings of the world, just taking them directly from the H-game. However, you wouldn''t catch me saying that since it was the God of Earth who gave me this second chance.

    I would never do something like bad mouth my benefactor.

    So what these two wanted¡­was to see if they could marry up.

    But I wasn''t interested in them since I didn''t know anything about them. These weren''t even special characters that had appeared in the game before, so I really didn''t know a thing about them.

    It wasn''t just about how cute they were, it was also about their backstory for me.

    After all, there was a chance that they could be hiding a big secret that would threaten me in the future.

    I might have be a baron and gained a bit of influence, but I knew that there were still plenty of things that could still kill me in this world. There were plenty of things that were far more powerful than me.

    So during the ride, I was focused on my system.

    After the monster wave was taken care of, the system had also suddenly changed.

    That was because the monster wave¡­was considered the tutorial by the system. Just like how it had been considered the prologue and tutorial in the game.

    A few days after the monster wave had been taken care of, there had been a sudden change in the system.

    There had been many features that had opened up and I was currently looking through one of the features.

    It was the "Store" function that had suddenly unlocked along with an added "Gacha" function.

    There were many different items that were sold here on a permanent basis, as well as a few items that changed on a daily basis. For the gacha, there were all kinds of amazing things that were on the wheel.

    The only problem was that they were all rted to sex in some way or another.

    It was really hard to find a use for these items, but it was better to have them than to not have them. Just like with the aphrodisiac incense, it had been very useful in the demon order manor.

    These items would have a use eventually and they were special items from the system, so I would have loved to have them.

    It was just too bad that they cost a special thing to get.

    In addition to this store and gacha function, there was another function that was unlocked.

    The "Quest" function.

    This panel had beenpletely empty before, but now they were filled with quests.

    There was still a panel that was empty which was the "Main Quest" panel, but there were other panels that had quests in them.

    There was a "Side Quest" panel that was released that had the current task that I was assigned with on it. It was a quest to find supplies for my town for the winter. As for the reward, it just showed a ??? which meant that I had no idea what my reward would be.

    But what I cared about the most was the "Daily Quest" and "Gacha Quest" panels that appeared.

    These were the special things that I needed to finish to get the currency and gacha tickets that I wanted.

    The gacha quest panel was very simple.

    There were a few rotating quests that were on there that would provide gacha tickets which I could use in the gacha store. However, not a single one of these quests were easy and I hadn''t finished a single one yet¡­

    As for the daily quests, these were much simpler and I had finished a few of them. The reward that they gave were points that I could use to buy things in the store, but¡­they gave just too few points.

    The quests that were easy to do at least.

    There were also harder quests like hunting a Goblin King or taking over the nearby town that gave a lot of points, but they weren''t possible for the current me.

    So I only did the ones that were easy like getting a morning kiss or helping someone.

    But the points that these daily quests gave were far from being enough.

    I had been doing them for several weeks now and I still hadn''t saved up enough to buy a single thing from the shop.

    Still, I kept doing the daily quests since these points added up and I would be able to buy something one day.

    For now, I was looking over the various things that were in the store,mitting them to memory. I didn''t know if I would ever get to use these things, but in this world that was always filled with surprises, I wanted to be able to react to any situation.

    By memorizing and knowing exactly which items could be at my disposal, I would be far more prepared for anything that happened.

    So that was what I did while we were traveling.

 Chapter 89 Alandal City

    After two days of traveling, we finally saw the city that was our destination.

    This was ndal City, the city that was closest to our barony.

    This city was ruled by a count whose territory was just right beside our own, but the difference in the amount of territory was hard to estimate. After all, this was a count and we were nothing more than a baron and baroness.

    Still, this was also a ce where many merchants gathered and this was where we would be able to buy the food and supplies that we needed.

    But first things first, we had to find a ce to stay.

    When we arrived, it was alreadyte into the afternoon.

    Even though I was a baron, we still had to have our identities checked by the guards before we were allowed to enter the city. Though as a noble, things went much smoother than if I wasn''t a noble.

    The ones that weren''t nobles and were trying to enter the city were all lining up outside the gate.

    Even though it was already thiste, there were still plenty of people that were trying to enter the city. It was very likely that most of them wouldn''t be able toe in today.

    When I asked the aide what these people would do, she told me that they would have no choice but to camp outside and try again tomorrow.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help feeling relieved that I was a noble now.

    I was allowed to skip the line and directly head up to the gate. Though it took some time for the guards to check everything we brought, it was still better than the treatment thatmoners received.

    The next thing that we had to do after entering the city was find a ce to sleep.

    Nobles were nobles, so they had to maintain a certain level of prestige, even when it came to their temporary residences.

    Since I was a baron, I had to find a ce to stay that suited my status.

    This meant staying in one of the more expensive inns in this city. This was an inn that catered especially to nobles and it was quite fancy, but the price definitely was too high for what it was.

    Or at least that was what I thought.

    But the people who came with me thought differently when they saw this.

    I guess we just had different levels of what luxury was considered since we were from different worlds in the first ce.

    Luckily we had the money that we had taken from the demon order. Those people were all people that had wealth since they were followers of the previous Lord Baron.

    All of the money that they left behind came to us and not their families since they were known demon worshipers.

    The families tried to fight back, but when there was conclusive evidence ced in front of them, they had no choice but to back down. If they didn''t it would mean exposing their dead family members as demon worshipers, a crime within this kingdom.

    If they didn''t back down, it would mean them all being killed and then their wealth being taken by the kingdom.

    So they settled for a small amount and left the barony.

    The rest were taken by Baroness Rose.

    This was also the money that we were using to buy the food and supplies that we needed this winter. Otherwise, we definitely wouldn''t have had enough money for all of this.

    After settling in at the inn, we didn''t do anything else that night.

    We could have gone to find a merchant or gone to scout out the prices of the market, but there was something that was restricting us.

    Since I was now a noble, I had to follow the customs of the nobles.

    That meant meeting with the count as soon as I entered the city.

    It was customary that if any noble traveled to any ce, they would greet the owner of the territory.

    Though if one was a higher ranked noble, then it would be the owner of the territory that woulde and greet them. However, that wasn''t the case here since the other side was a count and I was nothing more than a baron.

    It was naturally my responsibility to go and meet with the count.

    However, that would have to wait until tomorrow since it was already night time. Even if one wasn''t a noble, it would be rude to show up in the middle of the night after all.

    And before we greeted the count, it would be considered rude to do anything in their territory. One might even think that they were here to spy on the count''s territory, which could be considered an act of hostility.

    So the first thing was naturally to meet with the count and ry their intentions ining to the city.

    After dinner and taking a bath, I sat down in my room with the aide I came with.

    Her name was Nicole and she was a youngmoner girl, but because her mother had raised her strictly, she was also very knowledgeable and skilled in etiquette.

    Her being in my room tonight wasn''t to satisfy any pleasures, but rather to help quiz me before meeting the count.

    I was amoner before bing a baron and even in my past life, I didn''t hold any important positions. I wasn''t someone that knew proper etiquette since I had lived most of my life without it.

    So to meet a count now and be expected to greet him with proper etiquette¡­that was a bit hard for me.

    I could only do the best that I could do and rely on Nicole for the rest since she would be with me.

    "Now, the cutlery starting from your left is¡­" Nicole continued to exin all of the different cutlery that was ced in front of me. There were many different forks and spoons of different sizes in front of me, almost to a dazzling extent that I couldn''t even focus anymore.

    But this was what was expected for nobles when they dined.

    While I didn''t think that I would be dining with the count, I still went along with the lesson. It was information that I could useter on, so there was no harm in learning it.

    It was just that there were too many knives, spoons, forks, and such that one needed to remember¡­

    When she finished exining all the different cutlery, Nicole leaned in and said, "Lord Baron, did you remember everything?"

    Unlike this morning, the top two buttons of her shirt were now open and I could see down into the valley there.

    She wasn''t as big as Cecilia, she wasn''t even as big as Baroness Rose, but there were still some small mounds that were there.

    If it was me from before, I might have been enticed by this very much. But the current me had experience on his side, so I was able to control myself.

    I turned away and said with a cough, "I think that should be fine for now."

    Nicole revealed a disappointed look when she heard this, but she gave a nod before leaving the room.

    I couldn''t help giving a sigh as I remembered what had happened earlier as well.

    The knight that Cecilia had sent to protect me was named Jessica.

    When we had arrived at the inn earlier, she had taken off her armour in front of me, revealing mounds that didn''t lose out to Cecilia''s. But that wasn''t where the problem was¡­

    The problem was that if I hadn''t stopped her and left the room, she might have even taken off her shirt in front of me.

    I couldn''t help thinking to myself, "These women really are scary when they put their mind to something."

    But I wouldn''t be that easy to sway.

 Chapter 90 Count

    The next morning, a subordinate of the count came to meet me.

    This subordinate hade with a letter from the count inviting me to see him.

    Though it was called an invitation, it was actually more like a summon.

    He had already put a time and ce on the "invitation" and it seemed like everything had been set. The only thing left was for me to show up asmanded by the invitation.

    But I didn''t mind this since I knew that this was just how this went.

    This was what I had learned from Nicolest night.

    So I epted the invitation from the subordinate and went to prepare.

    I couldn''t help feeling surprised by how urate Nicole''s prediction was. She had taught me about the different cutlery to use at a meal and the manners that should be shown at a mealst night. This was what had taken up most of the study sessionst night.

    Now, the count was inviting me to lunch.

    It seemed like what I had learnedst night really was about to pay off.

    As for whether I would remember it or not, of course I would remember it.

    The old me might not have been able to do that, but the current me was different.

    It had started way back when I tried to remember things from my old world and I was studying up on this new world. I found that there were many things that I shouldn''t have remembered that were easy to recall and at the same time, I was able to easily memorize the things that I read about this world.

    I didn''t know exactly what happened, but if I had to guess, I would say that when the God of Earth sent me here, they must have given a buff to my memorization skills. That allowed me to easily memorize and recall things.

    It was definitely a good thing being able to remember more things, but I also had to be careful showing off this ability.

    Those with ability would be envied and nothing good woulde out of that.

    So when noon came, I headed off to the count''s manor.

    When I arrived, the guards didn''t let me in right away. They looked at me with a strange look and even raised their weapon as if they were going to send me away, even though I hade in a fancy carriage showing that I was a noble.

    The way that they looked at me, it was the same look of disdain that the townspeople had had back when I had first be a noble.

    It had changed in the town, but that didn''t mean that the way that other people looked at me had changed.

    I still looked like a cute little boy instead of a noble, that wasn''t something that could be changed unless I had plenty of time.

    But I also had a sneaking suspicion that I would never change appearances¡­

    After all, it had already been several months since I came to this world and my appearance still hadn''t changed.

    This world had many things that seemed to have been inherited from the game world and I was afraid that this was one of them. After all, no one would want a protagonist that changed. In fact, people just assumed that they would look the same no matter how much time passed.

    If this quality was kept from the game, I might never be able to be more than a cute shota¡­

    Eventually though, the guards allowed me to pass after I showed them the invitation from the count.

    They still looked at me with strange looks, but I was allowed to enter the manor in the end.

    There was even a butler that came forward to wee me after I showed them the invitation. It really was arge change in attitude because I had this invitation.

    Still, I didn''t mind since this was how I had expected it to go.

    But Nicole and Jessica both had ugly expressions as they followed me in.

    The butler led me into the manor and we soon arrived in what appeared to be a dining room, but to my surprise, I found that the people inside were already eating.

    The one who was sitting at the head of the table was a fat man with a curled moustache, the perfect example of a corrupt noble. But I knew that this man was the count since I had seen his picture before.

    The count was currentlyughing while holding arge roasted chicken on a tong in his hand. The ones that were at the dining table with him were allughing along with him, but it was clear that they were justughing for his sake.

    Seeing this, the butler didn''t bring me forward and just had me stand there on the side.

    When I saw all of this, I knew that there was something bad about this.

    After a long period of waiting, the count finally noticed the butler and waved his hand for the butler toe over.

    I was about to move forward, but the butler stopped me and moved over by himself. He went to the count''s side and whispered a few words in his ear. After that, the count looked up at me and just stared without saying anything.

    However, I could tell that the way that he looked at me was simr to the way that others looked at me. I could see the traces of disdain in his eyes.

    But this time, I didn''t remain passive as I went forward to say, "Lord Count, it is my pleasure to meet you. I am¡­"

    Before I could finish, the count suddenly raised his hand and waved it as if telling me to stop. At the same time, it was as if he was dismissing me¡­

    The count then said, "It doesn''t matter, just tell me what you''re doing here."

    My face couldn''t help looking a bit ugly when I heard this, but I still said in a calm voice, "We''re here to make some purchases for food and supplies for my territory."

    The count gave a nod before saying, "Don''t cause trouble or you won''t be able to bear the consequences." Then without even looking at me, he waved his hand again as if he was dismissing me.

    The butler understood what he wanted, so he came forward to show me the way out.

    I was clearly annoyed at being treated like this, but I still followed the butler out of the manor.

    As we were leaving, I could hear the sounds of people snickering and the whispers around me. These were clearly barbs that were directed at me.

    Still, I held it in since I knew that there was nothing to gain from provoking the count and the people in this room. While they looked like they were nothing more thanckeys, the fact that they could dine with the count and wear such fancy clothes meant that they were most likely nobles as well.

    I was nothing more than a lowly baron and I had received that title because of Baroness Rose, so I knew that I couldn''t do anything to cause trouble for her. Not to mention, any trouble that I caused would cause trouble for my town.

    So I endured as I was shown the way out.

 Chapter 91 Merchants (1)

    Once we were escorted out of the manor, the guardspletely ignored us.

    Though they looked like they would stop us if we tried to enter the manor again.

    But there was no point in entering the manor again since we had aplished our goal. Even if it was a bit annoying how the count had treated us, at the very least he had given us permission to do what we wanted to do.

    That was enough.

    We just wanted to buy some food and supplies without stirring any trouble, so this was for the best. Even if it meant that I was disdained by the count and treated like that, it was all worth it.

    But the girls that were with me¡­weren''t as understanding.

    After we had moved away from the count''s manor, both of the girls started venting about how we had been treated.

    "That fat pig is a count? This kingdom really is going to the dump if that kind of person can be a noble." Nicole said in a huffed voice.

    "I really can''t understand it either. They are supposed to be the ones that protect this kingdom and they''re just gorging themselves like that. I really can''t help fearing for the people like this." Jessica said in a simr huffed voice.

    It had to be noted that even though they wereining, they were speaking in soft voices. Not to mention, they were currently sitting in the carriage where no one was able to see them.

    If they were outside, they definitely wouldn''t have dared to say the same thing, even if they had spoken in soft voices.

    After all, this was a kingdom where nobles reigned over themoners and both of them weremoners.

    If the count or any other noble heard this, they would have had them executed on the spot.

    I was the one difference because I was the one that they were working for and they were speaking up for me.

    Still, I knew that it would be dangerous to keep speaking like this, so I raised my hand to stop them before saying, "Alright, alright, let''s not get worked up over this. We still have other things to take care of."

    Hearing this, the two of them took a deep breath before calming down.

    They knew how important this mission was for the town, so they knew that this was no time to y around.

    After calming down, Nicole picked up a few pieces of paper that had been in the carriage with them. She had prepared these ahead of time and had been waiting to use them.

    She spread them out in front of me and started presenting the information on them to me.

    On each of these pieces of papers was a different merchant who was based in this ndal City. The ones that had been chosen were all those that were consideredrge merchants in this city, they all ranked within the toppanies of the city.

    They could have gone to smaller merchants, but it would be riskier going through smaller merchants.

    There were many crooks among those smaller merchants who would try to raise the price or provide subpar products for the money that they had been paid.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if every small merchant was a crook, but they really didn''t have the time to sort out the crooks from the real merchants. It was much safer for them to go with one of therger merchants since they had something to lose if they did something like this.

    Therger merchants needed to care about their reputation, so they wouldn''t do things like the smaller merchants would.

    The problem with the big merchants was their price.

    They would be much more expensive than the smaller merchants, but that was the price to pay for premium goods and premium service.

    Still, one thing to consider was the reputation of these merchants.

    Like with anything, there was a ranking among them depending on how big and sessful they were. The ones that were bigger had more resources at their disposal and could provide the goods faster, but they also cost more.

    So I had to decide which one it would be best to cooperate with.

    After all, even if we did have money, it wouldn''t be good to spend it all. There were things that coulde up in the future that would require money, so I wanted to save money where I could.

    As I listened to Nicole''s description of these merchantpanies, there were certain things that I was listening for.

    For example, while others would care about things like how big thepanies were, who their main clients were, and what their main products were, I cared about something else.

    I knew that we wouldn''t be arge customer, so we would be taken care of by the employees of thepany instead of by anyone important.

    In that case, I wanted to see how thepany treated their employees through sry, benefits, and other treatment.

    I knew that apany that took care of its employees would have employees who would be more diligent. They would be the ones that would take good care of us instead of just treating us like any normal customer.

    These diligent employees would make sure that we received the best treatment that they could give us.

    So I slowly went through the pieces of papers ced in front of me.

    But no matter how I looked at it, I wasn''t able to find all the information that I wanted from these pieces of paper. After all, there was only so much information that could be nced from just reports.

    Some things needed to be observed to make proper judgement of.

    So I made my decision.

    "Let''s go to this one first." I picked up one of the pieces of papers that had been ced in front of me.

    This was the report on the biggestpany in ndal City.

    Both Nicole and Jessica were surprised by my sudden action, but since I was the baron, they had to go along with what I wanted.

 Chapter 92 Merchants (2)

    The carriage quickly moved through the city and it didn''t take long for us to arrive at our destination.

    But the destination that we arrived at was an alleyway.

    When we came out, we also no longer wore the same clothes as before.

    We had all changed into much simpler clothes, like what themoners wore.

    Even if one looked at us carefully, they would think that we were no more than normalmoners.

    That was just how average we looked.

    However, that was what we were aiming for in the first ce. Or at least it was what I was aiming for in the first ce.

    Both Nicole and Jessica had misgivings about this n for different reasons, but they still followed it since it was an order from me.

    After we came out of the carriage wearing these normal clothes, we headed to the store of the biggest merchantpany that wasn''t far away.

    Aftering out of the alley, it took no effort at all for us to blend into the crowd that was out on the street. In fact, not a single person turned our way as we entered the crowd, almost as if we didn''t exist at all.

    But that wasn''t strange since we had also covered up our faces.

    If we didn''t, maybe we would have turned a few heads with the beauty of these two girls.

    We walked down the streets at a slow pace until we arrived at our destination, the store of the biggestpany in the city.

    I had us get out and change clothes so that we would blend in asmoners. I wanted to be able to observe the situation at the store in the most natural state and that was impossible as a noble.

    Since this was the store of the biggestpany, it was also the most popr store in the city. There were plenty of people that were here and it was so crowded that we had to line up for our turn to enter.

    But the lines moved quickly and it didn''t take long before we were able to get in.

    While we were waiting, I had some time to have a proper talk with both of the girls.

    Since we had to act likemoners, the barrier that had been between us was taken down and they were able to talk freely with me.

    I was able to learn more about them and where they hade from.

    Nicole came from amoner family in the town, but since her parents owned an inn, they were considered better off than most people. With the extra ie that they had, they had been able to send her to private tutoring, which was why she knew more than the averagemoner and how she had gotten this position.

    Jessica was also amoner, but she had shown her talent for the sword at an early age and had been recruited as a soldier. With her talent, it didn''t take long before she caught Cecilia''s eyes and was taken on as her protegee.

    One thing to note in this world was that there was no gender discrimination.

    Anyone was free to do any jobs, even physically demanding jobs like bing a knight.

    It was funny how this simple design of the game world had be something that was so hard to be aplished in the real world. At the same time, it made me think of all the different things from the game that had be real in this new world of mine.

    When we walked into the store, there was no one there to greet us.

    This store was like a marketce instead of a normal store. There were many different counters set up with different products that were being sold.

    Each one was manned by a different employee and they interacted with each of the customers that came on their own.

    However, there was a manager that was walking in between the various counters, keeping an eye on things.

    Currently, the manager was just sitting there on the side with a bored look on his face. It was as if he was about to fall asleep.

    We followed the flow of customers and went from one counter to the next, looking at all the various items that were on sale. There were many different items, but other than the most simple ones, I didn''t know anything about them.

    But judging by the looks on the faces of Nicole and Jessica, I could tell that these things were not ordinary items.

    It could even be said that they were extraordinary items based on how excited they were.

    There was no need to doubt the professionalism of this store since they were able to provide this kind of goods.

    Now the only thing left to confirm was¡­

    As if on cue, there was a loud voice that rang out that said, "What kind of joke is this?"

    As soon as this voice rang out, everyone turned to look in the direction that it came from.

    There was a buff andrge man who was currently leaning in over a counter, ring at the woman who was behind it. One of his hands was pressing down on the counter as if he was trying to put pressure on her.

    After he shouted this out, the woman behind the counter said, "Sir, that is the market price for an item of this quality. Moreover, you won''t find another store that will have this item in stock right now."

    Therge man gave a nod before saying, "That is indeed true." Then after a pause he said, "Only if it was the real item."

    The woman revealed a surprised look before looking down at the item on the table. Then she looked back up and said, "This is indeed the real item. Sir, if you n on ndering our¡­"

    Before she could finish though, the manager came over. The manager raised a hand to cut her off before saying, "Let me take a look."

 Chapter 93 Merchants (3)

    The woman had an unwilling look on her face when she heard this.

    She had heard the rumours about this manager and had worked with him before after all.

    But since they were in public and he was the manager on duty, she had no choice but to follow his orders.

    She handed the item over and the manager took it in one hand. The manager raised the item up in front of his eyes and carefully looked at it without saying a thing.

    After a long period of silence, the manager suddenly put the item down and then he turned¡­to look right at the woman behind the counter.

    He narrowed his eyes and said, "This is indeed a fake item. What did you do with the real item?"

    As soon as he said this, therge man revealed a smile, the crowd revealed surprise expressions, and the woman revealed a shocked look.

    The woman opened her mouth and stammered, "I, I, I¡­" But in the end, she wasn''t able to form a singleplete sentence.

    The manager gave a cold snort before ignoring the woman and saying to therge man, "This customer, I apologize for the inconvenience that you''ve suffered today. I hope that this mistake from one single employee will not ruin your impression of our business."

    After saying this, he turned back to the woman and said, "You will return the real item and you will be punished for this mistake."

    Before that woman could say a thing, the guards that hade over already moved to her side. The manager gave a nod to the guards and they took her away.

    But at the same time, the guards also moved over to where therge man was.

    Therge man saw this and said, "What is this? What are you doing?"

    The manager said with a smile, "I''m sorry for doing this, but since you have created amotion in our store, I have no choice but to ask you to leave for today. You are free toe back another day and we will be happy to do business with you, but you need to leave today."

    Therge man wanted to break free, but the guards were just too strong for him.

    So in the end, he had no choice but to leave the store being escorted by them.

    As they were leaving, the manager followed closely behind them as if to make sure that therge man was properly escorted out.

    Then once he was gone, the manager came back and gave another bow to everyone before saying, "I''d like to apologize for themotion and I hope that everyone will forgive us. As an apology, I''d like to offer everyone here a 10% discount on your next purchase."

    Hearing this, the crowd''s expression rxed. While no one said a thing in response to this, it was clear by their expression that they were very happy with the settlement that the manager had given them.

    It didn''t take long before everyone went back to their shopping.

    Seeing this, the manager revealed a smile that no one could see through and then went back to where he had been sitting before.

    Once he was gone, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    But I didn''t let it show on my face for long since we had taken off our hoods when we came into the store. I didn''t want anyone to see this, so I quickly changed my expression and revealed a calm look.

    However, the two beside me both had excited looks because they had heard what the manager had said.

    10% off!

    While it was only 10%, for their order, it was not a small amount!

    This was definitely better than anything that they would get if they negotiated with any otherpanies.

    So both of them looked at me with excited looks, as if they were telling me that we should buy from this ce.

    However, I wasn''t moved as easily as these two.

    I shook my head and then signaled for them to follow me out.

    When we finally reached the alley where the carriage was waiting and we got in the carriage, both of them asked, "Why didn''t you take advantage of that? It was a full 10% off!"

    I shook my head again and said, "We can buy from any ce other than that ce."

    Both of them revealed confused looks at first, but it was Nicole who reacted first by saying, "I know that you feel bad about what happened, but we can''t just not take advantage of this because of emotions. It was the clerk''s fault in the first ce, so we shouldn''t not take advantage of this situation." After a pause, she added, "It was a good thing that I told the guards that we would be back as we left so they will remember to give us a 10% discount if we buy from them."

    But I still shook my head before saying, "It wasn''t the clerk''s fault."

    Nicole looked at me with a confused look before saying, "My lord, I know that¡­"

    I raised my hand to cut her off before saying, "It was all an act put on by the manager."

    "Huh?" Both of the girls replied with this confused expression.

    I slowly exined, "The thug that used the clerk was someone that was hired by the manager. When he was being dragged out by the guards, the manager slipped something into the thug''s pockets which should be his payment. At the same time, the manager took the "fake" product for himself."

    "Huh?" Both of the girls said this once again after hearing this.

    But then Nicole couldn''t help asking, "But that would mean a loss for the store though, so why would he do that? It would just get him in trouble."

    I revealed a faint smile as I said, "That''s because it would raise his reputation as the one who easily solved this problem. Even if the store suffers a loss, the reputation that he gains from it is more than enough to bnce it out."

 Chapter 94 Merchants (4)

    Both of the girls once again revealed confused looks when they heard this.

    But I wasn''t in the mood to exin it to them, so I said, "In short, all you need to know is that this ce has a corrupt manager."

    Both of them still had looks of doubts, but they nodded in response to this.

    I didn''t think too much about it either, but Nicole still didn''t give up as she said, "Even if it is one corrupt manager, that doesn''t mean that we can''t take advantage of this. It''s arge discount that we shouldn''t give up. They are argepany, they won''t do anything that will ruin their reputation."

    I once again shook my head after hearing this and said, "Let me tell you an idiom from my hometown. When you see one cockroach, you can be sure that there are thirty more hiding away."

    Both of them once again revealed confused looks. They didn''t seem to understand where I was going with this idiom.

    I couldn''t help revealing a smile when I saw the cute way that the two of them looked at me with confused looks before saying, "It means that if there''s one bad apple, you can be sure that there are more in the bunch. If someone as high as the manager of this main store is corrupt, then you can be sure that there are other corrupt people in thispany."

    Seeing that Nicole was about to say something else, I cut her off and said, "Even if we are lucky enough to get someone who will act properly, there''s plenty of corruption in thispany. There''s still the chance that we will be affected by this and we can''t afford any dys right now."

    The looks on their faces made it clear that they weren''t fully convinced by what I said. They understood where I wasing from, but they still thought that it was worth taking this risk.

    But I was the baron and since I had made my decision, there wasn''t anything that they could do about it.

    I also knew where they wereing from, but I had my experience with this kind of thing in my previous world.

    So we moved on to the next destination.

    Once again, we stopped in another alley.

    When we came out of the alley, we blended into the crowd and made our way over to a building.

    This building wasn''t as big as the one that we were in before, but it certainly wasn''t a small building either. This building was the storefront of the secondrgestpany in the city.

    It wasn''t as crowded as thergestpany and theyout was different.

    One could really see the difference between the top and the second bestpany by the products that they offered.

    While they still had plenty of products that were considered rare, they weren''t as rare as the ones that were at the biggestpany.

    At the same time, they didn''t have the same variety of goods as the biggestpany, so they didn''t have as many counters as they did.

    With less counters though, it did give a sort of more intimate feel to this store.

    But I was still able to find problems with this ce quite quickly.

    The problem with this ce was the attitude that the staff had.

    Even though they weren''t the biggestpany, they had an attitude like they were the biggestpany. They didn''t treat the customers with respect and when customersined, they didn''t take theints seriously.

    It was clear that this ce had the opposite problem of the biggestpany.

    Instead of the ones at the top being rampant, it was the ones at the bottom that were rampant.

    If it wasn''t for the resources that they had as the secondrgestpany, it was very likely that their entire operation would have copsed. They didn''t have anything to fall back on other than the resources that they had already umted in previous generations.

    In fact, from what I could hear from the mutters of the customers, I understood that this ce wasn''t always like this.

    It had only started going downhill like this after the new owner took over.

    After the previous owner, the father of the new owner died and the new owner took over, everything had changed.

    There were many of the old staff that were reced with these new staff members who were apparently friends of the new owner. But in reality, these were thugs that had been hired by the new owner since they were friends.

    This ce was being run by very under qualified staff.

    This time, I didn''t even need to say anything. Both Nicole and Jessice were displeased with the attitude that these staff members had and decided against doing business here.

    That was fine with me since I had already made up my mind to leave.

    But as we were leaving, I couldn''t help feeling anxious.

    We had gone to both the biggest and the second biggestpanies and found problems with them. While there were still other bigpanies that we could cooperate with, there were only so many of them in this city.

    With the precedent that these two have set, it was likely that the rest of thepanies would also have problems like this.

    But that couldn''t be med on anyone sincerge organizations like this would always have oversight¡­

    The problem was that if they were all like this, then I would have no choice but to choose from one that had a problem. If I had to choose from one that had a problem, it was very likely that we would face a dy when it came to the delivery of the food and supplies.

    Even a short dy could mean the deaths of people.

    This was not something that could be taken lightly and that was why I was worried.

    But in the end, I shook these thoughts out of mind and decided to deal with them when they came.

    For now, I would have hope that the otherpanies were better.

 Chapter 95 Merchants (5)

    The next store that we arrived at was the one owned by the thirdrgestpany.

    This store was much smallerpared to the tworgerpanies.

    However, that was because this thirdrgestpany wasn''t based in this city in the first ce.

    This thirdrgestpany was just a branch of argerpany that did business all over the kingdom. Just the branchpany of thisrgerpany was already big enough to be known as the thirdrgestpany in the kingdom.

    That just went to show how powerful the mainpany was.

    However, this was also the reason why I had the most doubts about thispany.

    Since it was just a branchpany, there were many different problems that this ce could have.

    It could be run by someone who only cared about making as much profit as possible to impress the mainpany, it could be run by people who didn''t care about the customers since they thought it was beneath them, or there could be all kinds of different problems with this store.

    That was why I was the most worried about this ce and had already basically written it off from the candidates that we could cooperate with.

    This was also the reason why I was very surprised when I walked into the store.

    This store waspletely different from what I had imagined.

    Instead of looking like the other two stores, this ce was much more simple.

    In fact, it almost looked like a general store instead of arge business store.

    When we came in, I saw that there weren''t many people here in the first ce. There were only a few customers that were wandering around the store and beside each of those customers, there was a store clerk that was helping them.

    In fact, as we came in, there was a store clerk that came over with a smile on his face.

    As soon as he came over, he said, "Wee to our store, is there anything that I can help you with?"

    I just looked at him without saying a thing and as I was looking at him, I didn''t see a single trace of impatience. This was a sign that he had been trained well and was very skilled in dealing with customers.

    I couldn''t help feeling more and more curious about this ce after seeing this.

    I had wanted to quickly go through this ce and leave, but now I wanted to know more about this ce.

    But at the same time, I wanted to test this store to see if they had what I wanted from them.

    So I muttered in a soft voice, "Nothing much, I''m just looking around."

    The way I said it sounded very nonmittal, making it clear that I wouldn''t be a good customer for them.

    After I said this, I carefully observed the reaction of this store clerk.

    There was no sign of impatience or annoyance that appeared, the store clerk just maintained the same friendly smile that he had on his face the entire time as he said, "No problem, sir. If there''s anything that you need help with, please call at any time."

    Then after saying this, he took two steps back so that he was still within earshot while also giving me space to do what I wanted.

    I couldn''t help feeling impressed when I saw this.

    This was a style of service that was popr in my previous world, but it was rare to see in this medieval world. Of the shops that I had gone to before, they would just have a person behind the counter and there wouldn''t be any personal service attendants like this.

    At the same time, I could tell that the smile on his face wasn''t forced since there were no minor adjustments with that smile. It was a sincere smile that came from the bottom of his heart which meant that he was happy with his job here.

    The more I saw of this, the more my opinion of this store changed.

    After browsing for a bit, I suddenly said, "Excuse me!"

    The clerk that had greeted me came over immediately and said, "Sir, is there anything I can help you with?"

    The speed at which he came over surprised me, but it also impressed me again.

    I had spoken softly before, but this time, I spoke in a sharp and quick tone as I asked, "Do you know the background of this item? Also, can you tell me if ites in¡­"

    I picked up a random item and quickly made several demands of the clerk. With each of the demands bing more and more irrational.

    I had tested their patience before by pretending to be a window shopper, but now I wanted to see how they would hold up against a bad customer.

    At first, the clerk did his best to answer the questions that I had. He did quite well even though I had been asking a bunch of questions that could be considered unreasonable.

    But as time passed and he was bombarded with more and more questions, he finally couldn''t keep up anymore and started faltering.

    However, at no point did he show any trace of losing his temper or bing impatient. He just calmly tried his best to answer my questions, even though he did start to falter near the end.

    It wasn''t my intention to make this young man have a mental breakdown and I had already seen enough to make a judgement, so I had nned on stopping the questioning.

    But before I could, there was a soothing voice that said, "I''m sorry about this, how about I take over here?"

    Hearing this voice, we all turned to look in the direction that it came from.

    When I saw the owner of this voice, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    That was because there was beauty and then there was this level of dazzling that made one stunned.

    That was what was ced in front of me.

 Chapter 96 Merchants (6)

    This was a beautiful face with stunning flowing orange hair, a pair of piercing orange eyes, finely drawn thin orange brows, a perfectly shaped nose, and a pair of soft pink cherry lips, all atop the fine white canvas that was her face.

    And then there was her figure.

    Even though she wore a dress that was somewhat loose so that she could move around easily, there was no hiding her perfect hourss figure. Her chest wasn''t as big as Cecilia, or even Baroness Rose''s but her hips were something else.

    They were so wide that one would even think that they could crush a man''s pelvis under them.

    As I stood there with a stunned look on my face, this beautiful orange haired woman walked over to the clerk that had been helping us. She went to his side and after having a few hushed words with him, she turned back to us with a smile and said, "If you still have any questions, you can direct them to me."

    The clerk didn''t move away, but just stood behind this orange haired woman.

    After a moment''s pause, I came back from my surprise and said, "Sure, I''d like to ask a few more questions about this item."

    Since there was someone new who hade over to help, I wanted to test them as well.

    So I started asking all kinds of questions about the same product as before, ones that were even more in depthpared to the ones that I asked previously. They were so in depth that the clerk on the side had a trace of relief in his eyes over the fact that he wasn''t the one who had to answer them.

    However, none of these questions even fazed the orange haired woman.

    She just calmly and casually answered all of the questions that I had.

    I didn''t know if the answers that she gave me were correct since I wasn''t an expert on this topic, but the confident way that she spoke made it feel like she was correct.

    Finally, I couldn''t think of any more questions to ask about this thing.

    So I just said with a smile, "Thank you for your help. You really are a thorough and dutiful employee. I''m surprised that this store was able to hire someone as good as you."

    Before the orange haired woman could say anything, the clerk who had been silently listening on the side suddenly came forward to say, "That''s because there''s no one more skilled than our bossdy, that''s why she''s our boss."

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this before turning to look at the orange haired woman with a strange look. I asked in a doubtful voice, "You''re the boss of this ce?"

    The orange haired woman just gave a simple nod in response to this before asking, "Is there something wrong with that?"

    I shook my head and said, "No, nothing''s wrong at all. I''m just surprised that such a beautiful youngdy would be in charge of apany that can be considered the third biggest in this city. You must really be a talented person."

    When she heard thispliment, the orange haired woman''s expression couldn''t help changing. It was an awkward look at first before she revealed an embarrassed look with a blush on her face.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by just how easily she was flustered by some simplepliments.

    She hadn''t been fazed at all when I gave her the third degree earlier over the product, but when it came to simplepliments, she had no resistance at all¡­

    But she also quickly recovered as that blush disappeared. She then gave a cough and said, "Thank you for yourpliment. Is there anything else that I can help you with today?"

    I shook my head when I heard this and said, "Thank you, but we''ll need to think over this ande back another day. Thank you for all your help today."

    The orange haired woman wasn''t bothered by this at all as she said with a friendly smile, "Thank you foring today and we hope that you wille again soon."

    With that, the three of us walked out of the store while being escorted by the two of them.

    When we were back at the carriage, I suddenly revealed a smile and said, "It''s decided, we''re going with this store."

    After hearing me say this, both of the girls sitting beside me looked at me with shocked looks. It didn''t take long before those looks turned into looks of doubt and confusion.

    It was clear that they didn''t see the same thing that I did in that store and they didn''t support my decision of buying from that store.

    But I didn''t bother exining to them why it had to be this ce.

    After all, they wouldn''t understand my point of view in the first ce.

    I had tried exining to them twice, but each time, Nicole had gone against my opinion.

    Still, I didn''t mind that.

    Other nobles might not want someone who would go against them this openly, but I actually didn''t mind and weed it. I didn''t want someone who was clearly a yes man and would just tell me what I wanted to hear, I wanted someone who would give me actual advice instead of just trying to please me.

    It was clear that Baroness Rose thought the same, which was why Nicole was here in the first ce.

    She tried to convince me to go to the first two ces, but in the end, she had no choice but to ept my decision.

    After all, I was the baron and her employer. As her superior, my decision was the final say and all she could do was offer advice.

    I was very happy about being able to find a supplier this quickly, even though we hadn''t made a deal with them yet. So to celebrate, I suggested that we go out and have a nice meal together.

    Both of them were surprised by this offer, but they also happily epted since this would be their opportunity to make a move¡­

    I just chose a random restaurant that we had passed earlier that had seemed decent, but I was surprised to find that both of them were very happy about going there. I learned from Nicole that this ce was a store that only rich people would go to since the dishes were quite expensive.

    I didn''t know about that earlier, but since I had already said that we would be going there, it wasn''t as if I could back out now.

    At least I had some money since I was the baron, so it shouldn''t be a problem for me to pay.

    Seeing their happy smiles, I also decided that it would be considered a treat.

    Every now and then, you needed to provide some kind of reward to your employees for their hard work, so it didn''t matter to splurge a bit.

    It wasn''t because I was looking forward to eating the fancy food as Nicole had described it.

    But as we passed by the restaurant, there was a voice that suddenly caught our intention.

    "You stupid woman, can you be any more useless?"

 Chapter 97 Domestic Issue

    As I followed the source of that voice, I couldn''t help being surprised to find that there was a familiar face there.

    The familiar face wasn''t the one who was yelling, but rather they were the one that was being yelled at.

    This familiar face was the beautiful orange haired woman from the store this afternoon.

    The one that was currently yelling at her, calling her useless and trash was a fine dressed man. He was standing there in the middle of the street, calling her out in front of everyone.

    But because of his fine clothes and the manner that he carried himself, people didn''t daree forward to help the orange haired woman.

    They were all afraid of offending someone that they shouldn''t offend, so they just lowered their heads and walked by.

    However, one look at the expression on the faces of these people, one could tell that they clearly didn''t approve of this fine dressed man''s actions. If they weren''t afraid of the consequences, there would have been many people who would havee forward to defend the orange haired woman.

    But in the end, everyone had to take care of themselves in this city and couldn''t put themselves in danger just for someone they didn''t know.

    That was the same for me¡­

    In the end, I tried to ignore them and continue on to the restaurant that we were nning to go to.

    However, I wasn''t able to ignore them when I saw something happening.

    The fine dressed man suddenly stopped yelling at the orange haired woman and suddenly raised his hand. With the way his palm was t and how he raised it high above him, aimed at the orange haired woman, one could see that he was about to p her.

    When I saw this, I didn''t know what took over, but I could no longer just sit back and watch all of this happen.

    Before I knew it, I had already opened the door and was dashing over in that direction.

    I was able to make it just in time to grab the man''s hand as it was about to fall, stopping him fromnding that p.

    When this happened, everyone couldn''t help but gasp.

    When the crowd had seen that the man was about to p the orange haired woman, they suddenly stopped walking past and ignoring it. They had all turned to watch the man as he prepared to p her.

    There were some that were tempted to make a move, but they remained still in the end.

    So they were all surprised to see that someone had actually acted.

    Though most of them also revealed looks of relief when they saw that there was someone who had stopped the fine dressed man from hitting the beautiful orange haired woman.

    The finely dressed man was also caught off guard by someone suddenly grabbing his hand like this, but then he turned to re at me.

    As he red at me, it was as if he forgot about the orange haired woman who he had been tormenting earlier and he focused all of his rage on me. As he red at me, he said in a threatening low voice, "Who do you think you are?"

    However, I wasn''t scared at all when I saw him acting this way.

    In fact, I had been able to get a closer look at this finely dressed man when I came closer to him.

    Seeing him threaten me like this, it was almost like seeing a harmless puppy threaten me. Thoughpared to this man, a puppy would have been much cuter since this man was quite ugly.

    This was a man who clearly had never faced a real life and death situation based on the aura he released as he threatened me.

    For someone like me who had faced a Goblin General head on, this man just didn''t pose any threat to me at all.

    I just calmly narrowed my eyes to look back at him before saying, "What do you think you''re doing?"

    The finely dressed man couldn''t help being taken aback again when he was faced with my aura. It was clear by the look on his face that he wasn''t expecting this kind of pressure from me.

    I had to admit that I did have a young and cute face, so it wasn''t strange for people to assume that I wasn''t as threatening as I could be. But that didn''t mean that people should underestimate me.

    After a moment''s pause, the finely dressed man finallyposed himself.

    He gave a cough to calm himself down before saying, "Do you know who I am?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a smile when I saw him change tactics.

    When he found that he couldn''t threaten me with his aura, he chose to threaten me with his status.

    But I easily dismantled that in one move.

    "Does that matter?" I said in a calm and indifferent voice.

    The finely dressed man''s face twisted when he heard this. He wanted to shout out his status, but with everyone watching like this, he knew that he would just be embarrassing himself if he did this.

    So he couldn''t do anything as his rage swallowed him from the inside.

    Finally, hepletely lost his temper and decided to resort to violence.

    This finely dressed man didn''t believe that he would lose to a young boy like this in a fight. That was the kind of man he was, the kind that would bully those he thought were weaker than him without any hesitation.

    But before he could, Jessica had alreadye over.

    She was dressed up since they were going out to a restaurant, but she didn''t forget her job as my bodyguard. So she pulled out a sword that she had brought along with her and stood beside me with it slightly unsheathed.

    When the finely dressed man saw this, he couldn''t help stalling. Then he quickly pulled his hand back as if he was afraid to keep going¡­

    With none of his options avable to him, the man finally chose to use his trump card, "What do you think you''re doing? Getting in between the private affairs of husband and wife?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this and I turned back to look at the orange haired woman behind me.

    Seeing that I was looking at her for confirmation, the orange haired woman hesitated for a second before giving a nod of affirmation to show that this finely dressed man was indeed her husband.

    I couldn''t help being surprised even more when I heard this, but then I knitted my brows.

    When the finely dressed man saw the orange haired woman nodding to confirm this, he revealed a smile like he was the victor as he said, "Do you see? Now do you understand that you''re interfering in matters you shouldn''t interfere in?"

    I gave a snort when I heard this before saying, "That makes it even worse. What kind of a man would use violence against his own wife? He is the kind of man who isn''t a man at all."

    The finely dressed man''s face twisted when he heard this, but he chose to ignore it as he said in a righteous voice, "This is a matter between husband and wife, you aren''t qualified to interfere!"

    I gave another snort before saying in a low and threatening voice, "Get out of here before I really lose my temper. Then I''ll show you if I can interfere or not."

 Chapter 98 What Is This? (1)

    The finely dressed man''s face twisted again when he heard this, but he also couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine.

    For some reason, he actually felt a trace of fear when he heard this threat from this young boy.

    He didn''t understand why he would feel fear from this clearly weak threat.

    But at the same time, he started feeling shame from feeling fear because of this threat.

    He wanted to say something else, but Jessica had already moved forward so that she was in between me and the finely dressed man. She had unsheathed her sword and it was being pointed at the finely dressed man.

    So the finely dressed man had no choice but to back down.

    He red at us for a few more seconds before turning to storm off.

    As he was leaving, he didn''t forget to add, "You thugs won''t get away with this! Wait until the count hears about this, then you''ll regret it!"

    Also before he left, he couldn''t help saying to his wife, "You better note home tonight or you''ll really get it."

    I knitted my brows when I heard this, but I reached out to stop Jessica from charging at that man. I could see that she was just as angry at that man for what he did to the orange haired woman, but I knew that we shouldn''t cause a scene more than what we had already caused because of it.

    Creating amotion was one thing, but murder was on apletely different level. Even if it was assault, it wasn''t an offense that was easily handled.

    I also was a bit worried that this man had mentioned the count.

    If he really was rted to the count, then this wouldn''t be a simple matter.

    But for now, what was more important was making sure that the orange haired woman was alright.

    Once I was sure that the finely dressed man was gone, I turned back to the orange haired woman and took off my coat for her. It was currently the middle of fall, so it was quite cold at night.

    When she saw me raising the coat towards her, she didn''t react at first.

    But then she gave me a grateful look as she slowly took the coat and put it on.

    The crowd that had gathered was now finally working up the courage toe and help, but I didn''t let them. Since they were too scared to help earlier, then those that came now were only helping with ulterior motives.

    It was better to ignore people like this.

    So I asked the orange haired woman, "Would you like to join us for dinner?"

    The orange haired woman looked at me with a confused look at first, but then seeing the sincere look that I had, she gave a nod in response.

    So the four of us stood up and headed into my carriage.

    Of course, since she was still shaken up about what had happened, I went out again and sat down beside the driver.

    The driver looked at me with a smile and I just ignored it since I knew what he was implying.

    We were already close to the restaurant, so it didn''t take long for us to get there.

    Since this was a ce that was quite expensive, there were plenty of open seats since there were few people who could afford to dine here in the first ce.

    When the orange haired woman saw where we were, she couldn''t help stopping and saying, "I should go. There''s no need for you to treat me to a meal here."

    I shook my head with a bitter smile before saying, "I was already nning on having a meal here, so it doesn''t matter if there''s one more person. Plus, I''ve already said that I would treat you, so please don''t make me a liar."

    Hearing this, the orange haired woman still said, "No, I was the one that caused trouble for you, so you don''t need to treat me to anything. I should go¡­"

    She turned to leave, but before she could, I grabbed her hand.

    She looked at me with a look of surprise before a look of suspicion appeared in her eyes.

    Seeing this, I said, "I don''t want to do anything to you. I just wanted to ask if you even have a ce to go."

    After all, the other side was her husband, so it wasn''t safe for her to go home. Not to mention, I didn''t feel good about sending a woman out into the night alone like this.

    The orange haired woman was taken aback by these words before slowly shaking her head.

    She hadn''t thought about what she would do next, she had just thought about getting out of this current situation.

    I raised my hands to show that I meant no harm and tried to sound as innocent as I could as I said, "I really mean you no harm. I just want to make sure that you''re safe. Is that alright?"

    Both Nicole and Jessica were a bit annoyed that this orange haired woman was acting this way, but they still yed along and showed that they meant no harm.

    The orange haired woman looked at me for a bit before giving a sigh and saying, "I''m sorry for being so rude. It was¡­"

    As her voice trailed off, her eyes also went distant.

    I raised my hand to stop her as I said, "There''s no need to exin, I understand."

    When the orange haired woman heard this, she couldn''t help revealing a bit of a blush. That was because¡­he looked quite handsome like this¡­

    But she gave a cough to calm herself down before saying, "Thank you."

    I gave a nod in response for gesturing with one hand and saying, "Shall we?"

    The orange haired woman gave a nod and then we went into the restaurant together.

    What I didn''t know was how much this encounter would affect me in the future.

 Chapter 99 What Is This? (2)

    When we came in, the waiter couldn''t help looking at us with a strange look.

    That was because while the three of us were dressed well, the orange haired woman¡­was wearing quite simple clothes.

    She was the only one that seemed out of ce here.

    But before the waiter could do anything, Nicole had already gone over to show him something.

    After they were done, the waiter came forward with a friendly smile and said, "Wee, may I show you to your table?"

    I gave a nod in response to this.

    As we were being shown to our table, the orange haired woman couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look.

    Now that she had calmed down, she was thinking much more clearly.

    She knew that her clothes weren''t suited for this ce, so she had expected the waiter to say something. But when the waiter didn''t say a thing and just led them to a table with a smile, she couldn''t help feeling curious.

    She was curious as to what the status of this handsome young man who had saved her was.

    After all, it shouldn''t be normal for the waiter of this well known fancy restaurant to treat him like this.

    When we arrived at our table, the waiter brought out menus for us.

    As we were looking through these menus, I couldn''t help thinking to myself, "This is very¡­cheap!"

    That was right, this was considered cheap for me.

    With the amount of money that Baroness Rose had given me for my expenses, it barely made a dent if I ate at this ce. In fact, I coulde here for every meal and it still wouldn''t make a dent.

    So that was why I thought that it was very cheap.

    But based on the looks that the girls had on their faces, it was clear that they didn''t think the same thing as me. They clearly thought that this ce was very expensive.

    This was made explicitly clear by the pained looks Nicole and Jessica had on their faces.

    It was almost as if their flesh was being torn from their bones when they saw these prices.

    Even the orange haired woman''s face was filled with pain right now.

    She was the owner of the thirdrgestpany in the city, which was also the branch of a muchrgerpany that had influence all over the kingdom.

    She should be the one that was even richer than me.

    Still, since I was the host, I did have responsibilities.

    I said with what I considered a generous look, "You can just order whatever you want, it''s all on me today."

    But to my surprise, the three girls revealed awkward looks when they heard this.

    In the end, Nicole and Jessica both only ordered a dish each while the orange haired woman didn''t order a single thing.

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I saw all of this.

    So I took it upon myself to order for everyone.

    I waved the waiter over and called out a few dishes that had caught my eyes. The food of a fantasy world really was different from the dishes that I was used to, so I might have gone a bit overboard with how many I ordered.

    Still, I didn''t mind since it meant that I could try out all of these delicious dishes.

    They had to be delicious if they were this expensive and so many people were still eating it, right?

    The waiter had a delighted look on his face, but the girls all revealed looks of disaster.

    Nicole came over and said, "My lord, there''s no need to order this much. We''re just having a simple meal, we can just order a few dishes." Then she moved closer and said in a hushed voice, "We still have to buy food and supplies for the territory, so we can''t just waste our money like this."

    Jessica didn''t say anything, but the look on her face seemed like she agreed with her.

    But I just casually took out a small bag and ced it in front of them before saying, "It''s fine, I''ll pay for it out of my own pockets."

    Nicole couldn''t help curiously opening the bag and when the glimmer of gold came out of the bag, she was taken aback.

    She looked at me with a surprised look before suddenly giving a sigh as she remembered who she was talking to.

    Because I had ordered her to talk informally with me, she had gotten used to it and had forgotten that I was a baron. Nobles were different frommoners and that included the amount of wealth that they had.

    So she just simply gave a nod and returned the bag to me.

    This feeling of showing off with money like this was definitely a good feeling.

    To the side, the orange haired woman just looked at me with an inquisitive look, as if she was trying to figure out just who I am.

    After we had ordered the dishes, we settled down at the table waiting for them toe.

    During this time, since there was nothing else to do, I turned to say to the orange haired woman, "You seem like someone with a story and we have some time now. If you don''t mind, can you share that story with us?"

    Both Nicole and Jessica looked at the orange haired woman with interested looks when they heard this.

    They had seen and heard everything that had happened, so they were also curious why this woman let herself be treated like this by that man. They were also curious about why she bothered to stay with that man even though it was clear that he was an abusive b*stard.

    The orange haired woman gave a long sigh when she heard this, but then she said, "It''s a long story, are you fine with listening to it?"

    I just said with a smile, "We have time."

    Then the orange haired woman gave a nod before saying, "We''re going to need some wine."

 Chapter 100 What Is This? (3)

    This restaurant was famous and expensive for a reason.

    Not only was the food well known, there was also a fine selection of wines and there was excellent service.

    It didn''t take long before all of us had a ss of wine in front of us.

    I wasn''t really a wine guy, so I didn''t know if this was good wine or not. However, the orange haired girl took one sniff before her eyes lit up and she started giving a detailed description of the wine.

    I heard terms like "best pick of the crop, finely filtered with magic, and stirred with only the purest oak spoon", but I really couldn''t understand most of what she said in the end.

    This orange haired girl didn''t keep talking about it for long as she realized that she was rambling.

    After she caught herself, she couldn''t help revealing an awkward smile before saying, "It''s just one of the hazards of the upation. When you get caught up in a good product, you just can''t help yourself."

    I nodded with a smile on my face.

    I didn''t dislike people like this.

    These were people that worked hard to gain the knowledge that they had and they did it all to seed. These were people that should be admired for their dedication and effort, so I would never look down on them.

    While I didn''t really know what good wine was based on taste, I could at least tell what was good wine with my pte.

    When the wine touched my tongue, there was a nice fruity vour that filled my mouth. It wasn''t very strong, but it wasn''t weak either.

    It was a bold grape taste with a bit of sweetness and a bit of sourness, that also left a hint of bitterness in the end.

    This was a nice bottle of wine, or at least in my mind.

    But looking at the orange haired woman go, I could tell that she liked the wine quite a bit. Though I couldn''t help being worried since she was just drinking wine without eating anything.

    So I had to speak up in the end, which also alerted Nicole and Jessica who were trying to keep up with the orange haired woman.

    All three of them calmed down and we were back in the mood to speak.

    Before the orange haired woman told her story, I suddenly remembered something. I said with what I considered an elegant smile, "Right, I forgot to ask. My name is Zwein, what is your name?"

    The orange haired woman also realized that she had also forgotten to introduce herself, so she said, "My name is Haley Montsoir."

    All three of us couldn''t help being surprised when we heard this.

    After all,st names were very rare.

    Those that hadst names were normally those that had more¡­noble backgrounds. These were families that hadsted for a long time, which had given them the right to solidify thesest names.

    Seeing the looks that we had on our face, she revealed a bitter smile and said, "My family isn''t as special as you think. We''re just a family of merchants."

    From this, I could hear that there was some kind of conflict between her and her family, but it wasn''t time to ask about that now.

    First, let''s talk about her scumbag husband.

    After calming down, Haley started telling them her story.

    The story was one that was filled with quite the twist and turns, but the ending was actually quite predictable.

    in and simple, she had married her current husband because of a debt that her father owed the father of her husband. At the same time, she had only married him since it was the only way that she was able to get away from her family to create this business of hers.

    The store that was the thirdrgestpany in this city waspletely owned by her.

    It was financed through funds given to her by her family, but she had been the one that had built it up with her own hard work.

    As for how she had obtained the funds, it was by marrying the son of the man that her father owed a debt to.

    Then because her business was created with funds from her family, they became part owners of the business that was equal to her part. Adding in the part that she had to give her husband, that gave them full control of the business.

    If they wanted to sell the business, she wouldn''t be able to do anything about it.

    So she had no choice but to stay with her husband and suffer through everything that he threw at her.

    There were also other reasons why she stayed with him, but the main one was because of the threat of her family.

    The moment that she tried to break up with him, her father had sent the threat of selling her business without hesitation. It was almost as if he wasn''t her father, but rather the father of her husband.

    But she knew the circumstances of the debt, so she didn''t me her father since she knew what kind of person her father was.

    She knew that he was the kind that would always repay those that had shown him favour in the past, just like how her husband''s father had done.

    So she was in a situation where she was stuck.

    After she finished telling her story, Haley said, "I can''t do anything about it, I have to just suck it up and let him do whatever he wants."

    Then as if remembering something, she suddenly asked me, "Are you alright though? Even if my husband doesn''t have any abilities, he does have the connection that my father gave him."

    She was worried that her husband would take revenge on her saviour, so if there was anything that she could do to help¡­

    But I wasn''t worried about that anymore since I had just heard about the background of her husband.

    There really wasn''t anything that could make me scared.

    So I decided to reveal my identity.

    "I don''t look like it, but I''m actually a baron." I said with a confident smile.

 Chapter 101 What Is This? (4)

    "Eh?" That was Haley''s response to my confession.

    She looked at Nicole and Jessica on the sides and both of them nodded to confirm this.

    She looked back at me with the same surprised look before suddenly bursting out inughter. She pointed at me and said whileughing, "You''re actually a baron at such a young age?"

    I revealed a bitter smile before raising my hand to stop Nicole and Jessica from doing something.

    It was clear by the look on their faces that they weren''t happy about Haley''s response, but I knew that there was a reason for this. The reason was the many different bottles of wine that were currently on the table.

    We had only received our food midway through her story, but half of these bottles had been finished off before the food arrived. With all of the wine going in her stomach before she got any food in her, she must be quite affected by it.

    But I also didn''t me her since she had been through a hard life and tonight had been hard for her as well.

    Now that she finally felt safe, it didn''t seem strange that she would want to drown the trauma that she experienced with alcohol.

    Afterughing for a bit and giving a few hups, Haley realized the mistake that she had made and she bowed her head suddenly before saying, "I''m sorry, I lost control there."

    I just raised my hand to show that it was fine as I revealed a faint smile.

    It didn''t take long before she went back to drinking.

    During this time, both Nicole and Jessica had been focused on eating the food that had been brought.

    This was food that they would normally never get the chance to eat, so they wanted to eat as much of it as they could.

    I just watched all of this with a smile before suddenly remembering something.

    I turned to Haley and asked, "Your husband mentioned something about the count. Could it be that he is rted to the count?"

    That was the one worry that I had about this matter.

    The count was the one person that I couldn''t offend right now since this was his city. Even if it wasn''t his city, the count was a much higher ranked noble than me and Baroness Rose, so if he wanted, he could destroy our town with his muchrger army.

    The higher the nobility rank, therger the army was permitted by the king.

    So there was a reason why we didn''t have as many soldiers to deal with the monster wave.

    Hearing this, Haley revealed a smile before saying, "He isn''t rted to the count at all. He just had one lucky deal with the count and he acts like he knows the count personally. There were many times where he tried to invite the count to our home for dinner, but he was always rejected."

    Then her eyes dimmed a bit before she said, "That was the reason for what happened tonight¡­"

    I gave a nod, but I didn''t say anything since I knew that anything extra that was said here would just poke at her wounds.

    I could tell that she was a woman who had many wounds in her heart and that she needed to be treated gently to slowly heal those wounds.

    So I said, "Let''s forget about all of that and just drink our problems away."

    If it was Haley from before where she still had her senses, she might have stopped herself since she was drinking with someone that she had just met.

    But not this time since she was already drunk.

    She just happily lifted the ss of wine in her hand and said, "Let''s drink our problems away!"

    She was so loud that the other customers here couldn''t help looking at us, but the waiter didn''t do a thing.

    Compared to them, I had the highest status in this restaurant.

    What Nicole had told the waiter earlier was that I was a baron and had even shown proof of it.

    That was why his attitude had suddenly changed earlier.

    It didn''t take long before Haley was too drunk to keep it together anymore.

    Her face waspletely flushed and she was slurring her words as she started singing.

    There was even a time where she wanted to take some clothes off because it was too hot, but I had Nicole and Jessica stop her before she did anything. I could have stopped her myself, but in a public ce like this¡­it would have been inappropriate.

    In the end, they were able to stop her from stripping, but they had been dragged into the drinking by her.

    Luckily, she didn''t get the two of them too drunk before she knocked herself out from drinking.

    As sheid there snoozing and holding the bottle of wine, I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile.

    Where did the beautiful and elegant woman that I had met in the store this afternoon go?

    I couldn''t see a single trace of her in Haley who was lying there drunk.

    In the end, I had Nicole and Jessica take care of her.

    The two of them were helping her into the carriage while I went to settle the issue of the bill.

    When I received it, I was surprised to find that the prices that were listed on the receipt were lower than the actual price on the menu. Seeing this, I couldn''t help looking at the waiter who was with me.

    The waiter said with the same friendly smile as if he had guessed what I was thinking, "This is a special service for a VIP customer such as yourself."

    I raised a brow in doubt, but in the end, since they were willing to offer this to me, I wasn''t going to say no.

    So I threw a gold coin over and left without even taking the change. I just simply said, "Consider it a tip."

    The waiter''s eyes lit up when he heard this and he gave a deep bow to me.

    When we arrived at the carriage, I had the driver send us back to the inn that we were staying at.

    During this time, I let Nicole and Jessica watch over Haley because there was something more important for me to pay attention to.

 Chapter 102 What Is This? (5)

    While they were rxing in the carriage, I was looking at a panel that was in front of me.

    This wasn''t a panel that they could see, so they didn''t notice what I was doing during this time.

    But I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows as I stared at this panel in front of me.

    On that panel was the quest window.

    And currently, I was looking at the side quest tab of the quest window.

    That was because without me noticing, there had been a new quest added to this tab.

    [Side Quest] Save the beautiful merchant.

    Prevent the disaster of the beautiful merchant Haley. Protect her from her husband and ensure that the disaster to her family doesn''t pass.

    Reward: ??? (Depends on performance).

    I couldn''t help looking at this quest window in front of me with a strange look in my eyes.

    Back when I had firste to this world, this tab had beenpletely empty and there wasn''t a single quest that was avable to me. But now there were quests that filled up these empty windows and not a single one of them was simple.

    Save her?

    What was I supposed to save her from?

    All it said that I was supposed to save her from her husband, but did that mean what I think it meant?

    Did it mean that I had to break them up and then take her for myself? Or was there a different meaning to this?

    The more that I thought about it, the more confused I became and the more my head hurt.

    I had already heard her story, so I had a good idea of what her situation was. But even if I knew the story, it wasn''t as if I knew what the disaster of her family would be¡­

    Now the system was telling me to save her and her family even though we had just met¡­

    I was fine with extra quests from the system since there was the chance of getting special rewards from the system. Like the giant dildo bat, the aphrodisiac incense, and the nipple covers that I had received before.

    After the system had been upgraded because the tutorial was finished, I hadn''t received another reward from the system for any sexual conquests. It seemed that the reward from having sex was just the reward given during the tutorial to help new users¡­

    So now I had to find a different way to get stuff.

    I couldn''t get anything from the store, so my next thought was to move onto the quests since they gave rewards.

    But these quests¡­

    Finally, Nicole looked over at me and noticed that strange look that was on my face.

    She couldn''t help leaning over and asking, "My lord, is there something wrong?"

    I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard these words and looking at her, I shook my head before saying, "No, nothing at all."

    She looked at me with a concerned look, but since I wasn''t saying anything, she couldn''t say anything either. So in the end, she turned back to look after Haley.

    When she looked at me, I couldn''t help taking a peek downwards.

    She was a bit tipsy because of what happened at the restaurant and from being forced to drink by Haley, so she hadn''t noticed that when she leaned forward, the front of her shirt had drooped down more than she had intended.

    Normally when she did this, she only let me see enough that I could see the top of the peaks.

    But this time, since she was tipsy, she didn''t notice that she had leaned forward too far and had shown the two pink tips to me. For some reason, they had been standing up a bit¡­was it because she was cold, or was it because of something else?

    At least it was an uneventful ride to the inn since Haley waspletely knocked out from being drunk.

    But once we were at the inn, we faced the next problem.

    The current living situation that we had was that I had a room all to myself and the two girls had a room to themselves. However, the room that they had waspletely filled up since these rooms were only meant to hold one person. After all, these rooms catered to nobles and nobles didn''t like to share unless it was with family members and such, but that was only the case with lovers.

    Just having two people in a single room was already pushing it.

    I offered to get them a room each, but they didn''t want to, so I just got a single room for them to share.

    The problem was that there was no way that they would be able to fit three people in that roomfortably.

    We had brought Haley back with us to the inn because we didn''t want anything to happen to her while she was drunk.

    So the option that was put in front of us was either to get a new room for her, or¡­she could share my room.

    When this option was ced forward, Nicole and Jessica immediately rejected it.

    It was surprising how fast their rejection hade that it even caught me off guard.

    They kept insisting that it would be fine for three people to live in their room since they didn''t want to waste more money.

    But in the end, I had to put my foot down and rent another room for Haley to sleep in.

    I also asked one of the girls to stay in the room with her so that she wouldn''t freak out when she found herself in an unknown ce.

    As I went to rent the room though, I could have sworn that I heard something.

    "I was too slow¡­I should have suggested that we share a room. If that happened¡­"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this, but I tactfully chose to ignore it.

    I knew that Baroness Rose and Cecilia didn''t mind me getting other women, but if I started getting women without even giving them a warning¡­I don''t think that they would like that.

 Chapter 103 Making A Deal (1)

    The next morning, when I woke up and came out of the room, I found that the two girls were already awake.

    I had slept a bit longer than usual since I had already achieved my goal of finding a merchant.

    Not to mention, I did have a bit of a headache from the drinkingst night.

    I thought that I hadn''t been affected by the alcohol, but it didn''t seem to be the case.

    Still, there was no regret since it was delicious alcohol that I drank.

    I even wanted to try it again tonight¡­but that all depended on what would happen today. After all, we would be going to the store to negotiate prices today and if we couldn''t reach a price that we agreed on, we would have to extend negotiations and that would take more time.

    So I hoped that everything would go well.

    It also helped that we now knew the owner of the store and had a good rtionship with her after saving herst night.

    It seemed very likely that things would go well today.

    I wasn''t surprised to find the two girls awake, but I was surprised to find that Haley was gone.

    She was the one who was the most drunk out of all of usst night, so I had assumed that she would have a massive hangover this morning. But that didn''t seem to be the case as she had already disappeared from the inn.

    When I came over to where the two girls were waiting, I asked Nicole who shared the room with Haley, "What happened? Why is she gone already?"

    Nicole revealed a smile and shook her head before saying, "There really is no stopping that woman. When she puts her mind to something, she really goes all out to do it¡­"

    I raised a brow in confusion, but I waited for Nicole to exin.

    Nicole started the story from the very beginning.

    "When she woke up, she was confused as you had expected. She had looked around herself in a frenzy and there were even darting looks at the window, as if she had nned on jumping out. But all that noise woke me up and I was able to exin what had happenedst night."

    She gave a sigh as she said, "Though, the thought that we had spent the night together when she saw me wasn''t appreciated¡­I''m not into that kind of stuff."

    Jessica and I couldn''t help revealing a smile when we heard this.

    But then the way that Nicole red at us¡­it was clear that there was some kind of hidden grievance in thisint.

    If I had to guess, it was most likely rted to her parents.

    Heh, heh.

    After another sigh, she continued the story, "I tried to get her to stay, but she wouldn''t listen at all. She just said that she needed to get to her store to open for the day and then she stumbled out while holding her head. It was obvious that she was hungover and had arge headache, but she wouldn''t listen at all."

    At this, Nicole raised her hands and spread them in a helpless manner.

    I gave a nod at the end of this story before saying, "That''s fine, we''ll still see herter." Then I added, "But she did remember that we were the ones that saved her, right?"

    Nicole immediately caught on to what I was implying and she gave a nod with a smile in response, "I made sure that she knew that we were the ones that had saved her. Not to mention, it seemed like she had remembered quite a bit about what had happenedst night even though she was hungover."

    I gave a nod with a satisfied smile after hearing this.

    As long as she knew that we were the ones that had saved her¡­then it would help us in the negotiationster.

    Since everything was turning out to benefit us, there was no need to rush this matter.

    So I took a look out the window in this hall at the sun above us.

    The sun was in the sky, but it wasn''t high enough yet for it to be noon. It wasn''t low enough for it to be considered early morning though.

    I had slept quite a bit.

    When we went down to the main lobby of the inn, I saw on the clock on the wall that it was around 10 in the morning.

    That was still early enough for breakfast, so we found a random ce to grab some breakfast.

    After that, we walked around the city and bought a few souvenirs before also getting an early lunch.

    We did everything but go to Haley''s store.

    That was because we knew that it was very unlikely that Haley would be in any condition to greet customers right now. She might get better in the afternoon, so it was better to wait until then to head to the store.

    After all, it was her that we had business with and not the normal clerks in the store.

    After lunch, we walked around a bit more until it was around 2 in the afternoon. Only then did we head over to Haley''s store.

    It had few customers just like yesterday, so we walked in with no problem.

    When we saw who the clerk that was taking care of us was, we couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    At the same time, the smile on the lip of the clerk twitched when he saw me¡­It was clear that he recognized me and remembered me from yesterday.

    But he was a professional and he greeted us with a happy smile.

    However, we weren''t here to see him after all.

    So I asked the clerk, "Can I talk to your boss?"

    The clerk was surprised to hear this, but he still went to get Haley.

    When she came out, she was surprised to see us and she asked, "What are you doing here?"

    I didn''t take offense to this and simply said, "I''m here to discuss some business."

 Chapter 104 Making A Deal (2)

    Once again, Haley revealed a surprised look.

    But then she gave a nod and said, "Let''s go talk in my office."

    She said a few words to the clerk that had been taking care of us before gesturing for us to follow her.

    This time, we were led to a part of the store that we hadn''t been in before.

    This was the back of the store and as we walked by, we could see the different merchandise that was being stored in this back room.

    I couldn''t help being impressed by a few of the items here since these were things that I could recognize as being rare. These things hadn''t been shown in the storefront, so it was clear that they were being kept back here for special customers.

    Normal customers wouldn''t even have a chance to see these things.

    At the same time though, this showed how much financial power and influence this store had.

    It seemed like the title of the thirdrgestpany in the city wasn''t in vain.

    It seemed like there was some power that backed this im.

    When we arrived in her office, we were surprised to find how small it was and how messy it was.

    Since this was the office of the boss, shouldn''t it be much cleaner and muchrger?

    Haley saw the look on our faces and she said, "Why waste money on arger office when you can put that money into your operations instead. There''s no point in putting more money into a ce that''s just used once or twice."

    That wasn''t the image that I had of an office since in my world, offices were used for plenty of meetings with people.

    So these offices had to be impressive to impress the people that wereing for the meetings. It was a sort of power y to put the owner of the office in a superior position, making it easier for them to negotiate.

    But it seemed that this concept wasn''t that widespread in this world.

    I didn''t think too much about it and just sat down in front of Haley''s desk.

    Both Nicole and Jessica stood to my sides while Haley sat down in front of me, behind the desk.

    Once we were all settled, the smile on Haley''s face disappeared. Well, it didn''tpletely disappear as she still had a smile on her lips, but that smile in her eyes disappeared and was reced with a serious look.

    She looked right at me with that business smile and asked, "So, what deal did you have for me?"

    She didn''t waste any time as she directly got to the point of this meeting.

    I couldn''t help being surprised since I had thought that most merchants would try to beat around the bush first before using some kind of tactic to bring up these things, making it easier for them to negotiate. I never thought that Haley would be this direct about it and ask me what I want to my face.

    But even if I was surprised, that didn''t mean that I was against it.

    This would make it much easier for me to aplish what I wanted to aplish.

    After all, sincerity was the best.

    So I said, "I need food and supplies for the winter."

    Haley couldn''t help being confused when she heard this, but then she remembered something else about me fromst night. She remembered the fact that I was a baron.

    Since I was a baron, it made sense that I would have territory.

    So what I was buying was actually food and supplies for the winter for an entire territory.

    Depending on how big the territory was, there was no doubt that this would be arge deal for herpany.

    That was just how it was when it came to working with nobles.

    So there was also a trace of excitement that shed in Haley''s eyes before she suddenly calmed down again.

    She looked at me and asked in a calm voice, "How much do you need?"

    This time, I didn''t answer and turned to give a nod to Nicole.

    She pulled out a piece of paper from the bag that she was carrying and ced it on the table before siding it over to Haley.

    Haley picked up the piece of paper and looked carefully at it before saying, "We can do this, but¡­" After a pause she said, "That depends on the price."

    Hearing this, I knew that it was time for the main part of these negotiations.

    This was the part that I was dreading the most since this was the part that would be the hardest fought battle.

    I just looked at her and calmly said, "What is your first price?"

    Haley didn''t answer right away as she took a moment to think about it. After thinking it through, she grabbed a piece of paper from the side and wrote something on it before sliding it back over to us.

    I picked it up and then looked at it with Nicole.

    When the two of us saw the number that was written on, both of us couldn''t help revealing surprised looks. We both looked at Haley as if we were trying to figure out if she was serious and then we looked back at the paper, trying to find if there were any extramas or dots.

    But in the end, everything seemed in order.

    So I couldn''t help asking, "Is this really your first price?"

    Haley just nodded with a smile on her face.

    Seeing the serious look in her eyes, I couldn''t help asking, "Are you kidding me? This price¡­won''t you be suffering a loss if you sell at this price?"

    When she heard this, Haley couldn''t help breaking out inughter.

    We just looked at her with confused looks when we heard this.

    Afterughing for a bit, Haley finally said, "This is my first time hearing this. There are actually people who are worried about the merchant suffering a loss from a deal."

    I couldn''t help revealing an awkward smile when I heard this.

    But then Haley said, "You don''t have to worry, I''ll still be making a profit from this. This is the advantage of being a big business, you have lower costs than others."

    I still couldn''t help hesitating when I heard this.

    Seeing the doubt in my eyes, Haley then said, "Just consider this the friends and family discount. While we aren''t family, I think that we would still qualify as friends, especially after everything that you''ve heard about mest night."

    After saying this, she looked at me with a friendly smile.

    This wasn''t her business smile, but rather an actual friendly smile that she would show to a friend.

    It seemed like she really did believe in these words and she wanted to be friends with me.

    Since that was the case, I didn''t have a reason to refuse.

    Although I couldn''t read people as well as Baroness Rose, I could still see a thing or two about people.

    I could tell that she was being sincere and this was her way of making up forst night.

    In that case, there was no need to refuse.

 Chapter 105 Heâ€™s My Lover (1)

    So I gave a nod and said, "Thank you."

    Haley looked right back at me and said, "You don''t need to thank me. It should be me thanking you. If it wasn''t for what you didst night, it''d be hard to imagine where I would be now¡­"

    Her voice trailed off as she said this as a look of sadness filled her eyes.

    I could guess what she was thinking because of these eyes, so I gave a cough and reached my hand out to her.

    Seeing this hand, she reached out with a smile and shook it.

    With this, the deal had been made.

    But of course, a deal couldn''t be set with just a handshake alone.

    We still had to sign a contract and pay a down payment before any of this would start.

    So I stood up and left the seat open for Nicole who sat down in my ce.

    She was here to help me take care of these small things and signing the contract was one of those small things. Not to mention, that it was her speciality, spotting things that weren''t right about contracts.

    She was a very literate girl and could read at a very fast rate, it would take her no time to find the problems with this contract if there were any.

    In the end, there were no problems with this contract.

    This wasn''t strange since Haley had already said that she considered us friends, so there was no way that she would try to rip us off with this contract.

    It took Nicole no time to finish reading this contract and she gave a nod to confirm that I could sign it.

    I had faith in Nicole''s abilities, so I didn''t hesitate to sign the contract.

    The only thing left now was leaving a deposit so that they wouldn''t be working without any guarantees.

    This wasn''t a problem since we had already prepared money for this since we had expected to sign a contract today. The only problem was that we had brought too much money since we had expected the down payment to be much higher.

    I took out two gold coins from my money pouch and handed it over to Haley.

    When she took this and the contract, she said, "I have confirmed that we have received everything. I will go talk to my people and we''ll see when we can start moving the food and supplies over to your territory."

    I gave a nod in response to this.

    Then Haley added, "Can youe back tomorrow? I''ll have finished contacting them and then we''ll be able to discuss the issue of transport."

    I once again gave a nod in response to this.

    She reached her hand out towards me with a smile before saying, "I''m looking forward to working with you."

    I took this hand without hesitation and shook it with a smile on my face as I said, "I''m looking forward to it too."

    Just like this, everything had been set, so there was no reason for us to stay in the store anymore.

    I offered to buy Haley dinner, but she rejected this since she had plenty of work to do contacting all the people. I didn''t insist since I knew that it would be a lot of work for her, so I just wished her luck and headed out.

    The rest of the day was very nice and rxed for us.

    We had settled the matter of finding food and supplies for the town for winter and it was at a price that was much lower than we had expected. So of course we had to celebrate.

    But instead of going to the fancy restaurant, we just picked a random restaurant near the inn.

    Since this inn catered to nobles, the restaurants that were nearby definitely weren''t cheap or low grade either. These were also restaurants that catered to nobles, though they weren''t as expensive as the one that we went to yesterday.

    Though judging by the looks on the faces of the two girls, they still found this ce expensive.

    Still, it was a celebration, so I didn''t hold back at all as I ordered several dishes for the table.

    But even if it was a celebration, we ended it early so we could go to bed early.

    We still had to talk to Haley tomorrow to ensure that everything could be transported properly to the town, so I wanted to go to the store nice and early to make sure that there weren''t any problems with the people she was talking to tonight.

    The night passed and the morning came.

    When we woke up in the morning, we just had some quick breakfast before heading off to the store.

    It was much earlier than yesterday when we set out, but we also made sure that we didn''t go too early. After all, it wouldn''t be good to show up before the store opened.

    When we arrived, we found that the store was open, so we headed in.

    However, the moment that we went in¡­

    "You ungrateful daughter! Do you know what kind of things you''ve put Alex through with all the things that you''ve done? How does that make me, your father look?!"

    This was the voice that rang out when we walked into the store.

    Looking in the direction that this loud voice came from, we saw three figures standing there in the center of the store.

    Two of these figures were people that we were familiar with.

    They were Haley and her husband.

    The other one was a middle aged man that we didn''t know at all, but he was currently shouting at Haley. When one looked closely, they could see that there were some simrities between his facial features and Haley''s.

    So one could guess that he was her father based on what he had said previously.

    But this scene really made it seem like he was her husband''s father rather than her father with the way that he was treating her.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit displeased as I saw this.

 Chapter 106 Heâ€™s My Lover (2)

    Haley''s father wasn''t satisfied with just that, so he kept shouting, "Do you need to keep embarrassing me like this? There''s so many things that you could have done and you came here to the middle of nowhere to open this store."

    At this point, it was no longer about her husband, but rather about her life choices.

    It seemed like the disagreement between them wasn''t just because of her husband. It seemed like there were some previous grievances that her father had with her that wereing out now¡­

    In the end though, I couldn''t keep watching, so I went forward.

    I walked over to them and when I came up in front of Haley, her husband and her father couldn''t help being surprised by my sudden appearance.

    I ignored them and turned to Haley to say, "Miss Haley, I''m here to follow up on the deal that we made yesterday."

    But even though I said this, Haley was also looking at me in a daze.

    She didn''t know what I was doing, cutting into the middle of this, but there was a trace of gratitude that was in her eyes. She had been overwhelmed by her father and there was nothing that she could say.

    She knew that it would have developed into something much more serious if it hadn''t been stopped like this.

    After all, she had lived with her father for many years, so she knew what kind of temper that man had.

    Aftering back to his senses, Haley''s father narrowed his eyes to look at me as he asked, "Who are you?"

    I looked right back at him and said, "I''m a customer here to do business with this store. If there''s nothing that you want, can you please leave us be?"

    Haley''s father couldn''t help being taken aback when he heard this.

    He had thought that he would be able to intimidate this young boy with his pressure, but he found that this young boy wasn''t scared of him at all. Rather, this young boy faced his pressure and talked back to him.

    Though he should be angry because of this, there was a small part that respected him.

    For him to have this kind of mental fortitude at his age¡­he definitely wasn''t simple.

    There was even the small desire to hire this young man since he knew that hispany needed more people like him.

    But right now, there were more important things to do.

    Such as taking care of his daughter.

    In the end though, it wasn''t Haley''s father who spoke, but rather her husband.

    When I appeared, as soon as the husband recovered from his surprise, he looked at me with narrowed eyes. It was as if he had recognized me, but at the same time, he was trying to remember where he had met me before.

    After this conversation between me and Haley''s father, he suddenly pointed at me and said, "It''s you! From the night beforest!"

    Haley''s father turned to look at her husband with a confused look as he asked, "Alex, what do you mean? Who is he?"

    The husband''s face twisted as he remembered what had happened between us and he pointed his finger at me before saying, "He''s the one that she''s running around with! He was the one that got in between our couple''s conversation and then forcefully took Haley away!"

    When Haley''s father heard this, he narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "Is this true? Are you the one who forced my daughter to follow you?"

    There were two different forms of anger that I could see in his eyes.

    There was anger for Haley''s husband, which was normal. But there was also a stronger anger that was different. This anger was from the fact that I was the man who supposedly forced his daughter to follow him.

    Even if he was angry with his daughter and disappointed with her choices, she was his daughter after all and he did want to protect her.

    He had thought that she would be safe with her friend''s son, but now there was the chance that she was being tricked by some gigolo?

    He couldn''t ept this!

    I just calmly faced this re and said, "I didn''t force your daughter to follow me. Do you really know what kind of things your son inw has been doing?"

    Haley''s father narrowed his eyes to look at me even more before turning slightly to look at Haley''s husband. But then he said, "Stop speaking nonsense. I know that these two are a fine couple since I was the one that had set them up in the first ce. Don''t think that anything that you say can convince me otherwise."

    I gave a sigh and shook my head when I heard this.

    It seemed like it really would be hard to convince Haley''s father with words. That was just the bond that he had with Haley''s husband who he had introduced to her, whereas I was just some random person that had appeared out of nowhere.

    After taking a breath to calm down, Haley''s father came closer and said in a low and threatening voice, "I don''t know what you''ve done to trick my daughter, but I advise you to stop approaching her. You should know what kind of powerful man I am if you''ve had your eyes on my daughter, so know that I can use that power to crush you and your entire family. If you know what''s good for you, you will stop talking to her."

    Hearing this, Haley''s husband couldn''t help revealing a secret sly smile.

    At the same time, the look on his face made it clear that he was looking for some way to utilize this to get his revenge on me.

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with another sigh after hearing this.

    But in the end, I wasn''t able to say a thing as Haley suddenly came forward. She grabbed my arm and said, "Dad, you can''t say things like that to him."

    Haley''s father slightly knitted his brows as he asked, "Why?"

    "Because he''s my lover."

 Chapter 107 Heâ€™s My Lover (3)

    "What?"

    There were three voices that gave this exmation.

    It was Haley''s father, Haley''s husband, and¡­me.

    All three of us looked at her with shocked looks as if we couldn''t understand what she was saying.

    But then in front of us, she moved over to my side and took my arm with both her hands, holding it in the way that a lover would.

    As soon as she did this, both Haley''s father and husband red at me.

    I just revealed a bitter smile when I saw this, but I decided to y along.

    It wasn''t just because it was a nice feeling having her hold me like this¡­it definitely wasn''t because of that. It was because of the side quest that I had received.

    If I yed along with this, I would have a chance to get more information and find out what I needed to do to finish the side quest. The allure of the mysterious reward from the side quest was just too big for me to resist.

    After all, the items that I had received from the system before had saved me many times and I was certain that the items that I would receive in the future would also save me even more times.

    So with this thought, I reached out with my other hand and put it around Haley, pulling her even closer in.

    When this happened, Haley also couldn''t help being surprised by my action and looked up at me with a blush on her face.

    Ignoring this, I looked at Haley''s father and said, "Father, please ept my rtionship with your daughter. You should know that these two aren''t right for each other, so please don''t make her suffer anymore."

    Haley''s father''s face twisted when he heard this.

    To the side, Haley''s husband red at me with a re that would have killed me if res could kill.

    After a long period of silence, Haley''s father exploded as expected.

    "You son of a b*tch, who said that you could call me father! Youe out of nowhere and you ruin our family like this! Do you really think that I''ll let you go?"

    He had taken a few steps forward and was right up in my face. With the way that he was panting, it almost looked like he was a rabid dog that was about to bite by face off.

    But before he could do anything, there was the sound of a sword being drawn.

    When they turned to look in the direction that this sound came from, they saw Jessica standing there with her sword slightly drawn.

    Seeing this, both the father and the husband couldn''t help taking a step back.

    But then Haley''s father''s face became serious again as he said, "Do you really think that you can threaten me? I am a very powerful person and I have many connections! To make someone like you disappear is as simple as waving my hand!"

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard this.

    I had heard that thepany that Haley''s father ran was a powerfulpany that did business all over the kingdom, though I didn''t know how powerful it was.

    Merchants relied on connections to do business and a powerfulpany would certainly have powerful connections. It was very likely that they would have connections to nobles that were higher rank than me.

    In that case, it might even bring danger to my territory and my family¡­

    But Haley said in a serious voice, "Father, you shouldn''t make these kinds of ims. Zwein here is a baron from the surroundingnd, so you should be careful."

    When Haley''s father heard this, he couldn''t help looking at me with a wary look.

    He had assumed that this young boy in front of him was just a simplemoner, but it turned out that he was actually a baron¡­

    If it was in the territories where hispany held power, he wouldn''t fear any barons since he had his connections. But in this ce where hispany didn''t have their roots buried, he would be at a disadvantage when it came to nobility.

    After all, he didn''t know the count of this city.

    He could ask another count for help if it was amoner since no nobles would care about what happened to amoner. But it was a different story if it was a baron in the territory of a count.

    No count would be willing to risk offending another count for a merchant since this count would surely protect the baron in his territory.

    So even if he asked the counts that he knew for a favour, they wouldn''t ept this.

    After a long period of silence, Haley''s father took a deep breath and took a step back before ring at the two of us again.

    Then he said in a low voice, "It seems like you''ve found quite the backer, but did you forget who owns this store?"

    When this was said, the husband''s eyes lit up before he revealed a devious smile.

    He had thought that he had been pushed into a corner because the other side was a noble, but then he remembered who he had on his side. It seemed like what his father had left behind had really paid off.

    Haley''s eyes couldn''t help trembling when she heard this.

    This was the one thing that she was afraid of the most and the one handle that her family still had on her.

    After all, there was nothing that she could do about this.

    Unless she could somehow convince them to give her back the shares in her store, it was unlikely that she would ever be able to escape their grasp.

    Well, the other way was to give up the store, but she was even less willing to do that since it was the result of her hard work.

    But before she could crumple, I said, "Are you looking to sell this business? If so, I would be interested in buying it."

 Chapter 108 Heâ€™s My Lover (4)

    "Huh?" Both Haley and her father said this as they looked at me with strange looks.

    But then both of them reacted to what I had just said.

    As soon as they reacted, they revealed different expressions in response to this.

    Haley''s father''s face twisted when he heard this and he red even more at me.

    But Haley had a touched look when she heard this.

    As for me, I couldn''t help giving a bitterugh deep down.

    I had said this, but as for meaning it¡­I didn''t really mean it. After all, I didn''t know how much it would cost to buy this store, but it definitely wouldn''t be a small amount and this was an amount that I didn''t have right now.

    But in this situation, it was best to make this show of support.

    If there was a side that I wanted to support, it was her side.

    There was another long moment of silence before Haley''s father suddenly gave a snort.

    He looked at me and said, "Who said that the store is for sale? This is the best performing branch of ourpany, so how could we ever sell something like this?"

    In the end, he backed down when he had been threatened and made apromise.

    With this, he was basically dering that he wouldn''t do anything to Haley''s store. Instead, he would be finding another way to convince her of his point of view.

    After hearing this, Haley couldn''t help being surprised.

    In all her years of knowing her father, this was her first time seeing him make apromise like this. After all, he had the power and influence of their family''spany behind them, so they normally wouldn''t need to do something like this.

    But for the first time, he was in an unfamiliar ce and facing a noble, so he had no choice but topromise.

    Because this kingdom was still run by the nobles and he wasn''t one of them.

    Offending a noble was a one way ticket to hell.

    Unless one was a fool, they would never do something like that.

    After saying this, Haley''s father gave another snort before turning around and waving his hand at Haley''s husband.

    Haley''s husband had an unwilling look on his face, but he still followed Haley''s father out.

    As they left, Haley''s father couldn''t help turning to look at Haley onest time before saying, "This isn''t over yet."

    Haley revealed a bitter smile when she heard this, but she didn''t say anything else.

    When they were gone, the two of us just remained like that for a bit until Haley realized what was happening. With a blush on her face, she moved back and pulled away from me.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit of regret when this happened.

    Without her noticing, I had been secretly enjoying the feeling of being able to hold her.

    After all, that body of hers¡­was definitely top grade.

    That soft feeling that came from her, it wasn''t inferior to the feeling that I felt when I was holding Cecilia or Baroness Rose.

    She was definitely a beauty that was at the same level as the two of them.

    After another period of silence, Haley suddenly gave a slight bow to me as she said, "Thank you for your help."

    I just raised my hand to wave them in front of me before saying, "It was nothing. I just came at the right time to help."

    Haley stood back up and shook her head before saying, "No, it isn''t nothing. If it wasn''t for you¡­I really don''t know what would have happened to me."

    I didn''t say anything in response to this because I knew¡­that she was right.

    If I hadn''te when I did, who knows what would have happened with her father and husband.

    I knew that those two hadn''t juste to abuse her verbally, but they definitely had ns to get physical if they needed to¡­

    But I also knew that it would be bad for her heart if I continued with this topic, so I changed the topic by saying, "Is everything prepared already?"

    Haley took a moment to react before understanding what I was asking.

    She said, "Un, I''ve already contacted my suppliers and they will be able to gather everything in a few days. Then we''ll have our people send the goods over to your territory."

    After a pause, she suddenly said, "Since it''s you, I''ll have my best people send the goods. That way it''ll arrive as soon as possible."

    I couldn''t help revealing a grateful look when I heard this.

    As soon as possible was the best for our town since the people there were worried about our dwindling supplies. At the same time, if there was a sudden ident or natural disaster, that would mean that the town would be trapped without any supplies.

    This was certain to cause many deaths in the town.

    So getting the supplies as soon as possible was for the best.

    I gave a nod before saying, "Thank you."

    Haley revealed a smile as she said, "This is nothingpared to what you have done for me. I''m just happy that I can do a little something to repay you."

    She had seen the serious way he took this order, so she knew that he must have his own worries.

    If she could help just a little, then that would be good enough for her.

    Then as if she suddenly decided on something, she said, "As for the price¡­"

    She paused for a few seconds before saying, "I''ll sell you the goods at a discounted price."

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this before asking, "Are you sure about that?"

    Haley gave a nod before saying, "This is the least that I can repay you with after you''ve helped me. Not to mention, I can consider this as building a rtionship with an important customer in the future."

    I nodded in response to this.

    But there was a small part of me that felt that taking this deal was a loss¡­

    It wasn''t a loss in terms of business, but there was a sense of personal loss.

    Like our rtionship would change because of this.

    But I just couldn''t resist since it was a very enticing deal¡­

 Chapter 109 A Bit Of Disappointment

    Since that was settled, I didn''t n on staying any longer.

    There were things that I wanted to do now because of what had happened here today, so I had to go and take care of them.

    But before I could go, Haley suddenly stopped me.

    I was confused why she stopped me, but I waited for her to speak.

    She seemed to be hesitating over something as she didn''t say anything at first, but then she suddenly asked me, "About buying the store, were you serious?"

    This question caught me off guard and I looked at her with one brow raised, not understanding why she would suddenly ask this question.

    All I saw in her eyes was a serious look as if she was expecting a serious answer to this question.

    So while I was still confused by why she would ask this question, I replied, "Well, it was half serious and half not."

    This time, it was Haley''s turn to be confused as she asked, "Half serious? What do you mean?"

    I exined, "I''m interested in this business since it is the thirdrgestpany in the city. This is definitely a business that is worth investing in. The problem is that I have to talk to others first before making this decision."

    Haley revealed a teasing smile as she said, "I thought that a baron like yourself would be able to make any decision that he wanted. It turns out that you still have to confer with your subordinates first."

    This was just teasing since she knew that this was just good business sense.

    If one rushed into making a purchase like this, they would suffer in the end since there were many different things that had to be considered.

    If they didn''t think it through and bought this business without any thought, both the buyer and the business would suffer.

    However, that wasn''t what I meant when I said that I needed to talk to someone.

    In response to this teasing, I revealed a bitter smile and said, "It''s not like that. I have to talk to my wife first before I do something as big as this."

    When Haley heard this, she couldn''t help revealing a strange look as she immediately said, "Wife? You have a wife?"

    I didn''t understand the strange look that she had, but I said with a nod, "That''s right."

    The strange look on Haley''s face continued to evolve before she finally revealed a smile and said, "As a baron, I''m sure that you don''t just have a single wife, right? You must also have many different concubines, right?"

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile again before shaking my head. Then I said, "I wouldn''t dare do something like that, she''s the one with the noble title. I''m the husband that she took in, so I wouldn''t dare do something like that to her or else she would surely divorce me."

    While I didn''t know if this was true, it was true that Baroness Rose was the one with the title and I just married her.

    I knew that I wouldn''t keep the title if she ever divorced me, so I didn''t dare act too cocky with it. After all, this wasn''t something that was mine in the first ce, so I wouldn''t use it to brag.

    As for using it to scare off a few people¡­I wasn''t above that.

    Haley fell silent when she heard this and the look on her facepletely disappeared.

    There was this strange calm look that appeared on her face that seemed like she was hiding the emotions that she was feeling.

    But when I looked closely, I could see¡­a trace of what seemed to be disappointment in her eyes.

    Why would she feel disappointment over this?

    I just couldn''t understand at all.

    Still, seeing that she wasn''t saying anything, I decided to change the topic back to what we were talking about before.

    "As for buying the store, I''m sure that my wife would see the benefit in that. But right now, our territory is suffering a bit, so before that, we wouldn''t think of buying anything." I just exined in a calm voice.

    Haley didn''t react at first as if she hadn''t heard me, but then she gave an understanding nod before saying, "You have your circumstances, I understand that. I was just hoping that I could get an understanding partner like you instead of the one that I have right now." After saying this, she revealed a bitter smile.

    I also revealed a smile when I heard this as I thought back to her father.

    Since we had finished talking about this, there was nothing else for us to talk about.

    So I bid her farewell and headed off.

    ¡­

    After he was gone, Haley revealed a look that had a trace of disappointment again.

    She looked out the window, watching as his carriage disappeared before muttering to herself, "So he already has a wife¡­and she''s the one who has the noble title¡­"

    She didn''t know why she was so hung up over this, but there was a tiny feeling of sadness that was inside of her heart whenever she thought of this.

    She also couldn''t help thinking of the way that he looked when he had appeared to save her. She thought of both the time in the street and when he had saved her earlier from her father.

    As she thought about this, she couldn''t help losing herself in a bit of a daze as a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.

    But then she suddenly shook her head and pulled herself out of her daze.

    Haley said to herself, "No, no, I have to focus, I still have more work to do. I still have to go talk to our workers and set up a transport to bring the food and supplies to his territory."

    As she thought of how she would be able to help her saviour, there was a bit of happiness that filled her heart.

    But at the same time, there was another feeling that she didn''t understand that dug its way into her heart.

 Chapter 110 Meeting The Count Again

    After leaving the store, I immediately went to find Nicole to talk about something.

    When she heard the request that I had, she couldn''t help knitting her brows and revealing an ugly expression.

    After she finished hearing my request, she looked at me and asked, "My lord, are you serious about this?"

    I just responded with a simple nod.

    Nicole knitted her brows even more when she heard this. Then she said, "My lord, do you know what the consequences of doing something like this is?"

    I gave another nod without saying anything.

    The two of us just stared at each other after this.

    Nicole tried to stare me down with her re, but it didn''t work in the end.

    So without a choice, she gave a sigh and said, "Do what you want then."

    The look on her face made it clear that she had resigned to epting this as fate. She would just let me do what I wanted and see how it turned out.

    But it was also clear that she thought that this would end in failure.

    To be honest, I didn''t have much confidence in this n either since the other side was that pig of a count. The way that he had treated me had made it clear that he didn''t give a flying shit about me.

    So it was very likely that he wouldpletely ignore my request in the first ce.

    But there was nothing else that I could do in this situation.

    I needed the support of the count since I didn''t have any forces of my own in this city.

    I was just hoping that my perception of the count was correct and I would be able to convince him.

    After she made her decision, Nicole left the carriage to take care of this matter.

    In no time, I was summoned to the count''s manor again.

    This time, the treatment waspletely different.

    Instead of being made to wait and being kept out by the guards, I was shown right inside and led to a room where the count was waiting for me.

    When I came into the room, the count narrowed his eyes to look at me before gesturing for me to sit down.

    I sat down in front of him where he gestured before waiting for the count to speak.

    As the lower ranked noble, my position was lower than that of the count, so the one that should wait is me. But the count didn''t say a thing as he sat there staring at me, as if he was sizing me up.

    Finally, after a long period of silence, the count said, "So, you wanted to see me?"

    The way that he said this sounded like he was asking a question, but in truth, he already knew what the answer to this question was. He was the one that had invited me here, so of course he knew what I wanted.

    But I still yed along as I nodded and said, "I have something that I wanted to discuss with you."

    The count nodded before gesturing for me to continue.

    I said, "I want to borrow a few men from you to take care of some business that I have in the city. It will only take a few days and I promise to return those men to you without harm. If you would be so kind as to ept this request, then I promise that I will repay you tenfold in the future."

    The count narrowed his eyes to look at me after hearing this before saying, "The only reason that I agreed to meet with you was because of your "generosity" and now you''re asking something of this from me. Do you really think that I would agree to something like this?"

    The "generosity" that he was referring to was the bag of money that I had Nicole pass to the count.

    This was the main reason why he was even willing to see me in the first ce.

    After all, if I was willing to give him money the first time, then it was possible that I would give him money a second time.

    But I wasn''t worried when I heard the count''s words.

    That was because I could see from his eyes just what he was after.

    He might not be willing to agree to this, but if there was enough money, then he could be persuaded.

    What he was doing now was requesting more money be brought out.

    So I reached into my pocket and pulled out another small bag that I put on the table.

    Without a word, the count reached out to take the small bag and put it in front of his face as he opened it. When the sparkle of gold came from the bag, there was a smile that appeared on that fat face.

    With the face twisting from the smile, it really was an ugly sight.

    But I kept myments to myself as I waited for the count to finish counting the money inside this small bag. When he gave a satisfied nod and tied up the bag, I continued, "I trust that should be enough. So can I count on your assistance?"

    The count turned back to look at me before suddenly revealing a smile and saying, "What assistance?"

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this before saying, "Your grace, the request that I made earlier¡­"

    The count said with the same smile, "Of course I won''t be epting that."

    My face twisted a bit when I heard this as I said, "But the money¡­"

    The count cut me off by saying, "This is considered a consultation fee that I will be keeping. You can leave now."

    I didn''t know what to say when I heard this.

    I had already known that this pig count was shameless, but I never thought that he would be this shameless.

    But since he had already spoken, there was nothing that I could do¡­

    Especially since the guards at the door already put their hands on their weapons.

    So I had no choice but to leave the room.

 Chapter 111 Pst, Over Here

    As I stood outside the room, I couldn''t help staring at the door that had been closed behind me.

    As I stood there, I really didn''t know what to do.

    After all, meeting the count and hoping that I would be able to borrow some of his men was my final resort.

    There was the option of using that money to hire mercenaries in the city, but the moment that I did that and the count found it, it would be considered hostility towards the count. And there wasn''t any noble that I was close to in the city that I could borrow men from either¡­

    So now I was just stuck here with nothing to do.

    The most logical n now was to leave this ce since I had already achieved what I wanted to achieve by buying the food and supplies, but there was a part of me that didn''t want to leave.

    After all, there was the side quest that I wanted to finish.

    I didn''t know what kind of things I would face in the future, but there was nothing wrong with getting more items from the system in preparation. As long as I had these items, I would surely have an easier time.

    That was the faith that I had in the system that my saviour gave me.

    But there was nothing that I could do as I was just standing there in front of that door.

    So with a heavy heart, I turned to leave.

    This time, the servants and the guards didn''t seem to care about me as they watched me go. The only way that they would do anything was if I suddenly stopped and didn''t leave.

    As I was walking out, I couldn''t help thinking about all the different things that I could do. However, I wasn''t really able to think of a single good idea that didn''t have some kind of consequence attached to it.

    It seemed that unless I risked my life or the people I cared about, I wouldn''t be able to do anything.

    So my heart hung heavy in my chest.

    That is until I suddenly heard a voice that said, "Pst, over here."

    I was still in the count''s manor when I heard this voice and I couldn''t help looking around.

    However, there wasn''t a single person who was currently in this empty corridor with me. All I could see was the terrible art that the count hung up in this hall.

    So I couldn''t help knitting my brows before walking forward again.

    But then that voice said once more, "Not that way,e with me."

    This time, there was also something that hit me in the back of the head.

    I turned around to see where it came from, but once again, I wasn''t able to see a single thing.

    It was as if there was a ghost that was ying around with me, taunting me.

    If it really was a ghost, I wouldn''t be surprised since I was sure that there were plenty of innocent people who had been harmed by that pig count.

    But in the end, there was something that caught my attention.

    It was a few rocks on the ground that formed an arrow that was pointing in a certain direction. This was ced right in front of me, as if it was leading me to a certain ce.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter look on my face that was filled with a bit of disbelief.

    I couldn''t help wondering if someone was really using this kind of method to lead me somewhere.

    But there was no denying that this thing was on the ground in front of me.

    So with a heavy sigh, I decided to head in the direction of this arrow.

    I turned around and started moving in the opposite direction that I had been going. If there had been any guards around, they definitely would have forced me to leave.

    Luckily for me, the guards didn''t show any interest in me.

    It was as if they weren''t afraid that I would do anything.

    Following this arrow, I soon arrived at the end of the corridor where there was a fork that was waiting for me. I had walked past the set of stairs that I hade down from and had reached the end of the corridor.

    As I was looking around, I found that there was another arrow made of stones that was waiting for me.

    So I took that fork that the arrow was pointing in and followed it until¡­I found another arrow that was pointing at one of the doors in this hallway.

    I looked at this door for a bit before opening it and peeking in.

    I found that this was a simple kitchen, but there was no one in this kitchen right now.

    At the back of the kitchen, there was a door that had another arrow in front of it.

    When I went out this door, I found that I was outside. However, this ce was on the side of the manor that was still inside of the fence, so it wasn''t as if I could leave from this ce.

    On the ground, there was another arrow pointing in a certain direction.

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I saw this.

    No matter how I looked at it, it was like being sent on a wild goose chase.

    But for some reason, I couldn''t help feeling a bit excited by this.

    This was like a real adventure.

    Following the arrow, I was led to a gap in the fence that I had to duck through and then I made my way through the city following the arrows that had been left.

    Eventually, I was led to a ce that didn''t seem like it was very safe¡­

    There were people who had dangerous looks that were walking around this ce.

    But I didn''t have to wander this ce for long before I reached a house that had an arrow in front of it.

    This arrow was pointing for me to enter this house.

 Chapter 112 Secret Group (1)

    As I stood in front of the house, I couldn''t help taking a closer look at this ce.

    This ce looked like the other houses in the area, but there was also something different about it.

    The material, the decorations, and the other parts of the building looked different from that of the other houses. They seemed like¡­they were much more expensive than the other houses and they seemed much sturdier.

    It was as if this building was specially made to withstand attacks.

    I couldn''t help being confused why a building like this was in a ce like this, but I didn''t question it too much.

    I did what I could to see into the house to see what was there, but the blinds werepletely pulled up and all the windows were closed. It was as if whoever lived here didn''t want any interaction with the outside world.

    Now that I was here, there was nothing else left for me to do but to knock on the door.

    The safer and saner option was to leave this ce since there was nothing that seemed like it was a good thing here. Almost everything seemed to point to this being a trap for me.

    But I didn''t know why it felt like there was something in here that was attracting me.

    So in the end, I went up and knocked on the door.

    After knocking a few times, the door opened and there was a butler dressed in a ck suit that appeared in front of me.

    When this butler saw me, he gave a slight bow before saying, "I''ve been waiting for you, Lord Zwein."

    Then he moved out of the way and gestured forward before saying, "If you would follow me. The master is waiting for you in the reception room."

    I looked past the butler at the interior of this house, but there wasn''t anything special about this ce.

    This just looked like a simple manor with the decorations, but I could tell that the decorations were anything but simple. These were clearly expensive items that would only be used to decorate the houses of nobles.

    I knew because I saw these everyday at Baroness Rose''s manor.

    But if that was the case, what would a noble be doing in this area of ill repute in this town?

    Also, what did this noble n on doing with me?

    I looked at the butler, but he didn''t look back at me at all. It was as if he was trying to avoid talking to me, so I couldn''t ask him a single thing.

    It didn''t take long before we arrived at a pair ofrge doors.

    The butler came forward to open them and when he did, there was a sh of light that came from inside.

    This hallway was actually quite dim, much dimmer than the bright room in front of us. So with the difference in lighting, I wasn''t actually able to see much of the interior of the room.

    The butler just stood there with an inviting gesture and a smile on his face as he said, "The master is waiting for you inside."

    I looked at him and tried to get some clues from his expression, but I wasn''t able to see a single thing.

    So I just gave a nod and walked in.

    When I came in and my eyes adjusted to the light, I was surprised to see who was waiting there for me.

    This was a face that I could recognize slightly because I had seen it before.

    It was one of the nobles that had been there when I had met the count for the first time. He was one of the nobles that had been sitting there eating with the count,ughing at me.

    But this time, he didn''tugh at me.

    He had a smile on his face as he looked at me and he gestured for me to sit down in front of him.

    However, all I could feel in that moment was wariness.

    The noble sitting there could see the tense look on my face, so he said with a smile, "I don''t mean you any harm¡­or at least not yet. So why don''t you sit down and let''s have a talk?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this.

    Who would say that they didn''t have any intentions of harming him right now?

    That was basically saying that there was the possibility that he would intend to harm him in the future.

    But I could tell that this person didn''t really have any hostility towards me. He might have said that, but it was more of a joke rather than an actual threat.

    Since that was the case¡­I wanted to see just what this person wanted.

    So I sat down in front of this person and took a sip of the tea that had been set.

    Since it was there, there was no reason for me not to drink it.

    When the noble saw this, he couldn''t help saying with a smile, "You really have nerves of steel, don''t you?"

    I just looked at him with a smile without saying a thing.

    To say that I had nerves of steel was wrong¡­it was more of I had already experienced many things and something at this level wasn''t enough to faze me.

    After a period of silence, the noble said, "I''ve been watching you for a while now and I can see that you''re quite special, aren''t you?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a confused look when he said this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for him to continue.

    The noble didn''t mind that I remained silent as he said, "I heard that you went to see the count today to ask him for some men to help you with something. I don''t need to ask to know how that went."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows this time.

    It seemed that this person''s informationwork was much more developed than I thought.

    This was something that had just happened and he already knew about this¡­

    So what did he want?

 Chapter 113 Secret Group (2)

    The noble didn''t mind this once again as he continued, "You can say that I''m interested in the things that you are nning on doing and I''m someone that likes to make investments. So I''ll give you the men that you want."

    This time, I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this.

    After narrowing my eyes to look at this man in front of me for a bit, I asked, "What do you have to gain from this?"

    The noble revealed a smile when he finally heard me speak. He wasn''t offended at all that I questioned him like this and instead, he said with the same smile, "I have my own matters and you can be sure that I will profit from this. So what do you say? Will you ept my offer?"

    I didn''t say a thing as I kept looking at this man with narrowed eyes.

    I looked him up and down, as if I was trying to figure out exactly what he was ying at.

    But no matter how I looked at him, I couldn''t see through him.

    The smile on his face, the calm way that he sat there, it was as if he had been specially trained on his poker face and he didn''t give any signs at all.

    I just couldn''t understand what his intentions were.

    After a pause, I asked, "Is there anything that you want from this? Do you want money or do you want some kind of favour?"

    The noble gave an appreciative nod after hearing this before saying, "I want nothing at all. Like I said, this is an investment since what you are doing most likely aligns with my interest. Since that''s the case, your sess will yield plenty of benefits for me."

    I couldn''t help revealing a confused look once again.

    He said that what I was doing aligned with his interests¡­then did that mean that he had some connection to Haley, her father, and her husband?

    Could it be that he was also interested in Haley?

    No, that shouldn''t be the case since it would be easy for him to do what he had done and approach Haley. With her current situation, if a noble were to offer to help her with the store, then that would be a dreame true.

    Her father and husband wouldn''t be able to do anything against them, especially since this noble had the backing of the count.

    So it shouldn''t be for Haley or the store.

    Then it was most likely rted to the husband or the father.

    I looked at the noble again with narrowed eyes before asking, "Do you n on hurting anyone?"

    That was my bottom line.

    I didn''t know what this person was nning, but if they were nning on hurting the people involved, then I didn''t want to get involved in them. After all, Haley being hurt was thest thing that I wanted and it would be bad if her father was hurt as well.

    As for the husband¡­I couldn''t care less.

    The noble looked right at me before saying in a serious voice, "I don''t n on hurting anyone, but if they n on fighting me, then I have no choice but to defend myself."

    I just looked into his eyes as he said this.

    After confirming that he was indeed serious about this, I gave a nod in response.

    This was the best that I would get out of this person and I was fine with it.

    I knew that it was impossible topletely get them to give up violence, but if they did what they could to prevent casualties, that was good enough.

    The main thing was that I didn''t have any other options at this point.

    So I said with a nod, "I''ll ept these men from you."

    The noble revealed a smile once again as he said with a nod, "Good choice."

    With a snap of his finger, one of the doors to this room opened and a person dressed up in normal clothing walked out. He came over to where we were sitting and he gave a bow to the noble before giving a bow to me.

    The noble said, "This is Shaka. He is the leader of the team that I''m handing to you and he willmand this team for you. If you need anything, you can just ask Shaka."

    I looked at the one that he called Shaka.

    This person¡­had a very ordinary face. All of his facial features were very normal and very forgettable, it was a face that one wouldpletely forget if it was in a crowd. But there was one feature of his face that was prominent.

    It was a scar that was on his right brow.

    After looking at him for a bit, I reached my hand out to him and said, "It''s a pleasure working with you."

    Shaka reached his hand out to grab my hand as well before saying, "It''s a pleasure."

    I turned back to the noble who was just sitting there with a rxed smile on his face.

    Seeing that I was looking at him, the noble asked, "Is there anything else that you need?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this.

    Normally, they would say something to signify that this was the end of the meeting. However, this time, the noble in front of me acted like I should understand that this was the end and that I should show myself out.

    But before I left, I asked, "Is it worth it going against the count like this?"

    The noble was surprised to hear this before saying with a smile, "I have no idea what you''re talking about. However, what he doesn''t know doesn''t hurt him, right?"

    I knitted my brows when I heard this, but then I gave a nod and stood up to leave.

    Thatst question confirmed it¡­this noble was acting without the knowledge of the count.

    If the count were to learn about this, it was hard to imagine what would happen.

 Chapter 114 Secret Group (3)

    After he had left, the noble just sat there staring at the door that he walked out of.

    Not long after, there was another door that opened and the same butler that had brought Zwein in walked out of it. The butler came up to the noble sitting at the couch and asked, "Master, do you really think that this investment is worth it? Is he really that special?"

    The noble sitting there was silent for a bit before giving a nod in response.

    He took a deep breath before saying, "Since we''ve heard about him, he''s given us nothing but surprises."

    The noble on the couch reached over to a stack of papers that had been hidden behind the couch. He picked up a few of these documents and then spread them across the table.

    He pointed at one of them and said, "Do you really think that a normal person would be able to drive away a monster wave, especially one that had been stirred up by the demons?"

    On this piece of paper was a detailed report about what had happened in Baron Mordo''s territory over two months ago.

    This included a detailed ount of the demon order, the monster wave, and even the subi who had been sighted nearby.

    With how detailed it was, it was almost as if it was a report written by someone who had witnessed everything first hand.

    The butler gave a slight nod to show that he agreed with this, but then he said, "Even if he isn''t a normal person, don''t you think that it''s dangerous to engage like this? Isn''t it better to observe and see what other secrets that he might be hiding?"

    The noble fell silent when he heard this and he just sat there as if he was thinking about something.

    After a long silence, the noble finally said, "I''m thinking about recruiting him."

    The butler couldn''t help revealing a shocked look when he heard this.

    He just looked at the noble sitting there in disbelief, almost as if he couldn''t understand what his master was saying. But then his expression suddenly changed as he said, "Master, you should know what doing something like that would mean. This isn''t something that can be done that easily. If the others were to find out, then¡­"

    His voice suddenly cut off as he noticed the noble staring at him.

    Seeing this, the butler immediately bowed his head and said, "I''ve overstepped my bounds, I apologize for this."

    The noble just gave a soft snort before turning back to look at the pieces of paper in front of him. As he read through them, he couldn''t help revealing a faint smile.

    Then in a soft voice that almost seemed like he was talking to himself, "I''m looking forward to seeing what kind of surprises you will show me this time."

    Then without waiting for the butler, he stood up and walked off.

    But the butler just remained standing there with his head slightly down. His eyes were also looking at the pieces of paper that the noble had left behind on the table.

    There was a dark glow in his eyes as he stared in that direction and it was clear that he was nning something.

    Then after a while, the butler also stood up and walked out of the room, leaving those pieces of paper on the table.

    ¡­

    After leaving the house, I just stood there in the street with Shaka.

    As I stood there, there was an awkward look on my face because¡­I didn''t know where to go.

    I had been following the arrows that had been left for me, so I didn''t actually know where I was going the whole time. So now that I had to go back, I really didn''t know where to go since I was unfamiliar with this part of the city.

    Shaka just stood there watching me until he finally couldn''t take it anymore and asked, "What are you doing?"

    It would have been fine if he didn''t say anything since I could keep trying to remember the way that I came from, but¡­now that he said something, it wasn''t as if I could just keep standing there in what seemed to be a daze.

    But Shaka had his own right to say this since he had kept three people from robbing me just now.

    These people had been pickpockets who had thought that Zwein was an easy target, but Shaka had skillfully taken back what they had taken from his pockets.

    Still, seeing him just stand there in a daze wasn''t a good thing, so he had no choice but to say something.

    I just stood there with an awkward look before finally admitting, "I don''t know which way to go¡­"

    As my voice trailed off, Shaka couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look.

    It was like he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not¡­But the strange thing was that there wasn''t a trace of disdain in his eyes.

    After confirming that I was indeed serious and I didn''t know where to go, Shaka put his hand to his face and shook his head while letting out a sigh. The awkward smile on my face became bigger when I saw this.

    In the end, he simply said, "Where do you want to go? Do you want to go back to the count''s manor or do you want to go back to your inn?"

    I was surprised that he said this since it implied that he already knew where I was staying.

    This might all seem innocent, but in reality, it was dangerous.

    It meant that they had already been watching me for some time and that they had a lot of information about me. If that was the case, then what were they nning?

    Why did they need all this information about me?

    This clearly seemed like they were nning on doing something¡­

    But for now, I decided to keep my expression calm as I said, "To the inn."

    Shaka gave a nod before leading the way.

 Chapter 115 Information

    With Shaka leading the way, it didn''t take long for us to reach the inn.

    One thing to note was that¡­Shaka was quite the kind person.

    He could have walked at his usual pace and outpaced me since I was much shorter than him, forcing me to run to catch up to him, but he didn''t do that. Instead, he deliberately walked at a slower pace so that I would be able to keep up with him.

    It seemed like there was still a lot that I could learn about this newpanion of mine.

    When we arrived at the inn, I found that Nicole and Jessica were anxiously waiting outside.

    The moment that they saw using over, they both ran over to me and hugged me.

    As they hugged me, I could feel many people''s res on me.

    Both of them were beautiful girls, so when they had stood there with worried looks on their faces, it had invoked the protective feeling of quite a few men. They had all watched over them, but they hadn''t dared to make a move since they could see Jessica''s sword.

    Now that the cause of their worry had appeared, namely me, all of them red at me.

    I revealed a bitter smile as I received the hatred of all these men, but I patted the two girls on their back and calmed them down before asking, "What''s wrong?"

    The two of them looked up at me and said, "You disappeared after the meeting, so we thought that something had happened to you."

    I shook my head and said, "Didn''t I already say that I might bete since I would need to take care of some other stuff?"

    "The driver came back without you, so we thought that something happened."

    I remembered that I came with the driver and I had left him alone¡­

    It was a good thing that he came back on his own, or else he would still be waiting there in front of the manor for me. Who knows how long he would have remained there if nothing had been said¡­

    It seemed like I owed the driver an apology¡­

    I patted them on the back again beforeforting them by saying, "It was my fault. It was an urgent matter and I forgot to say something to the driver before heading off."

    The two of them just kept ring at me and I had no choice but to apologize.

    Seeing the way that I acted around these two girls, Shaka looked at me with one brow raised as if he was surprised by something. Though if you thought about it, it wasn''t strange that he would be surprised.

    Nobles wouldn''t act this way.

    Even if I was amoner that had married a noble, one would assume that I had been taught on how nobles acted so that I wouldn''t embarrass my spouse.

    But that didn''t seem to be the case here.

    After I finished calming them down, we headed into the inn to rest up.

    After we reached my room, I realized that I had forgotten about something.

    I turned to Shaka and asked, "Do you have a ce to stay or are you going to stay here?"

    Shaka calmly said, "I''ll stay here with you. It''s easier to coordinate with you if I''m nearby."

    I gave a nod before saying, "You can just stay in this room with me then, there''s plenty of room here."

    Shaka was surprised by this, but he still nodded in agreement.

    It was then that both Nicole and Jessica realized that Shaka was there. They had been focused on me since they had been worried about me, but since I had addressed him, they had no choice but to acknowledge Shaka.

    Both of them looked at him curiously before Nicole asked, "My lord, this is?"

    I introduced Shaka to the two of them before saying, "He''s the helper that I found for us, so I hope that you will work well with him."

    The two of them looked at Shaka with wary looks, but they still agreed to work with him in the end.

    Once the two of them were settled and there was only Shaka and I left in the room, I told him the situation that we were facing and how I needed information.

    Shaka just gave a simple nod in response before heading off to givemand to his men to get the information that I wanted.

    It didn''t even take a day for them to gather this information.

    The next morning, Shaka had already prepared the information that I asked for and presented it all to me.

    The information that I had asked for was about Haley''s father and her husband.

    I needed to know what kind of things they would be capable of before thinking of countermeasures.

    There wasn''t much information about her husband since he was from a lower ss to begin with. His whole family was from the slums and there wasn''t much information about his father other than he had some kind of connection with Haley''s father. It was unknown what kind of connection it was, but it should be some kind of life saving debt with how Haley''s father treated her husband.

    As for Haley''s father, he was the chairman of the Zephyr Company, the fourthrgestpany in the entire kingdom. They were based in the north and this was the south, which was why there were few mentions of them here. There were a few Zephyr Company stores scattered about, but there weren''t any in this city since Haley''s own Big Bear Company was here as a branch.

    The influence that they had wasn''t small, they even had ties with several counts and a duke. This was apany that had a lot of backing, but it was just too bad that it was all based in a single area, so they couldn''t ess it.

    But one thing of note was that¡­Haley''s husband had been making ties with some people of ill repute in this city¡­

 Chapter 116 Sudden Change

    ?Proxy Connection Failed!

    After going through all of this material, I decided that it was better if we kept an eye on the husband just in case he decided to do anything drastic.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if we could just take care of him without him doing anything since that would be a crime.

    So I chose to adopt a wait and see attitude with this man.

    A few more days passed and a week had passed since I had first gone to see Haley.

    In the morning, she had sent someone to find me at my inn to tell me that all the goods were prepared. All they were waiting for was me to head back to the town with.

    Since they were prepared, I didn''t waste any time heading off to the store.

    The sooner that these goods could reach the town, the better off my people would be. Even if I had be a baron from marrying Baroness Rose, I still cared about the people because they hade to be my family.

    The time that I had spent in that town hadn''t been for nothing.

    When I arrived at the store, I found that there were carriages loaded up that were waiting outside.

    There was no need to guess to tell that these were the ones for us.

    So I headed over and called out to the people that were still loading up the carriages.

    One of them turned and I immediately recognized this person.

    This was the same clerk that had helped me both times that I hade to the store. I didn''t know his name back then, but I had learned after that his name was Kevin.

    Kevin also greeted me when he saw me and he came over to help us while the rest of them kept loading up the carriage.

    I asked him, "How long will it take for us to head over to the town?"

    Kevin thought about it before responding, "It should be three to four days."

    I gave an understanding nod when I heard this.

    It took us only two days toe here, but that was because we had been traveling light.

    For arge caravan like this to only take three or four days, it was clear that they were already pushing it.

    That was something I was grateful for since I knew that they were rushing on my behalf. I had told Haley how urgently my town needed this, so she had given them the order to go as quickly as possible.

    I really had to thank her for this.

    But when I looked around, I saw that I couldn''t find her at all.

    It was as if she hadpletely disappeared.

    However, that was strange since she was supposed toe to our town with me.

    This wasn''t in the n at first, but after her father showed up, it was decided that she woulde to our town. At least she would be able to hide out for a bit if she came to our town and waited until her father left.

    Her father showing up had been a surprise, but she knew that it was impossible for him to stay here forever.

    He was the chairman of argepany, one that did business all over the kingdom. He was an even busier person than Haley who ran just the thirdrgestpany in the city.

    So there was no way that he would be able to stay in this ce for long.

    She had done all that she could to avoid him so that she would be able to avoid a conflict.

    Even now, personally making this delivery was partly because of this. The other part was because of what I had done for her before, so she wanted to make sure that the delivery reached the destination without a problem.

    But the fact that she wasn''t here was concerning.

    So I asked Kevin, "Do you know where your boss went?"

    "The boss?" Kevin looked around with a confused look before saying, "She said that she wanted to take care of some business and she would be right back, but it seems like she''s not back yet."

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help knitting my brows as a bad premonition filled my heart.

    I quickly turned to Shaka and said, "We need to find her."

    He just gave a nod in response before giving a whistle with his fingers.

    This was the secret signal that he sent to his men that would send them into action.

    I had asked about this before and he told me that different tones meant different things, but I wasn''t able to hear a thing. Still, since they were using it, it should mean that they could tell the difference and that was enough for me.

    As for me, I started running in the direction that Kevin said that Haley had gone in.

    But as I moved in that direction, I couldn''t find a single thing.

    I couldn''t help feeling more and more anxious as I ran along.

    If something did happen to her, it would be toote to save her and I would fail the side quest.

    Of course, the more important thing was that Haley would be in danger.

    So I wanted to find her as soon as possible.

    I didn''t find a single thing until I turned the corner and there was a carriage that caught my attention.

    I went over to it and I went around it, I saw that there were several men who were carrying something into the carriage. When I looked more closely, I found that it was a woman''s figure.

    Not to mention, it was a woman''s figure that I recognized.

    It was Haley and she was being kidnapped.

    I looked to Jessica who immediately pulled out her sword, but before she could reach them, the men had already put her into the carriage and they drove off.

    With how fast the horse was, we weren''t able to even touch the back of this carriage.

 Chapter 117 Crow Gang (1)

    When the carriage disappeared from sight, I couldn''t help punching the wall to the side as I said, "Damn it!"

    Both Nicole and Jessica looked at me as if they were waiting for orders, but I didn''t have any orders to give.

    After all, I had no idea who had even kidnapped Haley and why they had done it.

    Even if I had guesses, that didn''t mean a thing since they weren''t solid leads. The longer that we wasted chasing these unreliable leads, the longer Haley would remain in their captivity.

    In situations like this, the longer that the captive was in captivity, the more danger they were in¡­

    So we had to find Haley as soon as possible.

    But we had no idea where to go.

    That was until Shaka said, "My men are following them right now."

    I couldn''t help turning to look at Shaka with a shocked look, but I knew that he wouldn''t joke around at a time like this. So I gave him a nod before letting him lead the way.

    Shaka quickly led us through the streets of the city until we came to a part of it that was not as clean. However, this wasn''t the same ce that I was led to the other day.

    That shady part of the town was to the east while this shady part of the town was to the west.

    In short, the outer rings of the town were where those that weren''t as rich lived, so the neighbourhoods weren''t as good.

    There was only the main gate to the north that was well defended since that was the main entrance to the city. It was considered the official face of the city and the face of the count, so there were plenty of guards there keeping order.

    As for the city itself, it was only the center that was well guarded since that was where the count and the other nobles lived.

    In short, the further one got from the center of the city, the worse public order became.

    But their carriage was the carriage of a noble and no one was crazy enough to mess with a noble in this city. They knew that the moment that they messed with a noble, it would mean their death.

    Once we were close to our target, I had the carriage stop in a nearby alley and drop us off.

    There was someone that was waiting there for us.

    When this person saw us, he immediately bowed to me before turning to Shaka to say, "It''s right over there." He was pointing at one of the buildings in the distance as he said this.

    ?¦Á?d¦Ás¦Ç¦È¦Í¦Å| This person was one of the men under Shaka''smand and the one who had been following the carriage that had taken Haley.

    When Shaka looked at the building that he was pointing at, he couldn''t help slightly knitting his brows.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help asking, "What''s wrong?"

    Shaka was silent for a bit before saying, "That''s the hideout of the Crow Gang."

    I also knitted my brows when I heard this.¦Ñ¦Á§ád¦Ás `n?¦Í?| §ãom

    The Crow Gang was the ill reputed connection of Haley''s husband. They were one of the gangs that popted this city and they were considered quite powerful with over a thousand members.

    As for our side, we had the four of us and a few other men that were under Shaka''smand.

    If we were to rush in to save Haley¡­

    After a long silence, I asked Shaka, "Can we get the city guards to help us? This is a kidnapping, isn''t it?"

    Shaka shook his head and said, "They have already made bribes to the city guards, so unless it''s the order of the count or one of themanding officers, the city guards won''te to this ce."

    The order of the count or one of themanding officers¡­that was impossible.

    The count was definitely impossible based on how he had treated me in ourst encounter. I would never have enough money topel him to act and even if I did, with how shameless that pig count was, he would just take the money without doing anything.

    So it was just up to us alone to face an entire gang.

    In total, there were less than twenty of us adding in all of Shaka''s men.

    So this would be considered a suicide mission if we decided to take it¡­

    After thinking for a bit, I asked Shaka, "Can your men get us in?"

    Shaka gave a nod in response, though he was doubtful how that would help.

    At the very least, if we could get in and see what the situation was, we would have a better judgement of the situation. It was better than sitting out here without knowing a single thing about what was happening inside.

    Though sneaking in was without a doubt dangerous as well¡­

    I just couldn''t sit here and do nothing, that was what I felt.

    Seeing that I had made a decision, Shaka gave a nod to the man who was there and then there were several others who appeared in this alley.

    There were a total of fifteen of them and all of them were armed. They didn''t haverge swords, but rather small daggers that they could easily hide on their bodies if they were ever discovered.

    When they appeared, Shaka gave them a few simple orders before they all disappeared again.

    Shaka then turned back and said, "Give them ten minutes and they''ll be able to secure a path in."

    I gave a nod in response and then anxiously waited.

    I didn''t know what was happening inside, but I knew that the situation wouldn''t be good for Haley who was trapped inside. For all I knew, they might be doing all kinds of things to her¡­

    No, when I thought about it clearly, I knew that they wouldn''t do that since they needed her in one piece for whatever n they had.

    But I just didn''t know what n they did have.

 Chapter 118 Crow Gang (2)

    Ten minutes slowly passed by and when it was time, Shaka led the way forward.

    We walked over to the building and there wasn''t a single person that noticed us.

    That was because all the people who had been around this area had somehow disappeared.

    When we came closer to the building, I could see that there were a few people that were lying on the ground. From afar, it looked like they were napping, but when one looked closely¡­there were traces of red.

    I couldn''t help turning to look at Shaka, but he didn''t bother acknowledging this.

    I turned back to look at the figures that were on the ground and I couldn''t help wondering just what kind of person I had gotten involved with¡­

    I had thought that the noble that I borrowed these men from just wanted to do a few things under the nose of the count for his own benefits, but now it didn''t seem to be the case.

    After all, people that were this skilled at "silencing" people were not people that could be recruited by a simple noble like this.

    There was clearly something much deeper at work here.

    But for now, I didn''t think too deeply about it.

    I had already paid the price, so I would face the consequencester. If I thought too much about this and got distracted, I would lose my life in the end.

    It was better to throw this to the back of my mind and deal with these matters when they came up.

    For now, I should focus on saving Haley.

    So I let Shaka lead the way in.

    The path that we took had also been cleared of all guards. I didn''t see a trace of the guards in this hallway, but I could see out of the corner of my eyes that there were streaks of red that lined this hallway.

    It was clear that what happened outside had also happened here.

    I couldn''t help wondering if Shaka''s men were currently hiding in the surrounding area, watching over everything.

    When we reached the end of the hall, I found that one of Shaka''s men was there waiting for us.

    Shaka went over to him and after exchanging a few words, he turned away from the door in front of us and walked over to the wall. Then as if on cue, there was a ropedder that was dropped down for us.

    The three of us quickly climbed up thisdder and we found that we were in the ceiling. This was a space between the second floor and the first floor that was big enough to fit us.

    Waiting there were a few more of Shaka''s men.

    Seeing that Shaka was here, they quickly took their positions before one of them led us to a certain area in this ceiling part. Waiting there was a peep hole in the floor that we could look down on.

    When we arrived, both Shaka and Jessica looked at me, as if they were giving me the honours.

    I didn''t hold back and moved over to the peep hole before putting my eyes over it.

    Looking down, I found that we were currently over a dark andrge room. I couldn''t see very well because of how dark it was there, but my eyes soon adjusted and I was able to see what was inside.¦Ñ¦Á§ád¦Ás `n?¦Í?| §ãom

    Sitting on the ground under me, tied up in ropes was Haley.

    However, it wasn''t just her that was sitting there tied up.

    Sitting beside her was¡­her father who had also been tied up.

    In front of them were several rough looking men who were all holding daggers and surrounding them. In the center of this group was¡­Haley''s husband and someone that looked to be the boss of these men.

    Haley''s husband was sitting there in a chair in front of them, looking down on them.

    I couldn''t see too clearly, but it seemed like his mouth was moving, as if he was saying something to them. They were just too far away for me to hear what they were saying clearly.

    That is until Shaka suddenly handed me something.

    I looked down at it to see that it was a pair of earplugs.

    I couldn''t understand how earplugs would help me in this situation, but I trusted him and put them in my ears.

    The moment that they were inserted in my ears, as if by magic, I was able to hear the sound of Haley''s husband speaking.

    I couldn''t help looking at Shaka with a surprised look, but he just looked back at me with a calm look.

    I knew that it was useless trying to get more information out of Shaka like this, but I couldn''t help changing my opinion of him and the noble that he reported to even more. After all, this was clearly a magic item.

    Any organization that was able to get a magic item definitely wasn''t a normal organization.

    It was clear that they were a powerful organization that had some kind of goal and that goal¡­involved me.

    But for now, it was useless to think about it, so I turned my attention back down to what was happening below.

    "If you just do what we tell you, then we''ll let you go without a problem." Haley''s husband said.

    Haley had a fierce look on her face as if she wanted to rip him apart, but her father just had a crushed look on his face.

    He looked at Haley''s husband and asked, "Alex, why are you doing this?"

    Haley''s husband looked down at her father and said, "You know why you forced me to do this. If I can''t have what''s mine, then I''ll take it by force."

    Haley''s father looked crushed as he said, "I''ve always treated you like my son and I''ve always given you everything you wanted. If there''s any way that I''ve wronged you¡­"

    "Shut up!" Haley''s husband suddenly shouted.

    Then taking a deep breath, he said, "You''ll be able to make it up to me soon."

    After he said this, he revealed a smile that clearly showed that he had evil intentions.

 Chapter 119 Crow Gang (3)

    When they heard this, both Haley and her father revealed different expressions.

    While they both had traces of confusion on their faces from hearing what he said, they also had traces of other emotions.

    Haley had a look of disgust and disdain while her father had a trace of disappointment on his face.

    But neither of them had time to say anything else as the boss of the gang came over. He ced his hand on the husband''s shoulder and said, "Alex, stop ying around with them and get them to sign it already. We don''t have much time to waste, someone will try toe for them eventually."

    The husband called Alex had been enjoying his time torturing the two of them, but he knew that the boss was right. So he said, "Big brother, I''ll get it right away."

    Then turning back, he ced the piece of paper in front of Haley''s father and said, "Father inw, if you just sign this, I promise that we''ll release you and your daughter right away."

    Haley''s father had aplicated look on his face when he heard this.

    Alex had been offering this to him the entire time, but of course he didn''t want to sign this thing.

    After all, this was a contract that would transfer the shares of hispany to Alex.

    ?¦Á?d¦Ás¦Ç¦È¦Í¦Å| He had nned on doing this eventually when Alex and Haley came back to help him with hispany. Then he would retire and leave thepany to the two of them¡­

    But Haley chose to run off and start thispany on her own, which hadpletely ruined that n¡­

    Still, this was the culmination of his life''s hard work, it wasn''t something that he could give up that easily. But on the other side was¡­his precious daughter.

    Even though he spoke in the way that he did to her, she was still his precious daughter that he lovingly raised.

    He knew that he had wronged her by forcing to marry Alex because of the debt that he owed to his father. He knew that he had wronged her by stopping her from pursuing her dream for the sake of the future that he nned.

    So now that she was in danger, he couldn''t help thinking of her.

    While he was agonizing over this, Alex turned to Haley and ced another piece of paper in front of her before saying, "It''s the same for you. If you sign this, then we''ll let you go right away."

    Haley didn''t even need to look at it to know what it was.

    It was a contract that was just like the one that had been offered to her father. If she signed this contract, the store that she had worked hard to build in this city would be given to Alex.

    So naturally she didn''t even look at it.

    Unlike her father, she was willing to die before giving up that store since it wasn''t just the culmination of her hard work. It was the culmination of all the hard work of the staff that had been with her the entire time.

    She wasn''t willing to let anyone touch that store, even if it meant death.

    Seeing the looks in their eyes, Alex knew that it was a lost cause to try and convince Haley. On the opposite side though, it seemed like it was possible to convince Haley''s father into signing the contract because the look in his eyes was wavering.¦Ñ¦Á§ád¦Ás `n?¦Í?| §ãom

    So he figured that it was better to start with the father than to try to change Haley''s mind.

    But before he could say anything else, the boss suddenly said, "Wait."

    All of the rough looking men stopped ring at the two tied up and looked at the boss with a confused look.

    Alex turned and asked with the same confused look, "Big brother, what is it?"

    The boss knitted his brows and said, "We have a rat."

    The moment that I heard this, I couldn''t help being taken aback.

    I quickly looked around myself, but I wasn''t able to find anything that indicated that we had been discovered. I couldn''t help feeling confused how we had been discovered, but I knew that there wasn''t time to waste here.

    I quickly gave a signal to Shaka and mouthed, "We''ve been found."

    Shaka immediately understood what I meant and he was about to turn around to leave, but there was a creaking sound that came from beneath us.

    Before any of us could move an inch, the boards of the ceiling under us cracked apart and we started falling.

    As we were falling, I could see that one of Shaka''s men was just lying there without moving. Even though this seemed very normal, there was a bright red streak that was on that person''s neck.

    It was the red of blood.

    It seemed that the Crow Gang''s boss also had an assassin that was watching over the ce and they had been the one to find us. They were so skilled that they had managed to kill one of us before we could even react.

    Luckily, we weren''t too high up, so we didn''t fall that far.

    As for me, I had also started training my body, but there was only so much that I could aplish in the short amount of time that I had. So it wasn''t as if I had any major results in just a few weeks of training.

    Luckily for me, Shaka and Jessica both twisted their bodies to help shield some of the impact for me.

    The two of them were well trained, so a small fall from this distance wouldn''t be enough to hurt them.

    When wended, we fell right beside the two who were tied up, facing the group of rough looking men in front of us.

    Though one of us didn''tnd like the rest¡­

    This person fell to the ground with a thud and there was a spray of blood that scattered around.

 Chapter 120 Crow Gang (4)

    When Shaka saw this, he couldn''t help lowering his head a bit, almost as if he was offering a silent prayer for that person.

    But then he quickly focused on the people in front of him.

    At the same time, Jessica pulled out her sword and she moved in front of me.

    The rest of Shaka''s men who had fallen with us also pulled out their daggers and prepared for a fight.

    The sound alerted the ones who had been outside and they also came in with weapons raised.

    But even then, we werepletely outnumbered.

    There were less than ten of us and there were over fifty enemies standing there in front of us. To win, we would have to each take out five enemies, but that was assuming that we could¡­

    For someone like me, one would even be considered too much¡­

    After we hadnded, the boss of the Crow Gang looked at us and said, "It seems like there are quite a few rats that snuck in."

    There was a figure thatnded beside the boss.

    This figure waspletely covered in a cloak, so there was no seeing what their real appearance was like. However, that figure was holding a dagger that had a trace of blood on it.

    It was clear that this was the person who had just killed one of Shaka''s men.

    Staring at us, the figure brought the dagger in their hand up to their face. A long tongue came out from under the hood and came out to lick the blood off the dagger.

    Then the figure said, "Boss, it seems like your men really are poorly trained. The ones out there are all dead."

    When the boss of the Crow Gang heard this, he couldn''t help knitting his brows as he looked at us. There was a trace of hostility that could also be found in his eyes, but he held himself back in the end from attacking us then and there.

    After a minute of silence, the boss finally asked in a low and threatening voice, "Who are you?"

    The boss of the Crow Gang was the boss for a reason. He didn''t be the boss by beating everyone in submission, but rather he became the boss because everyone wanted him as the boss.

    He was a smart man who had reached the top of the gang with his intelligence.

    He was someone that always came up with ns that they profited on and gave them the fewest casualties, so he was someone that everyone willingly followed. At the same time, he treated everyone under him like they were his brothers.

    So that was why he felt anger when he heard that his men were killed.

    As I faced this gaze from the boss, I just looked back at him with a calm look in my eyes. But during this time, I was looking around myself and trying to find a way out for us.

    I knew that this was a bad situation that we hadnded in and if we didn''t find a way out, we would slowly be worn down by them.

    ¡¤?¦Èm But before anyone else could say anything, Alex suddenly said, "It''s him!"

    Everyone from the Crow Gang turned to look at Alex with confused looks, waiting for him to exin.

    Alex quickly turned to the boss and said, "Big brother, this is the person that I was telling you about! This person is her lover!"

    As soon as he heard this, the boss of the Crow Gang revealed an understanding look.

    Then when he turned back to look at us, his eyes filled with killing intent.

    Not only was this group the ones who had killed his brothers, they were also the ones that had stood in the way of his ns.

    Since he now knew who these people were, there was nothing left for him to do but¡­to kill them all.

    But that was strange for someone like the boss of the Crow Gang who always thought logically.

    If one thought about it, it wouldn''t make sense for him to attack a noble like this.

    That is unless he didn''t know that Zwein was a noble.

    That was the one detail that Alex had left out when he had reported this back because he knew that as soon as the boss of the Crow Gang knew about this, he would immediately back out. He knew that the boss of the Crow Gang was someone cautious and wouldn''t act for big profit unless he was certain that it was safe.

    So he knew that he had to hide the fact that Zwein was a noble from him.

    Both sides could see that they were prepared to fight now and there was nothing left for them to say, so both sides raised their weapons.

    However, before any of them could make a move, Haley suddenly spoke.

    The moment that she saw that Zwein was here, she knew what the situation was. At the same time, she knew that she had to say something, or else the situation would develop much worse than what she wanted.

    So she immediately said, "He''s a noble! If you do anything to him, you will be charged with the crime of harming a noble!"

    As soon as they heard this, the Crow Gang thugs all stopped.

    The boss of the Crow Gang also looked at Haley with a look that seemed like he only half believed her.

    But then when he looked back at Alex who avoided his gaze, he knew that what she was saying was the truth.

    Nobles¡­that was a wall that no one could ovee in this kingdom.

    Because this was a kingdom that was created by and run by nobles, so they were the highest ss in this kingdom.

    There was no one that could go against nobles without suffering.

    That included the Crow Gang.

    If it was found that they had hurt a noble, every single one of them would be executed.

    So this would be a risky business if they decided to continue with this.

    But then a voice said, "I''ll take care of him if you take care of the rest."

 Chapter 121 Crow Gang (5)

    This was a rough voice that sounded like gravel being scraped.

    Hearing this kind of voice was very ufortable for people, but when the boss of the Crow Gang heard this, his expression lit up. It was as if he had heard the voice of his saviour.

    There was arge cloaked figure that had been hidden by the thugs before that stood up and walked over to where the boss was.

    The boss looked at this cloaked figure with narrowed eyes before asking, "Are you sure? If you do this, you won''t be able to stay here anymore."

    Though he said this, there was a part of him deep down that still wanted the cloaked figure to do this. He knew how much money they would earn from this job, so he didn''t want to give it up if he didn''t have to.

    Even if he was a smart man that understood the risks of killing a noble, he was also greedy in that he couldn''t let go of therge amount of money that came with this if he had a choice.

    "Ga, ba, ba, ba." Theugh from this cloaked figure was like the sound of rocks falling down a cliff before they said, "It''s not a problem for me to kill a noble. You don''t have to worry about me at all."

    As he said this, I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine.

    It was because I could tell that he was serious about this.

    This was a conviction and confidence that these thugs didn''t have, this was real conviction and confidence that couldn''t be defeated.

    I never thought that I would meet this kind of person here.

    But at the same time, I couldn''t help feeling that this kind of voice seemed familiar¡­There was something about it that made me feel like I had heard a voice like this before.

    Seeing that he was so confident, the boss said, "Alright, then do it."

    The cloaked figure gave a nod before saying, "Make sure you add a bit extra to our severance pay."

    The boss gave a strong nod as he said, "No problem."

    These two weren''t subordinates of the Crow Gang, these two were mercenaries that the boss had hired for a certain job.

    The reason that they were still in the Crow Gang now was because of the skills and power that they had demonstrated. They far surpassed any of the subordinates that the Crow Gang had, so the boss had spent quite a bit of money to keep them here.

    It seemed like his investment had really paid off in the end.

    So the boss said, "Clear out the rest and leave the noble to Rock and Bat."

    Rock and Bat was the nickname that these two had given him. Rock was therge cloaked figure and Bat was the smaller and thinner cloaked figure that used daggers.

    With this order, the battle began.

    Since they knew that they didn''t have to fight the noble themselves, the gangsters were filled with enthusiasm.

    They knew how much this job would bring them, so their greed filled them with excitement.

    Seeing that they weren''t willing to back down, Shaka and Jessica pulled out their weapons to face them. As they moved forward, they made sure that I was behind them so that they could protect me.

    This made me feel awkward since I was part of the group that was being protected, but I knew that there was no other choice since I really wasn''t a fighter.

    So I moved over to where Haley and her father were to help untie them while the rest fought.

    There was nothing to say about Jessica''s ability to fight since she was a knight who had been specially trained by Cecilia. She was someone who could even fight middle ss monsters at a slight disadvantage, so she had no problem fighting these thugs.

    Shaka on the other hand was surprisingly a powerful fighter that didn''t lose to Jessica in battle strength.

    He focused more on speed than power, but his speed was at a level that the thugs just couldn''t keep up with. By the time that they reacted, he was already behind them and his daggers were at their throats.

    So the gangsters weren''t able to make any progress forward with the two of them keeping guard.

    That is until the two cloaked figures made their way forward.

    The one called Bats came forward with his dagger raised and he stopped Shaka in his tracks. The speed that he demonstrated was more than enough to keep up with Shaka, so the two of them entered a stalemate.

    As for the one called Rock, he pulled out arge sword that was almost as big as Jessica.

    With a single sweep of this sword, Jessica who tried to block it was sent flying.

    She was able to block it and she wasn''t hurt by this attack, but the force behind it was far more than she could negate, so she was sent flying through the air.

    Therge cloaked figure didn''t follow up on this after sending Jessica flying. Instead, he continued charging forward towards me.

    Jessica saw this and with a skilled flip in the air, shended on her feet before charging at the tall cloaked figure.

    ¡¤?¦Èm But before she could take more than two steps, there was a dagger that flew through the air towards her. She was barely able to twist herself in time so that the daggernded on her sword and not her neck.

    This dagger hade from Bats who had been fighting Shaka.

    He had two daggers in his hand, one that he was using to fend off Shaka''s attack and the other that he had thrown at Jessica.

    Seeing that he didn''t have another dagger, Jessica turned back to therge cloaked figure.

    But she was wrong about this as Bats pulled out a dagger from an unknown ce that he threw at her again. She had no choice but to dodge this dagger and stay where she was since she knew that she would be stabbed in the back if she charged at therge cloaked figure.

    Just like this, Bats was able to keep the two best fighters on our side upied by himself.

    It didn''t even look like he was breaking a sweat with the way that he was fighting.

    So therge cloaked figure was given an open path to me that he took.

    As he ran at me, therge sword in his hand came up above his head and it was clear that he was going to smash it down at me.

    Since this sword was even bigger than Jessica, this sword was considered massive for me who was shorter than her. It was so big that it looked like it could crush me just by falling on me.

    Not to mention someone swinging it down on my head with all the force that they could muster.

    No matter how one looked at it, it seemed like I was about to die.

    But I didn''t panic at all when I saw therge cloaked figure running at me.

 Chapter 122 Crow Gang (6)

    As I watched therge cloaked figureing closer and closer, I just calmly waited until he came close enough.

    Therge cloaked figure couldn''t help feeling that something was off when he saw me acting like this, but he still continued charging at me. Therge cloaked figure didn''t think that there was a way for this small person to do anything against him, so he didn''t listen to this bad premonition that filled him.

    As therge cloaked figure approached, I raised my hand in front of me as if I was holding something.

    Then when therge cloaked figure was right in front of me, swinging down with therge sword in his hand, there was a strange object that appeared in my hand.

    This thing looked like a sword, but it was a strange colour and there was a bend in the front part of it.

    When this thing appeared out of thin air, therge cloaked figure couldn''t help being caught off. However, therge cloaked figure didn''t back down even when seeing this strange thing appear because he didn''t think that this thing would pose any threat to him.

    So like before, therge cloaked figure swung the sword right down at me.

    In response to this, I swung the strange sword that had appeared in my hand up.

    I swung it right up at therge sword that was falling down on me to meet it head on.

    Therge cloaked figure was surprised by this, but he gave a quick chuckle when he saw this.

    "This scrawny little human wants to block my attack head on? That''s just seeking death!"

    So he continued his downward swing without any hesitation.

    When the two weapons shed in the air, there was no bnce between them as one would expect from a sh of weapons. Instead, one side copsed instantly as they had been waiting for, but it wasn''t the side that they were expecting.

    When the strange sword and therge sword shed, it was therge sword that was shattered to pieces.

    Therge cloaked figure didn''t even have time to react as the strange sword broke through hisrge sword and hit him head on.

    When the strange sword made contact with therge cloaked figure, there was no hesitation at all. It was like therge cloaked figure was a kite that suddenly had its strings cut as he flew across the room from being hit by the strange sword.

    When hended, there was a loud crunching sound followed by the sound of something dripping. At the same time, there was a liquid that came out of the cloak and covered the ground.

    This was a liquid that was a bright red colour.

    Therge cloaked figure justid there without moving after being hit by the strange weapon. It didn''t even seem like he was breathing as heid there.

    When everyone saw this, they couldn''t help stopping what they had been doing and staring at therge cloaked figure lying there in silence. All of them almost held their breath as if they were too scared to breathe loudly.

    Not a single person could believe that such a scrawny little boy was able to send such arge man flying with a single blow like this.

    There were many that looked back and forth between the bloodyrge figure on the ground and me. The looks in their eyes became more and more conflicted andplicated the more that they looked between us.

    Not a single one of them was able to understand what had happened just now until¡­

    "There are traces of magicing from that sword¡­" Shaka muttered under his breath.

    When everyone heard this, they couldn''t help looking at the strange sword that was in Lin Fan''s hand.

    Everyone was still confused what kind of special weapon this was, but Jessica revealed a look of understanding because she had seen this weapon before. This was the weapon that Zwein had given Cecilia during the monster wave.

    As soon as she recognized it, she understood what had happened.

    After all, during the monster wave, Cecilia hadn''t been able to do a single thing to the Goblin General until she received this weapon from Zwein. So she knew that this had to be some kind of special weapon.

    Once she figured this out, she turned her attention back to the gangsters around her.

    Since they were stunned by what had happened, she quickly swung her sword out and cut down two of them as they stood there in a daze.

    When the two were cut down, they let out screams of pain that woke the others from their daze. However, the other gangsters weren''t able to pull themselves out of their dazes fast enough as Jessica was still able to exploit this gap.

    She dashed forward while all of them were still standing there in a daze and she cut down two more of them before they started moving again.

    After these two were cut down, the boss of the Crow Gang shouted out, "What are you doing? What do you think we''re paying you for!"

    The first part was for his subordinates and the second part was for Bats.

    After all, Rock, who he had hired as a mercenary, had been knocked down with a single blow from this scrawny looking noble. He had been so confident that he would be able to take him down, but he wasn''t even able to withstand a single blow.

    Naturally, Bats, who was his partner, was the one that received the bacsh since Rock had already fallen unconscious.

    Bats didn''t say anything as he turned to look at me.

    When he looked at me, I could feel the killing intent that wasing from him.

    If looks could kill, that re would have ripped me to shreds.

    However, Bats wasn''t able to break free to charge at me.

    That was because both Shaka and Jessica had started attacking him.

 Chapter 123 Crow Gang (7)

    With the two of them working together, they were able to suppress Bats so that he wasn''t able to do anything extra.

    However, he was still more than a match for the two of them coordinating like this.

    It even seemed like he was at an advantage since it was Shaka and Jessica that were slowly running out of breath. If this fight dragged on, it seemed like Bats would be the one that wore them out first.

    That became more clear as there were more and more wounds that appeared on Shaka and Jessica''s bodies as they fought.

    Bats dodged out of the way of their attacks and he didn''t forget to throw out his own attacks as he moved past them.

    I knew that I had to do something or else this would end poorly for the two of them.

    So with that thought, I raised the strange sword that was in my hand and threw it out to Jessica as I shouted, "Jessica, take this!"

    Jessica immediately turned in the direction of my voice. When she saw the strange sword flying through the air towards her, her eyes suddenly lit up.

    She had already seen the power of this strange sword twice, so she knew that this was a powerful weapon. She was excited by the fact that she now had a chance to use this weapon in battle.

    She would be able to follow the footsteps of her idol Cecilia in using this sword.

    Bats knew that this was a dangerous situation and wanted to do something to stop her, but it was at that moment that there was a green glow that appeared around Shaka.

    The moment that this green glow appeared around him, he suddenly started moving faster. At the same time, there were slight breezes that came from him when he moved, almost as if he was controlling the wind.

    With this new speed, Shaka was able to keep up with Bats and was able to suppress him from stopping Jessica from catching this sword.

    After he saw that she caught the sword, Shaka said, "Find an opening and take care of him! I can''t keep this state up for long, so you have to be quick!"

    After saying this, he charged at Bats once again.

    When Bats heard this, he gave a snort as he said, "Do you really think that you''ll be able to catch me? You foolish human, you really are overestimating your abilities."

    As soon as his voice fell, there was something that appeared on his back. It was still covered by the cloak that he was wearing, but it seemed to take the outline of a pair of wings.

    Once those wings appeared, Bats suddenly pped them and disappeared from where he had been standing. When he reappeared, he was already in front of Shaka and stabbing out at him with his daggers.

    Shaka hadn''t been able to keep up with this, so he was slow in reacting to this attack.

    Luckily, the sharp senses that he had developed over many years saved him in the end.

    He was able to shift just in time to raise his own daggers to protect himself, but that was only a single dagger that was blocked. The other dagger that Bats stabbed at him cut right across his arm and there was a ssh of blood.

    Judging by how much blood came out, it didn''t seem like this was a shallow wound.

    Shaka immediately jumped back and created space between them,nding right beside Jessica. However, during this time, he didn''t dare take his eyes off of Bats since he had just seen what Bats did.

    If he took his eyes off him for a single second, he knew that he would lose track of him again.

    He had gotten off lucky with a wound that wasn''t too serious, but that might not be the case the next time.

    So Shaka didn''t dare let his guard down for a single second.

    Jessica knew what she had to do in this situation, so she faced Bats as well and raised the strange sword in her hand.

    But before she could make a move, Shaka said, "Wait for me. Let me take the lead and catch him off guard. Once that happens, you should strike."

    Jessica slightly knitted her brows when she heard this as a trace of doubt appeared in her eyes.

    She had seen how he had been outsped by Bats just now, so she didn''t really have confidence in his ability to deliver on what he had just said. However, since she couldn''t think of a better n, she decided to go along with it.

    Just like this green glow that was currently around him, perhaps he had some other secret that he hadn''t shared yet.

    Then as if in response to this expectation, there was another burst of green light that came from Shaka. However, this time, the green light that came from him was much more intense than before.

    This green light that surrounded him before was a gentle green light, but this one that covered him now was an intense green light that was hard to look at. This was clearly

    another secret ability that he had hidden.

    Then before anyone could react, he disappeared before reappearing in front of Bats.

    Bats was caught off guard by this, but he didn''t let himself be caught as he opened up his wings and disappeared as well.

    Both of them disappeared after that, only appearing from time to time to create the sound of metal shing.

    This was a high speed battle that no one was able to keep up with.

    However, judging by the sound of metal nging together, they were able to keep track of their general location.

    They seemed to be moving around in a circle around Jessica.

    Then finally, both of them showed themselves.

    Shaka was panting and had one hand on his chest while Bats was just standing there panting.

    Based on this, it seemed like Shaka was the one at a disadvantage.

    But before anyone could say or do anything, Shaka shouted, "Now!"

 Chapter 124 Crow Gang (8)

    Jessica was caught off guard by this at first, but then she realized what he was referring to.

    Shaka might have seemed more drained, but his position was the better one.

    Bats was forced up against a corner of the room and Shaka was in front of him, cutting him off from a certain direction. As for the direction that he could go in, that was in the direction of where Jessica was standing.

    He had forced Bats into a corner so that he had no choice but to face Jessica head on.

    Bats also knew that he was in a bad position, but he didn''t panic.

    He knew that when it came to speed, hepletely outssed Jessica. So even if he was trapped in a corner like this, as long as he utilized his speed, he would be able to break out without any problems.

    So Bats raised his wing on his back and prepared to dash right past Jessica.

    But before he could do this, he suddenly felt dangering from nearby.

    He turned to see that Shaka was ready for him and as long as he made a move, he would be cut down from behind by Shaka. So he had to be wary of Shaka or he wouldn''t be able to survive this¡­

    As this thought passed through his mind, he could also see that Jessica was already getting close to him.

    If he didn''t make a move soon¡­it would be toote.

    So Bats no longer thought about it and charged at Jessica.

    He knew that it was only the strange weapon in her hand that he had to be afraid of, the person that wielded this weapon was not that powerful in the first ce. He could feel the magic power that wasing from this weapon, so he knew that it was the power of this weapon that had taken down Rock.

    So if he dodged this attack and counterattacked, he would be able to get right past Jessica and find a safe ce.

    With this thought in mind, Bats moved from side to side to make it even harder for Jessica to hit him.

    As he swayed from side to side, with the speed that he moved at, there were after images that were left behind that did make Jessica''s eyes spin.

    With these after images, she wasn''t able to pinpoint which one was the real Bats, so she wasn''t able to attack him.

    Seeing this hesitation in Jessica, Bats revealed a confident look as he increased his speed.

    He was confident that as long as he overwhelmed her, she wouldn''t be able to do anything to him.

    This was indeed an urate judgement of the situation, but there was someone that he had underestimated.

    Seeing that Jessica was being overwhelmed by Bats'' speed, Shaka suddenly said, "Close your eyes and just listen for where to swing."

    Jessica was even more caught off guard when she heard this, but in the end, she still closed her eyes and listened carefully. When she closed her eyes like Shaka had said, she found that she was able to hear much more clearly.

    She was also able to hear Bats'' movement just with the sound that he created.

    But she knew that this wasn''t just because of her abilities alone, she knew that it was because of the earplugs that she was wearing.

    These were the same as the earplugs that Shaka had given to Zwein earlier, so they amplified sound just the same. With them, she was able to easily hear the sound of Bats'' cloak as he moved and she was able to track his position in a way that her eyes couldn''t.

    When Bats was right above Jessica and he stabbed down at her with his daggers, he found that she sidestepped at thest moment before swinging the strange sword in her hand at him.

    Bats was caught off guard by this sudden move by Jessica as he didn''t expect her to be able to react with her eyes closed like this, but he hadn''t let his guard down. Seeing that she moved at thest moment, he quickly pped his wings to move out of the way.

    But before his wings could actually p, there was a sense of danger that came from behind him.

    When he turned to look, he found that there were two daggers that were aimed at his back.

    As for who threw them¡­it was Shaka.

    Bats knew that he was faced with a conundrum.

    He could either let himself be hit with the daggers that wereing at his back or he could let himself be hit with the strange sword that wasing at him from the front.

    He knew that it was impossible for him to dodge both of them since there wasn''t enough space for him to dodge.

    Since that was the case, he decided to dodge the strange sword and let the daggers hit him in the back.

    He had already seen what kind of power was in that strange sword when it took down Rock, so he knew that it was impossible for him to take a hit from this strange sword. At the very least, he knew that there wasn''t as much power in the daggers since he had shed with Shaka many times.

    When the daggers stabbed him in the back, Bats was surprised by how much it hurt. However, it was still at a level that he could easily take.

    Once he took this, he focused on the strange sword that wasing at him from in front.

    With his mind focused, it was easily for him to predict the path of this sword and dodge out of the way.

    But before he could dodge¡­there was a sudden force that came from behind him.

    It was the daggers that had stabbed into his back.

    All of sudden, they released a powerful gale that blew him forward, right into the path of the strange sword.

    With how strong this gale was, he couldn''t stop himself.

 Chapter 125 Crow Gang (9)

    Seeing that he was going to sh with the strange sword no matter what, Bats made up his mind.

    He brought both of his daggers in front of him, in front of the strange sword and he gathered all of his power to block it.

    As he did this, there was ayer of ck energy that appeared around the daggers as he held them in front of him.

    The moment that thisyer of ck energy appeared, Shaka immediately knitted his brows.

    The strange sword in Jessica''s hands approached the daggers in Bats'' hand and then when they made contact¡­

    There was no moment of hesitation, there was no resistance at all, there was only the shattering of daggers that happened. The daggers were immediately shattered to pieces the moment that the strange sword made contact with it.

    Then the strange sword continued moving towards Bats'' face without slowing down for a single second.

    In hisst moments, Bats could only watch as the purple bent part of the strange sword fell down on his face, wondering where it had all gone wrong.

    As it made contact with his face, there was no resistance at all as Bats was sent flying by the strange sword.

    When hended, he was in a pool of his own blood just like Rock.

    With these two taken down, the gangsters all stood there in shock staring at the two of them.

    They had seen the power that these two had¡­they both fought like demons, so they never thought that someone would be able to take them down like this.

    But the two of them lying there in a pool of their own blood was the best proof that there was.

    There was no denying the facts that were there.

    So they all stopped fighting and they took a step back.

    It had to be admitted that Shaka''s men weren''t weak.

    During the time that Rock and Bats had been on the offense, the gangsters hadn''t been idle. They had been moving forward and backing them up, fighting Shaka''s men who hade into the room with us.

    Even though they had beenpletely outnumbered, they had been able to stall these gangsters.

    This showed that every single one of them was a skilled fighter.

    Other than the one casualty that had happened while they had been hiding in the ceiling, there were only minor injuries to the remaining men. On the other side, there were actually five gangsters that had been killed by Shaka''s men.

    And now that their top two fighters had been taken care of, the gangsters all backed away.

    They knew that without these two, it would be hard for them to take down Jessica and Shaka.

    But the green light suddenly disappeared from around Shaka and he fell to his knees while panting.

    When I saw this, I went over to him and tried to help him up, but Shaka just raised his hand to show that he was fine. Then with one deep breath, he stood up and pulled out another pair of daggers before turning to face the gangsters just standing there.

    Seeing the situation in front of him, the boss of the Crow Gang knew that he had beenpletely beaten.

    As the bitter feeling of loss filled him, he couldn''t help ring at Alex.

    If it wasn''t for this idiot little brother of his, then¡­he wouldn''t be in this kind of trouble.

    Alex wasn''t his actual little brother, but one that he had made when they were both on the streets. However, with Alex saving his life back then, he had taken Alex as his real little brother.

    So even though the situation looked dire, he didn''t n on throwing Alex under the bus.

    ¡¤?¦Èm The mind of the Crow Gang''s boss turned as he tried to think of a way out of this.

    All of the gangsters of the Crow Gang also turned to look at their boss while revealing hopeful looks.

    The boss had gotten them out of quite a few predicaments before, so they were hoping that he would be able to get them out of this one.

    It was just too bad that the boss wasn''t able to think of a single thing.

    There were many things that they could have done to ensure that they had a way out, but they hadn''t done that since they had put their faith in Rock and Bats. If they had taken Haley and her father back during the fight, then they would have been able to use them as hostages to escape with.

    Since he wasn''t able to think of anything, the boss just raised his hands and said, "I surrender."

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard when the boss said that he surrendered, but after the boss said that he surrendered, all of the other gangsters also raised their hands and dropped their weapons to show that they surrendered.

    Since they had even dropped their weapons, I quickly had Shaka''s men collect these weapons while Jessica loomed over them with the strange sword.

    Once all of these weapons had been collected, we herded these gangsters into a corner since we didn''t have anything to tie them with.

    We left two of Shaka''s men to watch over them before making our way over to the unconscious Rock and Bats that had been brought together. They were lying there side by side, lying in a pool of their mixed blood.

    Shaka was the one that went forward to stand in front of them while the rest of us stayed back just in case they woke up.

    As he stood there, he reached his hand down towards the hood of these cloaks.

    He pulled the hoods back and revealed their true appearance.

    The moment that their true appearances were revealed, we all couldn''t help being shocked.

    After that moment of shock, Shaka knitted his brows and said, "As expected, there really were a few that had infiltrated the city."

 Chapter 126 Crow Gang (10)

    When Shaka said this, I couldn''t help taking note of these words and the tone that he had said it in.

    It seemed like these two were rted to what the noble had wanted to investigate through me¡­

    As for why they were interesting, it was because these two mercenaries were¡­demons.

    Rock was a demon that had horns on his head and had skin that was as thick as rock. Bats was a demon that was quite thin and had ears that were like that of a bat.

    But with these features, there was no mistaking that they were demons.

    Not to mention, Bats had even used dark magic at the end. That was the dark energy that had appeared on his dagger when he tried to block Jessica''s attack.

    Staring at the two of them, I wanted to ask Shaka something¡­

    But before I could, there was arge sound that caught us off guard.

    Before we could react to what happened, the boss of the Crow Gang suddenly stood up and charged out. We had all been looking at the two demons on the ground and had beenpletely distracted, including Shaka''s men who should have been watching over the boss.

    So none of us were able to stop him as he suddenly ran towards Haley.

    No one knew where he pulled it from, but there was now a dagger that was in his hand.

    This dagger had been raised and was moving closer and closer to Haley.

    No matter how one looked at it, it didn''t seem like the boss of the Crow Gang had good intentions towards her.

    His n was to take her as a hostage and make his way out of this ce using her. So the first thing that he would need to do was grab her and ce this dagger at her neck.

    As for whether he would be able to overpower her, the boss didn''t have any doubts about that.

    He was a man and this was a beautiful small woman, so there was no doubt that he would be able to overpower her.

    As he moved towards her, he confidently reached the hand that wasn''t holding the dagger towards Haley. With the way that he reached his hand out, it was as if he could already see himself grabbing her and taking her hostage before it happened.

    But it didn''t happen in the end.

    Seeing that the boss was charging at her, Haley suddenly raised both of her hands.

    The boss was surprised to see this, but he didn''t slow down. He just moved the hand with the dagger up to threaten her so that she wouldn''t do anything foolish.

    However, Haley wasn''t afraid of the approaching dagger at all.

    Instead, her eyes became serious as she watched the daggering closer and closer, as if she was focused on the trajectory of the dagger.

    When the boss'' hand was almost touching her, Haley suddenly turned around and moved forward. The boss waspletely caught off guard by this, so his hand moved over her shoulder and past her.

    The boss wanted to immediately bring his hand down to grab her, but Haley didn''t give him that chance.

    When the boss was about to reach his hand down to grab her, Haley''s hands were already moving up. Without any hesitation, she grabbed the boss'' arm, the one that was holding the knife.

    The boss was surprised that she would do this, but he still tried to break free.

    He had expected to easily break free of her grasp with the difference in strength, but he found that he wasn''t able to move his arm at all. It was as if his arm was being gripped inside of a steel vice and the only way to pull free was to give up the arm.

    Then before the boss could do anything with his second arm, Haley suddenly pulled on his arm.

    The boss wasn''t able to stop himself at all as his feet suddenly lost contact with the ground. He was thrown into the air by Haley and he flew over her shoulder.

    When he realized what was happening, his view of the world was already upside down.

    Then all he felt was pain from the top of his head as his consciousness faded away.

    In his final moment, he still didn''t understand what had just happened.

    By the end of it, Haley kneeled down slightly with the boss'' arm in her hands.

    Then when she looked up, she let go of his arms and moved away from him.

    There was only silence that followed as everyone looked at the boss whose head was slightly buried in the ground from the impact.

    At the same time, everyone looked at Haley withplicated looks that had traces of disbelief in them. Not a single person was able to understand how that much power hade out of this small frame¡­

    I couldn''t help thinking to myself, "If she could do something like this, how did she get kidnapped in the first ce?"

    After a long period of silence, Shaka was the first one to react as he went over to the boss'' body in the ground. He kneeled down beside the boss and put his hand to his neck. After that, he brought his hand up under his nose.

    When he was done, Shaka turned around and said, "He''s still alive, he''s got a pulse and he''s breathing."

    Without waiting for a response, Shaka waved his hand at one of his men who came over right away. This person didn''t wait for Shaka''s orders as he kneeled down too to help the boss out of the ground and he started patching up his head.

    I couldn''t help revealing aplicated look before saying, "Is there a need for that?"

    Shaka calmly said, "The master will want to talk to him."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I just gave apliant nod in response to this.

    The reason why that noble had sent Shaka and his men to help me was because he had wanted something out of this. While I didn''t know exactly what he wanted, I knew that it wouldn''t be good for me to interfere with what Shaka was doing.

    But I had noted that look in Shaka''s eyes when we had removed the cloaks from Bats and Rock¡­He had recognized that they were demons and he had quite the strong reaction to this. It was most likely something rted to them that they wanted from the boss of the Crow Gang.

    Since the noble wanted this boss of the Crow Gang, I wouldn''t say anything about this.

    Though whether he would be able to get any information from him¡­that was hard to tell.

    Haley had mmed him quite hard into the ground and it had been right on his head. It would be a miracle if he didn''t suffer any brain damage from this.

    I left the boss of the Crow Gang to Shaka and his men and I turned to look at Haley.

    I could see that she was trembling even though she had just shoulder thrown the boss.

    So I raised my hands out and asked, "Are you alright?"

    Without hesitation, she jumped into my arms and hugged me.

 Chapter 127 Crow Gang (11)

    I was caught off guard by her suddenly hugging me like this.

    But in the end, I reached my hands to her back and patted her tofort her.

    I could feel a wet sensation that wasing from my chest.

    Even if she looked like she was a strong woman with the way that she acted, this was still a traumatic experience no matter who it was.

    There was no doubt that she should have been scared during this.

    I just silentlyforted her and waited for her to calm down.

    After a long time, Haley finally stopped trembling and she took a deep breath before separating from me.

    She lowered her head to hide her face from me, but I could see that there were traces of swollenness that were on her face, around her eyes. It was clear that her eyes were swollen from how much she had been crying.

    But since she did all this to hide it from me, I wasn''t brutish enough that I would force her to show me.

    I just took off my coat and put it over her.

    When she felt this coat fall on top of her, she lowered her head even more before saying in a soft voice, "Thank you."

    During the time that we had been like this, the others had been cleaning up the area.

    Since they had taken care of the gangsters, Shaka''s men had gone to search the rest of the building just in case there were still more gangsters hiding around. But they found that there weren''t any other gangsters that were here.

    Other than the ones that had been posted on the pathway to this room that they had already taken care of, the rest of this building waspletely empty.

    Well, it wasn''tpletely empty since there was other stuff that was stored here.

    This ce was the headquarters of the Crow Gang, so there were all kinds of documents and other things that were here.

    When he learned of this, Shaka immediately pulled all of his men into the building other than two who stayed outside to keep watch just in case.

    Leaving four men to keep watch over the gangsters, he sent the rest of them to search the building.

    It didn''t take long for them to gather everything that they wanted. At the same time, they were able to find some rope to tie the gangsters up with.

    Since they had already finished cleaning up, I turned to Shaka to ask, "What are you nning on doing with them now?"

    Shaka looked at me with a calm expression, but the look in his eyes¡­made it clear that he brokered no argument as he said, "We''ll call the master and he''ll send some men to escort them away. We still have a few things to ask them."

    When I saw this, I just gave a simple nod of agreement.

    I didn''t know what they wanted with these members of the Crow Gang, but I knew that it wasn''t my ce to interfere. At the same time, I also didn''t want to interfere since I knew that it had to be something big if they were willing to mobilize all these skilled people.

    The less I knew, the better. The less I knew, the longer I would keep my life.

    So I would just let them do what they wanted with the Crow Gang.

    It wasn''t as if I wanted anything else to do with them in the first ce.

    I would leave them to their fates.

    But there was someone that wasn''t done with them yet.

    He had been silent the whole time, watching everything happen and waiting for his turn.

    When he saw that everyone was tied up and they wouldn''t be able to do a thing, he stood up and walked over to where the Crow Gang were sitting.

    Shaka''s men were about to stop him, but I quickly came forward and shook my head for them to back down.

    When they saw this, they didn''t listen right away and instead turned to look at Shaka for approval. It was only when they saw him give a nod of affirmation that they moved aside and let this person through.

    This person was of course Haley''s father.

    Seeing that they didn''t follow my orders and needed Shaka''s orders first, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile, but I didn''t say anything.

    I knew that I waspletely out of my depths in this situation and it really stung.

    Shaka came forward to pat me on the shoulder, but all I could do was look at him with that bitter smile.

    Still, we both turned to look at Haley''s father.

    We didn''t know what he was nning, but we both had a guess as to what he was going to do.

    Now, it all depended on just how vindictive he would be¡­

    Haley''s father walked right up to Alex who was tied up there on the floor with the rest of the Crow Gang. As he stood over him, he looked down at him and Alex looked up at him with neither of them saying a word.

    The emotions in their eyes werepletely different.

    Haley''s father had a devastated look that showed just how sad and disappointed he was with Alex.

    Alex had a look of hatred and anger in his eyes as if someone had murdered his parents as he looked up.

    There was this awkward silence that filled the air until Haley''s father simply asked one word, "Why?"

    Alex didn''t answer right away as he looked up at Haley''s father''s face. With the way that he was looking at him, it was almost as if he was trying to figure out if he was being serious or not.

    When he saw that he was indeed serious about this question, Alex suddenly burst out inughter like he was a madman.

    He keptughing with his head held up high, making him seem like he waspletely crazy until he finally said in a voice filled with hatred, "You know why."

 Chapter 128 Crow Gang (12)

    Haley''s father couldn''t help being taken aback when he heard this.

    He just looked at Alex with a dazed, confused look as he tried to think about everything that had happened with this son-inw of his, but he couldn''t think of a single way that he had offended him.

    So he really couldn''t understand why Alex had said this.

    Seeing that look on his face, Alex''s eyes filled with even more anger and hatred.

    It was almost as if the thing that he had been holding a grudge over had been trivialized, which hurt his pride even more.

    Finally, Haley''s father said, "I really don''t know what you''re talking about, but you should know that all I ever wanted was the best for you. I was trying to repay my debt to your father, but I also cared about you."

    Hearing this, Alex broke out in madughter once again before spitting on the ground in front of Haley''s father. Then he said through gritted teeth, "The best for me? The best for me? I saw your will and you''re saying that you wanted the best for me?"

    Haley''s father knitted his brows slightly, but he couldn''t understand what Alex was talking about since he didn''t think that there was anything wrong with his will. He felt that he had been more than generous enough to Alex in it that there shouldn''t have been a problem.

    Alex once again saw this look and the mes of rage burned inside of him.

    He red at Haley''s father and said, "Thepany stocks, you left them all to Haley and not a single stock to me! You skipped over me and you gave everything that should have been mine to her!"

    Haley''s father knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He couldn''t help feeling a bit dissatisfied with Alex when he said this, but remembering the promise that he had made to Alex''s father, he suppressed the feeling of dissatisfaction.

    Instead, he tried exining, "Haley is my daughter, so it''s only right that I leave them to her. Not to mention, you two are a couple, so you share everything. Even if the stocks were under her name, they would have been both of your properties."

    As soon as his voice fell, Alex shouted, "Shut up you old fool! You think that I care about that! They were mine and you took them away from me! She is nothing more than my woman, my property! She shouldn''t be owning things in the first ce! Everything that she has should be mine!"

    This time, Haley''s father deeply knitted his brows.

    He already knew that there were problems with this marriage, but he had never thought that they were this serious¡­

    At the same time, I also deeply knitted my brows and I turned to look at Haley.

    She was just standing there without even looking over at her father and her husband, but I could see that she was trembling after she heard what Alex said.

    Seeing this, I quickly reached out and patted her on the back tofort her.

    When she felt this, she reached her hand out from under the coat towards me.

    I didn''t hesitate to take her hand and give it a squeeze.

    The trembling of her hand calmed a bit, but her hand was still trembling in the end. It seemed that I wasn''t enough to assure her yet¡­

    After Alex had finished rambling, Haley''s father took a deep breath and said, "I know that you are frustrated, but you could havee and talked to me about this. There was no need to go this far."

    When Alex heard this, he gave a snort as he said, "You really think that I would believe that you would skip over your own daughter for me? I should have killed that slut earlier and taken everything for myself!"

    Haley''s father really couldn''t take it anymore when he heard this, but before he could do a thing, there was someone that acted first.

    Before anyone could react, I had let go of Haley''s hand and was charging over to where Alex was.

    Before anyone could do a thing, my hand was raised and it fell down on Alex''s face.

    There was a loud pping sound that rang out through this room before silence fell.

    My body wasn''t that strong, so the p didn''t hurt him that badly. His face had just turned a bit red, but he had a dazed look on his face as if he couldn''t believe what had just happened.

    After a long moment of silence, the look of rage reappeared on Alex''s face and he looked up at me to shout, "You son of a b*tch, if it wasn''t for¡­"

    Before he could finish, there was another pping sound that rang out.

    Alex''s face turned to the other side as his other cheek turned red.

    He was about to turn and roar out at me again, but I just kept unleashing ps across his face.

    Again and again, the pping sound rang out.

    But not a single person dared to do a thing when they saw the look of rage that was on my face.

    Finally, I stopped because I could feel the pain in my hands. At the same time, I could see his face that had swollen up because of the ps across his cheeks.

    However, even then, I still didn''t think that it was enough.

    So I reached my hand out towards Jessica.

    She was stunned and standing there in a daze at first, but then she realized what I was asking for. She quickly came over and ced the strange purple sword in my hand.

    Once I had this in my hand, I put it over Alex''s head.

    Alex had been in a daze from being pped continuously, but when he saw this strange purple sword in my hand, he couldn''t help shivering.

    He knew that this strange purple sword was the weapon that had taken out both Rock and Bats.

    He also knew just how strong Rock and Bats were as someone who had seen them fight before, so he knew that this had to be a very special weapon to be able to deal with them.

    If this weapon was used on him¡­then it would be hard to say if he would be able to survive.

    Looking up at me, Alex''s eyes showed traces of fear as he said, "What, what are you doing? What are you nning on doing with that?"

    I didn''t say a thing as I just held the strange purple sword over him.

    Then without a word, I suddenly brought it down.

    Alex and the other members of the Crow Gang all had their hands tied behind their backs since there was only so much rope avable, so they were sitting with their legs forward.

    I brought the strange purple sword down so that it was level with his chest and right above his crotch.

    When he saw this, he couldn''t help trembling as he said in an even louder voice, "What are you doing? Stop it now!"

    But before anyone else could say anything, the strange purple sword was suddenly swung down.

 Chapter 129 Crow Gang (13)

    Alex''s eyes rolled back in their sockets as his body started falling backwards.

    He had lost consciousness before the strange purple sword could even hit him.

    But of course, it didn''t hit him in the end.

    I controlled the swing so that itnded on the ground right in front of his crotch.

    However, the cracked part of the ground made it clear that I didn''t hold back my swing at all. If I had aimed it properly at him¡­his thing down there most likely would have been smashed by the strange purple sword.

    After seeing him faint like this, I just gave a cold snort and said, "Did you really think that I was trash on your level?"

    Without another word for him, I turned around and faced Haley''s father who had been silent the entire time.

    When he saw me looking at him like this, he couldn''t help taking a step back.

    The aura that I released was just too much for him and he could feel a mountain like pressure falling onto him.

    Haley''s father didn''t understand how such a powerful pressure coulde from a young boy like this, but he didn''t question it. He had met plenty of powerful people before and he knew that this pressure was real.

    To the side, Shaka also slightly narrowed his eyes as he looked at Zwein.

    There was a strange look in his eyes as he looked at him.

    After taking a moment to calm himself down, Haley''s father said to me, "Don''t you think that you took that a bit too far?"

    The moment that I heard this, I gave a snort of disdain before saying, "You aren''t qualified to be a father."

    Haley''s father''s eyes opened wide and his mouth dropped down when he heard this. He opened and closed his mouth a few times as if he was trying to say something, but he wasn''t able to say anything in the end since he couldn''t think of any words to refute this.

    Without waiting for him to say anything, I tossed the strange purple sword back to Jessica before moving back to Haley.

    She had looked up slightly when I had gone over to p Alex, so I could see her face now.

    I could see those eyes that werepletely red and swollen from the crying that she had done and it tore my heart apart. So I just pulled the coat up higher and covered her head with it before taking her hand again.

    Haley realized what I had done and she gave a squeeze to my hand to thank me before lowering her head again.

    No one did a thing until Shaka came over and said, "I think you''ll want to see this."

    I didn''t know what he meant by this until he suddenly pulled out a packet of papers.

    I knitted my brows slightly when I heard this, but I still took it and read what was written on these pieces of paper.

    After I had finished reading them, I narrowed my eyes to look at him before asking, "Is this all true?"

    Shaka just gave a simple nod to confirm this.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile before asking, "Why didn''t you show me this earlier?"

    Shaka revealed a faint smile that also had a trace of bitterness in it before saying, "I only got it this morning when we were heading to the caravan. I wanted to discuss this with you after we left the city so that no one would hear us, but it was clear that n didn''t work out."

    Seeing the slightly bitter smile he had as well, I gave a nod in response. Then I handed the packet of papers back to him and patted him on the arm before saying, "I think that he should see these too."

    Shaka looked at me with a slightly doubtful look, but seeing that I didn''t react at all to this, he understood what I was thinking.

    So with a nod, he turned around and walked over to where Haley''s father was just standing there in a daze.

    Haley''s father didn''t notice him at first until Shaka was right beside him.

    When he turned to look at Shaka, he had a wary look since he had seen this man fighting just now. He knew that he was a powerful person that could take him out if he wanted to.

    But Shaka just raised the pieces of paper in front of him and said, "You might want to see this."

    Haley''s father didn''t take these pieces of paper at first as he warily looked at Shaka. But Shaka seemed like he didn''t care whether he was going to take them or not.

    Finally, Shaka gave up and was about to drop them on the ground.

    It was only then that Haley''s father suddenly reached out to take this packet of papers from him.

    He kept looking at Shaka with the same wary look, but Shaka didn''t do a single thing other than stand there looking at him with a calm look. It was as if he was just waiting for him to read what was written.

    Finally, Haley''s father couldn''t take it anymore and he started reading through these pieces of paper.

    As he read through them, his expression couldn''t help changing.

    There were various different expressions that filled his face as he read through the information.

    There was a look of doubt, confusion, anger, sadness, disappointment, and utter disbelief. There were just all different kinds of emotions that filled his face.

    But the final emotion that he showed was utter despair as he stared at the pieces of paper that he was holding in his hand.

    He shook his head as if he was trying to convince himself of something, but then he just stared right back at them.

    In the end, Haley''s father slowly looked back up at Shaka with that same look of despair as he asked, "Is this true?"

 Chapter 130 Crow Gang (14)

    Shaka just calmly looked at Haley''s father when he asked this and gave a simple nod in response.

    When Haley''s father saw this nod, he desperately shook his head and said, "No, this can''t be real! If it''s real, then what has everything that I''ve been doing for!"

    He threw the pieces of paper on the ground and he grabbed his head, pulling at his hair and scratching his scalp. He was doing all that he could to avoid the truth that had been ced in front of him.

    But there was no avoiding it.

    He continued to suffer like this for a bit longer until he finally reached a conclusion¡­

    "This all has to be a lie! This must be a lie that you concocted to trick me! There''s no way that any of this can be true!" Haley''s father roared out.

    The way that he said this, it was almost as if he was trying to convince himself that this was the truth. He was desperately trying to find some kind of exnation that would help him justify everything that he had done.

    But there was no hiding from the truth.

    Haley''s father reached out to grab at Shaka''s cor, but with Shaka''s abilities, he was able to easily sidestep this attempt.

    Missing the cor, Haley''s father fell forward from how suddenly he stood up and dashed forward, falling to the ground once more.

    As heid there on the ground, he mmed the ground again and again with his fists as if he was trying to wake up from a bad dream.

    Finally, he calmed himself enough to look up at Shaka and said, "You have to be lying to me."

    It was as if he was pleading with him¡­

    But Shaka just calmly said, "What reason would I have to do that?"

    Haley''s father''s expressionpletely copsed when he heard this and he fell to the ground face first. He didn''t fall unconscious, but it didn''t seem like he wanted to move at all.

    When Haley saw this, there was a part of her heart that turned soft and she wanted to go forward tofort him.

    But I grabbed her hand and wouldn''t let her.

    When she looked back at me, I just simply shook my head.

    She didn''t struggle anymore when she saw this, but it was clear by the look in her eyes that it was as if her heart was being torn apart.

    I knew that this was something that had to happen or else they wouldn''t be able to move on.

    After a long silence, she looked at me and asked, "What was on those pieces of paper?"

    I just shook my head and didn''t exin anything to her since she didn''t need to know. Or at least, she didn''t need to hear it from me. She would eventually hear it all from her father when he recovered.

    What was on those pieces of paper was the truth behind Alex''s engagement with Haley.

    The reason that Haley''s father had engaged the two of them together in the first ce was because of a debt that he owed to Alex''s father. Or at least that was what he thought was the case.

    But the information on these pieces of paper had shown that it wasn''t.

    Alex''s father had been a crook who had lived in the slums of the city.

    One day when he went to the business area of the city to find targets to steal from, but that was when he encountered an ident. It wasn''t an ident that he caused, but he was a part of it because¡­he took what he believed to be Haley''s father''s corpse from the wreck.

    On his way to one of his stores, Haley''s father''s carriage had crashed in the middle of the street and had hit several different carriages, creating arge pileup. Haley''s father waspletely buried under the rubble.

    Alex''s father who had seen this had dug into the rubble to see if there was anything that he could recover.

    When he dug far enough, he found what he believed to be Haley''s father''s corpse.

    At first, he didn''t want to take him since he didn''t think that a corpse would be worth anything. But since the city guards had been called and they were already nearby, he had no choice but to take this corpse.

    He would at least loot it and then see if he could sell the corpse back to the family.

    But what he never expected was that Haley''s father was still alive.

    When Haley''s father had woken up, the first person that he saw was Alex''s father who was standing over him.

    When Alex''s father saw that Haley''s father was awake, he was put in a very awkward situation. That was because he had been trying to rob him of what he had on his body and was currently patting him down.

    Luckily for him though, Haley''s father misunderstood since he saw the cloth that he had been holding in his hand to avoid touching what he thought was a corpse. He thought that he had been helping clean his wounds with that cloth, so he thought that he was the one who had saved him.

    Alex''s father was caught off guard by this, but he went along with what Haley''s father thought.

    Just like this, Haley''s father had been bound to Alex''s father through this life saving debt.

    He gave him plenty of money and even promised that their children would marry for this, which was what resulted in the marriage between Alex and Haley.

    He took this very seriously, which was why he had stuck by it even with everything that he knew about Alex¡­

    But all of this crumbled in the end because of one thing¡­a single ring.

    This was the ring that Alex''s father had stolen from Haley''s father and had passed down to Alex. It was this ring that Shaka''s men had found thatpletely disproved everything about this story and gave him insight on the real story.

    He didn''t know everything, but the information on the pieces of paper were more than enough for a normal intelligent person to understand what the truth of this matter was.

    That was why Haley''s father had been filled with despair when he read them.

 Chapter 131 Spies (1)

    Since this matter had been settled, there was no longer a reason for us to stay there any longer.

    As soon as the reinforcements that Shaka had called for arrived, we left that ce.

    They hade with plenty of carriages, so it was easy for them to carry everyone away without attracting too much attention. After all, this was the bad part of town, so it was normal for them to see things like this.

    People wouldn''t look too deeply into things and would turn a blind eye since that was the best thing for them.

    If they involved themselves in something unrted to them, all they would be doing was putting themselves in danger.

    No one was dumb enough to do something like that.

    As for our group, we headed back to Haley''s store.

    I wanted to leave her father behind and let him find his own way back, but she asked us to take him too. So in the end, we brought him along and took him back to the store where he just sat there in a daze.

    When we came back, all of her employees immediately came over since they had been worried about her.

    I had told Kevin to get the others to look around for her and since they hadn''t found her, they had all been worried about her.

    It wasn''t every single employee of hers that were here, but most of them quickly came back as soon as they heard that she was back.

    They had been so worried that they had even closed the store and all gone out to look for her.

    They even red at me when I helped her back since they thought that I was the one who did all of this to her. But Haley quickly exined what happened and they all startedforting her.

    The way that they looked at me also changed after that.

    Instead of looking at me with hostility, they looked at me as if¡­they were looking at their next new boss.

    But I chose to ignore these looks as I focused on Haley''s father.

    He had been silently sitting there the entire time, not even moving a single inch.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that we could still see his body moving from him breathing, we would have thought that he was already dead.

    Haley also watched him from the corner of her eyes since in the end, he was still her father.

    All of a sudden, Haley''s father stood up and turned to leave.

    That is he took a single step before turning back to look at Haley.

    Haley couldn''t help being taken aback when she saw this, but she still looked at him and waited for him to speak. Her employees who had been around her suddenly came forward as if they were about to protect her, but she shook her head to them and they moved back.

    After another long silence, Haley''s father said, "It''s your life, you can do what you want. I''ll send you the deeds to this store and pass on paperwork to give you the stocks of this store that mypany owns. It''s yours from now on."

    Without even waiting for her to respond, he turned to leave.

    As he walked off, there was an almost dejected look to his figure, as if he had lost twenty years in an instant.

    When he moved past me, he looked up at me with aplicated look. He gave a sigh before saying, "I''ll leave her to you from now on."

    Once again, he didn''t wait for a response as he walked off.

    I felt like there was a misunderstanding, but at the same time, there was a part of me that didn''t want to correct him.

    Haley didn''t say anything as she watched him leave. She just gave a slight bow to him after he said what he said about her store. Then when her face was slightly hidden from this bow, there was a blush that appeared from hearing what he said about Zwein.

    She never expected her father to suddenly give his approval like this, but there was also a part of her that didn''t want to correct this misunderstanding.

    Once he was gone, everyone went back to what they were doing before.

    But when I looked at Haley and our eyes met, we both couldn''t help looking away awkwardly.

    ¡­

    The next morning, I was justzing around in my room when Shaka suddenly appeared.

    He had disappearedst night, saying that he was going to check on the Crow Gang who had been captured. He was gone all night, so while I didn''t know what had happened, I was certain that something big must have happened.

    When he came in, he came over to me and said, "The master wants to see you."

    I was taken aback when I heard this, but I gave a nod in response since I had the time now.

    After all, there was nowhere that we would be able to go right now.

    Haley had just been rescued, but it wasn''t as if she was in any condition to head out now. Not to mention, I wasn''t in any condition to leave her like this by herself during this time.

    Right now, Haley was staying in another room that we rented with Jessica and Nicole taking care of her in turns.

    We nned on staying another week for her to recover before heading out to my town.

    So during this time, we didn''t have anything else to do.

    The two of us left the inn together without anyone following us.

    Jessica had wanted toe along, but I stopped her in the end.

    I didn''t know what the noble wanted, but I knew that he was someone who liked his privacy. That was why he had gone through all that trouble to invite me alone that day at the count''s manor.

    Plus, I could tell that there wasn''t any hostilitying from Shaka, so it should be fine.

    While Nicole and Jessica weren''t assured after hearing this, they still had to follow my orders as the baron.

    So once again, I appeared in front of that manor in the ill reputed area.

 Chapter 132 Spies (2)

    Standing in front of this manor, I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile.

    After all, it was this ce where my fate had changed.

    If it wasn''t for the noble sending Shaka and his men toe help me, who knows what would have happened when Haley was kidnapped.

    At the same time, it was also because of them that I was able to finish the side quest.

    That was right, after Haley was rescued yesterday, the side quest showed that it had been finished. The reward had also been released, but I had been too tired to look at it.

    I had been nning on seeing what the reward was today, but Shaka had interrupted before I could and now I was here.

    Back in this ce where it all began.

    As we stood by the door, Shaka knocked on it. However, I could hear that there was a special pattern to the knock that he gave.

    In no time at all, the butler from before appeared and let us in without a word.

    This time, the butler didn''t lead the way and instead let Shaka go in by himself. I was surprised by this, but I still followed Shaka in.

    As we were going in, I felt like there was someone staring at me from behind. But when I turned around to look, I found that the butler was already gone.

    I slightly knitted my brows when I saw this¡­since I felt something off about this gaze. It was as if there was some kind of hostility behind it.

    Seeing that I wasn''t moving, Shaka turned around to ask, "What''s wrong?"

    I was pulled out of my thoughts by his voice. I shook my head and said, "Nothing."

    Shaka looked at me with one brow raised, but he didn''t ask anything else. He just turned back and walked forward down the hall.

    I followed him with slightly knitted brows, but I shook all those thoughts out in the end.

    I knew that I couldn''t be distracted when meeting the person I was about to meet. I had to keep a sharp mind so I would be able to react to anything that he did.

    Shaka led me to the same door as before and when he pushed it open, I saw that the same noble was sitting there with a piece of paper in his hand.

    He turned to look at us when he heard the sound of the door opening.

    Seeing that it was the two of us, he revealed a smile and waved for us toe over to sit in front of him.

    Shaka didn''t hesitate to walk over, but he didn''t sit down like the noble indicated. Instead, Shaka just stood behind the noble, as if he was guarding him.

    That just left me, who was awkwardly standing there.

    But I couldn''t just keep standing there with the way that the noble was waving at me, so I walked over and sat down in front of him.

    After sitting down, the noble picked up the pot of tea in front of him and poured a cup for me that he ced in front of me. Then he pushed a te of cookies that were on the side over in front of me before sitting back and looking at me with a smile.

    It was very strange the way that he acted¡­almost as if he was trying to be overly friendly¡­

    So in the end, I couldn''t help asking, "Is something wrong?"

    The noble shook his head as he said, "No, nothing''s wrong. In fact, everything''s very good because you did a very good job. I really didn''t expect the results that you would yield and I can say that I''m very pleasantly surprised."

    I felt very strange receiving all this praise from him, but I just gave a nod in response.

    After seeing this, the noble continued, "Your talent and luck really is something amazing, so I rmended you for a special position?"

    "Special position?" I repeated back in a soft voice.

    The noble said with a nod, "It''s a very special position that I''m sure you''ll take since the benefits thate from it are things that you just can''t turn down."

    I didn''t think the same and it was clear by the look on my face, but I still asked, "What is the special position?"

    The noble didn''t answer this question right away as he said, "You might know me as Baron Trello, but that isn''t actually who I really am."

    When he said this, he was also carefully looking at my face.

    It was then that he saw a trace of confusion in my eyes, as if I didn''t know what he was talking about.

    Seeing this, the noble raised a brow and asked, "Did you not know who I am?"

    An awkward smile slowly creeped onto my face when I heard this question. After all, I really didn''t know who he was.

    I only knew that he was one of the nobles that had been there when I met the count, but I didn''t know anything about his identity.

    So I just gave a slow nod in response.

    The noble looked at me with a strange look, as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. When he determined that I was indeed being serious, he suddenly burst out intoughter.

    To the side, Shaka also revealed a faint smile on his stoic face.

    The awkward look on my face just became even more awkward as theyughed at me.

    Finally afterughing for a while, the noble calmed down and looked at me with an interested smile. He wiped a tear from his eye before saying, "I''m sorry, I couldn''t help myself just now. You really are an unexpected person."

    Hearing him say that didn''t really make me feel better.

    The noble continued by saying, "It seems like you''re someone who only cares about the big fish. You''re someone that cares about the big picture."

    The look on my face turned awkward again when I heard this since I knew that this wasn''t the case.

    I wasn''t someone that cared about big fish or the big picture, I was someone that only cared about my tiny world.

    During this time, my one task was to get enough food and supplies for our town and nothing else, so I had only paid attention to that. As for the other nobles of the town, other than the count, there was no need for me to learn more about the barons.

    Especially since knowing more nobles meant getting in more trouble.

    Connections with nobles usually led to trouble one way or another, so I wanted to avoid that by just staying in my own little world until I had to socialize with others.

    The noble continued by giving another appreciative nod before saying, "I need someone with your luck and your intelligence on my team. I want you to join us."

    "Join you?" I asked immediately before adding, "Just who is this you that you''re talking about?"

    "I want you to join Shadow Garden, the organization that I work for." The noble said.

 Chapter 133 Spies (3)

    "Shadow Garden?" I repeated before asking in a confused voice, "What is that?"

    The noble raised a brow when he heard this before saying, "You don''t even know what the Shadow Garden is? What kind of things have they been teaching you when you became a noble?"

    I had a confused look when I heard this.

    He was speaking in such a confident voice, as if I should have recognized what he said the moment that I heard it.

    But I really had never heard of this thing before, even back when I had been ying the game, I hadn''t heard anything about this Shadow Garden before.

    That was until I suddenly remembered a tiny bit of lore that I read.

    It was a part of a random drop that I had found and there was only a tiny passage about it, but Shadow Garden was supposedly a spy organization that reported directly to the king. This was an organization that had arge influence in the kingdom and could even be considered the secret police with how much power they had.

    But like any other organization that had too much power, they had been destroyed because of a power struggle.

    After it had been destroyed, all traces of it had been erased because the nobles didn''t want something like Shadow Garden rising up ever again.

    So Shadow Garden was forgotten in time and was considered a taboo in the kingdom.

    If I remember correctly, the year that it was destroyed was the year 643 and currently it was the year 641¡­

    That meant that in just two years, this Shadow Garden organization would be destroyed¡­

    No matter how you looked at it, this was a hot potato.

    If I joined Shadow Garden, there was no doubt that I would be caught up in the organization''s internal struggles. Moreover, with how much power was at this organization''s disposal, there was no doubt that this would be a one way trip into an early grave.

    This was not something that I could join, especially since I had no idea what even happened to the Shadow Garden.

    As far as I remembered, there wasn''t a single storyline route that was rted to Shadow Garden in the game. This was only a name that had been mentioned in an obscure drop from one of the side quests.

    So I had no information going into this!

    I wouldn''t throw my life away like this!

    Seeing the look of recognition on my face, the noble revealed a faint smile as he waited for me to speak.

    The look on his face made it clear that he thought that I had just been joking and that I had been pretending not to know so that I would have an advantage in the negotiations.

    But what I said next caught himpletely off guard.

    "Thank you for your goodwill, but I have no intentions of joining Shadow Garden. If that is all, I will be leaving today. I want to thank you for your help and I hope that we can meet again in the future." After saying this in the most polite voice that I can use, I quickly stood up and was about to make my way to the door.

    But before I could even take a few steps, Shaka suddenly moved to block me from going any further.

    My body immediately tensed up when I saw this, but I didn''t keep pushing forward. I looked up at Shaka and asked, "Is there a problem?"

    Shake didn''t say a thing as he turned to look at the noble, but he also made sure that I wouldn''t be able to take a single step forward.

    There was an awkward silence that filled the air for a few seconds before the noble suddenly burst out inughter. This time, theughter wasn''t as innocent as before and I could hear a bit of a dark undertone to it.

    The nobleughed for some time before saying, "I think I just misheard what you said. Did you just say that you weren''t interested in joining Shadow Garden?"

    As he said this, he turned to look at me.

    He had the same expression on his face, but I could see that there was a bit of a dim glow in his eyes.

    I knew that this was far from over.

    But still, I calmly said, "Yes, I don''t have any interest in joining Shadow Garden. I am just a simple baron who is in charge of a simple town on the edge of the kingdom, I am not someone who wants fame and fortune. All I want is to live a simple life."

    Though I said this in a calm voice, I did make sure that the determination in my voice got across to the noble.

    The noble narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he was inspecting me before finally saying in a deep voice, "Sit."

    The tone of his voice made it clear that he brokered no argument and there was only a single choice in front of me. I could either sit, or¡­

    I didn''t know how far he would take this, but I wasn''t willing to find out, so I went forward and sat back down in front of him.

    The noble looked at me and said, "You''re someone that has caught my attention, few people can do that. If I say that you have the talent to join Shadow Garden, I mean it." He had said this part in a somewhat cheery voice, but then his voice turned darker as he said, "But those talents are dangerous if they are allowed to wander out there, so if you don''t join Shadow Garden, there is always the chance that your abilities will be used against us. That is not something that I can allow to happen."

    I knitted my brows when I heard this, but I quickly rxed them and said, "I really have no intentions of getting involved in anything outside of my territory. All I want to do is live a simple life taking care of my people."

    The noble gave a snort when he heard this that made it clear that he wasn''t going to give up.

    But no matter what he said, I was firmly against joining Shadow Garden.

    Joining a ship that I already knew was doomed to fail?

    That was like asking me to jump onto the Titanic on its maiden voyage!

    I would never ept a ride on this kind of risky ship and put the people that I cared about in danger.

    So for now, I had to figure out a way out of this.

    If I could even dy my answer for a bit, it would still be better than nothing.

    It was just too bad that the noble wouldn''t even give me that option.

    He already had a n in mind and he was putting it into action.

    Seeing that I had once again deflected his threat, the noble gave a sigh and said, "It seems like we have no choice but to use other methods topel you."

    "Other methods?" I repeated as a chill ran down my spine.

 Chapter 134 Spies (4)

    The noble gave a nod before saying, "It''s very simple, you can either join on your free will or you can join through other means."

    I slowly asked, "What do you mean by other means?"

    After a pause where neither of us spoke, I suddenly said, "If you''re nning on threatening the people that I care about¡­"

    Before I could finish, the noble suddenly raised his hand to cut me off before saying, "Do you really think that we''re that brutish? Do you really think that we would have to resort to violence so quickly?"

    I was surprised when I heard this, but I was also relieved.

    It was just too bad that before I could even let out a sigh of relief, the noble said, "We have morepelling methods than that. Violence is only used by brutes who don''t have any intelligence at all. Do you really think that we would use such a foolish method?"

    I once again felt a chill run down my spine when he said this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited to see what else he had to say.

    The noble looked at me with a smile that could be considered friendly, but that smile didn''t reach his eyes at all. He just looked at me with those eyes that seemed as empty as the void.

    Then the noble said, "You should know what kind of influence the Shadow Garden organization has, right? It would be more than easy enough for us to take care of you with just a few orders to our subordinates."

    I didn''t know exactly how strong Shadow Garden was, but this was an organization that directly reported to the king and was erased from history when it was destroyed. That was a testament of its power.

    So I gave a gulp and a nod.

    Seeing this, the noble''s eyes rxed a bit before he said in an almost teasing voice, "Of course, if you really want, I could just get the king to send down a decree for you that orders you to join Shadow Garden."

    I trembled when I heard this and I looked at the noble to see if he was joking or not.

    He wasn''t¡­

    It was at that moment that I realized¡­that I had no choice to begin with.

    From the beginning, he had already nned on making me his subordinate and he hadn''t nned on taking no for an answer¡­

    He had already nned for everything that I might have said, so from the very beginning, I was trapped from the moment that I came to this ce.

    In the end, I could only reveal a bitter smile as I looked back at the noble.

    He could see that I understood, so he said with a teasing smile, "So, what do you say?"

    I just gave a bitter chuckle before saying, "Do I get to say anything?"

    The noble shook his head and said, "Nope."

    With a sigh, I said, "Alright, I give up."

    The noble said with a smile and a nod, "It''s good that you can ept this defeat."

    I just looked at him with the same bitter smile without saying a thing.

    The noble gave a nod to Shaka who went over to the side to bring a package over. Shaka came over to where I was sitting and he put the package right in front of me before heading back to the noble''s side.

    As he moved away, I looked at him with a gaze that was filled with me, but hepletely ignored it.

    I''m sure that I was imagining it, but it was almost as if there was a trace of schadenfreude that was in his eyes¡­

    No, I had to be imagining it.

    After he put down this package in front of me, I looked carefully at it to find that it was a bunch of papers, along with a token.

    I looked over it and it was an actual introductory package to the Shadow Garden organization. There was a lot of information that made it clear that this was something that was only given to a member, such as the organization of the groups.

    In the Shadow Garden organization, there were six different directors that were in charge of various groups under them.

    With this kind of division, it was no wonder there was an internal power struggle that caused Shadow Garden to copse.

    When I finished reading the package, I looked up and asked, "So who am I going to be ced under?"

    The noble revealed a faint smile and said, "Naturally you''ll be under me since I''m the one that discovered you. Is there a problem?"

    I looked at the noble and asked, "You''re a squad leader? And I''ll be a part of your squad?"

    The noble''s smile became wider as he said, "Did you really think that I was just a squad leader? I''ll have you know that I''m one of the six directors."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this before asking, "Are you sure?"

    At this, Shaka couldn''t help giving a chuckle when he heard this.

    When he heard this, the noble immediately red at Shaka who quickly revealed a stone cold expression on his face.

    The noble then looked at me and said, "Yes, I''m one of the six directors and you''ll be a squad leader under me."

    "Squad leader?" I said with a shocked voice.

    The noble gave a nod before saying, "That''s right. You''ll be taking Shaka''s ce as the leader of his squad and he will be your vice squad leader. In reality though, Shaka will run the squad and you''ll just have that title so you have a title."

    Shaka slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but then they rxed as he remembered what had happened earlier. With the strange things that Zwein had pulled out, it wasn''t strange that he would be made a squad leader.

    He was certain that the noble had his own thoughts.

    I still couldn''t help revealing a doubtful look, while also paying attention to Shaka''s reaction out of the corner of my eyes.

    I was surprised to find that he didn''t have a reaction at all since no matter how you looked at it, this was considered a demotion. I had just joined the organization and I was promoted to be his superior, so there should have been some kind of bitterness towards me.

    But there was nothing at all.

    There was only a calm look that was on Shaka''s face when he faced this news.

    The noble just ignored the look on my face and said, "So, the first thing that we have to do now ise up with a codename for you. You already know Shaka''s codename, which is just Shaka and my codename is Scar, don''t ask why. So what codename should we give you?"

    My lips couldn''t help twitching when I heard this¡­

    There should have been much more important things to discuss, but they wanted to discuss this?

    I couldn''t help asking, "What will my assignment be?"

    Scar was surprised to hear this, but he said, "Most members don''t have assignments on a usual basis and are allowed to do what they would normally do. But there will be assignments that wille to you, so you can just wait for those."

    The look on my face became bitter when I heard this¡­

    Just what was this organization that was so rxed even though it had so much power?

    As expected of an organization that fell to internal struggles¡­

    It seemed like I really needed to find a way out of this organization still.

    Shaka suddenly said, "We already have the perfect codename for him."

    Both of us looked at Shaka with a surprised and confused look as he stood there without saying a thing.

    Then once again, he suddenly said, "Remember his weapon?"

    Scar thought about it for a bit before suddenly revealing a look of understanding and enlightenment. He revealed a wide smile as he pped his fist in his hand and said, "That''s right, there was that!"

    I still had a confused look on my face when I heard this, so I asked, "What about my weapon?"

    "Big Purple, that will be your codename." Scar said with a wide smile.

    The moment that I heard this, I really wanted to dig a hole and hide myself in it.

    This was without a doubt thest nickname that I wanted¡­

    But the look on their faces seemed like they had already decided on this¡­

 Chapter 135 The Penetrator

    After joining the Shadow Garden organization, nothing really changed with my life.

    The only difference now was that I had a new token that represented my status and that Shaka was going to follow me back to my territory along with his men.

    Since I had be their group''s squad leader, they would now serve under me in my territory.

    This wasn''t something that I was against since all of Shaka''s men and Shaka himself were skilled operatives. They would definitely help improve the defenses of our territory, so there was no reason to not ept them.

    The only thing that I had a problem with was¡­

    "Big Purple!"

    That was how Shaka had introduced me to the men and that was the name that had stuck since it had been officially set as my codename.

    As for meeting them, they epted me right away.

    ording to them, they had seen my courage when I faced Rock head on and they had been impressed by that, which was why they had epted me as their new squad leader so quickly.

    So with this, they all agreed toe to my territory and serve as the spy force.

    But before that, we still had to wait another few days before heading off.

    Haley had gotten better and she had wanted to leave on the third day, but her employees and I didn''t let her go.

    So in the end, we waited the full week before heading off.

    The trip itself was also very boring since there was nothing that happened on the way.

    With how many guards there were for this caravan, only a fool bandit would attack it in the first ce. Especially with how well armed these guards were, showing that they could only be the guards of nobles.

    No one was willing to mess with nobles just for a little bit of benefit.

    During the time that they were traveling, there was an interesting question that had been asked by Jessica.

    Since the fight with the Crow Gang, she had been acting strange around Zwein.

    It wasn''t just the way that she looked at him, but also the questions that she asked him.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and asked, "What do you want?"

    Jessica was surprised when she heard me ask this, but she just as quickly asked, "Can I use that strange purple sword again?"

    When she asked me this, I couldn''t help revealing a strange look as I asked, "Why do you want it?"

    She immediately replied, "That''s a magic weapon, who wouldn''t want to be able to use a magic weapon! That is something that I could never evene close to affording even if I saved all the money that I made in my entire life! Just once more is enough for me!"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard her say this.

    But in the end, I didn''t give it to her since¡­I knew that she wouldn''t be able to control it.

    Even if she grabbed my feet and begged for the chance, I still firmly rejected her request.

    That was because the strange purple sword was just too dangerous.

    Its real name was The Prator, a famous meme dildo bat from a certain video game series in my past life.

    But in this life, it was a very dangerous weapon in my eyes because I could see the stats that it had.

    As the name suggested, this dildo bat had the ability to prate through an enemy''s defenses, or the defenses of whatever it hit regardless of if it was an enemy or not.

    As for the pration amount¡­it was 99%!

    This was an amount that was terrifying because it basically meant that as long as one was strong enough, there was nothing in this world that could resist their attacks. Even if they weren''t strong, they could still destroy the defenses of most trained professionals if theynded a blow.

    After all, a 99% decrease in defense was enough to destroy most people''s defenses.

    If she wasn''t careful while swinging this sword around¡­there would be destruction all around them.

    This would without a doubt affect their caravan sincerge holes appearing and trees falling would cause dys.

    So I firmly rejected this.

    As for the only way to repel the attacks of The Prator, it was to have absolute defense which was even rarer than 99% pration or they had to have defense strong enough to resist a 99% decrease.

    Both of these scenarios were rare, so I firmly believed that with this weapon, I could be considered almost invincible in this world.

    That is if I was good enough to use it.

    In my hands, it was unwieldy and hard to swing. If it wasn''t for Rock being overconfident and falling into my trap in the end, I definitely wouldn''t have hit him.

    The rest of this journey was spent listening to Jessica beg for a turn with the strange purple sword and learning more about Haley and herpany.

    I had actually learned quite a bit about them, especially about the mistakes that Haley made.

    To my surprise, I found that the employees really liked teasing Haley. So they told me about all her embarrassing stories with just a bit of prodding.

    But this was clearly a good workce since the boss could blend so naturally with her employees. I really felt even more respect for Haley.

    Shaka and the rest of his group wereingter.

    The original n was to have theme with us, but since they decided to relocate to the town, they wouldeter. They had things that they needed to wrap up in the city before relocating over to my town.

    I didn''t mind this since I had faith in Shaka and left him with a letter that he could show the guards when he arrived at my town.

    When we arrived in the town, we were greeted by people who came to see themotion.

    When they saw that it was me bringing in food and supplies, they all broke out in cheers and started celebrating.

    It was clear that these people had developed a trust in me¡­one that I didn''t understand.

    But still, it made me happy seeing them like this.

    It made me feel that everything I had done in the city was worth it.

 Chapter 136 First Meeting (1)

    I left the caravans filled with goods to the guards and workers sent by Baroness Rose to take care of as I headed off to the manor.

    Following me was Nicole, Jessica, and Haley.

    Haley was here as the representative of herpany, so while the rest of her employees were working, she went to go greet the lord that was Baroness Rose.

    As we were heading over to the manor, Haley couldn''t help revealing a nervous look.

    At the same time, she looked at me as if she wanted to ask something. So I turned to her and asked, "Is something wrong?"

    Haley hesitated a bit before asking, "What''s the baroness like? Is she strict or is she easy going? Is she¡­"

    She started asking me all kinds of things about Baroness Rose. However, I couldn''t help finding it funny since the one that she was asking this was me, the baron.

    In the end, I couldn''t help teasing her by saying, "You''re this nervous about meeting the baroness and you''re this casual around me, how should I feel about that?"

    Haley was confused for a second before suddenly remembering that I was the baron, Baroness Rose''s husband.

    She opened her mouth a few times and stammered a bit, but she wasn''t able to say anything in the end. After taking a while to recover, she finally said, "Your lordship, I didn''t mean anything by¡­"

    Before she could finish though, I raised my hand to cut her off.

    She just stared at me with a trace of concern in my voice.

    I teased her a bit by looking at her with a serious look, but I couldn''t keep that up long before revealing a smile on my face and saying, "You don''t need to act so serious with me and you don''t need to act so seriously with Roseter."

    Haley was caught off guard since she had interacted with nobles before and not a single one had treated her with this kind of familiarity.

    Most of them looked down on her because of her status as amoner, though a few had ignored that with their lewd looks which she didn''t enjoy.

    This was the first time that she had been treated like an equal by a noble like this.

    Seeing the smile on Zwein''s face, Haley couldn''t help revealing a blush before lowering her head to give a nod.

    I didn''t understand what the blush was about, but I didn''t think too deeply into it.

    Our group just continued on our way to the manor.

    When we arrived, the maids immediately let us in and brought us to the reception room.

    Along the way, the maids asked me all kinds of questions about what the city was like.

    In a medieval world like this, it was impossible for maids like this to travel far from where they worked. Not to mention that most of these maids were second or third daughters who had been hired from the farms nearby, so they had never gone outside of this town in the first ce.

    It wasn''t strange that they would be curious about the city.

    I answered the questions as best as I could, but there just wasn''t enough time for me to answer everything as we were shown to the reception room.

    Since we had arrived, the maids couldn''t keep asking me more questions about the city and went to do their jobs. It didn''t take them long to prepare the tea and snacks for us before going to get Baroness Rose.

    With how skilled they were, I could see that they had been well trained while I was away.

    At the same time, it didn''t take long for Baroness Rose to arrive.

    The moment that she entered the room, she became the center of attention.

    With how beautiful she was, it was hard for her not to be the center of attention.

    But I couldn''t help feeling that she was looking even more beautiful than before.

    Well it wasn''t that strange since her brows were no longer as knitted as before and she had a smile on her beautiful face. Matching the sunlight that came in from the window, it was almost as if she was glowing with her bright red hair.

    She walked in elegantly and looked over the room, letting her eyes stop for a moment as they fell onto Haley.

    When Haley felt this gaze fall onto her, she couldn''t help lowering her head from the pressure that came from Baroness Rose.

    She had faced many nobles before, but there wasn''t a single one who had the same aura as Baroness Rose.

    She couldn''t help feeling that this was a true noble and the ones that she had met before were all fakes.

    As Baroness Rose''s eyes were on Haley, she narrowed them a bit as if she was inspecting her. But in the end, she turned her eyes away to look at Zwein.

    The moment that her eyes fell onto me, I could see the change in them.

    They went from stern and elegant to the look that a girl would have when she saw her lover.

    In fact, without caring about everyone else who were in the room with us, Baroness Rose just ran over to me and threw herself in my arms.

    I was caught off guard by this sudden change, but I was still able to react in time to catch her. Then when I was holding her in my arms, she said in a coquettish voice, "Honey, you''re finally home."

    I couldn''t help being taken aback again when I heard this.

    After all, this was the first time that she had called me "honey".

    While I was in a daze, she suddenly came up so that she was right in front of my face and gave me a kiss without any warning.

    She didn''t hold back at all as she kissed me, sticking her tongue in, moving her hands, she did almost everything that she could to make it seem intimate.

    But that just made everyone else in the room feel awkward¡­

 Chapter 137 First Meeting (2)

    Maybe it was fine with Nicole and Jessica since they were our subordinates, but it was definitely awkward doing it in front of Haley who was here as a guest.

    Haley also felt very awkward sitting there as she didn''t know where to look.

    She was surprised that Baroness Rose would do something like this, but she didn''t find it strange.

    After all, the two of them were married and this was what married couples did¡­or at least that was what she had heard. She had never experienced it herself with her ex-husband.

    Speaking of which, she was now formally divorced from Alex after having submitted the paperwork, so she could call him her ex-husband.

    After a long kiss, Baroness Rose finally moved her face away and let me catch my breath.

    I looked at her with a very strange look, but she just looked back at me with that smile of hers. Seeing that cute smile of hers, I couldn''t stay shocked or angry, so I just patted her on the head and said, "I''m back."

    She gave a nod in response before sitting down beside me.

    Then she turned to look at Haley who was sitting there with a blush on her face.

    When Haley saw her looking over, she gave a cough and cleared her throat before saying, "Yourdyship, it is a pleasure to meet you."

    Baroness Rose gave a slight nod which worried Haley, but she tried to keep her calm as she said, "I want to thank you for doing business with ourpany. I hope that everything has been satisfactory so far."

    Baroness Rose gave another slight nod which then caused the room to fall into silence.

    Haley wanted to say something else to relieve this awkwardness, but there wasn''t anything else that she could say.

    So there was just that awkward silence that filled the room as they sat there.

    It was finally broken in the end when Baroness Rose said, "So, you''re the one that he saved."

    When we heard this, all of us couldn''t help trembling from the surprise that we felt.

    I turned to look over at Baroness Rose, but I found that her eyes were on Haley the entire time. With how her eyes were narrowed and focused, it was almost as if she was trying to gauge Haley''s expression.

    Haley just lowered her head again out of awkwardness and she didn''t know what to do here.

    I was about to help by saying something, but Baroness Rose looked at me and red me down. So all I could do was sit there and wait to see what she was nning.

    I knew her and I knew that she wouldn''t bully Haley like this for no reason. So I waited and watched to see what she had nned.

    Nicole and Jessica also sat there awkwardly, but that was for a different reason.

    They were scared that if Baroness Rose knew about me being in danger with the Crow Gang, she would take it out on them. She had known that Haley had been saved, so it was a good guess that she already knew most things that happened in the city.

    But there was one thing that bothered all three of us.

    Just who had been the one that bbed?

    Not a single one of us knew that¡­it was the driver who had been with us the entire time.

    He had been so silent that we had forgotten all about him even though he drove us back.

    He had been under Baroness Rose''s secret orders to report everything that happened in the city, so he had been diligently sending back messenger birds daily to report on what happened. So Baroness Rose did indeed know about most of what happened, there were just some minor details that she didn''t know about.

    She didn''t do this because she was afraid that he would fail, but rather she did this out of love.

    If something happened to him, she wanted to be the first to know so she could send help.

    At the same time, if someone got close to him¡­she wanted to be the first to know so she could deal with that person.

    Which was what led to this current situation.

    Baroness Rose knew something about Haley that even she didn''t recognize herself, which was why she was making this awkward for her.

    After a long silence, Haley finally gave a nod and said, "Yes. I apologize for bringing your husband into my matters, but it was because of him that I was able to escape from my predicament safely. I hope that I will be able to repay you for this grace one day."

    Baroness Rose didn''t say anything after hearing this from Haley, she just calmly looked at her as if she was appraising her.

    Then all of sudden, Baroness Rose asked, "How big is your business in ndal City?"

    Haley couldn''t help being taken aback when she heard this, but she still gave the information that she thought Baroness Rose wanted.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    That was because this information was much more detailed than the information that Nicole had provided me.

    If my guess was correct, this should be information that only employees of Haley''spany knew.

    I looked at her, but she just shook her head to me as if she was saying that it was fine.

    I revealed aplicated look, but I decided to trust Baroness Rose and didn''t say a thing.

    Once she was done listening, Baroness Rose asked, "It shouldn''t be a problem for you to create a branch of yourpany in our town, right?"

    Haley was caught off guard hearing this since she never expected this to be where it all led, but she quickly gave a nod in response and said, "It''s not a problem at all."

    Baroness Rose gave a nod in response before saying something that caught everyone off guard, "You like him, don''t you?"

 Chapter 138 First Meeting (3)

    There was a silence that filled the room as everyone turned to look at Baroness Rose with a strange look.

    It was a look that was filled with surprise, doubt, and confusion.

    Not a single one of them could understand why she had suddenly asked this, though they did know who she was talking about.

    Haley''s face immediately turned red when she was asked this question and she lowered her head to hide her embarrassment.

    After taking a while to calm down, she looked up and opened her mouth, but there wasn''t a single word that came out. The only thing that she could do was just open and close her mouth again and again, not saying a single word in the end.

    The silence continued in the room as no one knew what to do in this situation.

    But in the end, Haley took a deep breath before saying, "I do."

    When I heard this, my face couldn''t help turning red.

    This was my first time being confessed to like this, so of course it was an awkward feeling for me.

    But that didn''t mean that I was against it.

    The only problem was¡­I was already married. I knew that I was already pushing it when it came to Cecilia, but now that there was another woman as well¡­I didn''t know what Rose would think, but I knew that it wouldn''t be good.

    So I just remained silent and carefully watched Baroness Rose''s face.

    She just had a calm look on it as she looked at Haley who looked like she was about to fall over at any moment.

    After a long pause, she finally said, "Alright, then create a branch in this town and move here. That way, you can properly support him with us."

    As soon as her voice fell, all of us looked at her with shocked expressions.

    We just looked at her like we couldn''t understand what she was saying even though she had said it clearly.

    Seeing the look on my face, Baroness Rose turned to me and said, "I already told you that I was fine with you having concubines."

    I couldn''t help shuddering when I heard this, but then she came closer to say, "As long as you keep me as your number one. If you ever dare to abandon me, then you should know that my wrath won''t be light."

    I once again shuddered when I heard this, but it wasn''t out of excitement this time. Instead, there was a chill that ran down my spine the moment that I heard Baroness Rose say this.

    With what I knew about her, I knew that she wasn''t joking when she said this.

    But of course, I would never do something like that.

    With how she had treated me, I would rather die than give her up, so I would never abandon her like she said.

    So after being in a slight daze, I gave a nod in response to what she said.

    Baroness Rose looked at me with a sweet smile.

    The two of us just hugged each other for a bit before she turned her head back to Haley who was still sitting there in a daze.

    She looked at Baroness Rose like she didn''t know if she was being serious or not, but Baroness Rose then asked, "So does that mean that you don''t want to?"

    When Haley heard this, she jolted back to her senses and said, "I didn''t say that!"

    She took a moment to sort out her thoughts before asking, "Yourdyship, are you really alright with your husband taking concubines like this? Aren''t you the one that holds the title? Wouldn''t this hurt your reputation?"

    Baroness Rose just said with a sweet smile, "Does that matter? As long as he is happy, it doesn''t matter if there''s a small stain on my reputation."

    I also couldn''t help worrying when I heard this, but Baroness Rose looked at me and shook her head before mouthing, "It''s fine."

    I didn''t know what ns she had, but I was sure that she had already prepared for this.

    So I just remained quiet and waited to see what happened.

    Haley looked at Baroness Rose as if she was trying to figure out if she was telling the truth or not, but Baroness Rose just looked right at Haley without turning away.

    After a long silence, Haley finally asked, "Yourdyship¡­"

    Before she could say anything else, Baroness Rose suddenly raised her hand to cut her off. The moment she saw this, her mouth immediately closed and she swallowed her words as she waited for Baroness Rose to speak.

    Baroness Rose just simply said, "You don''t need to call me that, you can just call me big sister Rose. Since we''re both going to be married to Zwein, I''ll be like your big sister."

    Haley revealed another shocked look as a look of disbelief appeared on her face.

    She just looked at Baroness Rose with that same look of disbelief, as if she was trying to figure out if she was kidding or not.

    However, Baroness Rose just kept looking at her with a straight face.

    So Haley gave a gulp and said, "Big¡­Big Sister Rose."

    When Baroness Rose heard this, she gave a satisfied nod before saying, "Yes, what is it?"

    Haley took a deep breath before asking, "Are you sure that you want to share your husband like this? Wouldn''t it be wronging you to do something like this?"

    The reason she asked this wasn''t because she couldn''t ept polygamy, but rather because she felt that this would aggrieved Baroness Rose as the title holder.

    Baroness Rose revealed a faint smile before saying, "I know how excellent my husband is, so I know that there will be those who won''t be able to resist. I also want to gather those who can truly understand how excellent my husband is, so that we can properly support him. Does that answer your question?"

    For an outsider, they wouldn''t be able to understand her answer, but Haley revealed a look of understanding as soon as she heard this.

    After all, she had indeed seen the excellence of Zwein that Baroness Rose spoke of.

    So after thinking about it for a bit, she gave a nod and said, "Big Sister Rose, I''ll do it."

 Chapter 139 First Meeting (4)

    Once Baroness Rose heard this, she stood up with a happy smile and walked over to Haley.

    Haley was surprised by this and was a bit scared of what woulde, but she still calmly sat there and waited to see what Baroness Rose would do.

    However, she was caught off guard by what Baroness Rose actually did.

    Baroness Rose came right up to her and¡­took her in her arms, pulling her into a hug. She said with the same smile, "I''ve always wanted a little sister."

    Haley''s eyes opened wide in shock when she felt this, but she couldn''t help letting herself be pulled into her embrace. That was because this kind of soft and gentle embrace was not something that she had experienced before, even from her actual family.

    Her parents had never been advocates of soft love.

    So while they did praise her for her achievements, they had never done things like hugging before.

    So this was the first hug that she was receiving.

    No, she did receive a hug from Zwein before, but the feeling of this hug was different from that.

    That hug¡­was special. But that didn''t mean that this hug wasn''t special in its own way.

    It wasn''t a bad feeling as she let her body rx in Baroness Rose''s embrace.

    Finally, she said, "I''ve always wanted a big sister too."

    Baroness Rose revealed a happy smile before she started chatting with Haley.

    I just sat there with a smile on my face as I watched all of this. After all, I was happy to see that the two of them were getting along so well like this.

    To the side, Nicole and Jessica couldn''t help revealing a slightly envious look since they too wanted this to happen to them. But they knew to keep this to themselves since they didn''t have the same things to offer as Haley did.

    After the two of them talked for a bit, Baroness Rose stood up again and walked back to where I was sitting. She sat back down and turned to Nicole and Jessica to say, "You two did a good job. Keep it up and we''ll have something to talk about."

    When the two of them heard this, they couldn''t help revealing surprised looks, but there was also a trace of hope in their eyes.

    I also understood what she meant by this and I couldn''t help looking at her with a purely surprised look.

    Baroness Rose just looked at me with a faint smile and didn''t say anything else.

    I hadn''t even mentioned anything about this before and she was already looking for more girls for me¡­

    I really didn''t know what to say in response to this.

    Once that had been settled, Baroness Rose didn''t bother asking about the trip and instead said to Haley, "It''s not the right time to have a proper talk yet, so let''s have dinner together. I''m sure that you want to go back and take care of your employees first, right?"

    Haley gave a nod in response to this.

    Since there was nothing else to discuss, she did want to get back to her employees to make sure that everything was done correctly and that there wasn''t any trouble with the locals.

    These kinds of things had happened before, so she was worried about this.

    Baroness Rose gave a nod too before saying, "You can go."

    She turned to Nicole and Jessica to say, "You two can lead her there."

    All three of them stood up after receiving their orders and they headed out, leaving the two of us alone in the room.

    Once they were all gone, Baroness Rose suddenly came over to me and entered my embrace.

    The two of us just sat there like this without saying a word, cuddling with each other.

    Then she suddenly said, "I missed you."

    I looked down at her and said, "I missed you too."

    There was nothing else to say after that, I just leaned forward over her lips and ced a gentle kiss on them.

    For the rest of the morning and afternoon, the two of us just spent our time together in the room.

    It wasn''t that we were doing what one would think, there were ways to connect other than physical.

    We mainly just cuddled and talked about everything that happened in the city.

    When dinner came, we had no choice but to get up since there was an appointment that we needed to keep.

    When we arrived in the dining hall, we found that Haley and Cecilia were already both there waiting for us.

    Just like with Baroness Rose, the moment that Cecilia saw me, she got up and ran over to hug me.

    She hadn''t been here this morning and afternoon since she was on a training trip with her men, but now that she was back and saw me, she didn''t hold back at all.

    Haley couldn''t help being surprised since she had only heard that Baroness Rose was the wife, she never knew that there was already another concubine before her.

    I just revealed a happy smile and patted Cecilia on the head, letting her just hug me like that.

    Once she was done, she gave a cough and stood back up with a calm look on her face as she said, "I missed you."

    I said with a smile, "I missed you too."

    We all settled down to eat and that was when Haley was introduced to Cecilia.

    While she was surprised, she was also relieved.

    She had thought that she would be the only concubine, which would make it worse for her. But since Cecilia was already there setting a precedent for her, it made her position much easier for her to handle.

    Cecilia also quickly took to Haley as well.

    Haley as a merchant was very sociable and she was able to quickly win over Cecilia.

    By the end of it, she was also calling Cecilia big sister.

    The four of us enjoyed a happy meal together and when it was over, we were all satisfied.

    However, the entertainment was far from over just yet.

 Chapter 140 First Time (1)

    When we finished, I assumed that we would just have a little chat before turning in to bed.

    But that wasn''t what Baroness Rose had in mind.

    She suddenly said, "Alright, so you two should go to the bedroom now."

    The moment that she said this, the entire room fell silent as everyone looked at her with shocked looks.

    The words that came from her mouth could be understood, but no one could understand what she meant by these words.

    After a long pause, I finally asked in a stammering voice, "What, what did you just say?"

    Baroness Rose just looked right at me with a smile on her face as she said, "It''s time for you two to go into the bedroom."

    Once again, there was an awkward silence that followed.

    Now that she had said it twice, there was no mistaking what she had just said.

    But no one could believe that Baroness Rose would actually say something like this.

    Finally, I couldn''t help saying, "Shouldn''t this wait?"

    Baroness Rose looked at me with a smile and said, "You''re a man and you''ve already taken her as your woman. Do you really think that you should wait for something like this?"

    I gave an awkward cough before saying, "This is her first time, so I''m sure that she would want it to be special. Isn''t this a bit too crude?"

    Baroness Rose had the same smile on her face as she asked, "Why don''t you think that it''s special? Sometimes¡­a woman doesn''t like to be kept waiting." She then turned to Haley and asked, "Isn''t that right, Little Sister Haley?"

    Haley was caught off guard when she was suddenly asked this.

    She took a moment to gather herself and she was about to shake her head to say no, but¡­there was a part of her that stopped her.

    After struggling with herself for a bit, she finally answered with a nod.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help being taken aback.

    I never thought that she would also be this aggressive¡­

    Since she was, if I didn''t respond, would that make me less of a man?

    So I took a deep breath and also said, "Alright, let''s go."

    When she heard this, Haley''s heart couldn''t help skipping a beat as her face turned red.

    While she had worked up the courage to give a nod in response, that didn''t mean that she was fully prepared yet. So when she heard that I had also agreed, she couldn''t help feeling her heart start to beat fast.

    But at this point, there was just no turning back.

    Both of us had already taken that final step forward, so it wasn''t as if we could just go back now and say it was a mistake. We had no choice but to act on this step forward that we took.

    Baroness Rose just had the same smile on her face as she said, "Alright, have fun."

    Cecilia who had been holding back on the side finally couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Why do only you guys get to have fun? I want to join in too!"

    It had been a while since she had been with Zwein, so she was actually quite pent up. She would have dragged him into the bedroom already if it wasn''t for the fact that Haley was here.

    Since there was someone that she wasn''t that familiar with, she didn''t want to act in this way that she knew was embarrassing.

    But since they were about to go and leave her, she couldn''t hold back anymore.

    Before either of them could say a thing, Baroness Rose stood up and came over to where Cecilia was. She took Cecilia in her arms and said, "How about we have some fun on our own?"

    When Cecilia heard this, her facepletely turned red.

    But before she could say anything else, Baroness Rose said, "Let these two have their alone time for now. You''ll get to have your chanceter, alright?"

    Cecilia had a somewhat unwilling look on her face, but seeing the firm look in Baroness Rose''s eyes, she had no choice but to agree.

    Once she got Cecilia''s agreement, Baroness Rose said, "You two enjoy yourself, we''ll be heading out now."

    With this, she lifted Cecilia up by the back of her cor and carried her out of the room.

    As she left the room, she didn''t forget to look back to give Zwein a meaningful look.

    When I saw this look, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile¡­

    She was being thoughtful, but wasn''t this too much consideration for me?

    A normal wife would get jealous over something like this, but she was actually ying the part of a wingman for me¡­

    I really was at a loss for words when I saw this.

    Still, this was a test of my capabilities as a man and I wasn''t about to fail this.

    After taking a deep breath to calm down, I turned to Haley and asked, "Shall we?"

    She had been lost in thought after seeing Baroness Rose leave, so when she heard my voice, she couldn''t help jolting. Then after reacting to what I said, she couldn''t stop her face from turning red and she looked like her heart was about to jump out of her chest.

    In the end, she still gave a nod in response.

    I was familiar with this ce since this was our manor, so it didn''t take me long to bring Haley over to the bedroom.

    I would have carried her in my arms in a princess carry, but¡­she was much bigger than me. It wasn''t that she was big, it was just that this body that I currently had was too small.

    So if I tried to pick her up¡­it was very likely that I would have dropped her.

    This made me even more determined to work on my body after this.

    When we arrived at the room, I led her over to the bed and then sat down together with her.

    Just like this, we reached another awkward silence where we both just sat on the bed.

 Chapter 141 First Time (2)

    The two of us sat there in silence, with neither of us knowing what to do.

    Well¡­we knew what to do, but both of us felt too awkward to make the first move.

    After all, this was a very strange situation.

    So the two of us continued to sit there in silence, though it was very hard for us to keep doing this.

    The awkwardness of the situation was slowly hurting us.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and turned to Haley to say, "Um, is there anything that you want to do first?"

    It was a very strange question to ask in a situation like this, but I really couldn''t think of anything better. My brain just wasn''t working properly to form any proper thoughts at this moment¡­

    But the fact that I made the first move was enough for Haley.

    She looked at me with a look that had a bit of desire in it before suddenly saying, "Hold me."

    I was caught off guard when I heard this, but seeing the way that she looked at me, I couldn''t stop myself.

    My hands slowly came up and then¡­I took her in my arms.

    The two of us just stayed like that for a bit as we enjoyed the warmth that came from each other.

    I especially enjoyed the soft feeling that came from her body.

    Her body was very soft and warm in my embrace, it was just like holding a water body pillow. But the most pleasant feeling were the two bumps that were pressing up against my chest.

    When I felt them against me, I really couldn''t help feeling a bit hot and bothered.

    The more that they pressed on me, the more turned on I became until.

    "Ah!" Haley suddenly gave a cry of surprise before moving back a bit.

    She had also been enjoying the embrace that she was getting. The feeling of his arms around her was aforting feeling that also created a warm and bothered feeling inside of her.

    That is until she suddenly felt something poking her from the front.

    When she calmed down and looked forward, she saw¡­that there was a tent that was being pitched there.

    It wasn''t that big yet, but she could immediately tell what it was as soon as she saw it.

    Seeing that tent being pitched in front of her, she couldn''t help revealing a curious look as she slowly came closer to it. She moved right up in front of it and slowly looked at it since this was her first time seeing this.

    When she had been with her ex husband, she hadn''t allowed him toy a single finger on her, so they had never consummated on their wedding night.

    She was still¡­a virgin even though she was now a divorcee.

    Seeing the way that she looked at my dick standing up, I couldn''t help feeling awkward. Then as that feeling of awkwardness filled me, the tent in my pants slowly started going down.

    As it went down, Haley came back to her senses as a trace of disappointment filled her eyes.

    She then looked up at me with that same look of disappointment in her eyes.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help feeling even more awkward as I didn''t know what to do¡­

    But then I suddenly had an idea and said, "Do you want to see it?"

    I didn''t know where this idea came from¡­it might have been the blood that was rushing to my head, or rather my dick¡­or it could be that I just simply wasn''t thinking since I didn''t know what to do in this awkward situation.

    But since I had asked this question, there was nothing else I could do except back it up.

    When Haley heard this, she couldn''t help revealing a surprised look.

    But after hesitation a bit, she gave a nod of affirmation in the end.

    Since I had already pushed myself into this corner, there was nothing else that I could say.

    The only thing that I could do was bring my hands over to the waist of my pants and after grabbing them, I slowly started to pull them down.

    During this time, Haley''s eyes were firmly on the n in between my legs. Even though all she could see right now was my pants, her eyes didn''t move at all as she stared at me.

    I even felt that she didn''t blink at this moment as if she waspletely focused on what she was about to see.

    This made it feel even more awkward since it was like I was putting on a show, but I swallowed that awkwardness and continued pulling down.

    Soon the pants came off and my dick inside was revealed.

    However, it was very limp because I just couldn''t get it up with how awkward this situation felt.

    That didn''t matter to Haley though as she continued staring at it.

    The moment that it appeared in front of her, it was almost as if her eyes suddenly lit up as she focused on it.

    This was her first time seeing a man''s thing and she couldn''t help thinking¡­

    Big!

    Even though it wasn''t erect, it was still big.

    So she couldn''t help wondering¡­just how big could this thing get?

    As this thought passed through her mind, she couldn''t help feeling a burning sensation inside of her. This burning sensation started from her stomach, but it soon went lower, causing a bit of liquid toe out.

    She stared at it and slowly reached a hand out towards it, but she didn''t touch it in the end.

    She just had her hand in the air, as if she wanted to touch it, but didn''t know how to do it.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile before asking, "Do you want to touch it?"

    When Haley heard this, she immediately looked up at me and asked, "Can I?"

    When I saw the slight bit of excitement in her eyes, I once again couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile before giving a nod.

 Chapter 142 First Time (3)

    Once she had received permission, Haley didn''t hesitate to move closer to the dick that was in front of her.

    Both of her hands were moving forward, but at the same time, she was hesitating like she was scared to touch it.

    But the way that she looked at it made it seem like she was excited.

    In the end, I just couldn''t get it up because this felt too awkward for me.

    That is until she finally gathered the courage to reach her hand forward to grab my dick.

    It was just too bad that¡­she was in too much of a rush that she couldn''t control her power and she grabbed it too hard.

    The moment that I felt her hand grab my dick, I couldn''t help jolting.

    That was because all I felt from her grabbing it was¡­pain.

    It wasn''t that she grabbed it, she also pulled on it after taking hold of my dick which caused even more pain for me.

    So the moment that she grabbed it, I couldn''t help giving a cry of pain.

    Hearing this, Haley immediately let go and moved back as if she had done something wrong. She looked at me with a worried look as she asked, "What did I do wrong? Are you ok?"

    I took a moment to recover from the pain of being grabbed at like this before taking a deep breath to say, "I''m¡­alright."

    She let out a sigh of relief before saying, "I''m sorry, I''m just really nervous and this is my first time, so I¡­"

    Before she could start rambling, I raised my hand to cut her off.

    Seeing this, she immediately fell silent and waited for me to speak.

    I took her hand and patted it before saying, "You''re too nervous. Just calm down, alright?"

    Haley didn''t know what to say at first before giving a sigh and saying, "Alright."

    I helped calm her down before saying, "You don''t need to use that much strength when you hold it, just use a bit of strength and it''ll be fine."

    With that, I slowly guided her hand over to my dick and then said, "Gentle, alright?"

    Haley focused on the task that had been given to her, but her hand was shaking as it came closer and closer. It was as if she was afraid that she would mess up again.

    But in the end, she was able to grip my dick gently.

    Though what came next was just more panic as she didn''t know what to do after this.

    Seeing the look on her face, I immediately said, "Stop!"

    At this, Haley froze on the spot and stopped moving.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    If I had been even a second slower¡­it was very likely that she would have ripped my dick off.

    But at the same time, I had been slow because I had been enjoying the feeling that came from her hand¡­It was a very soft feeling that was different from both Baroness Rose and Cecilia.

    Still, I didn''t have time to think about that.

    So with a calm and serious voice, I said, "Now move your hand slowly up and down while holding it with this same level of power. If you go too fast, I think that you should know what will happen."

    Haley looked at me with a confused look at first, but then she gave a nod to show that she understood.

    With that, her hand started moving up and down across my dick.

    This time, I was finally able to let myself rx and enjoy the feeling that came from her hands.

    She wasn''t skilled at all, but she did make up for it with enthusiasm. She focused all of her attention on this, so she was doing the best that she could with the limited abilities that she had.

    Like this, my dick slowly became harder and harder.

    When Haley felt the dick in her hand bing bigger and harder, she began being filled with confidence. At the same time, the smell that came from it entered her nose and she couldn''t control herself as she started getting turned on as well.

    Without being told to do so, her other hand came up to grab the dick as well and she started stroking it with both hands.

    Now that it had grown much bigger and harder, it wasn''t a problem for her to use both hands.

    When I felt the pleasure that came from her using both hands like this, I couldn''t help letting out a moan.

    Now that she had gotten into the groove of this, she really was something else.

    She felt more and more confident as it grew and she felt more and more turned on as the smell in front of her became stronger and stronger.

    So Haley didn''t hold back as she started moving her hands faster.

    The faster that she stroked me, the greater the pleasure that I felt.

    In the end, I wasn''t able to hold back at all as the waves of pleasure hit my mind and I was about to climax. When I came close, I said, "I''m about to cum."

    Haley had been focused on the task at ''hand'' a bit too much that she had almost been in a trance. But she did snap out of it the moment that she heard what I said.

    She seemed like she was about to ask what this meant, but then she suddenly remembered something.

    She looked down at the dick in front of her and she couldn''t help wondering¡­

    What did it taste like?

    The smell that had beening from it had slowly been making her think about this question and now that it was getting even stronger, she finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    So Haley brought her head down and while she was still stroking the dick in front of her, her mouth opened wide to wrap around the tip of the dick.

    It was also at this moment that I came.

 Chapter 143 First Time (4)

    Haley''s eyes opened wide in panic when she felt the liquid being shot into her mouth.

    She had wanted to pull her head back, but before she could¡­my hands were already holding her head down.

    It was actually the feeling of her lips wrapping around the tip of my dick that had caused me to cum in the end. I didn''t want that feeling to stop, so I grabbed her head and pulled those lips back down over my dick.

    Haley''s eyes opened even wider in panic when she felt this, but soon she was taken over by the taste that filled her mouth and the smell that filled her nose. She couldn''t help being overwhelmed by all of this and just rxed as she let me do what I wanted.

    Holding her head down, I blew myplete load into her mouth before finally letting go of her head.

    But her eyes were already slightly rolled back and she was in a daze, so she didn''t pull back right away.

    It took her a moment to recover before she¡­started sucking on my dick.

    With the way that she was sucking, it was as if she wanted to pull everyst drop of cum out of it before pulling away.

    Finally, when she was certain that she had gotten everything, her lips released his dick and she pulled her head back. But she quickly closed her lips and didn''t let a single thing drip out.

    With a difficult gulp, she swallowed everything that was in her mouth before opening it to show that she had swallowed everything.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help being shocked and a bit turned on by her actions.

    Even though I had just came, my dick couldn''t help starting to get hard again after seeing this.

    Taking a moment to gather herself, Haley then came forward and grabbed me with her arms as she said, "Can we keep going? Do you have more of that? I need more of what you just gave me."

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows because she was acting strange and her face was a bit red, but then I understood when she said her next words.

    "There''s this strange feeling down there and I need you to relieve it."

    Looking down, I could see that there was a liquid that was running down her legsing from that ce in between.

    I knew exactly what was happening when I saw this.

    She couldn''t control her libido anymore.

    So I came forward and said, "Alright, I''ll make you feel good now."

    Haley''s mind recovered for a second when she heard this, but then she couldn''t help moaning as she felt his hands move across her body.

    The first thing that I did was bring my hands up to her shoulders.

    Starting from the top of her dress, I reached my hands in and started slowly pulling it down.

    As she felt my hands on her body, Haley couldn''t help letting out a moan. That was because to her, these hands were burning hot.

    They were so hot that they burned her to her core and ignited the mes in her even more.

    Slowly but surely, the dress was pulled down over her perky breasts. As they were pulled off, the breast snapped back over the top of the dress and jiggled in front of my face.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help giving a gulp as I sat there in a bit of a daze. I really couldn''t help taking a moment to admire these perfect round breasts with the soft pink coloured tips on them.

    They weren''t as big as Baroness Rose''s, but they were still considered big and shapely. They formed a perfect round shape that would have fit perfectly in my hands.

    I was almost mesmerized by the way that they swayed there in front of my face.

    I also couldn''t help wanting to move my face closer so that I could put them in my mouth.

    But I was pulled out of my daze when Haley said, "Hurry, I can''t take it anymore."

    She came closer to me, bringing those perfectly round breasts even closer. However, that was enough to shake me out of my daze.

    With a smile, I started pulling the rest of her dress down, revealing the rest of her perfect figure.

    Her breasts were definitely a sight to behold, but her waist was just as beautiful. They were round and full, like a perfect pair of mounds sticking out of the ground.

    I really couldn''t help letting my hands linger a bit as I pulled her dress off over them.

    Then finally, when I reached the end, I was surprised by¡­how wet it was.

    It was like the dams had been broken and the flood had been released with how wet she was down there. Seeing the liquid that kept dripping down, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    As I once again sat there in a daze, she came forward to say, "What are you waiting for? Please make me feel good. I can''t take this burning feeling anymore!"

    I was once again pulled back to my senses by her pleading and I turned to push her down onto the bed after taking off the dress.

    When she saw me atop of her, her heart couldn''t help beating fast like a little deer running through the woods.

    Seeing her under me like this, I leaned down and ced a kiss right atop her lips.

    The moment that our lips touched, I could even taste the faint taste of cherry blossoms filling my mouth. This was a taste that had a bit of sweetness to it that I just couldn''t get enough of, so I poked my tongue through and sucked on her lips as I kissed her with all my might.

    Finally, when we both ran out of breath and she separated, I couldn''t help being surprised by the messy look that she had as sheid there in the bed. With her disheveled hair and her fast breathing, she really gave off a different feeling from usual.

    But this was a feeling that turned me on very much.

    And I couldn''t take it anymore as I looked down to match myself with her before saying, "Get ready, it''s time."

 Chapter 144 First Time (5)

    When Haley heard this, she couldn''t help jolting a bit.

    Then she took a deep breath and rxed herself, letting him do whatever he wanted with her body.

    When I saw her lying like this, I almost thought that she was lying there like a dead fish¡­

    But I quickly threw that thought out as I focused on the beautiful figure that was lying there under me.

    This was a figure that would surely make men drool and now it was right underneath me.

    After giving a gulp, I no longer hesitated and thrusted forward with my hip.

    The moment that I entered her, there was only one thing that I thought¡­

    Tight!

    This was much tighter than any other girl that I had slept with. Although there were only two other girls, it was still arge difference.

    This feeling was unlike anything that I had felt before and I soon found that¡­I wasn''t able to push any further. But that didn''t mean that it was any less pleasurable than any of the other girls that I slept with.

    With how tight she was, it wrapped right around my dick so that I could feel it while pushing in.

    Seeing that I wasn''t able to push in any further, I decided to pull back out.

    This wasn''t much since there was only a bit past the tip that had entered into her, but I found that it was very hard for me to pull out. It wasn''t that I wasn''t willing to pull out, but rather it was because the insides of her held tightly onto me that it was hard to move at all.

    But when I was able to pull out, I could feel it wrapping around me again, rubbing against my dick as I moved. This once again brought a wave of pleasure that hit me like a tidal wave.

    I couldn''t wait at all after pulling out a bit to thrust into her once more.

    This time, I was able to thrust a bit deeper which created even more pleasure for me.

    It was as if I was slowly opening her up.

    But when I reached as far as I could with this second thrust, I suddenly felt Haley''s body shaking underneath me.

    It wasn''t shaking as if she was scared, but rather it was shaking from excitement.

    She had alreadye close to climaxing with the first thrust, so when the second one came¡­she couldn''t hold herself back anymore. The moment that the second thrust went into her, she felt her entire body go numb as she couldn''t control it.

    The only thing that she felt at the peak of the second thrust was the pleasure that came from it and she couldn''t hold herself back anymore.

    So when he was about to pull out again, he felt something weting from her as Haley couldn''t stop herself from climaxing. The spray hit him right on the dick and on his waist, drenching him.

    With how she was spraying it out, it was almost like a hose.

    At the same time, Haley couldn''t help letting out a loud moan filled with pleasure as she came.

    When she was done, her body went soft and sheid there weakly on the bed, looking like she couldn''t move at all while still panting.

    I was caught off guard by how sudden she had climaxed, but that didn''t mean that I would stop there.

    After all, she might have climaxed, but that didn''t mean that I was finished yet.

    Even if she had taken the chance to let herself sink into the pleasure alone, that didn''t mean that I had finished yet.

    So I grabbed onto her waist again and pulled out of her.

    Haley had been panting still, but when she felt this feeling of me pulling out, she couldn''t help looking up and saying in a panicked voice, "Wait, not yet! I''m still sensi¡­"

    She didn''t get to say anything, she didn''t even get to finish her sentence as I suddenly pulled out of her.

    The moment that I did, her head couldn''t help tilting back as she let out a loud moan of pleasure.

    With the added friction that came from her squirting, I was able to easily pull out of her in one smooth move. Then I didn''t hesitate at all to push right back into her, reaching a bit deeper this time.

    Under me, Haley had alreadypletely lost the ability to form words as I kept thrusting into her. The only sound that came from her now was the loud moaning that she unconsciously let out with each thrust.

    That didn''t make me stop though since I could tell that each moan was filled with pleasure.

    After thrusting a few more times, I felt the same tremble from her body again. This was the trembling that came when she had climaxedst time.

    So I knew what was going to happen, but I didn''t stop since I was also feeling the same way.

    The pleasure that came from her tight pussy was just too much for me to handle and I couldn''t hold back anymore. I had thought that I was better than before with my practice with Baroness Rose and Cecilia, but this really was a new feeling and I couldn''t stop myself after just a few thrusts.

    As I was thrusting, Haley could also feel the trembling of the dick that was inside of her, so she snapped out of her daze and looked up at me.

    As she looked at me, she asked, "What are you¡­"

    She didn''t get to finish as I suddenly made onerge thrust into her, pushing as deep as I could into her.

    This sent a strong tremble through her body that she couldn''t hold back anymore.

    But it was the same for me.

    So together, the two of us suddenly climaxed together.

    She sprayed her shot all over me and I shot my load deep inside of her before copsing atop of her.

    The two of us justid there while panting after climaxing together.

 Chapter 145 First Time (6)

    After resting for a bit, I got up over her once again and looked down at Haley as she justid there.

    She had a tired look on her face, but there was also a look of satisfaction that was with that tired look.

    At the same time, I could hear her muttering, "So warm and so full¡­I want more of it."

    Hearing this, I couldn''t help being turned on again.

    Not to mention, I wasn''t done with just this alone.

    I might have already shot my load twice, but I was still raring to go. That was evident by my dick that was slowly getting harder and bigger again.

    Haley had been in a daze until she noticed that I was getting up again.

    She couldn''t help looking up to see something growing bigger down there and she was once again dazed.

    Aftering back to her senses, she looked up at me and asked, "You''re still not done yet?"

    I just looked down at her with a smile and shook my head.

    Seeing this, Haley didn''t panic and instead also revealed a smile. She reached her hands out towards me and said, "Alright, then do what you want. I''m yours."

    When I heard this, I knew that there was no need to hold back anymore.

    So I got up on the bed and positioned myself above her, but I wasn''t done yet.

    I held Haley by the waist and lifted her up as well.

    When she felt herself being lifted up like this, she couldn''t help revealing a surprised look as she asked, "What are you doing?"

    I just smiled without saying a thing.

    Once she was up, I finally said, "Turn around."

    After saying this, I started turning her around on the bed so that she was facing away from me.

    Haley went along with this and then grabbed the head of the bed as I had instructed her. However, she still couldn''t help asking in a confused voice, "What is going on? What are you going to do?"

    Once again, I didn''t answer with words.

    Instead, I answered with my actions.

    I moved into my position right behind her and grabbed her by the waist.

    As Haley held onto the head of the bed, she couldn''t help feeling a bit scared and a bit excited by what was about to happen.

    After all, even if she couldn''t see what was about to happen, she could still feel him holding her waist like this. At the same time, she could also feel a heating from down there as he held his dick right in front of her pussy.

    However, before thrusting forward, I took a moment to admire this.

    Her orange hair swept down her back and separated to the sides, hanging down in front of her. They would have covered her breasts, but I wasn''t sure since I couldn''t see it with her facing the other way.

    And then there was her bottom that was fully presented to me.

    With her lifting her butt up like this, I was able to see everything in front of me.

    The perfect folds, the light pink colour, and the little bean that almost seemed to be trembling.

    It was all waiting for me along with the liquid dripping out of her from the excitement of waiting.

    I didn''t hold back anymore as I suddenly gave a full thrust.

    I thrusted into her as deeply as I could, but it was still as tight as before, so I wasn''t able to push it all the way in.

    In fact, it was even tighter now that she had rested a bit, so I couldn''t even go in as deeply as I had before.

    But that didn''t stop it from feeling good.

    As for Haley, the moment that I thrusted into her, she found herself being pushed up against the head of the bed. This was apletely different feeling from the way that they had done it before and she couldn''t stop her heart from beating fast.

    It was deep inside of her, but at the same time¡­it was like she was being dominated by him which gave her a fluttering feeling.

    I didn''t stop after thrusting in and continued thrusting back and forth behind her.

    As she kept being pushed up against the head of the bed, she finally lost her grip and fell down on the bed.

    But even then, I didn''t stop as I got up above her and thrusted down from above. With each thrust, she found that her head was being pushed into the bed itself.

    This was like she had given upplete control and she was being dominated at this moment.

    However, she didn''t dislike this.

    With each thrust, it felt like she was bing his property which she enjoyed.

    This made each thrust even more pleasurable and she couldn''t help moaning as she said, "More, more! Harder, harder, push me down even harder!"

    I couldn''t help revealing a smile when I heard this.

    Since she wanted more, I didn''t hold back at all as I mounted myself above her and pressed her right down into the bed. At the same time, I put my face right behind hers so that I could get right up by her ear and say, "Do you like that, you little slut?"

    When she heard this, it was as if there was a bug that was in her ear that was making its way into her brain. The only thing that she could hear were these words calling her a little slut.

    She didn''t know why she enjoyed it since she definitely would have been against it if it was anyone else¡­but when it was him¡­she couldn''t help enjoying the feeling of being called a little slut.

    So she kept saying, "More, more, I want more!"

    The two of us continued going like this until I finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    As I kept thrusting, I said, "I''m about to cum!"

    Haley had been holding back this time because she had wanted to do it together like they had donest time.

    Since he said that he was going to climax, then there was no longer a need for her to hold back.

    Haley said while moaning and panting, "Together, let''s do it together."

    I looked down at her and the way that she said this, along with the way that she looked really turned me on even more. So I just whispered in her ear, "Alright."

    With one final thrust that finally allowed my dick to go deep into her, I shot my load into her.

    At the same time, I could feel the trembling of her body as she climaxed.

    This time, since I wasn''t in front of her, she sprayed out all over the bed that was behind us, creating arge wet spot on it. If one didn''t know better, they might have thought that it was¡­

    Then when I finished pumping my load into her, I pulled my dick out andid there beside her.

    Both of us were panting from that, but there were looks of satisfaction that were on our faces.

    But before long¡­I became hard again seeing the scene of her butt in the air with my cum dripping out of her.

    Seeing this, Haley couldn''t help revealing a smile as she said, "You''re still not satisfied yet?"

    I just shook my head with a smile without saying anything.

    She didn''t judge me as she simply said, "Alright, let''s keep going."

    Just like that, the two of us kept going for the rest of the night.

 Chapter 146 â€œGet Up!â€

    When the sun rose, the beams of light came through the slits of the window curtain toe into the room.

    But the two that were on the bed were stillying there with happy smiles on their faces.

    Both of them werepletely naked, but they didn''t care at all as they enjoyed each other''s embrace.

    The woman was in the man''s arms, though she was taller than him which made it look awkward. Especially the way that their feet peeked out of the nket¡­or rather, there were only a single pair of feet that peeked out.

    It was the slender and delicate feet of a woman.

    The feet of the man didn''t reach that far.

    Still, they were happy justying there like that.

    That was until there was someone that suddenly barged into the room.

    This person didn''t hold back at all as they pushed the door open and ran into the room, almost as if they were expecting to catch them doing something bad.

    However, when they saw the two of them just lying there on the bed still sleeping, there was a hint of disappointment that appeared in their eyes.

    Still, they didn''t hold back at all since there was also a hint of annoyance in those eyes.

    So they took a deep breath before shouting, "GET UP!"

    As soon as this was shouted, the two of them on the bed immediately jumped up and looked around themselves, trying to find where this loud sound wasing from.

    Then when they saw Cecilia standing there in front of the bed looking down on them, both of them revealed bitter smiles.

    Cecilia just stood there looking down at them with narrowed eyes still before saying, "Look at the two of you. The sun is already up and you''re still sleeping away like it''s nothing. Must be nice not having anything to do."

    The two of them revealed awkward looks again.

    But it was then that Baroness Rose also came into the room.

    She was carrying a tray that seemed to have something on it. When one looked closely, they would see that it was a bunch of food that was on this tray, along with a ss of something that seemed to be juice.

    She ignored Cecilia who was just standing at the end of the bed ring at them and she moved to the side that Zwein was sitting on.

    I couldn''t help being surprised as I watched her smooth out the bed nkets and then ce the tray in front of me. I looked at her with a doubtful look after she had finished setting it all down.

    Baroness Rose just said with a smile, "You shouldn''t skip breakfast."

    Once again, I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this. But after taking some time to recover, I said with a smile, "Thank you."

    I always kept discovering more and more different sides to Baroness Rose, but I had neverined about a single side of her. Every single side of her was endearing in its own way and I found myself lucky that I had her as my wife.

    However, there was one problem though¡­

    There was only one portion of breakfast that had been brought over.

    Haley just sat there awkwardly as she looked down at the tray in front of me.

    It wasn''t that she had expected to be brought breakfast in bed like I had been, but she felt like she was the only one that was excluded from this as the neer.

    Baroness Rose noticed this and turned to Haley. Then to everyone''s surprise, she revealed a sharp look and said, "Did you think that you would also get to be treated the same? You are a concubine, so you should know your ce."

    Both of our chins dropped down when we heard this, but it was clear that Haley was the one that had been affected the most.

    After all, what Baroness Rose had said was the truth.

    Baroness Rose was the main wife and Haley was just the concubine, so to be expected to be treated properly was just asking too much.

    So Haley was about to awkwardly get out of bed and find some clothes to put on, but Baroness Rose stopped her before she could do that.

    She suddenly burst out inughter before saying, "Did you really think that I would act that way?"

    All of us just either sat there or stood there with confused looks on our faces as we didn''t know how to respond.

    Luckily for us, it was just a rhetorical question in the end and Baroness Rose never expected an answer in the first ce.

    She went over to Haley''s side of the bed and pushed her back down before saying, "Just wait a minute, I''ll bring yours over now."

    Hearing this, Haley just nodded in a daze.

    It didn''t take her long toe back with a tray that was the same as the one in front of me. The two trays even had the same dishes, which showed that they had been prepared at the same time.

    Baroness Rose came over and ced it in front of Haley with a smile before she started helping the two of us eat.

    During this time, Haley just obediently listened to everything that Baroness Rose said. However, if one looked closely at the look in her eyes, it was almost as if¡­she was scared of Baroness Rose.

    That was because just now¡­when Baroness Rose had said that she was just joking, Haley saw a look in her eyes that didn''t seem like it was a joke. It really seemed like she was serious about what she had said.

    Haley as a merchant was a good judge of character since that was what she had to do as a merchant. But right now, she just couldn''t see through Baroness Rose¡­

    So she couldn''t help being scared of her since she was able to hide herself this deeply.

    Haley made a vow that she wouldn''t ever anger Baroness Rose¡­

    Even if she seemed gentle, if she ever lost control of herself¡­Haley might not even know what would happen to her.

    Just like this, the four of us shared breakfast together since Baroness Rose had prepared breakfast for everyone in the first ce.

 Chapter 147 What Came After

    After breakfast was over, three of us headed out together.

    The only person who didn''te with us was Cecilia who had to go and train her subordinates. She had an unwilling look on her face as she headed off to the training field, but she knew that this was her duty, so she still went.

    As for the three of us, Haley, Baroness Rose, and me, we were heading to where Haleye''s people were.

    Baroness Rose and I hadn''t gone yesterday because of the time that we had spent together, but we still needed to go and inspect the goods that had been brought. Even if we trusted Haley, we still needed to see if it was properly unpacked and stored since this was something that involved the lives of our citizens.

    So we didn''t waste any time heading over.

    When we arrived, we found that there were many people who were currently working hard even though it was early in the morning.

    They were all working on securing the goods and making sure that they were properly stored.

    Not a single person dared to ck on their task since they knew that this was something that would involve the survival of their family over the winter.

    With how diligent everyone was being, there really was no need for us to inspect what they were doing. They all made sure that they were doing everything correctly since it was their lives at stake here.

    Since that was the case, all we did was talk with Haley''s employees a bit, or rather Baroness Rose talked to them while Haley was away taking care of some things.

    She didn''t ask them anything about the delivery, all she asked them about were personal questions about Haley.

    To my surprise, I found that the employees were more than happy to talk about Haley.

    All of them were talking about her with happy smiles on their faces, but the way that they spoke of her¡­was a bit strange.

    Instead of talking about her like she was their boss, they talked about her like she was a child and they were the parents. They happily talked about all the things that she had done and shared many different embarrassing stories about Haley.

    While this felt like Haley was getting the short end of the stick, it was interesting to see how much they cared about her.

    This wouldn''t have happened in a normalpany.

    Thepany that Haley ran seemed more like a family than apany.

    When Haley came back, Baroness Rose looked at her with a wide smile and eyes that seemed to favour her even more.

    Haley was confused when she saw this, but she still let Baroness Rose take her in her arms.

    The unpacking of the goods and storing everything took the rest of the day and Haley''s group stayed another day to n out the new store.

    While her employees were surprised by the fact that she was nning on building a branch store here, they fully supported her.

    There were even a few that looked at me with special looks, as if they could already guess everything. Though none of them had any hostility towards me.

    There were also a few that secretly came up to me to ask me to take care of Haley.

    I could only awkwardly agree that I would.

    After the two days, Haley left with her people to go back to ndal City to prepare everything.

    She promised that she would be back before winter came.

    But it took over two weeks for her to get everything ready.

    During this time, Shaka and his men also arrived in the town.

    Baroness Rose quickly arranged for Shaka and his men to work with Cecilia who was the captain of the town guard. Working together, they arranged a new department for Shaka and his men who reported directly to me.

    This department was in charge of gathering information in town and in the surrounding area. They would make sure that there was nothing harmful in town or the surrounding areas.

    They would be our intelligencework.

    During the time that I had spent with Baroness Rose aftering back, I had already told her about the Shadow Garden matter.

    While she was surprised to hear this, she supported me in this decision.

    Then she told me a few things about Shadow Garden that she had heard from her father, the count.

    This included the fact that if Shadow Garden wanted me to join, I wasn''t able to resist because they had immense influence. A baron like me would be crushed before I was allowed to resist this.

    So that was why she supported me in the first ce.

    But she also warned me that this would be a slippery slope and that I had to be careful since she had heard about the many people who had lost their lives in this organization.

    I didn''t need her to remind me of this since I already knew this¡­

    After all, I knew what would happen in the end for this organization.

    But for now, Shaka and his men were certainly a wee addition to our town.

    In just a week, they had already rooted out a bunch of spies from other nobles in our town.

    We had thought that we would be safe since we only had a small territory, but it seemed that the nobles around us weren''t as forgiving.

    It seemed that we couldn''t let our guards down at all.

    Then two weekster, Haley came back with some of her employees.

    She had finished taking care of matters in the city so that she wouldn''t need to be at the store anymore and now she had brought everyone here to make a branch store.

    We had already picked out a ce for her, so all that was left was to build her store.

    With this new store being built here, it would mean that everyone would have ess to a bunch of new goods and their lives would improve.

    It was just too bad that something interrupted the construction of the store.

 Chapter 148 Forest Disturbance

    It was now two days after Haley''s group hade back from ndal City.

    The store was slowly being built, but with how big Haley wanted to make it, it was going to be a while before it was finished.

    But Haley didn''t mind this and she was excited since this was the store of her dreams.

    Back in ndal City, the store that she had was just a store that she had rented. And with the strict rules of ndal City, she hadn''t been able to renovate the store to what she wanted it to be.

    So she had no choice but to suck it up and use the store that she rented.

    But now¡­in this ce, she had a connection with the baron and baroness, as well as being invited by them. So she was able to make the store however she wanted to make it.

    Haley hadn''t held back and had created a giant store which really didn''t fit in a town like this.

    Still, everyone seemed to be having fun with it, so it wasn''t as if they could stop them.

    Right now, the base of the store had been finished and it was gigantic.

    It was multiple times the size of any other house and was even close to the size of Baroness Rose''s manor.

    A building of this size had to be built at the edge of the town, but with how small the town was in the first ce, it was still within walking distance for most people. So there wouldn''t be ack of business for the store.

    The future ns for the development of the town revolved around this store because of how big it was.

    Baroness Rose decided to make the area around the store the new town center and develop around it to expand the town.

    This created even more hype for the store and many people came out to see it.

    There were also those that volunteered to help, but this was rejected by Haley. This was her baby in a sense, so she didn''t want just anyone messing with it. She only had the most skilled carpenters in town working on it and the best materials that she could get.

    And that was where the problem was.

    On this day, as Baroness Rose and I went to inspect the building site, we suddenly heard someone shouting.

    "What did you say? We can''t get the materials?"

    We immediately recognized that this was Haley''s voice, so we went over to see what was wrong.

    We found that she was with rk, the person that we put in charge of this matter. He was supposed to help her get all the materials and organize all of the carpenters so that the building of her store would go smoothly.

    At this moment, we could see that rk had a difficult look on his face as if he was facing some kind of problem. With the way that the two of them were standing there, it was as if they were having some kind of argument.

    Without any hesitation, we came over and I asked, "What''s going on?"

    The two of them saw who it was and Haley was the first toe over to say, "rk here says that there''s a problem getting the materials. However, he told me just yesterday that he would be able to get everything on time."

    It was easy to tell that she was a bit annoyed about this from the tone of her voice, but I didn''t y favourites here.

    I knew that there had to be some reason rk had said this, so I turned to him to ask, "What happened?"

    Hearing this, there was an awkward and difficult look that appeared on his face as if he was hesitating over whether he should speak or not. In the end though, he took a deep breath and said, "We have a problem in the forest where we''re getting the wood from."

    "Problem?" I repeated before asking, "What problem is it? Could it be that it''s the monsters again?"

    Ever since the monster wave, there has been an increase in monsters in the surrounding area. However, it wasn''t at a level where we couldn''t handle it yet and they made good training targets for Cecilia''s subordinates, so we hadn''t done anything about them yet.

    rk shook his head when he heard this before hesitating once more.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit annoyed, so I said, "Spit it out already."

    With this, rk gave a deep sigh and said, "There''s been a dispute in the forest that''s stopping us from getting more wood."

    I slightly knitted my brows before asking, "Dispute? With who?"

    rk said with a bitter smile, "The elves."

    If it was anyone else, then it would have been easier for them to handle because they could at least negotiate. However, elves were famous for being closed off from other races and being impossible to find.

    Unless they wanted to talk to you, it was normally impossible to find elves.

    But when I heard that it was the elves, I couldn''t help revealing an excited look.

    Elves, it was elves!

    They were a staple of the fantasy world and I had been looking forward to meeting one¡­or rather, I''d been looking forward to getting to "know" the elves.

    After all, they were also famous in this H-game.

    The elves had one of the best storylines out there and the women were all beautiful, so there was no downside to meeting the elves.

    But I could also see the bitter smile that was still on rk''s face, so I could tell that something was wrong.

    After being asked what was wrong, rk exined the situation to me.

    The elves had attacked our loggers and had imed that we were hurting the forest with our excessive logging, so they wanted us to leave their forest. Since the elves were expert marksmen and skilled magic casters, our people had no choice but to run.

    But I couldn''t help focusing on something else, "They said that it was ''their'' forest?"

 Chapter 149 Elves

    rk was surprised to hear this question, but he still gave a nod of confirmation after hearing this.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    It was time for my gaming knowledge to show its worth.

    I had finished every quest that had been rted to the elves when I had yed this game. It was of course for the "research", so it could be said that I was very intimate with the details of the elf race.

    That was where I saw a problem.

    I knew that elves were migratory by nature and wandered around in nature typically, but there were times where elves settled down. Even if they were a race with long lives, they still needed to settle down and have children.

    So that was when tribes for elves were created.

    The only time that elves would call a forest ''their'' forest was when they had settled down and created a tribe there.

    That meant that in the forest where the dispute happened, there was a tribe of elves.

    That was a disconnect with my gaming knowledge since in my memories, there wasn''t any trace of a tribe of elves in this area. Even when you came backter with your character to explore, this area had beenpletely destroyed in the monster wave¡­

    The monster wave!

    That was right! That was why there was a disconnect!

    Because I had prevented the monster wave, that meant that there hadn''t beenrge-scale destruction in this area which was why this tribe of elves hadn''t evacuated or wasn''t destroyed.

    That meant that this was a new quest line that I hadn''t seen before and it was a quest line that involved the elves!

    I couldn''t help feeling excited about this.

    During this time, rk had been watching as the expression on my face kept changing. He naturally found this very strange, but he didn''t say a thing since I was still the baron.

    But he finally couldn''t take it anymore as he asked in a small voice, "My lord, is there a problem?"

    When I heard this, I snapped back from my thoughts and realized where I was. With a cough, I said, "It''s nothing, I was just lost in thought."

    rk gave a nod before asking, "My lord, what should we do about this?"

    This was something that was far beyond his capabilities and he had heard about the strange abilities that the Lord Baron had, so he decided to ce his hopes in him.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a strange smile.

    Everyone who saw this smile couldn''t help being turned off by it and taking a step back.

    As for Baroness Rose, she just revealed a faint bitter smile before shaking her head. She knew that when I had this look on my face, I would be thinking something reckless and crazy.

    After a pause, I said, "Let me handle this matter. I''ll go negotiate with the elves."

    rk immediately shook his head and said, "My lord, you can''t put yourself in danger like this. You don''t know just how terrifying those elves were when they chased us away, I can''t let you put yourself in danger like this."

    Baroness Rose didn''t say anything, but it was clear by the look on her face that she thought the same.

    But then I said, "It''s not a problem. I actually have a connection to the elves, so I''ll be able to have a proper talk with them."

    When they heard this, all of them couldn''t help revealing strange expressions.

    Though there was onemon theme in their expressions which was the doubt in their eyes.

    It was clear that they didn''t believe him when he said this.

    But I didn''t give up as I said in a firm voice, "I know the way to gain ess to their vige and talk to their leaders, so it would be best if I went to negotiate with them."

    rk naturally couldn''t decide this, so he turned to look at Baroness Rose.

    I also turned to look at her since I knew that unless she agreed, it was impossible for this to happen.

    When I turned to look at her, I found that her eyes were already on me. There was a serious look in them as if she was currently gauging me, but I was already familiar with this look.

    So I didn''t turn my eyes away as I looked right back at her and waited for her to respond.

    Finally, after a long silence, she asked, "Can you ensure that you''ll be safe?"

    I opened my mouth, but then I closed it again after hesitating a bit. After another pause, I said, "There''s no such thing as absolute safety in this world, but I''ll do my best to stay out of trouble."

    This was an answer, while also avoiding the question¡­

    But still, it was enough to convince Baroness Rose since she knew that this was indeed the case with this world.

    So she said with a sigh, "Alright, you can go." But then she added, "You have to take some guards with you, even if you think that it will send the wrong message. We don''t know what they will do, so I won''t let you put yourself in danger like that."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile after she said this because¡­this was indeed what I had been nning on saying.

    It seemed like she was already slowly getting used to me and could already start reading my mind.

    But I heard the firm tone in her voice and knew that she wouldn''t negotiate this, so I didn''t bother arguing. I also knew that this was just her way of showing care for me, so I was also a bit touched.

    After giving a nod to confirm this, I said, "I''ll also need a few more people toe with me." Then turning to Haley, I said, "You''reing too."

    Haley was surprised, but she gave an excited nod.

    This was an elven vige that they were going to visit.

    While she didn''t know how they would gain ess, this was a ce that very few people had set foot in, so she couldn''t help being excited about visiting this ce.

 Chapter 150 Spirit Forest (1)

    It was two dayster when we set out.

    I had wanted to set out yesterday, but Baroness Rose wouldn''t allow that to happen.

    The excuse that she gave was that she wanted to ensure that everything was safe before we headed out, but in truth¡­she just wanted to spend more time together.

    We didn''t separate at all yesterday as she kept me by her side all day.

    Normally we would have our own tasks to take care of, but she cancelled everything that I had to do and forced me to stay with her during her normal routine.

    I couldn''t help finding it all a bit funny how clingy she was, but it wasn''t as if I didn''t like it.

    This was her way of showing that she loved me, so I actually felt touched by it. Even if she was a bit too clingy.

    When we set off, she even came to send us off even though she was the busiest person in the town right now as she was managing the whole town by herself.

    To put her at ease, in front of everyone, I ced a deep kiss on her lips.

    This was also my way of showing everyone that she was my property since I could see the way that a few men in town looked at her.

    Finally with that, we were able to leave the town and head off to the Spirit Forest.

    Our group wasn''t a big group, but it wasn''t a weak one either because I had gotten Cecilia and several of the knights toe with me.

    This group was one that I had carefully assembled based on my knowledge of the elves, so it was surely a group that would seed.

    The Spirit Forest wasn''t that far away from the town, so we arrived at the edge of the forest in just a few hours. However, I made sure that we didn''t go into the forest and had us camp on the edge of it.

    The rest of the group were confused why I had given this order, but they still followed them since I was the leader of this group.

    During this time, I snuck off with just Cecilia and Haley by my side.

    The two of them were confused why I was sneaking off from the rest of the group like this, but when they saw that it was just the three of us, they couldn''t help having some secret thoughts. These thoughts caused a blush to appear on their faces.

    Still, they obediently followed me around the edge of the forest.

    Finally, after a while, I saw what I was looking for.

    There was this tiny mark on one of the trees that people would have normally missed, but I didn''t since I knew what I was looking for.

    When I found this marked tree, I looked around the area until I found another marked tree that was deeper into the forest. Seeing this tree, I started heading into the forest from where the marked tree was.

    I made sure to go in a straight line between these two trees so that I ended up right under the marked tree that was deeper in the forest.

    Once I was there, I started looking around again.

    It didn''t take me long to find another marked tree that I quickly headed towards.

    Just like this, I went deeper and deeper into the forest while following the path of these marked trees.

    The distance between the marked trees wasn''t that far, so I didn''t actually go that deep into the forest when I found the final marked tree.

    I knew that this was the final marked tree because the mark on this tree was different from all the trees that I had passed.

    The mark on the trees before were a triangle and the mark here was in the shape of a square.

    Once I realized that this was the final tree, I started looking around the area, but I wasn''t able to find what I was looking for. It seemed that this was the true test that I had to face before finding that thing¡­

    So I turned to the two girls whose faces were red and I couldn''t help being surprised.

    I never thought that just a simple walk in the forest would be enough to tire them out like this¡­I hadn''t even walked that fast since I had been paying attention to the surrounding area to find those marked trees.

    After seeing that we had stopped, both Cecilia and Haley couldn''t help peeking up at me, but neither of them said a thing.

    After getting over my surprise, I said, "Alright, I need you two to help me."

    Their hearts had already been beating fast, but it sped up even more when they heard this.

    Both of their faces turned even more red at the same time.

    But they knew what was about to happen, so they both raised their hands and brought them up to their waists. They grabbed the bottom of their shirts and started lifting up, but they were stopped when I suddenly asked, "What are you two doing?"

    Hearing this, both of them suddenly trembled.

    Their hands stopped, the blush on their faces disappeared, and their hearts slowed down.

    They both revealed confused looks as they looked up at me and asked, "Huh?"

    When I saw this, I also couldn''t help feeling confused as I looked at them and asked, "Huh?"

    Just like this, there was an awkward silence that filled the air as none of us knew what to say.

    But finally, it clicked for me¡­

    They thought that we had snuck off from the rest of the group to get frisky in the woods¡­

    But that wasn''t what I had in mind at all.

    I was here to find a special object that would help us get into the elven vige.

    So I awkwardly said, "Uh, it''s not what you think."

    Then before I could react, I saw that there was a fist that was growingrger in front of my face.

 Chapter 151 Spirit Forest (2)

    Luckily, I was able to react in the end and dodge out of the way.

    But from the wind that had been generated by this fist, I knew that I would have been knocked out the moment that it hit me in the face.

    I quickly raised my hands in surrender and said, "Wait, wait!"

    Cecilia who had been getting ready to throw a second punch stopped after hearing me say this.

    Seeing this, I quickly fell to my knees and said, "I''m sorry for being misleading, but I really didn''t mean to!"

    Seeing him act this way, Cecilia really couldn''t bring herself to punch him. So with a snort, she crossed her arms and looked like she was waiting for him to exin.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief knowing that I had a chance to survive now.

    So I slowly started exining what I was doing here.

    By the end of it, the girls had looks of understanding that also had a bit of disappointment in their eyes. It was as if they had been expecting somethingpletely different which just made me give a secret bitterugh.

    Once it was established what we were looking for, the two of them started spreading out to help me find this.

    During this time, I didn''t move far from my spot. All I did was go around in a circle starting from the marked tree and slowly heading outwards.

    As I made my way outwards, I was also looking for something else. My eyes were on the ground the entire time, sweeping left and right as I looked for the other thing that I needed for this.

    Finally, I thought I found something, but it turned out to just be a normal stick.

    That was right, I was looking for a special stick that had a special mark on it just like the marks on the trees.

    So I kept looking back and forth trying to find it.

    Eventually, I was able to find it, but I couldn''t help looking at it with a very strange look¡­

    That was because the tip of it was very strange.

    It wasn''t a normal blunt and t tip, but rather it was strangely round and semi circr, looking like something that I had seen before. It looked very simr to the tip of a certain long and purple thing¡­

    Since I had found this stick, I started looking further out for the marked tree.

    But when I looked around, I found that I couldn''t see either Cecilia or Haley anymore.

    They had moved too far away from the marked tree for me to see them anymore.

    This was still the territory of the elves, so I couldn''t help feeling worried about them.

    But before I could call out for them, there was a voice that suddenly called out, "I found it!"

    As soon as I heard this voice, I ran in the direction that it came from and I found Cecilia standing in front of a tree. It didn''t take long for Haley to run out from the bush and appear as well.

    Seeing them, I let out a sigh of relief before heading to the marked tree in front of Cecilia.

    I looked carefully at the tree and I found the mark that Cecilia was talking about.

    Taking a close look at it, I gave a satisfied nod as I said, "This is it. This is the mark that I was looking for."

    Then after saying this, I quickly turned around and started looking at the rocks on the ground. I carefully went from rock to rock, looking for the thing that I expected to be there.

    After going around in a circle, I was finally able to find the thing that I was looking for, just a few steps away from where I had been originally¡­If I had gone the other way, I would have found it much sooner.

    That really said something about my luck today, but I didn''t let myself be depressed over this.

    However, the moment that I saw the thing that I was looking for, I couldn''t help being stunned.

    That was because it looked a bit different than what I had been expecting.

    I knew that it was the thing that I was looking for since there was the special mark on the stone, but there were some extra grooves in this rock that looked very different from the one that I had found in the game. These grooves were right around the hole in the center, making it look like a girl''s private ce carved into the stone.

    This along with the stick was really different from what I had encountered in the game.

    The items in the game were just a simple stick and a rock that had a hole in it, but this¡­was just too erotic, wasn''t it?

    The stick that was like a sex toy and the rock that looked like a pair of woman''s private parts, this would seem like it would fit perfectly in that game, but¡­

    I just didn''t know what to say in response to this.

    Cecilia and Haley both saw what I was looking at and they couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look when they saw me just standing there. So Cecilia asked, "What''s wrong?"

    I was pulled back out of my thoughts when I heard this and I quickly shook my head before saying, "No, nothing. I was just thinking about something."

    The two of them looked at me with a suspicious look, but they didn''t say anything.

    Since we were already here, I had no choice but to see it through. So I took the stick and stuck it into the stone in front of me.

    When the stick was inserted into the hole, there was a moaning sound that rang out that made me reveal a bitter smile¡­Luckily, the two girls didn''t mind this since they were focused on something else.

    After the stick had been inserted into the stone, the stone suddenly opened up apartment that revealed something inside.

    When we saw what was inside, all three of us were caught off guard.

 Chapter 152 Elven Village (1)

    Inside of thispartment, there was an ocarina like I had expected, but¡­

    It had a very strange shape.

    Instead of having the normal ocarina shape, this one was much more slender and longer. It was in a shape that made one even doubt if it could be yed properly.

    That was because it was a very phallic looking shape.

    With two round bottom parts, a long neck, and a short bulb on top, this looked just like a dick¡­

    It seemed that the way to y it was to put your mouth at the tip and then use the holes on the shaft before letting the sounde out of the two balls at the bottom¡­

    But it would definitely be embarrassing ying something like this¡­

    And this was definitely not the ocarina that I had seen in the game. The one that I had seen before was the shape of a normal ocarina, round with small holes in its body and a long slender neck.

    When the two girls saw this, they couldn''t help turning to look at me, but the way that they were looking at me was definitely strange.

    That was because instead of looking at me, they were looking at a certain part of my body. This was a part that was on the lower half of my body that they had seen before.

    I knew exactly what they were thinking, but I didn''t want toplicate this.

    So without hesitation, I grabbed the ocarina from thepartment and said, "Let''s go back. I''m sure that everyone is getting worried about us."

    The two girls were still looking at the bottom half of my body as they nodded in a daze.

    All I could do was reveal a bitter smile as I led the way back to the group.

    With the marked trees leading the way, it was easy for us to make it back. Though it was a bit hard at the beginning since the final marked tree was a bit far from the secondst marked tree.

    It was a good thing that there were parts of the brush that had been damaged when I ran through them in response to Cecilia''s cry.

    When we arrived back at the camp, we saw that everyone had set everything up and were getting ready to cook lunch.

    When they saw using back and seeing the dazed look that Cecilia and Haley had, they all looked at us with secret smiles.

    I once again revealed a bitter smile, but I was toozy to exin.

    What I didn''t see was that there were a few secret envious looks that were pointed in my direction.

    It wasn''t the envious looks of men, but rather the envious looks of women.

    These were the knights that were under Cecilia.

    The direction that they were looking in was certainly strange since it was aimed right at my lower half.

    The rest of the day passed by without incident.

    I ordered the group to sleep in shifts during the day which confused them, but they still followed my orders.

    It was only when dinner came that I ordered them to all wake up and get ready to leave after we had finished eating.

    This time, there were a few people who spoke out, including Cecilia and Haley.

    It was one thing to explore the forest, the territory of the elves when it was bright out, but it waspletely different exploring in the darkness. There was no knowing what would happen if we met the elves in this darkness.

    But in the end, I wouldn''t change my mind, so they had no choice but to follow my orders.

    Still, Cecilia wouldn''t let her guard down at all, so she had the guards take a strict formation around the group.

    I didn''t mind this since I knew that this wouldn''t matter once we reached the ce that I was looking for.

    When dinner was over, the sun had set and it had turned dark.

    Relying on the torches that we carried, we quickly packed up and then went to the edge of the forest.

    It was there that I raised my hand to stop everyone and then turned to Haley to say, "Give me the powder."

    Haley couldn''t help revealing a confused look, but she took out a small bag from her pouch that she handed over to me.

    I took this pouch and took a pinch of the powder that was inside to sprinkle it out in front of me.

    The moment that the powdernded, there was a sudden glow that came from in front of us that shocked everyone. That was because this glow had formed a path leading into the forest.

    Everyone couldn''t help looking at me with shocked looks, but I ignored all of this as I focused on the path in front of us.

    The powder that I had sprinkled in front of us was from a flower called the Moon Blossom. It was called that because it was a flower that only bloomed when it received a certain amount of moonlight.

    But it wasn''t a flower that was very expensive since it was a flower that didn''t have any special uses.

    So normally, people would ignore this flower.

    But what most people didn''t know was that this flower had a special property.

    It contained the moon''s light and could glow when mixed with certainpounds.

    That included the secret path into the forest that the elves had created.

    This was the path that was only used when elves themselves or their invited guests were brought into the forest.

    So only the elves knew about the secret property of these Moon Blossoms.

    And of course me as well since I had seen it in the game.

    But I wasn''t going to tell that to everyone.

    Since the path had appeared in front of us, I led the way forward into the forest.

    At intervals, I sprinkled more of the Moon Blossom powder since the path ahead of us wasn''t lit up. Whenever the Moon Blossom powder was sprinkled, there was another path that appeared.

    We went deeper and deeper into the forests until we arrived at a clearing.

 Chapter 153 Elven Village (2)

    When we arrived in this clearing, I stopped throwing out the Moon Blossom powder.

    Seeing this, everyone couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look.

    Haley took the lead and asked, "Why aren''t you throwing out more of that powder? Where do we go if we don''t have the path?"

    I just simply said, "We''re here."

    "We''re here?" Most of the group repeated before looking around the clearing.

    However, they weren''t able to see a single thing in this clearing.

    Other than a small pond that was right in the middle, there was only greenery around them. They couldn''t see anything that would suggest that there was a trace of the elves in this area.

    So they all turned back and looked at me with strange looks.

    I didn''t mind them and just turned to look at the pond in the center of this clearing.

    After staring at it for a bit, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ocarina that I obtained this afternoon.

    The rest of the group just looked at the ocarina without reacting much. The only real reaction that they thought was that this thing really had a strange shape.

    But for Haley and Cecilia, they couldn''t help knitting their brows because they hade with me to find this ocarina.

    They knew that I had said that this thing was the item that I wanted to use to help us meet the elves. It was just that they couldn''t understand how this strange looking instrument would allow us to meet the elves.

    I brought the breath hole of the ocarina up to my mouth and took a deep breath before realizing that there was a problem.

    I didn''t know how to y this thing!

    I had beenpletely focused on my knowledge from the game that I had forgotten about this problem.

    After all, I thought that I would be able to use this ocarina just like I had in the game.

    But of course, it wasn''t as if prompts would appear in front of me now that I was actually in this world. If I wanted to y this ocarina, I had to actually put my fingers on the holes and cover them to change the notes.

    It was just too bad that I had no idea how to do that.

    When I let the breath that I had been holding out, there was a strange and awkward sound that came from the ocarina.

    Hearing this, all of the other members of the group looked at me with a strange look that also had a bit of pity in it. It was almost as if they were looking at me like I had gone crazy which made me feel awkward.

    There was a silence that filled the air until Haley finally came to my rescue by saying, "Do you want me to y it? This ocarina looks a bit strange, but I think I can figure it out by testing it a bit."

    I looked at her like she was my saviour and I was very tempted to give the ocarina to her, but then I remembered what would happen after the ocarina was yed. In the end, I shook my head and said, "Can you just teach me quickly? It''s just a few notes that I need to learn."

    Haley gave a nod in response and she came over to my side to inspect the ocarina.

    Since it was a strange shape, she had to figure out which holes did what to know how to form the different notes.

    It had to be said that Haley really was talented.

    It only took less than two minutes of fiddling with the ocarina to figure out exactly how to y it. By the time that she was done, she was already ying a beautiful tone on the ocarina without any difficulty.

    It really made me feel inferior, but I sucked it up and she began teaching me how to y it.

    The problem came afterwards.

    The song that I wanted her to teach me was just a few notes, so it should have been easy.

    However, my own ineptitude really made it hard for her to teach me this.

    What would have taken a normal person several minutes to learn, I had to learn over and over again for an entire half an hour to learn. Even then, the way that I yed the tone really sounded like it was cat wailing instead of actual music.

    I didn''t know that I was this unskilled with music in the first ce.

    Back when I was on Earth, I had thought that I was quite good at it. I liked to sing in the shower and I liked to sing whenever I was rxing, but I realized that this didn''t mean that I was good at it.

    After all, I had never once sung in front of another person.

    That was why I never knew just how bad I really was.

    The faces of the other members of the group were twisted, but Haley kept a smile on her face the entire time while teaching me. She should have suffered the most from being this close to my awful ying, but she kept her lips in a smile the whole time.

    Though¡­I could see a twitch from those lips from time to time.

    In the end though, I was able to learn the song.

    I thanked Haley who still had the same smile on her face before turning to look at the pond. Though I didn''t mention how it almost seemed like that smile seemed like it was glued to Haley''s face instead of her showing it naturally.

    I had only yed parts of the song before this and not the entire song since I didn''t know if it would do anything, but now it was time to y the entire song.

    Though¡­most of the group covered their ears while I was ying.

    By the end of it, there was only silence that filled the air.

    This silence really made me think that I had made a mistake or that my ying wasn''t good enough¡­

    So I was about to turn around and ask Haley for help.

    But before I could, there was a bubbling sound that rang out.

 Chapter 154 Elven Village (3)

    The moment that this bubbling sound rang out, we all turned in the direction of it.

    But there was no need to guess to know that it wasing from the pool in the center of the clearing.

    When we looked at it, we found that there were only a few bubbles that had appeared on the surface of the pond.

    However, it didn''t take long before the bubbling became stronger and stronger until it seemed like the entire pond was boiling over. This bubbling became so strong that the noise almost became deafening.

    Still, this bubbling sound didn''tst long.

    All of sudden, the middle part of the pond stopped bubbling and instead, there was a sshing sound. There was a part of the water that suddenly lifted itself up and started floating over the pond.

    This water took the form of an arc that floated up higher and higher above the water.

    The sides of the arc flowed back down into the pond itself and formed a straight line.

    When the water arc was done rising up, the entire thing took the form of what seemed to be a mirror.

    Looking into the water mirror, they could see their own reflection on the water surface.

    However, this was a mirror that had been formed out of nowhere and waspletely created from water, so it did catch them off guard.

    But that wasn''t the end of that just yet.

    After the water mirror formed, there was a bit of a dy before it suddenly lit up. The surface of the water mirror released a glow that was a bit too bright to look at directly, so they had no choice but to turn their eyes away.

    When the light faded and they turned back to look at the water mirror, they found that there was a leg that was now sticking out of the water mirror. It seemed toe out the other side of the water mirror, but those to the side could see that there wasn''t anything behind it.

    It was almost as if it had appeared out of nowhere.

    Though it didn''t just stop at this leg.

    The leg fell down onto the surface of the pond and by some kind of miracle, that leg started standing on the surface of the water. The foot just stood there on the surface without falling.

    But of course, it wasn''t just a leg that came through.

    After taking a step, the rest of the body of the leg''s owner came through as well.

    They walked through the water mirror and then stood there atop the surface of the pond, looking at the group that was in front of this pond.

    This person had fair white skin, beautiful light green hair, and piercing green eyes that swept over everyone. There was no doubt of this person''s beauty.

    When our group saw this person appear, all of us couldn''t help being stunned.

    However, that person also wasn''t alone.

    It didn''t take long before two other figures walked through the water mirror and appeared in front of us. They stood beside the first figure that hade through and looked over our group as well.

    While they were all beautiful¡­the most shocking thing about these people that hade through the water mirror were¡­their ears.

    They had sharp pointed earsing out of the side of their heads, proving that they were elves.

    After a moment of daze, the guards of our group quickly pulled their weapons and surrounded the pond.

    I wanted to stop them, but it was already toote as the two elves that came after the first one raised their hands to summon bows out of thin air. They quickly pointed these bows at the guards in front of them.

    At the same time, there was a green glow that appeared around these two elves, as if they were prepared to cast magic at any moment.

    It was only the green haired elf who hade through first that was just still standing there looking at our group.

    There was a tense feeling that filled the air after this confrontation and a long silence that followed.

    But then I quickly raised my hands and said, "Wait, wait! Wee in peace!"

    After that, I looked at the guards and waved my hands for them to put down their weapons.

    The guards had hesitant and unwilling looks on their faces when they saw this.

    So I had no choice but to look at Cecilia.

    She also had a hesitant and unwilling look on her face, but after seeing the look that I gave her, she finally chose to have the guards put down their weapons.

    As for the look that I gave her, it was naturally one that asked her to trust me.

    After seeing that our guards had put down their weapons, the elves still didn''t put down their bows which made us feel even more tense. But then the green haired elf who hade out first raised a hand and the two elves finally rxed, putting away their bows and letting the green light around them scatter.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    The green haired elf still didn''t say anything as they looked at our group, but then they suddenly said, "Which one of you yed the song?"

    Hearing this, everyone turned to look at me.

    With everyone looking at me like this, I stepped forward and raised my hand while saying, "It was me."

    The green haired elf looked at me for a bit before raising one brow and asking, "It was you?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this. I could clearly hear the insulting tone of disbelief that was in their voice, but I kept that to myself.

    I just calmly said, "That''s right, I was the one that yed the Song of Friendship."

    The green haired elf just narrowed their eyes to look at me for a bit before saying with a nod, "Alright, what do you want?"

 Chapter 155 Elven Village (4)

    I could hear the apathetic tone in their voice, but I didn''t let myself be disturbed by this.

    I just calmly looked at the green haired elf and said, "A few days ago, there was a dispute between my people and the elves of this forest. I wish to meet with the elders to discuss this matter."

    Once they heard this, all of the elves suddenly knitted their brows. They looked at us with a wary look.

    But before the green haired elf could say anything, one of the two blonde elves behind them suddenly said, "Audacious! Do you really think that someone with your status could meet with the elders? Let alone step foot in our¡­"

    Before they could say the final word, the green haired elf raised their hand to stop them before saying, "You''re too confident for someone that''s asking this kind of overboard request. There must be some kind of reason that you are this confident."

    When the blonde elves heard this, they looked at me with wary looks again.

    But I didn''t care since the beginning, my eyes had been on the green haired elf the entire time.

    That was because I knew that when it came to elves, those that had green hair were considered superior to the other elves. The green hair was the indication that the elf that possessed it was closer to nature itself.

    It meant that they were closer to bing a high elf, the advanced version of the elves.

    So this green haired elf was clearly the leader of this group.

    Looking at the green haired elf, I slowly said, "Aktu han mumet."

    The moment that they heard this, the elves looked at me with narrowed eyes.

    As for everyone else, they looked at me like I had gone crazy because to them, it sounded like I had just spoken gibberish.

    But I didn''t care about their concerned looks as I focused my attention on the elves. Especially the green haired one who I was waiting for a reaction from.

    Finally, after a long silence, the green haired elf suddenly asked, "What did you say?"

    It was almost as if they were pretending like they couldn''t understand what I was saying. It was just too bad that I could already see from the look in their eyes that they had indeed understood what I said.

    So I repeated the same thing once again.

    After hearing this, the elves looked at each other before giving sighs.

    The green haired elf looked at me and sighed again before saying, "Alright, follow me."

    Then after that, they turned around and waved their hand, as if they were telling us to follow them.

    When this happened, all of the members of my group revealed shocked looks. They looked at the elves and looked back at me, as if they were trying to figure out just what had happened.

    But I ignored their inquisitive looks as I began following the elves.

    However, before I could take more than two steps, Cecilia suddenly came in front of me.

    She raised her hand to stop me before saying, "I''ll go first."

    I wanted to say something, but I couldn''t say it in the end with the way that she looked at me.

    The look that she gave me made it clear that she was putting her foot down as the head of security here.

    There was no way that she would allow me to go into an unknown portal all by myself first. The only way that she would ever allow this to happen was if she went in first to check it out.

    So I could only ede and let her go first.

    Cecilia gave a nod and had two of her knights follow her as she went after the elves.

    The elves had been waiting in front of the portal, standing on the water.

    But then there was a problem.

    The portal was in the middle of the pond and there was no way that we would be able to walk on the water as well. So Cecilia and her knights just awkwardly waited on the side of the pond, not knowing what to do.

    They could have waded in, but that would have put them at a disadvantage if the elves ever tried anything.

    Seeing that they didn''t move, the green haired elf looked at Cecilia and asked, "Human, what are you doing?"

    Cecilia was surprised at being addressed like this by the elf, but then she awkwardly said, "We can''t walk on the water like you do."

    The green haired elf raised a brow as they looked at Cecilia before saying, "We can''t walk on water either. Just take the magic bridge."

    After hearing this, Cecilia and the two knights beside her couldn''t help looking down at the pond in front of them.

    It was very faint, but when they looked closely, they found that there was a sort of glow on the surface of the water. This glowing part only existed in a path to the water portal and the rest of the pond looked normal.

    This was most likely the magic bridge that the green haired elf had mentioned.

    But this waspletely new to Cecilia and the knights, so they couldn''t help being cautious.

    Cecilia was the one that took the lead and she carefully brought her foot onto the part of the pond that had a faint glow to it.

    While she expected to fall right through since she thought that this was one of the tricks of the elves, she found that she didn''t. Instead, she just stood there on the surface of the water like she was standing on solid ground.

    The elves just looked at her like they were looking at a caveman before shaking their heads and giving a sigh.

    The green haired elf didn''t wait any longer and moved over to the water mirror. They waved their hand behind them and then said, "Come on."

    Then without waiting, they stepped right through along with the other two elves.

    Cecilia also walked over to the water mirror and then carefully, she reached her foot out towards the water mirror.

    When it crossed the threshold of the water mirror, it disappeared just like the elves did.

 Chapter 156 Elven Village (5)

    When she saw her own foot disappear, Cecilia immediately froze on the spot.

    With how stiff she was, it was as if she was too scared to even move a single inch. It was like she thought that if she moved, she might lose that part of her body forever.

    So she just stood there with her foot stuck in the water mirror.

    After a while, there was a voice that said, "What are you doing? Come through the portal already."

    This was the voice of the green haired elf who had been with them a few minutes ago.

    Cecilia''s face couldn''t help turning red when she heard this, but she didn''t remain idle anymore. She took a deep breath before raising her other foot and walking through the water mirror.

    When she went through, she disappeared without a trace.

    But they also heard somethinging from the other side, "Eh? What is this ce?"

    After seeing Cecilia go through, the two knights that had followed her didn''t waste any time as they followed her through the water mirror. The moment that they walked through, there were two more surprised exmations that rang out.

    It was clear that they had seen the same thing as Cecilia.

    After a while longer, Cecilia''s voice came from the water mirror, "You cane through now. There''s no danger in this ce."

    With that, I didn''t hesitate as I walked up to the water mirror.

    In one swift move, I walked through and appeared on the other side.

    When I came out, I saw the scenery in front of me.

    We were currently in the middle of a forest, but this ce wasn''t a normal forest. In the trees that were all around us, there were houses that were made of wood that were built on them.

    This was the elf vige as I had remembered it.

    Elves lived with nature, so they took it literally by building tree houses.

    When the others came from behind me, they were all surprised by the scene that they saw.

    I on the other hand started looking around the area for the elves that we had met before.

    After looking for a bit, I found them standing not far away with Cecilia and the two knights that came first. It was clear that they had been waiting for us toe through the portal.

    At the same time though, I could see the trace of annoyance that was in their eyes since they had been made to wait.

    Once they saw that we had alle through the water mirror, the green haired elf waved their hand at us and said, "Come, follow me. I''ll take you to the gathering hall. The elders are already waiting for you."

    It was when this green haired elf said this that everyone snapped out of their daze.

    I was the first one to follow the green haired elf and once I did, everyone quickly came forward to catch up to me.

    They even came in between me and the elves as if they were protecting me from them.

    But then all of a sudden, the green haired elf whispered something to the blonde elves beside them. The blonde elves revealed surprised looks, but they still continued walking forward without stopping.

    The green elf on the other hand slowed down and started approaching me.

    When Cecilia saw this, she immediately made her way to intercept them, but I grabbed her shoulder.

    When Cecilia looked back at me, I shook my head and gave her a look again.

    When Cecilia saw this, she couldn''t help biting her lip and looking at me with an unwilling look. But in the end, she just gave a sigh and moved out of the way of the green haired elf.

    The green haired elf didn''t seem to care about this at all as they made their way to my side. They slowed down enough so that they were walking right beside me.

    As we walked along, they suddenly turned to look at me and asked, "Where did you learn all of this? The things that you''ve done, these are the secrets of the elves."

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    That was because I had knowledge that people from this world didn''t have. I had explored this world when it was still a game and gotten what I thought was a perfect clear, so I knew many things that people in this world wouldn''t have known.

    That was how I had known about the Song of Friendship and the secret path for friends of the elf tribe.

    But of course, it wasn''t as if I could tell people this.

    If I really did, they would most likely look at me like I was crazy.

    At the same time though, I also knew what the green haired elf wanted to ask instead of this question.

    There was one thing that the green haired elf wanted to know, which was who I knew.

    In short, they wanted to know which elf gave me all of this information. That was because the only way to get this information was from another elf.

    They wanted to know which elf I had befriended.

    But in reality, I didn''t know a single elf.

    Seeing that I didn''t answer at all, the green haired elf finally couldn''t take it anymore. They looked at me and directly asked, "Which elf do you know?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised by how direct they were.

    I knew that elves were direct and didn''t like beating around the bush, but wasn''t this too much?

    Still I looked right at them and calmly said, "Aisha?"

    The green haired elf couldn''t help knitting their brows when they heard this and they seemed to fall into deep thought.

    The name Aisha was amon name among the elves, but the fact that this name had been said by this human felt like the elf that they met wouldn''t be normal.

    Finally, the green haired elf couldn''t help asking with a strange look, "The Aisha you mentioned¡­was herst name Briar?"

 Chapter 157 Elven Village (6)

    I wasn''t surprised that the green haired elf had asked this, so I just nodded back in response.

    After seeing my response, the green haired elf couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look.

    The look that they gave me, it was as if they were trying to size me up again. It was almost as if they had realized that they didn''t really know who I was and they were sizing me up again.

    I didn''t back down as I looked right back at the green haired elf.

    After a while, the green haired elf gave a nod and said, "Since you even have the approval of Aisha, then there shouldn''t be a problem."

    After saying this, the green haired elf moved back to the other elves without another word.

    But I was left there giving a secret bitterugh in my heart.

    That was because¡­everything that I had said just now was a bluff. I didn''t know Aisha at all, I had just relied on my memories of the game.

    Aisha, Aisha Bellthorn, that was the person that I was referring to.

    She was one of the high elves of the elves race, famous for her strength and her freedom. Even among the elves, it had been countless decades since they had seen her.

    So she was considered a legendary figure.

    There was a quest in the game that would eventually lead the yer to this legendary figure. It involved saving her from a trap that she had fallen in.

    After saving this legendary figure, you would have the chance to either sleep with her once as repayment or be her friend. Of course, choosing to be her friend would yield more scenes, but it was quite the hard quest.

    Most yers chose to just sleep with her once, but the hardcore yers chose toplete her quest line. I was one of those hardcore yers.

    At the end of the quest line, one would be able to find all kinds of information about the elves that would grant them ess to the elven viges. At the same time, they received Aisha''s personal chant that showed she vouched for this person.

    That was what I had used earlier to convince the elves to bring us here.

    The problem with using this was that¡­it would mean that I had created a rtionship with Aisha now. If she ever learned the fact that I had used her secret sign like this, she would surely track me down to figure out how I knew this.

    It wouldn''t be an exaggeration to say that she would kill me if she found out¡­

    I just hoped that I would never meet her in this life.

    After being brought into the elven vige, we immediately became a spectacle.

    After all, it was rare for humans to be walking around in an elven vige like this.

    At the same time, the members of their group couldn''t help looking around with curious looks.

    Just like how it was rare for elves to see humans, it was rare for humans to see elves in their natural habitat like this.

    I think that I attracted the most attention since I was one of the few males of our group. Most of the members of our group were females since those were the ones that Haley and Cecilia chose toe with them.

    The few male members were those that were there to lift the cargo.

    There were many beautiful elven girls who were pointing at me and whispering. I couldn''t help feeling a bit self conscious, but I also felt a bit ttered with the way that they were looking at me.

    I felt two pinchesing from my sides when I revealed that ttered look.

    After that, I just walked forward with a bitter smile on my face.

    It didn''t take long for the green haired elf''s group to lead us to the center tree.

    We knew that this was the center tree since this one was much bigger than the other trees of this vige. At the same time, it was the tree that was right in the middle of all the houses in this ce.

    When we arrived, there was already another group that was waiting there for us.

    This was a group of young looking elves that looked no different from the ones that had brought us here. However, when the green haired elf''s group arrived in front of them, they gave a respectful bow to this group.

    After the bow, the green haired elf turned to point at me and said, "Elders, this is the one that we were talking about."

    As soon as they said this, we realized who these elves were.

    Even though they still looked this young, this group was the elders of this elven vige.

    When it came to these long lived species, it really was hard to tell who was an elder and who was a junior. After all, they all looked to be around the same age.

    It was even worse with the elves since they were all beautiful.

    There didn''t seem to be any signs of aging with them at all.

    After the elders heard this, they looked at me as if they were sizing me up.

    It didn''t take a genius to see the doubtful looks that were in their eyes. Still, I confidently stood there with a calm look on my face in the face of their stares.

    After a long period of silence, the elders turned around and started heading into therge tree house that was on this center tree. The one in the middle waved their hand at us and said, "Come, let''s talk inside."

    The three elves who had led us didn''t go forward, or rather, the two blonde ones in the back didn''t move forward. Only the green haired elf followed the elders up the tree.

    It seemed like she was the only one who was allowed to go with them.

    I looked at Cecilia and Haley before waving my hand at the others.

    They understood this and they all stayed there in the center of the elven vige while I went up with Cecilia and Haley alone.

 Chapter 158 Elven Village (7)

    We had to climb ropes made of vines to get up into that tree house.

    With how high up it was, it really burned my arms and legs by the end of it.

    I had been doing some training, but this was just too much¡­It was like climbing up several dozen stories and using adder that was even more straining.

    What surprised me more was how easily Haley had done it.

    I had thought that she would have struggled the most out of the three of us, but she wasn''t even out of breath by the end of it. It seemed like I really needed to rethink my evaluation of her in my mind.

    Once we arrived, the elders were surprised to see that it was just the three of us.

    The one who had been in the middle and had spoken before looked at me to ask, "It''s just the three of you? You''re not afraid that we''ll do something?"

    I looked right back at this elder without any fear in my eyes.

    Now that we were closer together, I was able to see her appearance more clearly.

    She was a green haired elf just like the one who had led us here, but her hair was lighter than the one that had led us. But that didn''t mean that she was any less beautiful than her.

    If one looked at the two of them closely, they might even think that the two of them were sisters.

    She had beautiful green eyes and fair white skin, but her figure¡­was more developed than the green haired elf who led us here. It was clear which one of them had lived longer just based on that.

    After being in a bit of daze and getting pinched in the side, I cleared my throat and said, "Why would I be afraid? We were invited here as guests of the elven race, so is there a reason for me to not trust you? Or are you saying that I should be worried?"

    Hearing this, the elves all couldn''t help revealing surprised looks before suddenly revealing wide smiles.

    The green haired elder gave augh that was like an oriole singing before saying, "Human, you are an interesting one. Most humans would be wary of us, but you act like you''re one of us." After a pause, she added, "It''s almost like you''re one of the elves."

    This was a deliberate sentence that she had added on at the end.

    I didn''t mind it and just looked right at the elders who were scrutinizing me without a word.

    Seeing this, all of them gave a satisfied nod.

    Finally, the green haired elder said, "Alright, human, let''s get to the main point. What is it that you want to discuss with us?"

    I turned to look at the green haired elf on the side, but they turned away when I did this. It was as if they were avoiding my gaze.

    It didn''t take much to guess what had happened.

    They had most likely forgotten to report what I had said¡­but I couldn''t me them since there was something that was far more shocking that had happened.

    It wasn''t every day when the guarantee of a famous high elf was used.

    So they must have forgotten to report it in the haste of everything else.

    I looked back at the green haired elder and repeated everything that I had said to the green haired elf back at the pond.

    As they heard this, the elders couldn''t help knitting their brows.

    By the end of my story, I just waited to see the reaction of the elders. However, just based on how their expressions had changed while I was telling the story, it didn''t seem like it would be good.

    After a long silence, the green haired elder took the lead and said, "Unfortunately, we cannot give you an answer right now. We need to discuss this amongst ourselves first since this involves an internal matter. We''ll give you an answer another day."

    Hearing this, Haley couldn''t help revealing an anxious look.

    After all, it was her store that needed the wood to be built, so the stalling of these elders would dy that.

    This was her dream store that she had wanted for the longest time, so it was painful for her to have it dyed like this.

    She was about to say something, but I raised my hand to stop her.

    She looked at me with a worried look, but she still held herself back in the end.

    I carefully looked at the elders who nced a bit to the side, as if they were trying to avoid my gaze.

    I finally asked in a slow and deliberate voice, "Is there something wrong with the forest?"

    When they heard this, all of the elves in the room couldn''t help jolting. That included the green haired elf who had brought us here in the first ce.

    All of them couldn''t help looking at me with amazed looks, as if they were trying to figure out how I had known this.

    Seeing them act this way, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    Sometimes, the elves could be a bit too forward that they couldn''t hide their emotions. This was the same as in the game it seemed¡­but this did make it easier.

    I had already guessed that there had to be something wrong with the forest for the elves to chase away our people. After all, the elves might love nature, but they also recognized that humans needed help from nature to survive.

    They allowed humans to chop down wood, not just because it would be hard for them to fight the humans, but also because it helped the forest. They knew that no tree could grow forever, so they needed to cut down trees to let the new saplings bloom.

    And we had clearly not chopped more than what should have been allowed, so there had to be a reason why they would stop us.

    But what was that reason?

 Chapter 159 Elven Village (8)

    After a long silence, the green haired elder finally said with a sigh, "This is a matter that we can''t discuss with an outsider."

    I said with a sly smile, "I don''t think that I can be considered an outsider, can I?"

    The elders looked at me with strange looks before turning to Haley and Cecilia. The green haired elder said, "What about yourpanions then?"

    I said with the same smile, "They can leave the room temporarily if that is what you want."

    The elders knitted their brows to look at me, as if they were trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. Seeing this, I immediately put away the smile and looked back at them with a serious look.

    There was a silent stare off for a minute before the elders gave another sigh.

    Finally, the green haired elder said, "You really are something else."

    I couldn''t help revealing a smile when I heard this.

    But then before the green haired elder could say anything else, the door to the tree house suddenly opened.

    Standing at the entrance was a red haired male elf. This was an elf that was just as handsome as the rest, but his hair was a rare red colour that was different from the rest of the elves. At the same time, he was much more buff and gave off a different feeling from the rest of the elves.

    If it had to be described in one word, it would be¡­dangerous.

    That was the feeling that he gave me.

    When he appeared, Cecilia immediately put her hand at her waist where her sword was and she moved closer to me.

    However, the red haired elfpletely ignored her as he walked over to where the elders were.

    This red haired elf said, "Elders, why have you allowed these humans into our vige?"

    He said this without care for the humans that were currently standing there, namely us.

    When we heard this, all three of us couldn''t help knitting our brows.

    The elders also knitted their brows before the green haired elder said, "Apollo, what do you think you''re doing? Do you really think that this is a ce where you can just enter and ask questions as you wish?"

    The red haired elf named Apollo didn''t back down when he heard this.

    He just held his head up high and puffed his chest out as he said, "I am the captain of the warriors, it is my duty to guard against possible threats such as this." Then after saying this, he turned to look at us.

    When he looked at us, one could see the clear disdain that was in those eyes.

    Then at the end, he turned his head away and gave a snort.

    It was clear that he looked down on us with this.

    Cecilia looked like she had something to say, so I quickly moved forward and raised my hand to stop her. Then when she looked at me with an aggrieved and angry look, I just shook my head.

    We were guests of the elves, so if we did anything here¡­it would be perceived as an act of aggression.

    But I also knew that we would have to take care of this Apollo with how aggressive he was acting towards us.

    The elders all knitted their brows even more when they heard this.

    The green haired elder especially as she looked at Apollo with a serious andplicated look.

    After a long period of silence, the green haired elder finally said, "These humans came here with the Song of Friendship and the guarantee of a high elf. If we can''t trust that, then there is nothing that we can trust. So that doesn''t excuse your behaviour, Apollo."

    When Apollo heard this, he couldn''t help revealing a hint of surprise in his eyes.

    He had only heard that humans had been brought back to the vige, so he had only assumed that they knew the Song of Friendship. He never expected that they would actually be connected to a high elf.

    At this, he narrowed his eyes to look at Zwein.

    Seeing the way that he looked at me, I calmly looked right back into his eyes.

    When Apollo saw this, there was a trace of indignation that appeared in his eyes.

    This human actually dared to challenge him like this?

    But in front of the elders, Apollo had no choice but to endure.

    So he just gave another snort and turned to our group before saying, "I''ll be keeping an eye on you. If you dare step out of ce, I will be there to stop you."

    Without even waiting for a response from me, Apollo walked out of the tree house.

    Cecilia really looked like she wanted to run after him and beat him up, but Haley and I were able to stop her in the end.

    After another long silence, the green haired elder gave a sigh before saying, "I hope that you will be able to excuse him. Apollo is our head warrior, but he is a bit¡­zealous when ites to keeping the peace."

    I turned back and gave an understanding nod before saying, "I know that there are different individuals when ites to different races. Just like you have your own ''difficult'' people, we have our ''difficult'' people as well."

    The green haired elder gave a grateful nod and looked at me with a grateful look when she heard this.

    But then she still gave a cough to clear her throat before saying, "Unfortunately, we can''te to a decision about your request today."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this.

    However, before I could say anything, the green haired elder said, "We''ll talk about it tomorrow. Right now, you should go and join the feast that is being held to wee you."

    She put a meaningful intonation in thetter half of her words.

    When I heard them, I immediately understood what she meant and gave a nod of agreement.

    So with this, we all stood up and headed out while being led by the green haired elf.

 Chapter 160 Elven Village (9)

    When we arrived at the feast that was waiting for us outside, I saw a very funny scene.

    There was a clear split between the sides of the feast.

    There were elves who were sitting on one side and on the other side¡­was our group sitting together.

    There wasn''t any interaction between the two sides and our group wasn''t even touching the food that had been prepared. If there had to be a definition for an awkward party, it would be this.

    When they saw use together, they immediately started flocking to us.

    However, seeing that the other side was also moving, they started getting wary again.

    The two sides stopped and stayed on their own sides, staring at the other side.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help giving a sigh. At the same time, I heard a sighing from the side.

    When I turned over, I saw that it was the green haired elder who sighed along with me.

    The two of us revealed bitter smiles when we looked at each other before we separated and headed off to our own groups.

    Seeing that we walked over without the elves, they didn''t hesitate to surround us this time. The guards were the ones that were on the outside while the rest were gathered around us in the center.

    They didn''t say anything at first, but it was clear by the looks on their faces just what they were thinking.

    However, I stopped all of that by saying, "What are you all doing?"

    The moment that they heard this, they all looked at me with a confused look.

    I gave a sigh before saying, "Do you not remember why we came here in the first ce?"

    All of them still had the same confused looks on their faces, but there were a few of them that had hints of recognition on their faces. They were starting to understand what I was talking about.

    So I shook my head again and said with a sigh, "We came here to discuss a non-violent resolution with the elf tribe over the logging issue, remember? If you keep acting this wary of them, do you really think we''ll get anywhere?"

    As soon as they heard this, the rest of the members of our group couldn''t help revealing awkward looks.

    That was because they knew that I was right.

    They had treated the elves as hostiles because of what had happened before, but it didn''t change the fact that they were currently on a peace mission.

    So the more that they acted this way, the more that they embarrassed Zwein who was their leader.

    So after a while, they all apologized with awkward looks.

    I shook my head and said, "I know that it''s hard to let go of your fears when we''re surrounded by powerful elves like this. However, as long as we act like this, we won''t be able to aplish everything." I changed to a more understanding tone as I said, "I don''t expect you topletely give up your fear of them since I know that it is impossible, but I just ask that you act professional."

    There was a moment of silence that followed after I said this.

    But then, all of them looked back up at me with determined looks and promised that they would try.

    Seeing this, I let out a sigh of relief.

    Of course, it wasn''t like I was really worried in the first ce.

    That was because all of the members of this group had been specially chosen for this mission in the first ce.

    I had gotten to know the people that worked under me¡­or rather under Baroness Rose during this time, so I had an idea of what kind of personality that they had.

    These people had all been chosen because they were those that had an open mind, so they were more willing to ept thingspared to the rest.

    I knew that they were nervous since it was their first time in an elven vige, so I also knew that it would just take a bit of encouragement for them to regain their fighting spirit again.

    Well, fighting spirit would be the wrong way to describe it with what goal we had. The better words to describe it were hospitality spirit.

    So after gathering themselves, the members of our group split up.

    They scattered themselves among the elves and started mingling with them.

    At first, the elves were wary of the humans that had approached them, but the festive air of the banquet helped. Plus with the wine that was served, it didn''t take long before the elves opened up to the humans.

    The members of our group also quickly found that the elves weren''t that scary to begin with.

    The elves might possess great power, but that didn''t mean that they were different from them. They were just like humans where even if they possessed great power, they all had their own personalities and things that they liked.

    The humans found that it was no problem talking to the elves once they found what they liked talking about.

    For these elves, it was the outside world.

    The elves were an isted race after all, with rare chances to learn about the outside world. Not to mention that all of the elves that lived in this vige were young since this was a ce to nurture young elves before they started traveling the world.

    So these young elves were very curious about the outside world.

    Just like how there were different elves, there was also a group of elves¡­that were hostile towards us.

    This was a group led by Apollo that kept to themselves in a corner of the feast.

    From time to time, I could feel Apollo''s gaze on me and they definitely were not kind.

    But I didn''t pay too much attention to them since I knew he couldn''t do anything right now.

    Instead, my attention was drawn by someone else who approached me.

    It was the green haired elf who had guided us to the vige.

 Chapter 161 Elven Village (10)

    She came over with two mugs filled with wine in her hand and without a word, she offered one of them to me.

    I took it with a grateful smile before taking a sip out of it.

    After taking that sip, I couldn''t help letting out a satisfied breath.

    It had to be said about elven wine, it really was something else. It was much clearer and much sweeter than the wine that we drank back in our territory.

    The two of us just sat there sipping our wine in silence as we watched the rest of the feast.

    As I had expected, Cecilia and Haley were blending in well with the elves. That was the main reason why I had brought the two of them in the first ce.

    There was no need to mention Haley since she was a sessful merchant. Being able to fit in with potential clients was a skill that all sessful merchants needed and she had no problem with this here.

    As for Cecilia, the elves had a fairly straightforward personality, so that worked fine with Cecilia who also had a straightforward personality.

    It didn''t take long for her to start a drinking contest with the elves.

    As the two of us just sat there in silence for a bit, I couldn''t help peeking at the green haired elf.

    I hadn''t had the chance to look at her properly before, but now that I did, I was certain that this green haired elf was female. Though some parts of her that showed that she was female¡­weren''t as developed yet.

    Still, there was no denying that she was beautiful.

    I couldn''t help falling into a bit of a daze as I just stared at her.

    But I was pulled back to my senses when I saw that she was also staring at me.

    I couldn''t help revealing an awkward smile before asking, "Is there something wrong?"

    The green haired elf just kept staring at me without saying a thing, even after hearing this question.

    The two of us just sat there in awkward silence for a bit¡­

    Then when I finally couldn''t take it anymore, I stood up as I prepared to go join the feast.

    But before I could, the green haired elf suddenly grabbed my hand. She pulled me back down and said, "Stay with me."

    I couldn''t help being taken aback by this, but I still sat down as she kept staring at me.

    Once again, there was an awkward mood that filled the air.

    Once again, when I finally couldn''t take it, I said, "I haven''t gotten your name yet. My name is Zwein, what''s yours?"

    The green haired elf continued looking right at me, but she still said in a soft voice, "Moon."

    I couldn''t help revealing a smile when I heard this.

    At least she was willing to respond if I talked to her, that was better than nothing.

    So I didn''t hesitate to ask, "Miss Moon, can you please tell me why you keep staring at me like this? Is there something wrong with me?"

    Moon didn''t say anything at first as she kept staring at me, but then she suddenly said, "I want to know why the high elf would be interested in someone like you."

    A bitter smile crept onto my face when I heard this.

    Still, I calmly asked, "Then have you seen what it is yet?"

    Moon just looked at me without saying a thing before shaking her head and giving a sigh. Then she said in a voice that was filled with disappointment, "I really can''t tell what''s special about you. No matter how you look at it, someone like you is below average when ites to everything. Maybe you''re a bit smart, but it shouldn''t be special enough to catch the attention of that ''Aisha''."

    The bitter smile on my face became even wider when I heard this.

    I just asked back, "Since there''s nothing special, why do you keep staring at me then?"

    Moon didn''t say anything as she just gave a ''mmh'' sound before going back to staring at me.

    I didn''t know what to say in response to this, so I decided to change the topic.

    After all, there was something that had caught my attention.

    The way that her voice changed when she mentioned Aisha''s name.

    So I looked at her and asked, "Do you know Aisha?"

    When Moon heard this, she revealed a bitter smile for the first time as she said, "We met a long time ago, but I only ever met her once¡­"

    Then her voice trailed off as she didn''t finish her sentence.

    But that was more than enough for me to tell that there was a story behind this.

    After a moment of silence, Moon continued, "Anyway, it''s been a long time since I''ve seen her and I would like to see her again. However, no one has seen her in over twenty years¡­that is except you who received her approval."

    When I heard this, I revealed an awkward look.

    However, it wasn''t as if I could just tell her the truth.

    So I didn''t say anything in response to this.

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything, Moon just gave a sigh and took another sip of her wine. She turned to look at the feast in front of us and then sat there in silence.

    I didn''t know what to say, so I also just sat there in silence.

    Just like this, the feast went on with the two of us sitting there like that.

    To my surprise, no one came to bother us during this time. Though there were a few meaningful looks that were cast our way during this.

    Including one that had clear hostility in them.

    As well as one that had a strange feel to it that I just couldn''t tell what it was.

    At the end of the feast, one of the blonde elves from before showed us where we would be staying for the night.

 Chapter 162 Elven Village (11)

    As we were heading to the tree house that we would be staying in tonight, there were many elves that were still staring at us as we walked by.

    It seemed that we were still considered a rare oddity in this vige, but at the very least, the way that they stared at us wasn''t as hostile as before.

    Instead, these were gazes that were filled with curiosity and interest.

    This meant that we had at least made a good impression and it would be easier to negotiate going forward.

    This was also the reason why the elders had wanted our group to go to the feast.

    Even if the elders did have sway in the vige and seemed like they were in charge, it wasn''t as if their position was rock solid. If the majority of the vigers disagreed with the policy that they wanted to put in ce, it wasn''t as if they could force it.

    So unless we could ease the tension between humans and elves, it would be hard for us to convince them of anything.

    With this, it seemed like the first day was quite the sess.

    However, this first day wasn''t over yet.

    Once we left the main part of the vige and there weren''t that many elves around, there was a group that suddenly appeared to stop us.

    At the head of this group was a red haired elf.

    Apollo.

    It was the head warrior who had barged into the meeting with the elders earlier.

    But that wasn''t the worst part.

    The worst part of all of this was that the elves that he came with¡­clearly weren''t here just out of curiosity. That was because all of the elves that he had brought with him were armed and radiating hostility.

    When we saw this, our own guards wanted to draw their weapons and form a defensive line, but I quickly stopped them from doing that.

    They all had unwilling looks, but I shook my head as I gestured for them to lower their weapons.

    After all, I had seen the look on the face of the blonde elf.

    She was just as surprised by Apollo''s appearance as we were and she had her brows deeply knit as if she disapproved of this.

    It seemed that this wasn''t an action that was sanctioned by the elven vige and it was just Apollo taking action by himself. So if we were to actually engage them, then that wouldpletely destroy the reputation that we had created for ourselves.

    If we fought them now, it would just hurt us.

    I just hoped that Apollo and his men didn''t n on going too far¡­

    The blonde elf took a step forward and said, "Head warrior Apollo, do you need something? These are the guests of the elders, so¡­"

    Before she could finish, Apollo cut her off with a sharp re.

    The moment that she felt this gaze fall onto her, her mouth closed and she swallowed the words that she had been about to say.

    When that happened, Apollo turned his gaze back to our group. Or rather more specifically, he turned his gaze onto me.

    With the way that he was looking at me, it was almost as if he held some kind of personal grudge against me. However, no matter how I thought about it, it didn''t seem like I had done anything to offend him.

    After a long period of confrontational silence, Apollo finally said, "Humans, you should watch your step. This is not a ce that you belong in, so you should be careful that you don''t overstep your bounds."

    Though this seemed like it was advice, it also didn''t seem that way.

    It seemed like he wanted to give a specific warning to our group¡­

    After he finished saying this, he moved forward towards me.

    Seeing this, the guards of the group all moved forward as if they were going to stop him. But once again, I raised my hand to stop them.

    It was definitely risky to do something like this, but I didn''t believe that Apollo would actually do something right when the tribe was getting warmed up to us. If he did, he would surely be recognized as the one in the wrong and be punished. I didn''t think that he was foolish enough to do something like this.

    At the same time, I wanted some information about why he was doing this in the first ce.

    With the way that he was acting, I couldn''t understand how he would benefit from this.

    When he was right in front of me, he stopped and stared right into my eyes. Though there was a height difference, he was looking down at me.

    Seeing the way that he looked at me, I couldn''t help being even more confused.

    That is until I heard what he said.

    "You were quite close with Moon at the feast tonight." Though he said this in what seemed like a calm voice, I could hear the anger that was boiling underneath.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him as if I wanted to confirm something, but then I couldn''t help giving a secret bitter smile.

    Is this really the reason why he was doing this?

    Was he really doing this because he was jealous?

    After taking some time to gather my thoughts, I said, "Does it matter to you if we talked? She is her own person and she is free to do what she wants."

    But Apollo then said, "She is my fiance."

    I was taken aback when I heard this and I couldn''t help looking at the blonde elf to the side.

    After a bit of hesitation, she gave a nod in response.

    Then I turned back to look at Apollo with a calm look before saying, "We were simply having a chat and nothing more. Since she is your fiance, don''t you think that you should trust her more?"

    When Apollo heard this, he deeply knitted his brows.

    He took a step forward so that he was right up in front of me and he said, "I hope that it will remain that way, human." He entuated thest word when he said this.

    Then he leaned in closer and said in a low voice, "I know what you humans are like. The only thing that you know how to do is cheat other races. Don''t think for a single second that I will let you get away with this."

    The aggressive tone in his voice as he said this really made it clear that he wouldn''t be giving up.

    I felt a bit annoyed when I heard this, but I kept the same calm look on my face as I said, "I assure you that not all humans are like this. We sincerely just wish to help your vige."

    Apollo gave a snort when he heard this before saying, "Just know that I''ve got my eyes on you."

    With that, he turned around and started moving back to his own men. He didn''t even give me a chance to say anything.

    As they left, I could see that the elves who hade with Apollo had disappointed looks.

    It was as if they were prepared to start a fight tonight¡­

    So I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    At least we avoided the fight for now¡­but I also knew that it was impossible to avoid this fight forever.

    He wasn''t someone that would stop that easily.

 Chapter 163 Forest Trouble (1)

    When the morning came, we were woken up bright and early by the elves.

    Leading them were the two blonde elves who had led us to the vige yesterday.

    It seemed that since they were the ones that had greeted us first, they had been assigned to take care of us while we were in the vige.

    The elves lived with nature, so they rose with the sunrise.

    As a race that had abundant magic, they didn''t need that much sleep unlike us humans.

    So after going to bedtest night because of the party and then waking up early like this, it really was hard for us. But it wasn''t as if we had a choice since the other side was already up.

    It wasn''t as if we could just keep sleeping all by ourselves when they were waiting, that would be disrespectful.

    In the end, we all got up and enjoyed the meal that they had prepared for us.

    To my surprise, I found that there was actually meat with this meal.

    I had thought that since the elves lived with nature, that meant that they didn''t eat meat. However, that didn''t seem to be the case.

    There were all kinds of meat products that were ced on the table, from bacon to ham to jerky.

    I couldn''t help turning to ask the blonde elf on the side and she answered, "Living with nature isn''t as simple as you think. If you let your guard down for a single second, you will be swallowed by nature." Then her voice calmed a bit as she added, "Not to mention, we make sure to use every single part of the animal that we hunt to show them respect, so we are still respecting nature. It is all part of the cycle of nature."

    What she said was correct, but it really was strange hearing this from an elf that I thought was more¡­gentle and nature loving.

    Or at least that was the preconception that I had of them.

    Having it shattered like this really was a strange thing.

    When breakfast was over, it was Moon who came to pick us up to see the elders again.

    As we were heading to the meeting room, we passed by Apollo who was leading a group of elves out.

    As we passed by them, I could feel his gaze fall onto me once again.

    It was especially bad since Moon was currently walking with me.

    She didn''t lead the way, she had left that to the two blonde elves. Instead, she deliberately slowed down so that she was walking right beside me. Not to mention that she had been staring at me the entire time, which made it even worse.

    When my gaze met Apollo''s gaze, he looked at me like he wanted to kill me. At the same time, he mouthed with his lips, "You''re dead."

    There was no hiding it anymore, he had already made up his mind.

    Since that was the case¡­

    It seemed that I did have to change my ns.

    Once we passed by them, Moon suddenly said, "I''m sorry about him."

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard when I heard this.

    I looked at her and saw that she actually had an apologetic look as she said this. It seemed that she really took this matter to heart¡­

    But it wasn''t as if that would change anything.

    So I changed the topic by asking, "So how did you end up being engaged to him in the first ce?"

    Moon didn''t answer right away when she heard this. She just lowered her head and gave a sigh, as if this would be a long story.

    Then all of a sudden, she said, "It''s a veryplicated matter, but basically it goes back to thews of the elves. Because I am who I am and he''s the head of the warriors, it was destined to happen, that''s the gist of it."

    I looked at her with one raised brow and asked, "Aren''t you a little too young for that anyway?"

    After all, based on her figure and her face¡­while it was beautiful, she did seem a bit young.

    When she heard this, Moon puffed out her chest and said, "Young? I''m already 167 years old, how can you call me young?"

    I was surprised to hear this, but then I remembered that elves had lifespans of over a thousand years. As such, they developed slower than humans did.

    So if you convert this to the human standard of age, she was only around 16 years old.

    16 years old and with this body, it seemed that she really was ate bloomer¡­

    But as I thought that, Moon red at me as if she could see that I was thinking rude thoughts.

    Seeing this, I revealed an awkward smile and continued, "If you don''t want this engagement, why don''t you just refuse it? I''m sure that with your status, you should be able to do something about this."

    Moon lowered her head and revealed a bitter smile when she heard this.

    She naturally also knew this, but¡­there was a problem.

    After a long period of silence, she said, "Apollo''s father¡­is a problem."

    I asked with a confused look, "Who is his father?"

    Moon''s bitter smile became wider as she said, "Donan."

    She said this as if I should know who this person was, but surprisingly, I actually did know who this person was. That was because this person had yed arge role in the elven storyline in the game.

    Donan, the head warrior in the capital of the elves.

    The elves might be a migratory race that lived with nature, but they still needed a ce to gather all the important people so that they could stand together as one race against the other races. That was the capital of the elves where the Elven King and the rest of the elven royalty lived.

    And Donan was the head warrior in that capital.

    He was one of the most powerful elves in this entire world and he was quite the honourable man, but it wasn''t strange that he would have someone like Apollo as a child.

    That was because I knew the true face of Donan because of the game.

    Donan was an exclusionist who only cared about elven supremacy.

    In contrast, the current Elven King was a moderate ruler who wanted to get along with the other races.

    So in the game, there was the quest line to stop Donan''s coup and save the Elven King, which would allow the yer to be the friend of all elves. That gave them ess to all kinds of beautiful elvendies.

    I didn''t have any ns to take this quest line, but somehow, it came back to me in the end. It was like I was cursed to attract all kinds of different quest lines from the game¡­

    Seeing the look on my face, Moon knew that I knew who Donan was, so she didn''t say anything else.

    Just like this, we were led back to the tree in the center of the elven vige again in silence.

    But before going in, I suddenly said to Moon, "You shouldn''t let yourself be bound by rules. Your life is yours for the choosing and only you can decide what you want to do."

 Chapter 164 Forest Trouble (2)

    Then without waiting for a response from Moon, I headed up into the tree house.

    She was just left there standing in a daze.

    She knew that these words weren''t actually mine, but rather they came from Aisha.

    These were the words that she had famously said when she had left the elven capital on her journey. These were words that almost every elf knew by heart because they perfectly embodied the concept of freedom that the elves loved.

    But it had a deeper meaning here.

    When Moon heard these words, she couldn''t help falling into deep thought over them.

    Then when she thought it through, she couldn''t help feeling a ripple in her heart.

    This was a ripple that she had never felt before, but she never thought that it woulde because of a human¡­

    ¡­

    Inside of the tree house, the elders were all waiting for us.

    When they saw us, the green haired elder greeted us in a friendly tone just like yesterday.

    There was a bit of small talk that was exchanged before they all suddenly became serious.

    I also put away my smile and waited for the green haired elder to speak.

    After a long silence, the green haired elder said with a sigh, "You asked us what happened to our forest yesterday¡­I''ll tell you now."

    Hearing this, I looked at Cecilia and Haley who were also here with me and they both gave nods before getting ready to stand. However, before that, the green haired elder raised her hand and said, "No, it''s fine. We want to hear your opinion on this matter as well."

    The way that she looked at Cecilia and Haley was different from the way that she looked at them yesterday.

    There seemed to be a trace of admiration in them.

    But after that feast, it was understandable.

    There was another reason why the elders had held that feast, it was so they could secretly observe their guests.

    With Haley and Cecilia''s performances yesterday, the elders had clearly been impressed.

    The two of them looked at me and I gave a nod in response before they sat down again.

    With all three of us sitting there, the green haired elder said, "As you suspected, there is a problem with the forest. The amount of magic in the forest is draining, which is why we can''t allow you to take more magic wood. If it keeps draining¡­"

    She didn''t finish her words, but it was clear what she meant by this.

    All three of us knitted our brows when we heard this.

    After a pause, I asked, "Do you have any ideas why the magic in the forest is being drained?"

    The green haired elder shook her head when she heard this before saying, "We''ve already sent scouts deep into the forest, but we haven''t noticed anything unusual."

    I knitted my brows even deeper when I heard this.

    I had expected some kind of problem like wandering monsters or something like that, but I never expected something like this. After all, it wasn''t as if I even knew how magic really worked in this world.

    Even if I had yed the game this world was based on, it wasn''t as if magic was exined in that game. All that you needed to use magic in that game world was the help of the system. It was one simple click of the button to use magic.

    There was no real exnation to how it worked unless one read the endless piles of lore.

    Even if I was apletionist, that wasn''t something that I did.

    So I had no idea how I would even start figuring out why the magic was being drained.

    Or at least, I knew that it would be impossible for me to figure out anything as long as I was still in this vige.

    After thinking for a bit, I asked the green haired elder, "Can we head into the forest and have a look? I can''t promise you anything, but it would be better than sitting here and doing nothing."

    Then to my surprise, the green haired elder said, "Sure, I''ll arrange some people to take you there now."

    I really couldn''t help being surprised by this since I hadpletely expected this request to be denied. After all, even if I dide with the approval of a high elf and the Song of Friendship, showing me their home like this seemed like a very bad idea.

    If I were to ever use what I had seen against them one day¡­

    I couldn''t tell if it was because I had the ''favour'' of Aisha, the high elf, or if it was because they were desperate to solve the problems in their forest.

    However, when I looked at the elders closely, I realized that it was most likely thetter.

    There really did seem to be something serious happening in these woods.

    The elders didn''t waste any time on this matter and soon there was a group of elves who were gathered at the bottom of the tree. These were different elves from the ones that followed Apollo, but they were definitely still strong warriors.

    It seemed that Apollo wasn''t in charge of every warrior in this vige. There were still some that reported to the elders and followed their orders.

    That was good to see since it made my future much easier.

    The leader of this group was, to my surprise, Moon.

    She was with the two blonde elves that had been assigned to show us around at the head of this group of elves.

    After we had all gathered, the green haired elder said, "We wish you luck and we hope that you will be able to find the cause."

    Though she said this, there wasn''t actually any real hope in her voice. She just said this for the sake of saying it.

    That was a bad sign since this meant that the situation was even worse than I had expected.

    This meant that the reason they were allowing us to go in the first ce was¡­because they were grasping at straws¡­

    Just what was happening in this forest?

 Chapter 165 Forest Trouble (3)

    The elves quickly led us into the forest and soon we were surrounded by trees.

    Then all of a sudden, they stopped and Moon turned to look at me, as if she was waiting for instructions.

    However, I didn''t even know where we were, so it wasn''t as if I could give any instructions.

    But with the way that they were looking at me, I couldn''t just remain silent. So I gave a cough before asking, "Where are we right now?"

    Moon quickly said, "We''re not that far from the vige, perhaps ten minutes away."

    Three ck lines appeared on my head when she said this.

    That didn''t give me any information since I didn''t even know where the vige was in the first ce.

    So after thinking about it, I asked, "How about in rtion to the pond that you met us at, where are we in rtion to that?"

    Moon shook her head and said, "That pond is at the very edge of the forest while we''re currently right in the center, so it''s quite far away from here and isn''t considered a goodndmark to use in this situation."

    I had already guessed this, but it hit harder when she said it to me.

    After all, we had taken a magic portal to the elven vige, so it wasn''t as if we were that close to where we had been before.

    Finally, I just asked, "Can you show me a map of the forest?"

    When the elves heard this, all of them revealed wary looks as they turned in my direction.

    That also included Moon and the two blonde elves who were with her.

    Seeing this, I just calmly waited for them to speak again.

    After staring at me for a while, Moon gave a nod and said, "Alright, we''ll get you a map."

    The other elves were surprised, but since it was her who had said it, there wasn''t anything that they could say.

    One of the elves had an unwilling look on her face as she took out a map from her bag. Then as she handed it to me, she made it very clear that she wasn''t willing to do this with the look on her face.

    I still took it without a single expression and took a close look at it.

    It was a very simple map, but there was no doubt that it was an effective one. It showed me all the things that I needed to know about this forest.

    First there was the vige which was right in the center of the forest and then there was the pond where we had been that had been at the edge. Judging by the distance between them, it seemed like it would take several days to travel that distance if we didn''t use that portal.

    But this still didn''t give me the information that I wanted.

    So I asked, "Where is the area where magic is disappearing. Can you show me on the map?"

    Moon nodded and came to my side. She reached over my hand to point out the areas where the magic was disappearing on the map.

    When I looked closely, I found that there was a bit of a pattern.

    We didn''t see it at the edge of the forest because there was nothing at the edge of the forest. At the same time, we didn''t see it when we were in the elven vige because there wasn''t any here.

    It created a certain pattern, the shape of a ring around the elven vige that cut off the center of the forest.

    No matter how one looked at it, this seemed like it was done intentionally¡­

    Or if it wasn''t intentional, there must be some kind of reason for this still.

    It couldn''t just be a coincidence.

    But to get any information, I would still have to see the area itself to know what it was like.

    So I turned back to Moon and asked, "Can you take us to the affected area?"

    Moon looked a bit hesitant at first, but she nodded in agreement in the end.

    When the other elves saw this, they all revealed worried looks which confused me.

    It was as if they were afraid of going to that ce¡­

    But why would they be afraid of going to that ce?

    It wasn''t as if there was anything dangerous there, it was just that the concentration of magic energy wasn''t as high.

    So there shouldn''t be anything that would worry them like this.

    But I soon found out the reason why they were worried.

    As we headed there, Moon and the elves moved slowly, as if they were wary of something.

    Then all of sudden, Moon raised her hand to stop us.

    As we stopped, I asked, "What''s wrong?"

    Moon pointed in front of us and said, "It''s right in front of us."

    I looked in the direction that she was pointing in and found that there didn''t seem to be anything strange. That is until I looked more closely at the nts and trees that were in front of us.

    They still had a bit of green, but there was also a bit of yellow in their leaves and their stems seemed a bit bent.

    It was as if they were slowly dying because of ack of nutrition.

    This must be the magic being drained that they had mentioned earlier.

    But just watching from afar wouldn''t give me any clues, so I wanted to get closer.

    When I took a step forward, Moon suddenly grabbed my hand and asked, "What are you doing?"

    I looked at her with a confused look and said, "I''m going to take a closer look to see if I can find any clues."

    Moon had a worried look on her face that confused me when I saw it, but in the end, she said with a nod, "Alright, I''lle with you."

    As soon as the other elves heard this, they all revealed worried looks as well.

    There were many of them that wanted to say something to stop her, but she just raised her hand to cut them off. Seeing that determined look on her face, they all closed their mouths and swallowed their words, silently epting her conviction.

    Then at the same time, they turned to re at me as if they were ming me.

    But I didn''t know why they would do that.

    Of course, on our side, Cecilia wouldn''t let me go alone either.

    So it was the three of us that made our way over towards the dying nts.

    As we came closer, even someone who was ignorant about magic could feel that there was something different about this ce. It was like there was something different in the air that made it smell strange.

    It was like there was a freshness that was missing with the nature of this part of the forest.

    In short, it was like something was missing.

    Finally, when we came up to the nts, I could see clearly that they were dying.

    But before I could do anything else, I suddenly heard a thumping sound.

    When I turned around, I saw that Moon had fallen to the ground.

 Chapter 166 Sudden Notice

    After a second of being caught off guard, Cecilia and I quickly moved to her side and helped her up.

    Seeing the pale look on her face, I couldn''t help asking, "What''s wrong? Do you feel sick?"

    Moon didn''t answer as sheid there in our arms taking a few deep breaths.

    With these deep breaths, her expression became better and she was slowly able to sit up again.

    After she sat up, she shook her head and said, "I''m fine, but what about you two? Are you not affected at all?"

    Cecilia and I couldn''t help looking at each other with confused looks as we had no idea what Moon was talking about. Then I looked back at her and asked with the same confused look, "Affected? What should I be affected by?"

    Hearing this, it was Moon''s turn to reveal a surprised and confused look.

    She looked at the two of us and found that there was nothing wrong with us at all, so she couldn''t help saying, "Huh? Why aren''t you affected by theck of magic at all?"

    "Lack of magic?" I repeated before saying, "Why would we be affected by theck of magic?"

    Moon just looked at us with a confused and shocked look, not saying a single thing.

    All three of us just froze there in a confused state before I finally remembered something.

    This was lore from the game, but apparently elves were beings that were naturally in tune with spirits, which gave them an innate talent for magic. But that also came at a cost.

    Since spirits existed almost everywhere, they were used to sensing the spirits around them.

    But spirits were beings that were created from magic energy and they would not exist in ces that were void of magic. So in a ce like this where the magic energy was being drained, there were very few spirits here.

    For the elves that were used to sensing the spirits, to suddenlye to a ce where there wasn''t a trace of spirit gave them a kind of shock. After all, the spirits also provided them with magic energy that they used for their spells or in general to maintain their bodies.

    If there were no spirits, they would have ack of magic energy in their body that would cause weakness in them, so that was why Moon had suddenly copsed.

    As for humans, we weren''t dependent on magic energy in the first ce, so we were fine in areas without any magic energy.

    After figuring this out, I said to Cecilia, "Help me carry her back."

    Cecilia gave a nod in response and then together, we lifted Moon by her arms, carrying her back to the group.

    When we came back, the other elves quickly came forward to take Moon away from us.

    The two blonde elves raised their hands and started injecting magic energy into Moon to make up for her deficiency while the rest of the elves red at us.

    I could only reveal a bitter smile when I saw this.

    But I also said, "We''ll go and take a look at the magic deficient zone ourselves."

    As soon as I said this, the elves immediately spoke up.

    "We can''t let you do that! Who knows what you''ll do to our forest!"

    "That''s right! Do you really think that we would let you go alone?"

    "You think that we would really let our guards down in front of you humans?"

    When our group heard this, they immediately moved to my side as if they were trying to protect me.

    But I had already expected this when Moon insisted oning with me earlier.

    After all, it would be strange to expect the elves to suddenly trust us when we''ve only known each other for less than a day. It would certainly take much more time than this to build a rtionship.

    But there was no time.

    I needed to have a proper look at the area where the magic was being drained from so that I could have an idea of what was happening.

    However, that also wasn''t the only reason¡­

    There was something else that I needed to check while I was away from the elves.

    The elves were still insulting us like this until Moon suddenly raised her hand.

    The moment that the elves saw Moon''s reaction, they all stopped talking and turned back to surround her with worried looks.

    Moon just sat up without caring about them and looked over at me.

    For some reason, I felt like there was something different about the way that she was looking at me. It was just that I couldn''t put my finger on what it was.

    After a moment of silence, she said, "You can go."

    The elves were all shocked when they heard this, but then they were about to make theirints.

    Moon just raised her hand to stop them before saying, "We''ll never be able to get anywhere if we don''t trust each other. They have already shown that they want to be friends, so we should at least reciprocate."

    The elves all looked like they thought differently, but in the end, they were suppressed by Moon.

    But that didn''t mean that they didn''t re at us when we headed over to the magic deficient area.

    To make sure that they weren''t too suspicious of us, I only took Cecilia and Haley with me over to that area to take a look. The rest of our group stayed under the watchful eyes of the elves.

    As we were walking away, one of the blonde elves came forward to ask Moon in a hushed voice, "Young miss, are you sure that we should let these humans do what they want?"

    Moon just gave a slight nod before saying, "If they wanted to do anything, they would have done it already. But at the same time, this gives us a chance to see just what they are actually nning."

    The eyes of the blonde elf lit up when she said this and she acted like she was enlightened before withdrawing.

    But even though Moon said this, the tone of her words didn''t reach her eyes.

    There was a different look in her eyes that had different emotions¡­

    Perhaps even she didn''t know what those emotions were.

    She just knew that he had looked quite handsome when he had been helping her back.

    After reaching the magic deficient area, I had Cecilia and Haley search on their own while I went behind a tree.

    Once I was sure that I was alone, I called out the system.

    Even if they couldn''t see the system interface, I couldn''t be too careless.

    Not to mention, the system should be created with magic, so there might be a chance that the elves that were sensitive to magic would sense or see something. That was why I had to get away from them.

    I looked down at the notification that the system had given me earlier.

    This notification had appeared when I had walked over with Moon, but I had been distracted by her suddenly falling down to look at it properly.

    But now that I did, I couldn''t help being shocked by it.

 Chapter 167 New Quest

    "New Main Quest released: Save the elves from the demons."

    "Demons?" I couldn''t help repeating to myself.

    It was a good thing that there was no one else here with me, or else it definitely would have been hard to exin why I just said that.

    But I really was confused why the system was telling me to save the elves from the demons.

    Could it be that the demons were the reason why magic was being drained from this forest?

    If that was the case, it would exin the shape of the area where magic was being drained¡­

    But how did demons sneak all the way here?

    The border between the human territory and the demon territory was very far from this ce, so it was hard for demons to get this far into the human territory. That is unless they had help from the humans themselves, like with the demon order.

    So if there were demons in this forest, where did theye from?

    Or¡­could it be that they were remnants from the demon order that he destroyed?

    If that was the case, it would really seem like I was rted to this matter since I was the one that destroyed the demon order and sent the demons here.

    After thinking about it, I decided to look closely at the quest tab.

    [Main Quest] Save the elves from the demons.

    The demons have set up special spell arrays that drain away the magic energy of the Spirit Forest and this has put the lives of the elves in danger. Save the elves by stopping these spell arrays and restoring the magic of the Spirit Forest.

    Reward: System upgrade.

    The moment that I saw what the reward was, I couldn''t help being shocked.

    The system was already capable of doing many things, but I really couldn''t help wondering what it would be capable of if it was upgraded¡­

    It seemed like I really had to take this quest seriously¡­

    But the problem now was how I was supposed to find these special spell arrays that the demons were using to drain the magic energy from the Spirit Forest.

    It wasn''t as if I had some kind of special ability to do that.

    So in the end, I really didn''t know what to do¡­

    That is until I heard someone calling out.

    "I''ve found something!"

    When I heard this, I immediately followed that voice to where it wasing from.

    I saw that it was Haley and she was standing in the middle of some trees. It didn''t seem like there was anything special about where she was currently standing.

    But for her to say this, she must have found something.

    When we gathered together, she waved her hand for us toe over to where she was standing and she pointed down at the ground as she said, "Do you see this?"

    When we looked down, all we saw were a few branches and leaves that were there, so we were very confused about what she was pointing at.

    Haley could see this, so she said, "Look closely and you can see the marks on the ground."

    We were still confused about what she was talking about, but since she was insistent, we looked closely at where she was pointing.

    As we looked closely, we were able to find the marks that she was talking about.

    There were some small straight marks in the dirt that seemed to be leading in a direction, but there didn''t seem to be anything special about them. These could have been marks that were made from anything scratching the ground.

    Still seeing the confused looks on our faces, Haley shook her head and said, "These are tracks from a special creature called the Sprinting Bird. It''s a rare creature used for transport because of how fast it can run."

    While I felt that she was smart, I couldn''t help being doubtful when I heard this since this really didn''t seem like the tracks of some kind of creature.

    No matter how I looked at it, these were just simple marks on the ground.

    Still, I decided to trust her in the end.

    I just had one thing to ask Haley, "How do you know about all of this?"

    She revealed a confident and sly smile, "I''m a merchant and a great one at that. If I didn''t know this, then I wouldn''t have been able to build up my business, would I?"

    As I looked at her, a gentle and pampering look appeared in my eyes.

    While others would have been moved by the way that she looked, I couldn''t help thinking that she was¡­cute.

    Cecilia on the other hand didn''t think too much about it.

    Once she heard that these were tracks, she started looking on the ground for the trail. She was looking around the area for marks that were simr to the one that Haley had found.

    It didn''t take her long to find what she was looking for and she quickly turned back to tell us.

    "Over here! There are more tracks over here!"

    We quickly went over to where she was calling from.

    When we came over, we saw the marks on the ground that she had found.

    These marks were like the ones that she had found before and they were leading off into the forest. If we followed them, we should be able to find the ones that made them.

    Both of the girls revealed excited looks when they saw this. They both turned back to me with looks that seemed like they wanted to follow these tracks.

    However, I shook my head to deny this.

    I had two different reasons for this.

    One was that this was the territory of the elves, so if we went around it as we wanted, looking for these things, it would certainly offend them. If we wanted to do this, we had to go talk to the elves first.

    Second¡­I knew what was waiting for us at the end of this search.

    The demons were anything but weak, so I wouldn''t put our lives in danger without some kind of n first.

    So the first thing to do was to regroup and tell everyone what we found.

 Chapter 168 Forest Trouble (4)

    When we came back, the elves immediately looked at us with curious looks as if they wanted to know what we found.

    Seeing this, I started exining what we had found.

    When I was done, all of them were looking at me with looks of doubt.

    It was a good thing that I hadn''t mentioned anything about the demons, or else they would have looked at me with even stranger looks.

    After a moment of silence, the elves didn''t hold back anymore.

    "What kind of nonsense is this? What bird?"

    "Do you really think that our elite elven scouts wouldn''t have picked up on the tracks that you talked about?"

    "That''s right! Are you looking down on us elves?"

    I just revealed a bitter smile when I heard this and I didn''t say anything in response.

    Before they got too rowdy though, Moon raised her hand to stop them again.

    She had been looking at Haley the entire time as if she was sizing her up. Now that she had raised her hand, it should mean that she had made her decision.

    Moon calmly and slowly said, "We''ll take a look at these tracks. If they are indeed as you say, then it should lead to the culprit."

    When the other elves heard this, they revealed looks of disbelief. However, they kept their opinions to themselves since they were all told to follow Moon''s orders on this trip.

    But then they remembered where they would have to go to do this, so they once again red at us.

    The way that they looked at us was almost like we were predators that were trying to lure them to a bad ce with candy. Of course, that could be understood since the ce that had the magic power in the air drained was like that for them since it caused them to go into shock.

    It would be the perfect ce to do something to them.

    Moon also knew this and she said, "We''ll move slowly and adjust to the change. We''ve already done this before."

    Hearing this, the other elves nodded slowly.

    They had indeed done this before because these were the elite scouts that they had mentioned earlier. They had been so angry because Zwein was implying that their casual search was better than the work of these elite scouts, so it was stepping on their pride.

    After deciding this, they started moving forward into the parts of the forest with the magic drained.

    They moved slowly and there were looks of difficulty on the faces of these elves, but not a single one fell like Moon had done earlier.

    They were able to endure and slowly move forward like they weren''t affected by theck of magic power.

    Finally, we arrived at the ce that we had searched earlier.

    I brought them over to the tracks that Haley had found and when we showed it to them, all of them had doubtful looks on their faces. There were even a few of them that looked at us like they thought that we were crazy.

    I ignored all of this and just led them along the tracks that we had found.

    After following these tracks for a bit, they had no choice but to admit that this was real.

    After all, it was impossible for such uniform tracks to appear in the ground. There had to be something that had caused all of this.

    These elite scouts were also hunters that had experience tracking animals, so they could tell what were actual animal tracks and what weren''t.

    The ones in front of them indeed seemed like animal tracks.

    They were just upset that they didn''t notice this earlier¡­

    They had thought that these were simple marks that had formed naturally and they had never connected it to some kind of animal until they saw that it led somewhere.

    But, not a single one of them gave Haley the admiration that she deserved. Not a single one of them was willing to admit that a human like Haley was better than them.

    One of the blonde elves came to Moon''s side and asked, "Should we follow them?"

    As she asked this, there was a look of expectation on her face.

    It was to be expected since this was the first clue that they had found after all this time, so they wanted to follow this as soon as possible.

    But Moon just shook her head to deny this.

    The other elves were surprised to see this and they looked at her like they were wondering why she had rejected this.

    Moon looked at the marks on the ground for a bit before saying, "There''s no knowing what else is there. We need to go back and report to the elders first before we follow these tracks. We also need to bring the other warriors with us."

    The other elves had a slightly disappointed look when they heard this, but they also had looks of agreement. They knew that Moon was right, there was no knowing what was there waiting for them at the end of the tracks.

    If they went after them now, especially with the weakened state that they were in because of theck of magic power here, it would be dangerous for them.

    Their best move was to go back and report to the elders. That way, they coulde up with a n on how to deal with this.

    Not to mention¡­there were the humans that were here with them now.

    If they went after these tracks with the humans here¡­it would be like having to watch their backs at the same time.

    After this, Moon turned to head back to the elven vige with the rest.

    As we were heading back, I came over and said in a soft voice, "We want to help you when you go after those people."

    Moon turned to look at me with a calm look in her eyes.

    After a moment of silence, she gave a nod in response.

 Chapter 169 Forest Trouble (5)

    It didn''t take long to get back to the elven vige, but the elders were surprised to see them back so soon.

    After all, they had expected them to be out all day looking for clues.

    When they heard Moon''s report, they looked at us with strange looks, but they still brought us back to the same ce as before to discuss it.

    Since it was Haley who had found these tracks, she was the one that they questioned.

    But to everyone''s surprise, instead of asking her how she found these tracks, they started asking her things about the Sprinting Bird. They asked all kinds of different questions, such as the behaviour of the Spiriting Bird, their natural habitat, and many other different things.

    Haley was surprised as well to be asked these things, but she didn''t have any problems answering the questions that had been asked of her.

    With how easily she answered the questions, one might even think that she was an expert on the Sprinting Birds.

    However, she was just a merchant that knew a bit more than normal people did.

    Once they had run out of questions to ask, the elders fell silent as if they were considering something.

    In the end, the green haired elder suddenly looked at one of the elves on the side and said with a sigh, "Go and call Apollo."

    There was a bit of heaviness in her voice as if she didn''t want to involve him in this matter, but she had no choice in the end. It was as if she knew that she had to bring him into this matter or else they wouldn''t be able to solve it.

    So the elf that was given this order quickly went off.

    Luckily, Apollo''s group hade back from their patrol and it took him no time toe to the elder''s hall.

    When he arrived, his eyes swept across the room until they fell onto our group.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at us as if he was looking at something dirty, but then he turned away and looked at the elders.

    Without any hesitation, he walked up in front of them and asked the green haired elder, "Is there a reason you called me here?"

    The voice that he spoke in didn''t have any respect at all. It was as if he wasn''t talking to an elder, but rather someone that was under him.

    The green haired elder slightly knitted her brows when she heard this, but she didn''t say anything to admonish him. Instead, she just calmly said, "There''s been a new development in the situation."

    When Apollo heard this, he turned to look at me with narrowed eyes again.

    He stared at me for a few seconds before turning back to the green haired elder to ask, "Should we be talking about this in front of the humans?"

    The green haired elder looked right back at him and said, "They already know. They''re the ones who found the new developments in the first ce."

    The moment that Apollo heard this, he immediately deeply knitted his brows. The disapproval on his face could be seen from a mile away.

    He red at the green haired elder and said, "How could you do this? You''ve told the secrets of our elven vige to outsiders like these humans? Do you know what kind of danger you''ve put us in?"

    The green haired elder didn''t flinch at all under Apollo''s usations and instead just calmly said, "They are guests and they have proven that they are trustworthy. Not to mention, this is a matter of life and death for our elven vige, so we will take all the help that we can get."

    Apollo''s face twisted with rage when he heard this.

    If there was a table in front of him, he would have mmed his hands down and cracked it in half. But since there wasn''t, all he could do was stomp his foot on the ground and make a crack on the floor.

    Then he said in a loud voice filled with rage, "And in exchange, you''ve put us at the mercy of the humans! What if they want to destroy our vige as well? Since they already know all about our weaknesses, it should be easy for them!"

    The green haired elder said in a calm voice, "They have shown that they are trustworthy and have no intentions of doing such a thing. We should not judge people by their race and judge them by their actions instead."

    Apollo wanted to say something else, but he could see the way that everyone in the room was staring at him.

    He didn''t care what the humans thought, but it was different for Moon and the other elves.

    He had his ambitions after all and if he came on too strongly, all he would be doing is hurting himself and his future chances.

    So Apollo took a deep breath and asked, "What new developments are there?"

    The green haired elder didn''t bring up what he had said earlier and instead told him what our group had found during our time in the forest.

    Apollo''s expression was calm when he listened to the story, but then once he finished listening, he suddenly narrowed his eyes to look in our direction.

    But this time, his eyes didn''t fall onto me. This time, his gaze fell onto Haley.

    As he looked at her, he made the doubt that he felt clear.

    After ring at her for a bit, Apollo suddenly said, "We''re just supposed to trust the words of a human? What if this is all a big lie that they''re feeding us to lure us into some trap? Do you really think that we should take this kind of risk?"

    To his surprise though, he found that no one here actually supported his words.

    Haley was about to say something to defend herself, but before she could, Moon suddenly stood up and moved in front of her.

 Chapter 170 Forest Trouble (6)

    After moving in front of Haley, Moon raised her hand as if she was protecting Haley.

    Apollo couldn''t help revealing a surprised and confused look, but then he opened his mouth as if he was about to say something.

    However, before he could say anything, Moon said, "We were there as well and we saw the whole thing."

    Apollo''s mouth froze and then closed as if he was swallowing his words.

    Perhaps he could be cold and uncaring to others, but he couldn''t treat Moon the same¡­

    So after taking some time to gather his thoughts, Apollo said, "Even if you saw those marks, they could have been left there by the humans,"

    Moon raised a brow and said in a voice filled with doubt, "The humans left them?" Then in a colder voice, she said, "How did you expect them to make it into our forest without us noticing and leaving these marks?"

    Apollo opened his mouth, but he wasn''t able to say anything.

    After all, there wasn''t anything that he could say in response to this.

    If he said that they snuck in, then that would be like admitting that his group was ipetent in their jobs. They were the ones that were in charge of patrolling the forest to make sure that no one snuck in them after all.

    But if he were to admit that he was wrong¡­especially in front of these humans¡­

    He would rather die than do something like that.

    So he was stuck in a hard position.

    But in the end, he just gave a snort and said, "I don''t know how they did it, but it must be a trick that the humans are ying on us."

    It was a clever trick to get himself out of this situation, but he was still avoiding the problem which hurt his reputation.

    But Moon didn''t rub this in and instead said, "We need your help following these tracks. Will you help?"

    Apollo once again knitted his brows when he heard this.

    This was a request from Moon, so he was inclined to ept.

    But at the same time, by epting and going along with this, it meant that he would have to cooperate with the humans.

    This was something that was very hard for him to do¡­

    So instead of simply epting, Apollo suddenly said, "Even if we do go, we should make sure that the humans are detained during this time." He turned back to look at our group as he said, "There''s no knowing what these despicable humans will do while we''re gone."

    But once again, Moon shook her head and said, "They''ll being with us."

    Apollo''s chin couldn''t help dropping when he heard this.

    He looked at Moon like he couldn''t believe what he just heard and seeing that she was looking back at him with that serious look, his expression changed.

    He revealed a serious look as well as he said, "That is out of the question. How can we possibly be expected to do what we need to do when we need to guard our backs as well? If we let these humanse along, there is no doubt that they will stab us in the back."

    Moon just calmly looked at him and said, "They were the ones that found the tracks in the first ce. If they weren''t there, we wouldn''t have even known what a Sprinting Bird is. We''ll need them toe along for that knowledge and just in case something else happens that we don''t know about."

    Apollo shook his head the moment that he heard this before reiterating, "Does any of that matter when we have enemies right behind us? If we can''t even search in peace, how will we be able to aplish anything?"

    He still firmly insisted on his point of view.

    But this did make one thing clear¡­

    Even though there were no indications that it was true, he had already taken us as the enemy.

    Without even getting to know us, he was already dering that we had bad intentions towards this elven vige.

    There was no doubt that he would be nning on taking care of us in the future¡­

    But that was for the future.

    Seeing that he wouldn''t be convinced with just these words, Moon chose to use her final trump card.

    "If we leave the vige with all of the warriors and hunters to take down the culprits, then who will be left to watch over them if we detain them here?" Moon said in a very calm voice, almost as if she wasn''t affected by this at all.

    But it was different for Apollo.

    The moment that he heard this, his chin couldn''t help dropping as he realized that she was correct.

    If they did take everyone with them, then there wouldn''t be anyone left in the vige that would be able to stop them if the humans did want to do something.

    There were a few changes that happened with Apollo''s expression until he finally revealed aplicated look.

    He took a deep breath and gave a sigh before opening his mouth.

    But even then, he wasn''t able to say what he wanted to say.

    He opened and closed his mouth a few more times before finally saying, "They cane with us, but I''ll have my men watching them carefully."

    Moon shook her head and said, "I''ll watch them personally. That way, you can focus on leading the way."

    Apollo was surprised to hear this, but he gave a nod in the end.

    After all, she was even saying that he should be the leader of their group, so there was no reason why he shouldn''t ept this.

    As for watching over the humans, he was fine with leaving this job to Moon.

    He might not trust other elves with this kind of job, but it was different for Moon.

    After all, there were his personal emotions that were clouding his judgement when it came to this decision.

 Chapter 171 Forest Trouble (7)

    With thispromise made, they quickly started gathering everyone.

    Not a single member that was summoned hesitated or dyed since they knew how important this matter was for the elven vige.

    There were two schools of thought about taking the humans along though.

    One was that they shouldn''t be bringing the humans along since all that would mean is more danger for them.

    These were the warriors that were led by Apollo, as well as a few of the hunters led by Moon.

    The other school of thought was that they should trust the humans and bring them along as helpers.

    There were the hunters that were led by Moon, but not all of them. Just the ones that had gone with them this afternoon to search the area and had seen everything that Haley had done.

    They had to admit that she was quite handsome when she had answered all the questions that the elders had.

    But no matter what school of thought they were, they had no choice but to bring the humans along since both Moon and Apollo endorsed this.

    Once they had finished gathering, Apollo took the lead by saying, "We will now head into the forest to find the ones that are responsible for defiling our beautiful forest."

    As he said this, his eyes couldn''t help turning to our group.

    It was almost as if he was saying¡­that we were the ones that were responsible for all of this.

    In response to this, there were a few pairs of eyes that turned to look in our direction.

    However, what was surprising was that most people ignored this and kept looking at Apollo, as if they were focused on the mission. It was as if they weren''t interested in ying the me game right now.

    But when one thought about how important this mission was for the elves, they couldn''t be med.

    This was the destruction of their home that they were trying to solve, they didn''t have time for petty things like this.

    After he finished giving his speech, Apollo gave a wave of his hand for everyone to follow before heading out into the forest.

    This time, the air around him had also changed.

    Unlike before where he was rude and flippant, he now had the determination and seriousness that a head warrior should have.

    It seemed that he was the kind of person that acted the way he wanted most of the time, but he got things done when he was needed.

    As we headed through the forest, Moon moved closer to our group.

    There were also a few of Apollo''s warriors that stayed near, but they didn''te as close as Moon and her followers.

    After she came close, she said with a sigh, "I''m sorry, this was the only way."

    I shook my head and said, "As long as we can aplish our goal, it''s a good method."

    As for what she was apologizing for, it was letting Apollo be the leader for this mission.

    After all, this was the only way that she could get him topromise to let theme along.

    Moon had grown up with Apollo, so she had a good idea of what kind of personality he had.

    He was someone that wanted to stand out and wanted to be the leader, so she used this against him. By offering him the role of leader instead of having to watch over the humans, he had backed down and let her take care of this matter.

    But the problem was that he was the leader.

    In a situation like this where anything could go wrong, a leader was a very important thing. Especially a leader that would be able to make calm and unbiased decisions.

    This was a matter that involved everyone''s lives, so an ipetent leader would mean trouble for everyone.

    While Apollo wasn''t an ipetent leader since he was the head warrior of the elven vige, he was far from being unbiased. He wouldn''t be able to act impartial when things became tough, so it would be hardest on¡­the humans.

    That was the main reason why Moon had apologized in the first ce.

    She knew that this would just put them in even more danger.

    But I knew that this was the only way.

    There was no way that Apollo would have epted this arrangement if there wasn''t anything in it for him, so this was for the best.

    I also had something that I was hiding, so in a sense, it was bnced.

    Moon still had an apologetic look on her face, but she didn''t say anything else. She just made sure that she stayed close to our group while we were moving through the forest.

    This was her way of making it up to us.

    As long as she was here, then Apollo''s subordinates wouldn''t do anything.

    After traveling for a while, we arrived at the spot from this afternoon.

    This was the area where we had found the tracks.

    But before going in, the elves took some time to adjust themselves to the area devoid of magic power. If they rushed into it, they would have all copsed just like Moon had done this afternoon.

    Once we arrived and we showed Apollo the tracks, he had a few choice words for us.

    "These are the tracks that you''ve found? These are nothing more than scratches on the dirt!"

    Though the other elves didn''t say anything, it was clear by the looks on their faces that they didn''t believe this.

    Even some of the hunters who hadn''t been with us this afternoon had the same looks.

    But Moon came forward and said, "I''ve already checked this and have confirmed that these are indeed tracks."

    Since it was Moon that spoke, Apollo''s tone softened as he said, "But this is just some markings, it can''t mean anything."

    Hearing this, Moon narrowed her eyes to look at Apollo before saying, "Then do you have any other clues? If you do, we can follow them."

    Apollo revealed a bitter smile for the first time before saying with a sigh, "Alright, we''ll follow these tracks."

    If it was anyone else, he would have never backed down like this.

    It was only with Moon that he would do this.

 Chapter 172 Forest Trouble (8)

    The tracks were quite easy for them to follow since they were very uniform.

    It didn''t take long for the elven hunters to find them and to follow them.

    It was so easy that they almost couldn''t help feeling a bit embarrassed about not finding them sooner.

    However, they all knew that it would have been impossible for them to find it sooner.

    After all, not a single one of them would have thought that these scratches on the ground would be the tracks of anything. It was only when they saw the uniform way that these things led somewhere that they believed that these were indeed tracks.

    So even if they felt a bit embarrassed, that embarrassment quickly disappeared.

    As for feeling inferior to the human who had told them about this, that would never happen.

    As they were following the tracks, there were many who started pulling out maps to also track where they were in the forest. At the same time, they started creating marks on the different trees to mark their way just in case anything happened.

    Of course, as elves, they didn''t carve the marks in and formed them with magic.

    But magic markssted longer, so it was the better choice to begin with.

    As they slowly made their way through the forest, Moon was by our side showing us on the map where we were.

    It seemed that it was leading a straight line through the center of the ring of the depleted magic area zone. It was right in the center as well, as if¡­it was marking something which just made it seem even more suspicious.

    However, no matter how long we went, we weren''t able to find anything other than these tracks.

    By this time, we were already halfway across the forest and on the exact opposite side of where we started.

    It was as if we kept going, we would eventually reach the point where we had started from.

    At this point, there were a few people that started having doubts about these tracks and their mutters could be heard from around us.

    Apollo was one of those people even though he was the leader.

    He kept staring back at us as if he was ming us for wasting their time, but with Moon by our side, he had no choice but to keep pushing the group forward.

    Still, no matter how one looked at it, there was a tense atmosphere around us that just became worse and worse the more that we travelled.

    Finally, when we reached three fourths of the way, they couldn''t take it anymore.

    Apollo suddenly stopped and turned around to look at us. Even if Moon stood there in his way, he walked over and said, "Look at what you''ve done. We''ve wasted all this time chasing after these ''tracks'' of theirs when we could have been doing something more efficient. This has been nothing more than a big waste of all of our time!"

    As he said this, the elves around him couldn''t help nodding in agreement since this had been a waste of time, but they couldn''t say anything without offending Moon. Apollo was the only one that could speak up for them in front of her.

    Moon came forward and said, "This was better than not doing anything at all. Plus, we''re not at the end yet."

    This time, Apollo didn''t back down as he narrowed his eyes to look at her before saying, "Moon, you know that this is all a wild goose chase. Instead of wasting our time ying around with these humans, we should focus on finding a way to solve the problem of the magic power being drained. You know how important this is."

    Moon just calmly said in a firm voice, "We''re still not at the end yet."

    Apollo looked like he wanted to say more, but then he suddenly gave a sigh and said, "Fine, we''ll do as you say. I hope that by the end of this, you''ll realize that the humans aren''t anything good."

    Without waiting for her to say anything, he turned to lead the group forward again.

    But before any of them could do anything, one of the elves suddenly copsed.

    When this elf copsed, everyone turned to look at them. The ones that were beside the elf quickly came forward to check on them.

    Then after being stunned for a bit, Apollo suddenly turned around to look at us.

    He pulled out his bow and notched an arrow that he pointed right at me as he said, "What did you do?!"

    I couldn''t help taking a step back when I saw the arrow being pointed at me, but then I calmed down and said, "Stop panicking and look carefully. The enemy is nearby."

    A vein popped out on Apollo''s forehead when he heard this before he shouted, "The enemy is nearby? That''s right! The enemy is right in front of me! I''ll give you to the count of three to reverse what you''ve done before I put an arrow in between your eyes!"

    When the other elves heard thismotion, they couldn''t help acting in different ways.

    The hunters that followed Moon just stood there not knowing what to do while the warriors that followed Apollo also took out their bows to point at us humans.

    I raised my hand and said, "We haven''t done a single thing. The enemy is hiding in the area around us and if we''re not careful, we''ll all be taken out."

    Apollo wouldn''t listen as he started counting down.

    But before he could shoot his arrow, Moon came forward to raise her bow to point at him.

    When Apollo saw this, his chin dropped before he said, "Moon, what are you doing?"

    Moon was about to open her mouth to say something, but then she also felt dizzy.

    She couldn''t stand firmly on the ground and she stumbled forward, as if she was about to fall.

    Apollo wanted to help her, but he felt the same thing and he almost fell to the ground as well.

    It wasn''t just the two of them that were acting this way¡­it was the entire group. That included the humans.

    Even my eyes started to blur as I had no idea what was happening.

    I tried looking around to find what was causing this, but the weakness of my limbs and the growing exhaustion that I felt made it hard for me to do this¡­

    Finally, I couldn''t help stumbling forward and falling to the ground.

    At the same time, most of the others had done the same.

    Apollo had forced himself to stand, but it was clear that he wasn''t doing better than the rest of us.

    Thest thing that I was able to see was Moon looking at me with a disappointed look.

    It seemed that even she believed that I was the one that was responsible for this¡­

    But I couldn''t say anything as my mouth felt like I had juste back from the dentist. All I could do was remember the way that she looked at me in that final moment.

    Then thest thing that I heard was¡­

    "I never thought that it would be this easy to trap them all."

 Chapter 173 Tied Up

    When I woke up, the first thing that I noticed was that I was tied up.

    I was lying on the ground and I could feel that my hands and feet were tied up with rope.

    It also felt like there was something inside of my mouth that was stopping me from speaking. But the worst part about that was that when I tried to move my mouth, the taste of the thing in my mouth assaulted me.

    It was disgusting, it was like rancid trash water that filled my mouth¡­

    So I immediately stopped trying to speak as I tried to figure out what was happening.

    Luckily for me, they didn''t cover my eyes, so I was able to open them to look around.

    Unluckily, I found that I was in a ce that waspletely pitch dark.

    No, it wasn''tpletely pitch dark since there was a faint light that wasing from one side of this room. It seemed like it was something that lit up the room that was outside that was leaking its glow into this room.

    As my eyes slowly adjusted, I was able to see what was around me.

    There were many other bodies that were around me that were all tied up just like me. When I looked closely at them, I started recognizing who they were.

    It was Haley, Cecilia, and the others who hade with me.

    But the problem was that there were only humans here.

    It seemed that whoever had captured us, they had separated us from the elves who had been with us.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit of worry when I realized this.

    Of course, I didn''t worry about Apollo and those other warrior elves. The ones that I was worried about were Moon and the hunters who had at least treated us with kindness.

    I didn''t know how we had been caught like this, but I did want to save them.

    I was about to start struggling to find a way out of this ce, but then I suddenly heard something.

    It wasn''t a sound from any of the people in here because they were still unconscious and they all had their mouths covered. It seemed to being from the other room where the source of light was.

    "It''s a shame that we can''t do anything with these humans. There are quite a few beautiful ones among them, it''ll be a shame to kill them all."

    The moment that I heard this, I felt a chill run down my spine.

    But then I forced myself to stay calm as I listened to the conversationing from outside.

    "He, he, I know what you mean, but it is what it is. This is the deal that ourmander made with that elf, so we have no choice but to follow it."

    This time, I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this.

    I had already suspected this when that elf had suddenly fallen down, but I had thrown that into the back of my head since I didn''t want to believe it. But now that the facts were ced right in front of me, it wasn''t as if I had a choice.

    So I focused my mind and listened carefully to the voices outside.

    I wanted to see if I could get any clues out of them.

    "Ha, are we really going to y along with those elves? If it wasn''t for them, we would have already found the perfect base here."

    "There''s nothing that we can do, those elves are quite powerful¡­but now that they are trapped, it isn''t as if they can do anything."

    There were two differentughs that rang out after this voice fell.

    "They never would have expected that we never intended to keep that deal in the first ce. These elves really are fools, they''re willing to believe anything that you tell them."

    Moreughter followed after this was said.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile as I felt a bit sorry for the traitor elf.

    That traitor never would have expected that they would be betrayed by the demons like this.

    However, what were they expecting from a deal with demons?

    Demons were cruel and maniptive by nature, so it was their second nature to do things like this.

    I really couldn''t help wondering who the fool of a traitor was¡­

    After some moreughter, one of the demons said, "Alright, the humans are secured, so there''s nothing we need to do right now. Let''s go get some food before it''s all gone and it''s toote for us to enjoy. There''s still more things we have to do this afternoon."

    The other voice couldn''t help saying in a worried tone, "Shouldn''t we stay here and watch over the humans? Isn''t that our job?"

    The first demon said, "Watch over what? Watch over a bunch of sleeping humans? You know how potent the poison that we used is, so there''s no way that they''ll wake up before tomorrow."

    The second demon hesitated and didn''t answer right away, but eventually they said, "Alright, let''s go get some food before it''s all gone."

    The first demon gave augh and there was a sound that rang out that sounded like yful pping before he said, "Good kid, let''s go."

    After that, there were two pairs of footsteps that rang out that kept growing more and more faint, showing that the owner of these footsteps were moving away from this ce.

    I didn''t move at all when I could hear those footsteps and it was only when those footsteps were gone did I finally start trying to break free of the ropes.

    However, no matter how much I struggled, I wasn''t able to break free at all.

    These ropes were just too hard for me to break free of with my strength alone.

    But I knew that I had to break free of these bonds and help everyone escape, or else when the demons came back¡­bad things would happen.

 Chapter 174 Skewered

    Seeing that I couldn''t break free of the ropes with my strength alone, I started looking around the room for something that could help me break free.

    I looked at all the others that were in the room with me, hoping that I could find something sharp to cut these ropes with.

    However, I found that every single weapon that we had brought with us had been confiscated. Even the armour that our guards had been wearing had been taken away from them.

    It seemed that these demons didn''t y around.

    They had been very thorough in confiscating the things away from us.

    In fact, they might have even been a bit too thorough¡­

    As my eyes adjusted to the light, or rather theck of light, I was able to see things better. I could see that a few pieces of clothing that were supposed to be on the girls of our group¡­were missing.

    It revealed more of their figure than it should have.

    I couldn''t help feeling that this was done on purpose by whoever had caught us so that they could take a closer look at their bodies¡­

    At that same time though, I also felt a trace of anger since they had done the same with Haley and Cecilia.

    I had already thought of these two as my women, so when there was someone who did something to my women¡­of course I would be mad.

    But I quickly calmed myself down after this.

    I knew that this wasn''t the time to be thinking about this right now, the more important thing was to find a way out of this mess.

    So I gathered myself and started looking around for something sharp to cut this rope.

    However, there wasn''t a single thing here in this room that I could use.

    At the same time, I realized that this ce that I thought was a room wasn''t actually a room.

    When my eyes adjusted and I was able to see it more clearly, I noticed that this ce was actually a cave. There weren''t any stctites or stgmites in this ce, but the uneven stone floor and the stone walls around me were more than enough to show that this ce was a cave.

    But once again, that wasn''t relevant to this current situation.

    Since I wasn''t able to find anything that could help me in the cave around me, I turned to my system.

    I didn''t know if there would be anything that could help me, but it was better than just lying around here helpless.

    I pulled up the system''s screen in front of my face and started going through the panels of the system, trying to find something that would help.

    There was nothing that could help me in the quest panel, though I really didn''t know what I was looking for there. Perhaps I had hoped that the quest information had changed and it would give me some kind of clue, but there was nothing there.

    Then I went to the store panel, but that was just another bust since there was nothing currently in the store.

    The only thing left after that was the inventory panel, but I really didn''t know how a bunch of sex toys would help me in this situation¡­

    That is until I suddenly remembered something.

    I could pull the items in my inventory out with just a thought and that included choosing the location that it appeared in. There was a limit to this, but as long as it was around my body¡­then it would work.

    So didn''t that mean that as long as there was something that was sharp, I could have it appear in my hand or near the rope so that I could cut it?

    When this thought appeared in my mind, I immediately started searching my inventory for something that was sharp¡­but I was quickly disappointed by what I saw in there.

    The system''s inventory was something that could only be used to store things that had been given to me by the system. It meant that I wasn''t able to put a single thing inside that wasn''t rted to the system.

    Otherwise, I would have put a basic survival kit in there a long time ago.

    Since it was only the things that the system had given me¡­that meant that this inventory was currently filled with only sex toys.

    There wasn''t a single thing that wasn''t a sex toy in this inventory.

    And then the problem with sex toys was¡­

    Since these were things that were meant to be used on the human body, whether they were put inside or used on the outside, they had to be safe to be used on the human body.

    That meant that most of these things were¡­rounded!

    There was no sharp edge to any of them, so I couldn''t use them to cut myself free from these ropes¡­

    For the nth time, I regretted what kind of system I had¡­

    But there was nothing to gain from regret, so I tried to figure out a solution with what I had.

    In the end, my eyes fell onto The Prator.

    While it was a long shot, I felt that The Prator was my only hope in this situation.

    The Prator''s special ability was that it had 99% pration to anything that it hit.

    While this was mainly for blunt force, when blunt force was strong enough¡­it would be able to break things¡­such as the rope that was tying me.

    So I was hoping that if it could be swung with enough force, it would be able to break through the rope that was tying me.

    Once I had this idea, I didn''t waste any time in bringing my tied hands together.

    Then with a thought, The Prator''s hilt appeared in my hand. The rest of it appeared and¡­it was caught on the rope that was on my feet.

    Since my hands had been tied behind me and they were pointing down, when The Prator appeared in my hand, the dildo bat part of it was pointing down. With the way that it appeared, it got caught in the ropes that were on my feet.

    If one looked at this from afar, they would see a very strange sight.

    It was like I had been skewered by this veryrge and very purple thing.

    I was like something that would be held over a bonfire and roasted with the way that it was caught in the ropes.

    Even though I couldn''t see it, I felt very strange just imagining it.

    But this was also what I wanted.

    With The Prator resting on the ropes on my feet, it would be easy for me to swing at it.

    So after making sure that there was no one around, I swung the hilt of The Prator down and the dildo bat hit the ropes on my feet.

    There was a shredding sound before the ropes on my feet were ripped to pieces. It shattered apart like they had imploded from the inside¡­

    Just how much force was there that this happened?

    But there was no time to think about that, so I quickly put The Prator away and then brought it out so that my feet were holding the hilt, while the dildo bat was resting on the ropes tying my hands.

    Then with my feet, I swung it and shattered the ropes on my hands as well.

    Just like that, I was free.

 Chapter 175 Detection Ward

    Once I was free, the first thing that I did¡­was rub my hands and feet.

    The rope tying them up really was rough and with the rough movements that I made to try and escape from them, it really was hard on my hands and feet.

    So I had to rub the rope burns that were on them before doing anything else.

    When I was back to normal, I went to check the others.

    I saw that all of them were still asleep even with the noise that I had made.

    It seemed like whatever they had used to drug them, it really was powerful.

    I could have woken them up, but there was something else that I wanted to do first.

    While I was going through the system''s inventory, I noticed something that I had received recently.

    This was an item that I had only just received from the system not too long ago, so I hadn''t had a chance to use it yet. However, it was the perfect thing for this situation.

    With a thought, there was a small square tile that appeared in my hand.

    This tile wasn''t that big, only being a fourth of the size of my palm. However, there was a strange rune that was drawn on the tile.

    After examining the tile for a bit, I brought it up to mypel and pinned it there.

    As soon as it was pinned in ce, it felt like there was something that suddenly washed over me. This was a feeling that was simr to being covered in something invisible.

    With this, I slowly moved towards the exit of this room, towards the source of light.

    When I came up to the exit, I could see that there was a well lit room that was outside of the cave that we had all been tied up in. This ce was also a cave, but it was well lit withnterns and was even decorated with a few pieces of furniture.

    It didn''t look like a normal cave at all, it was clear that there was someone that was living here¡­or rather there had been guards here until they left to get some food. I had heard the conversation between them earlier.

    There wasn''t much in this room other than two more exits that led away from this ce.

    Even the table that was here was also bare of anything other than a few ying cards.

    It seemed that whoever had been on guard here had been taking it very easy¡­

    But I didn''t let myself get distracted by this.

    Since there was no one else here, then there was no need for me to stay here.

    I wanted to get information on the enemies before I did anything. After all, they would have never thought that I would be free and the element of surprise was the most powerful thing.

    Looking between the two passages that I could choose from, I really couldn''t see any difference.

    So I made my choice with¡­

    "Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a tiger by the toe¡­"

    With this tried and tested method, I chose the passage on the left and quickly made my way away from this ce.

    As I was heading through this passage, I also made sure to leave some kind of tracks that only I would recognize. I found a few pebbles that I left on the ground that I made small marks on.

    As for how I made those marks, these were actually the pieces of the rope that I had blown to smithereens.

    I slowly made my way through this passage that was also surprisingly well lit with torches ced every so often.

    As I made my way through though¡­I could hear a sounding from in front of me.

    They were a pair of footsteps.

    Someone wasing this way!

    The smart thing to do was to go back the way that I hade to find a ce to hide so that I could avoid the ones that were currentlying this way, but I didn''t do that.

    Instead, I found a part of this hall that was rather dimly lit and I pinned myself up against the wall, not moving a single inch.

    If one looked at me carefully, it wouldn''t be hard for them to find me¡­but this was what I had chosen to do.

    Most people would think that I was an idiot, but I had a n.

    The footsteps came closer and closer and as they did, there were a pair of voices that rang out.

    These were different voices from the ones from before, but they seemed to be discussing something that I cared about.

    "So the elves are all caught and tied up in the special cave?"

    "That''s right, I''ve heard that the only ones who are allowed to approach are the lordmander and his people."

    "Well they are our special sacrifices after all."

    At this, the two of them suddenly startedughing.

    It was at this point that they appeared in my field of view.

    They were just like the demons that I had seen in the game before.

    These two looked like humans, except that their skin was blue and they had small horns on their heads.

    Since they had appeared in my field of view, that also meant that I had appeared in their field of view.

    However, even though they should have been able to see me, they didn''t look at me at all.

    It was almost as if I didn''t exist.

    They just kept talking amongst themselves as they walked through the corridor, walking right past where I was.

    During the time that they had been walking through, I had been holding my breath and it was only when they were gone that I let it out.

    I looked down at the small tile that was on mypel and I couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    It was because of this tile that those demons who had walked by hadn''t discovered me.

    This tile was called the Detection Ward and as the name suggested, it blocked people''s perception of me.

    So as long as I didn''t stand out on purpose, this thing would help hide me even if I was in in sight.

    As for why this kind of thing came from a sex toy system¡­

    The description from the system was¡­

    "Sometimes, a little mystery is needed in a rtionship."

    Simply put, it was to sneak into the bedroom without one''s partner knowing and then surprising them.

    Of course, with something that was as powerful as this, it could be used for the wrong purpose. So one had to be careful when using this kind of thing.

    Or else it would be used for things like sneaking into a couple''s room and then¡­having their way with the wife¡­

    It was definitely something that could easily tear apart a marriage.

    He had to be careful with this powerful thing.

    Of course, he would never do something like that.

    After making sure that they were gone, I continued forward.

    I had to find this special room that they had mentioned since that was where Moon and the others were.

    Though there was one person that I wasn''t looking forward to seeing.

 Chapter 176 Separated

    <h4>Chapter 176 Separated</h4>

    The only thing that I could do now was follow this passage to the end and see where it took me.

    After all, I had no idea what kind of things were in this ce and what was waiting for me ahead, so it was better to follow the path that I was already going.

    Those two demons who had just passed me were talking about the elves.

    They should have a reason for doing so, so I should be able to find something ahead of me.

    After walking for a few more minutes, I finally reached the end of this passage.

    At this point, I moved even slower and made sure that there was no oneing into this passage. It was only then that I peeked my head out of the passage to see what was in front of me.

    What I saw surprised me.

    There was arge clearing that was right ahead of this passage.

    It was the end of the tunnel and outside was arge clearing that had some kind of camp in it. There was arge bonfire and around it were a bunch of demons that were eating something.

    I couldn''t tell what exactly they were eating, but the red colour of the thing that they were eating made it clear that I didn''t want to know¡­

    I was also able to see that there were a few cages that were scattered around the clearing.

    These cages had been separated so that there weren''t too many prisoners in them at the same time.

    When I looked more closely at the prisoners in the cage, I found that they had sharp ears and fair skin. It was pretty safe to assume that these were the elves who had been caught along with us.

    Since the cave entrance was at the very back of this clearing, I was quite far away from the cages.

    If I wanted to see who the ones being kept in the cages were, I would have to get closer. But to do that, it meant I would have to cross this camp that was currently filled with demons.

    No matter how one looked at it, that was a suicide mission.

    But with this Detection Ward¡­I might have a chance.

    I didn''t take this risk right away and slowly moved out from the cave entrance.

    There were a few demons that were hanging around the entrance of the cave, so I had to carefully make my way around them. Since I was out of the cave, there were things that I could use to my advantage.

    There were bushes, trees, and piles of things that the demons had ced that I could use to sneak around.

    Not to mention, there was the Detection Ward that was currently working to block me from their views.

    It took me no time to make my way over to the cages.

    During this time, I got a better look of the camp itself.

    There were several dozen demons that were here feasting around the bonfire and it seemed that what they were feasting on was just a deer that they had caught and roasted. I really let out a sigh of relief when I saw that since I had thought that the thing that they were eating¡­was something else.

    While I was making my way over, I had also heard a few things from the demons, but there wasn''t any important information. All of it was mainly them just chatting with each other while eating.

    At the same time, I also wasn''t able to find any demons that looked different from the rest. It seemed that the lordmander and his subordinates that they had talked about weren''t here.

    When I finally made my way over to the cage, I found that¡­the ones that were inside were Apollo and his warriors.

    There wasn''t a trace of Moon and her hunters here.

    For some reason, the elves had also been split up by the demons and put in separate ces.

    But the ones that were kept here were most likely the ones that would be sacrificed. After all, this was where most of the demons were currently gathered and even had a bonfire set up.

    So that meant that it was very unlikely that the traitor was among these elves.

    If the traitor had made a deal with the demons, then they would naturally bargain for their safety.

    They wouldn''t be put in the most dangerous ce like Apollo and his warriors.

    So could it be that the traitors were actually with Moon''s group of hunters?

    Or could it be that¡­

    No, I shouldn''t be thinking that kind of stuff.

    I immediately stopped my mind from wandering around too much and focused on the situation at hand.

    since that would just hurt our group.

    Without any concrete proof, I wouldn''t let myself suspect anyone since that would just hurt our group.

    Until we escaped, I had to trust the people that I would be escaping with.

    So the first thing that I had to do was go and find Moon''s group as well.

    I didn''t bother contacting Apollo''s group at all since I knew that there was nothing that I could do for them.

    It definitely wasn''t because I didn''t want to deal with Apollo right now or anything¡­

    After making my way back over, I found that there was another cave entrance near the one that I hade out of.

    It had been hidden behind some demons earlier when I came out of the cave, so I hadn''t seen it.

    Since it was another cave, then that most likely was where they were keeping Moon and the others.

    I need to find them first before nning everything.

    I knew that I had some time to work with since the demons had said that we shouldn''t have woken up until tomorrow because of the drug that they used. That meant that they shouldn''t be doing anything until tomorrow since demons were cruel like that.

    They would want us awake as they sacrificed us.

    But that also meant that I couldn''t take too long.

    So without any further hesitation, I went into the other cave entrance.

 Chapter 177 Disappointed

    <h4>Chapter 177 Disappointed</h4>

    This cave was just the same as the other one that I hade from.

    It was a well lit passage that led deep into the mountain that I couldn''t see the end of, but there weren''t any demons here.

    So I could quickly move through this ce.

    Eventually, I reached a room that was very simr to the one that had been outside the cave that our human group had been held in. It was so simr that I couldn''t help wondering if I had somehow made my way back to where I was before.

    After all, there had been two in that room.

    But when I looked carefully, I saw that this was a different ce.

    The furniture and everything was different.

    At the same time, I wasn''t able to find the marked rocks that I had left behind, so that meant that this was a different room.

    It was also surprising that there wasn''t a single guard in this room.

    It was just like the room outside the cave that we had been tied up in, there wasn''t a single guard here.

    It seemed that the demons really didn''t have any order among them¡­

    But that wasn''t surprising since that was something that I had already known from the game.

    After making sure that there would be no one that would interfere with what I was nning on doing, I made my way over to the two other passages in this room.

    The first one that I checked seemed to be a tunnel that led to another ce, so I ignored that one for now. The other one was naturally the cave that was holding the prisoners.

    When I peeked through that passage, I found that this was indeed the case and there were a bunch of figures that were lying on the ground.

    All of them were tied up like we had been, but these ones had sharp ears.

    Judging by the look of them, it didn''t seem like anything had been done to them yet.

    I looked over the entire group and it didn''t take me long to find the one figure that I had been looking for.

    I was about to make my way over, but then I noticed something different about this one figure.

    When I looked carefully at it, I noticed that it was¡­moving slightly.

    It seemed that the owner of this figure was already awake and was just looking for a chance to escape.

    Since that was the case, that was good for me.

    If there was one person that I trusted, it was her.

    The owner of this figure was naturally Moon.

    So I slowly made my way over since I didn''t want to wake up any of the other elves¡­after all, there was still a traitor here¡­

    When I came over, I saw that she was trying to stay still while thinking of a n. Her eyes were closed, but she was still moving around as if she was trying to hear what was around her.

    I made sure that there was nothing else there beforeing up and tapping her on the shoulder.

    The moment that Moon felt this, she immediately looked up around her.

    However, she wasn''t able to find a single thing.

    That is until I took the tile off mypel and revealed myself.

    She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, so I quickly covered her mouth so she couldn''t say it in the end.

    But that didn''t stop her from ring at me.

    After making sure that she wouldn''t talk, I slowly took my hand off her mouth.

    However, I could still see the look of disappointment in them that confused me a bit.

    After taking my hand off her mouth, she asked me, "What are you doing here?"

    I was even more confused when I heard this before asking, "What do you mean? I''m here to rescue you."

    "Rescue? After you betrayed us and sold us out to the demons?" Moon said in a cold voice.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a surprised and confused look.

    Seeing this, Moon''s expression rxed a bit as it was also filled with a bit of confusion.

    After all, she had been under the impression that¡­Zwein and the humans were working with the demons. But the way that he reacted¡­she started having her doubts.

    The two of us took a moment to calm down before I started exining the situation to her.

    While Moon listened to my story, her expression didn''t change once.

    When I was done, she looked right at me and asked, "Do you swear that this is the truth?"

    I couldn''t help being a bit taken aback when I heard this, but I gave a firm nod in the end.

    Moon hesitated for a minute before saying with a sigh, "Alright, I believe you."

    After all, there was a small part of her that did believe this since there was a fact that she couldn''t help being bothered by.

    Even if the humans had betrayed them¡­how had they led the demons into the forest?

    The forest was filled with traps that they had set up and unless there was an elf guiding them¡­they shouldn''t have been able to make it that deep.

    So there had been doubt towards her fellow elves in the first ce.

    But it was easier for her to me the humans than to me her fellow elves, so she had jumped to this conclusion readily.

    Still, there was no denying the doubt that had been inside of her¡­

    After taking a moment to calm herself down, Moon said, "Alright, untie me and let''s get out of here."

    I shook my head as I said, "No, that''s a bad idea."

    Moon raised a brow and had a confused look as she waited for me to exin.

    I said, "This ce is filled with demons and you don''t even have your weapons, how are you nning on fighting?"

    Moon''s expression couldn''t help turning a bit bitter because she knew that he was right.

    The weapons that the elves summoned out of thin air didn''t actuallye out of thin air. They were stored in the magic Storage Rings that all of the elves had.

    But their Storage Rings had been taken from them, so they didn''t have any weapons right now.

    Even if they had powerful magic, that didn''t mean a thing since the demons also controlled powerful magic. Without being at full power, it would be impossible for them to break through the line of demons.

    So after a sigh, Moon asked, "Then what do you n on doing?"

    I reached my hand out and showed her the tile that was in my palm before saying, "I can use this to sneak around and find the weapons. I''ll bring them back to you and my group and then we''ll break out together."

    Moon looked down at the tile in my hand and she couldn''t help slightly knitting her brows.

    After looking at it for a bit, she gave a nod of agreement.

    That was because she could sense the magic power that wasing from this tile.

    This tile was without a doubt a powerful magic item.

 Chapter 178 Commander

    With this decided, I didn''t waste any time as I put the tile onto mypel again.

    The moment that I did, I seemed to vanish from in front of Moon whichpletely shocked her.

    Even though she had been staring at me, I had disappeared without a trace.

    She had no idea how this had been done, even if she knew that I used a magic item. After all, she had never heard of such a powerful and wondrous magic item before.

    After I disappeared, I softly whispered, "I''ll be back."

    Then I turned to leave.

    As I headed off, I heard a whisper from behind me, "I''ll be waiting."

    With this, I headed out of the room that the elves had been kept in and went back to the room outside.

    There were still no guards here, so I went to the other passage that was in this room.

    Looking through and making sure that there was no one there, I started making my way through this corridor.

    This one wasn''t that long and it didn''t take much time for me to reach another room.

    This room was different from any of the rooms that I had been in before. This one had metal bars in the middle that cut the room in half.

    On one side of the room were two different passages, one that I came out of. Then on the other side of the room, behind the metal bars, there seemed to be a pile of something.

    When I looked at it closely, I found that it was a bunch of weapons, coins, and some other things.

    It seemed that this was where the demons kept all the things that they had collected from their enemies.

    When I looked even more closely, I could see a few things that I recognized.

    These were the armours and weapons that had been taken from Cecilia and the others.

    These were things that I hadmissioned with Rose, so I recognized them with a single nce.

    So if they were being kept here, it was very likely that the elven Storage Rings would also be kept here.

    The only problem was¡­I didn''t have a way to open this and get to the items inside.

    There was a gate that was there, but there was also arge lock that was on the gate.

    Unless I was prepared to break through with force, it seemed unlikely that I would find a way to open the gate. After all, it was impossible that these demons would just leave the key out in the open for everyone to take.

    Even they wouldn''t be that dumb.

    As I was standing there in a daze, wondering what I should do, I suddenly heard a sound.

    The moment that I heard this sound, I immediately snapped back from my thoughts and turned my attention to where this sound wasing from.

    It was from the opposite side of the room, where the other passage was.

    It sounded like a bunch of footsteps.

    As soon as I figured this out, I quickly looked around for a ce to hide.

    Luckily for me, this room was more like a cave than the other rooms. So there were stctites and stgmites that were hanging up and down in this room.

    I was able to find one that was quite well hidden and went behind it.

    With this hiding spot and the Detection Ward, I was certain that I would be able to hide from whoever wasing into this room.

    It didn''t take long for them toe through and the moment that I saw them, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    That was because even if they were demons, they were much more different from the ones that I had seen outside.

    These demons were easily a foot taller than the rest of the demons outside. They were so big that they even had to crouch slightly in thisrge cave.

    At the same time, they were much more¡­handsomepared to the other demons.

    One might think that since they were bigger, they would be more muscr than the other demons, but that wasn''t the case. Instead of being much more muscr, they were just as slender as the demons outside, but they had much more handsome appearances.

    Also, their horns were much bigger, more developed, or they just had more horns than the ones outside.

    In short they had overall better physical attributespared to the rest of the demons.

    But the one that had the most handsome face was the one in the center that all of these demons grouped around.

    With how he was leading the group, it was clear that he was the one that was in charge.

    In fact, if I had to guess, I would say that he was themander that all the other demons mentioned before.

    As they walked by, I could hear bits of what they were talking about.

    "The humans were quite the extra find, but it''s not a bad thing. If we take the human females back, we should be able to earn quite a bit."

    The moment that I heard this, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    Even if I had be a baron by chance, I had been doing this for quite some time now. These were people that were under my rule and people that I cared about, so when I heard these demons talking about them like this, I couldn''t help feeling angry.

    However, I didn''t act on that anger since I knew that there was nothing to gain from it.

    If I went out there, I would just be throwing myself to my death.

    So I endured and remembered the face of the demon who said this.

    The other demons were about to say something, but themander suddenly stopped and turned to look at the demon who said this. He narrowed his eyes to look at this demon before reaching out to grab his neck.

    The demon was lifted up off the ground with a look of panic as he didn''t know what he had done to anger themander like this.

    Themander looked at him with the same narrowed eyes before saying, "The humans aren''t merchandise, they are sacrifices for the ceremony. If you darey a single finger on them before then, you know what will happen to you."

    All of the demons gave a terrified gulp when they heard this.

    The demon who was being lifted up quickly gave a nod of understanding when he heard this.

    Seeing this, themander threw the demon down onto the ground before turning around.

    After the demon was thrown down, not a single other demon dared to help him. They all looked away as if they couldn''t see him.

    But that one demon that had been targeted didn''t dare reveal a displeased look.

    He quickly got off the ground and fell back into line behind themander.

    Before themander could take another step though, he suddenly looked around himself as if he sensed something.

    All of the other demons looked around with him, but they had no idea what he was looking for.

    After a moment of silence, the demonmander asked, "What is this stench of magic?"

    The moment that I heard this, I felt a chill run down my spine.

 Chapter 179 Keys

    <h4>Chapter 179 Keys</h4>

    The moment that themander said this, I immediately froze.

    I didn''t dare move a single inch out of fear that I had already been discovered.

    The demonmander kept looking around with a confused look. From time to time, he would sniff the air like a dog, as if he was searching for something.

    The other demons looked around and tried sniffing as well, but not a single one was able to find what the demonmander was looking for.

    Finally, one of the demons suggested, "We are beside the treasury. Perhaps it''s the smell of one of the treasures inside?"

    The demonmander looked at the demon who spoke. The moment that themander''s gaze fell onto that demon, he immediately shrunk back and flinched. But after taking a deep breath, he turned back and met themander''s gaze.

    After all, it wasn''t as if he had done anything wrong.

    After staring at this demon for a bit, the demonmander finally gave a nod as if he was agreeing to this.

    He didn''t even bother saying anything to the demon as he turned around.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help letting out a silent sigh of relief.

    I had thought that I had been discovered, but it seemed like that wasn''t the case. However, this did show that the items that I received from the system weren''t invincible.

    They might be powerful, but there were also plenty of other powerful people in this world.

    I had to keep the mentality that there could be all kinds of possibilities in this world and that I wouldn''t be able to predict everything. I would have to keep that cautious mentality that I had in the beginning.

    In fact, when I looked back on it, I had to admit that I was getting a bit reckless, especially with what happened in ndal City¡­

    The demonmander started walking again, but he didn''t go to the other passage.

    Instead, he walked over to the bars in the center of the room and looked at the gate in front of him. After looking at it for a bit, he looked around as if he was looking for something before saying, "Where are the guards?"

    All of the demons revealed an awkward look when they heard this.

    They all looked at each other, as if they wanted anyone other than themselves to respond to the demonmander. But in the end, not a single one of them was willing to speak.

    So the demonmander picked one of them and asked, "I said, where are the guards?"

    This time, his voice was a bit deeper and more threatening.

    When the demon heard this, he knew that he had no choice. He was stuck with the short end of the stick, so he had to say something.

    Taking a deep breath, the demon said in a stuttering voice, "They¡­

    they should be outside at the banquet."

    The demonmander narrowed his eyes the moment that he heard this.

    When he did, the demon felt like he had been frozen in a block of ice.

    But it wasn''t as if he could do anything right now¡­

    So he quickly said, "I''ll¡­I''ll go get them! I''ll be sure to punish them properly!"

    But then to all of their surprises, the demonmander waved his hand and said, "It''s fine."

    All of the demons couldn''t stop their chins from dropping when they heard this.

    Their fierce and cruelmander was actually allowing the guards to ck off?

    Was this themander that they knew and feared?

    However, themander didn''t say anything to justify this which left them even more puzzled.

    Instead, themander said, "Where are the spare keys?"

    The demons took a few seconds to react before one of them quickly ran over to one of the stgmites on the side.

    He pressed on the tip and there was a secretpartment that was revealed.

    I couldn''t see what was inside of that secretpartment at first because of my position, but I saw it clearly when he pulled out the thing that was inside.

    It was a key.

    When I saw it, the expression on my face turned bitter.

    I had thought that the demons wouldn''t be foolish enough to leave a key near the door, but it seemed that this wasn''t the case.

    But then again, this key was hidden by a special mechanism in the knew about the special mechanism and the fact that the key was inside of it, it wasn''t as if they would find it that easily.

    stgmite, so it can''t be said that it was out in the open. Unless one knew about the special mechanism and the fact that the key was inside of it, it wasn''t as if they would find it that easily.

    Still¡­the fact that this key was hidden here¡­was kind of dumb.

    The demon brought the key over to themander and presented it to themander with both hands.

    Themander just took the key without any fuss and used it to open up the gate.

    The demons were about to go in with themander, but he just lifted his hand to stop them.

    Then he walked in alone and picked up something random off the pile.

    It didn''t seem like it was anything special, it just looked like a normal dagger.

    When I looked at it closely, it even seemed like the dagger that Moon had strapped on herself before.

    I had never seen her use it, so I didn''t know the actual shape of the dagger, but the sheath that it was in looked very simr.

    After picking this dagger up, the demonmander came out from behind the bars and stood amongst the demons.

    Even the demons had confused looks as they looked at the dagger that themander was holding. It seemed that not a single one of them knew what themander wanted to use this dagger for.

    But themander didn''t care about that.

    The demonmander just held this dagger up in front of his face before revealing an evil smile. This was a true evil smile that made it clear that this person was cruel and vindictive, a smile that a true demon would have.

    As he held this dagger, he also said, "Good, I want to see what kind of show that elf will give me."

    The demons were even more confused when they heard this, but the demonmander didn''t bother exining anything. The demonmander just gave a satisfied nod before putting the dagger away.

    Then the demonmander tossed the key back to the demon that had brought it over to him and said, "Put it back."

    The demon almost fumbled the key since he wasn''t expecting themander to throw it at him, but he was able to catch it in the end. As he did so, he let out a sigh of relief.

    Themander would pick someone up just for a few words, he didn''t even want to imagine what themander would do to him if he had dropped this key¡­

    So the demon quickly ran back to the stgmite and put the key back in thepartment before pressing something again to close it.

    After that, he ran back to the demonmander''s group.

    Once he was back, the demonmander started heading towards the passage that I had used toe to this room.

    But before he left, he turned back and looked around the room again.

    Still, seeing that he couldn''t find anything, he didn''t look back again as he walked right out of this room with the other demons following him.

 Chapter 180 Treasury

    <h4>Chapter 180 Treasury</h4>

    I didn''t dare move a single inch after this demonmander was gone.

    Even though this room was now empty, I was afraid that someone woulde back at any moment to catch me in the act¡­so I didn''t dare move until I was certain that no one wasing back.

    After several minutes of silence, I finally slowly came out of the hiding spot that I was in.

    When I saw that no one was around, I didn''t hesitate in making my way over to the stgmite that the demon had taken the key from.

    I knew that if I wasted any more time, it would be more likely that someone woulde and catch me in the act.

    I didn''t waste any time in doing the same thing that the demon had done with the stgmite, but the problem was that I wasn''t familiar with this. So even though I thought that I had pressed in the same spot as the demon, there was no change with the stgmite.

    It didn''t seem like what I was doing was having any effect¡­

    So I started looking more closely at the stgmite, trying to find some way to open it.

    I wasn''t able to find anything at first until I looked very closely at the stgmite. When my face was basically right up against the stgmite, I was able to see¡­that there was an indentation in there.

    It seemed like I had made a mistake, thinking that I would be able to push from any angle and the button would go down.

    It seemed that the button to open the stgmite would only go down when pressed from the right direction.

    Basically, it was like trying to force a rectangle through a circr hole.

    So my hand went to the opposite side and I pushed down the button.

    The moment that the button went down, there was a click sound before thepartment from before opened.

    I looked in and saw that there were the keys that were lying there.

    I didn''t reach in right away as I looked around thepartment, trying to see if there were any traps. However, this was nothing more than a simplepartment, so it wasn''t as if there was any space to hide any traps.

    I reached in and grabbed the key before turning to the gate.

    But before walking over, I looked at both of the passages that were in the room to make sure that no one wasing.

    The moment that I opened the gate to the treasury, there would be no turning back. After all, even if I had the Detection Ward, it was impossible to hide the open gate.

    So if anyone came in while I was in the treasury, they would surely notice me or know that someone had snuck in.

    I didn''t know how long I would take in there either, so there was the risk of being discovered at any moment.

    I just hoped that everyone would be distracted at the banquet long enough that this wouldn''t happen.

    After making sure that there was no oneing, I went over to the gate and then quickly used the key to open it. After opening it, I went through the gate and turned back to look at it.

    I found that there was also a keyhole on this side, so I closed it without hesitation before turning to the pile of things in front of me.

    I had been worried that there wasn''t a keyhole on this side, but since there was one then I would of course close the door.

    The only problem was that it would be hard to exin the things that were floating in the air as I put them away.

    So I didn''t waste any time getting the things that I wanted to get.

    The first thing, or rather things that I got were the Storage Rings of the elves.

    I knew that it was impossible for me to carry all of the weapons that I needed, so I wanted to use the Storage Rings of the elves to help me carry them all. After all, the system''s inventory was only for the things that came from the system, so I couldn''t put any of these things in there.

    Others wouldn''t know how to use them, but I was different.

    So I didn''t have any problems essing these Storage Rings.

    Some of them were small and were already filled with junk, so I ignored them.

    There was one that was clearly bigger than the rest and wasn''t filled with as many things. As soon as I found this, I knew that this was Moon''s Storage Ring.

    Since it was big enough and empty enough for me to use, I chose to use this Storage Ring to carry the things. It was actually big enough that I was able to put all of the weapons and armour into them without even filling it up.

    By the end of it, the Storage Ring wasn''t even half filled when I crammed all of the weapons and armour that we needed into them.

    So¡­I couldn''t help looking at the other things that were in the treasury.

    I knew that this was risky, but there were many different interesting things here that I just couldn''t ignore.

    That was because while the demons didn''t know what the things that they threw in this ce were, I knew. I had yed the game that this world was based on in my previous world, so I knew many things that the residents of this world didn''t know.

    So the things that the demons didn''t recognize, I knew with a single nce and I knew that they would help us in the uing fight with the demons.

    Without hesitation, I picked out a few things that I thought that we would need.

    Once I was done grabbing everything from the treasury, I carefully looked back at the room outside the bar.

    Seeing that there was no one there, I let out a sigh of relief and quickly made my way out.

    Once I had dropped the key back in the stgmite, I headed in the direction of one of the passages and went into it without hesitation.

 Chapter 181 Pettiness

    This was the passage that was on the opposite side of the room from where I came in.

    This was the only passage that I hadn''t explored yet, so I wanted to see where this led.

    After all, for the n to seed, it was best that I knew everything about this ce.

    So I went down this passage rtively quickly since I didn''t know how long I had before the demons did something. Themander just headed out, so they must be about to do something¡­

    I wanted to finish preparing everything before that demonmander did whatever they were nning on doing.

    There was no doubt that whatever the demonmander was nning was not good for the elves or the forest.

    I followed this path to its end and I was surprised by what I found.

    It was the room that I had started in.

    When I looked through one of the passages on the side, I saw my group still tied up in the cave.

    It seemed like this entire cave was onerge semi circle that led out to the front with both passages.

    So there was no need for me to keep searching any further.

    There were two things that I could do now.

    One, I could go and wake up all of the humans and elves and prepare them for the escape.

    Or two, I could go outside to where the demonmander was and see what he had nned on doing with Moon''s dagger. There was no doubt that he was nning on doing something, but what exactly¡­was a mystery.

    After thinking about it, I decided that it was better to go outside and see what the demons were up to.

    While I could get everyone ready, there was the very likely chance that they would be noisy.

    After all, when people woke up in a ce that they didn''t recognize, the first thing that they would do is¡­panic.

    So if I woke them up, there was no doubt that they would make a lot of noise with their panicking.

    Before I did that, it was better to see what the demons were doing.

    If they were distracted by what they were doing, that would make it much easier for me.

    With this decision, I didn''t waste any time going through the same passage as before.

    Since this was my second time taking this passage, I couldn''t be more familiar with the path.

    When I reached the end, I quickly hid in one of the shrubs near the entrance of the cave as I watched the demons.

    From what I could see, it didn''t seem like they were doing anything.

    In fact, the demonmander was just sitting there on the side, enjoying the leg of the animal that they had roasted.

    Even though he was a cold and cruel lookingmander, he was eating like a beast. He tookrge bites out of the leg like he was a beast himself and there were drops of oil that were dripping down his face.

    It really made him look like apletely different person.

    But what stopped him was a sound from the cage filled with elves.

    The moment that this sound rang out, everyone suddenly turned to look in that direction, including themander. The demonmander even revealed a faint smile when he saw this, which made him look even more dangerous.

    The demonmander stood up and walked over to the cage.

    He stood there looking down at the elves, waiting for the one that woke up to fully wake up.

    From my position, I was able to see some things with the cage, but I wasn''t able to see things clearly.

    However, I was able to recognize this elf because of one special feature that they had.

    It was their red hair that allowed me to recognize them. I only knew of a single elf who had this kind of red hair in the first ce.

    After that elf fully woke up, they red at the demonmander in front of them and asked, "What is going on here?"

    The demonmander revealed a faint and cold smile as he said, "You should already know what is going on here."

    Apollo knitted his brows when he heard this. He narrowed his eyes to re at the demonmander, but the demonmander wasn''t affected by this re at all.

    After a moment of silence, Apollo asked, "Where are the rest of the elves?"

    The demonmander ignored this as he pulled out the dagger that he had taken from the treasury before.

    He held this dagger up in front of Apollo and asked, "Do you recognize this?"

    The moment that he saw this dagger, he immediately recognized it.

    After all, this was the dagger that Moon carried everywhere. It was impossible for him not to recognize it with how many times he had seen it.

    After a moment of being surprised, Apollo suddenly grabbed the bars in front of him and shouted, "What have you done with her?!"

    The way that he suddenly changed even scared some of the demons who had been watching from the side.

    However, the demonmander didn''t even flinch in the face of Apollo''s anger.

    Rather, his smile became even wider, almost as if he was feeding on the anger in Apollo''s voice.

    Then in a teasing voice, the demonmander said, "Who knows?"

    Apollo looked like he was about to explode, but the demonmander didn''t care about him as he turned around to go back to his food. It was as if he had finished ying with the toy that he had found and he was bored of him.

    But Apollo was left in despair from this.

    I felt a bit of pity, but not as much as one would think¡­

    It could be considered pettiness, but that was just how I felt after how Apollo treated me.

    At the same time though, I couldn''t help wondering why the demonmander would do this.

    After all, there was nothing to gain from taunting Apollo like this.

    It almost felt petty¡­just like how I was currently feeling.

 Chapter 182 Plan (1)

    Seeing that there weren''t any other moves from the demons, I didn''t stay here to watch any longer.

    Knowing that they were content with just sitting here and enjoying the banquet, I knew that I shouldn''t waste this chance that had been given to me. As long as they were here, then I would be able to talk to the prisoners that had been captured.

    So I didn''t waste any time heading back through the passage.

    The first group that I chose to contact were¡­the humans.

    They would be easier to convince to go along with my n, so I chose to talk to them first.

    After making my way back to that cave, I stood there over the other members of my group who were lying there on the ground.

    They were still in the same position as when I left. It seemed that they were still under the influence of whatever had been used to knock them out.

    It had to be some kind of special poison that was used with how effective it was, so it definitely wasn''t something that could be solved that easily.

    It was a good thing that I had already thought of this, so I had collected something special from the treasury just for this.

    The demons didn''t know what the use of this was, so they had just tossed behind those bars.

    But I knew that this thing was a powerful antidote that worked on most poisons.

    Not to mention that since it was a flower, a living being, it was something that could be used again and again. It was not something that could only be used once and then it would be useless.

    However, I also knew that it was a bad idea to wake everyone up at once¡­

    So I started moving them in the cave.

    The flower''s pollen, which was the antidote, only had a certain area of effect. This area of effect was actually quite small.

    As long as they weren''t in that area of effect, the pollen wouldn''t reach them and they wouldn''t be cured of the poison afflicting them.

    So I separated them to only awaken a few of them at a time so that there wouldn''t be mass panic.

    The ones that I awakened first were Cecilia and Haley.

    After separating them from the rest, I brought out the flower and let the pollen from it fall onto them.

    Slowly but surely, the two of them started to wake up.

    As they opened their eyes, I already had my hands raised. Then the moment that they saw where they were, they opened their mouths to say something, but I had already put my hands over them.

    That was the reason why I had raised them in the first ce.

    The two of them reacted very differently to this.

    Haley''s eyes opened wide and she was filled with shock when this happened.

    But Cecilia''s eyes only had that shocked look for a second before they turned firm. They looked like she was about to fight her way out of this.

    She had even started opening her mouth as if she was about to bite the hand that was currently covering her mouth.

    However, before she could, I came forward to reveal myself and gave them a sign to be quiet.

    Both of them were surprised to see that it was me, but after seeing that it was me, they calmed down a bit. Haley''s eyes returned to normal while Cecilia stopped trying to struggle.

    Though¡­with the bit of struggle that she had put on earlier¡­there was a bit of slobber on my hand now¡­

    It really felt strange with this on my hand¡­

    But I ignored it and wiped it off on my clothes after taking my hand off Cecilia''s mouth.

    There was a moment of silence before Haley suddenly asked, "What is going on here?"

    She was a smart person, so when she saw this situation, she knew that something had to be going on. Once she knew that, she didn''t waste any time in asking me what was happening.

    I looked at her with a look of praise after hearing this before giving a simple exnation.

    After all, there was very little time, so I couldn''t tell her everything that happened.

    The only thing that I could give her was a simple summary of everything.

    After she finished hearing this, Haley suddenly fell into deep thought.

    Cecilia on the other hand had a bit of an excited look on her face as she said, "So we''re going to be fighting the demons?"

    A bitter smile crept onto my face when I heard this, but I shook my head in the end before saying, "It''s not that simple. If we go in without any ns, then we won''t be able to do much." After a pause, I added, "Not to mention, there are still those elves that are being held hostage outside."

    Cecilia revealed a disdainful look when she heard this.

    While she didn''t say anything, it made it clear by the look on her face that she didn''t want to save those elves that were trapped outside.

    The bitter smile on my face became wider, but I still said, "You know that we have to save them. If we don''t then we won''t be able to aplish our goal."

    Cecilia''s expression didn''t change at first, but then she gave a sigh and said, "Alright."

    I gave a nod in response, but I knew where she wasing from.

    After all, with how Apollo had treated us since the beginning, it made him very unlikeable. If I had a choice, I wouldn''t have chosen to save him either¡­but there was no choice here.

    If we were to leave those elves to their fate, then it would be impossible to negotiate with the elven vige.

    It was at this time that Haley finished thinking and she asked, "What n do you have right now?"

    I gave an appreciative nod to her intelligence and then quickly exined my n.

 Chapter 183 Plan (2)

    After I finished exining the n to them, we went and woke up the rest of our group.

    It was a good thing that I had woken up these two, or else it would have been much more chaotic.

    When I woke up the next group, they immediately started to panic when they saw the unfamiliar scenery. With just me alone, it would have been impossible to keep them all silent.

    So with Haley and Cecilia''s help, we were able to cover the mouths of the ones that went to scream.

    If it wasn''t for them¡­it would have been very likely that we would have been discovered with all the noise that would have been made¡­

    Luckily they were here to help me cover those mouths to ensure that there wasn''t a sound.

    Only when we were sure that they wouldn''t make a sound did we wake up the rest of the group.

    They all panicked, but there were more than enough people to ensure that they didn''t make any sounds.

    Since everyone here was awake, there was nothing else for me to do.

    So I took one of the Storage Rings that I had and left it with them.

    This was the Storage Rings of one of the blonde elves that stuck with Moon.

    Since they were so close to Moon, it only made sense that they had a high position among the elves.

    The Storage Rings that they had were only second in size to Moon''s Storage Ring.

    These were big enough to store all the things that they needed, so I left the Storage Ring here. After all, they would still be pretending to be tied up and would only break free at thest moment.

    So for now, it wasn''t as if they could fully equip themselves with their armour and weapons.

    I left the Storage Ring to Haley with instructions on how to use it. She was the smartest one here, so she was able to easily figure this out.

    After that, I put the Detection Ward back on mypel and disappeared from everyone''s sight.

    As I left, I could see the looks of amazement that they had on their faces.

    It didn''t take me long to reach the elves. The corridors werepletely unguarded since it seemed like all of the demons were outside enjoying the banquet.

    When I came back to the room with the elves, I found that Moon was in the same position that I had left her.

    She was doing what she could to stay still, but it was impossible for her topletely stop her breathing. When I looked closely, I could see the faint movements that came from her body.

    I didn''t know why, but it almost looked cute the way that she tried her best.

    But I threw this thought out and moved over to where she was.

    When I came close, I tapped her on the shoulder which made her jump and give a small cry of surprise.

    I quickly took off the Detection Ward and said in a small voice, "It''s me, it''s just me."

    When Moon heard this, she looked at me with a re.

    I couldn''t help feeling that this was cute too¡­but I quickly gathered myself and told her what I had done already.

    After Moon heard this, she said, "Then quickly wake up and untie the rest."

    I gave a nod before shaking my head and saying, "We can''t wake them up all at once."

    Moon hesitated a bit before giving a nod.

    She had a look of understanding in her eyes which showed that she knew what I was talking about.

    So we separated them and started waking the elves in groups.

    The first two that we woke up were the two blonde elves that followed Moon closely.

    These two followed Moon closely and were very loyal to her, so there wouldn''t be a problem if they were woken up first.

    As soon as they woke up, they didn''t panic and instead started looking for Moon.

    When they saw her, their expression rxed for a second until¡­they saw me. The moment that they saw me, their eyes filled with hostility.

    They both quickly reached for their weapons, but they realized that they didn''t have any weapons. So they just looked for rocks that they could use as weapons against me.

    Luckily for me, there wasn''t anything like that in this cave.

    This cave had beenpletely cleaned out of anything that the prisoners could use to break free, so they wouldn''t be able to find anything like that here.

    After realizing this, the blonde elves didn''t bother looking for anything else and just decided to use their hands against me.

    But before they could reach me, Moon suddenly came forward to stand in between us.

    Seeing this, the blonde elves said in a soft voice, "Young miss, please move."

    Even though they were angry, they had controlled themselves and didn''t speak too loudly.

    Moon shook her head and then said in a soft voice as well, "It''s not what you think."

    Both of the blonde elves revealed confused looks when they heard this, but the hostility that they had towards me didn''t disappear. They were still ring at me even though Moon was standing there in front of me.

    Moon calmly waited until the two settled down before exining the situation to them.

    After they finished hearing this, the blonde elves still had a bit of doubt on their face. However, they did calm down since it was Moon who was telling them this.

    In the end, they were still doubtful, but they were willing to cooperate since it was the only way to help the other elves that were still unconscious.

    They could tell that the reason why they were still unconscious wasn''t normal, so they would need my help to wake them up.

    So we worked together to wake up the other elves, but that was also filled with plenty of drama¡­

 Chapter 184 Plan (3)

    <h4>Chapter 184 n (3)</h4>

    When the other elves woke up, they naturally looked at me with hostility like the blonde elves had done earlier.

    There were some that even wanted to attack me, but Moon and the blonde elves quickly stopped them¡­Well, the blonde elves had more hesitation and only stepped in after Moon did.

    But still, they helped me by stopping the elves from charging at me.

    In the end, we were able to wake up all of the elves and exin the situation to them.

    They all had doubtful looks on their faces, but in this situation, they had no choice but to y along.

    After all, they didn''t have any of their weapons and they didn''t know what was happening outside. At the same time, there were many other elves of their group that were missing.

    Namely, the warriors that were led by Apollo.

    If they wanted to save them and escape this ce, they had no choice but to trust Zwein for now.

    After everyone had settled, Moon asked, "What do we do now?"

    I nodded in response to this and told them the n.

    When the elves heard this, they couldn''t help knitting their brows once more as they looked at me with skeptical looks, but I didn''t flinch under this skepticism. I just calmly looked at Moon and waited for her response.

    After a bit of silence, Moon gave a nod in response.

    She then said, "That does seem like the best way to handle this, but there''s a problem."

    She waved her hand at everyone and said, "We don''t have any weapons. I don''t think that we''ll be able to fight our way out like this."

    I nodded when I heard this before bringing out the thing that I had in my pocket.

    Moon''s eyes narrowed when she saw this¡­since it was her Storage Ring that I pulled out.

    She looked up at me with a strange look before reaching out to take it.

    But before she could take it, I pulled my hand back.

    When Moon saw this, she narrowed her eyes again before asking, "What are you doing?"

    I revealed an awkward smile before saying, "Give me one minute first, I just need to take a few things out."

    Then I started pulling out the different Storage Rings from Moon''s Storage Ring.

    I thought that the elves would be happy to see this, but to my surprise, I found that they were all staring at me with narrowed eyes that were filled with hostility. Even Moon was giving me the same look.

    After a moment of silence, she suddenly asked, "How do you know how to use these Storage Rings?"

    I was confused at first, but then I realized what she meant.

    These Storage Rings were the treasures of the elven race and unless one was an elf, they wouldn''t know how to use them.

    So how did I know how to use them?

    That was why they were filled with hostility as they looked at me.

    I realized my mistake now, but there really wasn''t time to exin¡­not to mention that I didn''t have an exnation for them in the first ce.

    So I raised my hands and said, "There''s no time right now. I''ll talk to you about thister."

    After a tense moment of silence, Moon finally gave a nod.

    The other elves seemed like they weren''t willing to ept this, but since Moon had already made her decision, it wasn''t as if they could say anything else.

    So the elves started taking their Storage Rings.

    One of the blonde elves noticed that her Storage Ring wasn''t here, so she asked me about it.

    "I gave it to my group to use. We needed a ce to hide our armours and weapons for now."

    As soon as they heard this, all of the elves knitted their brows again.

    They looked at me with the same looks as before, but they knew that this wasn''t the time, so they went back to their own things.

    That blonde elf still asked, "What do I do about weapons? It''s not as if I can fight empty handed."

    Moon was the one that answered this.

    "Your weapons and armour are in my ring."

    She took them out for that blonde elf before looking at me with a strange look.

    missing.

    The blonde elf took this, but she also looked at me with a strange look.

    But that also wasn''t the end of that since¡­the other blonde elf''s Storage Ring was missing.

    "I need that ring to hold a few things for me."

    That blonde elf looked at me with that same hostile look, but Moon helped me again.

    "He''s an ally and he needs it, so just let him use it for now."

    The blonde elf had an unwilling look on her face, but she still nodded in response to this.

    After she defended me, Moon turned to look at me to say, "But I will need an exnation from youter on how you know how to use our Storage Rings."

    I just revealed a bitter smile before nodding in agreement.

    With this settled, there was nothing else for me to take care of here.

    Since the elves knew what the n was and what to do, I put on the Detection Ward and headed back to my group.

    But before I went, Moon grabbed me by the shoulder and said in a soft voice, "Be careful."

    I was surprised by this and caught off guard by how cute she was when she said it, but I still said with a nod, "I will. You be careful too."

    She nodded in response to this.

    I went back to my group and found that they were already making preparations.

    Now all we had to do was wait for the right time.

    Time passed and night soon fell.

    When I confirmed that it was night outside and the feast was dying down, I went back and asked my group, "Are you ready?"

    They all gave signs that they were prepared.

    With that, the n was put into action.

 Chapter 185 Breakout

    <h4>Chapter 185 Breakout</h4>

    The first thing that we had to take care of were the guards that were outside the cave we had been put in.

    But that was very easy since¡­they were both asleep.

    These guards werepletely exhausted after the feast and they didn''t think that anything would happen with the humans tied up, so they fell asleep in the room outside the cave.

    That was thest mistake of their lives.

    When the time came, we slowly made our way out of the room with Cecilia and her subordinates in the lead.

    They were all fully equipped with their weapons and armour, so they didn''t have a problem taking out the demons.

    If the demons were awake, it might have been hard.

    The specialty that demons had was that they were filled with powerful mana. With that powerful mana, they would be able to form magic barriers around their skin that could even resist sharp des.

    It was just too bad that these powerful magic barriers didn''t work when they were asleep.

    Well, they worked, but they weren''t as strong as when they were awake.

    So it took a simple slip of the sword to cut through their necks.

    The demons didn''t even get a chance to make a sound as Cecilia and one of the knights held their mouths shut as they slit their throats. The demons could only look up to see the humans who had killed them as the light drained from their eyes.

    With this, there was no turning back.

    Without any hesitation, we headed down one of the passages in this room and soon we reached the treasury.

    Before entering the treasury, I put on the Detection Ward and checked it out first.

    When I saw the people that were there, I took off the Detection Ward and waved for the rest to follow me in.

    The ones that were already here were Moon and her elves.

    There were two of them that had dark blood on them, but it was the same with Cecilia and the knight. This was the blood of the demons that we had killed.

    After seeing us arrive, Moon came forward and asked, "What do we do now? It''s locked."

    I didn''t answer this question and instead walked over to the stgmite that held the key.

    I pushed down on the top of the stgmite and the key was revealed.

    Then taking this key, I opened up the gate that was in front of us before giving a gesture inviting them in.

    Seeing this, everyone looked at me with a bitter smile on their faces before a few of them moved forward.

    There was a group that protected the area while a few of us went in to see if there was anything that we could use here.

    After all, when I had been here this afternoon, I didn''t take everything that had been here.

    I had only taken a few things that I thought were useful, but there were still plenty of other things here. There were plenty of things that I didn''t know what they did, so I had no reason to take them.

    But now that everyone else was here, I wanted to see if they knew what these things did.

    It was better to use these things to help us than to leave them here after all.

    Haley was the one that had the most fun here.

    She was like a child in a candy store as she started going through all of the items that were on the ground. She found quite a few things that it seemed like she wanted to take, but after thinking about it, she left those things there.

    That was because she wanted these things for personal reasons and they wouldn''t actually help us here.

    Seeing this, I patted her on the shoulder and said, "We cane back for these thingster."

    She looked up at me before giving a nod and then looking back at the items on the ground with an unwilling look.

    Moon was the person who was the second most interested in this pile.

    She found a few things that caught her attention and she put them into her Storage Ring without any hesitation.

    That was the difference between those that had a Storage Ring and those that didn''t.

    She was able to keep what she wanted in that Storage Ring without a single care since it was a secure ce to keep things, that was also out of the way.

    Haley looked at me as if she was asking me to do the same.

    A bitter smile appeared on my face as she looked at me like this.

    I did have a Storage Ring, but it wasn''t mine in the first ce. It was the one that I was currently borrowing from the blonde elf, so I couldn''t just use it as I wanted.

    Seeing this, she gave a sigh before turning her attention back to the pile.

    It didn''t take long for us to find the things that we needed, so we quickly left the treasury.

    It would only be a matter of time before the demons sent people to check the cells, so we only had so much time before our jailbreak was discovered.

    Before that, we had to get in position to take out the demons, so there was no time to waste.

    Since we were done here, there was no reason for us to stay here any longer.

    I put on the Detection Ward and disappeared in front of everyone before heading out first to scout the area.

    When they heard the signal, which was the sound of a stone dropping, they followed behind me.

    Just like this, we made our way to the exit of the cave.

    But before leaving this cave, I had to check the situation outside.

    As I had expected, all of the demons were just lying on the ground asleep. They had all knocked out from the food and drinks that they had, so this was the perfect chance.

    I went back to the rest and told them, "Get ready, we only have a certain amount of time before they start waking up and fighting back."

    All of them nodded in response to this.

    They knew the n, they wouldn''t make a mistake.

    So it was time to get it started.

 Chapter 186 Fighting Demons (1)

    The demons that were outside were all asleep, so it was easy for the elves and the humans to get into position.

    Once they were in position, they were just waiting for our group to finish what we had to do.

    Before we started attacking the demons, we had to rescue the other elves first.

    Otherwise, if the demons woke up and realized that they were being attacked, they would immediately think to use these elves in the cage as hostages. Once that happened, it would be hard for us to save them.

    So the group that was heading over included me, Cecilia, and Moon, as well as some of their strongest subordinates.

    These two were the strongest fighters and the others were among the strongest out of all our groups, this could be considered the strongest team that we had.

    As for why we were sending all of our strongest fighters over, it was because once the demons woke up, they would still send people after the hostages. We needed a strong line to stop them when they did this.

    After all, it was impossible to expect these elves to be ready to fight right away.

    The elves in the cave had been preparing all afternoon and had regained the strength to fight, but the elves in the cage had been suffering from the poison still, so they would still be groggy after waking up.

    They would be in no condition to fight like this.

    After making our way over, I didn''t wake up the elves right away since that would just make amotion.

    However, we did open up the cage and start untying all of the elves.

    During this, Apollo suddenly woke up and was about to create amotion before Moon stopped him.

    I had already seen Apollo waking up earlier, so I knew that the demons must have cured him of his poison. I knew that if we tried to free the elves, he would wake up, so I had given Moon the duty of taking care of him.

    When he saw me though, it looked like he really wanted to kill me.

    But he held himself back since he knew that this was a dangerous situation and that Moon was beside him.

    He reached his hand out as if he was asking for his Storage Ring, but Moon shook her head which surprised him. He looked at her like he was asking her how he should fight without any weapons, so in the end, Moon gave him one of her backup swords.

    Apollo had a disappointed look, but he still took it since it was better than nothing.

    Since we were all prepared, I gave a nod to Cecilia and Moon.

    When they received this nod, they turned back to the elves and humans that were waiting and they gave the signal.

    Once this signal was given, the battle began.

    The demons werepletely caught off guard, so before the battle even fully started, half of them had been wiped out.

    The humans used their swords to cut the demons down while the elves rained arrows on the demons.

    It was impossible to stop the demons from making noises as they were being killed, so the other demons were woken up by this.

    That included the demonmander.

    When he woke up, he just gave a simple nce around before shouting, "The prisoners have escaped!"

    As soon as he said this, all of the demons enteredbat mode, pulling out various weapons and such.

    However, their numbers had been cut down by quite a bit. A quarter of them had been killed from the ambush and another quarter of them had been injured to varying degrees.

    The demons had outnumbered the elves and humans in the first ce, but now¡­the numbers had been cut down enough that they were about even.

    But even then¡­

    The demonmander recognized what the situation was with a single nce, so he shouted, "The elves in the cage! Take them as hostages and force them to back down!"

    The demons that heard this hesitated for a second before immediately turning in the direction of the cage.

    As we had expected, the demons immediately turned to using the elves that had been captured as hostages.

    It was just too bad that we had already expected this and had sent people to guard the cage.

    When the demons came charging, Cecilia stood in the front with her knights while Moon and the other elves stood in the back with their bows raised.

    When she faced the demons, Cecilia didn''t back down at all as she shed her sword at them.

    The demons might have had a magic barrier around them, but that wasn''t enough to protect them against the might of Cecilia''s sword.

    If it was before, perhaps she might have struggled against these demons.

    But after fighting and defeating the Goblin General, as well as fighting all those monsters, Cecilia and her knights had leveled up. They were much stronger and faster than before, so they were able to easily sweep through these demon foot soldiers.

    The demons weren''t able to take a single attack from Cecilia, falling from shes of her sword.

    Behind them, the elves weren''t idle.

    Led by Moon, the elves started shooting their arrows at the demons in the back rows of the charge.

    These arrows were sharp and urate,nding on the vital spots of these demons.

    While not every arrow from the elves killed a demon, every arrow from Moon did.

    Her uracy and power was far above the other elves, putting her in a ss of her own.

    With these abilities, she was like a reaper swinging her scythe as she cut down the demons.

    The only one who was really struggling in this fight was Apollo.

    After all, the sword that Moon had given him was a poor quality sword, so it had snapped in the first collision with the demons.

    While he was a warrior, so he was skilled at magic as well, that didn''t matter as much against the demons. The demons were also skilled at magic and hadrge mana stores, so the magic barrier they used easily blocked Apollo''s spells.

    So in the end, he had no choice but to pick up sticks from the ground to fight with.

    However, sticks were sticks in the end and every stick that he used snapped with just a single swing.

    Just like this, he was put in a very embarrassing position, but he had no choice but to fight.

    Even then, the elves and humans were able to push back to the demons that charged at them.

    These demons were just no match for thebined forces of Cecilia and Moon, so they were pushed back under their sword and bow respectively.

    But before the demons could retreat, there was a sword that was swung down to cut the demon at the very back.

    When they turned around, they found that it was the demonmander.

    Seeing this, all of them steeled themselves again to face the elves and the humans.

    That was becauseparing the two, they were more scared of the demonmander than the elves and humans.

 Chapter 187 Fighting Demons (2)

    The demonmander wasn''t a fool.

    Just based on the momentum of the battle, he could tell that they were slowly being pushed back by the humans and elves.

    At the same time, there were other humans and elves who were attacking them from the side, slowly whittling their forces away.

    If they continued like this, it would be a matter of time before they were choked out and taken down.

    So he had to find a way out of this blockade.

    In the mind of the demonmander, there were two ways to break free of this blockade.

    One was to concentrate his forces and hit one of the weak spots of the blockade. Once they broke through, they would be able to run away and then regroup before deciding on what to do.

    But this idea was immediately ignored by the demonmander.

    After all, no matter how one put it, this was retreating and it would hurt his pride if he did anything like that.

    So the demonmander wouldn''t even want to think about this.

    That left him with his other choice.

    Defeating the enemy leaders and destroying their morale.

    Once the enemy''s morale was shattered, it was only a matter of time before they were pushed back by the demons. After all, demons were much more powerful than elves and humans by nature, it was just that they were on the losing end now because they had been ambushed like this.

    Once they gathered themselves, there was no chance that they would lose.

    But the enemy also knew this which was why they were trying to cut their numbers down as quickly as possible by sending their leaders, their strongest fighters to the frontline.

    Since that was the case, the demonmander had made his choice.

    When the demonmander came forward, the demons that were in front of him cleared the way for him.

    When the demonmander came forward, the humans and elves felt the pressure that he brought on them.

    This demonmander was definitely powerful enough to turn the tides in their favour.

    Seeing this, Cecilia and Moon immediately came to a decision.

    Cecilia looked back at Moon and Moon gave a nod before nocking three arrows into her bow.

    She didn''t shoot them right at the demonmander, but rather raised her bow up towards the sky. She aimed them right up into the sky before letting the bowstring go, sending those arrows off.

    The demonmander had looked up to follow the arrows, but then he immediately looked down.

    "ng!"

    There was the sound of swords shing that rang out.

    Cecilia had charged forward the moment that Moon had released those arrows, clearing the gap between her and the demonmander in an instant. With all of the demons being distracted by the demonmander suddenlying out, she was able to run past them without any problems.

    As she ran this distance, her sword had undergone a full swing at the demonmander.

    But the demonmander had easily blocked this swing with his sword.

    He looked down at Cecilia and raised his other hand as if he was about to do something, but then he suddenly stopped.

    In an instant, the demonmander jumped back without any hesitation.

    As the demonmander jumped back, there was an arrow thatnded where he had been standing before.

    Cecilia didn''t give the demonmander any room to catch his breath as she quickly chased after him after he jumped backwards.

    This time, she lifted her sword above her head and brought it down in arge swing at the demonmander.

    Since the demonmander had been focused on escaping the arrow, he wasn''t able to react to thisrge swing quickly.

    He could only bring his sword up in a haste to block it, but that caused him to not use as much strength as he would have liked.

    In the end, the demonmander was still able to block this downwards strike.

    However, there was a different problem.

    The reason why Cecilia had chosen a downwards strike this second time was to lock the demonmander in ce.

    With the pressureing from above, the demonmander felt it was hard to move.

    To break free, he would have to gather his strength to push her back.

    He couldn''t help being surprised by the fact that this kind of power was contained in this skinny frame, but there was no time for him to be surprised.

    That was because he could feel a sense of danger from above.

    It was another arrow that was falling down.

    But with Cecilia locking him in ce like this, it wasn''t as if the demonmander could dodge out of the way.

    It seemed like the demonmander was in a very bad situation.

    However, the demonmander suddenly brought up his other hand that had a ball of ck energy inside of it.

    This ball of ck energy quickly gathered before releasing a bright glow that blinded Cecilia. However, Cecilia''s sharp senses told her exactly where this ball of dark energy wasing from, so she quickly released the hold that she had on the demonmander.

    She pulled her sword back and then jumped back, dodging out of the way.

    After being released from Cecilia''s hold, the demonmander also jumped back out of the way.

    If he had been a secondter, then he might have been skewered by the arrow that fell.

    There was an arrow thatnded right where he had been standing before.

    But once again, it wasn''t over yet.

    There was one more arrow that had been shot.

    This time, it was the arrow that fell first before Cecilia charged out at the demonmander.

    The demonmander raised his sword to sh out at the arrow, deflecting it away before continuing that swing to meet Cecilia who was charging at him.

    Since he had already started the swing, there was more power in this swing than his previous swings.

    This one sent Cecilia flying back with the power that it contained, sending her in the center of the demons.

    When shended, Cecilia found herself surrounded by demons.

 Chapter 188 Fighting Demons (3)

    The demons were caught off guard by this since they had been focused on watching the fight between Cecilia and the demonmander.

    However, they quickly came back to their senses and raised their weapons to attack Cecilia.

    But this moment of hesitation was what had cost them.

    That was because the moment that they turned around, the humans and elves attacked them from behind.

    The demons had only thought about getting Cecilia, who hadnded in their midst, that they had forgotten who they had been fighting just a minute ago.

    The humans and elves had also stopped fighting for a bit to watch Cecilia charge the demonmander, but they also had Moon there to keep them in line. They knew what would happen after Cecilia charged the demonmander, so they were all prepared to rescue her at any moment.

    The moment that the demons focused on Cecilia, the knights charged forward and the elves covered them with their arrows.

    Being hit in the back like this, the demons weren''t able to resist at all as they were cut down by the swords and arrows. They just crumpled under their weapons like wheat in front of a scythe.

    It took no time at all for them to carve a path for Cecilia''s escape.

    Cecilia quickly went with them and returned to the line in front of the cage.

    After she came back, I quickly asked her, "How strong is he?"

    Cecilia revealed a grim look before saying, "Just in terms of physical strength, he''s stronger than me. If you add in his magic¡­"

    She didn''t finish her words, but the conclusion that she drew was definitely grim enough.

    All of us revealed downcast looks when we heard this, but then we calmed ourselves and steeled our hearts.

    I had already expected this since this was a main quest given by the system. There was no way that this would be easy.

    Since that was the case, then I shouldn''t hold back any longer.

    I pulled out The Prator and handed it to Cecilia.

    She took it without hesitation before turning to face the demonmander again.

    The reason why she didn''t have The Prator in hand to begin with was because we had wanted to hide this. We had wanted to keep this thing as our secret weapon, but it seemed like that wasn''t possible.

    The demonmander was already this powerful, so there was no chance of winning without it.

    Holding this in hand, Cecilia felt much more confident.

    She remembered when she faced the Goblin General and the feel of using this strange looking sword to smash that Goblin General.

    She didn''t want to admit it, but it was a feeling that was quite addicting. That empowered feeling that she had when she held this strange looking sword, she really wanted more of it.

    But she knew that this was only temporary and the best way to be stronger was to make oneself stronger, so that was why she didn''t use this magic weapon all the time.

    When The Prator came out, the elves and the demons who were sensitive to magic couldn''t help looking at it with strange looks.

    It wasn''t because of the strange shape that this sword had, but rather because of the magic that could senseing from it. It took just a single nce for the elves and the demons to recognize that this was a magic weapon.

    They were more surprised that the humans who had the lowest amount of magic out of all the races would have something like this.

    The demonmander had been silent the whole time since he had been surprised by how well the elves and humans were cooperating, but this took the straw.

    He too was surprised by the fact that this human had a magic weapon like this, but he was more disappointed in his men. They had let this perfect opportunity slip out of their fingers like this.

    During the time that the humans had been talking and regrouping, his men could have caught them off guard by suddenly charging.

    They had even been focused on switching to that magic weapon, so there had been the perfect gap¡­

    Yet they just stood there in a daze like fools.

    Finally, the demonmander couldn''t take it anymore and shouted, "What are you fools doing? Use your magic to bombard them from afar while forming a line to keep them away!"

    The demons were snapped out of their daze when they heard this and they quickly turned back to gather mana in their hands.

    When the elves and humans saw this, they had ugly expressions.

    After all, the specialty of demons was their magic power.

    They had felt relieved that the demons hadn''t used these magic spells yet, but now¡­

    The demons had actually not used them because they wanted to save their mana just in case, but the demonmander''s words woke them up.

    If they didn''t push through, then they would all die here.

    It was better to go all out and break free than to die here without using it at all.

    Cecilia immediately made a decision after seeing the demons start to gather their magic power.

    She started charging forward as she shouted, "Charge them and interrupt them before they can finish gathering their magic!"

    The knights were caught off guard by this, but they only dyed for a single second before following up on Cecilia''s charge. They had been properly trained by her, so they would be able to follow up on things like this in an instant.

    The demons were also surprised by Cecilia''s charge, but they didn''t worry since they were in an advantageous position.

    There was already a line formed to block this charge from her while the demons in the back were gathering their magic power.

    Once she was stopped by the line, then they would immediately rain down spells on her.

    They didn''t believe that a puny human like this would be able to block the spells that they released.

    So they watched as Cecilia came closer and closer.

 Chapter 189 Fighting Demons (4)

    Cecilia could see that the demons were prepared to face her, but she didn''t back down at all when she saw this.

    Instead, she just brought the strange looking sword in her hand up and prepared to swing down at them.

    The demons were caught off guard when they saw that she was prepared to charge at them, but then they couldn''t help revealing derisive sneers. It was almost like they thought that she was a fool.

    That was normal since she was charging at a bunch of enemies that were prepared to ignore her.

    Anyone normal would have thought that this was a foolish thing to do¡­but Cecilia was no fool.

    The demons still had a sneer on their faces when Cecilia''s strange sword came at them, but then¡­that smile disappeared without a trace.

    When the strange looking sword mmed into them, they found that they weren''t able to put up any resistance at all. It was as if instead of them being the wall, Cecilia was the wall and they were the egg being thrown at all.

    The demons weren''t able to resist even for a single second as they were blown away, creating arge hole in the line of the demons.

    When the elves saw this, they immediately took advantage of this to shoot some arrows through the hole to hit the demons in the back.

    These demons who had been gathering their mana for their spells didn''t have any defenses, so they were shot down right away by these arrows.

    At the same time, the sudden explosion that was the demons being blown away had caused the other demons preparing their spells to lose their concentration.

    So in the end, there wasn''t a single spell that was released at the humans and elves.

    It wasn''t just the demons that were shocked by the power that Cecilia showed, even the demonmander''s jaw couldn''t help dropping. This demon who prided himself in being cool and calm had let his emotions get the best of him.

    After all, this was just too shocking!

    No one would have expected Cecilia to have this kind of power.

    And if she did, why didn''t she use this power earlier when she was shing with the demonmander?

    The knights didn''t waste the opening that Cecilia gave her and quickly surrounded her to create a hole in the line of the demons.

    The other demons around them tried to patch up this hole by attacking the knights, but they found that anyone that came close would be blown away by Cecilia''s attack. The knights were just there to protect her while she mmed all of the demons away.

    Seeing this, all of the demons revealed bitter smiles as they couldn''t believe this.

    Weren''t they supposed to be the one using this technique?

    Why did it suddenly get turned around on them?

    The demonmander knew that this situation had gotten out of hand and even if he wanted to do something, it would be impossible with the state that his men were in.

    The only way for him to take care of this was to use some drastic measures.

    Namely¡­his hidden trump card.

    So the demonmander ignored his men who were being trounced and turned to look at the elves.

    He was looking at one specific elf who had also been looking in his direction.

    When his eyes met the gaze of this elf, there was a look of understanding that appeared in the eyes of the elf. At the same time, there was a difficult look that appeared in the eyes of that elf.

    But in the end, the determination filled it and they made up their mind.

    That elf raised their hand and they gathered mana in the palm of their hands.

    From a bystander''s point of view, it seemed like this elf was about to shoot out a spell to hit the enemy.

    However, when one looked at this elf closely, they would see that this elf was facing a certain direction.

    Instead of looking at the enemies, this elf was currently looking in the direction of Cecilia and her knights.

    If they were to release a spell now¡­that spell would most likely hit Cecilia and her knights.

    But that elf didn''t stop gathering mana in their palms.

    After a minute, the elf had finished gathering the mana that they needed for this spell and they were prepared to fire it.

    However, before they could, they heard a coughing from behind them.

    The elf suddenly jolted when they heard this and they turned around to see¡­a young human male standing there.

    That was right, I was standing behind this elf.

    I looked at this red haired elf with their hand raised and their mana gathered with a calm look. It didn''t seem like I was using them of anything, but the way that I stood there with my arms crossed made it clear that I knew everything.

    When the red haired elf saw this, his face suddenly twisted.

    After a moment of silence, that red haired elf slowly brought his hand down and ran forward with the stick in his hand.

    I kept watching this red haired elf, making sure that he didn''t do anything else and it seemed like he had given up on causing mischief.

    As for how I knew this¡­I had been watching the elves in the cave the entire time.

    I had been carefully watching to see if I could find the traitor, but there didn''t seem to be anything that I could see. So I was almost certain that the traitor that the demons had mentioned before weren''t among the elves in the cave.

    But that would mean that they were outside in the cage¡­

    That just seemed very strange unless they were trying to blend in by ying the part of the victim.

    However, I remembered something after thinking about this.

    Why would the demonmander specifically bring out that dagger and taunt Apollo this afternoon?

    That seemed a bit suspicious.

    Now, my suspicions have been confirmed.

    However, it wasn''t the time to deal with them right now.

 Chapter 190 Fighting Demons (5)

    When the demonmander saw that the red haired elf wouldn''t do what he wanted, he had no choice but to take to the field himself.

    He knew that it was impossible for his idiot troops to face this powerful enemy by themselves, so he had no choice but to personally take care of it.

    The other few demons that were close to the demonmander, the ones that were stronger than the rest of the demons also followed him.

    They had been leading the other demons in taking care of the humans and elves that were surrounding them, but now that the demonmander was personally taking to the field, they had toe and help him.

    So it was like this that the most powerful demons wereing forward to fight.

    When the demonmander and his subordinates came forward, the other demons immediately created a path for them.

    Seeing this, the demonmander looked at them in disdain for their cowardice.

    However, he didn''t say anything about this since he knew that this was for the best.

    With their strength, they would just be a burden if they came out with them.

    But that didn''t mean that these demonspletely retreated.

    Since they wouldn''t be able to help directly, they would still be able to help indirectly.

    The demons moved to the back and started gathering their mana to cast theirrge spells.

    It was just like the strategy from before, but this time the demonmander and the other powerful demons were the ones that were holding the line.

    When the demonmander and the other powerful demons came forward, Cecilia also came forward to face them.

    She knew that other than her, there was no one else that would be able to take this demonmander on.

    The two sides came face to face with each other.

    As they stood there, the demonmander suddenly revealed a smile and said, "You''re not a bad woman. How about youe to my side? I''ll be sure to properly take care of you."

    I knitted my brows when I heard this, but then I couldn''t help revealing a worried look.

    That was because there was a bit of a dazed look on Cecilia''s face instead of the angry look that one might expect.

    It was clear that there was some kind of magic that was being used against her.

    So I quickly went over to Moon and said, "Help me cast some mind focusing magic on Cecilia."

    Moon looked at Cecilia and nodded in response.

    She had also felt that something was off about her, but she didn''t know what.

    Now that she heard what I said, she realized that the demonmander was most likely using some kind of charm magic.

    With a wave of her hand, there was a green light that appeared around Cecilia.

    After that, her eyes suddenly focused and she revealed an angry re that she pointed at the demonmander. As she gritted her teeth, she said, "You dare use that kind of magic against me?"

    The demonmander slightly knitted his brows, but he didn''t say anything else.

    He knew that it would be pointless trying to use this magic again with the elves here, so he gave up on that idea.

    At the same time, there was nothing for him to say since he knew that provoking them was meaningless.

    He had seen the determination that this female knight had shown earlier, he knew that a few words wouldn''t be enough to rattle her.

    So the only thing that he could trust in was his own power.

    Seeing this, Moon didn''t waste any time in nocking five arrows into her bow.

    When she pointed it up into the sky, there was a bit of a strained look on her face. It was as if it was hard for her to pull back these five arrows.

    However, there was a different reason for that.

    That was because these were magic arrows.

    These were arrows that she was able to control with her magic, so she was able to make them fall onmand. At the same time, she would be able to make them fall where she wanted them to fall.

    That was how she had been able to dy the arrows that she shot earlier to fall at the right time.

    But it was draining on her to use this because it took her mana to control these arrows.

    Three was already hard on her and five was definitely pushing her limit, but she knew that this was the final battle and she didn''t hold back anything.

    These arrows flew out the moment that Cecilia charged forward.

    When Cecilia charged, the knights behind her followed her charge.

    At the same time, the demons also suddenly charged.

    The demonmander was leading the charge while the other demons hung back a bit.

    Cecilia and the demonmander only had one target, each other.

    They both brought their weapons up and then swung down at each other.

    Then when the weapons of the two sides shed¡­there wasn''t a single second of dy before the demonmander''s ck sword shattered to pieces.

    The demonmander had a shocked look, but he still dodged out of the way at thest second.

    As he dodged out of the way, Cecilia''s sword mmed down into the ground where he had been standing.

    The demons didn''t miss this chance as they quickly tried to surround Cecilia.

    But the knights weren''t idle either as they shed with these demons.

    These knights were also stronger than before because they had also leveled up from fighting the monsters alongside Cecilia and undergoing her training. So they didn''t have a problem shing head on with these demons.

    The problem was that there weren''t enough of them to keep all of the demons upied.

    One of the demons was able to make their way forward and was able to sh out at Cecilia.

    She turned to see the sword of this demon approaching her.

 Chapter 191 Fighting Demons (6)

    But right before that sword could touch her, there was an arrow that fell down.

    This arrow pierced right through the chest of this demon and pinned him down onto the ground.

    The force of this arrow pushed him back and the sword was pulled away with him before he could swing it down on Cecilia.

    Cecilia was caught off guard by this sudden arrow falling down, but then she turned back to give Moon an appreciative nod.

    Moon gave a nod back before turning her eyes to look at the demonmander.

    Cecilia saw this and also turned to focus on the demonmander.

    The demonmander had taken the sword from another demon and was now back to facing them.

    But this time, there was a wariness to him that they hadn''t seen before.

    As for the target of this wariness¡­it wasn''t either Cecilia or Moon, but rather the strange looking sword in Cecilia''s hand.

    He was able to tell that it was all because of this strange looking sword that Cecilia was able to show that kind of power. So if he was able to avoid this sword, he shouldn''t suffer like he had done just now.

    As he started moving forward, there was a ck energy that suddenly surrounded the demonmander.

    Neither Moon or Cecilia knew what this was, but they could tell that this thing was dangerous.

    So they could only watch to see what the demonmander nned to do.

    The ck energy swirled around the demonmander before suddenly¡­entering the demonmander''s body.

    After it entered the demonmander''s body, the already dark skin of the demonmander turned even darker. At the same time, there were these dark veins that suddenly popped out on the demonmander''s skin.

    It was almost as if there was something that was moving around under the demonmander''s skin.

    But the pressure that the demonmander released suddenly became much stronger at the same time.

    There was also this wild look that appeared on his face that was different from the calm look that he usually had.

    However, the demonmander didn''t move as he just stood there.

    It was almost as if he was adjusting to this new state that he had entered.

    At the same time, the other demons started moving away from him as if they were getting out of his way. But when one looked closely, they could see the traces of fear in their eyes.

    After he finished adjusting to the state that he had entered, the demonmander let out a long breath.

    There was even something that was dark about the breath that he let out¡­it was simr to the dark energy that had entered his body.

    The demonmander didn''t say a word as his eyes immediately fell onto Cecilia.

    Then before anyone could react, the demonmander suddenly dashed forward, disappearing from sight.

    When he appeared again, he was right in front of Cecilia already swinging the sword in his hands downwards.

    Cecilia could barely react in time to bring the strange sword in her hand up to block it, but she was mmed down into the ground by the force of this swing. The sword of the demonmander was just a few inches from her neck and the only thing stopping it was the sword in her hand.

    But the strength that came from the demonmander¡­it was just too much for her to handle.

    Slowly but surely, the sword of the demonmander wasing closer and closer to her neck.

    If nothing was done, she would be cut down by the demonmander.

    The other knights wanted to help, but they were suddenly met with an onught of magic.

    The demons that had been gathering their mana had finally finished and they were shooting their spells at the knight to keep them away from the demonmander. The knights had no choice but to back down since they couldn''t push through these spells at all.

    It seemed more and more likely that the demonmander would be able to cut off Cecilia''s head like this.

    But then, the demonmander suddenly stopped.

    He immediately got off Cecilia and jumped back, avoiding the arrow that had fallen out of the sky.

    However, he didn''t stop afternding.

    That was because there were three more arrows that hadnded consecutively where he had been standing previously.

    These three arrows pushed the demonmander all the way back to where he had been standing before.

    Then after that, there was a barrage of spells that came from the elves that covered the knights as they helped bring Cecilia over to the position that the elves had been holding.

    When they came back, the elves quickly came forward to see to the wounds of the knights. They knew that they had to depend on the knights to hold the line, so they put aside any feelings they had about them being different races and helped heal them with magic.

    But the knights were mostly fine because these had been low level spells cast to help cover the demonmander.

    They weren''t hurt that badly by them.

    When Cecilia was brought over, I quickly went forward to look at her wounds, but she was fine as well. She had only been caught off guard and there was only a small wound at her neck, but The Prator had blocked most of the damage for her.

    Moon also came over with a serious look on her face.

    After a bit of silence, she turned to the two blonde elves and said, "Iris, Lily,e over here."

    The two blonde elves came over with a confused look on their face, but that look of confusion quickly changed to a look of shock when they heard what Moon told them.

    "Help me cast the buff spells on Cecilia." Moon said in a calm voice.

    But the way that the two blonde elves were looking at her, it was as if she had just suggested something taboo.

 Chapter 192 Fighting Demons (7)

    That was because what she had said was indeed taboo for the elves.

    The buff magic that she was referring to was the magic that drew on the power of the Tree of Life, the representation of the Goddess of Life that the elves believed in.

    To use this magic, they would have to use the leaves of the Tree of Life that they carried around with them along with their magic.

    But the leaves of the Tree of Life were very special items.

    These were representations of their goddess, so it could even be considered sacred magic.

    This was not a kind of magic that the elves used easily on themselves, let alone on a human.

    In fact, there had never been a single case of this buff magic being used on a human before¡­so while there wasn''t exactly aw against it, it was definitely not something that the elves would ever think of doing.

    The problem was that this was what Moon wasmanding them to do.

    Moon would have done it herself, but she was using her magic to control the arrows to back up Cecilia.

    She had already spent quite a bit of her mana with those five arrows and she would only have enough for another arrow or two. She by no means had enough mana to use this buff spell.

    She had no choice but to call on these two blonde elves.

    The blonde elves had very unwilling looks on their faces, but¡­they still followed Moon''s orders in the end, especially when her re fell onto them.

    They pulled out the leaves of the Tree of Life from their Storage Rings and hesitantly held them in their hands before crushing them into a powder.

    After the powder had been formed, they blew this powder over Cecilia.

    Cecilia was naturally wary of this powder at first, but seeing the look at Moon gave her, she calmed down in the end and let the elves do what they wanted.

    After the powder was blown over Cecilia, there was a green glow that appeared around her.

    The two blonde elves started chanting something that almost seemed like they were singing. Their beautiful voices echoed through this space and even seemed to shake the air itself.

    This was a power¡­that almost seemed godly.

    But this power was there in front of them.

    After a while of chanting, the green light suddenly gave off one bright glow before disappearing without a trace. However, when one looked at Cecilia closely, they could see a faint green outline around her.

    It was as if she was surrounded by a faint green glow.

    Cecilia looked down at her hands and clenched them before slightly knitting her brows.

    It was as if she had sensed something strange.

    Then she stood up and threw out a few punches¡­but these punches were so strong that they created gusts each time her fist went forward.

    It was clear that she was much stronger than before.

    Cecilia didn''t waste any time and picked up the strange looking sword to the side before charging at the demons once again.

    She knew that there had to be a time limit to the buff that she had received, so she didn''t want to waste any of it.

    When the elves saw her charging, they suddenly stopped shooting out their spells.

    They had been firing their spells while the two blonde elves had been casting their buff magic on Cecilia so that the demons couldn''t get close and interrupt. This had also kept the demonmander back since even if he was stronger, that didn''t mean he was able to take all of these spells head on.

    At the same time¡­the elves were slowly running out of mana with the way that they kept casting spells like this.

    When the demonmander saw that the elves had stopped their bombardment, he came to the front of the line again and locked his eyes onto Cecilia.

    Even if he felt that the green glow around her was strange, he didn''t hesitate for a moment to charge out at her again.

    Once again, the demonmander disappeared from sight and when he reappeared, he was already in front of Cecilia.

    Cecilia didn''t stop when she saw him appear in front of him and instead kept charging forward.

    The demonmander was surprised by this, but that didn''t stop him from swinging his sword down.

    He didn''t believe that Cecilia would be able to keep up with his speed in his current state. He could already see the moment of him cutting her head off.

    There was a tinge of regret in his heart when he thought this since¡­he had to admit that the woman in front of him was a fine woman.

    Her face and her figure was nice, even by demon standards.

    If possible, he would have wanted to take her back with him as a sex ve¡­but it didn''t seem possible.

    He could see from the determination in her eyes that she wouldn''t break.

    Since that was the case, there was no need to show any mercy.

    Not to mention, that magic weapon in her hand posed a threat to him.

    The magic weapon would be more than enough loot for him.

    So the demonmander swung down at Cecilia once more, aiming for her neck likest time.

    But this time¡­Cecilia didn''t remain idle while he swung down.

    This time, her eyes and body were able to keep up with the speed of the demonmander.

    With a twist of her body, the sword of the demonmander went right past her and mmed into the ground.

    But that wasn''t the end of it.

    Cecilia had charged forward when she twisted her body, swinging the strange sword in her hand at the demonmander.

    The demonmander had been caught off guard by the fact that Cecilia was able to dodge his swing, but he quickly raised his other hand to gather a shield of mana in front of him.

 Chapter 193 Fighting Demons (8)

    The magic barrier that the demonmander had released was one that used all of the remaining mana that he had.

    He didn''t hesitate in doing this since he remembered what had happenedst time when he took a hit from this strange looking sword.

    But the problem was¡­even magic barriers weren''t a problem for The Prator.

    Whether it was magic or not, The Prator didn''t have a problem prating through it with its 99% pration stat.

    So the magic barrier wasn''t able to resist for a single second as The Prator smashed right through it.

    The demonmander clearly didn''t expect this to happen since he hadn''t moved at all after putting up the barrier.

    From the very beginning, he was filled with confidence that he would be able to take care of Cecilia and the rest of the elves once he had activated his trump card. That was a trump card that would threaten his life if he used it too much, which showed just how powerful it was.

    So once he was forced to use it, he didn''t believe that he would ever be pushed back like this.

    That was why he hadn''t dodged out of the way when Cecilia avoided his attack the first time.

    That was also why he wasn''t able to dodge in time when Cecilia suddenly smashed his magic barrier with The Prator.

    The demonmander just stalled there, watching the strange looking sword get closer and closer.

    Cecilia didn''t hold back at all as she used a full swing to hit the demonmander right in the chest.

    It was as if something caved in the moment that The Prator smashed into the demonmander''s chest as he suddenly fell to the ground.

    He found it hard to breathe as his chest had caved in from the impact.

    The demonmander justid there twitching on the ground after the hit from Cecilia.

    When this happened, there was only silence that filled the air as everyone looked in the direction of the demonmander lying there on the ground with a copsed chest.

    Not a single person could understand what had just happened.

    But the facts were there in front of them.

    Once the demonmander was defeated, the morale of the demons werepletely shattered to pieces and there were a few of them that suddenly ran away. They broke off from the rest of the demons and started running towards the forest.

    It was just too bad that they had forgotten that they werepletely surrounded.

    Before any of these demons could get far, they were filled with arrows that came from all around them.

    Even if they were able to dodge one or two arrows, there were many others that followed.

    There were just too many elves around them that they couldn''t get anywhere.

    The demons that were still in the group formation saw this and knew that they wouldn''t be able to break free of this ce.

    Their only choice now was to either fight to the death or¡­surrender.

    So in the end, the demons suddenly dropped their weapons and raised their hands to show that they were surrendering.

    The elves all deeply knitted their brows when they saw this, but they didn''t put down their bows. All of their bows were still aimed at the demons who had dropped their weapons.

    When I saw this, I immediately came forward to stop them.

    I went up to Moon and said, "There''s no reason to ughter them all."

    Moon had also knitted her brows when she saw the demons surrender, but it wasn''t as deeply knitted as the others. Still, it wasn''t as if she could just let the demons go after they had invaded the forest of the elves.

    So this time, she shook her head and said, "We have to punish them or else the demons wille again."

    I went forward and stood in front of her to stop her from going any further.

    Seeing this, Moon said in a firm voice, "Move out of the way. We will finish them off and then we can discuss other matters."

    But I didn''t move out of the way.

    Instead, I shook my head and said, "It''s foolish to kill them all now. It''s better to capture them and get any information you can out of them first."

    Moon was about to say something, but then she knitted her brows again.

    That was because she had realized that I was right.

    Seeing this look on her face, the two blonde elves suddenly said, "Young miss, don''t be fooled by his words. Those are just human tricks!"

    I looked at them and shook my head while giving a sigh, like I was looking at idiots.

    When the two blonde elves saw this, they couldn''t help revealing slightly ugly expressions.

    They looked like they were about to shout something at me toin, but I cut them off by saying, "If you kill them, you can feel better about yourself, but¡­have you thought about how to find the array that they used to drain the magic power from the forest?"

    The mouth of the two blonde elves froze when they heard this.

    They just stood there with shocked looks on their faces for a few seconds before their mouths opened and closed a few times. But in the end, they weren''t able to say a thing since they knew that I was right.

    It was better to keep these demons alive and take care of everything first.

    Once they got all of the information out of them, they could take care of the demons however they wanted.

    But it just didn''t feel right to them to capture the demons instead of killing them.

    These demons were the ones that had invaded their homes and had almost destroyed the forest, they were mortal enemies that deserved to be killed!

    In the end though, Moon raised her hand and said, "Go and tie them up. Don''t let a single one of them escape."

    The two blonde elves nodded before giving sighs.

    But then, one of them asked in a meaningful voice, "What if they try to run away?"

    Moon looked at me this time.

    I just calmly said, "If they resist, then there''s nothing that you can do."

    I knew what the hidden meaning behind these words were, but I knew that this was apromise that I had to make with the elves.

    After all, their rage would be hard for them to swallow, so to force them to keep it in was just going too far.

    If there were a few demons that were sacrificed¡­no, if there were a few demons that chose to run away, then we really didn''t have a choice.

    It wasn''t as if we could let these dangerous demons just run around freely in the forest. There was no telling what kind of things they would get up to if that were to happen.

    We only needed a few demons for information, so it didn''t matter if a few of them were taken care of.

    Hearing this, the look that the two blonde elves gave me became a bit more positive.

    They weren''t happy about this, but they were willing to settle.

    So they went off to help capture the demons with the other elves.

 Chapter 194 Cleaning Up (1)

    It didn''t take long before the sounds of demons crying out in pain rang out.

    There were a few demons that had already been moved into the cave, but the rest of them were just left there in the open.

    They had been tied up and a single elf had been ced to watch over them, but that elf acted like they were tired and kept falling asleep.

    From time to time, there were demons that tried to escape, but they were taken out by the elves that were hidden in the forest.

    This might have seemed like an borate y, but the elves were happy doing it.

    As for me, I wasn''t willing to watch over this, so I went into the cave and ignored them.

    What I was more interested in was interrogating these demons and finding out what they knew.

    After all, it couldn''t be a coincidence that there were more demons that showed up in the kingdom.

    First it was in my town and now it was in this forest, it was clear that there was some kind of plot from the demons here. If I didn''t figure out what it was, that would mean that the people that I cared about would be in danger again.

    So I wanted to interrogate the demons to see what I could learn.

    The demonmander had surprisingly survived with a copsed chest which really was a testament to his will to live and his tenacity. However, he was in critical condition because of the caved chest that he received, so it was unknown if he would stay that way.

    For now, I could only interrogate the other demons.

    It had to be noted that all of the close subordinates of the demonmander had surrendered right away.

    These were demons that were stronger than the others, but they had surrendered right away when their lives had been threatened.

    It seemed that demons really cared a lot about their own lives and didn''t have the same concept of camaraderie that we had.

    When I came into the cave where the demons were being held, I saw that many of them were sleeping.

    It still wasn''t dawn yet, so it was normal that they would be asleep, but it was surprising to see that they were sleeping so well.

    After all, it wasn''t like they were out of trouble. They had been captured and were currently being held by the enemy.

    If anything, they should be too worried to sleep.

    In fact, the elves and human knights that were here guarding them didn''t dare let their guard down for a single second¡­

    It created arge contrast, showing the difference between demons, humans, and elves.

    I went over to where Moon, Cecilia, and Haley were.

    They were currently surrounding one of the demons who had been a close subordinate of the demonmander. However, it was clear by the look on their faces and the rxed look on the face of the demon that they weren''t getting what they wanted from him.

    In fact, the demon looked so rxed that he was even leaning back in the chair and picking his nose.

    It was almost as if he was the one in charge instead of the one being interrogated.

    I knew that it was impossible for them to get anything out of this demon, so I came forward to take over.

    The three of them were at their wit''s end, so they didn''t mind and just let me have the demon.

    When the demon saw me, he couldn''t help revealing a sneer before saying, "You think that you can do anything to¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly came forward and took a knife from the table on the side. Without any hesitation, I brought it up to the demon''s neck and he immediately swallowed his words.

    The demon didn''t say anything as he looked at me, but then he revealed a sneer again as he said, "You almost had me. If your eyes didn''t waver, I might have thought that you would actually do it."

    Then with a tauntingugh, he said, "If you didn''t want information from me, you would have killed me already. So I know exactly what I''m worth to you."

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    I had alreadye to a conclusion about the demons after seeing how the other demons outside acted, but it seemed that this impression didn''t apply to all of the demons.

    It seemed that I had been a bit biased since just like humans and elves, there were different individuals among races. This demon was clearly one of the more intelligent ones, which was why he wasn''t worried.

    Since I knew that this wouldn''t work, I put the knife down on the table.

    When the demon saw this, he said with a sneer again, "I knew it."

    Then afterughing at me a bit more, he suddenly said, "I''ll give you my demands and if you y along, then I can find it in my heart to¡­"

    Before he could finish, his words suddenly stopped in his mouth as he looked at me.

    That was because I had just asked Cecilia to hand over The Prator.

    When the demon saw this weapon, he couldn''t help feeling a bit of fear.

    That was because he also knew that it was because of this magic weapon that the demonmander had been defeated. Even now, the demonmander wasying there with his chest copsed, which showed just how powerful this magic weapon was.

    After a bit of silence, the demon said, "What are you doing? Do you really think that you can scare me like this?"

    I didn''t say anything as I signaled for Moon and Cecilia to y along with me.

    Both of them were confused, but they nodded in agreement before moving over to where the demon was.

    Once they were by the demon, I said, "Turn him around and bend him over."

 Chapter 195 Cleaning Up (2)

    Both Moon and Cecilia couldn''t help revealing stunned looks when they heard this.

    They were confused why I would ask them to do this, but they did what I asked in the end.

    The demon was also very confused as to what was happening, but he couldn''t help feeling a bad premonition when he was turned around. He was bent over at the waist and his hands were tied up to the chair as per my orders.

    He was ced in a way that his butt was pointed up and out towards me.

    The demon had been silent during the process, but now¡­he couldn''t hold back anymore as he said, "What are you doing? Do you really think that I''ll talk with just this?"

    I just revealed a faint smile, but when the demon saw this¡­even though he was the demon, it was like I had the smile of a demon on my face.

    He felt a strong chill run down his spine.

    Seeing that he was ready, I raised The Prator in my hand.

    When the girls and the demon saw this, they suddenly thought that they understood what was going to happen.

    They thought that I was going to use The Prator to paddle the demon.

    The demon revealed a sneer when he saw this and he felt a bit of relief since he had thought that this would turn out much worse. Then he said with that same sneer, "If you think that you can get me to talk with just a bit of pain, then you''re wrong! In fact, if you try to hurt me, I promise that I''ll never give you the information that you want!"

    I just shook my head when I heard this before saying, "It seems like you''ve misunderstood."

    When they heard this, the girls and the demon were all confused once again.

    They looked at me with strange looks, as if they were trying to figure out what was going to happen.

    I just calmly said to Cecilia and Moon, "Pull off his pants."

    When the two of them heard this, their faces couldn''t help turning red.

    The demon also looked at me from his position with a shocked look before shouting, "Are you trying to shame me?! Do you think that I will let you get away with this!? If you do this, forget about getting any information from me! I''ll even go all out to end you!"

    I justpletely ignored the demon when he said this as I looked at Cecilia and Moon, waiting for them to do it.

    Finally, the two of them got over their embarrassment and they slowly pulled off the demon''s pants.

    The demon tried to struggle at first, but he wasn''t able to match Cecilia''s strength.

    In the end, he was incapacitated and his pants were taken off by the two of them.

    But of course, there was still ayer of cloth that covered his lower half.

    When I saw this, I said, "Take that off too."

    This time, there was only silence that followed after I said this.

    Then there was a single word that was said by everyone.

    "EH?!?"

    All of them looked at me with shocked and confused looks. At the same time, the girls couldn''t help revealing blushes on their faces.

    But I just looked back at them with serious looks, as if I was waiting for them to do it.

    Seeing this, they knew that I wasn''t kidding and I seriously wanted them to take it off¡­but it was hard for them to do something like this.

    Moon just couldn''t do it in the end and she couldn''t help covering her face that had a blush on it.

    Cecilia had more experience in this field, but¡­it was still hard for her to do something like this.

    Still, in the end, she was able to do it.

    When it was revealed, Moon couldn''t help peeking through her fingers while Cecilia said, "Isn''t this a bit small?"

    The moment that she said this, the demon''s face filled with bitterness and sadness.

    This was thest thing that any man wanted to hear a woman say¡­

    Moon was also surprised to hear this, but then she said, "Isn''t it considered big? Or at least it seems that way¡­"

    Cecilia shook her head and said, "Compared to his, it''s much smaller¡­"

    The ''his'' that she was referring to was naturally mine¡­

    The demon couldn''t help looking at me with a bitter look, but the ce that he was looking at was strange as well¡­

    Instead of looking at my face, he was looking at my bottom half.

    I just gave a cough to calm myself down before moving forward towards the demon.

    During this time, I used one hand to hold The Prator while tapping it on my other hand as I moved forward.

    The demon couldn''t help looking The Prator as I came closer and he couldn''t help asking, "What are you doing?"

    I looked at him with the same faint smile as before and lifted up The Prator for him to have a good look at it.

    Once he had that good look, I said, "What do you think I will do with this thing?"

    When I saw the confused look that he had on his face, I added, "Look closely at the shape of this thing and think carefully about what I can do with it."

    The demon still had the same confused look on his face, but he followed my advice.

    As he looked at The Prator, he had the same confused look on his face as before.

    But then, that look slowly changed to a look of understanding after seeing what the shape of the tip of The Prator looked like.

    Then it went from a look of understanding to a look of shock before finally reaching a look of horror.

    The demon quickly said, "Wait, you aren''t nning to¡­"

    He didn''t finish his words, but the horror in his voice was more than enough to show that he understood what I was nning.

    So I said with the same smile, "That depends on what you do next."

 Chapter 196 Cleaning Up (3)

    The face of the demonpletely turned pale when he heard this.

    His face fluctuated a few times before a look of resignation appeared on it.

    With a sigh, he said, "I''ll tell you what you want to know."

    I gave a nod in response to this, but I didn''t give the order for Cecilia and Moon to put on his pants again. I just held The Prator in my hand as I asked my first question to the demon.

    The demon hesitated in answering since he had been expecting to be allowed out of this position.

    But seeing the calm and serious look that I had, the demon started answering with a bitter tone in his voice.

    When I finished questioning the demon, I didn''t have Cecilia and Moon free the demon just yet.

    I brought The Prator a bit closer, or rather, I pointed the tip of The Prator towards the demon''s behind.

    When the demon saw this, he couldn''t help panicking as he shouted, "I already told you everything that I know! I swear that I don''t know anything else!"

    I didn''t move at first as I stared at the face of the demon.

    After staring at him for a bit, I finally pulled The Prator away from the demon and gave a nod to Cecilia and Moon.

    They had been standing on the side with blushes on their faces, but for some reason that they didn''t understand¡­their hearts had been beating a bit fast. It was almost as if they wanted to see the scene of the demon getting¡­by The Prator.

    When they heard the order, they even couldn''t help feeling a bit disappointed.

    But still, they quickly put the pants and underwear back on the demon and then brought him back with the rest.

    After seeing them leave, I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    I wasn''t certain if that would work, but I was just d that it did.

    In fact, I was even more d that the demon had broken down before I had been forced to use The Prator on him. After all, I might have threatened him with it¡­but it was thest thing that I actually wanted to do.

    I definitely didn''t want to vite a man with arge dildo bat¡­

    Once Moon and Cecilia came back, we didn''t waste any time heading off to the forest.

    Moon had also summoned the two blonde elves, some other elves, and Apollo toe with us.

    This was a magic array that was draining the magic power out of the forest, so we needed the elves that were skilled in magic to take care of it.

    As we headed through the forest, I could feel Apollo''s re burning my back.

    However, I chose to ignore it in the end.

    After all, I knew that there was nothing to gain from engaging with him now.

    He had been against me from the beginning, so it wasn''t as if doing anything now would change that. At the same time, I had proof of his misdeeds to a certain extent, so it wasn''t as if he would do anything now.

    As for the reason why Apollo came at all, it was because Moon had wanted him toe.

    I had been confused about why she wanted this since I knew what rtionship she had with him, but she had brought this up before anything else.

    She had stated that she wanted Apollo toe because there were things she needed help with¡­

    It wasn''t my ce to say anything, though I couldn''t help feeling a bit disappointed.

    Following the words of the demon, we were able to quickly find the magic array that was currently causing trouble in this forest.

    This array was hidden in a cave not that far away from the clearing, but there was another array that was covering up the cave. If we didn''t know about it, we definitely wouldn''t have been able to find this cave.

    It was because we knew about it that the elves had been using search magic the whole time.

    But even then, it was only because Moon had recovered and used her more powerful search magic that we were able to find it. The rest of the elves weren''t able to detect a single thing when they used their search magic.

    It seemed that this barrier was much stronger than they thought.

    After finding it, there was still the difficult matter of figuring out how to stop it and destroy it.

    Even if the demon that they interrogated was one of those that were close to the demonmander, it wasn''t as if he knew anything about this array. This magic array was something that the demonmander himself inscribed and maintained, so only the demonmander would know how to turn it off.

    There were a few of the elves who suggested that we destroy itpletely.

    It was an array, so as long as they destroyed a few lines, they would be able to ruin it.

    However, Moon and I immediately vetoed that idea.

    This was an unknown array and we had no idea what would happen if we messed with it. There was the chance that there were defenses that had been ced, or we could have messed something up with the array, which might cause an explosion.

    So before we could figure out what to do with it, it was best not to touch the array.

    Though this was bad since it was still running and draining magic power, it was still better than the alternative.

    For now, Moon had the idea of putting up a barrier around it.

    While this wouldn''t stop the draining effect of the array, it would at least dampen it based on the barrier that she had put up around it.

    Just like this, the elves focused on putting up the barrier around it.

    During this time, I found that Moon and Apollo had disappeared from the group¡­

 Chapter 197 Cleaning Up (4)

    Apollo was surprised that Moon had called him aside to talk alone, but he still followed her.

    As they walked through the forest, he couldn''t help feeling a bad feeling.

    It was as if he was a cat and his tail had been stepped on¡­as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

    So as they walked through the forest, he was already thinking about what he was going to say.

    When they finally stopped and Moon turned around, Apollo didn''t give her a chance to say anything.

    He knew that whatever was happening would be bad for him, so he would need to take the initiative before Moon could even say anything.

    Apollo said, "It''s a good thing that everything turned out alright, but¡­"

    After a pause, he revealed a serious look and said, "But the things that you''ve done have really crossed a line."

    Moon had a calm look at first, but she couldn''t help knitting her brows the moment that she heard this.

    Apollo didn''t mind this as he continued, "I heard that you used our sacred magic on the human¡­You should know what kind of taboo that is."

    Moon knitted her brows even more when she heard this.

    Apollo couldn''t help rxing a bit when he saw this.

    He could tell that she was getting worried when he said this, so he didn''t hesitate to keep pushing.

    Apollo said with the same serious look, "You should know what will happen to you if the others were to learn about this. The elders won''t have a choice but to¡­"

    He left his words hanging, but the meaning behind them was clear.

    Moon didn''t say anything as she just looked at Apollo with knitted brows.

    Apollo felt more and more excited when he saw this.

    He had already nned out everything that he was going to say and seeing the reaction that he wanted to see, he knew that his n was having effect.

    So the next thing that he had to do was to push Moon into a corner and then offer her a solution.

    But before he could, Moon suddenly raised her hand to stop him.

    Apollo was caught off guard, so he wasn''t able to say anything, but that didn''t matter.

    Moon just calmly said, "I wanted to talk to you about something that I found in the demon hideout when I was searching it."

    The moment that Apollo heard this, he couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine.

    He was about to say something, but Moon beat him to it once again.

    Moon said in the same calm voice, "When I was searching through the demon hideout, I wasn''t able to find anything at first."

    Apollo''s heart was still in his throat, but he did feel a bit better when he heard this.

    It was just too bad that this was a deliberate pause from Moon.

    She then waved her hand and there were bits of papers that appeared in them.

    Apollo didn''t react at first to those pieces of paper, but then he noticed something was off about them.

    These pieces of paper had faint burn marks on them, as if they had been thrown in some kind of fire.

    Moon had been waiting for Apollo''s reaction and when she saw the look of recognition that shed in his eyes, she knew that she had caught his tail. So she didn''t hesitate to keep pushing him.

    Moon continued in the same calm voice, "I found these when I searched the bonfire outside. It seemed that whoever threw this in the fire had ripped them before throwing them in. However, when I look at them closely, I can see that it used to be some kind of letter."

    Apollo''s palms were covered in a cold sweat when he heard this.

    But he forced himself to act calm as he said in a shaky voice, "Perhaps it was a secret letter from their superiors that they wanted to make sure that no one could read."

    Moon just narrowed her eyes to look at Apollo when she heard this.

    Apollo couldn''t help turning away when Moon''s gaze fell onto him.

    He didn''t know why, but it felt like this gaze was burning a hole in him.

    So he couldn''t help saying, "What are you staring at me for? It''s not like I know anything about this."

    Moon didn''t answer right away as she just gave a hum sound in response. But then she suddenly said, "When I looked at a few of these pieces, I found that there were still some parts that were intact with full words on them. I looked at them closely and I couldn''t help feeling that they were a bit familiar."

    This time, Apollo couldn''t help looking at Moon with an incredulous look even if she was still ring at him.

    He opened his mouth a few times, but there were no words that came out.

    Moon closed her eyes when she saw this, taking this as his admission of guilt.

    After a long sigh, she finally said, "I don''t know why you''ve done this, but since we''ve known each other for so long, I won''t make it hard on you. As long as you disappear from the vige, I won''t say a thing."

    Apollo''s face twisted when he heard this and it seemed like he was about to snap¡­but he held himself back in the end since he knew that there was nothing that he could say here.

    As long as Moon wanted, she could make his life a living hell.

    It had started with Apollo threatening Moon, but now it had be the opposite with Moon holding all of the power.

    He could still go through with his threat, but the problem was what she held against him was a thousand times worse than what he held against her.

    So with that same twisted look on his face, he turned around and suddenly disappeared into the forest.

    Once he was gone, Moon gave a sigh and walked back to where the rest of the group were.

 Chapter 198 Cleaning Up (5)

    When Moon came back to the group, they were surprised to find that she was alone.

    The warriors that had been woken up in particr couldn''t help asking her where Apollo went.

    Moon just said, "He had some business to take care of, so he left first."

    No matter how they questioned her, she wouldn''t say anything else.

    So they had no choice but to drop this subject.

    But I could see that there was something that had changed about Moon. It seemed that something had happened between her and Apollo when they went to talk alone.

    I had an idea of what it could be, but I didn''t know how Moon knew¡­

    I was thinking about going over tofort her, but she then quickly went off with the rest of the elves to take care of the cleaning up process, so I didn''t get a chance in the end.

    When we had finished cleaning up the demon cave, the sun had already risen.

    It was a tiring night, but we had made sure that there wasn''t a single thing left in the cave that could cause a problem.

    The only thing left to do was to bring the demons back to the elven vige and then take care of the magic draining array.

    However, even though everything seemed like it was over¡­there wasn''t a notification that the quest was over. This made me worried that there was something else that would pop up during this time that I would have to deal with¡­

    Even if the demonmander was caught, there was still the reason why they had been sent here in the first ce.

    That cause hadn''t been taken care of yet, so it certainly wasn''t over.

    But I didn''t know just when it woulde¡­

    For now, we brought the demons back to the elven vige and during that time, I didn''t dare let my guard down.

    When we arrived, the elves and the elders immediately came out to greet us.

    They quickly checked the condition of all the elves, making sure that there weren''t anysting effects on them.

    Only after making sure that everyone was alright did the elders summon Moon to the main building with them. They didn''t let any of us go with them, but we understood that it was an internal matter of their elven vige.

    We were shown back to the same house as before and we were allowed to "rx", but it was clear by the elves standing outside that they were keeping us under house arrest.

    A few members of our group got ufortable seeing this, but there wasn''t anything that could be done. So we just patiently waited for the elves to call us.

    Half an hourter, the call came.

    However, they wouldn''t let all of us go.

    It was only me, Cecilia, and Haley that were allowed to go to see the elders.

    The others wanted to protest, but I stopped them in the end.

    We needed to y along so that we could aplish our goals, not to mention that it was a tense moment right now.

    It was better not to stir any waves.

    When we came into the hall, it was no longer as rxed as before.

    All of the elders sat there with tense looks on their faces while Moon sat there with a calm look.

    However, based on the crumple of her skirt¡­I could tell that it had been quite tense between them.

    Once we were seated, the green haired elder said, "It seems that we''ve involved you in quite the serious matter."

    The words seemed rxed and calm, but there was a deeper meaning behind it.

    Both Cecilia and Haley slightly knitted their brows when they heard this, but I raised my hands for them to calm down.

    I just calmly looked at the green haired elder and said, "We were quite surprised by this sudden situation as well."

    The green haired elder slightly knitted her brows when she heard this.

    She looked at the other elders and they all shook their heads in response.

    No one said anything as they all looked at us, almost as if they were scrutinizing us.

    After a long period of silence, the green haired elder finally gave a sigh and simply said, "We apologize for this."

    I gave a simple nod in response.

    After everything that had happened, there had been something strange that changed with me.

    Since I had been observing during that fight, I had been able to watch the fight carefully.

    Because of this, I had developed the ability to detect magic power.

    It was faint at first and I hadn''t understood it at first, but then I noticed what was different.

    When the elves had cast spells, I had noticed that there was something off about the space about me. It was almost as if there was something extra in the air.

    Because of this, I had noticed that there was something extra right now.

    It seemed that the elders had done something extra here. They had cast some kind of spell here and based on their reactions, it should have been a spell that detected whether one was lying or not.

    My answer just now definitely wasn''t a lie.

    While I did know that there were demons, there was no doubt that I had been surprised by all of this. Especially the quest that had suddenly appeared.

    So the reaction that they got from their spell was that I had been telling the truth.

    Seeing that they couldn''t find any proof that I was lying, they had no reason for them to doubt that I was working with the demons anymore. Not to mention, they wouldn''t want that to be the case since facing the humans and the demons at the same time¡­would be bad for them.

    After confirming this, the green haired elder went onto the next topic.

    "How do you know how to use the Storage Rings of our elven race?"

 Chapter 199 Cleaning Up (6)

    When I heard this, I revealed a bitter smile.

    That was because I was already expecting this question.

    So that meant that I had already thought of an answer, it was just that the answer that I had thought of wasn''t¡­that great of an answer. It was actually a loophole that I was taking advantage of, so I was very curious how it would actually turn out.

    That bitter smile disappeared from my face and I said with a calm look, "You all should know that I am acquainted with Aisha, correct?"

    All of the elders nodded in response to this, especially the green haired elder who had a strange look on her face.

    I couldn''t help feeling that the green haired elder was more invested in this than the other elders.

    At the same time, I could feel an intense gazeing from behind me.

    I knew without even turning around that this gaze came from Moon.

    It seemed that the two of them were really interested in Aisha and anything rted to her.

    So I continued, "When I met with Aisha, she was trapped in a certain ce and to help her escape, I had to use something in her Storage Ring. Since that was the case, she had no choice but to teach me how to use the Storage Ring."

    The moment that I finished saying this, there were looks from the green haired elder and Moon as if they were waiting for me to keep going.

    However, that was all that I was willing to say.

    The more vague that I kept it, the more believable that it was since they couldn''t do anything to prove that I was telling a lie¡­

    Well, that''s not true since there was something that they could do to tell that I was lying.

    During the time that I had been giving my exnation, I could feel the magic around me.

    It was the same sensation that I had when I had firste into the room and the green haired elder questioned me about the demons.

    They had most likely activated the same spell as before to see if I was lying.

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything else, the green haired elder gave a sigh before turning to look at the other elders.

    One by one, the other elders all gave nods in response.

    Based on the looks on their faces, it seemed like they had determined that I wasn''t lying.

    In a sense, I really wasn''t lying since I had done this in the past¡­

    It was just that I had done it in the game.

    This was the event that one had to do to gain Aisha''s trust and open up her quest line in the game. By doing this, one unlocked the chance to eventually reach the elven capital and bring Aisha, as well as other elves in their harem.

    It had been a very hard event since it required yers to be high enough level and have enough mana to deal with the barrier she was stuck in, so it was consideredte game content.

    Not to mention, it was supposed to happen five years in the future.

    Right now, Aisha was still currently wandering around the continent without a care. It was only four years in the future that she would be trapped inside of those ruins.

    If one day she found out about this¡­then there was no doubt that I would be in danger.

    So I just prayed that I would never meet her.

    But for now, I used her name since that was the easiest way to settle this matter.

    And in a sense, I did do this, even if it was in an alternate world.

    After confirming with all the elders that I wasn''t lying, the green haired elder gave a nod before saying, "Alright, because of the circumstances, we understand that you had no choice in the matter. Since that''s the case, we will not hold you ountable for this because of all you''ve done for our elven race."

    I just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    I had to admit that magic really was a convenient thing.

    I had assumed that it would be hard for me to exin how I knew how to use the Storage Rings, but they had epted what I had said all because of this magic spell that they were using.

    It certainly made things much easier for me.

    The green haired elder might have dropped this matter, but it was clear by the look in her eyes that she had wanted to keep discussing Aisha.

    At the same time, I could feel the same gazeing from behind me,ing from Moon''s eyes.

    I didn''t know what kind of connection they had with Aisha, but I was certain that there was some kind of connection.

    Still, I would never admit anything even if I was beaten to death¡­

    I was just using the knowledge from my previous life to lie to them after all.

    I hoped that I would never meet Aisha in this life.

    Since that matter had been settled, they finally moved on to the next and final matter.

    It was the matter of the magic array draining magic power out of the forest.

    But before we started discussing this, the elders said that they had a special witness that they needed to bring in before this.

    The three of us were surprised to hear this, but we didn''t mind, so we waited for the elders to bring this special witness in.

    Two of the elders left the building and it didn''t take long for them toe back.

    But as they wereing back, I could hear some strange noisesing from outside.

    These seemed to be the sound of someone struggling against something.

    When the door opened and we saw who the elders brought in, we couldn''t help being shocked.

    It was the demonmander who they were bringing into the room.

 Chapter 200 Cleaning Up (7)

    This shouldn''t be possible sincest I remembered, the demonmander''s chest hadpletely copsed in.

    When I looked at him closely now, I found that there were still bruises and bandages on the demonmander''s chest, but it seemed like it had inted once more. He was no longer in that half dead condition that he was in before.

    But how did this happen?

    How did the demonmander get healed so quickly?

    I turned to look at the elven elders, but their eyes were all on the demonmander, so I had no choice but to turn back to look at him as well.

    When I turned back, I saw that the demonmander was currently ring in our direction.

    He had stopped struggling after he looked in our direction and his eyes were filled with the intent to kill.

    That look in his eyes¡­looked like it was especially aimed at Cecilia, but that was understandable.

    After all, Cecilia had been the one that had put him in that condition.

    The elders brought the demonmander to the center of the room and we all moved to the side to surround him.

    Cecilia had also stood in front of the two of us, making sure that nothing would happen if the demonmander were to do something.

    However, the demonmander was surprisingly docile.

    It didn''t seem like he wanted to try and break free at all.

    When I looked more closely, I found that there was a green glowing vine that was currently wrapped around his arms.

    The moment that I saw this, I understood what was happening.

    Others might not recognize this, but I couldn''t not recognize this since this was a very special item from the game. This was an item that was considered a godly item in the game, not just because of its amazing abilities, but because it contained the actual power of a god.

    This was a vine from the Tree of Life, a symbol of the Goddess of Life that contained her powers.

    When one was bound by this vine, they would lose their powers and would be unable to resist.

    Since it was a vine that contained the power of a god, unless one had equal power to a god or had power that surpassed a god, they wouldn''t be able to break free of this vine.

    But since this was an item that contained the power of a god, the Tree of Life wasn''t able to produce that many of them. As far as I could remember, there were no more than ten of these vines in the entire world.

    So why did a small elven vige in the middle of nowhere have one?

    It seemed that there was more than meets the eye with this vige¡­

    Once the demonmander had been settled, the green haired elder was the one that questioned him by saying, "Tell us how to release the array and we''ll give you a painless death."

    When the demonmander heard this, he suddenly revealed a wide smile as he said, "Do you really think that I''ll talk? At this rate, your forest will be drained of all its magic power and then there will be nothing left for you. Even if I die, it will all be worth it when our great demon race''s nse to fruition."

    When the elves heard this, they all knitted their brows.

    But the green haired elder kept her face calm as she said, "You think that we don''t have any way of dealing with the array even if you don''t tell us how to release it?"

    The demonmander wasn''t scared by this at all as he said, "I''m sure that you can think of a way, but have you thought about what would happen if you try to forcefully destroy the array?"

    After he said this, all of the elves knitted their brows even more.

    After a pause, the demonmander continued, "That thing has been draining the magic energy out of the forest all this time, so there has to be a ce where all of that magic energy is stored. What do you think will happen if all of that magic energy is released all at once?"

    When he finished saying this, his lips suddenly curled into a wide smile before he said, "Boom."

    Hearing this, all of the elves deeply knitted their brows.

    They had already suspected this when they had investigated the magic array before, but they had hoped that it wasn''t the case.

    However, now that the demonmander had given them affirmation that this was indeed the case, they had no choice but to ept this reality.

    That meant that they now had to find a way to deactivate this array without damaging it.

    At the same time, the longer that they waited, the more magic energy would be gathered inside of this array. The more magic energy that was gathered, the bigger the explosion would be.

    So they had to deal with this quickly.

    They had no choice but to make the demonmander talk, but it was clear that the demonmander wouldn''t say a thing.

    The elves really didn''t know what to do.

    However, I wasn''t the same.

    I already had an idea that had worked once.

    I figured that if it worked on the subordinate, it would work on the superior.

    So I raised my hand and said, "I might have a solution for this."

    When I said this, all of the elders looked at me immediately.

    There was doubt in their eyes, but at the same time, there was a bit of hope.

    After all, they knew that I had been the one that had brought out the magic weapon that had defeated the demonmander in the first ce.

    At the same time, our group had been the ones that had found a clue after all that time of not being able to find a thing.

    So they were hoping that I would have some kind of solution.

    Seeing them look at me like this, I gave a cough before saying, "If you give me fifteen minutes, I should be able to make him talk."

    There was still doubt in their eyes when they heard this, but the demonmander spoke first.

    The demonmander gave a loudugh before saying, "Do you really think that you can make me talk? Even if there were a thousand of you, you would never be able to make me talk."

    I looked at him with a smile that seemed like I thought otherwise, but I didn''t say anything as I turned back to look at the elders.

    When the demonmander saw this, he couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine, but he still tried to act tough.

    The green haired elder looked at the other elders before turning back to give me a nod.

    I gave a nod back before turning to the demonmander.

    Raising my hands, there was something that appeared in them.

    It was The Prator.

    The others in the room were confused when they saw this, but the moment that Moon, Cecilia, and Haley saw this, they all revealed incredulous looks of disbelief. At the same time, there were bitter smiles that slowly crept onto their faces.

 Chapter 201 Cleaning Up (8)

    The demonmander knitted his brows when he saw this since he recognized the thing in my hand right away.

    It was hard for him not to recognize this thing since it was the thing that had caused him all that pain before.

    But he stayed calm when facing it since he knew that all of the cards were currently in his hands.

    Even if the other side had this magic weapon that could hurt him, it wasn''t as if he would be able to hurt him. He held the method for releasing the array in his hand and they wouldn''t be able to do a thing without him.

    So he wasn''t worried that the other side would use this magic weapon to hurt him.

    After taking a moment to think this through, the demonmander said, "Do you think that I''ll fall for such threats? If you touch even a single hair on me, I can guarantee that this entire forest will blow up."

    The elders all knitted their brows when they heard this.

    There were a few of them that wanted to go forward to stop Zwein, but the green haired elder raised her hand to stop them.

    She had made a promise that she would give him this time with the demonmander. Even if she had her doubts, she would at least keep this promise¡­

    But that was just because they didn''t have any other options.

    When I heard what the demonmander said, I just revealed a faint smile as I took a step forward.

    Then I said, "Who said anything about hurting you? I can promise that I won''t hurt you with this thing¡­you might even feel quite a bit of pleasure from it, but that will all be up to you and what kind of preferences you have."

    The demonmander deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He couldn''t understand what I was saying, but he could tell that there was something off about what I had just said.

    It was as if there was a deeper meaning to these words that he hadn''t understood yet.

    But he couldn''t reveal a weak look or else he knew that he would be stepped over.

    So the demonmander revealed a cold look on his face as he said, "If you think that you can scare me, you''re a thousand years too young. The things I''ve seen are much worse than anything that you can imagine."

    I gave a simple nod in response to this before saying, "I''m sure that they are, but that doesn''t matter here, does it?"

    After a pause, I simply said, "I''ll give you onest chance. If you tell us what we want to know, then I''ll spare you the suffering."

    The demonmander narrowed his eyes to coldly stare at me.

    In the end, he didn''t even bother responding. All he did was give a snort and turn his head away.

    Seeing this, I knew that it was impossible to strike any deals, so I turned to Cecilia and Moon to say, "Help me turn him around and bend him over."

    The two of them had already been expecting this, but hearing it made the bitter smiles on their faces be even more bitter.

    But still, they had the experience from before, so they didn''t hesitate toe over to the demonmander''s side. They quickly lifted him up and turned him around, bending him over so that his butt was facing up.

    The demonmander had tried to struggle, but he wasn''t able to since he waspletely tied up.

    During the process, he shouted, "What are you doing? Don''t touch me!"

    But all of these shouts fell onto deaf ears.

    After he was put in that position, I then said, "Take it off."

    When the demonmander heard this, he suddenly stopped shouting and he looked back at me in shock. He didn''t understand what I had just said, but he could tell that it wasn''t a good thing.

    Cecilia and Moon once again revealed blushes on their faces, but they still came forward to take care of this order.

    It was then that the demonmander realized what was happening and he immediately started to struggle. At the same time, he shouted, "You dare! I''ll make sure that you burn in the mes of hell for this! There won''t be a single moment where you will be able to live a good life! I will destroy¡­"

    Before he could finish, his pants and underwear had been taken off, revealing everything.

    When the two girls saw this, they couldn''t helpughing because¡­the demonmander''s thing was just too¡­small!

    It wasn''t even a fourth of the other demon''s and it was like a little cherrypared to Zwein''s thing¡­

    The demonmander''s face immediately turned red with both shame and anger when he heard this and his face twisted like he was about to explode.

    The elders all had doubts at this moment, so the green haired elder couldn''t help asking, "Young master Zwein, what is the meaning of this?"

    I turned back and said with a smile, "Just give me a bit longer and I''ll get the information out of him."

    The demonmander roared out at that moment, "You think that I''ll tell you anything after you''ve shamed me like this? I''d rather die than tell you anything! I will drag all of you to the grave with me after this!"

    I ignored this and just took the step forward, holding The Prator in one hand while letting the bat part of it rest in my other hand.

    When the demonmander saw this, he couldn''t help stopping himself from shouting and looking at me with a strange look.

    He didn''t know what was happening, but he could tell that something was very off.

    He stuttered a few times before saying, "What are you doing?"

    I looked at him with the same smile and said, "Take a close look at the tip of this thing in my hand. What do you think I''ll do with this?"

    The demonmander had a confused look as he looked at The Prator.

    He didn''t understand what I was saying at first, but soon his expression started to change.

    It went from confusion, to understanding, to shock, and finally to horror just like the demon from before.

    He gave a gulp before saying, "Don''t you dare. If you even think about it, I swear on the name of the demon lord that I''ll tear you to pieces."

    While he was trying to act tough, the quiver in his voice made his fear clear.

    The elders had also been confused at first about what I was nning on doing, but then they also understood what was happening and they looked at me with the same terrified look.

    It was as if they never thought that I could act this way.

    Since the demonmander wasn''t giving up, I took a step forward and pointed The Prator at his butt.

    Even when it was right there and about to go in, the demonmander still wouldn''t give up.

    It made sense that he was the demonmander, his will was much stronger than the demon from before.

    Since that was the case¡­I guess I had no choice¡­

 Chapter 202 Cleaning Up (9)

    Taking a deep breath, I put it right up against his butt and then pushed forward.

    There was a bit of resistance, but it was able to enter the hole in the end.

    The moment that it did enter, the demonmander couldn''t help letting out a scream before it turned into a moan.

    But hearing this moan just made me feel ufortable.

    That was because I could hear the slight bit of pleasure that was in it¡­

    Doing this to another man with thisrge dildo bat was definitely not something that I had wanted to do in my life¡­

    I really thought that he would give up and tell us what we wanted to know before I had to do this, but it seemed that this demonmander wouldn''t give up that easily.

    So I had no choice but to follow through or else I would have ruined my tough image.

    When I did this, all of the elders and the girls in the room turned away¡­

    Well, they couldn''t help peeking back between the slits in their fingers since this was their first time seeing something like this.

    With how big it was, there was no way that I was able to put the whole thing in. So the only part that had gone in was just the tip of the dildo bat, but that was still plenty big enough.

    I was scared to push even further in, so I quickly pulled it out in one swift yank.

    When I did, the demonmander couldn''t help letting out a surprised cry before his face fell forward onto the ground. There were a few tears that hade out of the corner of his eyes as heid there on the ground.

    I gave a cough before saying, "Are you willing to talk now, or do we have to do that again?" Then after a pause, I added, "Of course this time, I won''t be as gentle."

    When the demonmander heard this, his body on the ground couldn''t help trembling.

    His face immediately twisted as if he was very torn on this decision.

    There was a long silence that hung in the air as we all waited for the demonmander to respond.

    The only thing that could be heard was the sound of blood dropping onto the ground.

    As for where that blood came from¡­it was from the demonmander''s butt.

    It was his first time having his hole be vited like this and it was something as big as The Prator, so there was no doubt that it had been torn open by it. Blood kept dripping down from his butt that was lifted in the air, forming a small pool on the ground.

    But since the demonmander wasn''t saying anything, I knew that I had no choice but to keep pushing him or he would stall forever.

    So I raised The Prator in one hand again, but this time I didn''t hold the bat part with my other hand. There was a bit of red on the tip of The Prator that I wanted to avoid touching after all¡­

    The demonmander had still been lost in his thoughts until he saw that I had raised The Prator again.

    When he saw this, his eyes couldn''t help trembling as he said, "What are you doing?"

    I just said with a calm smile, "Well, that depends on what you say next. If you give me the information that I want, then I won''t do a single thing. If you don''t¡­then I guess I''ll have to go a bit deeper this time."

    The demonmander trembled when he heard this.

    It would be a lie to say that he wasn''t shaken when he heard this.

    But there was something that was holding him back at the same time.

    Seeing the conflicted look on his face, I didn''t wait any longer as I walked forward again and ced The Prator up against his bleeding butt.

    Finally, the demonmander broke and said, "I''ll tell you! I''ll tell you!"

    I stopped there and waited for the demonmander to speak, but what he said next wasn''t what we wanted to hear.

    Instead, the demonmander said, "If you can guarantee my safety, I''ll tell you what you want to know."

    I shook my head and said, "Wrong answer."

    Then without hesitation, I started pushing The Prator forward.

    But before it could go in, the demonmander said with a bitter smile, "I''ll tell you everything, just don''t do it anymore."

    At this, I stopped myself.

    I also couldn''t help letting out an inward sigh of relief, but I still had a firm look on my face as I looked at the demonmander and waited.

    The demonmander saw this and with a sigh, he started giving us the information that we wanted.

    He told us that to release the array, all we had to do was send the right order of magic runes into the array to deactivate it. Once that happened, we would need to release another sequence of magic runes into the array to release all of the magic power that it had drained.

    Otherwise, we could take the magic power from the array and bring it somewhere else.

    Which surprisingly was actually their n.

    They had been nning to drain the magic power from this forest for another n, but the demonmander didn''t know what since no one had told him.

    He had only received the order toe here and use this array to drain the magic energy from this forest.

    After learning this, the elders immediately sent people to take care of the array.

    Half an hourter, we received the report that the magic array had been deactivated and they could sense the magic flowing back to the forest from it.

    It seemed that the demonmander had told the truth.

    So with this, we patched up the demonmander and put him back into the cell.

    As he walked away, he looked back at The Prator in my hand and he couldn''t help shaking his head with a bitter look.

 Chapter 203 Cleaning Up (10)

    Once the demonmander was taken away, all of the elders couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    They had never expected this thing that they had thought to be trivial to be this serious.

    That also made them much more grateful towards me since I had been the one that had saved them from this.

    After taking some time to calm down, the elders turned back to face us.

    I had been sitting there calmly waiting for the elders to finish calming down and when they faced me, I revealed a serious look as I waited for them to speak.

    The elders all gave a nod of appreciation when they saw this, before the green haired elder suddenly bowed her head. After this, the other elders followed suit and also bowed their heads to me which caught me off guard.

    I was about to say something, but the green haired elder said, "Thank you for everything that you''ve done. If it wasn''t for your help, it really would be hard to tell what would have happened with the demons."

    I opened my mouth before closing it again as I was torn on what to say in response to this.

    But in the end, I just simply said, "It was nothing."

    The green haired elder looked up again and said, "You were discussing the matter of the dispute between our people. I would like to put an end to that now. We will allow your people to chop more trees from the forest and we''ll even show you where some of the better quality older trees that need to be disposed of are, but before that¡­"

    After a slight pause, the green haired elder said, "Before that, we have a small request that we need to make."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this, but then they rxed and I said with a nod, "What is it?"

    The green haired elder had a difficult look on her face and she hesitated a bit, but she still said, "We would like to ask that you wait a bit before you start the logging."

    I was surprised when I heard this.

    The green haired elder saw this and thought that I had taken offense with this, so she quickly added, "It isn''t that we have a problem with cooperating with you, it''s just that¡­the forest needs some time to recover the magic power that was lost. Before that, it would be dangerous for the forest if we were to cut down trees. I hope that you can understand."

    I knew that she had mistaken my expression, so I quickly said with a smile, "No, no, that isn''t a problem at all. I understand the circumstances and I don''t mind this at all."

    Hearing this, the green haired elder and the other elders let out a sigh of relief.

    For these humans that had done so much and had even risked their lives to help them, it really was hard for them to ask even more of them.

    But I couldn''t help being surprised by the fact that they found this difficult in the first ce.

    This was a very simple and reasonable request, but the elves found it hard to make it.

    It really seemed like the elves really were something else.

    After a long silence, it was as if I had suddenly thought of something as I said, "Actually, I have something else that I want to discuss with you."

    The elders were caught off guard by this, but the green haired elder said, "If there''s anything that we can do for our saviours, please ask."

    I shook my head before saying, "It isn''t like that. I was just wondering if we could talk about cooperation between us?"

    The elders looked at each other with confused looks before the green haired elder asked, "Cooperation? What do you mean by that?"

    I said with a friendly smile on my face, "I can see that you are doing well for yourselves, but I am sure that there are things that you would want from human society. So I was wondering if we could start trading between our two sides."

    The elders looked at each other with confused looks again, but this time, there was a different emotion in their eyes.

    It seemed like they were tempted a bit by the offer that I had made.

    It was true that the elves preferred living as one with nature, but that didn''t mean that they didn''t have any desires at all.

    There were some things that the humans had that they had wanted before, but they didn''t trade with humans, so they couldn''t get them. The only times that they could get them was when elven travelers came and traded these items with them.

    So these human items could be considered very rare.

    If they were able to directly trade with the humans, that would naturally be an improvement.

    But the elves didn''t build any meaningful rtionships with the humans and they liked keeping to themselves, so trading with them was impossible to begin with.

    However, this was a very special situation.

    I was someone that was in charge of a town and Haley was here as the representative of herpany. As long as we worked together with the elven vige, there was no way that we wouldn''t be able to set up a tradework with the elven vige.

    The elders didn''t say anything at first as they just kept looking at each other.

    With the way that they were looking at each other, it was as if they were using their eyes to discuss what they wanted to do.

    So I just patiently waited for them to finish.

    After a long period of silence, the green haired elder finally said with a nod, "Alright, we can discuss this further after everything has been settled."

    I gave a nod in agreement when I heard this.

    It seemed like they wanted to wait a bit before deciding this, but it made sense since there were other things that they wanted to deal with.

    The only one who looked impatiently right now was¡­Haley.

    She could smell the profit that came from this since elven goods were very rare to begin with.

    Every single thing that hade from the elves had been treated as a special object in human society. So anything that could be proven toe from the elves would always be sold for a high price.

    If they could open up the trades with the elves and directly get stuff from them, then she was sure that she would make arge profit from this.

    So she was disappointed that this couldn''t be set right now.

    The sooner that she started, the sooner she would be able to build herwork.

    But at the same time, she knew that rushing this would just lead to failure.

    So she had no choice but to ept this for now.

    After this had been settled, there was nothing else for us to do.

    So the elven elders were about to send us back to the house they gave us when suddenly¡­

    "Wait, you can''t leave yet." The green haired elder suddenly said this.

 Chapter 204 Second Goddess (1)

    We were caught off guard by this sudden outburst from the green haired elder.

    When she said this, all of us couldn''t help raising our guard since it sounded like¡­she wanted to do something to us with the way that she said this.

    To my surprise though, Moon also came forward to stand in front of me along with Cecilia.

    In fact, she didn''t even know why she did this.

    When she realized what had happened, she found that she was already standing in front of him.

    Seeing this, the green haired elder revealed an awkward look before saying, "I''m sorry, I didn''t mean it like that. I was just too surprised that I couldn''t help letting that outburst slip."

    I immediately knitted my brows and revealed a confused look when I heard this, but I could see that the green haired elder was sincere about this.

    So I raised my hands and patted both Cecilia and Moon''s shoulders at the same time.

    Moon immediately lowered her guard since the other side was the elven elders of her vige, there was no reason for her to do this in the beginning. But she had somehow been unable to stop her body from moving.

    Cecilia had a more conservative stance, but she still lowered her guard when I mouthed to her, "Trust me."

    After the two of them calmed down, the green haired elder let out a sigh of relief.

    She looked at Moon with aplicated look before turning back to say with an apologetic look, "I''m sorry for startling you like that. It was just that I had received a sudden message from our goddess about you that caught me off guard."

    I was about to say that it was fine when I suddenly processed what she had said.

    Goddess?

    She said that her goddess had spoken to her?

    When I understood this, I couldn''t help revealing a strange look.

    This was a look of amazement that had traces of confusion and doubt in it.

    Seeing this, the green haired elder revealed an understanding look, but she still said, "I know that this is a lot to take in, but our goddess wishes to meet you at the Tree of Life."

    I couldn''t help revealing even more amazement when I heard this.

    The goddess that she was referring to was without the Goddess of Life and I wasn''t surprised by that. I was more surprised that she would say that the goddess wanted to meet me at the Tree of Life.

    The Tree of Life was the sacred tree for the elves and the representation of the Goddess of Life on this.

    This was not a ce that even elves would be able to ess freely, let alone a human.

    So I was surprised that I would be allowed to go to that ce.

    At the same time, there was a problem that I had to address.

    "As far as I know, the Tree of Life is in the elven capital. Does that mean that I have to travel all the way there tomune with the Goddess of Life?" I asked this with knitted brows.

    This was indeed a problem since I wouldn''t be able to travel that far on such short notice¡­but this was a request from the Goddess of Life, so I didn''t feel right about rejecting it¡­

    The green haired elder revealed an understanding smile before shaking her head and saying, "No, you don''t have to do that. You can just visit the sapling Tree of Life that we have here andmune with the goddess there."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I gave a simple nod in response.

    I never expected that there would be a sapling Tree of Life here.

    I had seen these things in the game before, but as far as I knew, the entire elven race only had five of those in the first ce as well. This was not something that could be entrusted to an elven vige that easily¡­

    Just what was so special about this ce?

    Seeing the look on my face, the green haired elder suddenly added, "The vine that we used before also came from this sapling Tree of Life."

    I looked at her with a surprised look before revealing a bitter smile.

    It seemed that the fact that I had recognized the vine being from the Tree of Life hadn''t been missed.

    She was basically saying that she knew that I had a lot of secrets and that she was not going to press me to reveal them, but at the same time¡­it was almost a kind of threat.

    I wasn''t bothered by this since I knew that she was just doing this for the safety of her vige and race.

    After all, I wouldn''t want someone that I had just met two days ago to know things like this. These kinds of things could easily be used to harm them if they fell into the wrong hands.

    After taking some time to gather my thoughts, I gave a nod and said, "Alright, let''s go meet the Goddess of Life."

    The green haired elder nodded before standing up and waving for me to follow.

    But when Cecilia and Haley also tried following, the elders immediately came forward to block them.

    Cecilia immediately raised her guard while Haley took a step back.

    The green haired elder immediately said, "I''m sorry, but you have to understand that this sapling Tree of Life is a sacred ce for us. Other than the one summoned by our goddess, we can''t allow other people to go there. I hope that you can respect this."

    Cecilia looked like she wanted to insist, but I waved my hand for her to calm down again.

    I had already figured that this was the case, but I epted this risk since I didn''t believe that the elves would do anything to harm me.

    So in the end, Cecilia put down her weapon and sat back down. But the look in her eyes seemed to say, "If you touch one hair on his head, I won''t let you off."

    The green haired elder who this gaze was aimed at revealed a faint smile before saying, "I promise that we''ll bring him back safely."

    Then without waiting, she turned around and walked further into the room.

    Instead of going to the entrance to this tree house, she went to the center of the room and opened up a secret hatch.

 Chapter 205 Second Goddess (2)

    Leading into this secret passage was a set of stairs that would bring us into the middle of the tree.

    I was surprised to see this, but I also followed her into this passage.

    This passage was quite well lit for a secret passage, but it wasn''t lit by torches as one would expect. Instead, there was a glowing moss that was growing on the walls of the passage that lit the way.

    Judging by the light they released, it seemed that this was some kind of phosphorescent moss that grew naturally.

    But I didn''t have time to admire this moss as the green haired elder quickly led the way.

    We followed this passage for some time until she finally arrived at a door.

    This passage had stopped going down after a certain point and had led us forward for a long while before we reached this door.

    When we arrived at the door, the green haired elder raised her hand as if she was telling me to wait before walking forward to stand in front of the door. Then she raised her hand again to draw some symbols in the air with mana that she threw at the door.

    These symbols disappeared into the door the moment that they made contact with it.

    Then once those symbols disappeared, there was a light that appeared around the door.

    This light shed once before it disappeared without a trace.

    After the light disappeared, there was a clicking sound that rang out before the door in front of us opened.

    Once it opened, the green haired elder didn''t hesitate to walk through this door, but I was a bit more hesitant.

    I walked up and looked past it before walking through it.

    When I looked through, I found that this was a passage that had led us out of the vige.

    We were now deep in the forest outside of the vige.

    At the very least, this was a ce that I didn''t recognize.

    So I had no choice but to follow the green haired elder.

    She was very familiar with this ce and it took her no time to lead us over to what seemed to be a path. However, this path seemed like it was made of wood, or rather, it seemed like it was the root of a tree instead of an actual path.

    Seeing that I had a hesitant look on my face, the green haired elder said, "It''s just the root of the Tree of Life, it''s nothing dangerous."

    I looked at her with a doubtful look, but since I couldn''t see anything from her face, I decided to follow her.

    The two of us walked atop this giant root and in no time, we arrived at the base of the giant tree that this root belonged to.

    This tree¡­really was fitting of the name Tree of Life.

    With how strong the trunk was, how green the leaves were, how fresh the air was around it, it was as if the very essence of life could be found in this ce.

    The two of us walked right up the trunk of the Tree of Life.

    As we were standing there, I saw that there was something that was at the base of this Tree of Life.

    It seemed to be some kind of altar that was glowing with green energy.

    The two of us came right up to the altar before the green haired elder suddenly fell to her knees in front of the altar.

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I saw this and I felt very ufortable as I didn''t know what to do in this situation.

    Was I supposed to go to my knees like the green haired elder had done and worshipped the Goddess of Life?

    But as I was standing there in a daze, there was a green glow that suddenly appeared around the green haired elder.

    This was a faint light at first, but then it became brighter and brighter until there was finally one bright sh of light.

    After this bright sh of green light, the light that had been around the green haired elder disappeared.

    I was surprised by this at first until I realized what had happened.

    That green light hadn''t disappeared, but rather it had transferred to me.

    When I looked closely at it, it was as if I could see something through that green energy.

    But then I was pulled out of these thoughts by a voice.

    "It''s you. You''re finally here."

    I looked around myself when I heard this, trying to find the source of this voice.

    However, no matter how I looked around, I couldn''t find a single other person.

    There was only me and the green haired elder who were currently standing there in front of the altar.

    It was even so quiet here that it didn''t seem like there were any other creatures in the surrounding area which was strange. After all, this was a ce that seemed to be filled with the aura of life, but there weren''t any creatures around¡­

    That would be unsettling no matter how one thought about it.

    Seeing that he was looking around like a crazy person, the green haired elder revealed a knowing smile, but she didn''t say a thing.

    She just stood up and walked away, leaving Zwein alone at the altar.

    Even though this was a very important ce for the elven vige and elven race, she was willing to leave him alone here¡­

    But I didn''t notice any of this as the voice said, "Let''s bring you to see me now."

    I couldn''t understand what this voice meant, but then there was a sh of green light in front of my eyes.

    This was a bright sh of green light that made me unable to keep my eyes open, so I had no choice but to close them.

    When I opened them again, I found that I was in apletely different ce from before.

    I was no longer at the base of that giant tree, but rather I was in a forest that was filled with the same aura of life as before.

 Chapter 206 Second Goddess (3)

    This was a forest that was filled with lush greenery, but that wasn''t what my eyes were attracted to.

    Aftering back to my senses, my eyes fell onto the green figure that was in front of me.

    This wasn''t just a normal green figure, but rather a figure that was coveredpletely in green light. This green light was so strong that I wasn''t even able to see the real appearance of this person.

    At the same time, there was an¡­ethereal feeling that wasing from this person.

    It was just like when I had met Solista for the first time.

    As I was staring at this green figure, I could feel that this green figure was also looking at me.

    The two of us just kept staring at each other before a voice finally said, "You''re here."

    I took a deep breath to calm myself down before saying, "You''re the Goddess of Life?"

    The green figure gave a nod in response before asking, "You''re not surprised to find that you''re here?"

    With a bitter smile, I said, "Well, it''s not my first time after all."

    The Goddess of Life seemed to also reveal a smile as she said, "Yes, I can tell by the mark on your hand."

    I looked down at the mark that Solista had put on me before and revealed that bitter smile again.

    Thest time that this had happened, I had been pulled into a world of pure white by Solista. It was there that we chatted a bit and I learned a bit about this world.

    Also, when I left, she had put this mark on my hand without any warning.

    I still hadn''t figured out what this mark was for or what it did, but for now, it didn''t seem like it was going to harm me. So I had been ignoring it the entire time.

    After a moment of silence, the Goddess of Life then said, "I am Vivrum, the Goddess of Life of this world."

    I was surprised to hear this self introduction since it almost seemed like this Goddess of Life was putting herself on the same level as me. But then I remembered that gods were able to read my thoughts, so I couldn''t help feeling even more worried that she would be offended by this.

    But there was no reaction from Vivrum at all.

    Seeing that there was no retribution toe, I calmed myself down and said, "I am Zwein, but my name used to be Lin Fan. I was transmigrated here after I died in my previous world."

    Vivrum gave a nod before saying, "I know, that person has already told us all about you."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows slightly as I asked in a confused voice, "That person? Who do you mean by that person?"

    I could have sworn that I had made a mistake, but it almost seemed like the green figure had jolted when I asked this. It was almost as if this Goddess of Life had just realized that she had made a mistake.

    But she didn''t let my question bother her as she said, "You must have a lot of questions about why I summoned you here."

    She had smoothly avoided the question that I had asked and changed the topic back.

    Although I was still curious about ''that person'' that she mentioned, since she wasn''t willing to talk about it, it wasn''t as if there was anything that I could do.

    So I just went along with her and gave a nod in response.

    The green figure gave a nod as well before she said, "It''s simply because I wanted to meet you."

    After she said this, I couldn''t help looking at her with a confused look. At the same time, I was waiting to see if there was anything else she would say, but it didn''t seem like it.

    It seemed that this was the reason why and there was nothing further¡­

    But that wouldn''t make any sense at all¡­

    Even if he was a reincarnator, there was nothing special about him that the gods would want to meet him.

    So why did they keep summoning him and pulling him into these special realms?

    I just stared at this green figure as I tried to figure her out, but there was nothing that I could see.

    I couldn''t even see her true appearance after all since she was covered in that green light, so I just had to ept her words for what they were.

    After another long silence, I gave a sigh and said, "Alright, now that you''ve seen me, can you send me back? Or is there something else that you need?"

    I knew that this was a bit rude, but I wanted to see how far I could push it with this Goddess of Life.

    At the same time, I wouldn''t be against it if she was a bit offended and didn''t want to talk to me anymore.

    But Vivrum didn''t seem bothered by this tone at all as she said, "Yes, there''s something else that I wanted to talk to you about."

    I gave a sigh when I heard this, but I waited for her to speak again.

    Vivrum just casually continued, "I''m sure that you''ve already heard that the gods of this world were created by the God of Earth, so it could be said that we are like siblings."

    I gave a slight nod in response when I heard this since this was something that I had heard from Solista. However, I couldn''t help being surprised to hear her suddenly bring this up.

    Vivrum gave a nod as well before saying, "Since that''s the case, I want to make things a bit more interesting for you in this world."

    "Huh?"

    That was the only response that I could give.

    But before I could react, she was already in front of me.

    This green figure was taller than me, so what appeared in front of my line of sight was her chest.

    I couldn''t see it because of the green light, but I could tell that it was quiterge with how it bulged on her figure when she came this close.

    But that wasn''t even the most shocking thing.

    The green figure suddenly leaned forward and ced a kiss right on my forehead.

 Chapter 207 Mark Of Life (1)

    I couldn''t help looking up at the green figure in shock when she kissed my forehead, but by the time that I looked up, she had already moved back.

    She moved a few centimeters away, but she was still standing there in front of me.

    I couldn''t see her appearance because of the green light, but it seemed like she was smiling as she stood there.

    After taking some time toe back to my senses, I finally asked, "What was that? Why did you do that?"

    The green figure said in a voice that almost seemed like she was teasing me, "Well, it was to make your life a bit more interesting. How about it? Did you enjoy it?"

    I just looked at her, not knowing how to answer this question.

    But she didn''t mind¡­it was almost as if she had a knowing look on her face.

    I quickly remembered why she would have such an expression.

    Gods could read minds and hear thoughts¡­

    She must have heard me when I thought, "How soft these lips are."

    With a bitter smile, I gave a sigh and said, "Are you done teasing me?"

    The green figure raised a hand and patted me on the head before saying, "You''re just so cute that I couldn''t help myself."

    This Vivrum, she really was different from Solista¡­Both of them seemed like they were yful, but she acted with less restraint and less seriousness.

    The green figure seemed to pout her lips as she said, "Are youparing me to that idiot? I''m much more mature than that fool."

    The bitter smile crept on my face again.

    I kept forgetting that gods were able to read minds¡­

    So I took a deep breath to clear my mind before asking, "Is there anything else that you need from me?"

    The green figure looked at me before shaking her head and saying, "No, that''s everything. But¡­"

    She let her voice trail off as she said this.

    Hearing this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit suspicious¡­the way that her voice had said this, it was almost as if there was something that she wanted to say, but she was hesitating on saying it.

    In the end, Vivrum still said, "Can you call me big sister? It''s a personal request, but I hope that you''ll ept it."

    My jaw couldn''t help dropping the moment that I heard this as I looked at her with a very strange look.

    At the same time, my head waspletely nk when I heard this because¡­I had no idea how to react in this situation.

    This was a god, a being that was worshiped by the mortals for overwhelming power and she was asking me to call her ''big sister''?

    No matter how one looked at it, this was a very strange situation.

    Seeing the expression on my face, Vivrum just tilted her head and asked, "You can''t do it?"

    I once again didn''t know how to react to this situation, but there was one thought that passed through my mind.

    Even though I had no idea what she actually looked like because of that green light, I couldn''t help thinking, "Cute¡­"

    Vivrum suddenly revealed a smile and said, "You think I''m cute? That''s so sweet."

    Without hesitation, she reached out and took me in her arms, hugging me against her chest.

    I didn''t know how I was feeling her, but I could feel the softness of her body around me. As for the most soft feeling, it came from her chest in front of my face¡­

    After enjoying this for a bit, I pulled myself out of her embrace and said, "Please stop teasing me."

    Vivrum said in the same teasing voice, "Even though you enjoyed it so much."

    She tilted her head down and looked at my lower half.

    I followed her gaze and realized¡­that there was a bit of a tent that was being pitched in my pants.

    I quickly hid it out of embarrassment, but she said, "It''s fine, don''t worry, it''s just a natural reaction."

    I really wanted to dig myself in a hole and hide there, but there was nowhere for me to do that.

    So after giving a cough to calm myself down, I said, "Big sister, can you send me back now?"

    Vivrum looked like she was about to say something, but then she just gave a nod and said, "Alright, I''ll send you back. Thank you for going along with my willful request."

    I was about to say something, but then I realized that there was ayer of green light that appeared around me again.

    Then before I could react, there was a bright sh of green light that was just like the one that had brought me to this ce.

    Thest thing that I saw was her standing there waving at me.

    Once he had disappeared from this ce, the green figure brought one hand up to hold her cheek and crossed her other arm at her chest as she said with a sigh, "I wonder when he will be able toe and meet our true forms. It shouldn''t be long, but I really don''t like waiting."

    ¡­

    When the sh of green light disappeared, I found myself back where I had been before.

    In front of me was the giant tree and the altar at the base of the tree.

    To the side was the green haired elder who was looking at me with narrowed eyes, as if she was trying to figure something out.

    Seeing that his eyes had focused, the green haired elder asked, "You''re back?"

    I looked at her in a daze as I was still adjusting, but then I gave a nod in response.

    The green haired elder was about to say something, but then she suddenly knitted her brows.

    Looking at the way that she was looking at me, I could tell that she was looking at something specific on me. However, I couldn''t tell exactly what she was looking at.

 Chapter 208 Mark Of Life (2)

    Based on the direction that her eyes were pointing, it seemed like she was looking at something that was on my forehead.

    Of course, I wasn''t able to see my own forehead, so I had no idea what she was looking at.

    But I did remember that Vivrum had ced a kiss on my forehead¡­

    Could it be that she had done something special when she did that?

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and asked, "Is something wrong?"

    The green haired elder didn''t react at first, almost as if she couldn''t hear what I said.

    However, she then took out a mirror and handed it to me.

    I was surprised that she would keep something like a mirror in her Storage Ring, but she was still a woman in the end¡­

    I didn''t say anything as I took the mirror from her and then looked at my forehead through it. As soon as I saw what was on my forehead, my lips couldn''t help twitching¡­

    It was a pair of lips that was imprinted on my head¡­

    If I was to go out like this, there was no doubt that I would draw a lot of attention. However it wouldn''t be any good attention¡­what was most likely is that people would look at me with strange looks.

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile in the end since no matter how much I tried rubbing it, it wouldn''t go away.

    Could it be that I was going to have to live my life like this?

    No, the green haired elder recognized this, so she should know what it is. That should be my clue to find a way to get rid of it.

    The green haired elder had still been standing there in a daze when I turned around and she was still looking at the mark on my forehead in a daze. With the way that she was so focused on it, it really made me feel a bit awkward.

    But I took a deep breath and asked, "Do you know what this mark is?"

    The green haired elder was pulled out of her daze when she heard me and she gave a slow nod, but she didn''t say anything else.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile before asking, "Can you tell me what it is?"

    The green haired elder narrowed her eyes to look at my forehead before saying, "That is the Mark of Life."

    "Mark of Life?" I couldn''t help repeating after her. After thinking for a bit to see if I had ever encountered this, I then asked, "What is this Mark of Life?"

    The green haired elder didn''t speak right away and instead revealed a strange look.

    After hesitating a bit, she finally said, "The Mark of Life is the special mark given by the Goddess of Life. It is only used to mark those that she had shown favour towards, as symbolized by the leaves of the Tree of Life on one''s forehead."

    Leaves?

    I looked closely at the mirror again and found that what I had thought were lip marks were actually leaves. But no matter how I looked at them¡­they really did seem simr to a kiss mark instead of being leaves.

    After the green haired elder said this, she didn''t say anything else as she kept staring at me.

    But this wasn''t the information that I wanted.

    There was still something else that I wanted from her, so I asked, "Is there a way to get rid of this?"

    The moment that the green haired elder heard this, her chin immediately dropped down.

    After a few seconds of silence, she revealed an agitated look and said, "Those words are sphemy! This is the sacred mark from the Goddess of Life and you want to get rid of it?! Do you understand what kind of sacrilege you are saying right now?"

    I couldn''t help taking a step back when I saw her agitated appearance, but I then said, "Well, is there at least a way to make it so that it isn''t as visible? You should understand how conspicuous it is to have something like this on my forehead."

    The green haired elder looked at me like I was a fool before shaking her head. She put her head in her hand and said, "How did this fool get the sacred mark? This is something that all elves dream of and never have a chance to get. Even if they do get it, they wouldn''t want it to fade at all since having this mark is a sign of glory. This idiot even wants to make it disappear¡­"

    She kept muttering to herself, but I could clearly hear it¡­

    It was almost as if she was directlyining to me which caused a bitter smile to appear on my face.

    I could tell just how important this mark was to the elven race from these words, but from my perspective, it was something that was a bother.

    So I was about to open my mouth to say something else.

    But before that, there was a voice that rang out in my head.

    "Just think about it disappearing and it''ll disappear."

    I couldn''t help looking around myself when I heard this voice, but I wasn''t able to find a single thing.

    Of course, I wasn''t confused as to who this voice belonged to since I had heard it not long ago.

    It was Vivrum, the Goddess of Life.

    Since this was what she told me, I did what she said and thought about making the mark disappear.

    While doing so, I made sure to hold the mirror up so I could see the mark in the reflection.

    As she had advised, after willing it to disappear, it soon faded from my forehead until it waspletely gone.

    When I saw this, I let out a sigh of relief.

    But there was no time for me to rx at all as the green haired elder suddenly shouted something.

    "What did you do!?"

 Chapter 209 Mark Of Life (3)

    I couldn''t help taking a step back when I heard this, but that just caused the green haired elder toe forward.

    She quickly grabbed my shoulders and moved her face towards mine.

    But of course, she wasn''t nning on doing anything as her eyes werepletely focused on my forehead.

    With the way that she was focused on my forehead, it was almost as if her gaze was about to burn a hole through it.

    I just revealed that same bitter smile as I waited for her to finish.

    Finally, the green haired elder asked, "Where did that mark go? You need to understand just how important this mark is and the disappearance of a single one of these marks is a very important matter!"

    I was about to say something, but then the same voice rang out through my head saying, "You can make it appear again."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I didn''t waste any time doing this.

    With a thought, the mark appeared on my forehead again.

    When the green haired elder saw this, she looked at this mark on my forehead with the utmost focus before saying, "How? How did you do this?"

    As she said this, she grabbed me and pulled me in even closer than before to carefully look at the mark on my forehead.

    I just gave a bitterugh before saying, "I just thought about it and made it disappear. Then when I wanted to appear, I just thought about it and it appeared again."

    The green haired elder revealed a very strange look when she heard this.

    After a long silence, she finally said in a strange voice, "It¡­it can do that?"

    I didn''t know what to say since I knew even less about the mark than her, but I still gave a nod in the end.

    The green haired elder just stared at the Mark of Life on my forehead for a long while she muttered, "Well, no one has ever tried something like this before, so it could be a feature of the Mark of Life. After all, no one would want the Mark of Life to disappear since this would mean that one was no longer blessed by the Goddess of Life¡­"

    She kept muttering about all kinds of different things that I didn''t understand.

    Finally, she slowly let go of my shoulder and took a step back.

    Seeing that she was calming down, I asked, "What is so special about this Mark of Life?"

    The green haired elder was pulled out of her thoughts and she looked at me with a confused look before suddenly saying, "It''s the mark of a god, isn''t that special enough?"

    I opened my mouth and revealed a surprised look, not knowing how to respond to this.

    After all¡­she was right!

    This was a mark that was received from a god, so that alone made it special enough¡­

    But that wasn''t what I meant.

    The green haired elder also understood this, so she continued by saying, "It isn''t that special among the humans, but among the elves that worship the Goddess of Life, it is a very important matter. There aren''t many that are blessed by the Goddess of Life in the first ce, so those that do are usually regarded as the envoys of the goddess."

    Her expression became even more strange as she looked at me and after a pause, she added, "Even if you are a human, just by receiving this mark, you will be regarded as an important person in our elven society."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this.

    This was something that had both good and bad implications.

    The good implication was that in future dealings with the elves, there was no doubt that this would help me make a good impression on the elves. With this mark, I would certainly be more weed by the elves.

    And there was no doubt that I would have more dealings with the elves after opening trade up with this elven vige.

    The bad thing was that there was no doubt that I would be dragged into elven politics because of this.

    Even if the elves lived a free life, there was no way that they would be able to resist the other races if they just kept acting this way.

    The only way that they would have the power to resist the other races is if they formed some kind of united front, which was what the elven kingdom was.

    The elves were still allowed to move freely, but it was the influence of the elven kingdom that allowed them to move across borders like this.

    So no matter how free the elves were, they had no choice but to form a government that involved politics.

    With this mark, I would surely be dragged into those elven politics¡­

    There were ups and downs to each side of this decision.

    But at the very least, I would be able to hide this and slowly make a decision.

    After thinking this through, I made the decision to make the Mark of Life disappear.

    When the green haired elder saw this, she gave a sigh as if she was acknowledging my decision, but she didn''t say anything about it.

    She just said, "We have to announce this to the vige at least."

    I looked at her for a bit before giving a nod.

    This would make it easier for me to negotiate with the elves in the vige which would help open up trade between our two sides.

    Though there was the risk of exposing this to the other elves, the benefits that came from it were much greater than the risks.

    I didn''t oppose going along with this.

    With this settled, the green haired elder gave a satisfied nod before turning to lead us back to the vige.

    As I left, I couldn''t help feeling that there was something that was watching us.

    But then again, when I thought about it, there was something that was watching us.

    This was the territory of Vivrum, so of course she was watching over us.

    So as we left, I waved behind me to say goodbye.

    I didn''t know why, but it felt like there was something waving back to me.

 Chapter 210 Cleaning Up (11)

    When we arrived back in the vige, we took the same passage as before.

    We came back out through the secret passage and found that everyone who had been there was still waiting for us in that room.

    The moment that they saw us, they all revealed different expressions.

    Cecilia and Haley immediately came forward and surrounded me.

    They went around me, looking over my body, seeing if anything had happened to me.

    When they saw that there was nothing, they finally gave a satisfied look and sat down again.

    During this time, Moon had also moved closer and it seemed like she was observing me as well.

    Once they were satisfied, the green haired elder finally moved the meeting forward.

    The green haired elder gave a simple summary of what happened when we went to the Tree of Life sapling, but she left out one part of that narrative.

    But it wasn''t as if she wasn''t going to tell them, she was just waiting for the end to make a bigger impact.

    After she finished her story, she said, "There''s something else that I need to announce."

    When her voice fell, she turned to look at me and I knew what she was asking for.

    When we came back, I had hid the Mark of Life on my forehead so that it wouldn''t cause a scene. But now she was nning on telling them about it, so I had no choice but to reveal it.

    With a thought, the Mark of Life appeared on my forehead.

    The elders had been staring at me since they saw the green haired elder look in my direction.

    The moment that they saw the Mark of Life appear, all of them revealed shocked looks.

    They looked at each other as if they were confirming what they were seeing and then turned back to look at me.

    There were many of them that suddenly stood up and came forward to surround me, but the green haired elder raised her hand to stop them. She used her hand to draw an invisible line that they couldn''t pass and they all gathered there.

    They knew that if they all came closer like this, it would scare me off, so they followed the instructions of the green haired elder.

    But the way that they surrounded me like this, it was almost like I was an animal that was locked in the zoo¡­or a beautiful woman that was surrounded by men who wanted to ravage her¡­

    It really was a strange kind of feeling¡­

    However, there was one person that went past that line that the green haired elder created.

    This person was Moon who had a shocked look on her face the moment that she saw this Mark of Life.

    She couldn''t help herself as she came right up to me and looked at my forehead, lost in the mark that was there. With the way that she was looking at me, I was even scared that she woulde right up to my face to stare at it.

    But she remained at a decent distance in the end.

    After a long silence, she finally said, "It''s the real mark, it really is the Mark of Life."

    I didn''t know what to say in response to this and it didn''t seem like she wanted me to say anything in the first ce, so I just sat there in silence.

    After another long silence, Moon finally looked away from the mark and looked at me. The way that she was looking at me was very strange and I couldn''t put my finger on what kind of emotions she had.

    After letting them stare at me for a bit, the green haired elder said, "I''m sure that all of you know what this means¡­"

    She let her voice drift off and she didn''t finish this thought, but the look on the faces of the elders made it very clear what they were thinking.

    She then turned to Moon and said, "We''ll make the announcement tonight and then you''ll be able to do what you want."

    Moon had been staring at me the whole time and didn''t look away as she gave a nod in response to this.

    Everything that they said just confused me even more.

    It was clear that what they were saying was rted to me, but I had no idea what they were nning to do at all.

    It didn''t seem bad, but it also didn''t seem good¡­

    So I couldn''t help feeling a bit worried.

    But before I could say anything, the green haired elder said, "We will host a banquet tonight to thank you for everything that you''ve done and we will announce our intentions to open up trade with you there."

    The way that she said this almost seemed like everything had been set.

    At the same time, the things that she said weren''t bad.

    She had basically confirmed that they were going to ept our offer of opening up trade between our two sides, which was something that made Haley''s eyes light up.

    But for some reason, I couldn''t help feeling that there was something off about this.

    In the end, she didn''t let me ask anything as she called the two blonde elves in.

    The two blonde elves also couldn''t help being surprised the moment that they saw the mark on my forehead, but that reminded me that I still had it out.

    So with a thought, the mark disappeared.

    All of the elves were shocked by this, but the green haired elder assured them that this was a normal thing.

    The green haired elder then had the two blonde elves escort us back to the ce we were staying.

    Moon didn''t hesitate to stand up ande with us.

    The green haired elder was about to say something to stop her, but then she revealed a smile that had a deeper meaning and said, "Go on."

    I couldn''t help feeling that there was something very strange about all of this¡­

 Chapter 211 Cleaning Up (12)

    When we left the elder hall, the attitude of the blonde elves hadpletely changed from before.

    Before, they would always look at me with disdain, but now¡­they were treating me with respect.

    As we walked through the vige, I could even see them peeking back at me from time to time and whispering a few things.

    I would have asked Moon about this if it was before, but now¡­she had also changed.

    Moon was following close behind me and she was looking at me with a strange look.

    With the way that she looked at me, I didn''t feel like I should disturb her thoughts.

    At the very least, the way back wasn''t that far, so we were able to reach our residence quite quickly.

    To my surprise though, the blonde elves took the initiative to ask if we needed anything.

    If this was before, they would have left right away without even sparing a nce.

    Then when I told them that we didn''t need anything, they only revealed disappointed looks before leaving.

    But there was another problem.

    Moon was still here.

    She didn''t leave with the two blonde elves and had been there staring at me the whole time.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and asked her, "What are you doing?"

    It was only then that she snapped out of her daze and realized what she was doing.

    So with an awkward and unwilling look, she left as well, finally leaving us humans alone.

    Taking this time, I told everyone what had happened. Of course, I made sure to leave out a few things that I didn''t feel like they needed to know.

    They were very curious about the Mark of Life that had appeared, so I had to show all of them the mark and they all crowded me, but it was different from how the elders had done it. After all, they were concerned about me unlike the elders who only cared about the mark.

    So the way that they looked at me felt different from when the elders were staring at me.

    It was endearing rather than feeling strange.

    This process took all the way to thete afternoon and it was at that time that the two blonde elves came back to pick us up.

    They came to bring us to the banquet that had been prepared.

    The strange thing was that as soon as they arrived, Moon also appeared out of nowhere.

    It was almost as if she had been waiting around the area the whole time¡­

    And as soon as she arrived, she went to the same position as before where she stood behind me, staring at me the whole time.

    It was a very ufortable experience¡­

    But at the very least, this onlysted until we reached the banquet in the center of the vige.

    We found that all of the elves of the vige were already waiting for us, but they were only staring at one person¡­me.

    It was as if they were all waiting for something as they stared at my forehead.

    I could also see the elders looking at me with expectant looks.

    So without a choice, I called out the Mark of Life on my forehead.

    The moment that it appeared, all of the elves let out shocked gasps and started staring at it with passionate gazes.

    This once again made me feel like I was an animal in the zoo that was being stared at, but I had no choice in this matter.

    Once they had their fill, they invited us to sit and the banquet began.

    The elves were actingpletely different from before.

    This time, they were filled with friendliness and enthusiasm towards me. This also rubbed off a bit on the other members of our group as they treated the other humans much more warmlypared to before.

    It seemed that this Mark of Life did have an effect on these elves, but I was also worried about the cons that wouldeter¡­

    After the banquet had been ongoing for some time, the green haired elder suddenly called for everyone''s attention.

    All of the elves immediately stopped what they were doing and turned in that direction. Our group of humans also stopped everything and turned to look at the elders.

    Once the green haired elder got everyone''s attention, she raised a cup and said, "I would like to call for a toast. Without the help of our human friends, there is no doubt that our forest would have been tainted by the ns of the demons and we would have lost our home."

    After she said this, all of the elves couldn''t help revealing sad looks, but those looks quickly disappeared. They all lifted their cups and joined in the toast.

    Since this was a toast to us, we naturally also lifted our cups and joined in.

    After the toast, the green haired elder continued by saying, "I would like to announce that from now on, we will be entering a new rtionship with our human friends. They have offered to help us connect to the outside world and after long negotiations, we have agreed to enter a trading rtionship with them. So if there is anything that you want from the outside world, please feel free to talk to our human friends about this."

    The elves were visibly surprised when they heard this and they couldn''t help turning to look at our group.

    I had already told everyone about this, so we weren''t surprised by this as much as the elves, though there were a few people that were still surprised by this.

    However, this wasn''t the biggest surprise that came today¡­

    After a pause, the green haired elder continued by saying, "I would also like to announce that in order to deepen our friendship with our human friends, we will be sending a group of envoys to their town to understand humans better. If there is anyone that is interested in this, please talk to Moon as she will be leading this group."

    All of us humans couldn''t help revealing shocked looks since this was the first time that we were hearing about this.

 Chapter 212 Cleaning Up (13)

    After a moment of shock, I quickly turned to look at Moon who was still staring at me.

    Even during the banquet and the announcement, she had been staring at me the whole time. I had no idea just what she was staring at¡­

    But when she saw that I was looking at her as well, she couldn''t help turning her gaze away slightly as a blush appeared on her face.

    This¡­

    Just what was this reaction?

    Still, I tossed this thought out and turned back to the green haired elder.

    She saw me looking at her and she just looked at me with a faint smile on her face, as if she wasn''t bothered by the questioning look in my eyes at all.

    Seeing this, I gave a sigh as I knew that I had no choice in this matter.

    It wasn''t a bad thing that they were sending an envoy since this would allow our two groups to be closer. The problem is that if theye with us now, we won''t have anything prepared to wee them with.

    I would have preferred if they told us about this ahead of time so that I could have sent a message back to Baroness Rose and had her prepare to wee the elves.

    Even if I sent a message back now, it would be toote since they wouldn''t have the time to prepare.

    I just hope that these elves wouldn''t mind¡­

    But at the same time, I couldn''t helpining that these elves really were too free and wild. They just did whatever they wanted and didn''t worry about what other people thought.

    I was envious of this, but I was also a bit annoyed by this at the same time.

    Still, what was done was done and there was nothing that could be done to change this.

    So I just gave a sigh and thought about how to handle the elves when they came.

    But that wasn''t thest announcement either.

    The elves were quite excited about this news since most of them hadn''t left the vige before. These were young elves that were curious about the world, so it was natural that many of them were interested in going as part of this envoy group.

    It took a while for them to calm down, but when they did, the green haired elder continued by saying, "There''s one final announcement to make."

    When she said this, the chatter among the elves died down and they all turned their attention back to the green haired elder.

    The green haired elder suddenly revealed a sad expression before saying, "It is regretful to inform you that our head warrior Apollo will be leaving us."

    When her voice fell, all of the elves revealed shocked looks.

    Then they all looked around, trying to see if Apollo was here, but he wasn''t at the banquet. He hadn''t been here since the beginning since he had already left the vige the day prior.

    These elves had been too much in a celebratory mood after defeating the demons and solving the crisis of their forest, so they were focused on the banquet instead. Not a single one of them had noticed that Apollo hadn''t been here the entire time.

    They had all assumed that he was off doing something else.

    After giving the elves some time to react to this, the green haired elder continued to say, "Due to some personal matters, head warrior Apollo has already left our vige and gone to handle them."

    All of the elves looked at each other with confused looks after hearing this.

    Not a single one of them had heard a trace of this before, so they couldn''t help wondering just what kind of personal problems that Apollo was facing.

    Even if he had the personality that he had, Apollo was still considered a popr person in this vige.

    So they naturally couldn''t help being curious as to why he had left the vige.

    Still, there wasn''t a single one of them that had an answer to this question.

    But that didn''t stop them froming up with their own theories as to why Apollo had left.

    The green haired elder once again let them discuss this for a bit before dropping another bombshell on them.

    "After some careful discussion, we have decided to cancel the engagement between Moon and Apollo. He has his matters to take care of and it is unknown how long it will take him to take care of these matters, so it would be unfair to Moon to force her to wait. As such, we have agreed with Apollo to cancel this engagement and allow Moon to live her life as she wishes."

    Everyone couldn''t help looking at Moon this time.

    There were many strange gazes among these elves, almost as if they were suspecting that something had happened between Moon and Apollo that had caused him to leave.

    Everyone in the vige had known about this engagement between the two because these two were the most outstanding young people in the vige. This engagement was surely one that would decide the future leaders of their vige, so everyone cared about it.

    But now that it was broken up, they were all curious about what had happened.

    Moon saw everyone looking at her, but she didn''t mind that at all as her gaze was still on Zwein.

    From the beginning, she hadn''t moved her gaze from Zwein the entire time.

    Once again, after some time, the green haired elder said, "I hope that everyone will respect the privacy of the parties involved and don''t bother them too much. I know that this is a very sad matter, but it is something that they have decided for themselves, so there is nothing that we can do about it."

    All of the elves seemed like they understood, but there were still many that were peeking at Moon out of the corner of their eyes.

    Moon just ignored all of this still as she kept staring at me.

    After the green haired elder had made all of her announcements, the banquet went into full swing once more.

    This banquet wentte into the night and many people were sleeping out under the stars as they fell over from being drunk.

 Chapter 213 Under The Moon (1)

    ?

    I had gone back to the residence to rest after enjoying myself, letting the others keep going since they wanted to keep going.

    When I woke up, it was still the middle of the night and the entire vige was silent.

    However, I stood up after waking up and got dressed before heading out of the residence.

    Since most people were dead drunk, it was easy for me to make my way to the edge of the vige.

    Even if people were drunk and in a festive mood, that didn''t mean that they had let their guards down. There were still guards that patrolled the edge of the vige and it was a group of them that I encountered.

    When they saw me, they jumped down from the tree to greet me before questioning me on what I was doing here.

    "I couldn''t sleep, so I wanted to take a walk in the forest to clear my head."

    The guards raised their brows to look at me, but after I shed the Mark of Life on my forehead, those expressions rxed.

    After a pause, they nodded and said, "Don''t stay out there for too long. The forest is still filled with dangerous beasts, so it isn''t safe to stay out there in the middle of the night."

    I gave a nod and thanked them for their warning before heading into the forest.

    The way that I walked into the forest, it was clear that I already knew exactly where I was going.

    It didn''t take me long to reach a clearing in the forest and in this clearing, there was a smallke that was in the center. This was simr to the clearing that we had reached when we had firste to this forest.

    But this time, there was a figure that was waiting for me by theke in this clearing.

    It was a beautiful figure with striking green hair and became even more eye catching under the bright moonlight.

    When I came into the clearing, that figure turned to look in my direction.

    There was a trace of surprise in her eyes, as if she didn''t expect me to actuallye, but then she revealed her smile and waved her hand for me toe over. When I walked over, she patted the ground beside her for me to sit down as well.

    So the two of us just sat there in front of theke with neither side saying a thing.

    In the end, it was Moon who broke the silence by saying, "You got my note."

    I gave a silent nod in response to this.

    As for how I knew toe here, I had found that there was a note in my pocket this afternoon.

    This was a note that had a message and a map on it, showing me how to get to this clearing.

    While I didn''t know where this note hade from, I could guess who it was from. That was why I hade here in the first ce.

    I was curious why she had called me here in the middle of the night.

    After another silence, Moon suddenly asked, "Do you know anything about where Aisha is right now?"

    I was surprised since I clearly didn''t expect this to be the first thing that she asked me.

    But in the end, all I could do was shake my head.

    After all, I indeed didn''t have a single idea where Aisha was right now.

    I knew where she would be in the future, but I had never encountered her in this moment of the game''s timeline.

    Seeing this, Moon couldn''t help revealing a very disappointed look.

    I couldn''t help feeling strange when I saw this look on her face, so I couldn''t help asking, "Did you know Aisha?"

    Moon looked at me with those disappointed and sad eyes, almost as if there was something that she was struggling to say. But in the end, she still said, "She is my mother."

    "Huh?"

    That was all that I could say in response to that.

    I never expected this kind of bombshell to drop.

    But it made sense since Moon had always had a strange obsession towards Aisha. Whenever I had mentioned her, Moon had always looked at me with that strange look¡­

    Seeing this look on my face, Moon gave a sigh and said, "She left me here when I was young because she didn''t want to be weighed down by me as she travelled the world. The green haired elder is my grandmother, Aisha''s mother, so that''s why she left me here."

    The look of shock on my face became greater and greater when I heard this.

    It seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn''t be able to escape the retribution that woulde eventually.

    I had used the remnants from the game rted to Aisha on her family, so there was no doubt that I would be fated to meet her one day.

    When that happened¡­it was hard to predict what would happen¡­

    So I just threw all of these thoughts out of my mind since there was nothing that I could do about it now. Even if I wanted to change these things, it was impossible to change the past¡­

    So the only thing that I could do was look to the future.

    I shook my head and said, "I''m sorry, I don''t know anything."

    Moon gave a disappointed sigh before saying, "It''s ok, that''s just how she is."

    The two of us just sat there in silence for a while.

    I was feeling too awkward to even say anything and Moon was clearly depressed from not getting the information that she wanted.

    But all of that changed when Moon suddenly took a deep breath and calmed her expression.

    With that calm look on her face, she turned to look at me.

    However, I could see that there was a strange look in her eyes as she said, "But you are different."

 Chapter 214 Under The Moon (2)

    My face filled with confusion when I heard this.

    I was "different"?

    How was I different?

    Moon didn''t mind the confused look on my face as she continued, "You''re unlike anyone that I''ve ever met before. From the things that you''ve done to the miracles that you''ve created, there''s no one that I''ve ever been as interested in as you."

    As she said this, I could tell that the look in her eyes was getting more and more strange.

    It was as if there was something that she wanted from me, but she was holding herself back still¡­

    I could tell that this wasn''t a good look.

    Was it rted to the Mark of Life that had appeared on me? Or was there something else that she wanted from me?

    I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine at the same time as I had a bad premonition.

    So in the end, I moved back a bit and said, "I''m not anyone special. I have no powers at all, I''m just lucky."

    But even when I tried to act as humble as possible, she firmly denied it by saying, "No, there''s something special about you. You seem to have this glow that no one else has¡­a glow that I just can''t get enough of."

    The more that she said this, the more strange that her eyes became.

    I could guess what she was feeling, but that made me very scared¡­especially since she was Aisha''s daughter.

    I moved back a bit more before saying, "How about we go back to the vige? I''m sure that people will have noticed that we have gone missing."

    Moon shook her head and said, "I want to be with you a bit longer. I want to get to know you even better."

    After saying this, she started moving towards me.

    Since we had been sitting, she was now crawling towards me on all four, almost like a predator who was stalking her prey.

    I tried moving back even further when I saw this, but she was much faster than me.

    In an instant, she appeared in front of me and was almost pinning me down with the way that she positioned herself.

    I could still move back, but if I did, she would fall atop of me and the situation would be even worse.

    So I had no choice but to remain still and wait to see how she acted.

    When Moon was this close to me, her body suddenly trembled. That was because at this close range, she could smell a scenting from me that she had never smelled before.

    It was a scent that was different from anything that she had sniffed before, but to her surprise¡­she found that she wasn''t against it.

    She didn''t know what this scent was, but for some reason, she felt a bit of heat rising inside of her and she felt safe from it.

    The more that she smelled this, the more that she wanted to indulge in this scent.

    At the same time, her eyes were wandering over my body.

    I wasn''t considered muscr by any means, but one thing that I did have was that fair white skin. It was even at a point where it was able topare to the skin of elves.

    I had to admit that this body that I had reincarnated into was definitely beautiful withoutparison.

    So the more that Moon stared at me, the more her expression changed.

    The more that her expression changed, the more in danger I felt.

    Her hand couldn''t help reaching out towards me, but it wasn''t towards my chest¡­

    For some reason, she was reaching out towards my lower half. Specifically, she was reaching out towards that ce in between my legs.

    I felt a chill run down my spine when I saw this and I was about to pull back, but then I realized that she would fall down if I did. Once she fell atop of me¡­it would be hard for me to escape.

    I had to figure out another way to move out of the way.

    But it was already toote as her hand came to my crotch.

    She was surprised the moment that her hand touched my dick since she never expected it to be¡­that big.

    She had of course been taught about this before, but the diagrams and small talk had never prepared her for this. After all, there had never been any mention of it being this big!

    After touching it, she couldn''t help feeling a bit scared and a bit excited.

    There was a part of her that wanted to keep going, but¡­she stopped herself in the end.

    Moon gave a cough and said, "Um, yes, we should get back to the vige before they be worried."

    Then she suddenly pulled away from me, removing her hand from my crotch.

    I couldn''t help looking at her with a surprised and confused look, not knowing why she had suddenly pulled back like this. However, I quickly gathered myself and moved a bit away from her so that she wouldn''t be able to try that again.

    He never would have known that he had been saved by her¡­innocence.

    Moon''s head was only filled with thoughts about how big that thing was and how she would handle it.

    She knew that she would need to practice a bit before she would be able to handle it.

    But there wasn''t a problem since she had plenty of time.

    She would be heading to his vige as the envoy, so she was certain that there would be plenty of time to do this properly.

    Once she had proper practice, she would show him what she could do.

    At this thought, Moon''s face couldn''t help turning more red.

    I didn''t know why she was acting this way, but I knew that I couldn''t touch her¡­

    After all, she was Aisha''s daughter.

    I had already used Aisha''s name and reputation for my own gains and if she found out that I evenid my hands on her daughter¡­there was no doubt that she would chop me to pieces.

    So even if Moon was a beautiful girl, I knew that I couldn''ty a single finger on her.

    It was just too bad that she wasn''t nning on giving up, so I would suffer quite a bit in the future¡­

 Chapter 215 Cleaning Up (14)

    Over the next few days, I did my best to avoid Moon after that night under the moonlight.

    She tried finding excuses to be alone with me, but I kept finding excuses to avoid her.

    During this time, we also hashed out many details of the trade agreement and helped the elves restore their forest. Otherwise, we would have returned to the town much sooner than this.

    The details of the trade were handled easily with Haley here, so I was mostly there to sign off on these things.

    Other than that, there was nothing that really happened.

    Once those few days passed, it was finally time to return to the town.

    As we left early in the morning, there were many elves that came to send us off.

    Before heading off, there were quite a few humans that were talking with the elves. They were making various promises to visit again and that they would bring all kinds of different things with them.

    There were also some elves that were making tearful goodbyes to humans¡­almost as if they had bonded more than just as friends over the past few days.

    I wasn''t against this, but I couldn''t help wondering what would really happen if this turned out to be true. I was sure that the rest of elven society wouldn''t be able to ept it as easily.

    There have been cases of half elves being born, but these were very rare in history.

    Still, I didn''t see anything wrong with it as long as the people involved were happy.

    As we set off from the vige, there was plenty of waving and goodbyes shouted which brought a smile to my face.

    However, not far from the vige, I asked for a stop to go to the bathroom.

    I received a fewints that I should have gone before leaving, but still they stopped to let me go.

    Moon had wanted to go with me, but I had Cecilia stop her.

    After all, having her with me would have made things awkward.

    I moved away from the group and after making sure that I was alone, I moved even further into the forest.

    Once I was a distance away from the rest of the group, I suddenly stopped and said, "You cane out now or are you nning on following me all the way back to town?"

    There was a silence that filled the air after my voice fell, but then there were a few figures that appeared in the trees around me.

    The one that led this group was a red haired person with sharp ears.

    It was Apollo who had left that night and hadn''te back with them to the elven vige.

    I didn''t know why he had left, but it was clear by the look in his eyes why he was here.

    Plus with how they were all aiming their bows at me, it was very clear that¡­they were nning to kill me.

    Apollo narrowed his eyes to look at me before asking, "How did you know that we were here?"

    I looked at him with a calm smile and asked back, "How did I know?"

    Apollo''s eyes and lips twitched when he heard this, but in the end, he didn''t react the way that I wanted him to. Instead of losing himself in his anger, he forced himself to calm down.

    As expected of someone who had been the head warrior in the elven vige.

    When it came down to it, he was able to control his emotions and didn''t fall for cheap provocation.

    Well, it could be said that he fell for it a bit since there was the look of rage in his eyes.

    After a moment of silence, Apollo raised his hand and said, "Since you aren''t willing to say anything, then there''s no need to keep you alive then."

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this.

    Normally in this situation, the viin would try to torture the hero a bit before killing him.

    But Apollo didn''t have this habit and wanted to kill me right away to spare himself any troubles.

    It seemed that this part of him was still a warrior, even if he wascking honour.

    The other elves all listened to him and drew their bows all the way before suddenly releasing them.

    All of their arrows were shot out in an instant and they were all aimed right at me.

    The moment that they hit, I would be turned into a porcupine by all of these arrows flying right at me.

    That is if they were able to hit me.

    All of a sudden, there were several cloaked figures that appeared around me that swung their swords to cut down the arrows flying at me.

    They perfectly formed a barricade around me and all of the arrows were cut down, not missing a single one.

    When they appeared, all of the elves in the trees couldn''t help being shocked by this.

    After all, they hadn''t sensed these figures at all.

    It was almost as if they had appeared out of thin air.

    Apollo deeply knitted his brows before asking, "Who are you? I don''t think there is a rtionship between us that you woulde out of nowhere to interfere in my matters."

    None of the cloaked figures said a thing after hearing Apollo speak.

    They just all stood there silently, as if they hadn''t heard a thing.

    This actually hurt Apollo''s pride a bit.

    So he said, "Do you know who my father is? Donan, the head warrior of the elven king."

    Now that he had been kicked out of the elven vige, Apollo didn''t hold back at all acting like a cliche viin. He had lost the dignity that he had from before and acted just like a viin would.

    But once again, the cloaked figures didn''t say a single thing.

    A vein popped out on Apollo''s forehead seeing this and he was about to snap, but then he suddenly knitted his brows.

    It was as if something had changed.

 Chapter 216 Cleaning Up (15)

    The other elves in the trees had the same reaction as Apollo.

    All of them suddenly knitted their brows as if something had changed.

    There were even a few of them that had suddenly stumbled and almost fell off the branches of the trees they were standing on.

    Apollo grabbed his chest and seemed to try to stabilize himself, but his breathing became heavier and even his face couldn''t help turning red.

    He looked around himself as if he was trying to find the source of this strange disturbance, but in the end, he wasn''t able to find it.

    At this, he turned to look down at me with narrowed eyes before asking, "What did you do?"

    The tone of his voice almost made it seem like he was certain that I was the one that had caused whatever was affecting him right now.

    When I heard this, I just revealed a confused look as I asked, "What do you mean?"

    But even then, Apollo wouldn''t rx his expression as he looked at me with this same certain look.

    Seeing that it wasn''t working, I released that fake confused look and said, "How did you figure it out?"

    Apollo narrowed his eyes even more when he heard this, but he didn''t say a thing.

    When he didn''t respond, I said, "Do you want to know what I did?"

    Apollo looked at me with a very strange look that was both doubtful and curious as to what I had actually done. In the end, he gave a nod in response to this question.

    "Well¡­" I slowly drew this out, as if I was ying with him.

    When Apollo heard this, he immediately narrowed his eyes even more as a vein popped out on his forehead.

    It was almost as if he was about to pop a vein with how much it was throbbing. It was as if he really wanted to rip me apart with his bare hands with the look that he was giving me.

    But he couldn''t do that since he was under the effects of this strange thing.

    He didn''t know what it was, but he could feel his body burning up and his breathing bing faster.

    When he thought about it, it was almost as if he was¡­

    But how was that possible?

    Seeing that his expression was getting worse, I didn''t stop teasing him at all as I said, "Well, it''s a very interesting thing that I did. You see, when I came out of the vige this morning, I was thinking to myself that it really was a nice day and that I should¡­"

    I kept going on like this, talking about all kinds of different things that seemed trivial and unrted to the situation at hand.

    The more that Apollo listened to this, the more annoyed he became.

    Finally, he couldn''t take it anymore and shouted, "Get to the point!"

    I just said with a calm smile, "I''m getting there, I''m getting there."

    Then I kept wasting even more of his time by talking about all kinds of different trivial things again.

    The more time that I wasted, the worse the look on their faces became.

    This time, Apollo snapped even sooner as he said, "That''s enough! You''re just wasting ti¡­"

    His voice trailed off as he said this before he suddenly revealed a look of understanding.

    That was right, he had hit the nail on the head!

    I was just wasting time by talking about all these trivial things and I had no intention of telling him anything useful.

    As he realized this, Apollo quickly checked his body and found that he was in a worse conditionpared to before.

    The only reason that he had yed along with Zwein in the first ce was to see if he could get him to slip up and tell them what they were afflicted with. But now he realized that he had been yed with, he couldn''t help losing his temper.

    Instead of being the one in control, he was the one that had been controlled.

    This was a fatal blow to his pride.

    Since he wouldn''t be able to get the information that he wanted and it seemed like the situation was getting more and more dire, there was no need to hesitate.

    Apollo raised his hand to wave it for the rest of the elves to attack, but he found that he didn''t even have the strength to do that anymore.

    Most of the other elves werepletely under the effect of this strange thing that was around them, so they couldn''t summon any strength.

    It didn''t take long before they tilted forward, falling down from the trees they had been on.

    It was a good thing that they still could control their bodies to a certain extent, so they were able tond on the ground. Otherwise, with how high up they were and how hard they were falling, they definitely would have been injured.

    Even so¡­there wasn''t much that they could do.

    This heat that wasing from inside of them¡­it was not something that they could resist.

    Apollo found that it was the same for him¡­

    Even if he wanted to do something, he found that he didn''t have the strength to move a single muscle.

    Apollo looked back up at me and asked, "What did you do to us?"

    I just looked back at him with a faint smile on my lips and said, "What did I do?"

    The look of rage in Apollo''s eyes became even stronger when he heard this.

    But that look of rage was quickly reced with a look of fear when he saw the cloaked figuresing closer.

    These cloaked figures had their swords raised, as if they were about to finish them off.

    When the threat to his life came closer, Apollo couldn''t keep acting tough anymore.

    He tried to move back, but he fell to the ground,nding on his butt.

    When he did so, I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look before letting augh escape.

 Chapter 217 Cleaning Up (16)

    When myugh rang out, the expression on Apollo''s face twisted.

    At the same time, the cloaked figures all turned in the direction of Apollo before they all started trembling.

    There was noughter that came out, but it was very clear why they were trembling like this. They were doing all they could to hold back theirughter.

    When Apollo saw this as well, the expression on his face became even more twisted and he was filled with killing intent.

    For a moment, this suppressed the strange feeling that was inside of him¡­but that was only for a moment.

    It didn''t take long for this feeling to resurge and he lost all the power that he had regained in his rage.

    Once he fell down on the ground again, he lost all of that rage that he felt and he once again tried to find a way to escape.

    As for what we had beenughing at¡­there was a small tent that had appeared in Apollo''s pants and when I say small, I really meant small.

    If one didn''t look at it closely, they most likely wouldn''t have even noticed that it was there.

    But after taking that moment tough at Apollo, the cloaked figures calmed down and approached the elves with their swords raised again.

    When Apollo saw this, he didn''t even need to think to know what was going to happen next.

    So without hesitation, he shouted, "My father is Donan, the head warrior of the elven kingdom! If you dare do anything to me, I can guarantee that he will never let you go!"

    At the veryst moment, he decided to threaten us for his life.

    If it was anyone else, perhaps it would have been useful, but¡­these people were not afraid of this person.

    They were surprised without a doubt since they had heard about Donan before, but they were no means scared of him since they were currently in a human country.

    In this human country, these cloaked figures did have some power and influence.

    So they didn''t hesitate as they moved closer to Apollo and the elves.

    Seeing that it didn''t have any effect on them, Apollo couldn''t help feeling fear for the first time.

    It was as if for the first time, he could feel that his death was truly approaching.

    For someone that had the power that he had and had been protected by the influence of his father all his life, he naturally had never felt this way before.

    So the first time that he felt it¡­his mentality copsed.

    "Don''t do it! I promise that I''ll do whatever you want as long as you don''t kill me!" As he said this, Apollo raised his hands to cover his head and curled up in a ball.

    This waspletely different from the tough act that he had before and they couldn''t help being caught off guard by this.

    But still, they had received their orders and they didn''t hesitate to finish them.

    Seeing that they were stilling closer even though he had done all of this, Apollo couldn''t take it anymore and he started to run.

    It was just too bad that he couldn''tpare to them in his impaired state like this.

    So all that he received in the end was a sword in the back.

    As heid there on the ground with blooding out of his mouth, he turned to look at Zwein with eyes that were filled with hatred. It was as if he was cursing him to fall into the depths of hell with him.

    Unfortunately for him, his gaze didn''t have this power.

    After Apollo had been finished off, the rest of the elves were finished off by the cloaked figures.

    They didn''t leave a single one of them alive.

    Once all of the elves were killed, the cloaked figures took out a powder that they sprinkled over the corpses left behind.

    Nothing happened at first, but then the bodies started disappearing¡­or rather they started dissolving into nothing but dust. During this process, there was a smell that came from the corpses being dissolved, but the cloaked figures didn''t even blink since they were already used to this.

    However, I wasn''t as used to this as them and couldn''t help taking a step back while raising my arm up to my nose to cover it.

    In no time at all, all of the corpses that had been on the ground disappeared without a trace.

    Once that was taken care of, the cloaked figures pulled back their hoods to reveal their appearances.

    It was Shaka and his subordinates.

    I had called them over during the time that we had been here using a secret method that was only avable to members of Shadow Garden.

    So they had rushed into the forest and found the vige using secret methods as well.

    They had been silently guarding me when they told me that Apollo had been hanging out around the vige, as if he was waiting for something. As soon as I heard that, I could already guess what he was thinking.

    That was when I had the idea to set up this trap.

    But the most important thing was that if I didn''t have the special item from the system, I wouldn''t have been able to set up the trap.

    This was one of the three items that I had received from the system as a rewardst time.

    Aphrodisiac.

    It might have been a repeat of what I had donest time, but it was very effective.

    This was a set of special aphrodisiacs that would only affect certain races and there was a full set for most of the major races in this world. The one that I had used today was the aphrodisiac that worked on elves, which was why Shaka and his men didn''t feel any effects.

    With the aphrodisiac weakening them like this, it was easy for me to take out Apollo and his men.

    As for the feeling of hesitation over killing them¡­there was none.

    He would have killed me if he had the chance and he had even tried to do that with this ambush, so there was no need to feel sorry about killing him.

    Since he wanted to kill me, then I would do the same in kind.

    Not to mention that he had been against me to begin with.

    If Apollo had escaped today, there was no doubt that he would have contacted his father and brought even more trouble to me.

    So death was the best way to end it all.

    Once they revealed themselves, Shaka said, "I''ve already reported back to Scar about the demons that appeared here. He will be sending a report in a few days, so prepare yourself."

    I gave a simple nod in response to this without saying anything since this was what I had already expected.

    Seeing this, Shaka gave a nod as well before adding, "We''ll go back to protecting your group from the shadows. Of course, we won''t act unless it''s absolutely necessary, so take care of yourself."

    I nodded again in response to this.

    Seeing this, Shaka and his group disappeared.

 Chapter 218 Returning With Elves

    When I returned to the group, they naturally wondered why I had been gone for so long.

    With an awkward look, I exined that it took longer than I thought before holding my stomach.

    As soon as they heard this, they all revealed understanding looks and dropped the subject.

    Just like this, we were off again, heading back to the town.

    Since we had more people than before and the elves didn''t travel with horses, it took us a bit longer to get back. They at least had magic that made them faster, so we were able to reach the town the second day.

    When we arrived, Baroness Rose was already waiting for us.

    One of Shaka''s men had been left in town to receive the message, so I had given her notice before we left. I had also given her notice as soon as it was decided that the envoys would be sent, but¡­it was just too little time in the first ce.

    The weing ceremony was much toocklusterpared to what it could be since there hadn''t been enough time to practice.

    But there wasn''t ack of enthusiasm since everyone wanted to have a glimpse of the elves.

    Elves, the elusive beauties of the forest¡­It was a dream to see them whether they were men or women.

    So what theycked in practice, they made up for in enthusiasm.

    Not to mention that this was the elves'' first time in a human town, so they didn''t know what to expect in the first ce.

    Even if it was a bit shabby, they were still enthralled by it since it was a new experience for them.

    After the weing performance, we brought the elves to one of the best restaurants in town.

    The owner had personallye out to cook when he heard that this was a banquet for the elves and it had made quite an impression on them since there were all kinds of dishes they never had before.

    All in all, because of the enthusiasm of our people and the ignorance of the elves, we were able to pull it off in the end.

    By the end of the day, the elves were all brought to a residence that had been prepared for them and they were settled for the night.

    That is all of the elves except for one.

    Moon wouldn''t stay with the other elves and insisted on staying in Baroness Rose''s manor with us.

    We tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted. She said that it was her duty as the leader of their group.

    Since we couldn''t talk her out of it, we had no choice but to bring her to the manor.

    It was a good thing that this was arge manor in the first ce, so there were plenty of ces to put her.

    For some reason though, she wanted a room that was as close as possible to the room that I shared with Baroness Rose¡­

    Based on what had happened before, it wasn''t hard to guess what she was nning on doing, so I rejected this. Instead of putting her nearby, I put her on the exact opposite side of the manor.

    Moon had a dissatisfied look, but she was the guest and she couldn''t make a fuss like this.

    She epted it in the end, but as she left to go to her room, she added, "I''ll see you soon."

    I felt a chill run down my spine when I heard this.

    Baroness Rose and I got some time alone in our room tonight.

    Since they hade with me to the elven vige, Cecilia and Haley felt that they should leave the two of us alone for a night.

    When we entered the room, the first thing that Baroness Rose did was¡­point at the ground and say, "Sit."

    She wasn''t even pointing at a chair, she was just pointing at the ground in front of her.

    With the stern look on her face, I could tell that I was most likely in trouble for something.

    A happy wife would mean a happy life, so I didn''t go against her and sat down in a dogeza position on the ground.

    While she didn''t understand what meaning the position I was sitting in had, she could feel the sincerity in it which was why the expression on her face rxed a bit.

    After sitting down as well, though she sat on the couch instead of on the ground, Baroness Rose said, "Exin."

    It was just a single word, but the power and meaning behind it was more than enough for me.

    So I started telling her the story of what happened in the forest.

    I left out a few parts that I felt that I didn''t need to include, as well as a few parts that I felt would be better left out.

    By the end of my story, Baroness Rose had an understanding look on her face as she gave a nod.

    Then she said with a sigh, "It seems like you really can''t help attracting all kinds of people when you go out."

    All I could do was reveal a bitter smile when I heard this.

    After all, it wasn''t as if I was doing this on purpose.

    Then after a silence, she looked at me with a serious look as she said, "How did you know all those things about the elves in the first ce?"

    I could also see a trace of doubt in her eyes as she asked this, but it was normal that this appeared.

    It didn''t make sense that I would know all of these things about the elves in the first ce.

    I looked at her and then shook my head before saying, "I can''t tell you."

    Baroness Rose slightly knitted her brows when she heard this, but they quickly rxed as well as a trace of understanding appeared.

    She knew that I had my circumstances, but¡­she was also a bit annoyed that I was keeping secrets from her.

    So she grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off the ground.

    The direction that we were heading was the bedroom¡­

 Chapter 219 Punishment (1)

    As I was being pulled into the bedroom, I couldn''t help asking in a shaky voice, "What, what''s going on?"

    Baroness Rose looked at me with her eyes narrowed before saying, "Since you won''t tell me anything¡­then I have to punish you a bit."

    I couldn''t help shaking when I heard this, but there was also a part of me that started to swell a bit.

    After we came in, she pulled me in by the hand before suddenly pushing me on the bed.

    As Iid there, she came up on top of me and pushed me down on the bed.

    Without any hesitation, she pulled my pants down and revealed the treasure hidden within, the two golden balls and the stick that came with it.

    Being pushed down like this¡­I really couldn''t help myself and soon that stick started to grow longer.

    When Baroness Rose saw this, she revealed a faint smile before reaching out with her hand.

    Then when it came close, she suddenly gripped the bottom of the shaft.

    The moment that she did, I couldn''t help letting out a surprised gasp that had a bit of pain in it since her grip¡­was a bit too strong. It was almost as if she was trying to crush it¡­

    She had never made this mistake before in all the times that we had been together.

    But it didn''t feel like she was going to let go, so I said, "Gentle, be gentle."

    That smile on her lips grew wider and it became a bit more sadistic as she said, "It wouldn''t be a punishment if I did it gently, would it?"

    I couldn''t help giving a gulp when I saw this as a bit of fear filled me.

    But at the same time, my stick down there became even harder since I also felt a bit excited by this.

    This was definitely different from how Baroness Rose acted normally¡­it even reminded me of the cold way that she acted when we had first met and I couldn''t stop my excitement at that thought.

    Seeing that it was getting harder in her hand, Baroness Rose suddenly gripped it even harder which caused me to wince in pain.

    After this, she said, "It seems like you don''t know your ce at all, do you?"

    I gave a gulp, but I shook my head at this.

    With that same smile on her face, she suddenly moved her other hand.

    Even though she still had one hand gripping my dick, the other hand skillfully took off the dress that she was wearing to reveal the beautiful figure underneath.

    That fair white skin, those tall mountains with those pink tips, that perfect curve, and those thick legs, every part of this body was beautiful enough to entice any man, but put together like this¡­she was absolutely irresistible.

    Even though she was still holding my dick like this, I couldn''t stop it from suddenly swelling and growing bigger.

    But that just increased the pressure on it since she had an iron grip on my dick still.

    This truly was a form of torture, but at the same time¡­I couldn''t help enjoying it.

    However, that wasn''t the end of it.

    After she took off the dress, she suddenly started to move.

    She turned her body so that her behind was facing me and then she ced her butt over my head before sitting down.

    All that I saw were those pure white mounds above me before theypletely covered me. Luckily, they didn''t smother me and I was still able to breathe.

    But I could tell what was in front of my mouth.

    After she had gotten in position, Baroness Rose said, "This is your punishment, so get to it."

    Punishment?

    Was this a punishment?

    Didn''t she mean reward?

    Without hesitation, I stuck my tongue out and started licking the sweet nectar of the valley in front of me.

    As my tongue fell over all those folds before entering the valley hidden within, there was a moan that came from above me. It was a moan that was soft and filled with pleasure which made me even more turned on.

    But at the same time, she didn''t stop what she was doing with her hand.

    Her hand was locked in an iron grip around my dick and she had started moving it up and down.

    This was a different feeling from every other handjob that I had received before because instead of just pleasure, there was also the pain from having my dick gripped like this. Still, it wasn''t as if this was a bad feeling¡­

    It was certainly new and strange, but the more that she did it, the more pleasure I felt from it.

    Eventually, the pain started to disappear, but I wasn''t sure if that was because blood cirction was getting cut off or if it was because I was adjusting to the pain.

    The two of us continued like this, both of us letting out moans of pleasure until we couldn''t take it anymore.

    At the same time, both of us said, "I''m cumming."

    I could feel the trembling that came from Baroness Rose''s body, but at the same time, she suddenly leaned forward while I was still licking her.

    Then in one smooth move, she brought her mouth over the tip of my dick right as I was about to cum and covered itpletely with her mouth.

    The moment that she did, I could feel the soft feeling of her tongue wrapping around my dick and I couldn''t hold back anymore.

    Even with the swelling and trembling, she kept her mouth firmly on my dick as I shot my load right into her mouth.

    At the same time, there was a sudden spray that came from between her legs thatpletely soaked my face.

    The two of just both climaxed at the same time before falling down at the same time after feeling drained.

    Her face was still on my dick while her crotch still had my face in it.

    The two of us justid there like this catching our breath, but the more that we breathed, the more turned on we were.

    That was because we were breathing into each other''s private parts.

    It didn''t take long before we regained our strength and we were both ready for round two.

    Baroness Rose sat up atop of me again before turning once more so that she was facing me. At the same time, she took a seat right on my waist, but she made sure to sit a bit forward so that she didn''t get prated.

    Still, that feeling of her butt rubbing up against my dick like that¡­was really something else.

    As my dick slid in between the slit of her cheeks, I could feel the pressure that came from these two perfect round mounds.

    Then she looked down at me with the same smile as she said, "You''re not anywhere near done with your punishment yet. You better get ready since I''ll be punishing you all night."

    I couldn''t help giving a gulp when I heard this, but then I responded with a silent nod.

    With that same smile, she said, "Get ready to be drained."

 Chapter 220 Punishment (2)

    I gave a gulp when I heard this, but I didn''t resist at all as I just let Rose do whatever she wanted.

    The first thing that she did was push down on me with her hands and then lift herself up. She slowly positioned herself so that she was right above my dick and then in one smooth move, she sat down on me.

    There was no resistance at all as my dick prated deep into her.

    It was almost as if she had already been molded in the exact shape of my dick, but that wasn''t strange with how many times we''ve done it already.

    In one motion, she took it as far as she could put it inside of her, but it was just too big to take in one go.

    In the end, she could only get around half of it in before she found that she couldn''t go down any further.

    But she didn''t stop there as she started moving back up.

    Just like this, Rose moved up and down above me, pushing my dick deeper into herself with each squat.

    While she did this, both of us let out moans of pleasure while Rose shouted, "More, give me more!"

    I justid there like a dead fish enjoying it all while she aggressively went at it.

    It didn''t take long before both of us couldn''t take it anymore and we climaxed at the same time.

    When we climaxed, Rose was finally able to take it as deep as she could and I shot my load deep inside of her. Both of us just trembled for a bit as we finished our climax before she fell onto me.

    She was taller than me, so she fell right over me and smothered me with her breasts, but I didn''t mind it at all. I just reached my hands out to catch her and take her in my embrace.

    After she fell forward, my dick slipped out of her pussy with a sound and then there was a white liquid that dripped out of her.

    When she felt this, she suddenly brought a hand down to her crotch and blocked it froming out.

    I felt this and couldn''t help looking at her with a strange look before asking, "Is something wrong? Does it feel weird or is it something else?"

    Rose''s face turned red when she heard this and she didn''t respond at first, but then she said, "I didn''t want it toe out?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a confused look before asking, "Why not?"

    Rose''s face turned even more red as she hesitated to speak, but then she still said, "It''s something that''s hard to say."

    I held her tighter in my arms as I said, "What is there that you can''t say to me? I''m your husband."

    Rose lowered her head,pletely unlike how she normally acted.

    If the people of the town could see her, they definitely would have been shocked because she was apletely different person. But it wasn''t as if I would ever let them see her like this.

    It could be said that I was quite the possessive person now after obtaining her for a bit. There was a part of me that didn''t want to share this beautiful wife of mine with others.

    Finally after a while, she took a deep breath and said, "I want to have your child."

    "Huh?" I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this.

    But Rose couldn''t help misunderstanding what I meant by this as she said, "I knew that I was being too rash. I should have waited and taken my time, but I really do want someone to take care of while you aren''t here. I wanted a crystallization of our love to share with the world¡­"

    She kept going until I snapped out of my daze and reached out a finger to cover her lips.

    She was surprised by this, but she still wanted to say something.

    But before she could, I said, "No, no, you''re misunderstanding me. It isn''t that I don''t want to have a child with you, it''s just that you surprised me."

    Then I said in a more loving tone, "I want to have a child with you as well, but I didn''t know if you were ready for it."

    To be honest, I had never thought of having a child before.

    But when she mentioned it, I immediately agreed with this idea since I knew that I loved her. If that''s what she wanted, then it would be what I wanted.

    Not to mention that we were financially well off, so we wouldn''t have a problem caring for this child in the first ce.

    Rose couldn''t help being surprised this time as she looked at me with wide eyes. Then after a moment of silence, she asked, "Really?"

    I nodded and patted her on the head before saying with a smile, "Really, I love you."

    Hearing me say this, there was a blush that appeared on Rose''s face before she came forward to hug me as well. She whispered in a small voice in my ear, "I love you too."

    The two of us just stayed there enjoying the warmthing from each other''s body.

    But the night was still young and it didn''t end there.

    After a long silence, Rose suddenly came up and said, "I still have to punish you."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this and it grew wider when she said her next words, "I''m draining you empty tonight."

    But this time, I knew that she was just acting this way to hide her embarrassment and I couldn''t help thinking that she really was cute.

    So cute that I couldn''t help myself as I suddenly moved out from under her.

    "What are you doing?" Rose said in a surprised voice.

    "Nothing at all." That was what I said, but I had moved myself behind her and had grabbed her waist. After that, I said, "Hold onto the head of the bed for me."

    Rose was confused, but she still listened to me and grabbed the head of the bed in front of us.

    "Hold tight." That was all I said before I suddenly thrusted forward.

    "Ah!" Rose let out a surprised cry, but then she began letting out satisfied moans of pleasure.

    Holding her from behind, I thrusted deep into her again and again.

    With how deep I was thrusting into her, one would even be afraid that I would rip her in half if I continued like this.

    But there was only pleasure for the both of us.

    I held her waist at first, but then my hands came forward. They moved up her back beforeing across her sides to reach in front of her.

    With one swift motion, I grabbed her breasts and started ying with them as I continued thrusting into her.

    "Ah!" That was her response once again when I grabbed them, but the moans quickly followed.

    It didn''t take long before she suddenly said, "I''m about to cum!"

    I just revealed a faint smile before saying, "Let''s do it together."

    After all, the feeling of being with her was just too pleasurable that I couldn''t hold myself back anymore.

    As we were about to climax together, I leaned as forward as I could and I was able to reach her head that was looking down, giving her a deep kiss as I shot my load into her.

    The two of us froze as we climaxed together before copsing without any strength on the bed.

    Once again, weid there enjoying thefort of each other''s warmth, but¡­

    I still wasn''t done yet.

    It didn''t take long before my dick was standing tall and proud again.

    So we took another position and kept going.

    Not just once or twice, but all night long.

 Chapter 221 Building The Store

    A few dayster, I headed out of the manorte in the morning.

    I had woken upte because¡­I had spent all ofst night in bed with Rose.

    Since we had decided to have a child, I had been performing my duties every night with her.

    Other than spending one night with both Cecilia and Haley, I had spent all my nights with Rose.

    Haley was fine since she was focused on building her store, but it was harder for Cecilia.

    Still, she understood since she was childhood friends with Rose and she loved her, so she gave us the space that we needed. Though she did re at me from time to time when we met during the day.

    I just looked at her with bitter smiles when I saw her looking at me like this since there wasn''t anything that I said.

    I was grateful to her that she did all of this for us.

    Haley on the other hand¡­there was nothing to worry about with her.

    She had be so busy with the store that she had even forgotten about eating sometimes.

    Instead of having to keep her away, it was more like I had to tear her away from the store or she wouldn''t rest at all. It had gotten to the point where the builders wereining to me about her since all she did was watch over their shoulders, making sure that there wasn''t a single mistake.

    It was a kind of pressure that they really couldn''t take, so they asked me for help.

    So there were many times where I had to pull her away just so that they could get their work done.

    But there was no doubt that Haley was happy since this was her dream shop that was being built.

    At the same time, since we had made a deal with the elves, the materials being used to build her shop were the best of the best. There wasn''t any wood that we could have gotten that would have been better since we weren''t able to find this kind of wood on our own.

    That just made Haley even more excited about her shop.

    As for where I was heading today, it was Haley''s shop that was being built.

    The workers had been working on this shop for several days now and it had started taking form.

    The basic frame of the shop had already been built and they were nning on raising the first wall today.

    For this kind of event, Haley decided to hold a big ceremony for it.

    Luckily for me, this ceremony was being held at noon, so I still had time. Otherwise, with howte I had woken up, there was no doubt that I would have beente to the ceremony.

    When I arrived, I found that there were a lot of people that were already here.

    This world followed the same calendar as Earth, so today was a Saturday, which was why there were plenty of people that were here. The other reason was that¡­Haley had decided to serve alcohol at this event.

    So in part, this was a way for her to celebrate her new store, but at the same time, it was a way to integrate herself into the town.

    After all, who didn''t love a free party that had free alcohol for attending?

    So it was killing two birds with one stone.

    As I walked through the crowd, I found that there were quite a few people that were already drunk.

    It seemed that since it was a Saturday and tomorrow would be their one day off, they had decided to getpletely hammered today even though it was the middle of the day.

    Though when it came to normal Saturdays, most people took the afternoon off, so this was normal.

    I didn''t mind since I was happy seeing everyone in the town happy and seeing how happy Haley was about the store.

    I was also surprised to see that the elves were among the crowd, drinking with the humans.

    Speaking of the elves, it really was amazing how quickly they had adapted to this human town.

    They were now talking to humans without any barriers, treating them just like they would elves.

    This was in part due to their open nature in the first ce, but it was also in part to Moon''s orders.

    She had ordered them to talk to the humans normally and the order from the daughter of Aisha was something that was held seriously by the elves.

    So it didn''t take long for the elves to blend into the town.

    As for Moon, she was on her own.

    It wasn''t that she didn''t blend in with the humans. She was a beautiful elf girl, so it wasn''t hard for her to find humans to be friends with.

    But rather, she was staring at me with a strange look right now.

    It was just this moment that she had this strange look, she had been giving me this strange look over the past few days. It was clear what she wanted from me, which was why I had been avoiding her over the past few days.

    Even now, I avoided her and headed over to the podium where Haley was.

    I used her and the other girls as shields against Moon since when she found out that I was engaged to Haley and married to the other two, she looked quite devastated.

    From then on, she acted very awkwardly around the three of them.

    But that didn''t mean that she gave up.

    She tried catching me alone, but I did my best to avoid her.

    Even now, I was still avoiding her.

    The ceremony was quite short since Haley knew what the people were here for, but she did make a speech that left quite an impression on them.

    But I didn''t remain there to hear it because there was someone that called me away.

    Shaka had just returned with a letter for me.

 Chapter 222 Official Orders

    I left the ceremony after hearing this news and I returned to the manor where Shaka was waiting for me.

    When I came into the room, I saw Shaka sitting there sipping his tea as if there was nothing bothering him.

    This would have been surprising if I wasn''t already familiar with the kind of personality that he had. For him, something like this was normal since he was only serious when he was on the job.

    When he was in his free time, he was someone who rxed and chilled like anyone else.

    Seeing that I hade in, Shaka suddenly put down the tea and revealed a serious look.

    It was an instant change, but that meant that he had entered work mode.

    But that wasn''t a good sign either.

    If he was in work mode here, it meant that he had some kind of official order from Scar¡­

    That was most likely what the letter that he brought back for me was.

    I didn''t say anything and just sat down on the couch on the other side of the table.

    Then I just looked at Shaka as if I was waiting for something from him.

    Shaka didn''t hesitate to take out a letter from his pocket that he put down on the table in between us. He then slid this towards me and waited for me to take it.

    I looked down at the letter with a bitter smile since I could recognize the mark on it.

    It was the official mark of the Shadow Garden organization, so there was no doubt that these were my first official orders from them.

    If I had to guess what these were¡­it was most likely a mission that I was being assigned.

    So with a sigh, I took the letter and opened it up to see what the damage was.

    As I read it, I couldn''t help knitting my brows more and more.

    When I finally finished reading it, I looked up at Shaka and asked, "Is this real?"

    Shaka just calmly nodded in response to this.

    I knitted my brows even more.

    As for the reason why I had my brows knitted¡­it was because the contents of this mission were just too serious. It was at a level where even if I wanted to reject them, I wouldn''t be able to.

    After all, if this mission wasn''t finished, then there was no way that this kingdom would remain safe.

    Since my territory and the people that I loved were all based in this kingdom, if the kingdom fell, there was no doubt that we would all be affected by this.

    But the fact that such an important mission came to me as soon as I joined the organization, even being my very first mission for them, it really brought a bitter look to my face.

    Didn''t they have too much faith in me?

    Or was it that they were just harassing me at this point?

    I really didn''t know which one it was.

    Shaka could see the look on my face, so he said, "You shouldn''t underestimate yourself. You''re much more special than you think."

    I looked at him with a confused look when I heard this.

    In what way was I special?

    I was someone that didn''t have strength or magic in this fantasy world, so it could be said that I was one of the lowest people here. The only thing that I had was my knowledge from when this world was still a game that gave me a bit of an advantagepared to others.

    So there really wasn''t anything that was considered special about me.

    Shaka could see the doubt that was on my face, so he said, "Do you know how many people have even found demons in the entire history of our organization?"

    I raised a brow when I heard this, but I still shook my head in the end.

    "Two, there have only been two cases of demons being found in the entire time that our organization has been founded." Shaka said this with a sigh that had a hint of bitterness in it.

    A surprised look appeared on my face after hearing this.

    I looked at Shaka as if I was trying to figure out if he was joking or not, but it seemed that this wasn''t a joke.

    After being emotional for a bit, Shaka then said, "Now you know how special you are. In just the month that you''ve been with us, you''ve already discovered three groups of demons. It''s almost as if they are just attracted to you and wille find you no matter where you are."

    Three groups?

    That was the one thing that I immediately picked up on.

    Seeing the way that I looked at him, Shaka then said, "Did you forget about the demon worshippers that you took care of before? The one that you took down to save this town?"

    I revealed a look of understanding before looking at Shaka with a strange look.

    I had hidden my involvement in this matter and left everything to Baroness Rose¡­so how did they know about this?

    It seemed that the Shadow Garden organization''s informationwork was much more developed and thorough than I thought¡­

    But since I was also a part of this organization now, I should have ess to this informationwork.

    Maybe I should try and see what I could find about some things that I remembered from the game.

    After all, there was nothing wrong with collecting the powerful items from the game if I was able to.

    They would help increase my survivability in this world.

    But back to the main topic at hand, I turned my attention back to the orders that I had received.

    With a heavy sigh, I said, "Let me talk to Rose about this and then we''ll see when I can head out."

    Shaka gave a simple nod in response to this.

    This was a matter that hadn''t been solved in a long time, so it wasn''t a time sensitive matter, but at the same time, it was important to get this done as soon as possible.

    After all, the people that involved were powerful enough to influence the entire kingdom.

 Chapter 223 New City

    Since it was an order from Shadow Garden, Baroness Rose immediately understood how important it was and that I didn''t have a choice in this matter.

    So she arranged everything so that I was able to set off the next day.

    She had wanted to arrange for some people toe with me, but I refused since I knew that this would be a dangerous trip. I didn''t want to put anyone that I cared about in danger.

    Not to mention, I would be with Shaka and another group that Scar had sent for me that were waiting in the city already.

    With all of these people, it should be enough manpower toplete this mission.

    As we left, Baroness Rose looked at me with a worried look before giving a deep kiss in front of everyone. After we separated, she said, "Come back safe. Not just for me, but as for¡­"

    Her voice trailed off, but the way that she held her stomach made it clear what she was saying.

    Of course, we weren''t certain that there was a baby in the oven yet, but with how much we had done it over the past few days, I wouldn''t have been surprised if there was one.

    I patted her on the head and said, "I''ll be back soon."

    Though it did look awkward with the height difference¡­

    Still, the people around were moved by this disy.

    Moon and a few elves had alsoe to see us off and judging by the look on their faces, it almost seemed like they wanted to follow me. But in the end, I was able to convince them to stay since there was no way that I could bring them along to this mission.

    Though Moon still had that strange way of looking at me¡­

    It would be a lie to say that I wasn''t d to have an excuse to get away from her for a few days, or maybe even a month depending on how the mission went.

    After our goodbyes, we headed off in the carriage that Baroness Rose had prepared for us.

    On the surface, this was a courtesy trip paid by a noble, but in reality it was an investigation for the Shadow Garden.

    Of course, it was useful to have this cover as a noble paying a courtesy trip since it would allow them much more freedom than if they were here to investigate as agents.

    As for our destination, we were heading to Bright Water City.

    This was one of the major port cities of the kingdom and as such, the city lord of this city was someone that was very important.

    The one who was in charge of this important city was a duke.

    It was the ducal family of Beauchamp, one of the founding families of the kingdom.

    They were the target of the investigation this time.

    That was why this was a very important and critical mission that had to bepleted in a timely manner.

    After all, the influence that a ducal family had on the kingdom was very clear.

    If such a family was under the influence of the demons or if such a family was a family of demon worshippers, there was no doubt that it would be disastrous for the kingdom.

    That was why I had no choice but to ept this mission even if I knew that it was dangerous.

    During the trip, I tried to dig up as much information as I could about this ducal family from my memories of the game.

    Bright Water City was one of the main cities in the game and was an important location that had many different quests, but¡­the quests had never involved the ducal family. Or even if they did, it was just a small piece of lore that mentioned the ducal family.

    Such as themmissioning a survey of a localke or them sponsoring adventurers to hunt down some monsters.

    There was never a quest that had directly involved the ducal family.

    At the same time, there wasn''t much lore about the Beauchamp Family in the first ce.

    Only after bing a high ranked noble would one be able to contact them in the first ce. Even the rank of count normally wasn''t enough to contact them.

    So it could be said that material rted to the Beauchamp Family was consideredte game material.

    Generally by that point, the story had settled and there wasn''t much for the Beauchamp Family to do.

    At most, they woulde to your coronation when you took over as the king by saving the princess¡­

    So there was just no information for me to work with¡­

    As for the quests in Bright Water City, there had never been one that had been rted to the demons.

    Most of the quests in Bright Water City were either early game quests or quests that required the yer to go to other cities.

    Bright Water City was a port town, so it was a ce where many rumours gathered from different ces. That led yers to take ships to different cities and towns to solve local problems.

    There weren''t really any important quests that were based in Bright Water City.

    So in the end, the only conclusion that I was able to draw was that¡­I was screwed.

    I had no information about this ce and I had no idea where I was even supposed to start to get information.

    Without prior knowledge, I would have to depend on pure luck to find the demons that they wanted me to find.

    And the fact that I was given this mission in the first ce showed that I had no good luck to speak of.

    So if I wasn''t screwed, there was no other way to put it.

    With this heavy heart, we traveled for a week until we finally came into view of Bright Water City.

    Seeing this beautiful city, I really couldn''t get in the mood to enjoy the scenery since I knew that this was going to be the ce of my biggest failure yet.

 Chapter 224 Strange Welcome

    When our group arrived at the gates of the city, I was surprised by how quickly we were let in.

    It wasn''t that there was a short line or the queue moved fast, it was that there was a guard that came forward that brought us to another gate that had no one around.

    When I asked what this was, the guard told me that this gate had been specially set aside for our arrival.

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this.

    An entire gate for a busy city like this was booked and people were kept away for an entire day, there was no doubt that this would have arge impact on the city.

    This might make sense if it was done for a king or another noble that was in a high position, but why would they do it for someone like me?

    I looked at Shaka and he shook his head to show that he didn''t have a clue either.

    It seemed that there was something happening in this Bright Water City that we weren''t aware of¡­

    Would this get in the way of our mission or would it help us?

    I wasn''t certain, but at the very least we were allowed to enter the city quickly.

    But at the same time, there was a guard at the gate that stopped us.

    The guards quickly did a check on our carriage, but it seemed more like a formality than actually checking the carriage. They did nothing more than nce over the carriage itself before letting us in.

    But then there was the guard there that stopped us.

    This guard quickly identified himself as a messenger and brought us a message that surprised us.

    "The duke wishes to meet Baron Zwein. He requests that youe to his manor for a meeting right away."

    I couldn''t help revealing a strange and confused look when I heard this.

    As I looked at Shaka, I could see that he also had a confused look on his face.

    It seemed that even with the intelligencework of the Shadow Garden, he didn''t have a single clue what the duke was up to.

    But this was the duke that we were talking about and I was here on a courtesy call, so there was no choice but to follow this messenger.

    We were led through the main streets of the city until we reached the center.

    Based on the changes to the buildings around us, it was clear that this was the high end district. This was the noble district where the nobles of this city lived and where the most influential merchants opened their stores.

    This ce was filled with people that couldn''t be offended that easily.

    However, they all parted when they saw the messenger that was with us.

    Since they had been dressed in the normal outfit of a guard, we had assumed that this person was just a normal guard. But judging by the way that all of the people around us looked at him, it was clear that he wasn''t just a normal guard.

    I looked at Shaka, but once again he shook his head to show that he didn''t know anything.

    At this, I couldn''t help revealing a look of disdain, as if I was asking what he was good for if he didn''t know anything.

    Shaka just revealed a bitter smile when he saw this, but he didn''t say a thing since there was nothing that he could say.

    With the path created for us, it took us no time to reach arge and luxurious looking manor.

    It was clear that this manor was the residence of a powerful noble with just a single nce.

    Even the guards that were standing outside had shiny new weapons that helped illustrate just how powerful they were.

    Unless one was a fool, they wouldn''t dare charge a manor like this.

    But when we arrived, the guards on the sides of the gate bowed to us.

    Once again, Shaka and I couldn''t help being confused why the guards were acting this way.

    No matter how one looked at it, they should have been at a higher status than me.

    After all, I was nothing more than a simple baron and they were guards for a duke.

    If I did anything to them, there was no doubt that I would be destroyed by the baron. But if they did anything to me, I would have no choice but to suck it up to avoid offending the duke identally.

    So there was no reason for them to be this respectful to me.

    Normally, in this kind of situation, the guards would be looking down on me¡­

    After we went through the gates, we found that there was a group of servants that were waiting for us.

    These servants included several beautiful maids and one old looking butler who was clearly a senior servant of the ducal manor.

    But just like before, all of them bowed to me respectfully when I came out of the carriage.

    The butler even treated me with so much respect that one would think that I was his master instead of the duke¡­

    What was happening here?

    This just didn''t make any sense at all¡­

    We were led into the manor by this group of servants and then brought to a room that was very luxuriously decorated.

    Judging by theyout of this room, this should be a room that the duke used to receive important guests of his.

    So why would they bring me here?

    Could it be that they were all working together to shame me or was there something deeper going on?

    I just sat there with a confused look while Shaka raised his guard and started checking the area just in case there were any traps around us. But he wasn''t able to find anything in the end.

    He had suspected that the demons hadid their hands on the duke and that this was all a trap, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    So just what was happening here?

 Chapter 225 Dukeâ€™s Warm Welcome

    Not long after we arrived in the room, the door opened and there was someone who was dressed in expensive clothing that walked in.

    This person had an aura that just exudes power.

    No matter how one looked at it, it was clear that this person was the duke.

    When the duke came in, I immediately stood up to greet him, but I was stopped by the duke.

    The duke waved his hand and said, "Don''t mind it, don''t mind it. Just sit down and let''s have a talk."

    On his face was a friendly smile, almost as if he was talking to an old friend.

    But that was strange since I didn''t know the duke at all.

    As far as I could remember, I had never met the duke in my life. So why was this person who I had never met before treating me like this?

    I couldn''t help bing more and more suspicious and tried looking around to see if anything would suddenly appear.

    But nothing happened in the end as the duke came over to where I was sitting and sat down on the couch opposite of me.

    Seeing that I was just standing there in a daze, the duke didn''t mind as he said with a smile, "There''s no need for this kind of courtesy, you can just sit down and talk to me normally."

    My lips twitched when I heard this, but I still sat down in front of the duke as he instructed.

    After sitting down, there was a silence that filled the room.

    After all, I had no idea what was going on, so I had no idea what to say to the duke.

    I looked at him to try to figure out any clues that I could from his expression, but he was like a stone wall. I wasn''t able to figure out a single thing from just the expression on his face.

    After that long silence, the duke finally said, "So you are Baron Zwein. I have long heard of your fame, but it really is something else to meet you in person. It seems that you are just as young as they say, but I won''t hold that against you. I know that eventually, the younger generation will take over when the older generation can''t keep going, so I hope that you will carry on our legacy and continue to protect the kingdom."

    All while saying this, he had a smile on his face as if he was a senior looking at a junior.

    But once again, that surprised me since I was certain that I didn''t have this kind of rtionship with the duke.

    Still, since the duke said all this, I had to say something, "Your grace, thank you for your kind words, but I''m undeserving of them. I have long admired your grace and everything that you have done for the kingdom. Someone like me would never be able to match the achievements of your grace."

    The duke gave an appreciative nod when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything else in return.

    Just like this, there was another silence that settled in this room.

    Eventually, I couldn''t take it anymore and said, "I would like to offer your grace my greatest admiration for the warm wee that you have shown me."

    Though it could be considered sincere gratitude, there was a hint of a question in my voice.

    After all, it didn''t make sense that the duke treated me like this.

    The duke just had that same warm smile on his face as he said, "As soon as I heard that it was Baron Zwein who wanted to visit, I immediately knew that I had to properly roll out the red carpet. I had long heard of your fame, but I never had the chance to meet you."

    Hearing this, I was even more confused about all of this.

    Heard of me?

    From who?

    I was someone that waspletely unknown and had no achievements at all, other than inheriting a title because I had married someone with one.

    Someone like me should have been considered trash in the eyes of most people.

    But this duke was treating me like I was an honoured guest¡­

    After a twitch of my lips, I said, "Your grace, yourpliments are just too much. I am unworthy of them."

    The duke''s expression didn''t change as that same warm smile remained on his face.

    Finally, after another pause, the duke said, "I would like to wee you today with a banquet, but unfortunately, things haven''t been prepared yet."

    I let out a secret sigh of relief when I heard this since this seemed more normal.

    I was just a baron and he was a duke, so being sent away with an excuse like this was nothing strange.

    It meant that I had at least gotten over the strange situation that I had found myself in and I shouldn''t be in any more danger with the duke.

    But then¡­the duke said, "So how about youe back tomorrow when I have had time to prepare a proper feast? How about you have dinner with my family tomorrow night?"

    My chin dropped when I heard this.

    The esteemed duke was inviting me to a private dinner with his family?

    This was far beyond the treatment that a normal baron should receive from a duke.

    One was at the very top of the noble hierarchy while the other one was at the very bottom¡­

    They shouldn''t be dining at the same table at all.

    But since this was an invitation from the duke, as a baron, I couldn''t refuse.

    So in the end, I had no choice but to ept.

    The duke gave a p before saying with a happy smile, "Very good. I''ll prepare everything, so you can just show up when the timees. I have already prepared an inn for you to stay in, so I''ll have one of my men take you there. I hope that you will have a good rest tonight."

    I just gave a defeated nod without saying a thing before following the butler out again.

    I had no idea just what the duke was thinking and I had no idea why the duke was acting this way. No matter how I thought about it, all I hit was a nk on what this treatment was.

    So I decided to throw it out of my head and think about itter.

    Once we had walked out of the room, the smile on the duke''s face suddenly disappeared and it was reced with a stern look.

    The duke just sat there on the couch with knitted brows as if he was thinking about something. The longer that he sat on this couch, the more his brows seemed to knit.

    Until he finally couldn''t take it anymore and stood up to walk out of this room as well.

    The duke walked through the halls of the manor until he came to a certain room.

    Before going in, the duke knocked on the door first.

    Only when he heard the voice calling from inside did he push open the door and walk in.

    But the moment that he did, there was a pile of papers that fell down on him.

 Chapter 226 Dukeâ€™s Daughter

    The duke wasn''t that young, but he wasn''t that old either.

    He easily dodged out of the way of the falling papers before shaking his head with a bitter smile.

    He looked at the girl who was lying in the center of the room, surrounded by stacks of papers before shaking his head. With a sigh, he said, "Darling, you can''t keep doing things like this. You know you should at least get the maid to clean up for you."

    The girl who was lying there in the center of the room quickly shook her head and said, "If they tidy up, they''ll just mess everything up. I already have everything in the ce that I want it to be and if anyone touches them, I won''t be able to get anything done."

    The duke gave a sigh when he heard this and he shook his head, but he didn''t keep reprimanding the girl.

    Instead, he just looked at the stacks of papers that were closest to her, as if he was trying to figure out what she was working on.

    When he looked at it closely, he found that these were reports on supposed demon activity in the area around Bright Water City.

    When he saw this, he couldn''t help revealing a slightly confused expression since he didn''t understand why she was investigating this.

    Still, he just epted it in the end and didn''t question what the girl was doing.

    Instead, he came over and asked, "Why did you have me go to all that trouble to wee that Baron Zwein? It''s clear that he''s nothing more than a simple lower noble that''s just trying to tter our ducal family."

    The girl ignored all of this as she asked, "What was he like?"

    The duke shook his head before saying, "You really need to stop being lost in your own little world. Do you know how much loss you''ve caused our family?"

    The girl didn''t seem to register this question as she was just lost in her own little world.

    The duke shook his head again before saying, "Closing one of the gates to the city, that''s caused countless losses since it''s caused dys at all the other gates. Not to mention sending Tim to receive them, this has caused dys in all of our businesses. Then there''s¡­"

    The duke continued to list off all the losses that they had suffered because of the whim of this girl, but the girl still didn''t seem to care at all.

    In the end, the duke could only give an exasperated sigh before asking, "Why did you want me to do all of this?"

    The girl suddenly took a piece of paper from a nearby stack that she handed to the duke.

    The duke took it with a confused look on his face, but he still carefully read this piece of paper.

    He found that it was a report from nday City.

    But all that did was cause a confused look to appear on his face.

    He raised this piece of paper as he looked at the girl and asked, "What''s so special about this? It''s just a regr report about what happened there."

    The girl raised her hand and suddenly wagged her finger.

    Then she said, "Look more closely at the descriptions of the people involved. I''m sure that there''s something that will catch your eyes."

    The duke revealed an even more confused look, but he still carefully read the report.

    He wasn''t able to find a single thing at first¡­but then there was indeed something that had caught his eyes. He looked carefully at it and he realized that there was something that was familiar about this.

    A man with a special scar¡­

    Could it be that it was that person?

    But why would that person be in a ce like ndal City?

    Not to mention, why would he be meeting someone like this Baron Zwein?

    That person was rted to the most dangerous organization in this entire kingdom and he was meeting an upstart?

    The duke immediately looked at the girl and she just gave a nod in response before saying, "That''s right, it''s the Shadow Garden."

    The duke knitted his brows even more when he heard this, but then he quickly said, "Even if he met that person, that doesn''t mean that he''s rted to them. He''s nothing more than an upstart, he''s not worth this kind of treatment."

    Once again, the girl raised her hand and wagged her finger.

    She then said, "Didn''t you see the one that he came with? Even if had his face hidden, you should have seen his sword."

    "Sword?" The duke couldn''t help repeating.

    The girl gave a nod before saying, "That''s right. There should have been a special symbol on that sword¡­"

    She let her voice trail off as she waited for the duke to finish gathering his thoughts.

    The duke thought about it for a bit, but he couldn''t think of anything at first.

    After all, he had assumed that person was just a guard and he didn''t pay much attention to him.

    But eventually, he was able to remember it.

    There was a symbol on that sword and it had left an impression on him since he had thought that it was a strange symbol.

    The more he thought about it, the more he started recognizing the symbol until finally¡­

    "Ah! It''s that symbol!" The duke suddenly said.

    Then his eyes opened wide as he looked at the girl and said, "Then that means¡­that person was¡­"

    He didn''t finish his words, but the meaning behind them was clear.

    The girl just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    At that, the duke couldn''t help revealing a very dire look.

    That symbol¡­it was the representation of a certain man who was known as the demon hunter on the borders of the kingdom. It had been said that this man had disappeared and had started working for the Shadow Garden organization¡­but he had thought they were rumours.

    If that was the case, then this Baron Zwein really was¡­

    At this, the duke revealed an even more serious look as he looked at the girl.

    Seeing this look on his face, the girl revealed a smile and said, "You see how important it is now? We have to make sure that we leave a good impression on this Baron Zwein or else our family will¡­"

    Once again, she didn''t finish her words, but the meaning was very well implied.

    The duke opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but no words came out. In the end, he just closed his mouth and gave a simple nod in response.

    Seeing this, the girl didn''t mind this and turned back to the stacks of papers that surrounded her.

    She once again entered her own world,pletely ignoring the duke standing there.

    However, the duke didn''t mind at all.

    The duke just silently watched this girl lying there amongst the papers with aplicated look, but that look soon turned into a loving one.

    He knew that he should listen to this girl because she was special¡­this daughter of his had shown a very high intelligence since she was young and she had saved him many times from danger.

    This time wasn''t an exception.

    So he decided that he would follow her n and prepare the dinner for that Baron Zwein.

    But as he was about to leave, he suddenly thought of something.

    The duke turned back to ask that girl, "Will you being to dinner tomorrow night?"

    The girl suddenly turned to look at the duke and this time, she seemed to hesitate.

    In the end though, she still gave a simple nod.

 Chapter 227 Exploring The City

    When we arrived at the inn that had been prepared for us, we couldn''t help being surprised.

    Because it was clear by the decorations of this inn that this was an inn that catered to nobles. However, this inn didn''t just cater to any nobles, this inn clearly catered to high ranking nobles.

    Someone at my level of nobility shouldn''t be living in a ce like this.

    But this was the inn that the messenger had brought us to.

    When I asked about this, the messenger said, "The duke has already taken the time to help you book a room here and has set up everything. He has also indicated that he would pay for your stay, so there''s no need for your lordship to worry about anything while you''re here."

    Though this sounded like it was disdain, it was said with perfect respect, so there was nothing to nitpick about this.

    No matter how one looked at it, it seemed like the duke was showing him absolute respect.

    But why?

    As I was trying to figure this out, the messenger suddenly gave a bow and asked, "If there''s anything else that you need, please don''t hesitate to contact me. His grace has instructed me to take care of all your needs while you''re here."

    The strange look on my face became even more strange when I heard this.

    I just looked at this messenger for a bit before shaking my head and saying, "No, I don''t need anything, thank you. If I do need anything, I''ll be sure to contact you."

    Hearing this, the messenger gave another bow before saying, "Then I''ll leave you to your rest, your lordship."

    At this, the messenger turned to leave without another word.

    However, this wasn''t the disdainful way of leaving since he had made sure that I was fine before leaving. He was sincerely letting me get my rest after what should have been a long day of journeying.

    But once again, why was he treating me like this?

    As well, why was the duke giving me this kind of treatment?

    To make it worse, there were plenty of eyes that were on me now.

    Since we were in the main hall of an inn for nobles, there were plenty of said nobles that were standing around us that were currently looking in our direction. These nobles were people of power in this city and naturally they recognized the messenger that had been with us.

    Seeing the respectful way that the messenger had treated us, it was clear to them that the duke treated us in a special way.

    So they all wanted to see if they could create rtions with us.

    But that would just ruin our n if we attracted too much attention like this¡­

    So the first thought that I had was¡­escape!

    I had to escape from this ce and find a ce where I could gather my thoughts.

    When I looked over at Shaka, I found that he had the same thought as me with the way that he looked at me.

    With a nod from both of us, we left our things to the attendants and escaped the inn.

    Since this was an inn that catered to nobles, the security was without a doubt better than anywhere else. We wouldn''t need to worry about the attendants stealing from us even if we left our things to them.

    Just like this, we quickly escaped from the hotel and started wandering the streets.

    But the ce that we were currently in was the noble district near the center.

    This ce was filled with people of status, power, and wealth, so it really was hard for us to rx in a ce like this.

    Hiring one of the guides waiting for someone to pass, we had them lead us to the middle part of the city where themoners were.

    Thankfully, we also received a good rmendation from this guide which brought us to a nice cafe that we were finally able to rx in.

    This cafe was in an alley, so there weren''t as many people here which was just what we wanted.

    When we finally received our coffees and sandwiches, we let out a sigh of relief at being left alone.

    Both Shaka and I were exhausted by everything that had happened.

    Clearly neither of us had expected what had happened to happen, so we were both caught off guard by this sudden change. It was hard for our brains to process this unless we had some time to think about it.

    After taking some time to just sip our coffees and sit there in peace, we were finally ready to talk about what had happened.

    But before we could talk, the door suddenly opened.

    There was a young girl that burst into the cafe and when she did, she said, "Boss, I want my usual!"

    The owner of the cafe behind the bar revealed a smile and shook his head before saying, "Take your seat and I''ll bring it to you in a bit."

    The girl gave a nod before saying with a wide smile, "You''re the best boss!"

    As soon as this girl came into the cafe, the entire mood of the cafe changed.

    There weren''t many people here in the first ce and they had been minding their own business, but the moment that this girl burst into the cafe, they all revealed wide smiles as they looked in her direction.

    As she walked through, heading to her seat, there were many people who even called out to her to engage her.

    The girl happily chatted with everyone that called out to her and soon the entire cafe was filled with chatter.

    They hadn''t talked to each other before, but after talking to the girl, the various customers also started talking amongst themselves.

    The girl made her way over to her seat, which to our surprise was right beside us.

    But as she passed our booth, she suddenly turned to look at us and said, "Huh? I''ve never seen you guys here before? Are you new?"

 Chapter 228 Ray Of Sunshine (1)

    After calling us out like this, the others also turned to look at us and we became the center of attention in this cafe.

    Since everyone was looking at us, I had no choice but to say something.

    "We just arrived in the city today and the guide showed us to this hidden spot. I have to say that it really is a nice ce." I said with a wide smile on my face.

    When the girl heard this, she revealed a wide smile as well that was like a dazzling beam of light. Then she said with the same smile, "I know, I know! This ce is the best and I''ve been telling the master to expand his store, but he never listens to me. If he made this ce bigger, there is no doubt that there will be more people thate!"

    At this, the owner of the store came over with a cup of coffee and a te of sandwiches which he put on the girl''s head. Then he said, "Stop bothering our new customers and take your seat. I''ve got your stuff right here."

    The girl puffed her cheeks out after hearing this and said, "I''m not bothering them!"

    She turned to us and asked, "Am I bothering you?"

    I just revealed an awkward smile before shaking my head and saying, "She''s just saying hello, she''s not bothering us."

    The girl revealed that bright smile once more after hearing this.

    But the owner of the store wasn''t fooled as he said, "You don''t have to y along with her, I know that she likes to bother new people."

    The girl stuck her tongue out at the owner when she heard this.

    But I could see the way that the owner looked at the girl.

    It was like he was looking at his own daughter.

    It was clear that this owner cared about the girl, so what he was doing was actually protecting her from us. After all, we were unknown people that hade to this cafe for the first time, so they had no idea what we were capable of.

    But it was clear that this girl wasn''t nning on giving up¡­

    At the same time, I couldn''t help finding her interesting.

    So I took a deep breath before saying with a sincere smile, "Thank you for your concern, but she really isn''t bothering us."

    When the two of them saw this smile, they couldn''t help being taken aback.

    After all, it was an understatement to call this body that I had received after reincarnating ''beautiful''. This was the body of the main character of the game, the one that was able to gather all those girls in his harem.

    So it was better to say that it was drop dead gorgeous.

    Now that I was smiling at them like this, it made me seem even more beautiful.

    So beautiful that itpletely knocked their breaths away.

    The two of them just stared at me in silence for a bit before both of them gave coughs to hide their awkwardness at being dazed like that.

    The owner was the first to speak as he said, "Oh, alright. I''m d that she''s not bothering you."

    But then the girl said, "Master, leave those dishes here. I want to sit with them."

    Both the master and I were caught off guard when this girl suddenly made this decision.

    Both of us looked at her with confused looks, but she just had the same happy and bright smile on her face. The way that she looked almost made it seem like she didn''t think that this was her problem at all, even though she was the one that was causing the problem.

    Seeing that neither of us said a thing, she turned to me and asked, "Am I being a bother?"

    As she said this, she pouted her lips and looked at me with puppy dog eyes.

    Though the slight glint to her eyes didn''t escape my gaze¡­I knew that she was just using this disy to trick me, to stir up my emotions.

    I could also see the helpless look on the owner''s face, making it clear that he knew what she was doing, but he couldn''t do anything either.

    So in the end, I gave a sigh and said, "No, you can sit with us."

    Revealing a happy and bright smile, the girl said to the owner, "See, they''re not bothered by me at all!"

    The owner gave a sigh before tapping her head again with the te of sandwiches again. Then he put them both on the table before giving me an apologetic look.

    I couldn''t help feeling strange when I saw this, almost wondering what I had gotten myself into with this, but the girl had already sat down.

    She sat down right beside me, not caring about how close we were because of the limited space of the booth.

    After sitting down, she first took a sip of her coffee before digging into her sandwich. She didn''t show any hesitation at all as she bit right into the sandwich and she chewed with her mouth wide open, as if she didn''t care about being seen at all.

    The way that she ate¡­really was quite boisterous,pletely unlike her appearance.

    Since she had sat down beside me, I was able to get a closer look at her.

    This girl was without a doubt considered a beauty with her long tied back ck hair, her clear sharp eyes, her fine sculpted nose, her fair skin, and that beautiful bright smile that created two dimples to appear on her cheeks.

    She was the perfect example of a girl next door and the sses that she wore gave her a bit of a schrly vibe.

    There was no doubt that this girl would be considered attractive to many men.

    Even I couldn''t help being a bit lost in her beauty as I stared at her.

    But then she suddenly turned around to look at me and asked, "So, where do youe from?"

 Chapter 229 Ray Of Sunshine (2)

    When I heard this question, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    This was the question that I had wanted to avoid the most, but this girl had asked it right away.

    Still, I couldn''t just say nothing, so I fixed the smile on my face and said, "Wee from a far away ce that''s very remote, so it''s not worth mentioning."

    The girl looked at me for a bit before suddenly asking, "So where is it? How afar away is it? What is it called?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I was bombarded by these questions since normally, people would just leave things like this. But this girl was different where she didn''t let up at all and kept asking me more questions.

    So I just said, "It''s not a well known ce, so I don''t think you''ll know it even if I told you."

    The girl didn''t give up as she said, "Well you''ll never know if you don''t tell me."

    The sides of my lips started to twitch when I heard this.

    It seemed that this girl really didn''t know how to take a hint and didn''t know to stop asking questions.

    But what Zwein didn''t know was that she was doing it on purpose.

    Still in the end, I said, "We were forced to leave because of extenuating circumstances, so there would be nothing to gain from telling you the name and the location."

    Seeing the look on his face, the girl finally knew that she had gone too far, so she stopped asking questions.

    Instead, she said, "Alright, then what are you doing in this city?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile again when I heard her say this, but this time I didn''t fall into her tempo and let her lead me on.

    Instead, I said, "Don''t you know that you have to answer a question before asking a question? Shouldn''t you let me ask a question first before asking another question?"

    The girl tilted her head as if she was thinking about it, but then she gave a nod and said, "Alright, what questions do you have for me? If I can answer them, I''ll answer them."

    I was surprised that she would actually agree to this.

    In truth, I was trying to use this excuse as a way to stop her from asking more questions and to get her to leave us alone, but since she agreed to this¡­there was no reason not to take her up on this offer.

    With how outgoing she seemed, she should know a fair bit about the city and the happenings in the city.

    But before that¡­it was better to earn her trust.

    So I asked, "What is your name?"

    The girl looked at me with a confused look as if she couldn''t understand that question since this was thest question that she had expected.

    Seeing this look on her face, I knew that what I had suspected was true.

    So I said, "We can''t just keep talking without even knowing each other''s names, right? At the very least, we should know how to address each other."

    The girl thought about it before giving a nod and then saying, "My name''s Ronnie. There''s nothing fancy about it, so you can just call me Ronnie."

    "Ronnie?" I repeated in a slightly confused voice.

    Hearing this, the girl narrowed her eyes to look at me before saying, "What''s wrong? Do you think that my name is strange?"

    I hesitated for a second before giving an honest nod and saying, "I can''t say that it''s amon name that I''ve heard before. Or at least, it''s not amon name that I''ve heard for a girl before, especially one as beautiful as you."

    The girl still looked at me with those narrowed eyes, not being fazed by thepliment that I had slid in there at all.

    After looking at me for a bit, she suddenly gave a shrug and said, "That''s right, it''s not amon name at all." Then she suddenly asked, "That''s right, what''s your name?"

    I had been caught off guard by this, so I just answered in a daze, "Zwein, my name is Zwein."

    After hearing this, she muttered to herself, "Your name is Zwein and you''re calling my name strange. That really is like the pot calling the kettle ck."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this, but there was something else that caught my attention instead.

    It was as if she hadpletely forgotten about how she had seemed offended just now as she suddenly agreed with me.

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard by this sudden change in her attitude, but I didn''t have time to process this as she suddenly asked another question.

    "What are you doing in this city? Why did youe here?" This was the same question that she had asked before, but there was a bit extra tacked onto the end this time.

    I thought about it before saying, "We have some business to take care of in this city, but it''s private matters so I can''t really tell you what we''re here for. I hope that you will not mind this."

    As I said this, I even gave a slight bow to show how apologetic I was.

    Ronnie looked at me with narrowed eyes for a bit before waving her hand and saying, "Alright, since it''s private, I understand."

    For a moment there, I had thought that she would ignore this and keep asking questions, but it seemed like that fear was unfounded¡­

    No, it wasn''tpletely unfounded.

    I had seen the look in her eyes that almost seemed like she was still about to ask something, but then she had caught herself at thest moment as if she had thought of something.

    It seemed like there was something that had stopped her at thest second which I was grateful for.

    So after giving a secret sigh of relief, I asked, "Has there been anything special going on in the citytely?"

    That was what I wanted to find out from her.

    She was someone who was outgoing and friendly with the people of the city, so there was no doubt that she would have heard some rumours from her.

    Our task was to investigate traces of the demons in this city, so I had to find those traces in the first ce.

    Who better for that than a local of the city?

    If I could get some information about the city, especially the interesting things that had happened in it, then there was no doubt that it would help me greatly with my investigation.

    So even if I wasn''t certain if I would get anything useful, I still took my chance and bit the bullet to ask this.

    Ronnie tilted her head to think about it and she muttered, "Well, there''s nothing really that special that I can think of."

    When I heard this, I revealed a trace of disappointment in my eyes.

    But then she said, "If you want something special, I can think of a few things that I''ve heard from the others."

 Chapter 230 Ray Of Sunshine (3)

    "Oh?" I couldn''t help letting this expression out after hearing this.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help feeling a bit excited since this might just be the clue that I needed for my investigation.

    Ronnie could see the interested look that I had, so she leaned in closer and said with a smile, "I''ve heard some very interesting things, so which ones do you want to know about?"

    I was surprised that she would suddenlye in closer, letting me get a closer view of her beauty.

    When she was close to me like this, I really couldn''t help being taken aback by the beauty that she had.

    Those crystal clear eyes that I hadn''t been able to look at directly before were now sparkling like the stars in front of me. There was even a glisten to her cherry red lips that really made one want to see just how they tasted.

    But I held myself back and said, "Well, I definitely want to hear the most interesting one."

    Ronnie gave a chuckle when she heard this and then she revealed what seemed to be a naughty smile, which just made her seem even more beautiful.

    Then she said in a lowered voice, "You didn''t hear this from me, but a little birdy has been saying that the fishmonger''s wife has been going out quite a bittely. ording to that little birdy, it seems like she has been heading to the butcher''s ce almost every other night¡­if you know what I''m saying."

    After she said this, the naughty smile on her face became even wider.

    As for me, my chin just dropped down after I heard this, but it wasn''t for the reason that you would think.

    It wasn''t because I had beenpletely shocked by this news since I didn''t even know who these people were.

    Rather, I had been shocked that this was the most interesting thing that she knew¡­

    It seemed that I had gotten my hopes up and in the end, I was disappointed.

    It seemed that I had been expecting too much out of this girl who was just amoner, the most interesting things that she had heard were just some rumours about the people of the city.

    There was no chance that she would actually have any useful information on the demons.

    With a sigh, I said, "It isn''t nice to gossip about people like that."

    Ronnie pouted her lips and said, "You''re the one that asked in the first ce and you''re judging me!"

    I revealed a bitter smile before saying, "You know that''s not what I meant."

    Ronnie tilted her head to look at me before saying, "You''re the one that told me to tell you something interesting and this is the most interesting thing that I know."

    I shook my head with that same bitter smile on my face before saying, "Well, is there anything else interesting that you know?"

    After hearing this, Ronnie revealed the same naughty smile as before and she began telling me the different rumours about this city.

    All of the rumours that she told me involved the people of the city in some way, but they were all gossip about their daily lives.

    Such as someone gossiping about people behind their backs, someone telling someone else fake information, or other small and petty things that didn''t matter.

    With the way that she kept telling me all of this, it seemed that she was quite the talented gossiper¡­

    She even seemed like she was on the same level as those olddies in my past life¡­

    But that wasn''t what I wanted to hear and I was getting dizzy from her chattering in my ear like this.

    So I said in the end, "Thank you for telling me all of this, but I have to go now since it''s getting dark."

    It really was getting dark outside since I had been trapped in here all afternoon listening to Ronnie''s gossip.

    Ronnie revealed a disappointed look, but she also had a look of understanding on her face since she could see how dark it was outside.

    But before we could leave, Ronnie suddenly asked, "Will we see each other again?"

    I suddenly stopped moving and turned around to look at her, seeing a strange look on her face which made me surprised.

    But there was a part of me that didn''t want to crush this strange look, so I just simply replied, "If we''re fated to meet, we will meet again."

    Then without waiting for a response from her, I turned to leave.

    At least this would be better than just leaving her with fake promises.

    Even after they had left, Ronnie just sat there staring at the entrance to the cafe in a daze.

    That was until the owner of the cafe came over and asked, "Young miss, are you alright?"

    That snapped Ronnie out of her daze and she narrowed her eyes to reveal a serious look. She looked at the owner of the cafe and asked, "Do you have any information on those two?"

    The owner of the cafe shook his head and said, "Young miss, they were first time customers that just came in this afternoon. If you want, I can take the time to get information on them."

    After a moment of silence, Ronnie shook her head and said, "No, there''s no need for that."

    Then her expression became dead serious as she said, "What information do you have for me today?"

    The owner of the cafe also revealed a serious look before heading back to the counter to bring over a packet of papers for her.

    He ced them in front of her before falling to one knee and saying, "This is the information from the outskirts of the city this afternoon. There''s a few strange things that we''ve noted that we need your help with."

    Ronnie looked up onest time at the door before giving a sigh and picking up the top piece of paper on this pile.

    As she looked at it, she muttered to herself, "If we''re fated, huh?"

 Chapter 231 Dinner With The Duke (1)

    After going back to the inn, we didn''t do anything except lock ourselves in our room.

    The rumours from the afternoon had spread and now everyone looked at us differently.

    When we walked into the inn, it was almost as if we were a disy in the zoo and everyone was staring at us.

    This was a very ufortable thing, so we didn''t hesitate to lock ourselves in our rooms and hide ourselves.

    For now, there wasn''t anything that we could really do.

    Until the dinner with the duke was settled, we really couldn''t be wandering around the city too much or it would draw too much attention from the duke. So once we lost the duke''s attention, we would be able to start our investigation.

    The next morning and afternoon were also spent inside of our rooms, avoiding the spectacle that was outside.

    When it was finally time for the dinner date, the same messenger as before came to pick us up.

    There were many different nobles that had been waiting in the main entrance of the inn during this time. It seemed that they had all gathered to take a peek at us.

    When we came out with the messenger, many of them had their eyes light up as they looked in our direction.

    It looked like they wanted to approach and talk to us, but it also seemed like they were afraid of something.

    The direction that they were looking in was¡­the direction of the messenger.

    The messenger was facing away from us since he was in front of us leading the way, so I couldn''t see his face either. But I could guess what kind of expression was on his face that kept away all of these nobles.

    When we came out of the inn, we found that there was a luxurious carriage that was waiting for us outside.

    This carriage looked too fancy for a baron to use, it was even too fancy for a count to use.

    This seemed very much like the personal carriage of a duke.

    But why would it be here?

    Why was it being used to pick up a lowly baron like me?

    Based on the reaction of everyone around me, it seemed like they were all thinking the same thing. There were even some whispers that I could hear from the crowd.

    "Isn''t that the lord duke''s personal carriage?"

    "Who is this person that the lord duke is willing to send his personal carriage to pick him up?"

    "Could it be that they are royalty?"

    At this, everyone started looking at me with even more fervent looks which caused a bitter smile to appear on my face.

    If only they knew the truth. If only they knew that I was nothing more than a simple baron from a remote region¡­

    I really couldn''t help wondering how they would react if they were to learn this truth¡­

    But still, I couldn''t embarrass the duke by saying anything or refusing to take this carriage.

    So it was better to get this over as soon as possible.

    I immediately entered the carriage with Shaka and sat down. The messenger came in and sat down in front of us, but he didn''t say a thing as he looked at me with a polite smile.

    It was almost as if he was just waiting to serve me if I had any kind of request.

    It really was an awkward carriage ride, so I couldn''t help asking, "This sir, I wonder what I should address you as?"

    The first thing that I realized was that I didn''t know this person''s name even though I had met him quite a few times.

    The messenger just gave a respectful bow and said, "This humble one''s name is Tim."

    I gave a nod to this before suddenly asking, "Why is the lord duke treating me with such respect?"

    Tim peeked upwards to see the look of doubt on my face before saying, "Your lordship, the duke is just extending his honest hospitality towards you because he has long heard of your fame and has expressed his admiration towards you. It is nothing more than that."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this.

    It seemed very simple on the surface, but it also seemed like there was a hidden message underneath.

    It was as if they already knew something, something that was rted to why we were really here.

    So did that mean that they were acting this way because they were afraid that they would be discovered, or were they acting this way because they wanted to secretly support us?

    Was this going to be a trap or was it something else?

    These thoughts quickly passed through my mind, but Shaka tapped me on the shoulder for me to calm down.

    When he did, I realized that there was no point stressing over this thing.

    The more that I stressed and worried about this, the worse that it would get¡­

    After all, showing signs of worry would be like showing signs of weakness that would make it easier for the enemy to manipte us.

    So all we could do now was face whatever wasing in the calmest manner possible so we could think through everything clearly.

    That way, we will be able to handle anything that would being our way.

    I gave a nod back to show Shaka that I was grateful for this before revealing a calm and collected look.

    Then I said to Tim, "Thank you."

    It was just a simple show of gratitude, but it was also a signal that this conversation was over.

    Tim was surprised to hear this, but he didn''t say anything else as he just sat there in silence with us.

    Since this was the personal carriage of the duke, it took no time for us to reach the duke''s manor since everyone cleared the path for this carriage.

    Once we arrived, the guards quickly opened the door for us and we were brought to the entrance of the manor.

 Chapter 232 Dinner With The Duke (2)

    The guards at the entrance opened the door for us and the main hall of the duke''s manor was revealed.

    To our surprise, we found that the duke was standing there.

    With the way that he stood there, it was almost as if he had been waiting for us to arrive.

    But in what world would this be normal where a duke would be waiting for a baron like this?

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help feeling more and more certain of my suspicions that the duke was being controlled by something and this was all a trap.

    But for now, there was nowhere for us to run¡­

    So I went forward to greet the duke.

    As per customs, I was about to bow to the duke to greet him, but before I could go down, the duke suddenly grabbed my arm and stopped me.

    He quickly said, "Sir Zwein, there''s no need for you to do something like this. You can just act casual around me since we can be considered friends."

    Could we be considered friends?

    That was the first thing that I thought after hearing this.

    After all, we had only met once before and we had only talked for a few minutes during that meeting, so how could we be considered friends?

    But since it was the duke that said this, I didn''t question him to his face.

    Instead, I just humbly said, "Your grace, that is too much of an honour for me. How could someone as lowly as me be considered a friend of yours."

    The duke waved his hand and said with a smile, "There''s no need to consider your title or your position. I have to admit that I''ve long admired your work, so I hope that we can be friends."

    I knitted my brows slightly at this, but I quickly rxed them as I said, "The honour is all mine, your grace."

    The duke just gave a simple nod before turning around to move to the stairs.

    Once he had turned around, I couldn''t help knitting my brows again.

    But there was no time to act surprised since the duke suddenly made his next move.

    With a p of his hands, he said, "Come down and greet our guests."

    After this, there were two sets of footsteps that came from the stairs.

    When I looked up, I saw that there were two beautiful figures in dresses that wereing down these stairs. With how they came right after the duke had given a p, it was as if they had been waiting for this signal the entire time to make this entrance.

    The two figures were both beauties without a doubt, but one was clearly older than the other.

    Based on her age, this should be the duchess.

    However, even at her age, her beauty was not lost.

    She was a middle aged beauty who looked like she was just as young as ever, but there were a few parts of her that were much more developed than a younger girl. She had her beautiful red hair and mature looks which made her even more enticing than a younger girl.

    The one behind her was younger, but that didn''t mean that her beauty wasn''t there.

    With her age, she should be the duke''s daughter, but unlike her mother, she was more of a cool beauty.

    With her blue hair and sharp eyes, she had a much cooler vibe than her mother did.

    She was beautiful in her own right, but she did lose out to her mother since her figure wasn''t as full as hers.

    But when I saw her, I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes slightly as I stared at the duke''s daughter. That was because there was something that seemed familiar about this girl, almost as if I had met her somewhere before.

    The duke didn''t miss this and he secretly revealed a sly smile.

    After they came down, they did the normal noble thing and gave curtsies to me before the duke introduced them.

    "This is my lovely wife, the duchess Reba and that is our daughter, Veronica."

    In response to this, I immediately gave a slight bow to both of them and said, "I am Baron Zwein, it is a pleasure to meet you."

    At this, it was the daughter''s turn to re at me.

    When she heard my name, she suddenly narrowed her eyes to look at me just like I had done before.

    I had been peeking at her while I had been giving the bow and I saw the way that she looked at me.

    It was as if she recognized me as well.

    So did that mean that we had met somewhere before since I felt that she was familiar?

    There was silence that followed after this until the duke suddenly broke it by asking, "Do you two know each other?"

    Both of us were caught off guard by this.

    The duke then asked, "You seem to be staring at each other, so could it be that you''ve met somewhere before?"

    As he said this, there was something strange about the tone of his voice¡­almost as if he was looking forward to something¡­

    Veronica was the one that responded first by shaking her head and saying, "We''ve never met before."

    I nodded in response to this and said, "I was just lost in the beauty of this young miss and I''ve embarrassed myself by staring."

    The duke to my surprise suddenly revealed a smile as he said, "You think that my daughter is beautiful? Well, luckily she''s also single, so if you''re interested¡­"

    Before he could finish saying this, Veronica suddenly took a few steps forward toe to the duke''s side. Then even though she was wearing a dress, she suddenly brought her knee up into the duke''s stomach.

    After kneeing her father in the stomach, she quickly took her position from before and said, "Father, it seems like you''ve said too much."

    The duke was bent over with a bitter smile on his face and he was holding his stomach that had been kneed, but he quickly recovered and changed the topic by saying, "Shall we go and have a seat?"

    I also had a bitter smile on my face after seeing this.

    It seemed that the duke really suffered at the hands of his daughter.

 Chapter 233 Dinner With The Duke (3)

    After entering the dining room, the duke quickly arranged for our positions.

    He took the seat at the head of the table since this was his manor, but to my surprise, I found that he put me at the other end of the table in the guest of honour seat.

    Normally, a noble of my status would have been ced at one of the side seats even if I was the only guest that had been invited. After all, this was a matter of honour rather than courtesy.

    The guest of honour seat was given to someone that would be at the same level as the duke, so it shouldn''t be given to someone like me who was only a baron.

    If a baron was put on the same level as a duke, then that would be inverting the noble hierarchy and looking down on the duke, so they shouldn''t have done something like this.

    But here we were¡­

    At the same time, the duke''s daughter Veronica was surprisingly seated right beside me.

    Instead of sitting at the other end of the table with her family, she was seated to my right¡­

    It was almost as if¡­

    But I didn''t let that terrifying thought remain in my head for long.

    After all, they should know that I was already married. In fact, it was because I married someone with the baroness title that I was even a baron in the first ce.

    After sitting down, the courses were brought out by the servants.

    Even if this entire ordeal had been stressful, I had to admit that the food served to me was amazing. These were even better than the dishes that Baroness Rose had prepared for me, so all I could say was as expected of the ducal family.

    I didn''t eat the food ced in front of me right away, I only started eating after seeing Shaka give me a secret nod to show that it was safe.

    I didn''t know what method Shaka used to test the food, but I didn''t doubt his abilities since I had already seen all the shocking things that he had done before. Once I received Shaka''s seal of approval, I started digging into the food.

    As I had expected, the food was very delicious, even more so than what we ate back on our own territory.

    With the title of duke came the wealth and power that a duke should have.

    This allowed him to find the best cooks and get the best ingredients for himself, so I really couldn''tpare to the duke when it came to this.

    The meal itself wasn''t that special since all we did was exchange a few words in small talk while enjoying our food.

    The main event of the dinner came after the entree course and while we were waiting for dessert.

    All of a sudden, the duke asked, "Baron Zwein, can you tell me for what reason you havee to my city?"

    As he said this, he suddenly revealed a serious look and an aura that only someone of power would have. When I felt this aura hit me, I could feel the pressure that wasing from him.

    All I could think was that this was what a duke should be.

    But luckily, I had alreadye up with an answer for a question like this since I had expected the duke to ask this.

    Albeit, I had expected him to ask this in our first meeting and not in this second meeting over dinner.

    Still, I took a deep breath to calm myself before saying, "I havee to seek your grace''s patronage."

    The duke raised a brow when he heard this.

    Seeing that look on his face, I continued by saying, "As you know, my territory is in a ce where there are many other minor nobles that are looking to expand. As such, we are facing pressure from many different nobles around us. If we were to obtain the support of a¡­"

    I didn''t finish my words, but the way that I left it hanging made it very clear what I was implying.

    The duke narrowed his eyes to look at me which was to be expected, but then to my surprise, the duke just gave a sudden p and said with a smile, "Is that all?"

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this since this was not the reaction that I thought I would get.

    After all, the duke must receive many different requests like this in a day, so why would he agree to this one so easily?

    Then to my surprise again, the duke suddenly pped his hands once more.

    The butler on the side suddenly came over with what seemed to be an envelope on a tray, but the butler didn''t walk over to where the duke was. Instead, the butler came over and put the tray down in front of me.

    I looked at the envelope on the table and then looked up at the duke sitting in front of me.

    The duke just sat there with a smile and a look on his face that seemed like he was waiting for me to open the envelope.

    Since that was the case, I didn''t hesitate to open the envelope and read what was inside.

    As I read the report that was inside, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    The more that I read this report, the more that I knitted my brows.

    I had also wanted to let Shaka read this report as well, but it would be rude here, so I held back in the end.

    After I finished reading it, I asked the duke, "Your grace, this is¡­?"

    The duke said with the same smile, "Just as you have your problems, I have my own problems. This is one of the problems in my territory that I would like you to take care of. Consider it a favour to me and I''ll take care of your problem as a favour to you."

 Chapter 234 Dinner With The Duke (4)

    I just looked at the duke with a look that was trying to judge if he was being serious or not.

    But the look on the duke''s face made it clear that he was serious about this.

    It seemed that as long as I took care of this matter for him, he would take care of the matter that I presented to him.

    But that matter was a cover in the first ce.

    Even if it was true, with the power of the Shadow Garden that I now possessed, it was easy for me to take care of those nobles if they wanted to do anything.

    So I didn''t really need the duke''s help for this.

    However, there was something that had caught my attention about this report that the duke had presented to me.

    There was something about it that seemed suspicious¡­almost as if there was some kind of other force that was interfering in this matter.

    In short, it seemed like this could be a clue as to the demon presence in this city.

    But why would the duke give me this?

    Unless he already knew that I was a part of Shadow Garden and had an idea of why I was here?

    I looked at Shaka too, but he shook his head to show that he didn''t know anything again.

    After thinking about it, I said, "I will do what I can about this matter. I hope that your grace will not mind if I am unable to satisfy your expectations."

    The duke just waved his hand and said, "It''s just a small matter, so it doesn''t really matter. I just hope that this will allow you to see my sincerity."

    I slightly knitted my brows again, but I quickly rxed my expression and said, "Thank you."

    It was a perfunctory response, but it still had to be said.

    Dessert was just as delicious as the meal itself, but I really wasn''t in a mood to eat after everything that had happened. Right now, I just wanted to get away from this ce as soon as possible so I could gather all the information that I had.

    But it wasn''t that simple.

    Veronica, who had remained silent during the entire meal, suddenly said, "Baron Zwein, may I ask if you have any hobbies?"

    I turned to look at her with a confused look before saying, "I don''t have that many hobbies since I find myself too busy with my work."

    Veronica raised a brow before saying, "Is that so? Well, you seem like someone that would enjoy their coffee, so I was going to ask if you''ve been to any good cafestely."

    This time, it was my turn to raise a brow.

    I had thought that she had looked familiar, but now that I had taken some time to look at her carefully, I could see why I thought she looked familiar.

    She looked very much like that Ronnie girl that I had met yesterday afternoon.

    Ronnie and Veronica¡­it was simr.

    After looking at her like this for a bit, I suddenly asked, "Yourdyship, this might be rude, but¡­have we met before?"

    Veronica didn''t seem to react at all when I asked this as she calmly shook her head before saying, "I don''t think that I''ve had the honour of meeting your lordship before. Is this a new way of picking up girls?"

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing an awkward smile since it did seem like I was hitting on her with the way that I had asked this¡­

    But before I could apologize, the duke suddenly said, "Baron Zwein, are you interested in my daughter?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a look of shock that also had a bit of terror in it.

    That was because I could tell from the duke''s voice that he wasn''t angry, but rather he was interested in this matter.

    I quickly turned and bowed my head before saying, "Your grace, that was not my intention at all. I just felt that your daughter looked a bit familiar, which was why I asked that question." Then after a pause, I quickly added, "You should know that I am already married to my lovely wife, so I wouldn''t dare do anything like this. Not to mention, rumours like this would surely hurt herdyship''s reputation, so please don''t joke like this."

    I added all of this in a panic because I could see the look in the duke''s eyes¡­

    But the duke didn''t give up as he said, "You don''t have to worry about all of that. With our power as dukes, would anyone say anything about us if we didn''t want them to? Not to mention, our family has always followed the tradition of free love, which is why my precious daughter isn''t engaged yet even though I would love to see her find a man that she loves. I would so very much like to hold my grandchildren in my hand, isn''t that right, honey?"

    The duchess leaned in close to the duke and agreed with him on this.

    Based on the way that they acted, it was clear that they were a close couple, not a couple that had been forced together because of an arranged marriage. It seemed like what the duke had said about free love seemed to be true¡­

    But that terrified me even more!

    I clearly wouldn''t be able to handle this, let alone how I would be able to exin this to Rose and the others.

    So I quickly said, "Your grace, it is gettingte. I think it is best if we leave now."

    The duke was about to say something, but then he saw the re that wasing from his daughter.

    So in the end, he had no choice but to suck up his words and say, "Alright, let''s end things here." Then he revealed a serious look as he said, "Baron Zwein, I look forward to hearing your good news."

    I bowed my head and said, "I''ll do my best to not disappoint."

    The duke gave a nod before suddenly revealing a smile and saying, "Even if you aren''t here to report, feel free toe and visit us. I''ve always wanted to find our precious daughter someone of the same age to talk to and you seem to fit the require¡­"

    Before he could finish, he closed his mouth once again because there was someone ring at him once more.

    I just let out a bitter sigh before revealing a smile that had a hint of bitterness in it.

 Chapter 235 After Dinner

    Once Zwein''s group had left after dinner, the duke convened with his daughter in his study.

    After sitting down and the maids left after putting down their drinks, the duke finally said, "It seems like your n has worked."

    Veronica gave a nod in response to this without saying a thing.

    That was because there was a look of deep thought that was on her face, as if she was lost in her thoughts while considering something.

    The duke didn''t find this strange since that was just how his daughter was. She was someone who went at her own pace and if there was something that she found herself interested in, she would bepletely lost in that thing.

    While he could guess what she was currently thinking about, he didn''t say anything and just waited for her to finish.

    After a while, Veronica looked up at the duke and asked, "Is there anything else?"

    The duke gave a nod and asked, "What should we do now?"

    Veronica looked at him with a raised brow before saying with a sigh, "There''s nothing we need to do now."

    The duke revealed a confused look as he said, "Shouldn''t we at least provide them with some form of assistance? We were the ones that asked them to take care of this investigation, so we should do something, right?"

    Veronica shook her head with a smile before saying, "We''re letting them take care of this investigation for us, so there''s nothing that we need to do. They will take care of everything and that will be considered their favour to us in return for our support."

    The duke gave a nod at first, but then he said, "But¡­"

    Veronica quickly cut him off by saying, "Are you saying that you don''t trust the power of the Shadow Garden? The same Shadow Garden that fills the heart of all us nobles with fear?"

    At this, the duke revealed aplicated look.

    That was right, Shadow Garden, that was a terrifying name for any noble of this kingdom.

    That just went to show how much power and influence this organization had.

    But in the end, he still said, "But what if they still can''t take care of this matter with the power of Shadow Garden? What if it proves too much for them even with the terrifying Shadow Garden behind them."

    Veronica just gave a sigh and said, "Then that''s not a problem either."

    The duke revealed a confused look when he heard this.

    Veronica exined, "If they can''t pull it off with the people that they''ve brought with them, they won''t force it. They will go back to Shadow Garden headquarters and request more resources, which will bring more members of the Shadow Garden to our city."

    The duke revealed a terrified look when he heard this and he immediately said, "Isn''t this a bad thing! Why would we want more of those terrifying people here in our city!"

    Veronica revealed a sly smile as she said, "We''ve already made contact with members of Shadow Garden, so it could be said that we have some rtions. If more of theme, we can just rely on Baron Zwein to introduce us. Once we have created some rtions with Shadow Garden, would there be anything for us to fear?"

    The duke looked at his daughter with a strange look, as he didn''t know whether to admire or fear her boldness.

    Shadow Garden, that was a shadow that hung over the hearts of all nobles and it was something that they would normally avoid touching even with a ten foot pole. But this daughter of his was actually trying to build rtions with them¡­

    He really didn''t know how to feel about this.

    But since the dice had already been cast, there was nothing that he could do.

    The duke couldn''t help letting out a sigh of admiration for the n that his daughter hade up with.

    Give the ones from Shadow Garden the information they were looking for and at the same time, put them in his debt by giving an arbitrary reason.

    They would be able to take care of one of the problems that gued the city while also getting a favour from someone that was with Shadow Garden.

    This really was a great n of killing two birds with one stone.

    But then there was another thought that came to the duke''s mind.

    The way that his daughter had acted around Baron Zwein¡­

    "Speaking of which, it seemed that there was something between you and Baron Zwein. Could it be that you and him have met before? If you have, then how about you and him¡­"

    Before the duke could finish his words, he felt the cold gaze of his daughter falling onto him that instantly made him swallow everything that he had been about to say.

    He had wanted to suggest that she get closer to Baron Zwein since it seemed like they already knew each other, but that idea was shut down before it could even be proposed.

    Since there was nothing else, Veronica didn''t bother with talking to her father anymore.

    After she left, the duke couldn''t help giving a sigh since he thought that it was a wasted opportunity.

    After all, he had seen how she had stared at him while they had been at dinner.

    It was a lie if she said that she wasn''t interested in him.

    In fact, as she walked out of the duke''s office and headed up to her room, she couldn''t help thinking about this.

    She remembered when she first met Baron Zwein in the cafe.

    At first, Veronica hadn''t thought much of him and had thought that he was just a simple, handsome traveler.

    But the more that she talked to him, the more interested she became in him until¡­

    And then there was the final thing that he had said to her at the cafe.

    "If we''re fated to meet, huh?" Veronica muttered to herself.

    Then she suddenly said with a smile, "I guess we''ll be fated then!"

 Chapter 236 Willful Young Miss (1)

    After we left the duke''s manor, both Shaka and I looked at each other before letting out sighs of relief.

    We had no idea what to expect when we came to the duke''s manor today, but this was definitely not what we had expected.

    Once we were back at the inn, I handed Shaka the document that the duke had given me.

    As he read it, he had the same reaction as me where he knitted his brows the more that he read it. Once he was done, he looked up at me with knitted brows as if he was asking me for my opinion on this matter.

    I just shook my head to show that I didn''t know what to say either, but in the end, I still said, "For now, we should go and check this out. It''s the only clue that we''ve received so far, so it''s better than nothing."

    Shaka looked back at the piece of paper in his hand with knitted brows, but he still gave a nod in the end.

    It was clear that both of us had misgivings about this matter, but we had no choice.

    For now, the best idea was to get a good night''s sleep,

    ¡­

    The next morning, we woke up bright and early, but we didn''t head out of the city yet.

    This Bright Water City was a veryrge city, so there were always people that were awake.

    Even early in the morning like this, there were still people that were awake doing business.

    So we headed to this morning market to pick up a few things that we would need for our journey.

    Since we had already be friends with the elves, after that adventure to the elven forest, I had picked up a nice souvenir.

    Though the Storage Rings were special items that only the elves used, since I was someone who had the Mark of Life, they trusted me enough to make one for me.

    Of course, it wasn''t as big as the one that had been made for Moon, but it was more than big enough for me to use.

    When no one was looking, I quickly put everything that we bought into my Storage Ring.

    These things were important things that we would need if something happened in our investigations, so I made sure that they were kept safe and were easy to ess.

    With that, we headed out of the city.

    We could have taken the carriage that the duke had provided us, but it attracted just too much attention. We had already attracted enough attention in our stay, so we wanted to avoid attracting anymore.

    We had even put on disguises as we walked out of the inn this morning.

    For someone like Shaka who specialized in this, it was easy for him to put on these disguises for us.

    I was even envious of his makeup skills which certainly surprised me.

    If the girls were here, they would definitely ask him for some lessons.

    Once we reached the gate, it was easy for us to leave since we had the special pass given to us by the duke. This was something that he had slipped into the envelope that he had given me, which I was very grateful for.

    With this pass, we would be able to enter and leave the city as we wanted without stirring too much of a fuss.

    It wouldn''t be likest time where everyone would stare at us because we had a gate closed just for us.

    But when we slipped out of the city, there was someone surprising who was waiting for us.

    Standing by the side of the road was a familiar figure who seemed to be waiting for someone.

    When this figure saw our carriage, they suddenly waved at us which confused both me and Shaka.

    However, this figure was drawing attention, so we had no choice but to stop.

    When we approached, we found that it was Ronnie from the cafe we visited yesterday.

    She came right up to the carriage and asked the two of us, "What are you two doing?"

    But neither of us were able to respond¡­that was because we were both in disguise right now. Even if she had seen us, she shouldn''t have been able to recognize us.

    So how did she know that it was us?

    Seeing the confused looks on our faces, Ronnie said with a smile, "Your eyes. You might be able to hide your appearances, but I recognized your eyes immediately."

    Both Shaka and I looked at each other, specifically our eyes to see if there was anything different about them. However, we couldn''t see anything special about our eyes like she had said.

    In the end, we had no choice but to tell her what we were doing.

    But of course, it was just an excuse.

    "You''re going out to search some ruins?" Ronnie said with an excited look.

    I gave a nod before saying, "It''s very dangerous, so that''s why we''re sneaking around to make sure that no one follows us."

    But it was as if she didn''t even hear this as Ronnie suddenly said, "I''ming with you."

    It wasn''t even a question, it was a statement as if she had already made up her mind that she was going and she wouldn''t broker any argument about it.

    I quickly said, "I just said that it''s very dangerous!"

    Ronnie just waved her hand and said, "It''ll be fine, it''ll be fine."

    I looked at Shaka and gave a nod.

    At this, Shaka was about to whip the reins and make the horses go, but before he could, Ronnie had already gotten into our carriage.

    It was as if she had already expected us to do this, so she jumped on before we could do anything.

    We were both stunned seeing how bold she was, but at the same time, we were troubled since we couldn''t just bring her along with us.

    So I said, "Miss, do you really think it''s a good idea to get into a carriage you can''t escape from with two unknown men like this?"

 Chapter 237 Willful Young Miss (2)

    "You won''t do anything." Ronnie said very simply without a single bit of hesitation in her voice.

    Both of us were caught off guard when we heard this.

    We looked at her with confused looks as I asked, "How are you so certain of this?"

    Ronnie said with a bright smile, "Instinct."

    We looked at each other with shocked looks before we both revealed bitter smiles.

    We really couldn''t do anything to this girl. Whether it was her instinct or her courage, there was no fault at all.

    It seemed that no matter what we tried, we wouldn''t be able to get rid of her.

    So I considered¡­using force to push her off the carriage.

    Shaka looked like he had the same idea as me, but before either of us could do a thing, there was a voice that called out, "Young miss, don''t run so fast next time!"

    We turned to look in the direction of this voice and we found that it was a gray haired man driving a carriage over towards us.

    But even though this man had gray hair, he was anything but withered.

    We could see the muscles that were bulging out all over his body and his face was covered in scars. It was clear that this was a man who had been in many battles before and was very strong.

    As he came closer and closer in the carriage, we could feel the pressure that came from him.

    Unless he had been through countless battles, it was impossible for this man to have this kind of aura.

    I looked at Shaka and he shook his head.

    It seemed like he wasn''t confident in taking care of this gray haired man.

    He was certain that he wouldn''t lose, but he knew that it was impossible to take care of this gray haired man without creating a fuss. They wanted to draw as little attention to themselves as possible, so they couldn''t do that.

    So for now, they would see how this situation developed.

    But it was clear that this gray haired man was a bodyguard that Ronnie''s family had sent to take care of her.

    Just who was Ronnie that she could have a bodyguard follow her like this?

    Ronnie waved her hand at the gray haired man in the carriage and said, "Uncle Ron, that''s your fault for taking so long! Do you know how long I was waiting for you to get here?"

    The gray haired old man named Ron drove over and parked his carriage beside ours before saying, "Young miss, you know that you shouldn''t run off like that. What if someone wanted to hurt you? How could this Ron repay the master if that ever happened?"

    Ronnie just said with a smile, "Uncle Ron, you''re being too serious! Nothing will happen here."

    Ron had a worried look still, but then he noticed the two of us.

    During this time, his eyes had been on Ronnie the entire time, so he actually hadn''t noticed us even though we were standing right here.

    When he noticed us, he immediately went over to Ronnie''s side and pulled her behind him before saying, "Young miss, who are these people?"

    Ronnie had an annoyed look at being treated like this, but she still said, "These are two friends that I met yesterday."

    Ron narrowed his eyes to look at us, but then his eyes went to Shaka.

    It was just like how Shaka had sized up Ron when he appeared, Ron was now sizing up Shaka.

    As for why he ignored me¡­well, he had deemed that I wasn''t a threat. Or at least I wasn''t a threatpared to Shaka.

    After judging Shaka for a bit, he pulled his hand back and drew Ronnie a bit further back, as if he was judging that Shaka was dangerous.

    When Shaka saw this, he looked at me with a satisfied look, almost as if he was saying, "Do you see how powerful I am?"

    I gave a secret bitterugh, but I didn''t say anything as I kept my expression calm.

    After making sure that we weren''t nning on doing anything dangerous to Ronnie, Ron rxed a bit and said, "Young miss, we should get going. The roads will be blocked if we wait any longer and we won''t be able to make it back in time if that happens."

    Ronnie shook her head and said, "Uncle Ron, change of ns! We''re going with them."

    "Huh?" Ron said with a confused look before eximing, "Young miss, what are you saying?"

    Ronnie said with a smile, "They said that they discovered some ruins, so we''re going with them."

    Ron immediately shut this down as soon as he heard this by saying, "Young miss! What are you saying! Exploring ruins with people that you just met is just too dangerous! How could I ever let you do something like this!"

    When we saw Ron acting this way, both Shaka and I started cheering for him.

    We didn''t have a way to deal with Ronnie, but if Ron had a way to stop her, we were all for it.

    So we waited to see how it would turn out.

    But we were soon met with disappointment.

    After hearing what Ron said, Ronnie immediately revealed a dissatisfied look before saying, "And I say that we''re going with them, what are you going to do?"

    Ron knitted his brows when he saw this because he knew what kind of personality this young miss of his had. If she decided on something, there was no way that he would be able to convince her otherwise¡­unless he used¡­

    Ron gave a cough and said, "Young miss, if you keep acting willfully like this, you leave me with no choice. When we get back, I might need to have a talk with the master and madame."

    Ronnie didn''t reveal a scared look like one might think and instead, she said with a sly smile, "If you do that, I''ll have a talk with papa about some love letters that I found."

 Chapter 238 Investigation (1)

    As soon as she said this, Ron couldn''t help looking aghast.

    It was almost as if he had seen a ghost.

    After opening and closing his mouth a few times, he finally stuttered, "Young miss, how, how do you, you know about that?"

    Ronnie revealed a sly smile like a roon before saying, "Who knows? But Uncle Ron, you should really learn to hide your things better in the future."

    Ron looked like he really wanted to say something else, but seeing that there were others here, he just gave a sigh. Then with a cough, he said, "Young miss, you should know that this is a very dangerous trip, so this Ron still asks you to reconsider."

    Ronnie ignored this and said, "Alright, let''s get going!"

    Ron gave another sigh before turning to us to say, "Before we do, we should ask these gentlemen if we''re imposing on them or not."

    As he said this, he looked at us with a look that was asking for help.

    Both of us were stunned when we saw this.

    We had expected Ron to convince Ronnie, but it seemed that he was just as helpless as us when it came to this willful young miss.

    It was unknown what he was expecting from us, but we were just as helpless when it came to dealing with Ronnie.

    Still at the very least, there was an excuse for us to give a refusal now.

    "Well, actually¡­" Before I could say anything else, I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine.

    I saw that Ronnie was now ring at me as I said this, almost as if she was saying, "If you dare¡­"

    We had already seen what she had done to Ron, so even if she didn''t know us that well, I was afraid of what she would do to us. If we were to reject her like this, it was hard to imagine what would happen, but we should expect something bad to happen.

    So with a sigh, I said, "It''s no bother at all¡­"

    There was a defeated tone in my voice when I said this.

    Ronnie revealed a happy smile when she heard this while Ron revealed a disappointed look, but he quickly made that look disappear when he saw the way that Ronnie turned back to look at him.

    It seemed that if he did anything else, she might really reveal his secret¡­

    So he had no choice but to ept this with a sigh.

    As for me and Shaka, I secretly leaned in and said, "We''ll just do some preliminary investigations today. We won''t go too far since we have someone with us."

    Shaka gave a nod in response without saying a thing.

    But we both agreed that this wasn''t the worst thing in the world.

    After all, this would give us some kind of cover as we explored these ruins.

    With Ronnie and Ron here, we could justify what we were doing here if someone passed by.

    But in truth, that was just me trying to justify my weakness in letting here with us.

    While we were secretly talking, Ronnie also moved over to Ron and said in a low voice, "Uncle Ron, these two are the ones fromst night."

    When Ron heard this, he couldn''t help looking back at Zwein and Shaka with narrowed eyes.

    After a few seconds, he turned back and said, "Young miss, I understand that cloaked person, but are you sure that this handsome young man is also part of ''that''?"

    When he said ''that'', there was a tone of reverence in his voice.

    Ronnie gave a nod in response to this and said, "In fact, it''s the one that you''re looking down on that''s in charge. The one that you''re afraid of is just his subordinate."

    When Ron heard this, he revealed a shocked look.

    No matter how he looked at it, he felt that Shaka was the one that was in charge and Zwein was just putting on a front. He was nothing more than the cover for Shaka who was really in charge.

    But he never thought that it would actually be the way that it seemed where Zwein was in charge and Shaka was just the muscle.

    After a moment of silence, Ron asked, "Young miss, how do you know all of this?"

    Ronnie revealed a sly smile and gave a wink before saying, "It''s a secret."

    There were three ck lines that appeared on Ron''s head when he heard this, but he knew better than to ask.

    When the young miss acted like this, no matter what anyone said, they wouldn''t be able to change her mind.

    Once she was in this mood, she just acted however she wanted without a care.

    Perhaps this wouldn''t work if she didn''t have the status and power that she had, but she did have it so there was nothing that anyone could do to her.

    Ronnie just ignored Ron after he revealed this expression and turned her eyes to look back at Zwein.

    All of a sudden, I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my spine.

    It was almost as if someone had locked onto me like a predator going after prey¡­

    ¡­

    Back in Bright Water City, in the duke''s manor.

    "Where''s Veronica today?" The duke suddenly asked the duchess who had visited him in his office.

    The duchess gave a shrug to show that she didn''t know anything before turning to the maid that came with her.

    This maid was her trusted aide and did everything for her.

    The maid gave a bow to both the duke and duchess before saying, "The young miss went out with knight captain Ron early in the morning, saying something about going out to have ''fun''."

    When they heard this, both the duke and duchess revealedplicated and dark looks.

    After all, they knew what kind of personality their daughter had.

    When she said she was going out to have ''fun'', it was better to say that she was going out to cause trouble¡­

    They just hoped that she wouldn''t get in too much trouble this time¡­

 Chapter 239 Investigation (2)

    <h4>Chapter 239 Investigation (2)</h4>

    Since they were in carriages, it didn''t take long for them to reach the area where the reports came from.

    However, they weren''t able to find anything from a preliminary nce.

    This ce was a clearing that was by the side of the road that was surrounded by forest.

    No matter how they looked at it, it didn''t seem like this ce would have what they were looking for.

    After all, this ce was filled with greenery and life.

    The report had said that there were signs of rot on the nts in this area, but as far as I could see, it didn''t seem like that was happening at all.

    I had also been paying special attention to the system, waiting for a notification of a quest. After all, when it came to things like this, it would usually trigger side quests or even main quests.

    But that didn''t seem to be the case.

    After a while, Ronnie suddenly asked, "You said that there was a ruin nearby? Why can''t I find any traces of it?"

    I revealed a bitter smile before saying, "We heard that there were traces of a ruin nearby, but we can''t seem to find it either. This is why I was saying that there was nothing to gain froming with us."

    Ronnie narrowed her eyes to look at me, but then she suddenly said, "I''ll go look around a bit longer."

    Without even waiting for me to say anything, she ran off to the side of the clearing.

    Ron quickly followed behind her without a word, with his hand at his sides as if he was prepared to pull out a weapon at any moment.

    This little detail made it clear that he was a bodyguard that her family had sent out to protect her.

    But for now, it didn''t seem like there was any danger, so we didn''t pay attention to the two of them.

    Instead, I started searching around the area, looking for the clues that I wanted to find.

    There was nothing in the clearing, so I started going further into the forest around the clearing. However, even then, I wasn''t able to find a single thing.

    That was until I heard Ronnie calling out, "There''s a river over here!"

    I turned in the direction that this voice came from and walked in that direction until I found the ''river'' that she was talking about.

    But to call it a river really was an exaggeration.

    It was nothing more than a little creek that barely had any water flowing.

    Still, that didn''t stop her from happily sshing in the creek.

    She hadn''t even taken off her shoes and didn''t seem to care about getting wet.

    Ron just stood there on the side with a helpless look on his face.

    However, I couldn''t help being surprised when I saw her like this. With the glimmering sun and the sshing water, it really created a beautiful scene with her beautiful appearance.

    I couldn''t help being stunned as I watched her ssh in the water like this.

    That is until I realized that there was something else here.

    It had blended into the grass that grew here, but I could see the traces of it through the grass because of the dark ck colour.

    I went over to the grass and looked down carefully at it to find that it was a fish, but it wasn''t just any normal fish. This was a fish that waspletely covered in what seemed to be a ck mold that was rotting the fish from inside out.

    This was clearly not a natural kind of disease and was caused by something.

    But of course, I didn''t move too close to it.

    Instead, I started looking around the area and to my surprise, I found that there was much more of this ck colour than I thought. Looking carefully, I could see that there were even more of these fishes scattered in the grass around the river than I thought.

    I immediately turned and said, "Get out of the river now!"

    Ronnie was immediately caught off guard by this, but she didn''t question me when she saw the serious look on my face.

    Aftering out of the river, I didn''t hesitate to pull us away from this ce and back into the forest. Once I was certain that we were far enough away from that ce, I immediately pulled out some water canteens and started pouring them over Ronnie.

    She was shocked when she saw this and quickly dodged out of the way before saying, "What are you doing?"

    During this, Ron had pulled out a sword from who knows where and was carefully watching me.

    I said in a serious and deep voice, "Stay still."

    When she heard this, she couldn''t help being dazed as she froze.

    Then I started pouring the water all over her, making sure to get every part that had touched the river. After making sure that not a single part was missed, I finally sat down on the grass and waited while watching Ronnie''s body.

    Our group just sat there in silence as no one had any idea what was happening.

    After a few minutes and seeing that there were no changes with Ronnie''s body, I let out a sigh of relief.

    Seeing this, Ronnie finally asked, "What''s going on?"

    I pointed back at the river and said, "Did you not see the fish that was scattered around the edges of the river?"

    Ronnie revealed a confused look before shaking her head.

    With a sigh, I said, "Those fish were suffering from some kind of disease and it was most likely something that was transmitted through the water of the river."

    When she heard this, Ronnie looked down at her hands and feet that had been sshing in the water.

    Ron also immediately rushed over to Ronnie''s side and started looking over her body, trying to find anything that was wrong with her.

    But in the end, neither of them could find a thing.

 Chapter 240 Investigation (3)

    <h4>Chapter 240 Investigation (3)</h4>

    After looking at her limbs for a bit, she turned back to me to ask, "Is that why you sshed the water on me?"

    I said with a nod, "I wanted to wash off any of the disease that was on you, but¡­" I couldn''t help giving a sigh before saying, "It would have been better if we had some hot water."

    Both Ron and Ronnie revealed confused looks when they heard this.

    I quickly exined, "Hot water kills germs which causes diseases, so hot water would have helped us sterilize you."

    Then after a pause, I said, "At the very least, we know that this isn''t a fast acting disease. You might still be affected by it, but it might take a long time to act up¡­"

    After hearing this, both Ron and Ronnie revealed worried looks once more.

    Ron couldn''t sit still anymore after hearing this, so he immediately stood up and said, "Young miss, let''s go back. We will find a doctor to check your body to make sure that you aren''t infected."

    Ronnie knitted her brows, but she didn''t say anything when hearing this.

    Ron could see that she was lost in her own world again, so he was about to say something else.

    But before he could, Ronnie suddenly said, "Do you know where the source of this infection is?"

    I shook my head before saying, "While I don''t know what the source of this disease is, I do know where it''sing from. So I n on following the river back to its source and seeing what''s causing this."

    I saw that she wasn''t saying anything, so I said, "You should really head back¡­"

    Before I could finish, she suddenly cut me off by saying, "I''ming with you."

    We were all taken aback when she said this.

    The one that reacted first was Ron who immediately said, "Young miss, that''s enough! You cannot keep acting willfully like this! Your life is on the line!"

    Ronnie shook her head as she said, "That''s why I have to do this. If I go and find the source of this disease, then I''ll be able to identify what it is. That will make it easier for me to find a cure for it."

    Ron wanted to say something, but he realized that she was right.

    Even if they were to find a doctor to look at her, the time wasted trying to figure out what kind of disease she had been affected with would without a doubt be long. Especially when there were dyed symptoms like this.

    This might even affect her ability to recover from this.

    So finding out what the disease was from the source and then finding the cure was much easier.

    But to let her go was just too dangerous¡­

    So Ron was very conflicted at this moment.

    Then all of a sudden, Ron said, "Young miss, you should head back to the city and have the master consult a doctor for you. I will go and find out what this disease is with these gentlemen."

    Ronnie shook her head and said, "No, I have to go personally."

    Ron shook his head as soon as he heard this and said, "Young miss, no matter how willful you are, you can''t act this way. There is no doubt that this will be very dangerous and this Ron can''t put you in any more danger."

    Still Ronnie wouldn''t listen as she said, "I''ming and that is final."

    Ron looked at Ronnie like he still had many things to say, but Ronnie had already run off without them.

    Seeing this, Ron had no choice but to abandon the carriage and chase after them.

    All the while, we just had awkward looks on our faces as we had no idea what to say.

    Still, since they had already headed off, we had no choice but to follow.

    The four of us quickly made our way down the river, making sure to keep our distance from it to avoid being infected by whatever was in the river.

    As we followed this river we found more and more traces of the disease as we saw the rot that had been reported.

    It seemed that we had been in a downriver area of the area of rot, which was why we didn''t see as much of it. However, it seemed that this rot was spreading very aggressively, even coveringrge patches of this area in the rot.

    When Ron saw this, he couldn''t help looking at Ronnie with a worried look.

    While there hadn''t been any symptoms yet, something that could cause rot at this level was clearly not something that was simple¡­

    Finally, I called for us to stop so that we could move further away from the river.

    I had been carefully looking at the area of the rot and I found that most of it was concentrated around this river.

    It seemed that as we came closer to the source, the concentration of the germs in the river increased and the range of the rot increased as well.

    Instead of following the reverse flow of the river, I started walking away from the bank of the river while looking carefully around myself. Eventually, I came to a stop when I saw that there were less ckened nts around me.

    There were still some, but there was far less than the area around the river where it was almost pitch ck.

    The nts here might have been sshed by a few drops of water from the river, but nothing more.

    Still the fact that they had turned ck just from this showed how strong these germs were¡­

    I also couldn''t help looking at Ronnie with a worried look.

    She saw this and said, "Stop wasting time and let''s go."

    Then she turned and headed in the same direction as before.

    But when no one could see her face, she also revealed a worried look.

    There was no one that wasn''t afraid of invisible germs like this¡­

    After all, there was nothing that they could do to defend against it.

 Chapter 241 Investigation (4)

    <h4>Chapter 241 Investigation (4)</h4>

    We moved further and further away from the river as we came closer to the source.

    But before we reached it, I suddenly received a notification from the system.

    When I received this notification, I immediately had our group stop. Then after giving the excuse that I needed to check something, I headed off into the forest alone so that I could see what this notification was about.

    When I saw what was written in the notification, I revealed a strange smile.

    That was because I had already expected this to be a quest, but the contents of the quest were¡­too strange.

    After all, this was a side quest that I had never seen in all my time ying this game.

    In the game, I had already visited Bright Water City countless times and had done every quest that should have been avable here. But this was my first time seeing this kind of quest.

    [Side Quest] Destroy the undead horde

    Bright Water City is being gued by an undead horde raised by the demons. Please defeat this horde using any method of your choosing.

    Reward: Intermediate Reward Pack

    An undead horde, this was not something that I had expected nor did I want to deal with.

    After all, undead were the hardest kinds of monsters to deal with in the game.

    One might think that it was the powerful dragons that were considered the hardest monsters to deal with, but it was actually these undead. That was because of one simple reason, because they were very hard to kill.

    These undead had a very special kill condition which wasn''t what one would think it was¡­well, it was rted to the head, but it was different from just smashing the head in.

    Instead, it was destroying the small core that was inside the head of each of the undead.

    Or at least that was how the lore exined it.

    The real truth, which was something that had been found after someone dived into the game code, was that there was a small hit box programmed on the head of the undead.

    They should have had a normal hitbox that covered the entire head, but because of one coding error, it created a small and random hitbox for each of the undead mobs.

    This should have been an easy fix¡­but thepany had decided to create this lore for the undead instead of patching this out of the game¡­

    This was one of the dark spots on thispany''s prestige, but there weren''t any perfect games out there.

    The game itself was still considered the best for the genre, so even if there was this annoying mistake, people still yed it.

    But now that this game had be real life¡­would the undead still have the same annoying trait as in the game.

    There were many things that had been different from in the game, so I couldn''t help wondering if this was one of them. It would certainly be easier for us if this was one of the traits that were different¡­

    But I didn''t have much hope for this.

    I just hoped that we would be able to take care of the undead horde without a problem.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help looking at the part of the quest description that said ''any method of your choosing''. Did that mean that there were other ways to take care of the undead that we didn''t know of?

    If there were¡­that would be much easier than smashing a certain and random part of each undead''s head¡­

    Once I had finished sorting out my thoughts, I went back to the group who all looked at me with curious looks.

    I took a deep breath and said, "It''s a horde of undead that is waiting for us in front of here."

    Shaka knitted his brows, but Ronnie and Ron both revealed looks of shock and disbelief.

    They looked at me as if they were trying to figure out if I was joking or not, but they could see how serious I was which filled them with even more shock.

    After a bit of silence, Ronnie asked in a slow voice, "How, how do you know this? Why are you so certain about this?"

    I revealed a bitter smile when I heard this since there wasn''t anything that I could say in response to this. After all, I couldn''t just tell her that I had a magical system that told me these things.

    So I just said with a serious look, "I have my ways."

    I tried to act as vague and mysterious as possible. This would be convincing in this world of magic and strange powers.

    Ronnie looked at me with a look of doubt still before saying, "Alright, if you say so."

    I just gave a shrug and said, "Just wait a bit and you''ll see in a bit."

    Ronnie revealed a strange look when she heard this.

    Ron had been silent the whole time, but he had been seriously looking at Zwein the entire time.

    Unlike Ronnie, he had his lifetime of experience to draw on. He had seen many different people, so he could read people much better than Ronnie.

    He could see the seriousness that came from Zwein, so he hadn''t doubted him. He just wanted to figure out what Zwein was depending on to be this certain.

    But before they could say anything else, they suddenly heard a moaning sound.

    As soon as they heard this, they immediately hid in the bush and looked in the direction of this sound.

    To no one''s surprise and to their surprise, they found that there was an undead that was wandering around, proving Zwein''s ims.

    Both Ronnie and Ron looked at me with incredulous looks, but Ipletely ignored it as I focused on the undead.

    I was seeing if there were any others that were with this undead.

    It seemed like this was just a straggler that had broken off from the main horde¡­

    That meant that this was a chance!

 Chapter 242 Investigation (5)

    <h4>Chapter 242 Investigation (5)</h4>

    I turned to Shaka who had also been staring at the undead, but the look on his face was different from mine.

    It seemed that he was already trying to figure out a way to kill this thing.

    So I said, "Don''t kill it, capture it."

    Shaka was caught off guard by this before looking at me like he was asking me why I said this.

    I quickly gave an excuse, "The disease should being from these undead. We should capture it alive so we can identify what it is."

    But to my surprise, I found that these words incited someone else.

    Without hesitation, Ron pulled out his sword and charged at the undead.

    As we watched him run at the undead, we all had shocked looks on our faces since we never expected him to be this rash.

    But since he had already charged out¡­we had no choice but to follow up.

    Without any further hesitation, I called out some rope from my Storage Ring that I tossed to Shaka and said, "Use him as bait and try to tie up the undead."

    Shaka gave a nod before rushing forward with the rope.

    Ronnie looked at me with a strange look, as if she was trying to figure out where I had pulled that rope out from.

    I did my best to ignore this look until she finally said, "Give me some rope as well."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I shook my head and said, "You''ll just get in the way."

    Ronnie didn''t look offended when she heard this and instead, she pulled out a sword that she swung down in front of her. This swordnded right in front of me.

    If it had been a single inch forward, it would hit my¡­thing down there. This thought made me give a shiver as I never expected her to be this fierce.

    But the fact that she could control her sword this well showed that she had been properly trained with it.

    So what I had said¡­was like a p to my face.

    With a bitter smile on my face and a shake of the head, I pulled out some rope for her and sent her off.

    As for me¡­I would just get in the way.

    I knew my limits and I didn''t push over them.

    Ron charged right at the undead and with all the noise that he made, he immediately attracted its attention.

    Seeing a living person charging at it, the undead didn''t hesitate to attack.

    It swiped its arms out at Ron who was charging at it, but this undead was slow so Ron had already seen it from a mile away.

    Ron was able to easily dodge out of the way of this swiping attack and got behind the undead to swipe out at it with his sword. The undead didn''t dodge out of the way, or rather it moved too slowly to dodge out of the way in the first ce.

    However, the undead acted like it didn''t even feel this attack as it suddenly turned around to sh at Ron with its sharp ws again.

    Ron was a bit slow to react this time since he didn''t expect that his attack would not have any effect at all on the undead.

    He had to raise his sword to block the attack and was thrown back by the force of the undead''s swing.

    Then there was no hesitation at all as the undead chased after Ron.

    That was the advantage that undead had over other monsters. Since they were dead in the first ce, it wasn''t as if they cared about their bodies.

    They could do whatever they wanted with these bodies and the dark magic that had created them would heal everything.

    They didn''t have to worry about the things that the living would worry about. They could tear their bodies apart to move in ways that living beings couldn''t and would be healed by the dark magic inside of them.

    This could even be seen by how the sh on the undead''s back was already closing by itself.

    This gave them no hesitation at all when it came to their movements, making up for the slow movement that came from being a rotting pile of flesh.

    Ron knew that he was in a bad position, so he didn''t retreat. He knew that the best way was forward, whether it was dodging the undead or cutting it down.

    But before he could sh with the undead, there was a rope that suddenly appeared on the ground in front of them.

    This rope suddenly went taut and caught the undead charging forward off guard, causing it to spill towards the ground.

    The rope didn''t rx there and suddenly went forward with the undead to wrap around its body.

    The undead gave a growl at this and reached down to sh at the rope. But before it could, there was a voice that shouted out, "The arms! Now!"

    There was another rope that appeared that quickly wrapped around the arms, but this time it didn''t go as smoothly.

    It seemed like the undead was stronger than the rope, so it was about to rip the rope binding its arms apart.

    Ron saw this chance and quickly shed out with his sword. His sword cut across the arms of the undead, cutting the muscles there to pieces so that it wasn''t able to exert any strength.

    The undead would heal in time, but right now, it couldn''t exert any strength at all.

    After this, the ropes quickly tightened around this undead andpletely tied it up.

    Ron also worked with these ropes that tied up the undead, cutting the muscles of the undead so that it wouldn''t be able to resist at all.

    This urate cutting of the muscles of the undead really could be considered skillful. It was a real show of how skilled Ron was.

    But that didn''t matter since what caught everyone''s attention was the undead trapped in the ropes.

 Chapter 243 Investigation (6)

    <h4>Chapter 243 Investigation (6)</h4>

    Once the undead had been secured with the rope, I came forward to take a look at it.

    It was still struggling even though it had been bound by the rope, but since its muscles had also been cut, it wasn''t able to put up much of a struggle in the first ce.

    As itid there in front of me, I carefully looked over the features of this undead.

    There wasn''t anything that was special about it, other than the sharp talons that had developed on its hands. It seemed like it was just a normal undead that could bemonly found in the game.

    As I looked over it, the other three all waited with bated breath.

    They had also looked over the undead, but there wasn''t anything that they could find about this undead creature. Even Ronnie who seemed like she was rather knowledgeable didn''t seem to know a thing about this undead.

    After a while, I said, "It''s just a normal undead."

    When they heard this, all three of them looked at me with strange looks since they could also figure this out.

    I then said, "It''s the kind of basic undead that one can create as long as they use some dark mana on a corpse. This kind of basic undead has a rotting poison that is dangerous when exposed to it for a long time, which means that the fishes there must have been exposed for a long time before dying. That was why they were scattered all around, they were jumping out of the river to avoid the poison and died in the end from being poisoned."

    When Ron heard this, he immediately came forward to grab me by the shoulders before saying, "So you''re saying that the young miss is¡­"

    He didn''t finish his words, but it was clear what he was implying with this.

    I gave a nod and said, "She hasn''t been exposed to it long enough for it to affect her, so she should be fine."

    At this, they all let out a sigh of relief.

    But the one that looked the most relieved was Ronnie.

    It seemed that even though she had put on a tough exterior, she had been the one that was the most worried about this.

    But this wasn''t strange since it was her life that was on the line.

    Everyone would be afraid if their life was in danger like this.

    After taking a moment to calm down, they all turned their attention back to the undead who was tied up there on the ground.

    Shaka pulled out his sword and said, "I''ll take care of it now."

    But I quickly stopped him by saying, "Wait, don''t! Let me examine it first!"

    Shaka stopped and turned to look at me with a confused look, as if he couldn''t understand what was so important about this undead.

    But he still moved back and gave me the space that I needed.

    I came closer to the undead before pulling out a makeshift mask made of cloth and a dagger out from the Storage Ring.

    With this cloth mask on my face and this dagger, I started stabbing the undead in different parts of its body to see if there was any reaction.

    However, no matter how I stabbed this undead, it didn''t seem to react at all. It was like it hadn''t felt the stab at all with the way that it justid there growling.

    It seemed that physical damage didn''t do a single thing to the undead, but I had already expected that.

    I had hoped that since this was a different world, something would have changed. However, it seemed like I was just fooling myself.

    So instead, I started trying different things against this undead.

    I had bought quite a few things when we were in the city that I had thrown in my Storage Ring.

    I can''t say that this was how I imagined that I would be using these things, but if they made it easier to deal with these undead, I was all for it.

    Anything that made it easier to deal with the undead, I was happy to use.

    The first thing that I tried using was salt.

    That was the standard thing to use when dealing with the supernatural, something that had been used in almost every horror movie.

    But it seemed that this time, it didn''t work.

    The undead didn''t react at all when I sprinkled the salt over it.

    So I tried using many different things on it.

    With all of the things that I tried, it was almost as if I was marinating this undead instead of trying to find a way to kill it.

    I used all kinds of condiments, but it didn''t seem like there was a single one that had an effect on this thing.

    So in the end, I gave up trying to use different things on it.

    To the side, the others all looked at me with strange looks. It was almost like they were looking at someone who had gone crazy from stress, so there was a bit of worry in their eyes.

    Since I couldn''t do anything with these things, I decided to use some other gaming knowledge that I picked up.

    I pulled out something that had cost me quite a bit of money and then sprinkled it on the undead without hesitation.

    This was a potion that I had bought from a magic shop in the city.

    This was an expensive item that could heal one''s wounds just by drinking it, though in the game, it was considered a cheap item. If I didn''t have the money from Baroness Rose, there was no way that I would have been able to afford this.

    When I poured the potion on the undead, I found that nothing seemed to happen at first which made me disappointed.

    But then there was smoke that starteding from the undead''s skin that seemed to be a good sign.

 Chapter 244 Investigation (7)

    <h4>Chapter 244 Investigation (7)</h4>

    However, I was disappointed in the end to see that the bit of smoke was just it.

    There was nothing else that happened other than that bit of smoke and the undead started healing not long after.

    It seemed that there was a bit of an effect from the potion, but it was just too weak to actually do any damage to the undead.

    No one had thought about using potions against the undead when they were ying the game since no one would think that throwing potions at enemies would do anything.? However, based on the damage that had been done to the undead when I used the potion, it seemed that only something on the level of a greater potion would be able to kill this undead.

    Not to mention that this was the lowest level of undead there was¡­

    If there was a higher grade undead¡­it might even take something like an elixir to kill it.

    But at the very least, I had found that potions would have an effect on them.

    The problem was the quantity and quality of these potions.

    It wasn''t an exaggeration to call these potions expensive, so much so that amoner family would be able to live an entire month just with the amount that it took to buy one.

    So to get that many to deal with however many undead there were¡­that was not something that I was capable of even with all the wealth that I had as a noble.

    It seemed like I had to find another way or we would have to kill each one of the undead the old fashioned way.

    I started thinking about all the different things that I had seen in zombie movies before, but there wasn''t a single thing that seemed like it would work.

    So Ipletely threw caution to the wind and pulled out everything that I had.

    By the time that I was finished, the undead was covered in all kinds of strange liquids and things that really looked very strange.

    The three of them just looked at me like I was crazy, but they didn''t stop me.

    After all, they had seen the effect that the potion had on the undead, so they could already guess what I was looking for.

    In the end, I just gave up and said, "Can any of you make a fire?"

    All of them revealed confused looks, but Shaka gave a nod and took out some flint.

    I picked up a stick and gathered some cloth to wrap around it before holding it forward for Shaka to light it.

    A simple torch was different from a fire used to heat up water, the amount of smoke that would be created would bepletely different.

    Once the torch was lit, I brought it forward towards the undead''s body.

    The problem was that the undead''s body was still soaked in all the strange liquids that I had poured over it, so I had to use something else. I pulled out a bottle of alcohol and smashed it over the undead,pletely soaking it in alcohol.

    Then using the torch, I lit the undead on fire¡­or I would have when I realized that lighting the undead on fire was the same as starting arge fire to heat up water. There would be just too much smoke released.

    We had no idea what was around us, so it was best not to create too big of a sign that we were here.

    So I turned to Shaka and asked, "Can you find a cave nearby? I want to burn this undead, but it''ll generate too much smoke."

    Shaka gave a nod before heading off to find this cave for me.

    After Ron and Ronnie exchanged a look, they also headed off to find a cave.

    It didn''t take long before they came back to report that they had found a cave not far from here.

    Working together, we carried the undead over to a nearby hill that had a small cave.

    This was a very small cave on the side of the hill that didn''t lead much further than a few dozen meters. However, it was a very spacious cave that had plenty of space to hide the smoke that came from burning the body.

    So I didn''t waste any time lighting the undead on fire.

    The alcohol did its job and it took no time for the undead to start burning.

    As it burned, the mespletely cauterized all of its skin and it wasn''t able to heal even with the dark magic that was inside of its body.

    So slowly but surely, the undead started to turn to ashes from being burnt like this.

    It took a while, but it was turned into a pile of ashes in the end.

    Of course, we hadn''t been watching from inside of the cave the entire time since that would have led to us dying fromck of oxygen and smoke inhtion.

    Instead, we had been waiting outside the cave for the smoke from inside the cave to die down.

    Once there was no more smoke, we went in to check on the undead that had been burning.

    All that was left was a pile of ashes like we had expected, but that was also a problem.

    There was no more undead for me to experiment with and we still hadn''t found an actual solution to this.

    Burning the undead¡­wasn''t viable since there were many ways for them to put out this fire or just avoid itpletely.

    So it still seemed like the only way to take down the undead that we would possibly face was to kill them all one by one¡­

    At the thought of this, I couldn''t help giving a sigh since it seemed like I had just wasted my time with these experiments.

    But Ronnie took this chance to ask, "What do we do now?"

    I looked at her and said, "We keep following the river and find the rest of them. There''s no way that there''s only a single one."

 Chapter 245 Investigation (8)

    <h4>Chapter 245 Investigation (8)</h4>

    Both Ron and Ronnie hesitated a bit, but in the end, they still decided toe with us.

    As we were following the river, I started falling into deep thought again.

    If there was a horde of this size, why were there only minor reports that there were rotting nts in this area?

    After all, undead required a body to create, so where would they have gotten all those corpses from?

    If there were this many corpses being taken, someone should have noticed something¡­

    So could it be that there was some kind of conspiracy?

    At this, I suddenly stopped which surprised the other three.

    Ronnie looked at me and asked, "What''s wrong?"

    I turned to Ron and asked, "You have a map of the surrounding area right?"

    Ron was caught off guard by this and he turned to look at Ronnie. Seeing her give a nod in response, he took out the piece of paper that he took out before and said, "That''s right, but it''s not that urate."

    I shook my head and said, "It doesn''t matter how urate it is. I just want to know if there are any viges in the surrounding area."

    "Viges?" Ron repeated, but he still looked down at the map to find the information that I wanted.

    After a while, he said, "There are three viges in the surrounding area."

    I gave a nod and said, "Where''s the closest one?"

    Ron looked back down at the map before looking around. Then he suddenly pointed in a certain direction before saying, "It should be over there."

    I said with a nod, "Alright lead us there."

    Ron was confused, but Ronnie was the one that asked, "What about the undead? Weren''t we going to find where they came from?"

    I said with another nod, "We''re going to take a detour first to find something just as important."

    Ronnie revealed a confused look when she heard this, but after thinking about everything that they had encountered, she fell silent. It seemed that she had already been silently convinced by the abilities that he had shown.

    Even though Zwein didn''t have anybat abilities, he had something else that was far more impressive which was his ability to find information. It was no wonder he was someone from Shadow Garden¡­

    So their group quickly followed Ron and headed through the woods towards the vige.

    After around half an hour, we finally arrived.

    But before we could enter the vige, I suddenly raised my hand to stop our group.

    I had us go into a few trees near the vige before taking out a few pairs of binocrs for us.

    Ron and Ronnie both took the binocrs offered to them without a word, but there was a confused look on their faces as they took them.

    They followed our example and looked at the vige like we did, but they didn''t understand what we were looking for.

    That is until Shaka suddenly said, "It seems like they''re moving around in a daze there."

    I nodded in agreement to this with a bit of appreciation for Shaka.

    I hadn''t said a thing, but Shaka had already figured it all out just based on the context clues. Of course, it helped since he had an understanding of what kind of magic the demons could use in the first ce.

    Ron and Ronnie both had confused looks on their faces until finally Ronnie couldn''t help asking, "What is going on here?"

    I didn''t look at her as I kept looking at the vige through the binocrs, but I did say, "Undead need corpses to be created, so where are those corpsesing from?"

    Ron and Ronnie both revealed confused looks before a look of understanding suddenly appeared on Ronnie''s face. She immediately turned back to look at the vige through the binocrs as she said, "You''re saying that they areing from this vige?"

    I didn''t say anything, but the silence was enough of an answer for her.

    But then she asked, "How? How has none of this been reported back to the city? If such a thing happened in these viges, they should have immediately sent a report back to the city asking for help investigating this matter."

    I gave a sigh and said, "The demons have something called mesmerizing magic. They can use that to control humans with weaker minds using this magic. A vige like this filled withmoners is easy for a demon to take control of."

    Ronnie knitted her brows, but she knew what he was talking about.

    She had read about this in a book in the past, but she didn''t think of this when she saw the situation in the vige. After all, this was something that she had read by ident in the past and not something that she had even cared about.

    This was the difference between her and Zwein and Shaka.

    They had experience dealing with this matter and could easily think of the reason behind it, but someone like her who had no experience at all wouldn''t be able to think of this unless she was guided.

    At this, Ronnie started carefully looking over the vige and she could see that the vigers were acting strange.

    They were going about their lives, but it almost seemed like they were moving in a mechanical manner¡­almost as if they were being controlled like puppets.

    At this, she deeply knitted her brows.

    Ron had been silent the whole time, but it was clear by the look on his face that he was also disturbed by this.

    Both Shaka and I ignored the two of them as we tried gathering as much information as we could, but then we couldn''t ignore them anymore. It was all because of a simple order from Ronnie.

    "Ron, go and take care of the vigers. Find the demons and cut them down." Ronnie said in a low and frustrated voice.

    When he heard this, Ron drew out his sword without hesitation and was about to jump out of the tree.

    But before he could, Shaka quickly came forward to grab him by the cor.

 Chapter 246 Investigation (9)

    <h4>Chapter 246 Investigation (9)</h4>

    Ron had already jumped out of the tree when Shaka grabbed his cor, so he was just dangling from the tree being held by Shaka after jumping off.

    When Ronnie saw this, she narrowed her eyes to look at us before saying, "What are you doing?"

    There was a clear trace of hostility in her voice as she said this.

    I shook my head and gave a sigh before suddenly saying, "Stop being rash and think this through. What are you going to do with just two people in a vige filled with people controlled by demons?"

    Ron and Ronnie were taken aback when they heard this before suddenly revealing awkward looks.

    Both of them understood the logic behind these words and they were embarrassed because¡­they had let their emotions get the better of them.

    They hadn''t been thinking clearly because of their emotions. They had be too agitated when they heard that the people of the vige were being controlled by demons, being turned into corpses to be used as undead material.

    But now that they had calmed down because of Zwein''s words, they realized that they had been too rash.

    Seeing the look on Ron''s face, Shaka stopped holding him off the side of the tree and pulled him back up onto the branch.

    Both of them just stood there with awkward looks before Ronnie suddenly asked, "What should we do then? We can''t just let these demons do whatever they want, can we?"

    I shook my head with a sigh before saying, "Stop letting your emotions get the better of you and think clearly. While we can''t do anything by ourselves, that doesn''t mean that we can''t get the city guards to help us. Once we report this matter, you can be sure that the duke will take this matter seriously and send people to deal with it. But before that, we need to gather as much information as we can without being caught by the demons. If we step on their tail, they will run away and hide in the shadows. When that timees, we won''t even be able to find a trace of them."

    Ronnie had been silently listening to my rant and when I was done, she just gave a slight nod.

    There was a look of embarrassment that was on her face as she did this, as if she was ashamed of her behaviour.

    After another long silence, Ronnie took a deep breath before pping her cheeks as if she was reinvigorating herself.

    She then looked at me and asked, "What should we do?"

    I pointed at the vige and said, "Just try to find any information that you think will be useful, we''ll be doing the same."

    In truth, I didn''t have any hope that she would find anything useful.

    After all, it was clear that she was out of her element here.

    It was the same with Ron.

    The two of them were clearly shaken by the scene in front of them and in times like this, people who couldn''t work calmly would just be liabilities.

    It was better to give them some menial work so they felt that they were helpful so that they would be out of the way.

    After saying this, I raised the binocrs again and started looking through the vige.

    However, I wasn''t able to find anything in the end.

    Other than the strange way that the vigers were walking, there wasn''t anything special about this ce. It seemed like the demons weren''t here and had just left the mesmerizing spell on the vigers to control them.

    They most likely only came back when they needed something from this vige, otherwise they just let the vige operate as normal so they wouldn''t draw suspicion.

    I was about to give up when Shaka suddenly said, "Look at the cemetery."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I followed his instructions and looked around the vige until I found the cemetery at the edge of the vige.

    I didn''t see anything special about this ce at first until I realized that some of the graves had been dug up.

    When I saw this, I immediately knitted my brows as I realized what Shaka had found.

    They were digging up graves in these viges to find corpses for their undead.

    Viges like this would have their own cemetery since the vigers were mostly born here and died here. This was a world where transportation wasn''t as developed, so most people lived and died where they were born.

    As such, a cemetery was needed to host all of them when they died.

    With many generations of vigers, there would certainly be many corpses that they could use to create undead from.

    From what I could see, there were at least a hundred graves that had been robbed and that was only what I could see. There was certainly more than just that in thisrge cemetery.

    At the same time, it seemed that there was still at least half a cemetery of graves left for them to rob.

    This made me deeply knit my brows.

    I knew that there was a horde of undead that had been created, but I had thought that their numbers would be in the hundreds. But now that didn''t seem to be the case.

    After all, this was just one of three viges in this surrounding area and if this vige was controlled, then there was no doubt that the other viges would also be controlled.

    At the same time, there wasn''t a need to just use human corpses for undead.

    They could also use monster corpses to create undead.

    With all of these factors added up, the number of undead in the horde should be close to reaching a thousand.

    This wasn''t just a small horde, this was apletely undead wave.

    This would certainly be enough to threaten even the city since they would outnumber the number of guards that the city would have.

    The situation just became more and more dire no matter how I looked at it¡­

 Chapter 247 Investigation (10)

    <h4>Chapter 247 Investigation (10)</h4>

    Since there was nothing else left here for me to investigate, I decided that it was time to move.

    There were still two other viges that were in this area and I wanted to check them out before following the river to find the horde.

    So after getting out of the tree, I turned to Ron to ask, "Where''s the next nearest vige?"

    But both Ron and Ronnie had heavy looks on their faces as they didn''t react to what I had said.

    They had jumped out of the tree with us, but they werepletely out of it.

    So I walked over in front of them and suddenly pped in front of their faces.

    When they heard this p, they immediately snapped out of their daze.

    The two of them looked at me with strange looks before Ronnie said, "Shouldn''t we go back to the city now? I think that we have more than enough information¡­plus we should do something for the people of this vige as soon as possible."

    But I just shook my head and said, "We need to be certain of everything or else we won''t be able to give urate information. For example, do you even know how big the horde of undead is?"

    Ronnie opened her mouth, but she closed it and shook her head in the end.

    She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down, but one could see a trace of reding from the corner of her lips from where she was biting it.

    It was clear that she was very anxious to help the people of this vige.

    I could admire her strong sense of justice, but foolishly throwing away one''s life and the lives of others just because of it was not something that I could condone.

    Still I didn''t push her too far since this was clearly her first time seeing something like this firsthand, so it could be forgiven.

    As for Ron¡­this shouldn''t be his first time, so I wasn''t as soft on him.

    I turned to Ron and said, "Where''s the next vige?"

    Ron was taken aback by the change in tone that I took with him, but he didn''t say anything as he quickly looked at the map. Then after looking around a bit, he pointed in a certain direction.

    I didn''t waste any time talking to the two of them as I started heading in that direction.

    The two of them stood there in a daze a bit before turning to look at each other and giving nods. After that, they started following me and Shaka.

    The four of us just traveled in silence, but this time, it took us much less time to reach the vige. It only took us around half an hour of traveling to reach it.

    When we arrived, we did the same thing as before where we entered the trees outside of the vige and used the binocrs to investigate the vigers.

    Just like with the other vige, we could see that the people of this vige were also wandering around in a daze.

    I didn''t need to look at it any longer to figure out that the situation in the vige was the same as the other vige.

    So I immediately turned my attention to the cemetery of this vige.

    Just like with the other vige, there were graves that had been overturned and dug out. It was clear that they were also collecting corpses from this vige as well.

    I didn''t waste any time as I started counting how many graves had been dug up.

    When I was done, I turned to Ron and asked, "Where''s the third vige?"

    But once again, both Ron and Ronnie had dark looks on their faces as they looked at the vige.

    So I said in a louder voice, "Where is the third vige?"

    At this, they snapped out of their daze and turned to look at me.

    For once, Ronnie seemed to be looking at me with a look of disappointment as she asked, "You aren''t feeling anything seeing the vigers being manipted like this?"

    I just calmly looked at her and said, "What can I do about it?"

    Ronnie clenched her fists and said, "Why are we wasting our time like this then? Didn''t you already see the situation of the first vige? Shouldn''t we be finding the masterminds behind this or at least reporting this back to the city? I know you said that we can''t do anything, but at least we shouldn''t be doing useless things like this."

    I gave a sigh before saying, "Why do you think that this is useless?"

    Ronnie was about to say something, but I cut her off, "Do you even know how many of the undead there are? Even if we kill the demons, what will happen to the undead? Will they just simply go away?"

    Ronnie''s mouth dropped down and she didn''t know what to say.

    I then said, "We''ve been checking the cemeteries of each vige and seeing how many graves they''ve dug up. That will give us an estimate of how many corpses they have taken to create undead, which will give us an idea of how many undead there are."

    Ronnie turned to look at the vige again as if she was finally understanding what they were doing.

    I shook my head when I saw this.

    I had let here along because separating now might cause too much noise that would alert the demons¡­but if she was going to act this way and keep letting her emotions get the best of her, it was better to send her back.

    Ronnie could see the way that I was looking at her, so all of a sudden, she brought her hands up to her face and pped her cheeks.

    All of us were taken aback by this sudden move from her and we looked at her with looks of amazement.

    She took a deep breath and said, "I''m sorry, but it''s hard for me to control myself when I see all these people being hurt."

    I just calmly said, "Then perhaps it''s better for you to go back to the city."

    Ronnie shook her head and said, "Let mee with you to the end, I promise that I will be helpful."

    I couldn''t help being doubtful of this, but seeing the look in her eyes¡­I knew that it was pointless to argue with her.

    After all, she seemed like she woulde along even if we did send her back.

    If she was this adamant, it was better than sending her back just to have her sneak around and follow us. That would obviously create much more noise that would make it hard for us to do what we wanted.

    So in the end, I said with a sigh, "Just control your emotions and stop acting so rash."

    Ronnie gave a nod with a firm look in her eyes.

    I didn''t know how much I would regret this decisionter¡­

    Letting here along with me like this was the worst decision that I had made for both me and Bright Water City.

    But there was no medicine for regret.

 Chapter 248 Investigation (11)

    <h4>Chapter 248 Investigation (11)</h4>

    The third vige turned out to be the same as the other three, but this had given me a good idea of how many undead there were in this horde.

    Adding the three viges together, with around two hundred corpses taken from each¡­there should be around six to seven hundred undead created.

    Then adding in the undead that they could create from the corpses of monsters and beasts¡­that meant that there should be around a thousand or so undead like I had already guessed.

    This was without a doubt a daunting number since even one undead was hard to deal with, even for the trained guards of the city.

    This was a number that even outnumbered the number of guards that were in the city.

    So there was no doubt that it would be a hard fight for them if they had to fight them.

    Since we had already finished going through all of the viges, the only thing left for us to do was check out the ce where the undead were gathered.

    If we could find any advantages there, it would be much easier for us to take care of the undead horde than just facing them head on.

    When I said this, both Ron and Ronnie revealed firm looks on their faces.

    It was as if they hade to some kind of decision, but that made me feel very anxious¡­since it was clear that the two of them weren''t able to hold themselves back.

    Instead of going in with them like this, it was better for us to leave them here¡­

    But there was no guarantee that they wouldn''t follow us.

    So I had to put my foot down.

    I said to Ronnie, "You will restrain yourself and not cause any trouble, do you understand? You will listen to me and you will not act rashly, do you understand?"

    Both Ronnie and Ron were taken aback when they saw this sudden change from me.

    They never expected such fierce words and such a fierce tone toe from me, so they werepletely caught off guard by this.

    In the end, I said, "If you can''t agree to this, then I''m turning back right now. I will not risk my life just because you can''t hold yourself back."

    When they heard this, both of them revealed worried looks.

    That was because they hade to understand the special abilities that I had. They understood that I was someone who was better at handling this than them and if I left, they wouldn''t be able to do a thing.

    So they needed me toe with them, or else it would all be a waste of time.

    So after a while, Ronnie lowered her head and said, "I will listen to you."

    But this just annoyed me more since it was clear that she hadn''t fullymitted my words to her heart.

    I shook my head and said, "We''re heading back then."

    Ronnie looked up in a panic and looked at Ron for help, but he wasn''t able to do a thing since he was also as panicked as her.

    Finally, Ronnie said in a serious voice, "I will listen to you and will not let my emotions get the better of me."

    I didn''t respond right away, but rather looked at her and said, "This is the final and most dangerous ce. If you make a single mistake, we will be surrounded by undead and attacked by demons. I hope that you will keep this in mind and understand just how dangerous this is."

    Without giving her a chance to say anything, I got in our carriage and headed off towards the river.

    Ronnie and Ron just stood there in silence with heavy looks on their faces for a bit before getting in their carriage to follow us.

    We made our way back to the river quite quickly and we followed it even further down.

    But since these three viges were in the range of activity for whoever was behind this, it was clear that the gathering area of the undead wasn''t that far away.

    In fact, it was a mountain that was just a few kilometers further downriver.

    As for how I knew it was this mountain, it was because of the river itself.

    Once we moved past this mountain, the infestation further downriver wasn''t as widespread. So it was clear that this was the source of the disease and it was flowing downriver from there.

    After heading back to the mountain, we started looking for tracks that would show us where they were hiding.

    Shaka was the one that was the best at this and it took him no time for him to find certain tracks.

    These weren''t tracks of any living being.

    Rather, these were the tracks that were left by something being dragged across the ground.

    Judging by how deep the marks left were, it was clear that something quite heavy was dragged here. For example, several corpses that would be used to create undead with?

    It seemed that they were in the right ce, so now that all was left was to find the ce where the undead were hiding.

    That was also done by Shaka.

    With these tracks, he was able to easily find a cave on the side of the mountain. The tracks that seemed like something was being dragged here led to this ce.

    As we stood at the entrance of the cave, we had to decide what to do next.

    I immediately said, "I''ll go in alone and see what I can find."

    After I said this, both Ron and Ronnie rejected this proposal.

    Instead of trying to convince them with words, I knew that it was easier to convince them with action.

    So without hesitation, I pulled out the Detection Ward and put it on my cor.

    As soon as I did, both of them immediately fell silent.

    Then they started looking around as if trying to find where I had gone.

    I just stood there for a bit before taking the Detection Ward off.

    At this, both of them revealed understanding and embarrassed looks.

 Chapter 249 Investigation (12)

    <h4>Chapter 249 Investigation (12)</h4>

    With this demonstration, there was no longer any protest from either Ron or Ronnie.

    Rather, they started looking at me with strange looks as if they were trying to figure out just how I had done what I had just done.

    Of course, they wouldn''t figure it out since I wasn''t using the Detection Ward right now.

    After giving them some time to satisfy their curiosity, out of fear that they would follow me because of it, I said, "I''m going in now. Stay here and stay out of trouble."

    As I said this, I couldn''t help feeling strange.

    It was almost as if I was telling kids to behave before leaving them on their own for a bit¡­

    That usually went very poorly, so I already had a bad premonition.

    So to make sure that nothing went wrong, I gave Shaka a look as if telling him to watch over them.

    Shaka revealed a bitter smile under his cloak at this, but he still gave a nod in the end.

    With that, I entered the cave.

    This cave didn''t have any light, but that wasn''t surprising. Instead, I was wearing a special pair of sses that Shaka had given me.

    These were a special pair of sses that gave me night vision.

    I just wish that he had given me these when I had gone to the Spirit Forest. I definitely could have used these when I had been sneaking around in the night before.

    But I was grateful that I had them now.

    The mountain that this cave was in was quiterge, so the cave itself was also quite long. There were also many different passages that I could take, so I ran into quite a few dead ends as I was exploring.

    But after a while, I was able to reach my goal.

    That was because I could see the light that wasing from in front of me.

    This was a light that wasn''t natural, so it was clear that this was some kind of manmade illumination.

    I carefully entered the cave in front of me and I was shocked by what I saw¡­or rather, I was shocked by the number of things that I saw.

    It was a horde, a real horde.

    There were so many undead just wandering around in thisrge cave that I couldn''t count them at all. However, looking at all of them standing perfectly still in the cave like this, it was clear that there were far more than I had thought there would be.

    A thousand?

    That was a conservative estimate.

    It seemed more likely that there were over two thousand undead and if not, there were at least a thousand and five hundred of them.

    The poption of Bright Water City in the first ce was only around ten thousand people.

    Just the number of undead here would be enough to make up a fifth of Bright Water City, one of thergest cities in the kingdom. That was enough of aparison to show just how many undead were gathered here.

    But if there were so many undead gathered here, how had the duke missed all of this.

    No matter how one thought about it, he should have seen the signs since this was not something that could be done quickly.

    There were only so many undead that one could create and control, so it would take a long time to prepare all of this unless there was also a horde of necromancers here as well.

    If that was the case, then the situation would be even worse.

    But at the same time, they would have attacked already if they had that many necromancers avable.

    So the only possibility was that this was something that had been built over a long time.

    Even if they had mesmerized the viges around the area, someone should have reported that a long time ago. It wasn''t as if those viges werepletely cut off from the outside world.

    The only possibility of this beingpletely hidden was that¡­there were demons that had infiltrated the city as well. They were manipting those that worked near the duke or even impersonating those working for the duke to keep this information suppressed.

    The more he found out about this case, the worse it became and the more stressed he was.

    Lin Fan had thought that this would be a simple case of finding a demon and taking care of it, but it just became more and moreplicated with each clue that he found.

    But still, it wasn''t as if this was something that he could ignore.

    This case had be so serious that it even threatened the safety of the entire kingdom.

    After all, if Bright Water City was wiped out, the amount of corpses that would be avable to be turned into the undead¡­it would be enough to wash over the entire kingdom.

    They would spread all over the kingdom, leaving death and destruction in their wake.

    As more and more people died, more corpses would be created and more undead would be awakened.

    Eventually, this kingdom would be turned into a kingdom of death if this undead horde wasn''t stopped here¡­

    But would they be able to take care of the undead horde here?

    All of these concerns filled my mind and I became more and more worried, but I forced all those feelings down in the end.

    After all, there was nothing that I could do by worrying about this now.

    What I needed to do was get back to the city and report everything that I had found to the duke. The duke had soldiers and he was the only one that would be able to handle this situation.

    So I turned around to leave.

    But before I could leave, there was a sudden sound that rang out through this cave.

    It was the sound of a rock falling down the side of the ledge that I was on, dropping down into the cave with all the undead.

 Chapter 250 Investigation (13)

    <h4>Chapter 250 Investigation (13)</h4>

    I immediately turned in that direction and I found that there was a slim figure standing by another entrance to this cave.

    The moment that I saw this figure, I immediately recognized the person that it belonged to.

    But at the same time, I could feel the danger that wasing from down below.

    The undead all reacted to this sound and turned in the direction that the rock fell down from.

    Without hesitation, I ran over and pulled that figure down.

    As we fell over, there was ance made of pure darkness that flew over our heads.

    If I had been a bit slower, thisnce of dark energy would have pierced right into the slim figure and pinned her to the wall.

    As thence of dark energy pierced into the wall, there was a sharp screech that rang out.

    I turned to see that there was a rat that was currently pinned to the wall of the cave by thatnce of dark energy.

    Seeing this, I let out a sigh of relief, but I didn''t dare let my guard down.

    I quickly pulled that slim figure out of this ce, making sure not to leave any tracks.

    As I left, I heard a voiceing from behind me say, "It''s just a rat."

    Once again, I let out a sigh of relief hearing this, but I didn''t rx just yet.

    I would rx only when we were out of this ce and back in the city.

    ¡­

    A cloaked figure came up from behind therge horned demon and said, "It''s just a rat, why are you so anxious?"

    The demon ignored the cloaked figure and went over to the wall to retrieve the cknce stuck there. With one yank, he pulled thence out of the way and brought the tip over to his face to look at the rat that was stuck there.

    After a while, he said, "It''s not just a rat."

    The cloaked figure didn''t say anything in response to this, but it was clear by the way that he acted that he was doubtful.

    The demon didn''t care about this as he started looking around this area.

    Everything seemed normal at first until it seemed like he had found something.

    The demon leaned in towards the ground and then with his slender, sharp ws, he picked up something off the ground with two fingers.

    He lifted this thing up in front of him before saying, "We had visitors."

    The cloaked figure also came over to look at it and when they saw what the demon was holding, they said, "It''s just a strand of hair. There are plenty of human undead here, so it could havee from one of them."

    The demon shook his head and said, "It doesn''t have the smell of the dead on it, this strand has the smell of the living."

    The cloaked figure didn''t say a thing as it was clear that they were doubtful of this still.

    But the cloaked figure still asked, "Then what do you think we should do?"

    The demon looked at the undead in the cave and said, "It''s time to put the n in action."

    The cloaked figure trembled showing that they were shocked before saying, "It''s too early! Everything hasn''t been prepared yet! If you move them now, it will ruin the n!"

    But the demon just red at this cloaked figure and said, "If we don''t move now, we won''t have a chance. There are rats that have already figured out our ns, so we need to move right away or else they''lle looking for us. When theye, they won''t juste with weaklings, but the entire power of the kingdom."

    The cloaked figure was clearly still hesitant, but they were also afraid of this demon..

    The demon just ignored the cloaked figure and pulled out a ck orb.

    This was the dark magic orb that the demon king had bestowed upon him. This was a special orb that allowed this demon to use necromancy even though he didn''t have the skills for it.

    This was the orb that had created all these undead.

    Of course, there was a limitation to the orb, only allowing it to create several dozen undead a day before running out of energy. So the demon had been here for quite a long time creating all of these undead, waiting for the right chance to strike.

    But the demon was right, they couldn''t wait any longer if they were found out.

    Once the demon pulled out the orb, all of the undead in the cave reacted to it.

    Not only did this orb allow the demon to create more undead, it also had the ability to control the undead that had been created. It formed an imprint on all of the undead raised that would allow the owner of the orb to control the undead.

    As he raised this orb, the cloaked figure was clearly looking at the orb.

    However, they didn''t make a move since they knew that this orb was soul bound.

    That meant that only the one who was bound to it would be able to use it and currently, that was the demon.

    The cloaked figure didn''t have a way of changing that, so they had no choice but to follow the demon instead of taking this powerful artifact for themself.

    But if there was a chance.

    After the demon raised the orb, he said, "Start marching towards the city."

    As soon as the undead received this order, they started slowly making their way out of this cave.

    There were too many of them that it was slow going at first, but they were still making their way out of the cave.

    As the demon watched them, there was aplicated look that appeared in their eyes since the cloaked figure was right. They were forcing their ns to go forward, which would without a doubt affect it.

    But right now¡­they had no choice.

    In the end, the demon said, "All for the demon king."

 Chapter 251 Investigation (14)

    <h4>Chapter 251 Investigation (14)</h4>

    Aftering out of the cave, I didn''t dare let my guard down for even an instant as I dragged our group away from that mountain.

    Only when we were in the middle of the forest did I finally let out a sigh of relief.

    But then I looked right at Ronnie who I had dragged out with me.

    She looked away and had her head lowered when I looked at her.

    Since I couldn''t get anywhere with her, I turned to look at Ron and Shaka. Though most of my gaze was directed at Shaka.

    I didn''t rely on Ron on this, but Shaka was different.

    Shaka had his cloak on, but I was still able to see his embarrassment through it. After all, we had been together for a long time now, so I had a good idea of what kind of personality he had.

    I was also aware of the small habits that he had, which allowed me to figure out what he was thinking.

    In the end, I just gave a sigh and dropped this matter.

    I didn''t know what the circumstances were, but there had to be something that made even Shaka drop his guard and let Ronnie escape.

    There was nothing to gain from getting angry now since there was a more pressing matter we had to handle.

    Shaka could see the serious look on my face, so he calmed down too and asked, "How many were there?"

    I gave another sigh as I said, "Much more than we expected, at least two thousand of them."

    Shaka trembled when he heard this before slowly repeating, "Two¡­thousand¡­?"

    I just gave a simple nod in response.

    After a moment of silence, he asked, "Are you sure?"

    I once again gave a simple nod, but this time I added, "There''s also a demon there that seems as powerful as themander from before."

    This wasn''t something that I could say with certainty, but at least when it came to the amount of magic power that came from that attack¡­it was on the same level as the demonmander that I met before.

    So at the very least, it could be said that this demon possessed the same level of mana as the demonmander.

    As soon as Shaka heard this, he immediately knitted his brows.

    After a moment of silence, he said, "We need to go back and report this to the duke."

    I gave a simple nod in response.

    While this hadn''tpletely cleared all the doubts about the duke, I knew at the very least that the duke wasn''t directly involved in this matter.

    It would have been impossible for him to hide the matter of the three viges so well. Even if he was on the demon''s side, he would have given some clue that he knew about the existence of the three viges since he wouldn''t want us to go there.

    So he had no idea about any of this.

    The leading theory was still that someone close to the duke was involved in this matter¡­

    After another moment of silence, Shaka came closer to ask in a small voice that only I could hear, "Should I send a report back and ask for help from the organization?"

    At this, I hesitated a bit.

    I was hesitant on relying on the powers of Shadow Garden since I knew what would happen to this organization in the future¡­but in the end, this was an organization that was created to maintain the peace in the kingdom while also ensuring that nobles wouldn''t go too far.

    So this was an organization that was perfect for this situation.

    After a moment of hesitation, I still gave a nod.

    Shaka didn''t say anything else and took out a piece of paper from inside of his cloak. He moved to the side and seemed to write something on it beforeing back over to say, "It''s done. We should get a reply soon."

    I gave a nod in response.

    Since this was all taken care of, we should go back to the city and report to the duke¡­

    But before that, there was one more thing that I had to do.

    I turned to look at Ronnie and said, "Do you know what you''ve done?"

    Ronnie lowered her head even more at this.

    She waspletely different from before where she had been filled with energy. Instead this time, she acted like a child that had been caught doing something wrong.

    But in the end, she said, "I''m sorry."

    That wasn''t good enough for me as my face twisted in anger and I pointed at the top of her head while saying, "Do you know just how much trouble you''ve caused with just this? We don''t even know how bad the consequences will be."

    Ronnie just lowered her head while she kept mumbling, "Sorry."

    Her curiosity had gotten the best of her and she had even used a special magic item that her father had given her to sneak away.

    But now¡­she fully realized just how dangerous it was when she saw the horde of undead in front of her.

    Even if she was willful, she couldn''t deny that she would have died if it wasn''t for Zwein pulling her out of the way when that darknce had flown right past her.

    But as she thought about it¡­she couldn''t help thinking that he was indeed quite handsome¡­

    However, for now, this wasn''t the time to think about that.

    While Zwein was still scolding her, she suddenly looked up and said, "Shouldn''t we head back to the city and report this matter? We can''t waste any time here at all."

    My expression twisted and it looked like I still had more things to say, but I also knew that she was right.

    This was an important matter that had to be reported back to the duke and we had no idea what the undead would do, so we should head back as soon as possible.

    In the end, I looked at her with narrowed eyes and said with a sigh, "This isn''t over yet."

    But then I turned to head to the carriage to show that we were heading back.

    However, behind me, Ronnie did have a repentant look in her eyes.

 Chapter 252 Sudden change

    <h4>Chapter 252 Sudden change</h4>

    We didn''t waste any time heading back to the city.

    It was a good thing that the ce where the undead were wasn''t that far, so we were able to get back in two hours. That was also because we both had good carriages and strong horses, so we were able to rush back faster than most people would.

    At the end, our horses werepletely tired out and we had to leave them in a stable by the gate.

    To my surprise, Ronnie''s carriage had been allowed in without being stopped by the guards just like us.

    We were able toe in without a search because of the special orders of the duke, but why was Ronnie and Ron allowed toe in that easily?

    After thinking about it, I realized that it had to be the influence of their family, whichever family that was.

    Since we had entered the city, this was where we would part.

    After all, we couldn''t just bring Ronnie and Ron with us to see the duke.

    So I asked her, "What are you nning on doing now?"

    Ronnie looked back at Ron who was giving her a signal with his eyes and after a nod, she turned back to say, "We''ll head back to our family to report this matter. They will be able to do something about this."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Alright, then let''s part ways here."

    There was a strange way about how Ronnie looked at me when I said this, but she still gave a nod of agreement before saying, "Then let''s meet again if we''re fated."

    Without waiting for me to say anything, she had Ron drive the carriage away.

    As she left, I couldn''t help looking at her in a daze. She had used the same line that I had used when we had parted the first time, but it seemed different when she used it on me.

    It was almost as if there was a certain tone to it like she was making a promise that confused me.

    Still, I didn''t have too much time to think about this since it was a critical time now.

    The one other thing that I noted as she was heading off was that I could have sworn that I saw a hint of blue on her hair. Then when I looked down at my hand, I saw a ck patch that was on it.

    I couldn''t help feeling like I had seen this kind of blue hair somewhere before.

    Shaka tapped me on my shoulder to bring me back from my thoughts.

    I shook my head and said, "I''m fine."

    Then with that, we headed off to the duke''s manor.

    As soon as we arrived, to our surprise¡­we were actually asked to wait.

    Normally, when we came to the duke''s manor, we would be shown in right away.

    Of course, every time we came was when we had been expected by the duke in the first ce.

    The duke was a very busy person naturally since he was someone that ran this entire city. He wasn''t someone that was free to meet with people whenever they arrived and most people would need to book a meeting with him.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that he had been waiting for us, we never would have met the duke so quickly.

    So the fact that we were made to wait wasn''t that strange.

    But not long after we arrived, we were quickly shown to the duke''s office.

    We were surprised to find that not only the duke, but his daughter, and several knights in armour were all there.

    The moment that they saw use in, the knights looked at us with narrowed eyes that seemed to have some kind of hostility.

    We were naturally confused by this, but Shaka also moved forward to stand in between me and the knights when he saw this.

    Before anything could happen though, the duke suddenly raised his hand and said, "Stop it. We''re not here to mess around, we have more important things to do."

    The duke waved his hand at us and said, "Baron Zwein, pleasee over here with your friend."

    The two of us were surprised by the duke''s serious tone, but we walked over to the desk as he had requested. Once we had made our way over, the duke ced a sheet of paper in front of us and asked, "Were you two responsible for this?"

    We looked down and found that it was a report from some scouts under the duke.

    However, the most surprising thing was the content of the report.

    The reports read that¡­the undead were currently on the march and heading towards the city.

    Both Shaka and I immediately knitted our brows when we read this and we didn''t say anything in response to this.

    After all, neither of us could understand why the situation had suddenly developed in this way.

    As far as I knew, the demons shouldn''t have known about us sneaking since they didn''t chase after us as we left the mountain¡­or could it be that they already knew something and they hadn''t chased so they could move the undead?

    Regardless of why they had moved the undead, the fact of the matter was that the undead were currently moving and we had toe up with a way to deal with them¡­

    As I was thinking, there was something that suddenly caught my attention.

    It was out of the corner of my eyes, but I saw a colour that seemed familiar.

    It was the colour of Veronica, the duke''s daughter''s hair.

    When I saw it, I couldn''t help feeling that it was very familiar, like I had seen it somewhere before.

    Veronica had also noticed my gaze on her, so she turned her head as if she was afraid of looking at me.

    The duke noticed that something strange was going on, so he asked, "What is going on here?"

    Before I could say anything, Veronica suddenly said, "It was my fault. I was the one that had stirred them."

 Chapter 253 â€œIt was my faultâ€

    <h4>Chapter 253 ¡°It was my fault¡±</h4>

    The duke looked at Veronica with a confused look when he heard this as he asked, "What do you mean?"

    Veronica lowered her head as an awkward look appeared on her face, but in the end, she still said, "I was the one that caused them to realize that they had been discovered and that''s why they areing to the city."

    There was only silence that followed after she said this as everyone looked at her with a stunned look.

    After a while, the duke finally said, "What do you mean? You were there today?"

    Veronica gave a slow nod in response.

    There was another silence that followed, but this time, I was the one who broke it, "Ronnie? Are you Ronnie?"

    The others all revealed confused looks, but Veronica looked at me with a shocked look, as if she couldn''t believe what I was saying. Then she slowly said, "Did you not notice already?"

    I just shook my head in response.

    After a pause, Veronica said, "What?! I thought that you already knew it was me, that was why you were staring at me so much! You''re telling me that you didn''t notice at all!"

    I once again shook my head.

    Veronica looked down and put her head in her hand before saying with a sigh, "Then it was all for nothing¡­"

    The duke gave a cough to show that he was still there and to calm the situation. Then he said in a serious voice, "Let''s hear what you all have to say. It feels like there are things that I''m missing here."

    The two of them were silent for a moment before telling the duke everything that they had found.

    I was the one that told them most of what happened since I was the one that discovered most of the things.

    Veronica added a few bits of information in, but most of what she added was just the stuff that she did. Namely the things that she did behind our backs that didn''t have anything to do with the investigation.

    Well, they had a bit to do with the undead horde and the viges.

    It turned out that she had left notes for the vigers in the viges, trying to see if she could walk them up from their daze.

    She had done all of this without us noticing¡­

    So even if the enemies didn''t start moving because of the incident in the cave, they might have started moving because of the notes that she left behind.

    I couldn''t help being surprised since she not only escaped my senses, she even escaped Shaka''s senses.

    Shaka was someone who specialized in this kind of work, so his senses were much sharper than mine.

    She had to be very skilled to escape his perception.

    But the duke quickly solved this doubt of mine.

    The duke narrowed his eyes to look at Veronica for a bit before suddenly asking, "You used the magic item I gave you?"

    Veronica looked away when she heard this question, clearly avoiding the duke''s gaze.

    The duke revealed a frown as he said in a scolding voice, "You know that item can''t be used that many times and I only gave it to you so that you can keep yourself safe. If you keep using it in such a manner, I''ll take it away from you."

    Veronica finally reacted when she heard this.

    She turned back and said, "Dad, I had to do it."

    The duke looked at her with a stern look before suddenly giving a sigh and saying, "It''s my fault in the first ce. If I had done my job better¡­none of this would have happened."

    When he said this, no one in the room dared to say a single thing as they just waited for him to finish.

    But the duke still didn''t say a thing.

    In the end, it was Veronica who started to say, "Dad, I¡­"

    But the duke suddenly raised his hand to cut her off before saying, "Honey, I know that you have a strong sense of justice, but you should also know when to limit yourself. This kind of thing was too dangerous¡­what if something had happened to you? If something had happened, I really don''t know what¡­"

    His voice trailed off as his eyes filled with sadness.

    This time, Veronica couldn''t remain calm anymore seeing the duke like this.

    She had been willful her entire life, but that was all because she had the backing to protect her so that she never suffered a setback.

    For the first time, she was realizing the consequences of her actions and seeing how it hurt the people close to her¡­

    So for this young miss who was a bit spoiled, it really was a wake up call.

    After a long period of silence, she said through pouted lips, "I''m sorry. It was all my fault."

    Though it seemed like she was angry, one could see the sincere look of apology that was in her eyes showing that she did feel remorse for her actions.

    The duke looked at her for a bit before saying with a sigh, "Please be careful next time. I don''t know what your mom and I would do if we ever lost you."

    Veronica gave a nod before suddenlying forward.

    She walked around the desk and walked over to the duke before reaching out her arms to hug him.

    When the duke saw this, he couldn''t help being surprised.

    But in the end, he revealed a doting look and patted her on the head.

    This was his precious daughter, it already hurt his heart being strict with her.

    So when she acted this way, he really couldn''t do anything other than give in to her.

    After they hugged for a bit, they separated and the duke turned his eyes back to Zwein and Shaka.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at us for a bit before saying, "Let''s not beat around the bush. Have you already contacted Shadow Garden?"

 Chapter 254 Weakness

    <h4>Chapter 254 Weakness</h4>

    Shaka and I were both taken aback by this sudden question, but we reacted quite quickly since it wasn''t as surprising.

    After all, we already suspected that the duke knew that we were from Shadow Garden, or else the duke wouldn''t have acted this way around us.

    Since he wasn''t beating around the bush anymore and ying unaware, there was no reason for us to pretend either.

    This was a dangerous situation, so we should all do what we need to do.

    I gave a simple nod in response to this.

    Seeing this, the duke said, "Has there been any response? Are they going to send reinforcements?"

    There was a hopeful tone at the end of his voice.

    I turned to look at Shaka and he gave a slight shake of his head.

    I gave a sigh before saying, "We haven''t heard back from our superior yet, so we can''t give you any information."

    The duke''s expression sank when he heard this.

    After a long bit of silence, he said in a voice of despair, "Then is this it for our Bright Water City? Can we really not do anything for the people?"

    As his voice trailed off, everyone just stood there in silence.

    Not a single person here was able to respond to this question from the duke¡­after all, not a single one of us did have a n to deal with the undead.

    That was until Veronica suddenly said, "We can''t give up like this."

    When everyone heard this, they immediately turned to look at her in a daze.

    Veronica suddenly pped the table in front of her and said, "We are the only ones that can save Bright Water City. No matter how desperate this situation seems, we can''t let ourselves fall to despair. No matter what, we have to think of a n to deal with this. Not just for us, but also the people of this city."

    They all kept staring at her in a daze as they listened to this, but then the duke also mmed his fist onto the table.

    Everyone turned to look at the duke as he said with a determined look, "She''s right, it is our responsibility to protect the people of this city, no matter how hopeless it seems. Do we really need someone who is half our age to remind us of this?"

    The knights gathered looked at each other before nodding with determined looks on their faces.

    They were right¡­they were the only ones that could protect the people of this city, so they couldn''t let themselves be filled with despair now.

    I couldn''t help looking at Veronica with a surprised look.

    I had thought that she was a spoiled young miss who acted willfully because she had been spoiled, but it seemed that the sense of justice that she had wasn''t fake.

    However, even if they had found their spirit, it wasn''t as if they could think of a n.

    The undead were there and they knew how hard it was to deal with them. So even if they wanted to take care of this undead horde, it was impossible unless they could think of a method to do so.

    There were a few ideas that were thrown out, but there wasn''t anything that they could build on.

    That was until Veronica suddenly turned to me to ask, "What kind of weakness did you find when you were experimenting on that undead?"

    When they heard this, all of the knights and the duke turned to look at me as well.

    That was because I had left out the part about my experimenting on the undead out.

    It didn''t seem important since there was nothing that I had really found about the undead, but since she was asking.

    "Well it seems like potions work on the undead." I said in a calm voice.

    "Potions¡­" The duke and the knights repeated before giving sighs.

    Potions were just too expensive and there weren''t that many of them in the city, even if this was a major trade city.

    Based on the numbers that I had given them, it was impossible for them to gather enough potions to deal with all these undead in the first ce.

    Then I put the nail in the cabin by saying, "Weak potions won''t be enough to deal any damage. We need at least a high potion to hurt them."

    When they heard this, all of their expressions sank once more.

    High potions¡­there was no way that they would have enough of those to deal with all of these zombies. Not to mention, there weren''t many of them in the city in the first ce.

    Perhaps therge auction houses would have a few and the duke might have one or two in his storage, but beyond that, there would be nothing.

    Seeing this, I remembered something else and said, "Fire also works since it burns them enough that they can''t regenerate."

    "Fire¡­" The duke and the knights repeated before shaking their heads again to deny this suggestion.

    Fire was too devastating and if they couldn''t control it, they might just burn down the city by trying to fight the undead.

    Burning down their city just to stop the undead horde, it wouldn''t be worth it.

    So they would have to think of another way to deal with the undead horde¡­

    But before anyone could say anything else, Veronica suddenly pped the table and said, "That''s it! We''ll burn them all!"

    Everyone looked at her with confused looks.

    After all, just thinking about it a little would one understand that it wasn''t worth burning down the city to burn the undead horde.

    But Veronica didn''t mind as she pulled the map on the table over.

    She looked down at it for a few seconds before suddenly pointing at a spot on the map.

    Everyone looked at where her finger was and they saw that it was pointing at a spot called "Wind Valley".

    Then they couldn''t help looking up at her with an even more confused look.

 Chapter 255 Alcohol

    <h4>Chapter 255 Alcohol</h4>

    The duke didn''t say anything at first as he looked at the area that Veronica was pointing at.

    But then he said, "Even if we do trap them there, the wind will blow out any fire that we set. It''s called Wind Valley for a reason."

    Veronica didn''t seem discouraged when she heard this. She just simply gave a nod of affirmation before saying, "That''s right, the wind will blow out the fire."

    After she said this, everyone couldn''t help looking at her with a confused look.

    Why did she sound so positive when saying this?

    This was confirming that her n wouldn''t work since the fire wouldn''tst to burn away the undead.

    But then Veronica said, "But what if we used something to keep the fire going?"

    At this, everyone revealed even more confused looks.

    This seemed possible if they used something to keep the fire going, but where would they get that much of that thing?

    The undead were getting closer to the city with each passing second and if they wanted to lure the undead to Wind Valley, they needed to do so right as they passed by it, which gave them even a shorter window to put this n in action. This was around half a day for them to put this n in action.

    With such a short window, how were they able to gather all of this?

    It didn''t seem feasible no matter how one looked at it.

    Veronica could see the look on their faces, but she didn''t say a word as if she was keeping them in suspense.

    Finally, after a bit, she said, "We''ll use alcohol?"

    "Alcohol?" Everyone repeated after her with a confused look.

    "Alcohol¡­" The duke also repeated with the same confused look, but his expression slowly started to change as if he was realizing something, "No, you can''t mean¡­"

    As soon as his voice trailed off, he turned to look at Veronica and he found that she was looking at him with a sly smile on her face.

    "No, please, anything but that." The duke said almost as if he was pleading with her.

    But Veronica just had that same sly smile on her face as she said, "Daddy, this is to protect Bright Water City. I''m sure you can make a small sacrifice like this?"

    Though he understood that what she said was correct, the duke still couldn''t help revealing a pained and unwilling look. After all, what she was talking about was the precious treasure that he had spent years gathering¡­it was his treasure that was only second to his daughter.

    Veronica just ignored him and said, "We''ll take all of the alcohol from my father''s wine warehouse and use that to drench the undead in."

    When they heard this, all of the knights revealed surprised looks before looking at the duke with sympathy.

    It was a well known fact that the duke was an enjoyer of fine alcohol, so he had spent quite a bit of his personal money on building this wine warehouse. It contained fine wines from all over the kingdom, so the money spent on this wasn''t cheap.

    It was enough to buy several manors that were the same size as the one the duke currently used and still have spare change.

    This was something that he had spent many years on building and before he could even enjoy it, he had to use it like this.

    As fellow men, they could understand the pain that this caused him.

    In the end, the duke gave a sigh as if he had found closure with this and said, "The people of the citye first. Take the alcohol and do what you need to do."

    At this, all of the knights gave a sympathetic nod towards the duke.

    Even Shaka and I couldn''t help giving a sympathetic nod.

    After all, we were men too and we understood the pain that the duke must be feeling.

    After hearing this, Veronica didn''t waste any time in saying, "Just in case, try to get some alcohol from the bars. We don''t want to regret not getting enough when we could."

    The knights all nodded in response to this, but then one of them suddenly asked, "What about the money? Do we just take the alcohol and say that it''s for the good of the city? Or do we pay for it?"

    Veronica didn''t miss a beat as she said, "Take the money out of my father''s wine collecting stash. Since it''s all alcohol, it doesn''t matter where it''s used."

    When the duke heard this, his expression sank and he looked like he was about to die.

    This daughter of his¡­not only was she destroying the treasure that he had spent many years and arge sum to gather, she was even cutting off the future of his enjoyment. This stash that she talked about was the money that he set aside to gather even more alcohol, but now she wanted to use it here¡­

    That would mean that he wouldn''t be able to buy more alcohol in the future!

    Or at least until the next tax season where he would be able to set aside some more money.

    This was just too much¡­

    Veronica then turned to say, "Daddy, this is an emergency. We have to think about the people."

    The duke''s face twisted when he heard this.

    He couldn''t help thinking that he had really raised a sly daughter.

    After all, she was even calling him ''daddy'' when she spoke directly to him to trigger his feelings for her. He had already heard her call him ''her father'' when she talked to the others, so he knew exactly what she was doing¡­

    But in the end, he couldn''t win against her.

    So with a sigh, the duke said, "Gather all the men other than the bare minimum needed to protect the city. We ride out in an hour."

    The knights all revealed serious looks and bowed to the duke before walking out of the room.

    Since the duke had given the order, there was no more hesitation.

    This was a fight for their city, for their family, so there could be no hesitation.

    The only one who felt a bit of regret was the duke, but he had already lost much more than the others so it couldn''t be med on him.

 Chapter 256 Wind Valley

    <h4>Chapter 256 Wind Valley</h4>

    Once the knights were gone, there was a moment of silence from the duke for all that he would lose.

    But then he turned to me and Shaka to ask, "Will you two being with us? Or do you have other orders?"

    I calmly said, "We''lle with you. We have experience dealing with demons, so we should be able to help when the timees."

    The duke gave a simple nod without saying a thing.

    But he did feel more assured hearing this.

    After all, these two were from the Shadow Garden organization. There was a reason why the Shadow Garden organization was feared by the nobles in the first ce, their power was not something that could be looked down on.

    But when it came to these two¡­the duke cared more about Shakaing along.

    It wasn''t that he looked down on Zwein since he was sure that he was talented or else he wouldn''t have been invited to the Shadow Garden organization.

    It was just that after hearing what Veronica had told him about Shaka, he had done his own investigations.

    When he learned about the man that Shaka had been in the past, he started to respect him and his power even more. After all, Shaka was just that kind of legendary person in the past.

    With his help, there would be no doubt that their chances of sess would greatly increase.

    Since that had all been set, there was only one thing for them to do¡­

    It was time for them to head out to Wind Valley and handle this matter.

    ¡­

    An hourter, the soldiers of Bright Water City had been gathered.

    They all had determined looks on their faces as they gathered together, making it clear that they knew exactly what they were fighting for.

    In a fight like this, one couldn''t enter it without being determined.

    So the duke hid nothing from the soldiers of Bright Water City and made sure that they knew exactly what they were getting into.

    Only then would be able to face it with the determination to die.

    Standing in front of the soldiers, the duke said, "You brave men will be fighting for your home and families today. If any of you are sacrificed, I will personally make sure that your families will be well taken care of. I hope that you will do all that you can to survive this battle, not just for me, but also your families!"

    Once his voice fell, there was a powerful cheer that came from these soldiers.

    With that, the duke waved his hand and they all set off.

    There were several groups of soldiers that went in different directions after setting out from Bright Water City, but that was all a part of the n.

    They all had different jobs that they needed to take care of, so they were separating like this to take care of them.

    The biggest group amongst them was with the duke and they were heading right to Wind Valley. At the same time, there were several carriages that were with them that all had barrels in them.

    These barrels all gave off the scent of alcohol.

    This was the duke''s precious collection that had been gathered over many years, as well as alcohol that had been purchased from the local taverns.

    The guards all took a formation around the carriages, as if they were guarding a treasure.

    Though in a sense, these things could be considered treasures.

    Once they arrived at Wind Valley, this group once again split off into smaller groups.

    Each of these smaller groups took several carriages filled with alcohol with them as they went off in different directions.

    They had gone all around the valley and took positions so that there wasn''t a single blind spot. As long as they were in this formation, they wouldn''t miss a single thing that happened in this valley.

    Since they were all in position, the only thing that was left for them to do was wait for the undead to arrive.

    The ones that had split off from them before were in charge of leading the undead here into the trap.

    They were the ones that had taken on the most dangerous job, so they were naturally the most elite out of all the soldiers. They all belonged to the knight order that was directly under the duke.

    As they waited, there were reports that came in from the scouts that watched over everything.

    Through these reports, they were able to find that the undead were slowly making their way closer and closer towards the Wind Valley under the lead of the knights.

    So far, there hadn''t been a single casualty among the knights which allowed the duke to let out a sigh of relief, but he also knew that it was far from being over.

    With these reports, they were able to understand when to prepare their trap.

    If it was prepared too early, then the enemy would notice the traces and be wary.

    If it was prepared toote, they wouldn''t be able to catch the enemy in the trap.

    So they had to prepare the trap at just the right time.

    When the reports came in that the undead horde was finally in position, the duke gave onest speech to his men.

    Though they were too far away to actually hear him, the duke had already prepared something so that they would be able tomunicate with each other.

    Through this system, his words were still passed on to each of the soldiers stationed around the valley.

    His words were very simple.

    "Destroy the enemies and protect our city. Do not put yourself in deliberate danger."

    Once these soldiers received this message from the duke, they all revealed determined looks.

    With morale raised, all that was left was for the enemy to arrive.

    It didn''t take long before they saw the dust cloudsing from the distance and the sounds of horse hooves rang out.

    Then behind them¡­was therge pack of undead.

 Chapter 257 Fighting the undead (1)

    <h4>Chapter 257 Fighting the undead (1)</h4>

    This group of knights led the undead right to the entrance of Wind Valley.

    Once they were there, they didn''t hesitate to dash in with their horses.

    However, once they were inside of Wind Valley, they immediately started taking a specific path. They were moving back and forth through the valley, looking quite strange as they went through it.

    But the undead didn''t care as they followed right behind them.

    Unlike these knights, the undead ran straight forward without following the same path as them.

    Then it was revealed why the knights had moved in these strange patterns.

    There were hidden traps ced along this path.

    There were many different traps that were triggered by the undead, but they weren''t able to kill them in the end. The only thing that they were able to do was trap these undead along this path.

    There were deadly spike traps, spears being triggered, and other simr traps that would impale the undead since that was the best way to deal damage, but there were only a few that were lucky enough to stab the undead through the head. The rest of them just pinned the undead to the ground, forcing them to rip off parts of their bodies to get up again.

    It all seemed useless, but there were a few undead that were killed.

    The most important thing was that it slowed them down enough that they weren''t able to catch up to the knights right away.

    Then there was the sound of more hooves and more undead.

    This time, the knights took a different entrance into the valley.

    This Wind Valley had many different entrances that would lead to the main valley, but these paths varied in length.

    The first set of knights had gone along the longest path.

    As for these new knights that had appeared, they went down the second longest path.

    With the difference in distance between them, the undead led by the second group of knights would reach the center of the valley just as the first group of undead arrived.

    Following that¡­there were three more groups of undead that came being led by knights.

    They all took different passages of different lengths so that just like with the first two groups, they would arrive in the center of the valley at the same time.

    Finally, there was thest group of knights leading one more pack of zombies that took the shortest path into the valley.

    This path didn''t have a single trap in it and the knights charged right through the path to reach the center of the valley where the rest of the knights were waiting.

    When all of the knights were gathered like this, they werepletely surrounded by the undead following them.

    The paths that they took came from all different directions so when they reached the center, they were indeedpletely surrounded. That is except for a single path in front of them that would lead them out of the valley.

    However, these knights didn''t charge forward right away.

    Instead, they waited in the center of the valley, as if they were waiting for the undead to catch up to them.

    Slowly but surely, the undead came closer and closer until they were right about to catch them.

    It was only then that the knights suddenly charged forward with all of their speed.

    The undead had also sped up when they had charged at them, thinking that they had caught these knights off guard and were about to take them all down. But this went against them since that speed made it so they couldn''t stop as they crashed into each other.

    This crashing of undead against each other created arge pileup in the center of the valley, which only became bigger when the undead following the first line of undead crashed into this pileup.

    As more and more undead crashed into the pile, the distance between the knights and the undead increased.

    Seeing this, the duke suddenly raised his hand to give the signal.

    The moment that the signal was given, not a single soldier wasted a single second in throwing the barrels in their hands down at the pile of undead in the middle of the valley.

    These barrels shattered the moment that they hit the undead, but they didn''t really do any damage to them. There were a few wooden shards that stabbed the undead, but they were quickly shrugged off.

    But that wasn''t the important thing.

    The important thing was that the liquid inside of the barrels also sshed out and soaked the undead pile in the center of the valley.

    Seeing these undeadpletely soaked in his precious alcohol, the duke couldn''t help feeling a tinge of pain in his heart. But he resolved himself and raised his hand again to give the signal.

    The moment that this signal was given, there was no hesitation as torches were tossed down into the center of the valley.

    When the torches touched the alcohol, there was a powerful ze that appeared that spread with the alcohol covering the undead. The undead were instantly covered in mes and there was a strong smell of flesh burning that filled the air.

    Of course, since they were rotten corpses in the first ce, there was a putrid smell of rot that also filled the air.

    However, the soldiers didn''t mind this and even enjoyed smelling this smell.

    That was because for them, this was the smell of victory.

    Seeing the undead being burned like this, they all revealed looks of joy as they thought that this fight had ended in their victory.

    But the look on my face made it clear that I thought differently.

    I had been carefully counting the number of undead that had been following the knights into the valley.

    There were around two hundred undead in each of the groups, for a total of six groups.

    But I had easily counted over two thousand undead in the cave¡­

    So where were the remaining undead?

 Chapter 258 Fighting the undead (2)

    <h4>Chapter 258 Fighting the undead (2)</h4>

    There was no way that the undead would disappear, so they had to be somewhere¡­but where?

    With this bad feeling growing inside of me, I couldn''t take it anymore and said to the duke nearby, "Can you gather everyone? I have something I need to ask them."

    The duke was confused when he heard this, but seeing the serious look on my face, he knew that it wasn''t a joke. So he quickly gave a nod in response before turning to the messenger to give the signal.

    The messenger was also confused about this order, but since it was an order from the duke, he had no choice but to follow it.

    He quickly passed on the message to the various groups, including the knights who had now met up with the rendezvous outside of the valley. It didn''t take them long to gather at the gathering spot that they had all agreed on.

    When we arrived, we found that the knights and all of the soldiers were already celebrating their victory which made me knit my brows.

    Without wasting a single second, I came forward and stopped them before asking, "Did you see any other undead?"

    When they saw this, they were naturally unhappy about being interrupted like this.

    But seeing that the duke was with me, they still answered my question.

    The various leaders of the knight groups reported that this was all the undead that had followed them. They didn''t see any other undead as they led them to this valley.

    I turned to the sixth group leader and asked, "Are you sure that there aren''t any more undead?"

    The sixth group leader was confused, but he still shook his head and said, "No, I didn''t see anything. The remainder all followed us to the valley."

    I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this.

    Shaka immediately asked, "What''s wrong? Should we go back and check?"

    I gave a nod before saying, "The numbers don''t add up."

    Everyone who heard this revealed a confused look.

    The n that we had used was to attack them in waves to make it seem like we were skirmishing them. That way, we would be able to draw the undead away in groups so that we could avoid suspicion.

    The target was of course to draw them all to this valley to be burned with the alcohol which had already happened.

    But since there was the danger of being followed by the undead the entire time, the knights hadn''t counted the number of undead that had followed them.

    However, I had been counting the undead that followed these knights when I had been watching from above.

    There had only been around two hundred undead that followed each of these groups and that added up to around one thousand and two hundred undead.

    That was far from the two thousand undead that I had seen in the cave.

    At the same time, I had noticed that there were far less undead that were made from monster corpses among the undead that followed these knights into the valley.

    After a long period of silence, one of the knights finally said, "Could it be that you just made a mistake when counting the undead in the cave. Who knows if there were actually as many as you said there were in that cave."

    When I heard this, I immediately knitted my brows.

    But I could also hear murmurs of agreementing from around me.

    It was clear that the other knights and soldiers were thinking the same thing as the knight who had spoken.

    Even the duke gave a slight nod though he kept a neutral look on his face.

    But before I could say anything, I was surprised by Veronica cutting in.

    She pointed at the knight and said, "I also saw just as many of the undead in the cave. So are you also going to say that my eyes were mistaken as well?"

    When the knight heard this, his mouth opened wide, but he wasn''t able to say a thing.

    It was one thing to talk about this person who was a baron who had been brought in by the duke.

    They didn''t know who he was and he didn''t have a high status, so it didn''t matter if they said anything about him.

    But it was different with Veronica because she was the duke''s daughter.

    After a long silence, the knight finally said, "Young miss, I didn''t mean that¡­I was just saying¡­"

    Veronica suddenly cut him off by raising her hand and saying, "There''s no time to talk about this now. Just go and find where the rest of the remaining undead are. Like Baron Zwein said, there''s no way that they just disappeared. They must be around here somewhere."

    The knights and soldiers didn''t move right away.

    Instead, they turned to look at the duke, almost as if they were waiting for permission from him.

    The duke looked at Veronica for a bit, but after seeing the serious look that she had on her face, he said, "Go and search for them. If these undead do exist, then it won''t be good leaving them. We need to find them before they cause any harm."

    The knights and soldiers gave a sigh before saddling up to go search.

    It was clear by the tone of their voice and the way that they acted that they clearly didn''t believe this.

    Even the way that the duke had given this order made it seem like he didn''t believe this.

    This caused both Veronica and I to knit our brows.

    But before either of us could say a thing, there was a loud sound that suddenly rang out.

    It was the sound of many footsteps approaching us.

    When I turned in the direction of this sound to see the dust being raised in the distance, I revealed a bitter smile as I knew immediately what was happening.

    "It''s already toote." I said in a bitter voice.

 Chapter 259 Fighting the undead (3)

    <h4>Chapter 259 Fighting the undead (3)</h4>

    The moment that they heard these sounds, the knights and soldiers immediately turned in the direction that it came from.

    They all pulled out their weapons and raised their guard.

    At the very least, this was a good demonstration of how well trained they were. The moment that they saw the enemy appear, they were prepared to fight.

    It was just too bad that the situation was much worse than they thought.

    After this first cloud dust appeared, there were even more clouds of dust that appeared all around them. Before long, they werepletely surrounded by the dust clouds that had appeared around them.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help saying, "It seemed that gathering together worked against us rather in our favour." At the same time, there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face.

    As they came closer and closer, we were able to see the true appearance of these dust clouds.

    Just like I had suspected, these were the rest of the undead that hadn''t been ounted for.

    They had separated from the main group when we hadn''t been looking or maybe they hadn''t even been with the main group in the first ce. Regardless of what the reason was, they were now surrounding us.

    At first, the knights and soldiers still seemed like they were prepared for a fight. However, as more and more of the undead revealed themselves, the looks of being ready to fight disappeared from their faces.

    That was because they could see that they werepletely outnumbered.

    Around a thousand undead, that was my rough estimate of how many enemies there were.

    If we had brought all of the knights and soldiers from the city, perhaps we would be able to match them.

    However, since we had left a group of soldiers in the city to protect it¡­that meant that we had less troops.

    We couldn''t just leave the city undefended since the undead wasn''t the only threat that thisrge Bright Water City faced.

    The duke couldn''t allow that since it was his duty to protect the people of Bright Water City.

    But it seemed like that had backfired on them now that they werepletely surrounded by these undead.

    The knights and soldiers looked at the duke in a panic with eyes that were clearly asking him what they should do. However, the duke could only look back at them with a helpless look since he didn''t know what to do either.

    If it was any other kind of enemy, perhaps they could gather together and break free of this blockade. However, it was different when they were facing the undead since the undead wouldn''t go down as easily.

    They were much tougher than normal enemies and even if they were to gather all of their power to break through a single point, it wouldn''t work because of how tough the undead were. They wouldn''t be able to exterminate the undead that stood in their way fast enough and they would be surrounded instantly.

    Since this forced them to gather all of their strongest fighters in a single spot, that would leave their formation weakened.

    Unlike now where they evenly divided their troops around them, this would cause the backside of their formation to be weak. Once they were surrounded after being stopped by the undead, the backside of the formation would be ughtered.

    At the very least, they would be able to resist for a bit if they were in formation.

    However, the worst part of all of this were the undead formed from monster corpses that they could see.

    These made up most of the undead that surrounded them.

    The power that undead had depended on the material used to create them.

    If human corpses were used to create undead, they would have the power of a human that was enhanced by the dark magic used to create the undead.

    But if a monster corpse was used to create undead, then it would have the power that the monster originally had, along with being strengthened by the dark magic used to turn it into an undead.

    This created a monster that was even stronger than when it was alive.

    Monsters were already powerful enough, they were strong enough that normal soldiers wouldn''t be able to fight against them. Knights would only be able to match them barely and would still need help to fight against them.

    And that was just for normal monsters¡­

    These undead monsters would without a doubt be stronger than normal monsters.

    So what should they do in this situation?

    Should they try to push through, using some of their members as bait to escape or should they stay and fight.

    Neither of these methods seemed like there was any hope, but at least the former had a higher chance of survival. Or at least it did for those that were considered important.

    This was basically exchanging the lives of those weaker soldiers to save the duke, his daughter, and some of the knights. The ones that escaped would return to the city where there was a higher chance of fighting back.

    It was a way of preserving their battle strength, but it was one that came at the cost of lives.

    While the duke was hesitating on what to do, I had been carefully observing the undead that wereing closer.

    I could see that there was a particr formation to these undead, with most of the undead monsters being gathered in one area. They were gathered behind us where it was most likely that we would go to escape.

    It seemed that they wanted to trap us and prevent us from escaping.

    But if they did that, it left their ranks weaker in front of us.

    So there had to be something that made up for that.

    As I had guessed, the ranks of undead in front of us parted to reveal¡­a demon.

    This wasn''t just any demon, it was the same demon that I had caught a glimpse of back in the cave.

 Chapter 260 Fighting the undead (4)

    <h4>Chapter 260 Fighting the undead (4)</h4>

    When the demon stepped out from the line of undead, he looked over us as if he was sizing us up.

    Then all of a sudden, the demon said, "You''re the ones that caused me all this trouble? Just with you, you were able to do all of that?"

    No one said a word in response to this, but some of the soldiers with weaker wills couldn''t stop their legs from turning soft at the pressure that this demon released.

    Even the knights couldn''t help breaking out in a cold sweat when facing the demon.

    There was only me and Shaka who just stood there firmly because we already had experience with demons. The pressure from this demon wouldn''t be enough to scare us since we were already used to it.

    No, there was someone else who also stood firm.

    Surprisingly, Veronica didn''t react at all when she felt the pressure from the demon.

    Either she had nerves of steel¡­or she was too scared to react.

    When the demon appeared, I immediately turned to look at Shaka and he gave a nod in response.

    Both of us knew that to take care of these undead, we would have to take care of this demon.

    To take care of pawns, one needed to take care of the king.

    But it was also clear that this demon was stronger than the demonmander that I faced before, so we needed something to get the edge over this demon.

    While everyone was focused on the demon, I pulled out The Prator from my inventory and handed it over to Shaka.

    Shaka was surprised to see me pull this out from behind me, but he knew better than to question it. After all, he had seen much stranger things from me that he knew better than to ask questions.

    However, his eyes did light up when he saw The Prator.

    After all, he had already seen how much power was in this magic weapon and even he was curious about using it. It was just that he never had a chance and he wasn''t as shameless as Jessica to just ask for it.

    Still, now he had a chance to use this magic weapon and he couldn''t help feeling excited.

    Though most of that excitement was suppressed since he knew that he and the rest of their group were in serious danger.

    Once he grabbed The Prator, Shaka didn''t hesitate to step forward.

    All of the knights and soldiers were surprised by his sudden move, even the demon was taken aback by this human who suddenly came forward.

    But seeing the way that Shaka raised his weapon, the demon couldn''t help breaking out inughter. After that, the demon said, "Do you really think that you''re a match for me?"

    With that, the demon raised his hand and there was a cknce that appeared in it.

    This cknce was something that I recognized immediately since I had an intimate encounter with it before. If I had dodged a single secondter, then Veronica would have been impaled by thisnce.

    I could also see Veronica giving a shiver when she saw thisnce. It was clear that she recognized it as well.

    The demon wasn''t finished yet, after pulling out thence, he said, "This is an insult not just to me, but to the demon king who personally gave me this mission. Human, since you are seeking death, I will help you."

    Without hesitation, the demon charged forward with thence in hand.

    At the same time, the undead followed behind the demon and also charged forward.

    Shaka didn''t hesitate when he saw this, he dashed forward to meet the demon head on.

    The duke had been in a daze when he saw the undead appear, but he snapped out of it at this moment.

    He knew that they would only have a single chance to survive this, so he didn''t hesitate to give the order, "Back him up! Block the undead in his way so he can fight the demon! Only if he wins will we be able to escape this ce!"

    The knights and soldiers had also been stunned, but they were also pulled out of their daze when they heard this.

    They looked at each other before giving nods and charging forward behind Shaka.

    But since they had horses while Shaka was on foot, they quickly caught up and even overtook him so that they formed a line in front of him.

    On the other side, the demon had deliberately gone slower so that the undead would be in front of him.

    With the two sides charging like this, it didn''t take long before they shed.

    Or rather, it was the knights and soldiers who crashed into the undead line. Since they were faster, they used their mobility to sh at the undead while maintaining a distance from them.

    Like this, they were able to lure the undead from the area around the demon away, exposing the demon to Shaka.

    The demon wasn''t surprised to see this and he didn''t panic at all as he raised hisnce to stab out at Shaka.

    Shaka also wasn''t afraid, he just raised The Prator up to swing out at the demon.

    When he brought it up, this was the first time that everyone saw The Prator in its full form. He had been hiding it slightly in his cloak before this and they had been in a daze over what had happened, so they hadn''t seen it.

    But now that they saw The Prator, they couldn''t help feeling that it looked very strange¡­especially the tip of this weapon.

    It almost looked like a¡­

    Shaka ignored all of this and focused on the demon.

    The demon was caught off guard as well, but then he focused on Shaka.

    During all of this, while everyone''s attention was away from me, I pulled out something.

    Then without hesitation, I pulled out a match from my Storage Ring.

    If Shaka was going to win this, he would need something to give him an edge and this was my way of helping him.

 Chapter 261 Fighting the undead (5)

    <h4>Chapter 261 Fighting the undead (5)</h4>

    With the knights and soldiers pulling the undead away, there was a path that had been opened up for Shaka to reach the demon.

    Seeing this path, Shaka didn''t hesitate at all to charge at the demon who was just standing there with the cknce in his hand.

    Then when Shaka was about to reach the demon, the demon suddenly raised the hand with the cknce in it.

    In one smooth move, the cknce was cast out of the demon''s hand and started flying at Shaka.

    Shaka narrowed his eyes when he saw this, but there was no fear at all as he swung his sword out to meet it.

    When The Prator made contact with the cknce, there wasn''t a moment of hesitation. The Prator had no problem shattering the cknce to pieces, scattering it in the wind.

    The demon couldn''t help revealing a surprised look since it knew the power that was contained within the cknce.

    This was the power of his ck magic, one that could corrode anything that it touched.

    However, there wasn''t a single mark of corrosion on the strange sword that Shaka was holding.

    The demon immediately recognized that this strange looking sword that Shaka was holding was definitely not a normal item. Once he realized this, he looked at the strange looking sword in Shaka''s hand with a wary look.

    But still, the demon gathered more cknces in his hands.

    This was something that was created with his ck magic, so as long as he didn''t run out of mana, the demon didn''t have a problem creating more cknces.

    He would use these cknces to push back Shaka and see if he could keep him at a distance.

    So while throwing these cknces, the demon started moving back away from Shaka.

    But for Shaka, these cknces didn''t scare him at all.

    Since he had easily shattered through the first one, he was certain that he would be able to easily shatter through the second, third, and any other cknces that came at him.

    Swinging The Prator out, the cknces that came at him were all shattered to pieces just like the first one.

    The scattered ck energy of thences floated around in the air before disappearing without a trace.

    The demon hadn''t paid attention to this at first, but then he recognized that this was strange.

    After all, even if the form of the cknce itself was shattered, the energy shouldn''t be scattering in such a manner. The cknces were made of the ck mana of the demon, they only took the form of thence because they were gathered in this manner by the demon.

    So even if they were shattered by something like this, the ck mana shouldn''t be fading away into nothingness like this.

    The ck mana was just being held in this form and it didn''t need to be this form.

    After it was shattered, the ck mana should be corroding whatever it fell upon.

    But for some reason, the ck mana was disappearing without a trace after it was shattered by that strange sword.

    That meant that this strange sword¡­was somehow dispelling the ck mana.

    The demon looked carefully at the sword while still throwing out the cknces and muttered under his breath, "Just what is this thing?"

    But after thinking about it, the demon then said, "It''ll make a good present for my lord."

    The demon didn''t stop running away and throwing cknces, but eventually, he realized that there was something wrong with this.

    That was because there was an area that had been cleared out around them.

    The undead were being routed by the knights and then the knights were creating a circle around them, which created this area for their fight.

    But that was where the problem was.

    The demon''s area of movement was being limited by the circle of knights around him.

    The demon wasn''t scared of facing these knights, but having to face them would mean stalling his movement. Once he stalled his movement, Shaka would be able to catch up to him and use that strange magic weapon on him.

    While he wasn''t certain he would lose to this magic weapon, he didn''t want to take this risk either. That was why he had been kiting Shaka around with the cknces, trying to wear him down.

    But now he also found that the circle of knights was getting closer and closer, giving him less space to run.

    The demon immediately tried getting the undead to push the knights to break this line, but the knights were able to hold on firmly¡­though this came at the sacrifice of a few of the weaker soldiers and knights. Since they were holding this line with their strongest members, the weaker members were left to fend for themselves¡­

    Seeing that it was useless, the demon ignored them and turned his attention back onto Shaka.

    All of a sudden, the demon stopped running away and stood firm to face Shaka.

    Shaka was surprised by this and also stopped, but seeing that the demon wasn''t doing anything, he charged at the demon again with The Prator in hand.

    The demon just revealed a smirk seeing this before saying, "You want to y? Then I''ll y with you."

    There was a tremble in the demon''s body before there were ck veins that suddenly appeared on the surface of his skin.

    When I saw this, I immediately recognized what this was.

    It was the same thing that the demonmander had done before and once this had happened, all of the demonmander''s abilities had increased. It seemed that this was some kind of unique buff that demons had.

    So I immediately shouted, "Watch¡­"

    Before I could say anything else, the demon was already charging out at Shaka.

    He threw two morences at Shaka that Shaka easily shattered before stabbing out at Shaka with a darknce that he held in both hands.

 Chapter 262 Fighting the undead (6)

    <h4>Chapter 262 Fighting the undead (6)</h4>

    Shaka was surprised by how fast thisnce wasing at him, but he was still able to react in time.

    He swung The Prator out to smash thisnce before stepping into the swing. He wanted to use this single swing to shatter both thence and the person who was holding thence.

    It was just too bad that the demon was already prepared for this, so the demon suddenly jumped up over Shaka.

    Once the demon was gone, all Shaka''s swing hit was thin air.

    When the demon was in the air, he condensed two cknces that he stabbed down at Shaka beneath him while shouting, "Die!"

    Shaka knew that he was in danger, so he didn''t hesitate to continue that swing. However, the swing didn''t continue forward, but rather he twisted his body so that the swing went upwards to meet the twonces stabbing down at him.

    The Prator was easily able to shatter the twonces, but the force caused Shaka to fall to the ground.

    At the same time, the force of the swingunched the demon up into the air before he was able tond on the ground. The demon flipped in the air from being sent upwards with the force of this swing beforending not far away from Shaka.

    Even though Shaka had been thrown down onto the ground, the demon didn''t attack him again.

    Instead, he just stood there with a confident look on his face as he said, "Well, now do you feel like surrendering?"

    Shaka quickly got up off the ground and narrowed his eyes to look at the demon with a confused look.

    The demon casually said, "You''re not bad. As long as you swear your allegiance to my lord, I can spare your life."

    Though when he said this, his eyes were actually on The Prator.

    His real target was this strange magic weapon that Shaka used. If he was able to take Shaka back with him, he would be able to get more information on this magic weapon and they might even be able to reproduce it.

    Though he didn''t know that Shaka wasn''t the owner of this weapon.

    It was Zwein, who didn''t actually know anything about the power of The Prator at all.

    It was the system that had created The Prator in the first ce and gave it its effect.

    Shaka narrowed his eyes even more when he heard this before he said, "In your dreams. I would rather die than work for the demons."

    The demon gave a shrug when he heard this before saying, "Well, if that''s what you want."

    With a wave of his hand, there was a cknce that appeared again.

    However, the demon didn''t make a move as he just stood there staring at Shaka. It was almost as if he was trying to intimidate him rather than cut him down.

    Shaka felt insulted by this, but he didn''t say a thing in response.

    He just focused on the demon, making sure that he would be able to immediately recognize any movement from the demon.

    Based on that sh just now, Shaka knew that he waspletely outssed by the demon in terms of physical prowess. The demon''s physical capacities had suddenly exploded and now it even seemed like he was ying with him.

    But how did this demon''s physical prowess suddenly explode like this?

    It was almost as if he had suddenly been injected with steroids.

    Shaka was really tempted to just find a way to escape, but he knew that this wasn''t possible.

    So he started thinking of a way to distract the demon until he could cut it down.

    But before he could put any ns in action, I suddenly shouted, "Stall him!"

    Shaka and the demon both looked at me with confused looks. At the same time, everyone else who was here looked at me like I was crazy..

    I was someone who was clearly a nonbatant and I was drawing attention to myself like this.

    It was almost as if I was just asking to be killed by the undead around me.

    But after Shaka looked carefully at me to see the serious look I had, he gave a nod in response.

    With a sudden roar from him, there was a green light that suddenly appeared around Shaka.

    This was the same green glow that he had released when he had fought with the Crow Gang back in ndal City.

    As soon as this green glow appeared, there was a strong breeze that appeared in this area. This strong breeze however didn''t seem like it was affecting Shaka at all.

    The moment that the demon saw this, he knitted his brows before saying, "You think that you can beat me with this cheap trick? This won''tst long and once it expires, you will die!"

    Shaka said with a confident look, "I''m not dead yet."

    The demon''s face twisted in anger when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything else.

    He just suddenly charged forward with the cknces in hand.

    Shaka also didn''t miss a beat as he charged forward with The Prator raised.

    Instead of being outssed this time, Shaka was able to keep pace with the demon once again even though the demon had been strengthened by something.

    Then when it came to power, The Prator made up for it since The Prator was able to break through anything it hit.

    It seemed like they were evenly matched at first, but the green glow that was around Shaka was also slowly fading away and he became slower and slower. It was clear that whatever power he had used to make himself faster was slowly wearing off.

    The demon saw this and said with a confident look, "Your fake power is about to run out. Surrender now and I''ll consider sparing you."

    But Shaka didn''t say anything as he fully focused on the fight.

    Then when the green light was about topletely fade, the demon was about tond a blow on Shaka¡­when he suddenly stopped.

 Chapter 263 Fighting The Undead (7)

    The demon had stopped out of nowhere and it was as if something had happened to him.

    All of a sudden, the demon jumped back away from Shaka.

    When the demonnded, one of his legs couldn''t stand up properly, so the demon couldn''t help stumble. He was still able to catch himself right before he fellpletely, so the demon fell onto one knee instead of falling on his face.

    The demon then raised his hands up in front of him and looked carefully at them.

    As he looked at his hands, his expression couldn''t help changing several times. That was until finally, the demon revealed a serious look and asked, "What did you do to me?"

    After he said this, his breathing couldn''t help bing faster and faster as his face turned red.

    This red shade to his face was quite prominent because of his dark skin.

    He then couldn''t help clutching his chest as he said, "Just what is this burning feeling inside of me?"

    Shaka had been taking this time to catch his breath. After all, using that special wind buff magic was not something that was easy for him.

    That special wind buff magic pushed his body to the limits of what it could handle, so he always had to catch his breath after using it.

    Seeing that the demon still wasn''t moving, Shaka didn''t miss out on this opening.

    He raised The Prator and charged out at the demon. He didn''t do anything fancy and just used a simple swing against the demon.

    Though even if he wanted to do something fancy, he really couldn''t since his body was at the limit.

    The demon had been lost in his own world for a bit, but he didn''t miss Shakaing at him.

    The demon suppressed all of the questions that he had and chose to focus on Shaka.

    He reached his hand out as if he wanted to gather another cknce. At first, the ck energy that formed thence started gathering in his hand, but then¡­it suddenly stopped.

    The ck energy that he had already gathered scattered away, almost as if it didn''t exist.

    The demon looked at his hand in shock.

    That was because that feeling just now was like his mana flow had been disrupted.

    The demon carefully checked his body''s condition and found that his mana was indeed in a mess right now.

    Whatever the thing bothering him was, it was also throwing off the flow of his mana.

    With this thing bothering him, he wasn''t able to control his mana properly. That was why he had been unable to gather the ck energy for that cknce.

    The demon really wanted to figure out just what was wrong with his body, but he didn''t have the time. Shaka was getting closer and closer, so it had to deal with Shaka first.

    Since the demon wasn''t able to gather the ck energy needed for the cknce, he had no choice but to resort to its backup weapon.

    The demon reached behind his waist and all of a sudden pulled out a small de.

    This was a tiny dagger that had a jet ck de. However, that tiny de didn''t remain tiny for long.

    Though he was unable to gather the ck energy to form the cknce, the demon was still able to gather the ck energy with the ck dagger. The ck energy wrapped around the ck dagger without any resistance.

    As more and more of that ck energy gathered, the de itself grew longer and longer.

    It had been a short dagger at first, but eventually it turned into a proper jet ck sword.

    The demon had wanted to gather even more ck energy into the de, but Shaka was getting too close so the demon had no choice but to face Shaka head on with the de that he had currently condense.

    It was the length of a short sword now, so it was still shorter than The Prator.

    For the demon to strike Shaka, he would have to avoid The Prator first and then strike him while he was unable to move.

    So to do that, he would need to bait Shaka to miss.

    The demon didn''t hesitate to charge out at Shaka, but he moved slower than before so Shaka was able to easily find an opening.

    But at the veryst second, when Shaka was about to hit the demon, the demon suddenly sped up.

    It was just too bad for the demon that¡­Shaka had also been ying him.

    Shaka also knew that he wouldn''t be able to hit this cunning demon unless he baited him, so he had also put on a y.

    When the demon started speeding up, Shaka also sped up.

    There was anotheryer of green light that appeared around him. This was the sameyer of green light that had appeared before that had allowed Shaka to suddenly speed up.

    He had faked it disappearing earlier and had voluntarily released it, while still saving a bit of the wind magic energy.

    With this bit of wind magic energy that he saved, he was able to use it at the veryst second to catch this demon off guard.

    The demon knew that it was impossible for him to dodge this attack now, so he raised his ck sword to block it.

    "You¡­"

    That was all the demon was able to say before his sword was shattered.

    With a roar, Shaka smashed right through the demon''s sword and mmed The Prator right into the demon''s chest.

    There was no dy as the demon was sent flying like a kite that had its string cut.

    At the same time, there was a spray of ck blood that came out of the demon''s mouth, spraying through the air as the demon was sent flying.

    The demon couldn''t stop himself and the knights quickly dodged out of the way of the flying demon, allowing him to crash right into the waves of undead behind them.

    The undead were unable to stop the demon as he sent arge group of them flying with the force he had been sent flying with.

    Finally, after arge patch of undead had been cleared out, the demonid there on the ground with his eyes rolled back in their sockets.

 Chapter 264 Fighting The Undead (8)

    There was only silence that lingered in the air after the demon had been sent flying like this.

    No one was able to say a thing since they didn''t expect the match to be decided in a single blow like this.

    They all couldn''t help looking at Shaka with shocked looks, but in truth, Shaka also had a shocked look as he looked at the strange sword in his hand. It was just a good thing that his shocked expression was hidden by the hood on his face or else it would have affected the morale of the knights and soldiers.

    He knew that it wasn''t his power that had sent the demon flying like that.

    There was no way that his attack would be strong enough to do that much damage, especially against demons that had skin that was strengthened by magic.

    So it had to be the power of this strange sword that had done it.

    But just how did this strange sword have this much power?

    At the same time, just what was Zwein''s identity that he was able to bring out this kind of magic weapon?

    It seemed that he had underestimated Zwein once more.

    But even if the knights and soldiers were stunned, that didn''t mean that the undead would stop.

    They had been given a single order and even if the one that had given them this order had been knocked out, the order was still there. They wouldn''t stop attacking even if the knights and soldiers were stunned.

    A few of the knights and soldiers were injured because of this, but it also pulled them back to the fight.

    At the same time, the knights were about to move back into formation after moving away to let the demon fly out, but they heard someone shout something.

    "Grab him and bring him back in!"

    The knights were taken aback by this, but they also quickly followed the order since it had been said in a tone that they couldn''t resist.

    The knights quickly grabbed the unconscious demon and brought him inside of the line that they had created.

    If they had hesitated for even a second, they would have been overrun by the zombies that had returned to their original position.

    So they ran like dogs to get back into the line of knights with the demon in hand.

    Once they were in, the knights behind them pushed back the undead that charged forward to bite and swipe at them.

    Only when they were inside the line did they let out a sigh of relief.

    But it was far from over yet.

    As soon as they brought the demon back in, I immediately went over to where the demon had been thrown onto the ground. Without waiting for them to move, I pushed right through the knights so that I was standing over the demon.

    When the knights saw this, they all couldn''t help being surprised before one of them said, "What are you doing? Stop ying around!"

    But I just calmly said, "The demon is the one controlling the undead. Unless we find out how he''s doing it, we will eventually be swallowed by the undead around us. So you''re the ones that need to stop ying around!"

    In the face of my fierce voice, the knights couldn''t help backing down.

    After all, they knew that I was right.

    So they turned to look at the demon, but they all revealed looks of pity when they saw the shape that the demon was in.

    The demon''s chestpletely copsed, showing that he had broken several ribs in the fight. At the same time, his limbs were all in weird directions, making it clear that they had been dislocated.

    He was most likely in pain that was greater than dying and if he was awake, he would be screaming from the pain.

    But I didn''t care at all about any of this.

    I went forward and leaned in above the demon before reaching out to p the demon in the face.

    I pped again and again when I saw the demon wasn''t waking up.

    As I pped the demon, I just had a calm and emotionless look on my face which made me seem like a crazy person.

    As they saw me like this, all of the knights couldn''t help feeling fearful.

    They had a low opinion of me because they thought that I was someone who was just relying on my powerful guard to have a say. But now they realized that perhaps I wasn''t as simple as I seemed¡­

    I might be quite the terrifying person with the way that I pped the demon without any hesitation.

    Eventually, the demon slowly woke up because of the pping, but when he woke up, he was still being pped.

    "What¡­is¡­going¡­on?" The demon said in between ps.

    Seeing that he woke up, I gave two final ps to vent my feelings before grabbing his hair and lifting his head up to say, "How are you controlling the undead? If you don''t tell me, I''ll make sure that you suffer."

    "Huh?" The demon revealed a very confused look when he heard this, but then his expression suddenly changed to fill with pain as he finally realized what state his body was in.

    "Ah!" The demon roared out, but all he received in return was a p.

    I then said again, "Where is the thing you''re using to control the undead? Speak now or don''t me me for being ruthless."

    The demon winced as he adjusted to the pain before saying through gritted teeth, "Who are¡­"

    Before he could finish, I pped him across the face again before saying, "You only have two options here. One, you get pped or two, you tell me what you''re using to control the undead."

    The demon was slowly realizing what was happening here, so he spat out a mouthful of blood at me which I easily dodged before saying, "You''ll never get anything out of me."

    I just said with a cold smile, "Is that so? I''ve met many demons who have said the same thing as you."

    The demon didn''t know why, but he couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine when he heard this.

 Chapter 265 Fighting The Undead (9)

    I just looked at the demon with the same cold smile and said, "I''ll give you onest chance. As long as you tell me what I want to know, I can still let you go."

    There was a hint of hesitation that appeared on the face of the demon, but he quickly suppressed it and said, "You humans will never get anything out of a proud demon like me! Realize now that you are¡­"

    Before he could finish, there was another p that went across his face.

    Then I just let go of his hair and let the demon fall to the ground.

    I turned around to look at Shaka and reached my hand out towards him as I said, "Hand it over."

    Shaka was confused at first, but then he realized what I meant.

    He slowly handed over The Prator before asking, "Are you going to¡­"

    He didn''t finish his words, but I knew what he was asking so I simply gave him a nod in response before saying, "Turn him around for me and get him in position."

    Shaka revealed a bitter smile, but he still followed this order.

    When the knights saw Shakaing over, they couldn''t help taking a step back.

    After all, this was the fearsome warrior who had taken down the powerful demon just now. They couldn''t help feeling fear and admiration towards this person.

    But Shaka didn''t care about any of this as he walked over to the demon lying there.

    When the demon saw Shakaing over, he couldn''t help feeling a bit fearful. After all, thest thing he remembered was being hit by Shaka''s blow that had caused him all this damage.

    He wasn''t even able to move a single muscle now because of being hit by Shaka like this.

    As he watched Shakaing over, he said, "Stop, don''te any closer!"

    But Shakapletely ignored him.

    He lifted the demon up which surprised the demon who asked, "What are you¡­"

    Before the demon could finish asking this question, Shaka had already flipped him around and pushed his face into the ground. At the same time, he lifted the demon''s waist up so that it was pointing into the sky, or rather so that his butt was pointing into the sky.

    When he was put in this position, the demon couldn''t help wincing in pain since this position put pressure on the parts of him that had copsed.

    After enduring the pain of being put in this position, the demon suddenly asked, "What are you doing to me?"

    But once again, he waspletely ignored.

    Seeing that he was in position, I walked over to the demon and stood over him with The Prator in my hand as I said, "Do you feel like telling us now?"

    As heid there, the demon couldn''t help feeling a bad premonition when he saw me standing like this. Instead of answering my question, he simply said, "What, what are you nning on doing?"

    When he said this, I didn''t hesitate to p his butt with The Prator¡­but I underestimated how much power 99% pration really had. The demon was sent face first into the ground with this and he was knocked out by this.

    I couldn''t help revealing an awkward look on my face when I saw this as I thought, "I just lightly tapped him. Is he really that weak that he can''t even take a light tap?"

    But then I gave a cough and said, "p him awake."

    Shaka gave a nod before he went forward to p the demon.

    Since his ps were heavier than my own, the demon woke up much sooner this time.

    When he woke up, he couldn''t help screaming out in pain. This time, the pain came from his butt from being smacked by The Prator.

    But I had Shaka put him in the same position again before saying, "Do you want to tell us now?"

    The demon gritted his teeth and there were traces of hesitation in his eyes, but in the end, he still said, "In your dream! I will never tell you anything!"

    With a snort, I said, "Very good."

    Then I turned to look in Veronica''s direction to say, "Young miss, you might want to look away for this next part. It won''t be a proper scene for a youngdy like yourself."

    Veronica revealed a confused look, but she didn''t follow my suggestion at all.

    I gave a nod to Shaka and said, "Do it."

    Shaka gave a sigh beforeing up behind the demon and pulling off his pants.

    There was a moment of silence after this before the demon suddenly roared out, "What are you doing! Do you think that you''ll be able to get anything from me if you embarrass me like this!"

    At the same time, Veronica suddenly turned away and covered her eyes with her hands as she realized why he had said that it wouldn''t be appropriate for her. But she also couldn''t help peeking through the slits of her fingers since this was her first time seeing a man''s thing¡­she couldn''t help being curious.

    She was only able to get a single peek before the duke stood in front of her and blocked her view.

    The duke also red at me for exposing his daughter to this, but I ignored it.

    I just said, "What do you think I will do?"

    "Huh?" The demon couldn''t help forgetting his rage and saying this in a confused voice when he heard this.

    I looked at him with a cold smile and said, "Look very closely at the shape of this thing in my hand and think about what I can do with it."

    "Huh?" The demon said in an even more confused voice when he heard this.

    He looked carefully at the thing in Zwein''s hand.

    He recognized it was the magic weapon that defeated him, but he had never paid any attention to the shape of this thing.

    But now that he was looking at it closely, he started to realize that it did have a very strange shape.

    It almost looked somewhat familiar¡­

    Then the demon''s eyes suddenly opened wide as he said, "You wouldn''t¡­you wouldn''t dare!"

 Chapter 266 Fighting The Undead (10)

    I revealed what I considered was an evil smile as I slowly lowered The Prator in my hand.

    As I lowered it, I made sure that the tip of The Prator was pointing forward, right at the demon''s behind.

    Then with that same smile on my face, I said, "Wouldn''t I?"

    When the demon saw this and heard what I saw, he couldn''t help thinking to himself, "Am I the demon or are you?"

    But he refused to believe that this human would actually go through with it.

    No, it was that he desperately wanted to believe that this human wouldn''t go through with it.

    After all, this was something so cruel that even demons wouldn''t do something like this.

    When the knights on the side saw this, they all couldn''t help being dazed. There were even a few of them that were hit by the undead because they had been peeking back to see what he had been doing.

    The ones that got hurt because of this couldn''t help thinking, "Brother, are you trying to help us or hurt us?"

    But I didn''t care about any of that as I waited for the demon to say something.

    In the end, the demon didn''t say a single thing as he kept that stubborn look on his face.

    It was clear that this demon was gambling that I wouldn''t go through with my threat¡­but it was just too bad that he was wrong. After all, this was something that I had already done before and the one that I had done it to¡­he could attest that I was serious about this.

    I hadn''t held back at all when I jammed The Prator into the behind of the demonmander.

    So seeing that he wouldn''t say a thing, I gave a sigh as I said, "It seems like this is the way that it has to be."

    It might seem a bit rushed with the way that I was pushing this, but I had no choice since we were currently surrounded by the undead.

    If we dyed this for too long, it would take no time for the undead horde to smother us.

    So we can''t waste any more time than this.

    I brought the tip of The Prator down so that it was right over the demon''s butt before saying, "Last chance."

    The demon''s expression couldn''t help showing a bit of hesitation and a bit of doubt as he thought to himself, "He wouldn''t really do it, right?"

    Unfortunately for the demon, he lost this bet.

    Since the demon wouldn''t say anything, I brought the tip of The Prator right up to his butthole and then slowly started pushing it in.

    The demon''s eyes opened wider and wider as he couldn''t believe what was happening.

    When he started to feel his butthole being opened up by The Prator, the demon wanted to say something. However, his mouth quickly opened wide as he started shouting out in pain.

    I hadn''t hesitated at all once I had gotten the tip in and pushed in with all my might.

    It was stuck since this was his first time putting something in there, so it got stuck. However, the blooding out from his butthole meant that it had gone in quite deep.

    There were even many knights that had turned away when this happened.

    They also raised their hands to their butts as if they could feel the pain that the demon felt, but that caused several of them to suffer at the hands of the undead again.

    The cry of painsted for a while before it slowly turned into a moan of pleasure that made everyone look at the demon with a strange look.

    The demon also didn''t know why he did this, but for some reason, there was a heat that was deep inside of him. This heat had also appeared earlier when he had been fighting Shaka and it had been what had made it hard for him to fight.

    It could even be said that this ufortable feeling had been what had caused him to lose against Shaka earlier.

    But just where did this heate from?

    Once again, it could all be tracked back to Zwein.

    Just like the fight with the elves, he had secretly pulled out an aphrodisiac incense that would only affect demons.

    This was one of the rare aphrodisiac incenses that he received from the system that would only affect certain races. After proving its effect on the elves, it should be said that this was a treasure.

    But if he didn''t use it now to save his life, he would regret not using it when he died.

    He was certain that there would be other situations where he would be able to use this incense, but it wouldn''t matter if he was dead.

    After the demon let out that moan of pleasure, I couldn''t help stopping my hand and looking at him with a strange look.

    When that feeling from his behind stopped, the demon was able to regain some of his senses. Though The Prator that was still partially inside of him made it a bit hard for him to think since it filled him with the same heat as before.

    The demon saw all of the strange looks that he received, so he said, "It''s not¡­it''s not what you¡­you think..."

    But of course, there was no denying the fact that he had given a moan of pleasure just now.

    I saw that he was starting to crack, so I said, "As long as you tell me where the thing I want is, I''ll stop."

    The demon couldn''t help revealing aplicated look.

    That was because there was a part of him that didn''t want this human to stop.

    There was a strange part of him that actually enjoyed this¡­which was why he had let out that moan of pleasure in the first ce.

    Seeing that he wasn''t saying a thing, I started pulling The Prator out instead of pushing it back in since I couldn''t push it any deeper in.

    When I pulled it out, there was another moan of pleasure that came from the demon that really made me want to dig a hole to hide myself in.

    But this moan of pleasure was different from the other one that I heard before.

    It felt that there was something strange about this moan¡­so I couldn''t help asking, "What are you¡­"

    Before I could finish saying what I wanted to say, there was a loud cry from the demon as there was something that suddenly spurted out onto the ground.

    It was a white liquid that came from his waist¡­

    After he finished shooting this, the demon''s body couldn''t hold himself up anymore and he fell down onto the white liquid that he had just shot out, creating arge mess¡­

    There was only silence that filled the air after this happened and during this, The Prator came out of the demon''s butt with a ''plop'' sound.

    This time, they weren''t looking at the demon with a strange look.

    Rather, they were all looking at me with strange looks that also had varying degrees of embarrassment.

    I really wanted to dig a hole and hide myself¡­

 Chapter 267 Fighting The Undead (11)

    All of us stood there around the demon with awkward looks on our faces, but the biggest one was the one on my face.

    The only sound that could be heard came from the blood that was dripping down the tip of The Prator.

    After a long period of silence, I gave a cough to calm myself down before saying, "Are you going to talk now?"

    It was toote to back down now¡­

    Even if I was shocked by what had happened, I couldn''t appear weak and I had to act like I was still in charge¡­even though I really was about to die from the embarrassment of this situation.

    This was not an aplishment that I wanted on my resume¡­

    The demon wasn''t in his right mind when I said this. He was justying there in a daze, as if he was still out of it because of what had happened.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help feeling more and more embarrassed as I remembered what had happened.

    Because of this embarrassment, I also couldn''t help feeling more and more annoyed out of shame.

    This demon!

    It was all his fault that I was in this situation! If he just gave up and told me what I wanted to know, I wouldn''t have had to do all of that!

    So in that anger, I pressed The Prator back up against his butt and said, "You better tell me what I want to know, or else!"

    The demon''s butt had been burning because of what had happened, so when the cold Prator was ced against it, he couldn''t help snapping out of his daze.

    When he looked up at The Prator at first, there was a bit of longing in his eyes that scared me a bit. But slowly, his eyes cleared and he regained his sanity to say, "Don''t, please don''t."

    I gave a secret sigh of relief when I saw his eyes clear up.

    At the very least¡­I didn''t have to do it for real again¡­All I had to do was¡­

    I pressed it right up against his butt and said again, "Tell me what I want to know, or else!"

    Of course, this time, I used a much more threatening voice.

    The demon had a very conflicted look on his face, but in the end¡­he still gave in.

    He slowly said, "It''s¡­it''s in my special spatial storage magic space. Unless I open it, it won''te out."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the demon and said, "Then you better take it out now."

    The demon slowly said, "I can''t¡­I don''t have any magic¡­"

    Before he could finish, I pressed it up against his butt harder and said, "You better give up that idea of lying to me, or else who knows what I''ll do."

    The demon couldn''t help feeling the heat rise again, but he knew that he couldn''t go through that again. He couldn''t let himself suffer that embarrassment once more.

    Not to mention¡­even if he did take it out it wasn''t as if they could use it since it was a special item that bonded with a master.

    So with a sigh, he used the bit of magic that he had gathered that he had been nning on using to escape to open the storage space. After this storage space opened, there was a small ck bead that fell onto the ground.

    With this bead appearing, I took back The Prator and let the demon rest on the floor before walking over. When I was standing over the demon, I handed The Prator over to Shaka who was standing nearby, but Shaka''s eyes were on the tip of The Prator.

    He had a look in his eyes that made it clear that he didn''t want to take this thing, but he still took it in the end.

    I reached down and picked up the ck orb from the ground.

    I raised it up in front of my eyes and I could see the ck energy that was inside of it, but the problem was I didn''t know how to use this thing.

    I tried tapping it, smacking it, shaking it, and all kinds of different ways, but it didn''t seem like it was reacting at all.

    Seeing this, I realized why the demon had given up this thing so easily.

    Even if we could obtain it, it wasn''t as if we could use it to stop the undead. We had to get the demon to either use it to stop the undead or give us the method to use this thing.

    I turned back to look at the demon on the ground and found that he had gone unconscious again.

    I was about to tell Shaka to p him awake when all of a sudden, there was a notification that popped up.

    The moment that I saw this notification, I couldn''t help being taken aback.

    That was because the system had just offered a solution.

    "A special loot item has been detected. Does the host want to be the new master of this item?"

    I never thought that the system would be able to do something like this. However, my first question was, "Why is this considered loot?"

    The system sent another notification saying, "The subordinate of the host has defeated the demon and obtained this item. So it is considered the loot of the host. Of course, it is only because this item is a special item that it can be considered loot."

    It seemed that there was a function of the system that I didn''t know about at all.

    But the system was a sex toy system¡­did that mean that this orb could be used as some kind of sex toy?

    The system didn''t offer an exnation this time as it waited for me to respond.

    Of course I still had many questions about this thing, but for now¡­it wasn''t the time to ask it. After all, we were still surrounded by a bunch of undead.

    So I just thought in my mind, "Yes."

 Chapter 268 Fighting The Undead (12)

    As soon as I thought this, there was a light that came from the ck orb.

    It was a faint light at first, but it then became stronger and stronger until it was too bright for me to look directly at.

    I couldn''t help turning away and covering my eyes with this bright light in front of me.

    However, this bright light didn''tst long and I was able to look forward again.

    When I did, I saw that everyone around me was looking at me with strange looks. It was as if they were questioning what I was doing.

    I looked at them with a confused look as well since I had no idea how they had missed the bright light that hade from the orb. No matter how one looked at it, it should have been impossible to miss such a bright light.

    However, I quickly realized that¡­they most likely didn''t see this bright light at all.

    After all, it was impossible to miss such a bright light if they had seen it, so the only possibility was that I was the only one that had seen it.

    At the same time, it was very likely that I was the only one that had seen it since this was something that came from the system. The system was only binded to me, so I should be the only one seeing special things from it.

    This sort of made me feel special, but I shook that thought out of my head since there was something else that had to be taken care of first.

    The hordes of undead were still following the order of the demon and attacking us.

    Ignoring all of the looks that were directed at me, I focused my eyes on the orb.

    When I did, as I had expected, there was a popup that appeared.

    This meant that I had now imed this item as my own and could use it as I wanted.

    Orb of the Dead

    Unique Item

    Master: Zwein (Lin Fan)

    A special item created from the mana of the demon king. It has the power to raise and control the dead, but it can only be used by the one that it is bound to because of a special restriction set by the demon king.

    It was a very simple description, but it was also very efficient. This description gave me all of the information that I needed, so there was nothing else for me to hesitate over.

    Of course, one thing did catch my eye.

    Demon king.

    ording to the description, this was an item that was created from the mana of the demon king.

    If the demon king could make something like this so easily, then what else would the demon king be able to make?

    It really made one fearful of what would happen in the future¡­

    I raised the orb and said, "Stop!"

    The moment that I said this, I could feel a draining sensationing from the orb. This was a powerful draining sensation that seemed like it would drain me of everything that I had.

    When this feeling came over me, I couldn''t stop my legs from going soft and I fell to the ground. I was able to stop myself at thest moment from falling face first, but it did hurt when I fell onto my knees.

    Seeing my fall like this, Shaka immediately dropped The Prator on the side and came to my side to help me up.

    But what surprised me was that Veronica also ran over to catch my other arm.

    Veronica herself didn''t know why she had done this either, but when she saw him falling like this¡­she hadn''t been able to control herself. Before she could even think about anything, she was already moving forward.

    With the two of them, I was able to stand up again.

    As they helped me up, Veronica asked, "What''s wrong? Are you alright?"

    I shook my head to show that I was fine before looking at the undead that were around us.

    When I saw the undead just standing there without moving, I couldn''t help being surprised. But then I let out a sigh of relief as I realized that they were like this because themand had worked.

    They were all standing there without doing a thing because I had told them to stop.

    Seeing this, all of the knights and soldiers couldn''t help looking around themselves with shocked and confused looks as they didn''t understand what had happened. But at the same time, there were traces of relief that appeared in their eyes since they could at least catch their breath.

    They didn''t let their guards down since they didn''t know if these undead would suddenly start moving again.

    The duke also looked around before turning to me to ask, "What did you do? Did you stop them all?"

    I just gave a simple nod before saying, "This thing can control them." As I said this, I lifted up the orb that I was holding in my hand to show him.

    When the duke heard this, he immediately came to my side to take a look at the orb. He looked at it from every angle as if he was trying to figure out everything about this orb in my hand.

    Finally, the duke reached his hand out and asked, "May I?"

    I raised the orb up a bit in response to this.

    The duke carefully lifted it up and said, "Take a step back."

    However, there was nothing that happened.

    The duke couldn''t help looking at the orb in his hand as if it was broken before turning back to me to ask, "What''s wrong with it? Why can''t I use it?"

    I revealed a faint smile and said, "This thing will only work for the master that it''s linked to. Earlier, I rewrote the master and became the new master of the orb, so that was why I was able to use it."

    When the duke heard this, he couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile since he figured that he had been yed with by Baron Zwein.

    But at least his intuition was right in bringing them along¡­or else they really might have been ughtered by all of these undead.

    On the ground, the demon couldn''t help jolting when he heard what I said.

    He looked up at the orb that was in the duke''s hand and tried to connect with it, but he found that his connection with the orb had been erased.

    It seemed like this human wasn''t lying!

    He had really erased his connection with the Orb of the Dead and had made himself the new master of the orb.

    But the demon just couldn''t understand how the human had done this.

    After all, this was an orb that was created by the demon king. At the same time, the master configuration was also set by the demon king.

    So unless one was stronger than the demon king, it shouldn''t have been possible to rewrite the master configuration.

    At the same time, one would have to suppress the demon king''s mana that was inside of this orb to even force it to follow them¡­

    Just how strong was this scrawny human that he had looked down on before?

 Chapter 269 Fighting The Undead (13)

    Of course, the demon wasn''t aware that everything that Baron Zwein had said was done by the system.

    The system was something that was created by a god, so not to mention the demon king, even a dragon wouldn''t be able to resist the powers of the system.

    Since he wasn''t able tomand the undead, the duke just handed the orb back to Zwein.

    For a brief moment, he had thought that he would be able to be a necromancer like he had dreamed about in the past.

    When he was younger, the duke had quite the wild period where he had dreamed about being the dark master of the world¡­Of course, that had been sealed now, but there were still dreams in his heart.

    Still, that was all in the past.

    Since he wasn''t able to use it, he handed it to the person that was able to use it.

    But I didn''t do anything after taking this orb from the duke.

    Instead, I just looked at the orb carefully, as if I was looking at something.

    The knights and soldiers were all confused when they saw this, but they also had traces of admiration in their eyes as they looked at me.

    Even if they were fools, they were able to tell that I had been the one who had stopped the undead.

    So it could be said that I was the one who had saved their lives.

    But I didn''t care about any of that as I focused on one line that I had missed earlier when I had looked at the description of the orb. This was a line that was at the very bottom and was in small print, almost as if it was an afterthought.

    "Requires arge amount of mana to activate."

    That was why I had felt that draining sensation just now, that was the sensation of the orb absorbing my mana to activate.

    Not to mention, it was a very powerful draining sensation that went along with the rge amount'' part. So powerful that I was even surprised that I had that much mana.

    In this game, mana was something that developed as one leveled up or did other things and so far¡­I hadn''t done any leveling up or any of the side quests that would give me an increase in this stat.

    Most of the monsters had been taken down by my subordinates after all, so I only received a minimum amount of EXP from just being nearby.

    There was no way that I should have had enough mana to activate this orb.

    In fact, it should have been more likely that this orb drained me of all my mana and left me as a corpse.

    But that didn''t happen.

    Why?

    I looked around my body to the confused looks of everyone around me who thought I had gone crazy, trying to find anything that would exin this.

    In the end, I found it.

    It was a thing that was on the back of my hand that was releasing a faint glow.

    If one didn''t look at it closely, they wouldn''t have noticed it. But when looking at it now, I could feel some kind of power that wasing from it.

    It was most likely because of this Mark of God that I had received from Solista back then that I had been able to use this orb in the first ce.

    For the first time, I was grateful towards Solista for giving me this thing.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help envying the demons for their mana capacity that allowed them to use this orb so freely. It must really be great being demons if they had this kind of power¡­

    But now I was facing another problem¡­

    What should I do with these undead?

    The easy solution was to have the knights and soldiers kill them one by one while they were unable to move.

    As long as we did that, the undead problem would be easily solved¡­but for some reason, I didn''t want to do that.

    I could see that there were human corpses among the undead, which were most likely the corpses that had been robbed from those human viges. These were innocent people whose graves had been defiled and their bodies had been tainted with dark magic, turning them into undead.

    I wanted to find some way tofort them as they were put back to rest, but I really couldn''t think of anything.

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, the duke slowly said, "Should we start putting these undead to rest?"

    He was worried that the magic holding the undead wouldn''tst and once it broke, they would be in the same dangerous situation as before. So before that happens, they should take care of the undead around them.

    I knew what he was worried about, so I gave a sigh before opening my mouth to speak.

    But before I could say anything, there was a notification from the system that made me swallow these words.

    I was very confused about this notification at first since normally the system wouldn''t do this kind of thing, but then I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I saw what the system had written.

    "The host still has enough mana for one moremand. It is rmended that the host gives the ''release''mand."

    The system had never given me advice like this before, so I couldn''t help feeling doubtful.

    But then that doubt quickly disappeared.

    This system was something that was created for me, so it would never betray me as far as I could tell.

    At the same time, the system took the initiative to give me advice that it had never done before.

    So the least I could do was take this advice.

    On the system''s advice, I raised the orb and said in a clear voice, "Release."

    The moment that I did, I felt the same sucking sensation as before and then I felt the world around me turning ck.

    I felt very tired and it was clear that I had overdrawn my powers using this orb this onest time. So I fell face forward without a single care about the surprised cries that came from around me.

    But as I was falling forward, I could see something from in front of me.

    It was only one undead at first, but it suddenly started to crumble away. There were bits of this undead that broke off from the undead''s body before it started to crumble into ashes.

    Following this undead, the rest of the undead also started to crumble away.

    It was like a chain reaction where if one undead started to crumble, all of the undead around this one also started to crumble away until there were no more undead left.

    The knights and soldiers looked around in shock when they saw this, but there was one thing that they didn''t see.

    From the undead that crumbled away, there were blue wisps of light that were released. These blue wisps of light floated there in the air where the undead had been before suddenly flying up into the sky.

    As they disappeared and as my consciousness faded, I could have sworn that I heard something.

    It was a soft voice that said, "Thank you."

 Chapter 270 Bedside Care

    When I opened my eyes again, I found that I was lying in a luxurious bed that I didn''t recognize.

    This bed was even more luxurious than the bed that I shared with Baroness Rose.

    As I slowly came back to my senses and the sleepiness disappeared, I started looking around the room to find that this room was just as luxurious as the bed that I was lying in.

    It was clear that this ce was owned by a very rich and powerful person¡­

    So what was I doing here?

    Thest thing that I remembered was that we were fighting the undead in Wind Valley when I had suddenly fainted from overdrawing on my mana to use the Orb of the Dead.

    So how did I get here from there?

    As I was trying to figure out what had happened, I suddenly heard a noiseing from nearby.

    I didn''t even need to look to know what this sound was, so I quicklyid back down on the bed.

    It was the sound of a door being opened.

    I didn''t know if the peopleing in were friends or enemies, so I didn''t want to take that chance.

    For now, I would pretend to be asleep and make them let their guard down before finding a way to escape this ce.

    After the sound of the door opening rang out, there were footsteps that came closer and closer to me. At the same time, there seemed to be the sound of some kind of silverware hitting some kind of bowl that rang out as well.

    Could it be some kind of poison or some kind of medicine?

    I had no way of knowing since my eyes were closed, but I could hear someone pulling a chair up and sitting down beside the bed.

    It seemed that they weren''t nning on leaving¡­

    So how long would I have to pretend to be asleep before they left?

    But it didn''t seem like they were nning to leave at all since I could hear the sounds of tes and tableware being hit together, clearly showing that they were doing something.

    In the end, there was a voice that suddenly rang out that said, "If you''re already awake, there''s no need to keep pretending to be asleep anymore."

    When I heard this, I opened my eyes because I recognized this voice.

    I opened my eyes to find a blue haired girl sitting there with a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other.

    She just looked at me with a smile as she said, "You''re finally awake."

    I was surprised to see that it was her even though I recognized her voice. After all, why would she be here taking care of me like this?

    She was the duke''s daughter and I was nothing more than a baron from a remote ce.

    After a moment of being surprised, I asked, "What happened?"

    Veronica just said with a smile, "That doesn''t matter right now."

    Facing my surprised look, she took a spoonful of what was in the bowl and brought it over to my mouth.

    I looked down to see that it was a spoonful of oatmeal, but I wasn''t in a mood to eat. I looked back up at her and asked, "What happened?"

    But all that I received in response to this was the same smile on her face¡­the only difference was that her eyes were a bit darker, almost as if she was threatening me.

    At the same time, her hand didn''t move the spoon away from my mouth.

    It seemed that unless I took a bite of this oatmeal, she wouldn''t move it away.

    So I had no choice but to take the bite that was presented in front of me.

    I was surprised by how good it tasted even though it was simply oatmeal. There was a hint of cinnamon and a hint of apple to it that gave it just the right taste.

    Seeing that I had finally taken the bite, Veronica moved her hand back and got more of the oatmeal before saying, "There''s no need to worry about that right now. You''ve just woken up, so you should focus on recovering before doing anything else."

    I looked at her with a strange look since I couldn''t help thinking of the plot of ''Misery'' seeing her like this¡­

    Luckily for me, before this could go any further, the door opened again and this time, there was a cloaked figure that came in.

    When I saw this cloaked figure, I let out a sigh of relief since I recognized him.

    It was Shaka.

    Shaka saw that I was sitting up in the bed and quickly came over to my side.

    Ignoring Veronica who was sitting there, he went around me and started checking on different parts of my body. Only when he was satisfied with what he saw did he step back and let out a sigh of relief.

    I revealed a bitter smile when I saw this before asking, "What happened?"

    Shaka replied, "After you did what you did to make the undead disappear and fainted, the duke quickly had us bring you back to the city. He called the best doctors in the city to take care of you, but you''ve been in aa all this time. It''s already been three days since we took care of the undead."

    "Three days?" I said in a surprised voice.

    Shaka gave a simple nod in response.

    I let out a sigh before saying, "So what has happened in these three days?"

    Shaka just calmly said, "Nothing at all. After we took care of the undead, there hasn''t been a single trace of demons near the city."

    I gave a nod before saying, "It seems that our job here is done then."

    Shaka also gave a nod.

    As we fell silent, Veronica suddenly cut in by saying, "Are you done? He still needs to eat his meal."

    Shaka was surprised to see that Veronica was here since he hadpletely ignored her after hearing my voice.

    But seeing the way that she sat there beside my bed and was even feeding me, he couldn''t help turning back to look at me with a strange look.

    I just revealed a bitter smile when I saw this.

 Chapter 271 Meeting The Duke Again

    I gave a cough to calm down before reaching out to take the bowl and spoon from Veronica.

    As I did that, I said, "I can eat on my own, there''s no need for you to feed me."

    But before I could take the bowl and spoon from her, Veronica moved them away from my grasp.

    She then said in a calm and stern voice, "You''ve just woken up and you''re still weak. You shouldn''t push yourself in this condition and just learn to ept help from others."

    I revealed a bitter smile when I heard this, but I said in a firm voice as well, "I''m fine, I can do this on my own."

    Seeing that I wasn''t backing down, Veronica revealed a displeased look.

    Then it was reced with an unwilling look, but when she peeked at Shaka, she still handed the bowl and spoon over with a sigh.

    If it was before where we were still alone, she wouldn''t have been as willing to back down. But since Shaka was here as a witness, she had her own reputation to care about and couldn''t act as strong.

    But when I took it, she did give my hand a strange touch that made me shiver.

    I took the bowl and held it in front of myself. As I did this, the smell of the oatmeal entered my nose and my stomach couldn''t help grumbling.

    I wasn''t embarrassed by this since it was a natural thing.

    I had been in aa for three days, so it wasn''t strange that I was hungry.

    In fact, I was curious how they had even taken care of me during these three days that I had been unconscious. However, after thinking about it, I decided that it was better not to ask since it would most likely result in some embarrassing answers.

    As I ate, I talked to Shaka about a few more things.

    Naturally, the first thing that he asked me was, "Why did you faint? Do you know anything about that?"

    Since he had asked, I had no reason to hide it. I just calmly said, "That orb is powered with mana and I had to use my mana to use it. However, it takes arge amount of mana to power it in the first ce. I overdrew my mana and that was why I fell into aa in the first ce."

    Shaka slowly said, "Then you''re saying that if we had given you a mana potion, you would have woken up earlier."

    I didn''t say anything in response to this since I really didn''t have an answer to this.

    After all, I really couldn''t confirm or deny this.

    In the game, you could refill your mana with potions even if youpletely ran out of mana. However, there wasn''t a case of fainting when running out of mana in the game since that wouldn''t be something that would be fun for the yer.

    So I had no idea if it was because I had 0 MP that I fainted or if it was because I had negative MP that I fainted.

    So I honestly couldn''t say if a mana potion would have worked or not.

    In the end, I just silently ate my oatmeal until I was finished.

    After taking a moment to calm myself, I started to stand up.

    When Shaka and Veronica saw this, both of them came forward as if they wanted to help me, but I waved my hand to stop them. There wasn''t a problem with my body anymore, I had already rested for three days, so I waspletely recovered.

    I stood up and then said, "Let''s go see the duke, I''m sure that he''s already waiting for us."

    Shaka looked at me for a bit before giving a nod.

    However, Veronica said, "Wait, you still need your rest."

    I just looked at her with a smile before saying, "I''m fine." Then without even looking back, I walked out of the room with Shaka.

    Veronica just looked at me while biting her lower lip as I walked off, but in the end, she still followed me out.

    Though I was leading when we came out of the room, I let Shaka take the lead since I didn''t actually know where I was going.

    Though I knew that we were in the duke''s manor, that didn''t mean that I knew theyout of the manor.

    Shaka didn''t have a problem with this and led us through with ease, as if he had been through this manor many times already. It seemed that quite a bit had happened while I was out¡­

    When we got closer to the duke''s office, I started recognizing the way because we had been here before when we had gathered to discuss what to do about the undead.

    Shaka just went into the office without any hesitation and there was the duke who was sitting there talking to a few knights.

    When the duke and knights saw the door opening like this, they couldn''t help knitting their brows at first. But they quickly rxed their expressions when they saw who it wasing in.

    All of them looked at me with looks of admiration and concern when they saw me which surprised me since I didn''t feel like I had done anything to earn their respect like this. At the same time, I could also see that there was a bit of fear in their eyes which confused me more.

    Was I that terrifying of a person that they needed to look at me like this?

    After a moment of silence, the duke asked, "Are you feeling better now?"

    I gave a simple nod in response to this and said, "Thank you for taking care of me over the past few days."

    The duke revealed a bitter smile and said, "How could I not when you saved our Bright Water City?"

    I just gave another simple nod before asking, "Where''s the demon?"

 Chapter 272 Strange Proposition

    Seeing that I was bing serious, the duke also revealed a serious look and said, "We have him in our dungeons and we have stabilized his conditions, though it was hard since it was our first time treating a demon."

    The demons had different body structures from humans, so it had been hard for the duke''s private doctors to treat their demon prisoner.

    It could even be considered a miracle that he survived at all.

    But since they had treated him, the demon had remained silent.

    The demon had been conscious, but he hadpletely withdrawn into his mind and didn''t react no matter what anyone said to him.

    The duke had tried using his interrogators to get some information from the demon, but he wasn''t able to get anything out of him.

    But it would be different for Shadow Garden since this was what they specialized in in the first ce.

    Hearing this, I gave a simple nod before turning to Shaka to ask, "What happened to the demons from before that we caught?"

    Shaka looked around at the knights and they all couldn''t help taking a step back at this, but he still said, "They''ve already been taken care of."

    I gave another simple nod in response since it wasn''t hard to figure out what he meant by taken care of. For a human kingdom like this, it was the most simple way of dealing with demons who were trying to invade them.

    So I said, "Then can you call for someone to pick up this demon as well?"

    This time, it was Shaka''s turn to give a simple nod.

    With that, I turned back to the duke and said, "Your grace, are you alright with those arrangements?"

    The duke didn''t hesitate to nod in response.

    This was already the best result for him.

    He had already taken care of the threat to his city and at the same time, he had provided help to the Shadow Garden agents that had been sent to investigate.

    While there would be a bit of bacsh because of him neglecting this problem for so long, he would still have the merit of acting up to solve it and even helping in subduing a demon.

    So there was no doubt that he would be rewarded by the king once they reported this in.

    As for getting more than this, the duke wasn''t greedy. He knew that if he tried for more than this, he would just be bringing trouble to his own door.

    Since the duke was so cooperative, that actually helped them very much.

    There was no need for Shaka and me to personally escort the demon, there were other agents from Shadow Garden for this. So all that was left was for Shaka to contact them and they woulde to get the demon.

    With this, I said, "Your grace, thank you for your assistance and cooperation. I hope that we will have a chance to meet again."

    Seeing that he was about to leave, the duke couldn''t help feeling a bit of regret.

    After all, he still wanted to build a rtionship with these two from the Shadow Garden.

    If he could, it could be said that he would be on the road to sess.

    Then as if he had suddenly thought of something, the duke said, "Oh, that''s right, there was something else that I had forgotten to mention."

    At this, both Shaka and I stopped and turned to look at the duke, waiting to see what he had to say.

    The duke didn''t keep us in suspense as he said, "There was someone else who was captured after the incident."

    Both Shaka and I looked at the duke with a confused look since we didn''t expect this, but then we understood what the duke meant when he said his next words.

    "It''s one of my advisors." The duke said in a heavy voice.

    As I had already expected, one of the advisors of the duke was involved in this matter. After all, it was impossible to hide everything that had happened in those viges unless there was someone covering it all up.

    But I hadpletely forgotten about this matter since the matter of the demon and the undead had already been solved.

    Now that the duke had taken the initiative to bring this up, naturally we also needed to handle this.

    I looked at Shaka and said, "Can we take him with us as well?"

    Shaka gave a nod in response to this.

    Of course it wasn''t a problem to take this advisor in with the demon since this was someone that had colluded with the demon to create that horde of undead. There was no doubt that he was connected to the demons in some way or another.

    If he had to guess, it was most likely that this advisor was part of the demon worshipers.

    So the amount of information that they could get from him definitely wouldn''t be small.

    It was just a simple line added in his message to bring him along as well.

    Since the duke had also mentioned this to us, I had no choice but to thank him for this information.

    But before I could say anything, the duke suddenly said, "Your lordship, I''ve heard that you have a beautiful wife, but have you ever considered having a concubine?"

    The moment that I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a shocked and confused look.

    Why was the duke suddenly asking me this?

    The duke didn''t mind the look on my face and continued, "If you have, then have you considered my daughter?"

    There was only silence that followed after he said this.

    I could only look at the duke in shock and disbelief as he said this, but it wasn''t just me who felt this way.

    Everyone in the room looked at the duke in the same way because¡­no one would have thought that he would ask something like this all of a sudden.

 Chapter 273 Chase Him Down

    The duke didn''t mind the silence as his eyes were still on me.

    With the way that he was looking at me, it was almost as if he was expecting something from me, but I really didn''t know what to say.

    In the end, I didn''t have to say anything as Veronica herself suddenly charged into the room.

    She ran right past everyone and went right up to the duke sitting behind the desk. She grabbed a bunch of paper from the desk and rolled it up into a tube before smacking the duke right on the head with it.

    There was even more silence that followed after that smack as even the duke didn''t believe that his daughter would do this to him.

    All of the knights were so afraid of what was happening that they had taken a step back and pretended like they didn''t exist.

    Finally, Veronica took a deep breath and let it out before saying, "Sir Zwein, please don''t mind what my father was saying. It is nothing more than some murmurs in his sleep."

    With the way that she looked at me and the smile on her face, I couldn''t help feeling a chill run down my back.

    I gave a cough to calm myself down before saying, "Young miss, I didn''t hear anything just now."

    Veronica gave a nod with the same smile before saying, "I wish you safe travels."

    I cupped my hands and gave a slight bow both to her and the duke before leaving with Shaka.

    As I left, I had to control the speed at which I walked out.

    Even though I wanted to leave as soon as possible, if I ran out of the room¡­it would be rude to the duke. So I had to control myself to move at a moderate pace instead of speeding out of the room.

    Once he had left the room, there was a chill that suddenly appeared in this room.

    This chill forced the knights to take another step back, but they didn''t dare leave the room without permission.

    A long time passed before Veronica finally said, "You can leave now."

    As soon as the knights heard this, they didn''t hesitate at all to evacuate the room. Though before they did leave the room, they did make sure to give a slight bow to the duke and Veronica.

    While they were doing this, they could see a looking from the duke.

    This was a look of pleading, asking them for help. He wanted them to find some kind of excuse to take him with them, but¡­they just gave him an apologetic look before fleeing.

    They didn''t want to get involved in the young miss'' matter since they knew just how terrifying she could be.

    So even though they had sworn to protect both the duke and the people of this city, they abandoned their first promise now in the face of the young miss. That was just how terrifying this young girl was.

    Once it was only the duke and his daughter left in the room, the duke tried to appease her with a smile, but all he received was a cold re.

    So the duke had no choice but to meekly sit there in his seat, waiting for Veronica to speak.

    After a long silence, Veronica finally said, "Why did you do that?"

    The duke was flustered when he heard this since he could hear the ming tone in her voice. He waved his hands around a bit as he scrambled to exin before finally settling down by saying, "I just wanted to do something for your future. I was worried about you."

    Veronica looked at him with narrowed eyes that made the duke turn his gaze slightly to the side, but then she said with a sigh, "There''s no need for you to do that. I know what I''m doing."

    The duke looked at her with a surprised look before saying, "But I haven''t seen you making any moves and you''re not getting any younger. Your mother and I¡­"

    Before he could say anything else, his mouth closed and he swallowed his words when he saw the way Veronica red at him.

    She red him down until he was meekly sitting in the chair again before saying, "Who says that I''m even interested in him?"

    The duke revealed a sly smile and said, "I''ve seen the way that you''ve looked at him and I know that you''ve been waiting for him to wake up for three days now. You can''t fool your papa."

    Veronica once again red at him which caused the duke to look away before saying with a shy voice, "Even if I am interested in him, he already has a wife."

    The duke gave a shrug and said, "Does that matter?"

    Indeed, for them it didn''t matter.

    Unlike the other noble families that cared only about the status of the ones that they married, their family only cared about love. If they loved someone, then they should get married regardless of the situation.

    Veronica gave another sigh before saying, "I have my own ns."

    The duke raised one brow as he looked at her without saying anything.

    Seeing the way that he looked at her, Veronica said, "Didn''t he say that he came here looking for your support? Even if that was a cover, it is a real concern for a small noble like him living in a rural area."

    The duke revealed a confused look when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything as he waited for her to exin.

    Veronica slowly revealed a smile that could only be described as the smile of a devil as sheid out her n, "Since that''s the case, we''ll just show our support for him. What better way to show our support than if the daughter of the duke were to visit his territory?"

    "Eh?" The duke couldn''t help letting this exmation out when he heard her n.

    But the thing that he was most surprised by was the look on her face.

    That was because this was a look that he was very familiar with¡­he had seen it many times when he was younger¡­

    That was because this was the face that her mother had shown before when chasing at him.

    It could be said that she was sly and ruthless as well, using all kinds of different tricks to trap him. But there were cute sides to her that had made him fall in love with her in the end.

    Still, that didn''t mean that he wasn''t scared of her¡­

    It seemed that his daughter had inherited more than just her beauty from her mother, it seemed that she had also inherited her cunning. He had hoped that this wouldn''t be the case since he didn''t want more men to suffer in this world, but now it was toote.

    Veronica was still muttering to himself while he wasmenting. She said things like, "I''ll bump into him¡­I''ll trap him in a closet¡­I''ll¡­"

    The duke couldn''t help feeling more and more scared the more he heard.

    But he had to draw a line at least, "Don''t get pregnant before getting married."

    That was the bottom line that he had to draw since it was a matter of reputation at that point. He didn''t want his daughter''s reputation to be ruined because she took things too far.

    Veronica looked at him with a smile and said, "Papa, don''t worry, I know my limits."

    The duke couldn''t helpmenting what Zwein would have to deal with in the future. He could only silently apologize to him in his heart.

    He wanted to leave?

    That was fine.

    She would just chase him down.

 Chapter 274 Going Home?

    As I came out of the duke''s manor, I couldn''t help giving a sneeze.

    I looked around myself before asking, "Is someone talking about me?"

    Shaka looked at me with a strange look because they didn''t have this superstition in this world, but that look quickly faded since he knew that I was a strange person. He had seen all the strange quirks that I had, so he slowly got used to them.

    When we left the duke''s manor, Shaka went off on his own a bit beforeing back with a carriage for us.

    This was the same carriage that we had taken into this city and we were using it now to leave. During this time, the carriage had been put aside to prevent anything from happening to it, so the driver was very relieved to see that we were safe.

    After all, the driver had been staying with the carriage the entire time and hadn''t heard any news about us.

    Shaka gave the driver a few instructions before sitting down with me in the carriage.

    As we sat there, I let out a sigh of relief as I finally rxed.

    This had been a long mission with many twists and turns. There were many times where I thought I would lose my life, but I had survived in the end and had even captured the demon.

    This was without a doubt the best ending.

    I just rxed as the carriage headed towards the gate of the city. When we arrived, we didn''t have to wait at all since we still had the pass that the duke had given us, so we were able to easily leave the city without even being checked.

    But after leaving the city, I realized that something was off.

    We were going in apletely different direction from the way home.

    I immediately stood up and walked over to the window to question the driver, but before I could do anything, Shaka raised his hand to stop me.

    I looked at Shaka with a confused look, but he said, "I changed our destination."

    "Huh?" I was even more confused when I heard this and I couldn''t help feeling a bit wary.

    Could it be that something had happened in the past three days and something had caused Shaka to betray me?

    Or could it be that something had happened in the Shadow Garden organization that had caused this change?

    Shaka could see the look on my face, so he said, "It''s not what you think. It''s just that I received an order to bring you in."

    "Bring me in?" I repeated before suddenly asking, "Could it be that I''ve done something wrong that I need to be brought in?"

    Shaka shook his head and said, "It''s nothing like that."

    Without exining any further, he took out a piece of paper that he handed over to me.

    I looked at this piece of paper with a skeptical look, but seeing that Shaka wasn''t saying anything, I had no choice but to take it.

    As I read what was written, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    That was because on this piece of paper was an order from our superior ordering us toe to the capital. With that, I now knew where this carriage was going.

    But why were we being called in like this?

    Shaka saw the way that I looked at him after reading the note, so he said, "We''re being called in to report to the king."

    "The king?!" I said in a shocked voice.

    Shaka gave a nod as he continued, "That''s right, the king." Then his tone changed as he said, "It isn''t a strange thing that we need to report to the king. The Shadow Garden Organization is one that is directly under the king, so it''s normal that we report to him. Not to mention, this was arge event that even involved a duke, so of course we would be called in."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter look on my face as I said, "And you couldn''t tell me all of this earlier?"

    Shaka took off his hood and revealed a bitter smile too as he said, "Would you havee with me if I did?"

    I firmly shook my head in response to this.

    Shaka gave a sigh as he said, "I knew that would be your response. I''ve been with you long enough to know that you don''t want to get involved with Shadow Garden and the royal family at all. While I don''t know why you have this kind of aversion, you really should just ept it at this point."

    The bitter look on my face became even stronger as I thought to myself, "I know that Shadow Garden is about to copse soon, so why would I ept it? I''m still trying to find a way out before anything happens."

    But it wasn''t as if I could say this right to Shaka''s face.

    So I answered the other question, "There''s nothing good in getting involved with the royal family. You should know how dangerous it is to be around the royal family since you''ve been around them before, so how can I ept this?"

    Shaka shook his head before saying, "This isn''t a bad thing. You have caught a demon and saved one of the major cities from being destroyed. No matter how you look at it, you will be rewarded by the royal family."

    The bitter smile kept growing on my face as I said, "You might think so, but there will always be a catch."

    "Catch?" Shaka asked with a confused look.

    I nodded as I said, "Everything in lifees with a price and that is also the case with things given by the royal family. There is no doubt that there will be some kind of special order thates with this reward¡­That''s why I didn''t want to go. I would rather let someone else take the merit than go by myself."

    Shaka couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look, but I didn''t bother exining.

    I couldn''t run away from Shaka in the first ce and even if I did, I wouldn''t have a way to get back to the town.

    So all I could do for now was¡­think of ways to reject whatever was going to be awarded to me and find a way to avoid catching the eyes of the royal family.

    Only then would I be able to live a peaceful and long life.

 Chapter 275 Picking Someone Up

    The capital was a long distance from Bright Water City, so it would take several days of traveling to reach there.

    During this trip, Shaka had at least nned out all the stops for us, so that we wouldn''t be sleeping out in the open. Though this was more of a concern that I would escape more than a concern offort.

    After all, in each town that we stopped in, the inn was already prepared for us. We didn''t even need to check in or anything, we were allowed to head to the inn right away as if everything had been prepared ahead of time.

    As for leaving the inn¡­other than to get some food, there were no outside trips.

    It was just like being trapped in a prison.

    Still, I had already expected this after seeing how he had gotten me toe on this trip in the first ce.

    It was clear that he had received some kind of separate order to bring me to the capital.

    This just made me even more fearful of what would happen¡­

    Just like this, we traveled over the course of several days, getting closer and closer to the capital.

    But the closer that we came, the more nervous I felt because¡­I hadn''t been able to think of a way to reject whatever wasing to me. The other side was the king, so there was nothing that I could say that would give me an excuse to reject whatever he wanted to give me.

    The only possibility that I could think of was to ept it and then get involved in politics¡­

    As I was feeling despair and we were getting closer to the capital, something happened before we reached the capital.

    At the town right before reaching the capital, we met someone.

    It wasn''t anyone random, but rather someone that I knew quite well.

    After all, this was the person that had dragged me into Shadow Garden in the first ce.

    It was our supervisor, Scar.

    When we arrived at the inn for the night, he was waiting there with a big smile on his face. Seeing using over, he waved his hand at me, but I had different ns.

    Without hesitation, I ran right at Scar and then jumped.

    As I jumped, my knee came up so that I was flying at Scar with my knee out.

    In my previous world, this move was called the flying knee!

    But it was just too bad that there was a difference in physiques.

    While I had been slowly training, Scar was someone who had been in Shadow Garden for a long time. He was someone who lived his life in danger, so of course he was skilled in avoiding said danger.

    With a simple step, he moved out of the way of my flying knee and Inded on the ground.

    Then he came up behind me and said with a smile while also reaching his hand out towards me, "What are you doing?"

    I red at him, but I still took the hand offered to me.

    When I stood up, I patted the dust off my body before finally saying, "Why are you doing this to me? Didn''t you say that you wouldn''t interfere with my life?"

    Scar gave a helpless smile as he spread his hands before saying, "It''s not my fault. Even if I don''t want to do this, I can''t go against the order of his majesty."

    I immediately knitted my brows when I heard this as he had just confirmed what I had suspected.

    The only ones that could give this kind of order to bring me to the capital were the royal family. Based on what Scar had said, it was the king that gave the order to bring me here.

    But why would the king be interested in someone like me?

    For once, I didn''t keep my thoughts in and asked Scar, "Why? Why would someone as important as the king be interested in someone like me?"

    Scar raised one brow and asked, "Someone like you?" Then he looked at Shaka and the two of them broke out inughter at the same time.

    I couldn''t help looking at both of them with a strange look as I couldn''t understand what was happening.

    Why would they suddenlyugh at something like this?

    I didn''t feel like I had said anything strange.

    But I had to wait for the two of them to stopughing before getting my answer.

    As for the answer they gave me, it was more shocking than I thought.

    After a while, the two of them stoppedughing. Scar wiped the tears from his eyes as he said, "Sorry, sorry, I wasn''tughing at you. I just found it funny that you weren''t aware of your own importance."

    I couldn''t help feeling even more confused when I heard this.

    After all, I didn''t feel like I was that important.

    When Scar saw the confused look on my face, he couldn''t help feeling surprised. He kept looking at me with that strange surprised look as he said, "Do you really not know how important you are?"

    I just slowly shook my head.

    Scar once again burst intoughter when he saw this.

    After a while, he calmed down and said, "You''re someone that has already had four different encounters with demons since joining us, this is definitely a new record."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look as I said, "But isn''t that normal? Shadow Garden is an organization that protects the kingdom, so they should be encountering plenty of things like this. I feel that I''m quite normal."

    Scar looked at me first before turning to look at Shaka, but Shaka just gave a helpless shake of his head like he was exasperated.

    Then Scar turned back to look at me as he said, "Are you serious? Do you really think this?"

    I just gave a simple nod before looking even more confused.

 Chapter 276 Lack Of Common Sense

    Finally, Scar had a different reaction.

    Instead of bursting out inughter again, he gave a sigh and said, "It turned out that hecked self awareness andmon sense. I was wondering why he was acting this way, but it turned out that he was just an idiot inmon sense¡­"

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit insulted when I heard this, so I said, "Hey, you know I can hear you, right?"

    Scar looked at me and just gave another sigh like he was done with me.

    But I didn''t feel like I had done anything wrong. After all, I was just doing my job as part of Shadow Garden, I wasn''t doing anything that would be considered special.

    So why did he say that Ickedmon sense?

    Seeing the expression on my face, Scar put his head in his hand and shook his head as he said, "Look at him, he doesn''t even understand what''s wrong with him. I really am speechless¡­"

    The more that he said this, the more insulted that I felt, so I said, "Can you at least exin why you think that Ickmon sense?"

    Scar looked at me with serious eyes and asked, "Have you heard about how many times demons have been found in the history of our organization?"

    I tilted my head to think before suddenly remembering something. I slowly said, "Wasn''t it two? I remember Shaka telling me this¡­"

    Scar gave a nod before saying, "That''s right, two¡­and that''s in the entire history of our organization."

    Seeing that I was still confused, Scar then pped his hands in front of me so that I was forced to focus before saying, "That''s two in the entire history of our organization which hassted for countless years and in just a few months, you''ve encountered demons four different times. That''s double what we had encountered in all of our time as thergest information organization in this kingdom."

    I was slowly starting to understand what he was saying and realizing that my values were indeed a bit twisted.

    After all, I was still thinking of this world as a game world.

    Events like this were normal in the game world and woulde at random intervals, that was how the creators of the game kept the game interesting.

    But if it was from the viewpoint of a citizen in this world where these events didn''t happen daily and were rare urrences, it would seem strange that I was encountering all of these demons.

    Even in Bright Water City, the demon had been able to avoid detection for so long for a reason.

    If it wasn''t for me stirring up the ho nest, what had happened in Bright Water City wouldn''t have happened. Though it most likely would have resulted in the city being taken over by the demons with the undead army¡­

    No, that wouldn''t have happened since I didn''t remember such an event from the game.

    So where did the demon and the undead go in the game if they didn''t bring down Bright Water City?

    Did someone take care of them before they could develop further or was there something else that happened to them?

    The more I thought about it, the more that I fell into this tangent.

    In the end, it was Scar who brought me back by pping in front of my face again to snap me out of my thoughts.

    He looked at me with a worried look and asked, "Are you alright?"

    I realized my mistake and quickly said, "I''m fine, I was just lost in my thoughts."

    Scar gave a sigh as he said, "You, it''s always one thing or another with you. I really don''t even know what to say anymore."

    I just gave a nod and said, "I admit that I''m a bit specialpared to everyone else, but I''m sure that others could do the same if they had the same opportunities."

    "Huh?" Both Shaka and Scar reacted the same way when they heard this before looking at me with looks of disbelief.

    I didn''t back down as I just looked back at them with a calm look on my face.

    Then both of them gave sighs before putting their heads in their hands.

    "Broken, hismon sense ispletely broken¡­I knew that I shouldn''t have expected better from this kid¡­"

    My lips twitched when I heard this, but I didn''t argue with them since I knew that I wouldn''t be able to convince them.

    It was just too bad that Scar wasn''t about to let it end here since he had some grievances with me¡­

    Scar suddenly looked up and pointed at my face as he said, "That''s right, what is up with the elves as well? You go on a trip and all of a sudden, you''re friends with elves? Do you know how much of a stir that has caused?"

    "Huh? Why does bing friends with the elves cause a stir?" I asked in a confused voice.

    Scar looked at me like I was ignorant as he said, "Do you know how long the elves have been ignoring us? Not just years, but centuries! Since the founding of this country, the elves have been here and they''ve ignored us all this time!"

    "Oh." That was all that I had to say in response to this.

    "Oh? Oh? Is that really all you have to say?" Scar pointed in my face once more, but I really didn''t have anything else to say to that.

    After all, as long as people were willing to put the work in, they would be able to befriend elves. I didn''t think it was that strange to be able to befriend elves.

    Scar just shook his head again as he said, "You''ve somehow managed to open up rtions with the elves, that is something that is very important to our country. So you could even say that you''ve be a very important person to our country for those that know about this."

    "What?" I said in a shocked voice

    I clearly did not expect him to say this.

 Chapter 277 Situation Of The Capital

    Scar gave a sigh again before saying, "Now you are finally starting to understand the situation you are in."

    He had been able to hear the shock and disbelief in his voice, so he knew that Zwein had started to realize how special he was.

    But I just said, "How is bing friends with the elves that important? The elves keep to themselves anyway, so it isn''t as if it would change anything if I be friends with them."

    Scar revealed a serious look and said, "The elves have many secrets that we humans don''t know about. They are also powerful magic users and they have created many special items that we just have no knowledge of."

    I just gave a simple nod in response to this, but for some reason that just served to provoke Scar.

    He pointed at me and said, "You''re still nodding like this? Like it doesn''t concern you?"

    I didn''t know what to say since I really didn''t understand what was so important about this.

    Scar could see that from the expression on my face, so he shook his head again and said, "Just the fact that you''ve been able to create a way to contact the elves is big enough. We''ve never even managed that since they''ve always avoided contact with us other than the asional traveling elf."

    The more that he spoke, the more I began to understand.

    It seemed that this trip to the capital wouldn''t be as simple as meeting the king, but rather there would be other nobles and royals that would try to pull me to their side.

    After all, if they were able to get the special magic and items of the elven race through me¡­their power would increase and they would have more influence.

    Seeing the changing look on my face, Scar finally gave a sigh and said, "At least you''re starting to understand."

    I just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    Seeing this, he revealed a smile and said, "Good, good, it seems that we can teach youmon sense yet."

    Shaka also let out a sigh of relief.

    After all, as long as Zweinckedmon sense, it was him and his men that were put in the most danger.

    He was happy to fight a demon since it meant keeping the kingdom safe, but fighting one every week at this point¡­it really was a bit too much even for him.

    He wouldn''tst at this rate¡­

    Seeing that he finally had an effect on him, Scar then said, "Let me give you some good information then. You should at least learn the situation of the capital before we arrive so you can n for yourself what you want to do."

    This time, I didn''t just casually nod along, but rather gave a serious nod.

    That was because I knew that this would be actual important information for me.

    The more I knew about the ones that I would be dealing with, the better I would be able to handle them.

    So I carefully listened to what Scar had to say.

    In my heart, I felt a bit of gratitude since I could feel the care that a boss had for his subordinate in his words. After all, he had specificallye all this way just to tell me all of this, so I would listen carefully.

    Scar''s first words weren''t that surprising, "There''s currently a power struggle in the capital. It''s between the first prince and the second prince on who will take the throne."

    I wasn''t surprised at all since this was also in the game.

    There was a main quest that involvedpeting for imperial power and that ended with the main character marrying the princess and taking the throne. It was a very intriguing plot that had involved both the first and second prince, but there was also a part of the plot that no one had expected.

    Scar had paused for dramatic effect, but seeing that I wasn''t as surprised, he continued, "There are many nobles that are flocking to the sides of the first and second prince, but there are also many nobles that are remaining neutral. The ones that are neutral might contact you so that they can use you to keep their neutrality, but you should expect more proactive contact from the nobles under the first and second prince. There''s even a chance that either the first or second prince might contact you directly."

    I gave a simple nod in response to this since this was all within my expectations.

    Scar couldn''t help feeling a bit annoyed with the way that Icked a reaction, so he said, "You should know that the prime minister is supporting the first prince and the captain of the imperial guards is supporting the second prince. This is a fight between literary talents and military talents."

    Once again, I just gave a simple nod since this was all knowledge that I already knew.

    In fact, I knew that there was someone else who I should be more wary of because that person was amassing power in secret. So far, that person should already have power that surpassed both the first and second prince.

    But that person wasn''t making a move because unless they were confident they would win, they wouldn''t act.

    Right now, they were even plotting against their own father who controlled the power of the kingdom.

    I didn''t mind this kind of plot, but it would without a doubt destroy the peaceful life that I had wanted to build for myself¡­so I couldn''t help hesitating on getting involved.

    But then I made up my mind as I thought it through.

    At this point, it didn''t matter if I was willing to get involved or not since they were nning on dragging me into this in the first ce. Even if I wanted to keep my distance, it was already toote since I had gotten involved in Shadow Garden.

    They were the hands of the king after all.

    So I couldn''t help feeling both annoyed with and grateful towards Scar.

    He had dragged me into this, but at least he was trying to take responsibility.

    He really was a boss that cared about his subordinates, that was his one redeeming feature.

    So I said, "Thank you for this information. I''ll be careful."

    Seeing the look in my eyes, Scar no longer looked as worried as before. He could see that I had alreadye up with my own ns, so there was no need for him to worry anymore.

    So he just patted me on the shoulder and said with a sigh, "I know you will."

    Then he suddenly revealed a smile as he said, "That''s right, I heard about what happened in Bright Water City."

    I couldn''t help revealing a confused look as I didn''t understand what he was trying to say, but his next words made it clear.

    "It seems like Big Purple really was the right name for you." As he said this, he looked at me with a knowing smile.

    But three ck lines appeared on my face right away.

    I turned to re at Shaka, but he turned away and gave a cough.

    It was clear that he had been the one that had reported this, but this was too much!

    He could have left that part out!

    I turned back and said in an exasperated voice, "It isn''t what you think¡­"

 Chapter 278 Surprise Drop In

    After staying in that town for two days to rx and finally being given a chance to stretch my feet, we headed off to the capital.

    In a sense, this was like a final meal before an execution.

    A little bit of fun before I was thrown into the whirlpool of politics that was the capital.

    In a sense, this was the bit of kindness that Scar was showing me.

    But the capital did await and the one waiting for us was the king¡­so we had to go in the end.

    The town that we picked Scar up in wasn''t that far from the capital in the first ce. It was considered the closest town to the capital and only existed because of a hot spring that was found there.

    So this was by all means a tourist attraction.

    We had fully enjoyed the hot springs though I did receive a few strange looks in the hot springs itself. Especially towards my lower half which I did my best to cover up¡­

    We had set off in the morning, so when we arrived in the capital, it was already the evening and the gates were about to close.

    We were among thest ones that were allowed to line up to enter the capital.

    There were others behind us and even others in front of us that were rejected, but we had been allowed to enter the queue because of the special orders that we had. The guards that were about to chase us away stopped when they saw the token that Scar shed them.

    There was a look of understanding and they waved us into the queue to the dismay of the other travelers.

    There were even some that had wanted to argue about this, but the guards quickly sent them away without any qualms. They even threatened to use force and lock them up if they keptining.

    So as they left, they couldn''t help looking at us with strange looks as if they were wondering who we were.

    But these weremoners, so it didn''t matter if they were curious.

    They just headed to the inns that were outside of the city for those that couldn''t make it into the city gates in time.

    Of course, there was one that had snuck into our carriage during this time.

    Scar and Shaka had wanted to do something about them, but I stopped them. Both of them looked at me with confused looks, but I just simply shook my head to show them that it was fine.

    Since they didn''t want to make a fuss, they decided to just go along with what I had in mind.

    As I noticed the slender figure hiding in the back, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    That was because no matter how she tried to hide herself, I would recognize her immediately.

    I had seen her many times in the game world and had even seen her naked CG, so I would recognize her body anywhere.

    For now though, I will keep silent.

    As we moved closer and closer to the city gate, the one that was hiding in the back seemed to get more and more nervous that she would get discovered by the guards.

    However, when it was our turn, the one hiding in the back realized that all of this worry was useless.

    When the guards came up, the captain personally came over to inspect our carriage.

    But in truth, all he did was wait for Scar to sh the same thing as before and then he passed something over to Scar.

    With that, we were allowed to enter the city without any trouble.

    I kept the carriage going for a bit before stopping beside an alley and saying, "I think it''s time for you to get out, isn''t it?"

    When the one hiding in the back heard this, she couldn''t help trembling.

    She had thought that she had hidden herself quite well that no one would be able to find her, but it turned out that this wasn''t the case. They had known about her all along and had chosen to help sneak her in.

    Since they had been so frank and kind, there was no need for her to show any suspicion towards them.

    The slender figure jumped out of the carriage and gave a slight bow before she said in an oriole like voice, "Thank you for helping me. If there is a chance, I will repay you for this favour."

    When she looked back up, she couldn''t help being shocked by the face that was in front of her.

    The two old men shepletely ignored, but the handsome young face in front of her swept her off her feet.

    She couldn''t help stumbling a bit before asking, "This sir, may I ask what your name is?"

    I just shook my head with a smile and said, "If we''re fated, we will meet again."

    Thest time I had used that line, it bit me in the butt¡­would it be the same this time?

    But without hesitation, I started driving the carriage away.

    As we were leaving, Scar couldn''t help narrowing his eyes to look at the slender figure.

    The confused look on his face slowly started to change as if filled with more and more shock.

    He turned back to look at me before asking, "Did you know that it was her?"

    I slowly gave a nod.

    Scar looked at me with a very strange look as he asked, "You''ve never been to the capital before, so how did you know?"

    I just revealed a bitter smile without exining anything.

    After all, I had seen her in the game before¡­

    I had not only seen her countless times in the game, I had even seen her naked CG in the game¡­but it wasn''t as if I could say that out loud.

    Scar just looked at me with the same strange look and asked, "Are you sure we should have left her there?"

    This time, I gave a nod and said, "Her guards are already here, so there''s no need to worry."

    Scar looked at Shaka and he gave a nod to confirm this.

    Then he gave a sigh and said, "Let''s forget this ever happened, understood?"

    Both me and Shaka gave a nod in response.

 Chapter 279 Meeting Nobles (1)

    The carriage headed through the city as per Scar''s directions.

    Eventually, we arrived at a neighbourhood that was very luxurious and clean.

    This was the neighbourhood that was specially made for the nobles, so it was a ce thatmoners couldn''te to. Naturally this ce was kept very clean by the people that were hired by the nobles that ran this ce.

    The inn that we arrived at was also a very luxurious and clean one, but this inn was a bit special.

    That was because as soon as we arrived, we were immediately weed by the staff of the inn.

    The note that the captain of the guard at the gate had handed us were directions to this inn.

    So it could be said that this inn had been specially prepared to wee us.

    But things didn''t seem as beautiful as it did on the surface. After all, no one would book an entire inn just to wee us without any ulterior motives.

    Scar had been hesitating about whether toe to this inn or not, but I had been curious about who had called us here. There was nothing to lose from meeting this person, rather I would be able to get more information from meeting them than avoiding them.

    However, the person that had called us here didn''t reveal themselves right away.

    The staff just weed us and then guided us to our rooms.

    Naturally, the rooms that we were given were separate.

    "They want to separate us, huh?" I said under my breath.

    Scar knitted his brows when he saw this, but I waved my hand to show that it was fine.

    So in the end, Scar and Shaka took the rooms on the left and right while leaving the room in the middle to me.

    Just like this, we were able to get a proper night''s rest.

    The problems came the following morning.

    When we came down to the inn''s restaurant for breakfast, we found that there were already several people that were sitting there. Based on the clothes that they were wearing, it was clear that not a single one of them had a simple status.

    In fact, they even watched us out of the corner of their eyes when we came in.

    It was clear that we were the center of attention in this restaurant.

    Though that really wasn''t strange since Scar had already exined what the situation would be like in the capital. It was also the reason why we had epted the invite in the first ce.

    When we arrived at the table, we found that there were already people sitting there waiting for us. With the way that they sat on opposite sides of the table, it was clear that they didn''t get along with each other.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the two sides before sitting down without any fear. Shaka and Scar on the other hand hesitated a bit before sitting down beside me.

    The ones on my right were the ones to speak first. Their representative was a balding middle aged man who looked like a typical noble.

    No, with his appearance, he looked like one of those nobles that looked friendly but turned out to be evil in the end. Though I really couldn''t say he was evil, that was just the feeling that I got from him.

    It was confirmed when he spoke that he really did have this kind of personality.

    "Baron Zwein, it is an honour to meet you. I''ve long heard about your name and I must say that I am not disappointed." This balding middle aged man said with a friendly smile on his face.

    However, the only thing that passed through my mind was¡­

    Snake.

    That was the only way that I could see him because I recognized this kind of behaviour.

    After all, I once had a friend that was very simr to this balding middle aged man, so I knew what to look for when it came to people like this. And by friend¡­I naturally meant someone from my past life¡­

    The most important thing was their eyes.

    No matter how well they tried to hide it, it would be impossible to hide itpletely in their eyes. People like this would always have a strange sense of pride and you could see it right away when you looked into their eyes.

    The balding middle aged man reached his hands out towards me as if offering me a handshake, but then there was a snort that rang out.

    The balding middle aged man looked in the direction of that snort and it came from the other party at this table.

    This person was a rough looking muscr man who also didn''t seem that young. However, there was a powerful aura around him that made it clear that he was someone from the military.

    The balding middle aged man red at the person who had given a snort, but then he turned back to me with the same smile on his face as he waited for me to take his hand.

    However, I didn''t take that hand as I had turned to look at the rough looking man.

    Seeing that I was looking at him, he gave a slight nod and said, "It''s a pleasure to meet you."

    It was surprising how fast he was able to change from one tone to another, but unlike the balding middle aged man, it actually seemed genuine. No matter how you looked at it, this was the ssic case of the difference between a minister and a general.

    It also made it clear who had sent these groups toe and see me.

    Right now, I would have to say that I preferred the muscr man over the balding middle aged man.

    Especially since when the balding middle aged man saw that I didn''t take his hand, there was a glint that appeared in his eyes. I would have missed it if I hadn''t been paying attention to him out of the corner of my eyes, but I had seen it.

    Still, I didn''t act flustered and just calmly took the menu before giving my order to the waiter.

    Both the muscr man and the balding middle aged man looked at me with strange looks when they saw this.

    But then they quickly adjusted themselves and looked at me with inquisitive looks as if they had misjudged me.

    I was also judging them though.

 Chapter 280 Meeting Nobles (2)

    After the food was brought, I ignored the two of them and just slowly enjoyed my meal.

    Since I was acting calm and collected, they couldn''t say anything and also ordered food to go along with me.

    The balding middle aged man tried to talk to me during the meal, but he gave up after all he got were nonmittal answers. The muscr man just calmly ate his meal without making much sound.

    After I finished the meal, I still didn''t acknowledge them as I ordered dessert.

    At this point, it wasn''t just the people at the table that were feeling ufortable, it was also the people around who were feeling ufortable.

    These were people that had wanted to talk to me as well, but they had no choice but to give up this idea when they saw the ones that were already sitting at our table. These people already at the table had much higher statuses, so they couldn''t just barge in or they would suffer consequences.

    But they didn''t want to leave that quickly either, so they sat nearby to see if they could get any useful information.

    However, right now, I just made everyone feel ufortable.

    The kitchen didn''t take long to prepare our desserts since they knew what kind of people were waiting.

    They might not know me, but they knew who the balding middle aged man and the muscr man were.

    If they dared dy, it would be a matter of life and death.

    So they rushed the dishes out as quickly as possible while also making sure to maintain the quality of the food.

    I could really tell that the kitchen was trying their best since the food that they made was quite delicious. This had been one of the best meals that I had in my entire life, even including my past life.

    It was just that I didn''t enjoy what woulde next.

    After dessert, I also ordered a coffee that was brought over right away.

    I slowly stirred the sugar cubes that I dropped into the coffee until they dissolved before taking a sip while deliberately looking at the two groups to both of my sides.

    When I put the coffee down, I finally said, "What are you here for?"

    When they heard this, both the balding middle aged man and the muscr man couldn''t help being taken aback by how abrupt I was. However, I was happy to see this since this was all part of my strategy.

    There was a reason behind everything that I had done so far.

    I had deliberately kept them waiting and made them ufortable with this just so I could catch them off guard with this sudden question.

    As for why I knew they wouldn''t leave¡­I could see it from their faces.

    Even though I ignored them like this, they hadn''t reacted at all.

    It was most likely because they were feeling the pressure from the ones above them that forced them to stay even if they felt that they had been disrespected.

    So I had capitalized on that.

    The one to react first was the balding middle aged man.

    He was someone who was knee deep in the world of politics, so he was familiar with tricks like this. He was able to keep his mind firm and focus on the task at hand, so he said, "I''vee here today to befriend your lordship. I feel that we have a lot inmon and can learn from one another."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before nonchntly saying, "Is that so?"

    The balding middle aged man just looked back at me with the same smile on his face.

    Seeing this, I turned and looked at the muscr man without giving him an answer.

    I could see out of the corner of my eyes that the eyes of the balding middle aged man narrowed slightly, but he also quickly restored the smile on his face.

    The muscr man looked right into my eyes as I stared at him before saying, "I wish to thank you for what you''ve done. The demons couldn''t have been easy to find and defeat. Your actions have saved many lives in our kingdom."

    After he said this, he put his hands on the table and gave a slight bow.

    This time, it was my turn to be surprised since I didn''t expect this muscr man to suddenly say this. But I had gotten much better at controlling my expression after everything that I had been through. So even if I was surprised by this, there was the same calm expression on my face.

    I gave a nod in response to this before turning to look at both of them again.

    There was an awkward silence that filled the air once more, but no one said a single thing.

    After all, no one was willing to expose their cards early.

    But in the end, the balding middle aged man finally couldn''t take it anymore as he opened his mouth to say something.

    I beat him to the chase and said, "Who are the masters that you work for?"

    Once again, both of them couldn''t help revealing shocked looks since they never thought that I would be so direct with this.

    Even the muscr man had thought that I would beat around the bush a bit instead of asking this directly.

    But I knew that this was what they had expected, so I knew that it was better to be direct.

    Sometimes, thinking too much would make one lose sight of the overall picture.

    I knew that the strategist would be his own downfall when overestimating their enemies too much.

    So the best way to catch them off guard was to keep it nice and simple.

    That was what was happening now.

    Both the balding middle aged man and the muscr man looked at each other with strange looks before falling into silence.

    Neither of them seemed like they were willing to say a thing.

    So it was just silent in this restaurant.

 Chapter 281 Meeting Nobles (3)

    I just calmly sipped on my coffee since I knew that the ones that would truly suffer were these nobles in front of me.

    By maintaining this silence, I would be able to slowly pressure them until they finally gave a response.

    In the end, it was the balding middle aged man who spoke first by saying, "It is not convenient to say who I represent, but you can be assured in knowing that it is someone of high status. If you''re ever troubled, they will certainly be able to provide you with assistance."

    The way that he said this with a smile on his face would make one think that he was being amicable, but I could hear the slight threatening tone in his voice.

    "My master is someone powerful, you should submit."

    That was the hidden message of these words.

    But of course, I didn''t feel any threat since I had plenty of information.

    After all, neither of the princes had kept their hands clean during this time. There were skeletons in the closets of both of these princes, so if they were to be identally released¡­

    Of course, unless they came for me, I had no reason to do anything to them.

    The muscr man knitted his brows after hearing what the balding middle aged man said.

    Then he cleared his throat and said in a firm voice, "I cannot reveal who I work for either, but I can guarantee that they are a righteous and powerful person. They will help you with anything that you might find yourself troubled with."

    This time, there was no underlying message, but the contents were about the same.

    Though, there was a much friendlier tone to this content this time.

    At the very least, there was no threat if I didn''t choose to go with them. That is as long as I didn''t go to their enemy''s side.

    After they said this, both the muscr man and the balding middle aged man looked at each other with narrowed eyes.

    With the way that they stared at each other, one could almost see the sparks flying through the air.

    But I just calmly took a sip of my coffee before saying, "Then is there a pointing to see me today? I have just arrived in the capital and I have no ns to leave that soon, so there''s plenty of other chances to meet again in the future. If you wish to meet me again, please send an invitation."

    This wasn''t so much as a question, but rather a simple statement that was meant to send them on their way.

    Both the muscr man and the balding middle aged man knitted their brows again, but in the end, their expressions rxed and they began excusing themselves.

    But before leaving the balding middle aged man took something out of his chest pocket and ced it on the table. As he stood to leave, he looked at me with a smile and said, "This is a small gift for Baron Zwein to celebrate our first meeting."

    Though his body was positioned to leave, he didn''t move as he watched me.

    Before I could do anything though, the muscr man also took something out of his chest pocket and ced it on the table. In a calm voice, he simply said, "A present."

    He too turned to leave, but it was clear that he was also waiting for my reaction to this.

    I just calmly took another sip of my coffee before reaching out to take both of these gifts. After bringing them over, I said with a smile, "Please thank the ones behind you for these gifts."

    Both the balding middle aged man and the muscr man gave a nod in response to this.

    With onest re at each other, they turned and headed off in separate directions.

    When the other nobles around us saw this, they thought that it was their chance. There were a few of them that started standing up, as if they were about toe over to our table.

    But before they could do that, I also stood up and started heading out of the restaurant.

    Seeing this, all of the nobles could only watch me leave with bitter smiles on their faces..

    After all, I had already sent off those two that had a higher status than them¡­so how likely would it be that I would talk to them?

    At the very least, they had gotten some information that they could report back with, so they wouldn''t waste any time in reporting back to their masters.

    It seemed that the capital was about to be much busier.

    ¡­

    When we sat down in the carriage, Scar suddenly asked, "Was it alright to take their gifts?"

    He didn''t ask about any other part of that since he had been quite impressed by how I had handled those two.

    He knew the identities of those two, so he knew that they weren''t easy to handle.

    The balding middle aged man was Count Westwood, one of the ministers in the department of revenue. Since he was trusted with the revenue of the kingdom, it could be seen that he had an important role in the kingdom.

    The muscr man was Earl Reiner, the head knight of the me Knights, one of the four knight orders of the kingdom.

    Both of them were powerful people in this kingdom, so they definitely weren''t easy to deal with.

    When I heard this, I just gave a simple nod and said, "Since they are gifts, there is no reason not to ept them. Not to mention, I epted them both for a reason. It should send a proper message to the others watching."

    Scar was confused at first, but when he thought about it, he understood what I meant and he looked at me with an impressed look.

    But I didn''t mind this as I simply asked, "Where are we going right now? Or rather, who are we about to meet?"

 Chapter 282 Secret Tunnel

    Scar revealed a bitter smile as he said, "I can''t hide anything from you, can I?"

    I just looked at him with the same narrowed eyes that were filled with doubt.

    Scar gave a sigh and said, "We''re going to report into headquarters. We''re going to see all of our bosses."

    The moment that I heard this, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    The Shadow Garden headquarters, I did know that it was in the capital, but I never knew exactly where it was since I had never been a part of this organization before. Then again, this organization had already been destroyed in the game, so most people wouldn''t be able to join it in the first ce.

    Then I asked, "Weren''t we going to see the king? Why are we taking this detour?"

    Scar revealed a bitter smile and said, "You think that we can meet the king whenever we want? The king is a busy person."

    I also revealed a bitter smile when I heard this.

    I was still in the game mindset where NPCs were avable whenever I needed them. After all, there was no concept of waiting in the game world unless a NPC was unavable because of some kind of quest or scenario.

    But this wasn''t the game world and an actual world based on the game.

    They were no longer NPCs and they were able to move based on their own lives, so it wasn''t as if the king would be waiting for me toe visit him.

    The king was a busy person, there was no doubt of that just based on the fact that he was a king alone.

    A king was the person that ruled over this kingdom, so there would be many things for him to do during the day.

    So I just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    Scar then said with a sigh, "We''ll be seeing themander and reporting to him. You''ll need to tell him everything that happened in Bright Water City, so are you ready?"

    I gave another simple nod in response to this.

    I had figured that this would be the case, though I was expecting to report to the king. So I had already prepared everything that I would need to say and prepared for every question that I thought I would be asked.

    No matter what happened, I was certain that I was prepared.

    Scar didn''t say anything after this and just gave a sigh as he looked out the window.

    The look on his face really made it seem like he was exhausted by all of this.

    The carriage didn''t have to travel long before we arrived at our destination¡­which was the castle in the center of the capital.

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I saw this, but Scar exined, "The Shadow Garden is an organization that reports directly to the king, so naturally we would be based on the castle."

    There was a part of me that thought, "Since we''re here at the castle, why not just meet with the king as well." But I knew better than to say that out loud after seeing the look on Scar''s face.

    However, after arriving, we didn''t head right into the castle.

    Instead, we went to a small building outside of the castle that seemed to be some kind of old store. In a sense, it seemed like it was out of ce with the rest of this street.

    When we came in, there was someone at the counter that immediately red at us.

    Scar just calmly showed them the same token from before and the person behind the counter waved for us to follow before heading into the back.

    Scar gave a nod to me and we followed this person deep into the back.

    This person led us to a special room and waiting for us in that special room was a hatch. This hatch had adder that led us into some kind of basement, but it was too dark for me to see exactly what this ce was.

    That was until Scar suddenly lit a torch for us.

    I saw that it was some kind of tunnel that was under the store.

    Without a word, Scar moved forward and we could only follow since he had the only torch.

    Based on the direction that this tunnel was heading in¡­it seemed like we were heading towards the castle.

    But why would they do all of this?

    One minute, Scar was saying that we reported directly to the king and the next, we were sneaking into the castle.

    Scar saw the look on my face and said, "Well, we are secret agents in the end. We should enter the castle in secret, shouldn''t we?"

    I revealed a bitter smile.

    If you wanted to be secretive, why would you enter through that ce that was clearly some kind of secret entrance?

    It was an old store that was out of ce with that street, so it was clearly hiding something¡­

    But I didn''t say anything since I knew that I wouldn''t get the answer that I wanted.

    I knew that this most likely had something to do with the game.

    I would even bet that there was a developer who had thought ''this would be cool'' when he designed this!

    But that made me even more depressed since these were all things that I had never discovered in the game.

    It was clear that this was some kind of quest from the game and for me who had thought that I had unlocked everything, this was arge blow. I couldn''t call myself apletionist anymore if it turned out that I hadn''t finished every single quest.

    After walking through the tunnel for a bit, we arrived at the castle as I had expected.

    We arrived in a ce that seemed to be an office, but there wasn''t anyone that was inside.

    The only thing that was in this room was a stuffed bunny that was sitting on the chair behind the desk.

 Chapter 283 Boss Of My Boss

    After seeing this stuffed bunny, Scar went in front of the desk and bowed to it.

    Shaka only hesitated a bit before doing the same thing as him.

    I was the only one that just stood there in a daze, not understanding what was happening.

    Scar saw this, so he turned around and said, "This is our boss."

    "Huh?" That was all I could say when I heard this.

    I looked at the stuffed bunny in front of me before looking back at Scar, but I could see the serious look that was on his face.

    It didn''t seem like he was kidding about this¡­

    But that just didn''t make any sense at all¡­

    After all, how could the stuffed bunny be the one that we were here to see.

    This confused me until I heard a voice say, "So you''re the one that I''ve been hearing about."

    I looked around for the source of this voice, but it seemed like it was indeeding from this stuffed bunny.

    Seeing the way that I looked at it, the stuffed bunny gave augh before saying, "What''s wrong? Are you disappointed with my appearance?"

    Hearing this, I revealed an awkward smile before saying, "Not so much disappointed as confused why you''re like this."

    The sameugh rang out again before the stuffed bunny said, "Well it''s an interesting story. Are you willing to listen to it?"

    I didn''t know what to say, but the stuffed bunny didn''t mind as it started telling the story.

    "Simply put, I am a person that likes making puppets. So I''ve been making puppets for a long time. But I''ve always wanted to take things further with my puppets, I''ve always wanted to give them life." The stuffed bunny stopped to give a sigh after saying this.

    I couldn''t help looking at the stuffed bunny with a strange look when I heard this.

    After a pause, the stuffed bunny continued, "In my pursuit of this, I dived into many different books that contained many different kinds of magic. I tried all of these spells in an attempt to bring my creations to life, but in the end¡­the results were a bit different than what I had expected."

    The stuffed bunny stood up to show off his body before saying, "As you can see, it isn''t quite right."

    Then after sitting down, the stuffed bunny continued, "In the end, what happened was that my soul was taken out of my body and it was put into this stuffed bunny that I was testing the spell on. My body is still there, but it''s slumbering because my soul was extracted and put in this stuffed bunny."

    I raised a brow and looked at the stuffed bunny, but I didn''t doubt his words.

    After all, I knew that this was a world that was filled with all kinds of different magic.

    Something like this¡­was probably possible as well, even if it was very unlikely.

    When the stuffed bunny saw that I didn''t have any doubt as I looked at him, he couldn''t help being surprised.

    After all, of the few people that knew about this, most of them did reveal doubtful looks at first.

    This was the first time that someone didn''t doubt his story the first time that he told it to them.

    He didn''t know why, but he couldn''t help feeling grateful to Zwein.

    After a sigh, the stuffed bunny said, "In the end, I ended up with this body. However, at the very least, my daughter is happy about the fact that I ended up like this."

    That was the point where I wasn''t able to hold myself back as I said, "You have a daughter?"

    The stuffed bunny looked at me with what seemed like a strange look before giving a nod and saying, "That''s right, I have a daughter. What''s wrong with that?"

    I looked at the stuffed bunny with a very strange look as I said, "You have a daughter, really?"

    The stuffed bunny couldn''t help feeling a bit insulted as he said, "I was human, so why couldn''t I have a daughter?"

    I slowly nodded in agreement to this.

    That''s right, he had said in his story that he had been human before being turned into this stuffed animal¡­

    But how could someone like him get a daughter?

    After all, it was clear that he was obsessed with puppets since he had even managed to turn himself into a stuffed doll¡­

    I had heard of people who were obsessed with dolls, I had even heard of people who were obsessed with 2-D waifus since I came from a world that had that kind of culture.

    But in most cases, those people didn''t have a significant other, let alone having children¡­

    This really was a different world if someone like this could find a wife and have children.

    The stuffed bunny narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "You just thought something insulting, didn''t you?"

    I jolted when I heard this before quickly saying, "No, no, definitely not."

    The stuffed bunny kept ring at me as if he could see through my thoughts, but then he gave a sigh and said, "Forget it, it''s not the time to talk about that. For now, let''s talk about what''s important. Give me your report."

    It was at that moment that I remembered that this stuffed bunny wasn''t just anyone, he was also the boss of my boss, the head of Shadow Garden¡­

    If someone like this could even be the head of Shadow Garden, it was no wonder this organization would fallter¡­

    It was really amazing that it didn''t fall even sooner¡­

    The stuffed bunny seemed like he could see through my thoughts, so he red at me once more.

    Even though he was just a stuffed bunny, I could feel the pressureing from him which pulled me out of my thoughts.

    At the very least, he had the aura of a boss and could pressure his subordinates.

    But as for the rest of him¡­

    I could only say that it was a bit disappointing.

 Chapter 284 New Information

    After taking a deep breath to calm down, I gave the report that I had already prepared to the stuffed bunny.

    As the stuffed bunny listened to this report, the only response that he gave was his expression changing from time to time.

    Finally, when it was finished, he just sat there in silence as if he was lost in thought.

    A long silence followed before he said, "So do you think that this is one separate incident or do you think that there''s more connected to this?"

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this.

    It seemed like a simple question, but I couldn''t help feeling that there was more to the question that met the eye.

    It was almost as if¡­he already knew something that I didn''t know.

    So instead of giving an answer, I asked, "Do you think that there''s other incidents rted to this?"

    The stuffed bunny didn''t seem angry when he heard this and instead took out a folder from the table. He ced this folder in front of me, as if waiting for me to look through it.

    I took it and started reading, but as I read through it, I couldn''t help knitting my brows more and more.

    As the top information organization in this kingdom, Shadow Garden received information from many different ces. At the same time, all of these reports were very detailed because they were specialists in gathering information.

    What was in the folder were reports from many different ces.

    These weren''t exactly reports of demon encounters, but they were reports of strange things happening in the surrounding areas.

    There were reports from ces like cities which was to be expected, but there were also reports from towns and viges. As well as areas that were even more remote than these towns and viges.

    It seemed that whatever was happening, it was much deeper than I had even thought.

    I had yed through the demon quest line as well in the game, so I had some ideas of how deep the demons had infiltrated, but I never thought that it was even deeper than I thought.

    At the same time, something that caught my attention was that there were signs that the princes were involved in this matter.

    It wasn''t the first or second prince, but some of the younger princes were involved in this matter.

    Based on what I could see, it was very likely that these princes had gotten involved with the demons for one reason¡­they were trying to use the influence of the demons to help them win the session war.

    They didn''t have much hope of winning whenpeting with the first and second prince, so they had to turn to unconventional methods to help them win. They were nning on using the demons to give them an edge in this fight.

    But it was clear that they were underestimating how powerful the demons were¡­

    Not to mention, the fact that they had been colluding with the demons had already been noticed by Shadow Garden.

    Shadow Garden was an organization that was under the king, so there was no doubt that the king also knew about this. It was only a matter of time before the king took action to suppress this.

    So there was already no hope for the princes that were involved.

    But there was something that was rted to me here.

    The princes that were involved with the demons were among the ones that had sent people toe and invite me to meet them.

    Scar had told me who those other nobles sitting around us were and who they most likely served.

    So this was an indirect warning from the stuffed bunny about what I should do.

    I couldn''t help revealing a grateful look when this thought passed through my mind.

    Seeing the way that I looked at him, the stuffed bunny said, "It seems that you''ve finished reading. So what do you think?"

    I gave a nod before saying with a calm look, "It seems like the situation is much more serious than I thought."

    The stuffed bunny gave a nod before saying, "You''re an unknown factor that has been thrown into this, so I want you to know to take care of yourself."

    What he was talking about wasn''t just the demon situation, but also the session race.

    It was clear that the session battle was much more fierce than I had thought. The princes were even going as far as cooperating with the demons to try and get an advantage.

    I was someone who was considered very important now because like Scar said, I was the only one who couldmunicate with the elves. If I went under one of the princes, one could be certain that they would have arge advantage in the session race.

    So my position¡­was very dangerous now.

    I gave another nod before saying, "I will."

    As I said this, even more gratitude appeared in my eyes.

    Even if he was a stuffed bunny, he was a boss that took care of his subordinates¡­

    Perhaps I had been wrong about him before¡­

    It was just too bad that I immediately retracted this when I heard his next words.

    "You''ll be meeting with his majesty tomorrow." The stuffed bunny suddenly said.

    "Huh?" All three of us were surprised to hear this.

    After all, not a single one of us had expected the king to set up a meeting for us this soon¡­The king was supposed to be an important person and not someone that was so easy to meet.

    The stuffed bunny just said with a shrug, "His majesty was very interested in meeting you, so there''s nothing I can do about this."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    It seemed that I was thinking too much.

    He didn''t care about me, he just cared about how to present me to his majesty.

    After all, if I caught his majesty''s attention, the Shadow Garden organization would naturally benefit from it since I was a member of this organization.

 Chapter 285 Royal Audience (1)

    When I woke up the next morning, I took a moment to sit in bed and gather my thoughts.

    After a moment of just sitting there, I let out a sigh.

    That was because today was the day that I was getting a royal audience.

    I had heard about this from the stuffed bunny yesterday.

    Speaking of which, it was still hard to believe that the stuffed bunny was our boss¡­

    When I was taught on how to address the stuffed bunny, he had told me vehemently to just call him boss like everyone else. However, when we were leaving, Scar told me that his unofficial codename was actually Boss Bunny.

    I almost burst out inughter when I heard that.

    But toe back from that digression, when we had left, Boss Bunny had said that we should be careful at the royal audience tomorrow since it wouldn''t just be the king that would be meeting us.

    There would be several ministers and generals that would also be at the audience.

    From what he had heard, they would bring up the topic of the elves while at this audience since they were the ones that were most affected by this.

    They had many concerns regarding the elves that they wanted solved and the best person to solve these concerns was naturally the one who had contact with the elves. So it was certain that they would try to talk to me about this during the royal audience.

    They would even try to use the pressure of his majesty to try to get me to go along with what they wanted.

    But Boss Bunny wanted me to be careful about this since this would be in front of his majesty.

    If I made a mistake, it wouldn''t be bad just for me. If I made a mistake, this mistake would reflect on everyone that I was connected to.

    That included the Shadow Garden organization and even Baroness Rose who was my wife.

    For a baron like me, it would be easy for his majesty to take care of us¡­

    So he wanted me to be careful.

    But of course, I knew that he was mainly thinking about Shadow Garden.

    Still, I wouldn''t let anyone that was important to me be harmed because of this.

    Thinking about it, I couldn''t help giving a sigh again.

    This kind of thing wasn''t just in this world, even the world that I hade from had this kind of culture. Whoever had offended the emperor would always suffer heavy consequences.

    It was like treading in front of a sleeping tiger when standing in front of a ruler.

    I just hoped that I would be able to get through this without any harm.

    After taking some time to gather myself, I went down to have my breakfast.

    As I had expected, there were nobles that were already waiting there for us.

    Some of these nobles were the same as the ones that I had seen yesterday and some of the ones that were here were new faces. The ones that were sitting at my table today were new faces that I hadn''t seen before.

    Before we sat down, Scar told me who they were.

    They were nobles that were under the third and sixth prince.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help giving a sigh of relief.

    There was one prince that I didn''t want to deal with, so as long as I didn''t encounter the subordinates of that person, I didn''t have anything to worry about. That was because once I got involved with that person¡­I would be pulled into a very tedious battle.

    At the same time, I knew what that person''s endgame was, so it was impossible for us to be friends.

    This was all because of the knowledge that I had gained from the game.

    These two nobles naturally tried to convince me to meet their masters, but they quickly backed down when I said that I would be having a royal audience today.

    The moment that they heard this, they immediately left their gifts and excused themselves.

    It seemed that everyone feared his majesty, it wasn''t just me.

    This was both a good sign and a bad sign.

    The good part of it was that I could use the excuse of an audience with his majesty to avoid meeting the nobles. The bad part of it was that this meant that his majesty was someone that was worthy of being feared like this¡­

    So would I be able to survive today?

    Once we finished our meal, we headed to the royal pce.

    Instead of taking the secret entrance, we went through the main entrance this time since this was an official royal audience.

    After arriving at the pce, we were immediately weed by one of the butlers of the pce.

    When Shaka and Scar saw this person, they couldn''t help being surprised.

    Seeing the inquisitive look that I had on my face, Scar exined, "This person is Sebastien, the head butler of the castle." Then in a lower voice, he said, "He is someone who has been with his majesty since his majesty was the crown prince and is said to be one of the people closest to him. He is not someone that one can look down on."

    I couldn''t help looking carefully at this butler called Sebastien.

    He was the perfect example of a butler.

    This was an old man who still had a sharp look in his eyes even if his hair was graying. He stood tall and straight in his butler uniform, without a single bit of slouching, showing that he was a powerful man.

    He was definitely not someone that could be looked down on.

    Since someone like him was even sent to greet us, just how much importance did his majesty put on this matter?

    Or was it because of something else that he sent someone as important as this to greet us?

    I couldn''t help feeling that this matter definitely wasn''t as simple as it seemed.

 Chapter 286 Royal Audience (2)

    Though we were greeted by Sebastien, we weren''t brought into the throne room right away.

    Instead, we were brought to a waiting room where we were told to rest for a bit before the royal audience.

    This did make sense since it wasn''t as if someone as important as the king would be waiting for us to arrive for the audience. It should be us who should wait until the king is free to give us this audience.

    So we sat down, but rxing was thest thing that was on our mind.

    We were fully tense and focused, as if we were about to head to a battlefield.

    Though in a sense, this royal audience was somewhat like heading to the battlefield.

    As we were adjusting, there was a sudden knock on the door that caught us off guard.

    Sebastien was still in the room with us, though he didn''t do anything to serve us. It was almost as if he was just standing here watching over us to make sure that we didn''t run.

    But when he heard that knock, he went over to the door to open it to see who it was.

    When he saw who it was, he couldn''t help being surprised.

    We didn''t see who it was since Sebastien was standing in front of the door, but we did hear how he addressed the other side.

    "Your highness, what are you doing here?" Sebastien said in a calm voice, but there was a hint of caution in his voice as well.

    A voice from outside said, "It''s just a simple visit. I''m sure that my royal father won''t mind. I''m just here to give some advice to the ones that he''s about to meet."

    There was a moment of silence that followed this, but in the end, Sebastien said with a sigh, "Just a moment, you can''t stay for long since the royal audience will be happening soon."

    With a creak, the door opened and the person outside was allowed in.

    When we saw who the personing in was, we all revealed different expressions.

    Scar and Shaka revealed surprised looks, but nothing further.

    But I deeply knitted my brows when I saw this person.

    After all, this was a person that had yed a big part in the noble quest line. This was the person that could be considered the most dangerous person in the capital and now I was meeting him¡­

    This wasn''t a good thing.

    This person came over and sat down in front of us before looking at me to say, "It''s an honour to meet you. I''ve long heard of your fame, but it really has been hard to arrange a meeting. So I had no choice but to sneak here to get a bit of your time."

    The way that he said this made him seem like a very friendly person, but I could tell that he was anything but friendly¡­

    After all, I knew that this man was the final boss of the noble quest line.

    He was the person who had gathered more power than both the first and second princes.

    While the first and second princes had gathered supporters among the ministers and generals, the number of people that backed them was less than half of all the ministers and generals. The king naturally knew what kind of tricks these princes were ying, so he had moved to suppress them.

    There were many ministers and generals that were still loyal to the king and would follow his will if he ever chooses a sessor.

    Or at least that was what it seemed on the surface.

    There was also a neutral faction of nobles that didn''t take any sides in this power struggle.

    But in truth, most of those that were loyal to the king and those that were in the neutral faction were actually under the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince was very sly and had used many secret ways to grab the handles of these people. There were some that he ckmailed, some that he swayed to his side, and some that he even threatened to fall under him.

    So even if the fourth prince seemed like a friendly person, he was actually a very cruel, sly, and vindictive person.

    He was definitely not someone that I wanted to get entangled with.

    But since the fourth prince came all the way to see me, it wasn''t as if I could just ignore him.

    So I cupped my hands and gave a bow before saying, "Your highness is overpraising me. I am not worthy of such praise."

    The fourth prince revealed a gentle smile as he said, "No, no, you''re underestimating yourself too much. You are someone that I would very much like to befriend."

    While others might see a friendly smile, what I saw was the demon hidden within the fourth prince.

    I knew his true personality, so I knew that this was just one of my faces that the fourth prince could show.

    But being his friend¡­that was thest thing I wanted. After all, there was nothing to gain from being attached to the fourth prince.

    So I cupped my hands and gave another bow before saying, "Your highness, I am not worthy of such an honour. I am just a lowly servant of the crown, not someone that can be your highness'' friend."

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes when he heard this, but he didn''t show any signs of being offended.

    Instead, he revealed an even wider smile as he said, "Sir Zwein is underestimating himself too much. You are someone much more important than you think, which is why I would very much like to have you as a friend."

    I trembled when I heard this, but I forced myself to stay calm.

    With an internal sigh, I said, "It would be an honour to be your friend, your highness."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before saying with a smile, "It''s an honour to be your friend from now on."

 Chapter 287 Royal Audience (3)

    Friend¡­

    What a fake term that was.

    In short, what the fourth prince did just now was threaten me.

    After all, he had said ''I would very much like to have you as a friend''. But if one put it in different words, it would be ''I would rather have you as a friend than an enemy''.

    When he put it in such clear words, it was impossible for me to refuse him anymore.

    But even if I did be friends with the fourth prince, as long as he lost interest in me, then that would be that. So I would try to keep myself as lowkey as possible so that he wouldn''t want to include me in any of his ns.

    Not to mention, that was my intention in the first ce.

    After this trip to the capital, I would just hide myself in my town.

    To my surprise though, the fourth prince didn''t go any further than this.

    After he said that it was an honour for him to be my friend, he suddenly stood up and said, "I have some other matters to take care of, so I''ll be leaving first. If there is another chance, I hope that we will be able to talk again."

    I said with a nod, "It''s been an honour meeting you, your highness. I hope that there will be another chance as well."

    But in truth¡­what I was really thinking was, "Get lost you monster! I hope that I never see you again!"

    Of course, I would never say that out loud.

    The fourth prince gave a nod to Sebastien as he walked out which immediately tipped me off.

    I had already found it strange that Sebastien would let him in in the first ce, but this confirmed it. It seemed that Sebastien had already fallen under the fourth prince and was supporting him.

    This was an important piece of information, especially with what Scar had told me about Sebastien.

    But I didn''t remember this from the game¡­

    No, there was a member of the fourth prince''s group whose identity had never been exposed.

    It was the man of shadows, the one that controlled his espionage group¡­

    Even in the game, that person never revealed themself and only hid in the shadows. By the end of the quest line, I heard that this person disappeared, so there was no further mention of this.

    If this person was Sebastien, was he truly working for the fourth prince or¡­was he still working for the king?

    It seemed that I needed to pay more attention to this butler known as Sebastien¡­

    But for now, that wasn''t what was important.

    The more urgent matter was to adjust myself to meet the king.

    Right after the fourth prince left, there was someone that knocked on the door again. However, this time, the knock was very particr, so it was clear that they had a reason for being here.

    When Sebastien heard this, he didn''t even wait to ask who it was before opening the door. He just opened the door directly before saying, "It''s time, his majesty is ready for you."

    When we heard this, we didn''t waste any time in standing up and following him out.

    After all, there was nothing to gain from keeping his majesty waiting.

    The king could keep us waiting, but we couldn''t keep the king waiting, that was just how it was.

    After walking for a bit, we were brought to the throne room.

    As for how we knew it was the throne room, the door was more than enough to give it away.

    What other room would have this kind of luxurious door?

    It could only be the throne room.

    Before entering, Sebastien had us wait outside as he went in to introduce us.

    After the introduction, the other butler that hade to pick us up waved his hand for us to go in.

    The moment that we entered, I could feel the pressure that came from inside.

    This was the pressure that came from the weight of having to take care of an entire nation, so it wasn''t a weak pressure.

    As for the one that it came from, it was naturally the king of this nation.

    This was the man sitting on the throne in front of us.

    Without any hesitation, we stopped and fell to one knee as we lowered our heads.

    In unison, we said, "We greet your majesty."

    Scar had already instructed me on what to do, so I didn''t miss a beat as I mimicked the other two as they went to kneel.

    We didn''t look up, so we couldn''t see him, but I did hear a soft sound of acknowledgement before he said, "Rise."

    With that, the three of us stood up again and I was able to see the king.

    The appearance of this king was not a disappointing one.

    This was an appearance fitting of the one that ruled this nation.

    He wasn''t young, but he wasn''t that old either. He was a middle aged man, but his eyes were much sharper than a man his age should have. It was like he could see through one''s soul just with a single nce.

    This was the look that a man known as the wise king should have.

    As for the rest of the king''s appearance, he was a middle aged man that exuded dignity.

    After we stood up, the king said, "I think you all know why we''re here, so let''s hear your report."

    Scar and Shaka both looked at me, so I took a step forward and began telling him the story.

    During this, the king just silently listened to me.

    There wasn''t even a single reaction on his face that made me feel a bit nervous, but I still continued my story.

    When I finished, the king just gave a single nod before stroking his chin as if he was deep in thought.

    Since he didn''t say a single word, no one else here said a single word and the room fell to silence.

 Chapter 288 Royal Audience (4)

    The silence was very awkward and suffocating.

    It wouldn''t have been as suffocating if it was a different situation, but in this formal situation with no one talking, it was clear that everyone was suffering.

    At the very least, I used this time to look at the people that were standing on the sides.

    Based on the clothes that they wore, it was clear that they were ministers and generals that had been called for this royal audience as well. However, there wasn''t a single one that I recognized, so it could be said that these ministers and generals weren''t as important.

    No, I suddenly remembered something.

    The noble quest line was something that happened several years in the future, so by then, most of these ministers and generals had been reced by their sessors.

    So the reason why I didn''t recognize them was because this was the older generation.

    The ones that I would recognize were still currently working as junior ministers andmanders in the army. They wouldn''t make their way up to their positions until several years in the future.

    So while I didn''t recognize these people, that didn''t mean that they weren''t important.

    I should at the very least try to remember these faces.

    But before I could do that, the king suddenly said, "You did a good job."

    It was just a simple sentence, but there was a heavy meaning behind it. Praise for the king wasn''t lightly given, so receiving praise could be considered something very rare.

    All three of us were caught off guard by this when we heard it.

    Even the ministers and generals couldn''t help feeling a bit caught off guard when they heard this.

    It had been a long time since they had heard this kind of praise from his majesty.

    Once again, there was silence that followed after the king gave this praise, but I quickly reacted and said, "Your majesty, your praise is too much. I and myrades were just doing what was required of us. It was really Bright Water City''s City Lord that handled the situation."

    In my heart, I silently apologized to the duke, but¡­I really didn''t want this credit.

    The king narrowed his eyes before saying, "You''re underestimating yourself too much. I''ve heard that it''s not just this incident, but several other incidents that you''ve proven yourself to the kingdom."

    I opened my mouth, but words failed toe out as I didn''t know how to respond to this.

    In the end, I could only give a nod and say, "Thank you, your majesty."

    The king just gave a simple nod in response to this, almost seeming like he was closing this matter.

    When I saw this, I let out a secret sigh of relief.

    It seemed that this matter would end without much trouble. Now the only thing that I had to deal with was¡­

    There was a silence that followed after the king''s nod, but that wasn''t because there wasn''t anyone that had something to say. Rather, the ministers and generals looked like they all had something that they wanted to say.

    The only reason they were hesitating was because they wanted to make sure that the king didn''t have anything else that he wanted to say.

    So there was a long silence that followed after this.

    Then one of the ministers suddenly came forward with his mouth open, preparing to say something.

    It was just too bad that the king suddenly said, "Since you have performed this kind of merit to the kingdom, naturally you should be rewarded. We have already prepared a reward for you, so step forward."

    When they heard this, everyone in the room couldn''t help revealing a shocked look.

    The one that was most shocked was naturally me since I had never heard anything about this.

    But since the king had already spoken, what could I do?

    I had no choice but to take a few steps forward until I was in front of the throne and then I kneeled down in front of it, waiting to receive this reward that the king mentioned.

    The king also stood up after saying this and walked forward until he was standing in front of me.

    He nodded at one of his subordinates to the side and it didn''t take long before two people came forward.

    One of them was holding a sword that was clearly a ceremonial sword while the other had a pillow in his hand that had a scroll on it. Both of them came right up beside the king and then kneeled down before him.

    The king took the ceremonial sword before nodding at the one carrying the scroll.

    That person stood up and took the scroll off the pillow before putting the pillow under his arm. Then he unrolled the scroll and read, "For his merits to the kingdom, Baron Zwein will hereby receive the hereditary title of viscount. In addition, he will receive additionalnd near his current territory, as well as funding to support him in developing his new territory."

    After he finished reading the scroll, the servant put it back on the pillow and presented it not to the king, but rather to me.

    But I couldn''t react to this at all since all I could feel was shock from what I had heard.

    It wasn''t just me who was shocked at hearing this, everyone else in the room was shocked by this sudden reward that his majesty gave.

    After all, it was just too much!

    This wasn''t just a normal noble title, it was a hereditary noble title!

    There was arge difference between a hereditary noble title and a normal noble title.

    A normal noble title would be something that was only given to the person who had earned that title. That person''s spouse and children wouldn''t have the right to inherit it unless they performed merits of their own.

    When that person died, that title would be revoked and returned to the crown.

    This was a method of ensuring that there were no useless nobles that were draining the resources from the kingdom.

    But it was different when it came to hereditary titles.

    Hereditary titles were passed on regardless of merits, it would remain in the family forever. This was the kind of title that Baron Mordo had and he had only obtained it because of the merits of his ancestors back in the founding of this country.

    Of course, back then, his ancestors had received the title of count and not just baron. He had been reduced to baron after generations of not contributing to the kingdom.

    This kind of title was not something that was given that easily.

    It was normally only given to those that had greatly contributed to the country, such as those that had helped found the country, or those that were greatly favoured by the king. That way, their family would remain in his service for many generations.

    No matter how they looked at it, it didn''t seem like Zwein was deserving of this title even if he had saved Bright Water City from disaster.

    So that was why everyone was shocked to hear this.

    But of course, no one was more shocked than me.

 Chapter 289 Royal Audience (5)

    I really wanted to look up and see what expression was on the king''s face, but I knew that I couldn''t do that in this situation.

    After all, this was a formal ceremony and before it ended, I couldn''t look up.

    In fact, since this was a formal ceremony, I had no choice but to ept this title even though I really didn''t want to.

    If I were to reject this title in this public ce, it would be like pping the king''s face and that was thest thing that I wanted to do.

    So I had to say, "Thank you, your majesty for this grace."

    The king gave a simple nod after hearing this before lifting the ceremonial sword in his hand.

    He lifted this sword up and ced it on my shoulder before saying, "Baron Zwein, do you swear to uphold thews of this kingdom and protect its people for as long as you shall live?"

    "Yes." I said in a simple and firm voice.

    The king tapped the sword on both of my shoulders before saying, "Then by my rights as the ruler of this kingdom, I grant the title of a hereditary viscount to you. At the same time, I grant you the right to bear a coat of arms."

    When these words were said, there were even more shocked looks that appeared.

    That was because the right to bear a coat of arms was not as simple as it seemed.

    A coat of arms was a symbol that would represent a noble family, but that wasn''t all that it was.

    With noble titles came the right to gather forces, recruiting soldiers and guards to serve under the noble. However, there was a limit to how many troops one could recruit since the king wouldn''t want nobles having too much power.

    Nobles that had too much power were prone to think about betrayal.

    So nobles that were given too much power would often lead to coups which the king wanted to avoid.

    To limit their power, nobles could only recruit a certain amount of troops.

    If they ever tried to recruit more, they would be punished.

    A light punishment was a fine and a severe punishment would be having their title stripped, as well as having their entire family executed. All of this depended on the mood of the ruler.

    So no noble dared to break thisw.

    But a coat of arms was a way around that.

    Having a coat of arms was the only requirement needed to form an order of knights.

    As long as one had the money, they would be able to recruit as many troops as they wanted into this order of knights. So this was one of the few ways that a noble would be allowed to recruit as many troops as they wanted.

    However, a coat of arms was not something that could be given lightly.

    Only to nobles that the king trusted could a coat of arms be given, otherwise who knew if the noble would rebel against the king.

    So everyone was shocked when they heard that this Baron Zwein was being given a coat of arms. After all, in their eyes, this Baron Zwein was nothing more than a young upstart who no one knew anything about.

    Even if he did a few things that could be considered beneficial to the kingdom, that was far from enough to be granted something like this.

    After all, there was no knowing what kind of attitude he had towards the current royal family.

    If he had his ambitions¡­then this was like feeding a hungry lion.

    One day, it woulde to bite the king in the butt.

    But of course, not a single one of the ministers or generals dared to say anything here. This was a public ceremony after all and if they undermined the king''s authority here, it would be equal to cutting off their future path.

    So they would find a chance to talk to the king in private about this matterter.

    I had no choice in this matter since the king had already made the deration. The only thing that I could do now was graciously ept this title and coat of arms.

    However, I too knew what being granted a coat of arms meant, so I knew that I had just been handed a hot potato.

    With a bitter smile on my face, I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible as I said, "Your majesty, thank you for this grace."

    There was a silence that followed before a soft ''un'' sound rang out to acknowledge this.

    Then the pair of feet in front of me turned around as the king walked back to his throne and sat down once more.

    After he sat down, there was another silence that followed as everyone waited to see what the king would do this time. Thest time, he suddenly pulled out this viscount title and this coat of arms, so they had no idea what he would do now.

    However, the king just sat there without saying a word.

    Since he had left, I was finally able to peek upwards at the king''s face.

    As I looked at his face, I tried to find anything on his expression that would give me a clue as to what he truly wanted. However, no matter how I tried to read the king, I wasn''t able to find a single thing from his face..

    It was as if it was an iron vault that locked up all of its secrets.

    As expected of a ruler that had reigned over this kingdom for so long.

    He was not an easy nut to crack.

    After a long silence, the king finally said, "It seems that today''s matters are concluded. Let''s end this audience here then."

    But before the king could make another move, one of the ministers suddenly said, "Your majesty, if I may, there''s something that I want to bring up."

 Chapter 290 Royal Audience (6)

    When the king heard this, he narrowed his eyes to look at the minister who had spoken.

    This minister was the current head of the foreign affairs department, Marquis Bloom.

    When Marquis Bloom felt the king''s eyes ring at him, he couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine. This pressure was so much that he even wanted to take a few steps and shrink his neck back.

    However, he knew that he couldn''t show any weakness at this point.

    So Marquis Bloom just stood firm even under the pressure of the king.

    Everyone looked at Marquis Bloom with looks of pity.

    After all, they knew that he would be sacrificed for what they all wanted. The person that spoke first would naturally soak up the rage of the king for being interrupted like this, making it easier for the others to speak.

    But no matter what, even if it meant enraging the king, they had to say something.

    After all, there was something that this Baron Zwein¡­no, it was Viscount Zwein now¡­There was something that this Viscount Zwein had that they wanted.

    But to their surprise, the king just gave a nod and said, "Say what you want."

    Marquis Bloom couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when he heard this since he was already expecting to be chewed out by the king for his sudden outburst.

    Still, since he had received permission from the king, Marquis Bloom didn''t waste any time in asking, "Viscount Zwein, I''ve heard rumours that you''ve been able to befriend an elven vige. Can you confirm if that is true?"

    When I heard this, I wasn''t surprised at all since I had already expected this to happen.

    I just calmly looked at Marquis Bloom who asked this question and said, "That''s correct. I''ve been able to build a friendship with the elves that live in my territory and in my territory alone."

    Marquis Bloom knitted his brows, especially at thetter half of my words since I was making something very clear to him with those words. But still, Marquis Bloom gave a cough to clear his throat before saying, "Then could it be said that you have a way of contacting the elves? As well as the ability to negotiate with them over matters?"

    I could guess what he was going to ask, but to establish my position, I just simply gave a nod.

    At this, the eyes of all of the ministers and generals lit up.

    Once again, I wasn''t surprised by this since Scar had already made it clear how important this connection to the elves was.

    So I could already guess what they were nning on asking next.

    Marquis Bloom said in a slow voice, "If it is possible, can you connect our foreign affairs department to the elves?"

    I just narrowed my eyes to look at Marquis Bloom after this.

    Marquis Bloom couldn''t help feeling a bit of pressureing from me, even though he couldn''t understand why he was feeling this pressure from someone like me.

    Marquis Bloom gave a cough to calm himself down before exining, "You should know that it''s not just your territory, but there are other territories that have elves in them. They just take up ournd and keep to themselves, so it''s hard for us to deal with them. Who knows if¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly said, "People like you will never gain the friendship of the elves."

    When Marquis Bloom heard this, his face twisted before he asked, "What do you mean by that?"

    "People that only care about material gains like you will never be able to connect with the elves." I said in a calm voice.

    When they heard this, it wasn''t just Marquis Bloom whose face twisted. The faces of the other ministers and generals twisted to varying degrees.

    The room fell into a deathly silence after this was said.

    But Marquis Bloom didn''t allow this to bother him for long as he said, "Then since only you are capable ofmunicating with the elves, would you minding to our foreign affairs department? You should know that this is a matter of national security, so we would be grateful for any help that you could give us."

    Since he couldn''tmunicate with the elves himself, he chose to get the next best thing¡­the only person that couldmunicate with the elves.

    As long as he could control this person, it would be simple for him to manipte the matters with the elves.

    After he said this, Marquis Bloom then turned to the king and said, "Your majesty, I would like to make a formal request for Viscount Zwein to join the foreign affairs department. With his help, I''m certain that we will be able to create a working rtionship with the elves."

    His words sounded righteous, but it was clear that he was trying to pull me into the foreign affairs department that he was in charge of.

    Once I was there, it would be easy for Marquis Bloom to use his influence to force me to do things for him.

    He even tried to use the influence of the king to make this happen by making that request.

    But before anyone else could respond, Scar said, "I would like to remind Marquis Bloom that Viscount Zwein is a member of our Shadow Garden. At the same time, I would like to point out that Viscount Zwein is currently on a mission for our organization, so he has no free time to spare for this matter."

    After Marquis Bloom heard this, he deeply knitted his brows.

    But he wasn''t suppressed as he said, "I''m sure that Shadow Garden can spare one of its members at a time like this. After all, this is a matter that involves national security, so it should be more important than any other mission that you currently have."

    Scar was about to open his mouth to refute this, but there was another voice that cut him off.

    The king said in a stern voice, "Enough."

 Chapter 291 Royal Audience (7)

    The voice that the king said this in wasn''t loud or soft, but there was no doubting the power that was behind it.

    This was the voice of one that had the power to rule over this kingdompletely, so it was not something that was easily tarnished.

    As soon as his voice rang out, all of the ministers and generals trembled.

    Then without any hesitation, all of them fell to one knee and bowed their heads in fear, as they waited for what the king would say next.

    The ones that felt the most fear were naturally Marquis Bloom and Scar who had been the ones arguing in front of the king.

    They were afraid that they had provoked the king''s anger and what this would mean for them.

    But in the end, all the king said was, "Leave this matter. Viscount Zwein works for the Shadow Garden organization, so unless there''s an absolute need, he will keep working there. If there are any departments that wish to ask for his help, they may send a direct request to me. If it''s a worthy request, I will naturally not reject it."

    Once his words fell, all of the ministers and generals revealed bitter looks on their faces.

    Even if they were fools, they would be able to understand the meaning behind his words.

    With the way that the king had said this, it was clear that he had already decided to protect Viscount Zwein.

    Even if they were to submit a request for this matter, it was very likely that this request would be ignored or denied.

    But this was an important matter and they wouldn''t give up on it so easily¡­

    So the ministers and generals exchanged secret nces as they started toe up with a n to handle this matter.

    The main gist of their n was that they would all submit requests at the same time to the king. With all of these requestsing in at the same time, they believed that even the king wouldn''t be able to reject all of them with theirbined influence.

    At the same time, they were preparing to call in even more nobles to make requests with them.

    This was one of those times where numbers did matter.

    For now, they would bide their time and wait to send those requests. Once they had enough people, it was only a matter of time before this Viscount Zwein fell into their hands, even if the king wanted to protect him.

    Since the king had spoken, no one dared to go against him.

    After a long silence, everyone said, "Yes, your majesty."

    Hearing this, the king gave a satisfied nod before saying, "Then we''ll end things here."

    "Yes, your majesty." Everyone said once again before waiting for the king to leave.

    At an event like this, naturally the first one to leave was the most important person.

    If anyone dared to leave before him, that would be considered insulting that person.

    So they all kneeled there waiting for the king to leave.

    They could have stood up and bowed instead, but they kept kneeling since they were afraid of what mood the king was in. After all, they had heard the tone that he had spoken in just now.

    But the king didn''t leave right away.

    Instead, he just looked at me with an interested look.

    As I kneeled there, I could feel his gaze on me.

    But in the end, he still turned to leave through the side entrance that was only used by him.

    After the king was gone, everyone still waited for a while before slowly standing up and letting out sighs of relief.

    The ministers and generals didn''t leave right away and started gathering together, as if they were discussing things in private.

    As they discussed, I could hear a few things that they were saying and I could feel their gazes directed at me. I wasn''t a fool, so I could easily tell that they were talking about me.

    But I did all that I could to ignore this as I went over to Shaka and Scar''s side.

    The three of us exchanged nces before quickly leaving this ce.

    We were the center of attention right now and that was never a good thing. It was best if we left this ce as soon as possible.

    Even as we left, I could still feel the gazes of the nobles on me.

    It was clear that this matter wouldn''t be over yet¡­

    They definitely wouldn''t drop this matter¡­

    ¡­

    A beautiful young girl was sitting there in this luxurious room with one hand holding her cheek as she stared out the window at the beautiful city beneath her.

    However, even with this beautiful scenery in front of her, her eyes weren''t focused at all.

    It was as if instead of this scenery, there was something else that was on her mind.

    After staring out for a bit, she couldn''t help suddenly giving a sigh.

    But then, there was a click that came from behind her as the door to this room suddenly opened.

    When she turned to see who it was that came in without even announcing themselves, she immediately revealed a smile as she said, "Papa!"

    The beautiful girl stood up and ran over to the man that walked in before jumping into his arms.

    The man also revealed a smile as he took this beautiful girl in his arms.

    After letting her hug him, he patted her on the head and said, "Now, now, stop ying around."

    The girl reluctantly moved away but she moved away in the end. Then she asked with a sly look on her face, "How did the royal audience go?"

    The man gave a sigh before shaking his head to say, "I might have yed around a bit too much."

    The girl covered her mouth as she said, "He, he, papa really doesn''t hold back when he ys around."

    The man revealed a proud look as he said, "Your papa will never hold back when ying around."

    The two of them seemed like a normal pair of father and daughter, but if one looked carefully¡­they would see a set of crowns on their heads.

    These two were the king and the princess.

 Chapter 292 Father And Daughter

    Afterughing for a bit, the princess still said with a slightly worried look, "But if you y around too much, that might still drive them away. Are you sure that you didn''t go too far?"

    The king shook his head as he said, "I''ve already given him enough benefits that he won''t be able to run even if he wanted to. Plus, he''s now the center of attention in the entire court, so there''s nowhere for him to run."

    Seeing the look on her father''s face, the princess even felt a bit sorry for that person.

    With a sigh, she said, "Father, if you bully him too much, won''t you break his confidence?"

    The king just casually gave a snort and said, "Who told him to raise all this trouble? If it wasn''t for him, I wouldn''t have had to work so hard these past few weeks."

    The princess just shook her head with a smile that seemed like she found this all funny, but then she said with a serious look, "But it is a fact that there are more and more demons appearing in our kingdom, isn''t it?"

    The king was silent for a bit before saying, "It''s just small tricks that they''re ying, they won''t be able to do anything to our kingdom."

    The princess revealed a look that showed that she clearly thought differently, but she didn''t say anything else. Instead, she said with a sigh, "First brother and second brother really are going at it, aren''t they? Why can''t we just be a family?"

    The king shook his head with a sigh as well, but he didn''t say anything since he knew that this was impossible.

    As the former crown prince, he knew the struggles of the session race, so he knew that it was impossible for his sons to settle down.

    But these were his sons, the children that he had cared for since they were young.

    To him, they were precious and important, so he didn''t want to see them fighting like this.

    For this, he hade up with a n that would minimize casualties¡­but he also knew that it was impossible for this to be settled quietly.

    The session race could and would only be more and more explosive.

    Eventually¡­death might even be inevitable.

    But for now, he didn''t want to think about this¡­so the king changed the topic by saying, "You''ve been going out to y a lottely. Did you really think that I wouldn''t notice?"

    The princess trembled when she heard this, but then she looked away and gave an innocent whistle before saying, "I have no idea what you''re talking about. I''ve never gone out to y once, I''ve been studying all this time."

    The king shook his head and gave a sigh before saying, "Did you really think that I wouldn''t find out? Or did you think that your guards wouldn''t say a thing? Who do you think is the king?"

    When she heard this, the princess revealed an aggrieved look.

    She had already swore those guards to secrecy, but it seemed like they hadn''t kept their vow at all. The moment that her back was turned, they had immediately gone against her and told her father.

    It seemed like she needed to punish those guards once her father left.

    At the same time¡­she needed to go find her fourth brother for an exnation.

    After all, it was her fourth brother who had assigned these guards to her in the first ce.

    She had even done him a favour to make sure that he gave her guards that would help her keep this secret for her. But now they went and stabbed her in the back like this, so he couldn''t avoid taking responsibility for this.

    After a long moment of silence toin in her mind, the princess finally said, "It''s so stuffy staying in the pce all day, you should know that, royal father. I just wanted to go out and see the city."

    "See the city?" The king repeated after her with one brow raised.

    When the princess heard this, she couldn''t help jolting again.

    After all, the way that the king said this, it almost seemed like he knew more than he was revealing.

    The princess carefully looked at the king as if she was trying to figure out just what he knew, but the king had a calm look on his face that didn''t reveal a single thing.

    Finally, she gave a sigh and said, "I just snuck out of the city a few times and went to the surrounding viges. I just wanted to see what the lives of the people in the viges were like."

    The king revealed a bitter smile when he heard this, but then he gave a sigh to calm himself down before revealing a serious look, "You should know how dangerous it is outside of the capital. It''s not that I don''t understand what you''re thinking, but you always take the most dangerous path. It''s not safe out there with all those monsters and you know it."

    The princess pouted her lips as she muttered, "If I didn''t sneak out, who knows when I would be able to see the viges?"

    The king once again revealed a bitter smile as he said, "But there are better ways than sneaking out. I can arrange for a visit to those viges if you want or we can find a better solution. All you''re doing is causing worry for your mother by sneaking out like this."

    The princess pouted her lips even more as she said, "If I go with all those guards, how will I be able to see the viges in their true form? They''ll be too scared to even walk with all those royal guards."

    The king just gave a sigh before patting her on the head, "It''s for your own good, I will not budge on that."

    The princess kept pouting her lips without saying a thing.

    That is until the king suddenly asked, "So, what do you like about him?"

    When she heard these words, the princess'' eyes opened wide and she looked at him with a shocked gaze.

    The king said with a smile, "Did you really think that I wouldn''t notice?"

 Chapter 293 Reporting Back

    A blush came over the princess'' face when she heard this and she lowered her head in shame.

    But then a soft voice suddenly rang out, "How did you notice?"

    The king just said with the same smile, "You''re my daughter, did you really think that I wouldn''t notice?"

    The princess lowered her head even more when she heard this, but in the end, she still said, "I don''t know¡­"

    The king shook his head with a sigh before saying, "Then I guess I can''t help you."

    The princess quickly looked up with sparkling eyes when she heard this before saying, "Royal father, do you really mean it?"

    The king gave a sigh when he saw this.

    This was his only daughter, the gem of his eye.

    If possible, he didn''t want her to leave his side at all¡­but he knew that it woulde eventually.

    So if it woulde, he would do all he could to prepare for it. He would never hand his precious daughter to anyone that he wouldn''t approve of.

    And the one that his daughter had fallen for¡­could barely be said to pass his standards.

    But in the end, he still gave a nod in response.

    Seeing this, the princess started going into detail about what she thought of that person.

    "He seemed mysterious at first, but when I learned more and more about him, I realized that he was¡­"

    The king just revealed a bitter smile as he sat down to listen to his daughter brag about another man.

    This was like being stabbed in his heart again and again by countless des.

    There was truly nothing more painful than listening to one''s daughter praise another man like this.

    ¡­

    After leaving the pce, we didn''t leave right away.

    Instead, we went to the same old bookstore from before and took the same secret entrance to head back into the pce.

    Waiting there in that office for us was the same bunny doll.

    Seeing use in, he waved at us to sit down on the couch in the reception area before asking, "What happened?"

    Though he asked this like it was a general question, it was clear that this question was directed at me.

    As the leader of the Shadow Garden, the biggest information organization in this kingdom, it should have been easy for him to get a report on what had happened at the royal audience. In fact, he should have even been invited and would have gone if not for his personal problems.

    Of course, what he was talking about was¡­the viscount issue and the coat of arms.

    So both Scar and Shaka looked at me as well as they waited to hear an exnation.

    All I gave them was a shrug and a simple ''I don''t know''.

    That was because it was true, I really didn''t know what was happening right now.

    I had only thought that I would be called in to give my report, but then before I could react, I had been given this title and this coat of arms.

    I was the one that wanted to question someone, but the other side was the king¡­so what could I do?

    It wasn''t as if I could grab the king and question him, right?

    There was a silence that followed after I gave this exnation, but then Bunny Boss said with a sigh, "Alright, let''s forget about this then. At the very least, you need to stay in the capital for a few days now."

    "Huh?" I said in a confused voice before asking, "Why do I need to stay in the capital for a few days?"

    Bunny Boss just calmly exined, "Now that you''re the center of attention, do you really think that you can go wherever you want? If you leave the capital now, it''s not certain that you won''t be kidnapped."

    I couldn''t help jolting when I heard this.

    That was right, those ministers and generals clearly wanted something from him and they had been very aggressive about it. It would make sense that they would do something if he left the capital without any guards.

    So what Bunny Boss was saying was to stay in the capital for now so that they could protect him during this time. Then once the heat around him died down, he would be able to return while everyone''s attention was on someone else.

    In the busy capital of this kingdom, what was in the spotlight would change in just a few days, which was why Boss Bunny told him to stay for a few days.

    I looked at the bunny doll at the desk with a touched look as I said, "Boss¡­"

    The bunny doll revealed a smile and said, "I have to take care of my subordinates at the very least, right?"

    But I could tell from the way that he looked at me, it was clear that he wanted something else as well.

    Shadow Garden wasn''t made up of people who had no desires.

    They would also want benefits and I had something that made them want to protect me.

    I didn''t know what it was, but I knew that it was better to trust the ones that I already knew than people that I didn''t. Since I had done quite a bit for Shadow Garden, it wasn''t as if they would toss me away right away.

    So it was better to trust them for now.

    After settling this, Boss Bunny then said, "Also, you should take this time to talk to some of the other nobles while you''re here."

    I once again revealed a confused look since I had been nning on living the hikki life by staying in my inn during my time here.

    Boss Bunny saw the look on my face, so he said, "It''s better to build a few rtionships where you can. Then at least you''ll have a few allies, won''t you?"

    After thinking about it, I realized that he was right.

    My n was valid, but his idea was better. It was all about walking the fine line and getting to know just enough people that didn''t have ill intentions towards me that would be able to help me in the future.

    So with this, I said with a sigh, "I''ll try."

 Chapter 294 First Dangerous Visitor

    When I returned to the inn, the first thing that I did was fall t on the bed.

    Even though it was only the afternoon, I felt like I waspletely drained of all energy.

    After all, with all that I had gone through, this wasn''t that strange.

    I wished that there were a few more of me so that I wouldn''t have to deal with these nobles anymore¡­but I did have to keep talking to them since Bunny Boss was right. It would be good to create a few allies that I could trust while I was here so that I could deal with what woulde in the future.

    Especially when the Shadow Garden organization crashed one day.

    But for now¡­I would hide in my room.

    As a hikki in my past life, I could be considered an introverted person.

    While I was fine dealing with people, I did need some time to recharge by myself or I would crash.

    It was fine if I took today off, I would go make friends tomorrow.

    Normally at this point, some mother figure woulde in and tear the nkets off me while telling me to go out, but that didn''t happen here.

    After taking the rest of the day off, I was much more recharged the next morning.

    I even had a smile on my face as I came down to breakfast, but that smile quickly disappeared when I saw who was waiting at my table today.

    This was a face that I recognized from the game¡­so I knew exactly who this person was.

    But Scar still said, "This is the minister of the agricultural department, Viscount Stark."

    The agricultural department, this was a department that was in charge of the agriculture of the kingdom. It could be considered one of the important departments in the kingdom, but with how prosperous the kingdom has been in the past decades, its importance had slowly fallen off.

    After all, if the kingdom''s agriculture never suffered and people nevercked food, there was no need for them to manage anything.

    So those that took the position as the minister of the agricultural department were those that were considered to be in training for the future. Or it was a position that was taken by a minister that had fallen out of power.

    Of course, this Viscount Stark wasn''t one of those people.

    Viscount Stark''s father was Duke Stark who had done what he could to get his son this position for training.

    There wasn''t much to do at the agricultural department other than making sure that the grain stockpiles were filled and that the taxes were paid. So it could be considered quite thefy and cushy job.

    But in terms of prestige, Viscount Stark shouldn''t have had enough that these other nobles would give this seat to him. Or at least that was what it was if they just looked at his prestige alone.

    Above Viscount Stark was Duke Stark, who was from one of the founding families of this kingdom.

    He controlled arge territory with arge family just like the Beauchamp Ducal Family, so they had to give respect to Viscount Stark.

    At the same time, they didn''t mind giving this respect since it meant that none of the princes'' envoys would be able to talk to Baron¡­no, Viscount Zwein. In a sense, this was a deadlock. After all, it was well known that Viscount Stark and the Stark Family as a whole were in the neutral faction who didn''t back any princes.

    But I knew better than them¡­

    I knew that Viscount Stark was backing a prince even if the Stark Family wasn''t.

    After all, in the game, Viscount Stark had been one of the prince''s right hand man.

    He might be in the agricultural department now, but Viscount Stark was a monster in his own right. He was someone who had all kinds of dirty tricks that he could use to destroy his enemies without a single trace being connected to him.

    So he was someone that no one would ever want to offend.

    Viscount Stark was under the fourth prince, the most terrifying prince of them all.

    I had no idea how much power the current Viscount Stark had, but I didn''t dare underestimate him.

    The problem was¡­he hade to see me.

    Was he here on behalf of the fourth prince or was he here for something else?

    If I had my way, I would nevere in contact with him, but since he hade to see me¡­I had no choice in this matter.

    To even make matters worse, when he saw me, he waved his hand at me as if he was trying to catch my attention.

    When he made things clear, it wasn''t as if I could just ignore him anymore.

    So taking a deep breath, I walked over to the table and sat down across from Viscount Stark.

    Viscount Stark didn''t say anything to me and just turned to the waiter, giving him a nod.

    Not long after, the waiter brought over a buffet of dishes that he ced in front of us.

    There were all kinds of dishes that were brought out and ced on the table, but there was so much of it that it was clear that the four of us would never be able to finish it alone.

    However, Viscount Stark didn''t seem to care as he just had the waiter bring everything out.

    Of course, for someone that came from a ducal family like him, this bit of food really wasn''t anything even if this was one of the most expensive restaurants in the city.

    It was nothing more than a drop in the bucket for someone like him.

    Once the waiter finished bringing out all the food, Viscount Stark just gave a wave of the hand to dismiss him before turning back to look in my direction with a smile on his face.

    He said in a natural voice, "Viscount Zwein, I''ve been looking forward to meeting you."

 Chapter 295 Second â€˜Friendâ€™

    When I heard his voice, I couldn''t help trembling.

    This was the voice that I had heard before in the game, a voice that had almost be a trauma for me with how many times I had fallen for his plots.

    This was a voice that I never wanted to hear again after I had perfect cleared the game¡­

    But now, here was this person sitting in front of me, speaking with this voice.

    I really wanted to reveal a bitter smile, but I forced myself to have a neutral expression on my face.

    I calmly said, "Viscount Stark, I''ve long heard of your name as well. It''s an honour to meet you."

    Viscount Stark raised a brow when he heard this, but then looking at Scar and Shaka sitting beside me, he revealed a faint smile.

    That''s right, he was thinking that I had heard about him from the Shadow Garden operatives beside me. But what he didn''t know was that I knew much more about him than most people did¡­

    Still, I had no reason to expose myself since it would only end poorly for me if I did.

    So I just calmly waited to see what he was nning on doing.

    Viscount Stark''s expression quickly returned to normal, he even revealed an amused look as he said, "I never thought that someone as unforgettable as me would be able to attract the attention of the most popr person in the capital right now. It really is my honour."

    I really wanted tough in his face when he said this.

    Unforgettable?

    I was sure that I would be having nightmares about all the times that I had suffered at your hands tonight¡­

    I wouldn''t say that you were unforgettable.

    But of course, that only applied to me.

    For other people, they wouldn''t know about all the things that he would do in the future.

    I just gave a politeugh as if I was ying along with his joke before saying, "I wonder, does Lord Stark have something you need from me? Or is this just simply a courtesy call?"

    Viscount Stark wasn''t bothered by this direct question at all as he kept the same smile on his face.

    He just calmly said, "I would like to say that this is a courtesy call, but it would be a lie to say that this wasn''t rted to work at all."

    I just raised a brow and waited for him to exin.

    Viscount Stark cleared his throat and said, "You should know that at our agriculture department, we have to think of ways to promote nt growth just in case disease or famine strikes. I''ve heard that the elves have all kinds of nature magic that they can use that will help nts grow. So I was wondering if Lord Zwein could¡­"

    He left his sentence hanging, but it was very clear what he was implying.

    When I heard this, I narrowed my eyes to look at him as if trying to figure out something. But then I gave a nod and said, "Alright, since this is for the good of the people, I will help you ask about this."

    Viscount Stark couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when he heard this, but then he said with a smile, "I''m d that Lord Zwein is as friendly as I''ve heard. I was worried about what your response might be, but it seemed that worry was all for nothing."

    I just said with a smile, "Well, I can''t call myself friendly, but if it''s for the good of the people, I have to do my part. Don''t you guys think so as well?"

    This time, I was speaking to Shaka and Scar who had already started eating.

    They had wanted to hide themselves while eating, but I wouldn''t allow that to happen.

    If I had to deal with him, then I wouldn''t spare them.

    Both of them were surprised by me suddenly pulling them in, but then they just simply gave a nod before turning back to their food.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by just how thick their faces were.

    If they were any thicker, they could be used as part of the city walls!

    But before I could say anything else, Viscount Stark said, "Then I have to thank you on behalf of both our agricultural department and on behalf of the people."

    I just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    After all, I didn''t want to continue this conversation and I wanted to use the most simple method to end it. Some might find this kind of arrogant, but I didn''t care at all since I didn''t want this person to like me in the first ce.

    I wanted as little to do with this Viscount Stark as possible.

    But to my surprise¡­he didn''t care about it either.

    Instead of acting offended like one might expect, he just calmly said, "You''re quite the impressive person, aren''t you?"

    "Eh?" That was all I could react with, but I kept a calm look on my face as I waited for him to say just what he wanted.

    Viscount Stark didn''t mind that I was silent the whole time and just said, "How about we be friends? I''m sure that you''ll need help in the future and I''m confident that I''ll be able to provide that help."

    I couldn''t help shivering when I heard this.

    I knew that he wasn''t saying this just because he wanted to seem confident, I knew that he was saying this because he really meant it.

    Of course, there weren''t many people that knew just how much power he had in the first ce.

    Seeing that I was hesitating, Viscount Stark added, "I would very much like to have you as a friend."

    The hidden implication there was the same as the fourth prince¡­

    I would rather have you as a friend than as an enemy¡­

    So with this, I had no choice but to make my second ''friend''.

 Chapter 296 Secret Meeting

    In another manor in the capital.

    "It''s no use! We can''t stop her at all!"

    "Don''t run! We have to stop her for his highness!"

    "Ah!"

    Those were the different cries that rang out through the manor as the guards tried to stop the intruder. However, no matter how they tried, they weren''t able to stop the intruder at all.

    That was because¡­they didn''t dare touch her.

    There wasn''t a single guard that daredy a single finger on this intruder because they knew that they would be dead if they did.

    The princess slowly made her way through the manor, throwing aside all the guards that tried to block the way. No matter how firmly they tried to hold on, they found that they were no match at all for the strength of the princess.

    All they could do was let her throw them like ragdolls until her rampage was over.

    But she was slowly getting deeper and deeper into the manor where his highness was¡­so they couldn''t let her go any further.

    However, as for touching her, they would never do that.

    Even if the king didn''t do anything, his highness would skin them alive if they were to even harm a single hair on this princess'' head.

    So they were helpless against this invader.

    That was until a voice suddenly said, "Alright, that''s enough! Let her through, I''ll deal with her."

    After this voice fell, there was an exasperated sigh that followed.

    As soon as the guards heard this voice, they all revealed a relieved look like they had been spared an execution.

    Without any hesitation, the guards all moved aside and allowed the princess to walk forward.

    She looked at them with disdain before walking over to the person who spoke and saying, "Fourth brother, don''t you think that your guards are just too weak? They couldn''t even stop a little fragile girl like me."

    When the guards heard this, they all revealed bitter smiles.

    They couldn''t stop her?

    It wasn''t that they couldn''t stop her, but they didn''t dare stop her.

    Though they would never say that out loud since all that was waiting for them was a beating. After all, when they were being thrown around by the princess¡­that wasn''t just a result of them not resisting.

    Even if they had resisted, it was very unlikely that they could have stopped her from throwing them around like this.

    What fragile little girl?

    She was simply a monster in human skin!

    But once again, they only dared to think this and didn''t dare say it out loud.

    Though if it was a real fight, it was impossible that these trained soldiers would lose against a princess. Or at least that was what they liked to think.

    Though in reality, they would have to use an actual battle formation if they wanted to stop her.

    The fourth prince saw the bitter smiles on the faces of his subordinates and he too revealed a bitter smile before waving his hand to dismiss his subordinates. Then he said, "Big sister,e in and have some tea."

    The princess nodded with a smile on her face.

    But that smile didn''tst long.

    After entering the fourth prince''s study, she sat down without a single care like she was the owner of this ce even though it was the fourth prince''s study.

    The maid to the side was also used to this, so she simply poured a cup of tea for the princess before moving to the side. However, the fourth prince waved his hand at her as well to dismiss her, so the maid just gave a simple bow before leaving.

    Once they were alone, the fourth prince said with a sigh, "Big sister, what do you need from me?"

    The princess didn''t speak right away as she just simply took a sip of her tea. Then when she was done, she calmly put it down and said, "Little Betty really makes the best tea."

    The fourth prince said with a helpless smile, "I''ll pass those¡­"

    Before he could finish, the princess had already pped the table with one hand while her other hand was pointing in the fourth prince''s nose as she said, "Why did you betray me?"

    "Eh?" The fourth prince said in a surprised voice.

    The princess then said, "You''re the one that picked out the guards for me and you told me that you would only get me guards that wouldn''t rat me out to our royal father. So why does he know everything that I''ve been doing?"

    The fourth prince revealed a bitter smile when he heard this.

    With a sigh, he shook his head before saying, "What did you expect me to do against royal father? It''s not as if I could just say no, right?"

    The princess pushed her finger even further forward until she was poking the fourth prince''s nose and she said, "Little fourth, I''ve been good to you, right? I''ve never done anything bad to you, right?"

    The fourth prince couldn''t help giving a gulp when he heard this, but he still said, "Right¡­"

    The princess then said, "Now that you''ve betrayed me like this, I wonder how I should punish you."

    The fourth prince trembled when he heard this before saying, "Big sister, please be gentle¡­"

    He knew that it was pointless to struggle, so he just straight begged for mercy.

    The princess revealed a smile when she heard this. She sat back down on the sofa, pulling her arms back before saying, "Well there''s a way for you to make it up to me."

    When he heard this, the fourth prince couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine. Slowly, he asked, "What¡­can I do for you?"

    The princess'' smile became wider as she said, "Well, it turns out that I need a favour from you. I need you to help me arrange something."

    The fourth prince felt another chill run down his spine when he heard this, but with a sigh, he said, "Alright, I''ll do what I can."

 Chapter 297 Bumping Into Each Other

    The next few days were quite the flurry of events.

    Meeting nobles day in and day out, trying to find some people that were like minded to ally with.

    I was able to find a few in the end since I had the experience from the game.

    Of course, the ones that I chose were all those that belonged to the neutral faction.

    The neutral faction was naturally the best for me since I didn''t want to get involved in any of the politics of the capital. The less that I was involved, the less my life would be in danger.

    I didn''t desire that kind of power, I just wanted the ability to keep myself safe and live a peaceful life.

    So staying neutral was the best.

    The ones that I chose to befriend were those that weren''t greedy and would have great power within the neutral faction in the future. They were weak now, but I knew what kind of opportunities they would have since there were quests affiliated with them.

    When the time came, I would do those quests and make them even stronger while also building favourability with them.

    It was killing three birds with one stone!

    This was the power that came with knowing what would happen in the future in advance!

    I was like a bird that was finally able to soar in the sky with my knowledge of the game unleashed!

    Of course, I wouldn''t go that far to involve myself in dangerous plots.

    I made sure that the quests that I would have to do were simple ones that I could do even now. So there wouldn''t be a need to worry about me being able to finish them in the future with my developed forces.

    Finally, I was able to get a day off from having to deal with all those nobles.

    Finally, I was able to sneak out and walk around the town without being hounded by the nobles.

    But I was naturally confused why I was given this opportunity.

    In fact, it was actually Scar and Shaka who had suggested that I go on this trip.

    I was naturally surprised and confused by their sudden generosity, but I chose not to question it in the end. After all, if I did, then I might lose this opportunity.

    I had been cooped up so long that I was about to explode, so I didn''t care what scheme they had.

    As I walked through the town with the cloak on me, I found that I was avoiding the attention of most people. Even if they could see me, it was as if there was something magical that was drawing their attention away from me.

    If I had to guess what it was, it was most likely the cloak that I was wearing.

    This had to be some kind of magic item that caused people to turn their attention away from me.

    This cloak was given to me by Scar and Shaka and I was surprised that they would give me such a valuable item.

    But I was grateful that they would do all of this for me.

    However, I was also very concerned by the look that they had given me when I had left the inn.

    They had looked at me with pity, as if they knew what was about to happen and they felt sorry for what was about to happen¡­

    This had filled me with a bad premonition when I left the inn.

    But now it seemed like I was too worried.

    That was until someone suddenly bumped into me.

    I couldn''t help being surprised since they shouldn''t have even noticed me in the first ce. But as we walked past each other, that person suddenly stumbled and bumped into me, causing both of us to fall.

    With thismotion, even the magic of the cloak wasn''t able to stop us from drawing attention.

    The person that bumped into me also had a cloak on, so I couldn''t see what they looked like.

    However, when I heard their voice, I could tell that they were female.

    "Sorry, I didn''t mean to bump into you." She said in a worried voice.

    Then she tried to stand up, but she just tripped over her own foot and fell atop of me again.

    When she did, I could feel a soft feelinging from my chest as she pressed up against me.

    If it was the past me¡­I might have been caught off guard by this, but I was a changed man now. I was a man with experience, so just this alone wouldn''t be enough to catch me off guard.

    Though it was indeed a soft feeling¡­

    I gave a cough before helping her off me and saying, "It''s fine, it''s fine. There''s no harm."

    The girl was still panicking and tripping over her own foot, pressing down against me, but I did get stronger with training. I was able to help her stand up in the end.

    Once we were standing there, I noticed that people had started to gather to see what themotion was about.

    This was thest thing that I wanted since I didn''t want to attract more attention than I needed to. I had snuck out after all and if people were to gather, it might expose my identity.

    So I took the girl''s hand and said, "Shall we leave now? I think that we''re attracting a crowd."

    When the girl saw that I took her hand, she couldn''t help jolting, but then she gave a slow nod to show that she agreed.

    I didn''t have time to think too much about it since I could see that the crowd was gathering around us.

    So I pulled her by her hand and ran out of the area, pushing through the crowds that had gathered.

    There were some people that had wanted toe forward to stop us since they saw a person pulling someone else away, but those people were stopped by others hiding in the crowd.

    Under the cloak, the girl revealed a faint smile as she followed him.

 Chapter 298 Hard To Speak

    I kept running for a bit until I was certain that there was no one following us.

    Only then did Ie to a stop while catching my breath.

    When I finally caught my breath, I realized my mistake and quickly let go of the girl''s hand.

    As I did so, the girl couldn''t help revealing a disappointed look under her cloak.

    Taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I said, "I''m sorry about what happened earlier. I shouldn''t have grabbed your hand like that."

    The girl shook her head and said, "No, it was my fault in the first ce for bumping into you. If it wasn''t for me, then none of that would have happened."

    I had to agree with this, but I held myself back from showing any signs of this. After all, I knew that I would hurt this girl''s feelings if I did that and I had no reason to hurt the feelings of a girl that I randomly met.

    Since I had already finished exining, then there was no reason for me to say anything else.

    It was still my precious free day, so I couldn''t just waste it here.

    I casually said, "Then since that''s resolved, I''ll be leaving. I hope that you have a nice¡­"

    Before I could finish, the girl suddenly grabbed my hand again and said, "Wait, let me treat you to make up for it. I know a ce with good food in this area."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows slightly when I heard this, but in the end, I said with a sigh, "Alright."

    The reason why I agreed was because I was going to get some food anyway, so it didn''t hurt to have a local guide me to a good ce.

    But there was also another reason¡­

    I could feel the girl''s grip on my hand.

    It was like an iron vice that had suddenly gripped my arm and I couldn''t pull my arm free even if I wanted to.

    So even if I said no¡­it was likely that she would drag me away with her in the first ce.

    I didn''t know how this girl had this kind of power, but there was nothing that I could do in the face of this power.

    So I had no choice but to follow her as she led me to a nearby restaurant.

    When we arrived, I had to admit that she had good tastes since I could smell the fragrance of fooding from this restaurant.

    Just based on this, I could tell that this ce was quite the good restaurant.

    When we went in, the waiter didn''t hesitate to bring us to a table.

    As we walked through the restaurant, I realized why this was the case.

    Even though there was the delicious smell that filled the restaurant, there weren''t that many customers here. There were plenty of empty seats for us to sit at.

    Since we were about to eat, both of us had no choice but to remove our cloaks.

    When I saw the face of the girl, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    After all, she had a beautiful voice, one that even seemed a bit familiar though I wasn''t able to remember where I had heard it before. But to pair with this beautiful voice was a normal looking face.

    There was nothing special about this face and it was a face that would be easily forgotten.

    If this Earth, this was a girl that definitely would have be a famous idol on the inte with her voice alone. But it was just too bad that she was born in this medieval game world without the inte.

    Someone like her would definitely not be able to do much just with her voice alone.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit sorry for this girl.

    But I also noticed that there was a blush that appeared on her face as she looked at me which made me feel a bit proud.

    It might be a bit arrogant to say this, but I did have quite the handsome face. Or rather, the main character of this world that I had be had quite the handsome face.

    This was something that couldn''t be denied and was necessary since this was ''that'' kind of game. It was a face that could easily attract those of the opposite gender.

    In the end, I just picked up a menu and looked it over before saying, "What do you think we should get?"

    The girl opened her mouth a few times as if she was trying to say something before suddenly looking down and saying, "Just order whatever you want."

    I was surprised by how she acted, but I also found it a bit cute, so I couldn''t help teasing, "Anything I want?"

    The girl suddenly trembled when she heard this, but she still said with a nod, "Anything you want."

    I just shook my head with a smile before looking at the menu again.

    I never would have known just how the girl was feeling.

    She had thought that she was prepared to talk to him properly when she met him again, but when she saw that face, everything that she had been thinking had been thrown out of her mind. It was like a beam of sunlight that suddenly released its glow into her mind, wiping out all of her thoughts.

    She just couldn''t help looking at that face in admiration and shock, not knowing what to say.

    The girl knew that she had to say something in the end, so it had taken quite a bit of effort to tear her eyes away from his face. It took a lot of willpower to lower her head like this and say those words.

    But she knew that she wouldn''t be able to make any progress as long as she kept acting this way¡­

    However, it just wasn''t fair!

    He was too handsome looking at her like this!

    Especially when he suddenly revealed a smile!

    What was she supposed to do?

 Chapter 299 Big!

    I just casually ordered a few dishes that seemed like they would be enough for the two of us.

    Of course, I made sure to order dishes that were moderately priced since I had remembered her saying that she would treat me. I wouldn''t take advantage of her like this just because she was paying.

    Though I felt ufortable having her pay in the first ce.

    But I remembered the iron grip that this girl had and knew that it would be more troublesome to try and reject her kind intentions¡­so I just decided to go along with it.

    Once the dishes arrived, the two of us just ate in silence.

    It wasn''t that we didn''t want to talk, it was just that there wasn''t much for us to talk about.

    Even if we were having a meal, we were still strangers since this was our first time meeting.

    At the same time, it felt like the girl was really shy with how she kept looking down as she ate.

    At that point, my only thought was to finish eating as soon as possible so I could leave.

    But what I didn''t notice were the secret gazes from all around me.

    These were not gazes that were filled with hostility, but rather with interest and worry. Most of these gazes were aimed at the girl who just sat there in silence.

    At the same time, there was a bit of doubt in those gazes as if they were surprised to see the girl acting this way.

    The girl herself knew that what she was doing was wrong, but there was nothing that she could do about it. Whenever she wanted to look up, she found that it was just too dazzling for her to look at him directly.

    So all she could do was sit there in silence.

    Finally, the ones watching couldn''t take it anymore and took it upon themselves to push the two together.

    A waiter saw that one of their sses was empty, so he took it upon himself to fill another ss to bring over.

    This waiter walked over with the ss on a tray, but as they came right up beside the table, they suddenly tripped.

    They tripped in such a way that the ss of water was thrown right at Zwein,nding right on his crotch.

    When I was hit with this ss of water, I couldn''t help being taken aback.

    I had already been shocked seeing the waiter trip like this, so I hadn''t been able to react to the ss of water falling on me until I realized that I waspletely soaked because of this.

    The girl sitting in front of me was also taken aback, but then she suddenly grabbed a napkin and came forward. She came up in front of me and kneeled down as she started wiping my crotch with that napkin.

    While doing that, she asked, "Are you alright?"

    I still hadn''t reacted to this, so I just let her do this¡­until I realized that this looked very wrong.

    A young girl leaning down in front of a man sitting down¡­how would this make me look?

    I quickly reached out to take the napkin from the girl as I said, "I''m fine, I''m fine, just let me wipe it myself."

    But the girl wouldn''t hand over the napkin at all as she kept wiping and saying, "It''s alright, I''ll take care of¡­"

    Before she could finish, I suddenly jolted. At the same time, the girl''s words froze in her mouth and her chin dropped down in shock.

    That was because she had identally touched my¡­thing while she was wiping my clothes.

    She looked down at my crotch in shock and justpletely stopped moving as she kept staring at me.

    I felt very awkward seeing her like this, so I reached out to take the napkin while she was in a daze.

    Seeing the girl in a daze like this, the waiter also realized that something was wrong, so he came forward to help her. The waiter turned to me and said, "This sir, I''m very sorry about what happened. Please follow me to the back, we''ll help you dry that."

    I was about to shake my head and reject this, but then seeing the girl still squatting there in a daze, I couldn''t help feeling awkward. So I said, "Alright, I''ll have to trouble you for that."

    The waiter immediately shook his head and said, "No, no, it was my fault in the first ce. This is what I should do."

    With that, both Zwein and the waiter went to the back of the restaurant.

    But even though the two of them were gone, the girl just kept squatting there in a daze.

    It was as if she had seen something that hadpletely stunned her.

    Two of the customers couldn''t helping over to help the girl up before asking, "Young miss, are you alright?"

    The girl was still in a daze when she heard this.

    She looked down at her hands and slowly spread them apart as if she was measuring something.

    Then she muttered to herself, "So big¡­it was so big¡­"

    After muttering this, she couldn''t stop a blush from appearing on her cheeks.

    The two customers couldn''t help knitting their brows when they saw this, but before they could say anything else, there was a female customer that stopped them.

    This female customer came up to the girl and tapped her shoulder before saying, "Young miss, if you don''t get a hold of yourself, you''ll be exposed in no time."

    When the girl heard this, she finally snapped out of her daze and she turned to look at the female customer.

    She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but she closed her mouth in the end and just gave a simple nod. She stood back up and sat down in her seat before waving her hand at them.

    With a bow, these customers all walked back to their seats and acted as if nothing had happened.

 Chapter 300 What is your name?

    <h4>Chapter 300 What is your name?</h4>

    When I came out from the back and came back to the table, I found that the girl was just sitting there without doing anything.

    She looked at the dishes in front of her in a daze, as if she was thinking about something.

    After sitting down, I asked, "Are you alright? Did something happen while I was gone?"

    I could have not engaged, but it would have seemed too cruel to not ask since I was having a meal with her.

    The girl jolted when she heard this and she quickly shook her head as she said, "No, nothing! Nothing''s wrong!"

    But I could see that she was looking down when she said this.

    In particr¡­she seemed to be looking at my crotch.

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I saw this since I remembered that feeling from earlier. As she had been wiping away the water, her hand had identally touched¡­that thing down there¡­

    It was no doubt a traumatizing experience for her, but I didn''t know what to say¡­

    So I tried changing the topic by asking, "Are you from around this area? Or did you travel to the capital city?"

    The girl looked up when she heard this, but then she quickly looked down when she saw my face.

    After a moment of silence, she said, "I''ve lived in this city my entire life, but I''ve always wanted to travel."

    "Oh?" I said before asking, "What kind of ces do you want to go?"

    The girl gave a sigh before saying, "Instead of being trapped like a bird in a cage, I just want to fly free. But I''ll never be able to do that in my life, so I try to sneak out as much as possible."

    It seemed like her answer didn''t have anything to do with this question, but in truth it told me more than enough.

    As I had already expected, she was a young miss from some rich and powerful family. It wouldn''t have been surprising if it was revealed that she was from some noble family.

    Though there was a part of me that thought that this was all a part of a n to get closer to me¡­

    But I immediately threw that thought out.

    If it was, this n was just too sloppy and many things could have gone wrong during this. At the same time, I had this magic cloak that prevented detection, so she shouldn''t have known it was me in the first ce.

    This was most likely all a coincidental meeting.

    After a bit of silence, I said, "Freedom takes courage and without courage, one will never truly be free."

    The girl couldn''t help trembling again when she heard this.

    Her mouth opened and closed without making any sound, but it was clear that she was repeating what I had just said before to herself.

    Then all of a sudden, she gave a nod and said, "Those are very good words of advice."

    I just revealed a smile that had a hint of bitterness to them since these words weren''t actually mine and were from my former world. As for where they actually came from¡­it was an anime that I had watched before.

    But now that the ice had been broken, the girl didn''t hold back as she said, "Then does this sir have any hobbies that you enjoy?"

    I was caught off guard by how quickly she changed the topic, but I calmly said, "Eh, before that, I don''t think I even know your name yet, miss¡­"

    I let my voice trail off, but she understood what I was asking for.

    "Tiffany, my name is Tiffany." The girl said with a smile on her face, though she did look back down right away after saying this.

    Tiffany¡­this name was a name that had a deep impression on me because¡­it was the name of the princess of this kingdom.

    However, I had already seen the princess before in the game and I knew exactly what? she looked like. So I was certain that she definitely wasn''t her.

    After all, even if she changed her appearance, she couldn''t change her figure. That would be impossible to do, even in a world of magic.

    This girl''s figure¡­was much less curvier than the princess, so I knew that it wasn''t her.

    Her parents should have named her after the princess, which was why they shared the same name.

    Since she had introduced herself, I responded with a smile, "My name is Zwein."

    She looked down a bit and muttered, "Sir Zwein."

    I didn''t say anything about that and just responded with, "You were asking about my hobbies? Well in my free time¡­"

    With this, we started talking while enjoying our meal.

    We had already been halfway through the meal, but since we had started talking, we? added a few more dishes since this ce really had delicious food. I didn''t mind staying a bit longer if the dishes were all as good as the one that we had ordered before.

    At the same time, talking to her was much better than the silence that we had been sitting in before.

    So we enjoyed our meal just chatting away like this.

    As the conversation progressed, Tiffany became less and less stiff and we were able tomunicate much easier.

    It could really be said that the waiter was the one that had broken the ice with that spilled ss of water.

    When the meal was over, she took out a gold coin that she ced on the table.

    I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes when I saw that gold coin since I recognized it¡­but I didn''t call it out in the end.

    Once she had finished paying, I bid her farewell and walked off to walk for a bit on my own.

    But as I walked off, I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes as I remembered the gold coin that she used.

    That was because this gold coin was a special kind of gold coin.

    It was a special coin that had been created by and for the royal family, which carried much more weight than normal gold coins.

 Chapter 301 Returning home

    <h4>Chapter 301 Returning home</h4>

    Finally after a few more days of being stuck in the capital, I was finally given the chance to return.

    The event that caught everyone''s attention was¡­a monster wave.

    This was a monster wave in the south, far away from my own territory, so it wouldn''t bother me.

    But for the other nobles, especially those that didn''t have any territory at all, this was their chance.

    As long as they performed some form of merit, they would have the chance to be awarded territory or other benefits.

    And as for the higher rank nobles, they would be able to benefit as well since they had much stronger troops, so it wouldn''t be as risky for them to send their troops to kill their monsters.

    In short, it became a race to kill as many monsters as they could and reap as many benefits as they could.

    So they all forgot about Zwein and the elves for now.

    Another thing to note was that there was also an influx of adventurers that also headed to the south after hearing about the monster wave.

    With the fervor that they demonstrated, it really reminded me of a gold rush back in my previous world.

    As soon as a speck of gold was discovered, everyone would rush to the area in search of that gold.

    Of course, that gold that they were rushing to get were the monsters that they would have to fight. This gold wouldn''t be that easy for them to obtain, but that didn''t deter them.

    At the same time, I really couldn''t help giving a sigh when seeing how worked up everyone was.

    Back then, our town had also been attacked by a monster wave, but there wasn''t a single person who came to help.

    That was because that monster wave hadn''t been reported to the king yet and there wasn''t an official decree to wipe it out. If it had wiped out our town, then everyone would have rushed to subdue that monster wave just like now.

    In fact, this monster wave had already decimated several towns in the south which opened up territory to develop which made everyone even more excited.

    It seemed that without benefits, no one was willing to move¡­

    That was a sobering thought since it made me remember that it was a dangerous job being a noble. You were surrounded by other nobles that wanted to rise above you and you always had to be careful around them, not knowing who to trust.

    Living as amoner didn''t bring the same level of wealth as living as a noble, but one would be able to live a fulfilling life as long as they were willing to work hard.

    As for being a noble, one received a proportional amount of danger to the amount of wealth they received.

    So there was always a trade off for everything.

    I was just happy that I would be able to return to my territory soon where it would be safe.

    Being in the capital was like swimming in shark infested waters. Then add in the connection that I had with the elves that the nobles wanted, it was like swimming in shark infested waters with a chum bucket in hand.

    It was just a good thing that I had a shark cage known as Shadow Garden protecting me or else it would have been very bad for me.

    As I sat there in the carriage heading towards my territory, I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes to look at the two in front of me.

    Well, it wasn''t really Shaka that I had a problem with since he was working for me in the first ce.

    It was Scar who was sitting beside Shaka that I had a problem with.

    After ring at him for a bit, I said, "Shouldn''t you have stayed in the capital? Aren''t there things for you to do there?"

    This might have seemed rude, but at this point, it didn''t matter.

    We had already gotten close enough to speak that way with each other, even if we hadn''t wanted to be that close.

    That was just how it was being stuck together for so long in the capital.

    Scar just said with a smile, "I''m going to conduct an inspection of your territory, that''s why I''ming with you."

    My eyes filled with even more doubt as I narrowed them to look at Scar.

    He just had that calm smile on his face without showing a single sign of cracking.

    As expected of someone that worked in espionage, he really could keep a poker face on at all times.

    After a bit of silence, I said, "Then does the boss know that you''re doing this?"

    He calmly said, "As you should know already, other than when we''re on missions, Shadow Garden members are given quite a bit of freedom to act however they want. I''m not currently on a mission, so there''s no reason for me to do anything specific."

    He really was good at making up excuses, but I heard him mutter, "Like I would stay there and clean up that mess."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this.

    The mess that he was referring to was thebined assault from the nobles in regards to me. Since Shadow Garden had stated that they would protect me, they started bombarding Shadow Garden.

    But at the same time, Shadow Garden wasn''t a unified organization in the first ce.

    It was a ce where nobles gathered for their own ambitions, so there were those in Shadow Garden that also wanted to use me and my connection to the elves.

    As the boss, Boss Bunny had to deal with all of this.

    Scar was also pulled in since he was my superior, but now he was running away from the capital and leaving this all to Boss Bunny.

    It was certain that he would get hiseuppance when he returned, but he just wasn''t thinking about that right now.

    But as a final note, Scar added, "You''ll also need a bit of protection on the way back, so that''s why I''m here."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this.

    I was a bit doubtful that they would do anything to me now, but he wouldn''t have said that for no reason¡­so there had to be a reason why he said this.

    It seemed like I couldn''t let my guard down on this trip.

 Chapter 302 Surprise guest

    <h4>Chapter 302 Surprise guest</h4>

    As it turned out, Scar was right.

    If one or two bandit groups attacking us was a coincidence, then five of them attacking over the course of the trip was too much of a coincidence.

    It was clear that there was someone behind them who hadmanded them to attack us.

    It really was a good thing that Scar was here with us.

    Scar had not been lying about his ability to fight. He was only a bit weaker than Shaka, but that more than allowed him to rampage among these bandits who were untrained fighters.

    While Shaka fought as a warrior, attacking head on, Scar was more of a rogue.

    He pulled out daggers that he used to fight with, but at the same time, he stayed in the back and threw out hidden weapons at the bandits that came close.

    By the time that the bandits realized that there were hidden weaponsing at them, they had already been stabbed by them.

    If Scar hadn''t been with us, it definitely would have been much harder for us to take down all these bandits.

    Traveling like this, we arrived back in my territory after around a week and a half.

    We might have been able to reach it sooner, but we had to bring those bandits to different towns to lock them up.

    We could have just left the bandits for dead, but there were Shadow Garden outposts in these towns that we could leave the bandits in. They would interrogate these bandits and see who instigated them.

    Once that information was squeezed out of them, Boss Bunny would take care of the rest.

    When we arrived on the edge of my territory, I found that there was a group waiting there for us. However, unlike the previous groups that had stopped us, this one was friendly.

    It was Cecilia and her knights.

    They were here to escort us back into the town.

    I''m sure that this was Baroness Rose¡­no Viscountess Rose''s idea after she had received reports about the attacks during our trip. I had made sure to tell her everything since I knew that it would be worse if she found out about itter.

    This was something that was impossible to hide, so why cause trouble for myself by trying to hide it?

    As soon as she saw our group, Cecilia dismounted from her horse and came over to the carriage that I was riding in.

    Shaka and Scar had also been in that carriage, but seeing the way that she red at them, they tactfully went out. As they were leaving, they looked at me with meaningful smiles.

    Scar also said, "Don''t have too much fun, we''ll be arriving in town soon."

    If there was something beside me, I definitely would have thrown it at him.

    However, before I could say anything, Cecilia had alreadye to my side.

    She grabbed my shoulders which made me jolt since she had used quite a bit of strength. Then I was trying to say, "What''s wro¡­"

    Before I could say this, I felt her strength pushing my body again.

    She turned me back and forth and looked all over my body, as if she was trying to see if there was anything wrong.

    All I could do was let her do what she wanted with me.

    This was also how she had reacted when I hade back from ndal Cityst time.

    It seemed like she really did care about me quite a bit with how she was acting, so I had no choice but to y along.

    Though it would be a lie to say that there wasn''t a warm feeling that filled my heart.

    At least that was what the case was until she pushed me down onto the seat.

    She didn''t push me down to do ''that'', but rather to check my legs, my feet, my entire lower half.

    Only when she was done checking every single bit of me did she finally let out a sigh of relief.

    I wanted to say something, but she came forward to take me in her arms before I could say anything. Her arms tightly wrapped around me, hugging me close to her as if I would disappear if she let go.

    I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile seeing this, but I also hugged her as best I could. Though that was hard since she was in full armour and it was hard for me to wrap my arms around her.

    The two of us just stayed like this for a bit before Cecilia slowly moved away. She looked at me and said, "I''m d that you''re home safe."

    I nodded and said, "I''m home."

    The two of us just sat there in silence in the carriage for a bit, just enjoying each other''sfort while traveling back to town.

    When we arrived, I found that there was a crowd that had gathered at the gate waiting for us.

    The one at the head of the crowd was naturally Rose.

    She did the same thing as Cecilia and rushed into the carriage before checking every single part of my body.

    I was just d that she decided to do it in the carriage instead of doing it outside since it would have really been awkward if she did it in front of everyone.

    When she was done, she also hugged me just like Cecilia had done.

    We held each other for a while before she finally let go and said, "Wee home."

    "I''m home." I said in a soft voice.

    It really was good to have a ce to call home and people to wee you back.

    I had also expected Haley toe, but it turned out that she had been called to her store because of an emergency, so she would meet us at the manorter.

    It couldn''t be helped since I knew how much she cared about her business and this was what I had expected when I had taken her as one of my women.

    After filling me in on everything, we walked out of the carriage.

    But as soon as we came out, there was a familiar voice that said, "You really are something, keeping your guest waiting for this long. You said that you were heading back to your town right away, so I had timed it so I would arrive some time after, but then it turned out you had gone to the capital. Are you just avoiding me on purpose?"

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this voice, but then they rxed and my eyes opened wide in shock when I looked in the direction of this voice.

    That was because there was a head of blue hair that I would have recognized anywhere.

    It was just that I had no idea what it was doing in my town.

    After all, the owner of this head of beautiful blue hair was Veronica, the daughter of Duke Beauchamp, the city lord of Bright Water City.

    I never thought that we would meet again so soon after parting¡­

    But just what was she doing here?

    Why did she suddenly show up in my town?

 Chapter 303 So what?

    <h4>Chapter 303 So what?</h4>

    I just looked at her with a bitter smile on my face and asked, "Miss Veronica, why are you so far away from Bright Water City? What are you doing all the way here in my ce?"

    Veronica gave a snort and said, "Are you saying that I''m not wee here?"

    My lips twitched when I heard this, but I still said, "Miss Veronica, of course that is not what I meant. I was just saying that someone like you is far beyond a small ce like mine."

    Veronica gave another snort before saying, "So you''re still saying that I''m not wee here."

    The bitter smile on my face became wider, but before I could say anything, she cut me off.

    "Anyway, I''m here on behalf of my father to support you."

    I couldn''t help revealing a confused look when I heard this.

    Veronica said, "You asked for my father''s help, didn''t you? That''s why I''m here as his representative to show his support."

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing an awkward look.

    I had only proposed that as a cover for my actual reason for arriving in Bright Water City. I wasn''t actually looking for help from Duke Beauchamp since I had no problem managing my city.

    Especially since I was now a viscount.

    The area that my territory was in was a remote ce, so the nobles around here weren''t that powerful in the first ce.

    With my new power as a viscount and the coat of arms that I had received, it should be easy for me to subdue all of the nobles in the surrounding area.

    I was even expecting them toe and try to curry favour with me soon.

    But of course, thinking about it from another perspective, there was nothing bad about getting the duke as a supporter. Having an extra powerful backer like this was always a good thing, especially since the Shadow Garden organization, my current backer, was about to copse.

    It would be better for my future if the duke supported me.

    The problem was that I didn''t know if the duke knew about everything that had changed during this time.

    If the duke didn''t know about what had happened in the capital and I hugged his leg during this, the duke certainly wouldn''t be happy about being dragged into my problems like this.

    Especially since the enemies were the powerful figures in the capital.

    These were people that even the duke would hesitate to face.

    So I took a deep breath and said, "Miss Veronica, I wonder, do you know about the matters that have happened in the capital recently?"

    Veronica slightly knitted her brows when she heard this, but then she said with a nod, "I''ve received a few reports about that."

    I wasn''t surprised seeing this since the duke had already known that we were from Shadow Garden before.

    It could be seen that the duke''s informationwork was quite widespread and powerful.

    Seeing this, I continued, "Then I''m sure that you''re aware of everything that has happened in the capital during this time. I don''t want to deceive you, but you should be aware of the dangers of allying yourself with someone like me right now. I''m sure that the duke would want to know about this situation before¡­"

    Veronica suddenly looked at me with narrowed eyes that made me swallow the rest of my words.

    She then said in a calm voice, "Are you saying that you''re chasing me out?"

    I quickly shook my head and said, "I would never do that, it''s just that¡­"

    Once again, before I could say anything else, she suddenly raised her hand and said, "So what?"

    I couldn''t help looking at her with a shocked look when I heard this before repeating under my breath, "So what?"

    Then I said in an anxious voice, "I think that someone as smart as you should understand the dangers of such a decision. I''m just saying that¡­"

    Once again, Veronica cut me off by saying, "And I''m telling you so what? Does it matter?"

    I just didn''t know what to say to this¡­

    I had thought that this young miss of the ducal family was a smart person since she had been able to immediately follow up on the n that I had given.

    In fact, in the fight against the undead, she was the one that came up with most of the n to lure them into the valley.

    So it showed that she was quite the smart person.

    Such a smart person should have been able to recognize the danger of associating with someone like me, but now she was acting willfully like this¡­

    I really didn''t know what to say in response.

    While I looked at her in a daze, Veronica suddenly said, "I should mention that my father has already given me full rights to decide in this matter and I''ve already decided to support you. You wouldn''t drive me away now, would you?"

    My expression filled with even more shock when I heard this.

    I opened and closed my mouth as if I wanted to say something, but I found that I wasn''t able to say a single thing.

    All the things that I wanted to say got mixed up together and I wasn''t able to think of a single coherent thought.

    In the end, I could only give a sigh and turn to look at Rose for help.

    However, all that I received was a re that seemed to be ming me for something.

    I really didn''t understand what this re was, but I knew that it was impossible to ask for her help when she was like this.

    So with a heavy sigh, I said, "Then do whatever you want. I can''t stop you anyway, so I won''t take responsibility."

    Veronica just said with a bright smile, "Then I''ll be looking forward to making your pleasure. I''ll be staying here for a bit, so please take care of me."

    I just gave a nod after giving another sigh.

    Under her breath, Veronica said, "Want to get rid of me that easily? Not a chance."

 Chapter 304 Surprise customer

    <h4>Chapter 304 Surprise customer</h4>

    Since she was here to stay, I had no choice but to entertain her.

    So all of us went back to our manor together.

    Baroness¡­no, it was Viscountess Rose now, prepared everything and we all sat down to have our afternoon tea.

    But before we could do that, there was someone that suddenly burst in.

    When I looked at them closely, I found that it was Kevin from Haley''s store.

    He looked around the room until his gaze fell onto me.

    Without hesitation, he came over and said, "Boss, we need your help down at the store. The mistress is doing her best, but this customer really is one that we can''t handle."

    I couldn''t help revealing a confused look when I heard this.

    Compared to Haley, I really couldn''t be considered any expert in business. She outssed me in every single aspect, so anything that she couldn''t do, I naturally wouldn''t be able to do.

    So why did she send Kevin to ask for my help?

    But since she did ask for my help, that must mean that I would be able to do something for them.

    Before standing up, I turned to Veronica and said, "I have some business that I have to take care of. Please excuse me for a bit, I''ll be back soon."

    Veronica looked like she was about to follow, but she sat back down in the end and just gave a nod.

    I turned to Rose and said, "Please take care of our guest while I''m gone."

    She just gave a simple nod before sitting down beside me. She put her hand on my leg and looked at me with a longing look before saying, "Don''t take too long."

    I couldn''t help being surprised by her actions since she normally wouldn''t act this way in front of guests.

    In her own way, she was shy, so she couldn''t bring herself to do something like this.

    However, now she was taking the initiative to do it in front of Veronica¡­

    It was almost as if she was provoking her.

    Veronica just watched all of this with a calm expression on her face, but it also seemed like there was a dark glow in her eyes that I couldn''t understand.

    But before I could figure any of this out, Kevin said, "Boss, we really should go."

    I gave a nod and then ced a kiss on Rose''s cheek before standing up.

    She waspletely caught off guard by this and she wasn''t able to react as I said, "I''ll be back."

    I didn''t know why she was acting this way, but since she was my wife, I figured that I should go along with it.

    Veronica also wasn''t able to react at all when she saw this, so I was able to leave without much of a fuss.

    But after I was gone and the two of them came back to their senses, she looked at Rose and said, "It seems like we have a lot to discuss."

    Rose just gave a simple nod in response.

    ¡­

    Following Kevin, we quickly came to Haley''s store.

    This store had been built a long time ago with the wood that we had gotten from the elven forest, so it had been in business for quite some time.

    With how big it was, it had be the biggest store in the town in no time. At the same time, with Haley''s natural people skill, she was able to easily win the trust of the people and it became the most popr store.

    This was the store that every single merchant had to work with now if they wanted to do any business in this town.

    And because there was the link to her other store, it had slowly drawn people from the surrounding viges to move to the town.

    With this one store, she had allowed the town to grow even bigger.

    It hadn''t grown to the level of being called a city, but it was definitely one of therger towns in the kingdom.

    Of course, the other driving factor to this were the elves.

    It was only in this town that one would be able to see elves walking around frequently.

    There were even elves that were working in Haley''s store.

    Haley had tried to start trading with the elves, but she hadpletely underestimated the elves'' sense for business.

    Simply put, they didn''t have any.

    These elves had never done business with humans before, so they didn''t know what kind of prices to ask for.

    So some elves chose to work in Haley''s store and learn business from her.

    While this would be like raising her own enemies in the future, Haley didn''t mind and actually had a good rtionship with the elves.

    At the same time, the elves weren''t the kind of people that would use what they learned from Haley against her.

    So there was no problem with them working in her store and learning from her.

    Since this store was so popr, it was always filled with people.

    Even today, there was arge crowd that was gathered both in and out of the store.

    There were some people that were going toin when they saw Kevin leading me in, but the others stopped them.

    They thought that it was fine for Kevin to go in since he was wearing a store uniform, but they were going toin about me going in¡­that was until some of the local residents exined just who I am to these outsiders.

    That''s right, there wasn''t a single local resident thatined since they all recognized me.

    Once we were in the store, I immediately heard a voice shouting, "I don''t want to deal with any of this! I just want to meet the person that made that weapon!"

    This was a very loud voice that rang out this far even though the owner of the voice was at the back of the store.

    I knitted my brows when I heard this, but I still covered my ears and went closer.

    When I arrived, I couldn''t help being surprised by who was shouting out like this.

    With a short stature that came as a surprise based on his voice, arge beard, and fierce muscles, this was a race that I would recognize no matter what.

    It was a dwarf.

 Chapter 305 Passion

    <h4>Chapter 305 Passion</h4>

    This dwarf kept shouting about how he didn''t want anything and just wanted to meet the person who crafted that weapon.

    At the same time, there seemed to be a bit of a challenging tone to his voice, as if he wanted to go against that person.

    While I was confused, I still walked over to Haley who was dealing with the dwarf.

    Her eyes lit up when she saw mee over, but before she could say anything, the dwarf already came up right in front of me.

    Though he came up right in front of me, he was a dwarf in the end.

    So even if this body was young and short, I was still taller than the dwarf.

    He looked up at me with an aggressive look and pointed his finger in my face as he said, "Who is this brat? I don''t want to see some kid who doesn''t even have hair on his chest yet! I want to see that weapon and the one that created it!"

    Haley gave a sigh beforeing forward and saying, "If you''ll excuse us for a minute, I have something I need to discuss with our boss here."

    This time, the dwarf couldn''t help being surprised.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at me before asking, "This kid here is your boss? You humans really are weird, you even let kids take important positions like this."

    Haley narrowed her eyes for a bit before saying, "It would do you well to watch your tone. This person is not only the boss of this store, he is also the lord of this town. If you don''t want to be thrown out, you''d best show him respect."

    The dwarf was even more shocked when he heard this, but then he shouted, "I don''t care about any of that! I just want to see the famous weapon and the person who created it!"

    Haley just gave a sigh before looking over at Kevin.

    When he saw this, there was a clear unwilling look on his face¡­but there was nothing that he could do since Haley was his boss.

    He could only suck it up, take a deep breath, and walk over to talk to the dwarf.

    We walked to the side to go into the corner, but even then we could still hear the loud shouts of the dwarf.

    Haley leaned in and said, "He''s here for you."

    "Huh?" I said with a confused look on my face, clearly not expecting her to open up with this.

    Haley raised a brow as she said, "You didn''t hear what he said? Famous weapon? What other famous weapon could there be?"

    I had to knit my brows to think for a bit before suddenly realizing what she was talking about.

    She was talking about The Prator¡­

    But this thing shouldn''t be that famous¡­the only thing that it had was its strong pration power and its strange shape¡­

    No, I could see how it would be famous just with these.

    But how did it spread so far that even dwarves knew about this?

    It had to be known that dwarves were just like elves in that they isted themselves. They were different from elves in the way that they wandered around since most dwarves only had one thing on mind.

    cksmithing.

    The dwarves lived in a society where one''s craftsmanship skills were everything, so they dedicated everything to their art.

    They could even give their lives to their art if they needed to.

    So the reason why this dwarf came here in the first ce¡­

    Haley could see the look of recognition on his face, so she knew that he was starting to understand what she meant.

    After thinking for a bit, I finally said, "Then is there a way to make him leave without any problems?"

    Haley revealed a bitter smile before saying, "There is one, but you won''t like it."

    Looking at that smile on her face, I slowly recognized what she wanted to say and she was right, I didn''t like it¡­

    But I also couldn''t think of another way to deal with this dwarf other than the method that she was thinking of¡­

    So I guess that it was the way that it would be.

    With a sigh, I said, "Alright, I guess we''ll go with that."

    After saying this, I turned to head back to the dwarf, but Haley''s hand grabbed my arm before I could.

    She pulled me back and said, "You should know that if we do this, it''s very likely that he will challenge you. Are you going to be alright?"

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    After all, I had knowledge that no one else had in my brain.

    If the dwarf really wanted to do something, I had my ways of dealing with him.

    So I wasn''t worried at all.

    I just calmly said, "It''s fine if he does, I have my ways of dealing with him."

    After I said this, Haley couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look. I could see the trace of doubt that was in her eyes.

    However, I didn''t let that affect me as I started walking towards the dwarf.

    The dwarf was still shouting at Kevin when I walked back over and he didn''t show any signs of stopping.

    Kevin just looked at me like he was asking for help and I gave a nod to him to show that it was fine. With that, he moved aside to let me talk to the dwarf¡­though in reality, it could be said that he ran away.

    The dwarf also saw this and he turned to look at me with narrowed eyes.

    He was about to open his mouth to say something, but before he could, I pulled The Prator out from behind me. The moment that his eyes fell onto the Prator, he suddenly closed his mouth and stared at it like it was the only thing in the world.

    This was the passion of a true craftsman.

 Chapter 306 Challenge

    <h4>Chapter 306 Challenge</h4>

    The dwarf slowly moved towards me while having one hand raised.

    That hand slowly came towards me, or rather it was moving towards The Prator as if he wanted to take it from my hand.

    However, before he could reach it, I suddenly pulled my hand back and The Prator moved out of his way.

    When the dwarf saw this, he narrowed his eyes and looked back up at me.

    After a moment of silence, he said, "I challenge you!"

    I wasn''t surprised when I heard this, but the people around me were definitely surprised.

    However, to my surprise, I found that there were several people that came forward to stand between me and the dwarf.

    I recognized them as the people who had lived in this town back when I had first taken over.

    These people could be considered some of the oldest residents in this town.

    One of them suddenly said, "Who do you think you are to challenge our lord?"

    Another one said, "Do you know where you are? Do you think that we''re scared of you?"

    "Don''t forget that you''re in human society! You can''t do whatever you want just because you''re a dwarf!"

    The dwarf had acted tough earlier because he was only facing one or two people at a time, but when this crowd confronted him, the dwarf couldn''t help taking a step back. After all, it was true, he was a single dwarf alone in human society.

    There was a reason why dwarves left human society alone for so long.

    There were just too many humans for them to fight!

    But before anyone could do anything, I came forward and calmed the crowd down before saying, "Everyone, please don''t worry. I''m sure that this dwarven friend here is not here with any ill intentions." I turned to look at the dwarf with narrowed eyes before saying, "Isn''t that right?"

    When the dwarf felt my gaze on him, he couldn''t help giving a tremble before slowly nodding.

    Seeing the dwarf backing down like this, everyone was more assured than before and they slowly started to walk away.

    Once the crowd had dispersed, I looked at the dwarf and asked, "So, what kind of challenge are you proposing?"

    The dwarf cautiously looked around first at the people that were still looking this way before saying, "I want to challenge you to a forging challenge. Someone with an amazing magic weapon like this must have amazing forging skills."

    I looked at the dwarf with narrowed eyes before saying, "So what do you want if you win?"

    When the dwarf heard this, he couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look.

    I just said with a smile, "In dwarven society, you wouldn''t challenge someone to a forging duel unless there was something that you wanted. So I''m sure that there''s something that you want from me."

    The dwarf trembled when he heard this as if he had suddenly been exposed.

    When the crowd heard this, they once again became agitated.

    "What a shameless dwarf, trying to take advantage of the lord!"

    "This dwarf''s shame knows no bounds! It''s no wonder his beard is so thick, it''s to hide his shame!"

    "And he was acting so tough earlier, now look at him¡­"

    The dwarf''s face turnedpletely red when he heard this.

    Even though he had been shouting earlier without a care, it wasn''t as if he didn''t feel any shame at all. He just sucked up his shame to achieve his goal because otherwise this would have been a wasted trip.

    But now that he had been exposed, he could only feel shame.

    I let this continue for a bit before waving my hand to calm the crowd down. I turned to the dwarf and asked, "So, what do you want from me?"

    The dwarf''s face was still red, but he took a deep breath and said, "I want your magic weapon. That kind of amazing magic weapon deserves to be in the hand of someone who understands it and can study it."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Then what are you prepared to give me if I win?"

    The dwarf couldn''t help being taken aback when he heard this.

    A human actually thought that he had a chance to beat a dwarf in a forging challenge?

    The dwarf had thought that since his n had been revealed, he would have to take a step back and offer the human something in exchange for the magic weapon.

    But now it seemed like this human wanted to take him up on this challenge?

    If that was the case¡­

    The dwarf narrowed his eyes to look at me as he said, "What do you want?"

    Instead of answering this question, I raised another question, "What is your name?"

    The dwarf was confused when he heard this, but he still said, "Rondo Silvermine."

    The moment that I heard this, my eyes suddenly lit up.

    I said with a smile, "Ah, a traveler from the Silvermine Family."

    The dwarf was even more surprised when he heard this. He looked at me with a strange look and slowly said, "You know my family?"

    I just revealed a mysterious smile without saying a thing.

    The dwarf''s expression fluctuated a few times before he said with a sigh, "Just what do you want?"

    "It''s very simple, I want the right to buy mithril from your Silvermine Family." I calmly said.

    The dwarf once again revealed a strange look as he said, "You want to buy mithril from my family? Is that really all you want?"

    He couldn''t help being confused since this was not equal to The Prator in his mind. After all, this was an amazing magic weapon and he was risking it just to have a chance to buy some mithril¡­

    Mithril was a good ore, but it was by no means worth as much as this magic weapon.

    So the dwarf couldn''t help thinking, "This human¡­is he trying to help me?"

    But I just looked at the dwarf with the same smile on my face.

 Chapter 307 Forging (1)

    <h4>Chapter 307 Forging (1)</h4>

    After hesitating for a bit, Rondo finally said, "Alright, I ept your condition."

    I gave a nod before turning to Haley and saying, "Can you prepare a ce for ourpetition?"

    Haley gave a slow nod before suddenly pulling me away.

    Rondo was surprised by this, but he could see the rtionship between the two through their interaction. He wasn''t that rude of a person that would interrupt a private matter between lovers.

    After she pulled me to the side, she suddenly pushed me against the wall and reverse kabedoned me.

    I just revealed a bitter smile and teased, "Isn''t this too open of a ce to do something like this?"

    But Haley wasn''t in a mood to joke around as she said, "Why did you do that? You should know what kind of craftsmen the dwarves are and you''re challenging one to a forging duel? Are you crazy?"

    I just said with a calm smile on my face, "I know what I''m doing."

    When Haley saw this, she couldn''t help calming down a bit.

    She didn''t know where he got this kind of confidence from, but whenever he showed this confident look, he would always give her some kind of surprise.

    Perhaps this time it would be the same.

    After a moment of silence, she finally said, "So¡­mithril¡­"

    I gave a slow nod as I could already guess where this was going.

    Her eyes slowly started to light up as she said, "If you get the rights to buy mithril, you''ll need someone to help you transport it and everything, right?"

    I revealed another bitter smile as I said, "Who else would I rely on if not you?"

    Haley revealed a bright smile after hearing this before moving back and letting me up.

    Mithril¡­

    It was something that was abundant among the dwarves since they had the ability to find and develop these mines.

    Humans on the other hand didn''t have the same abilities and it had already been centuries since humans had been able to find a mithril mine.

    As such, mithril had be a legendary ore in human society and anything made of mithril would sell for a high price. Even the ore itself would be sold for a very high price among humans.

    So mithril was something that all merchants dreamed about.

    It was the product of legends for merchants.

    If Haley was able to get some, there was no doubt that it would be like opening a new world for her and herpany.

    But humans didn''t have a chance to obtain mithril.

    Mithril was hoarded by the dwarves who didn''t think that humans were worthy of such treasures and only a few pieces woulde from the dwarves each year.

    So the right to buy mithril was a very big deal.

    After settling this, we went back and Haley quickly brought us to separate waiting rooms.

    Rondoined about this the entire time, but when he saw the forge that was being prepared for him, he fell silent.

    At the very least, he had to respect the humans for setting up a proper arena for them to duel in.

    But before the duel could happen, I had another matter to address.

    I said to Rondo, "I can''t forge myself, so I will be directing someone to forge for me. Is that alright with you?"

    Rondo looked at me with a shocked gaze when he heard this.

    Then he looked at me as if he was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not.

    When he saw that my expression didn''t change, he couldn''t help saying in an angry voice, "You don''t even know how to forge and you''re telling me that you''re the one that created that magic weapon?"

    I just gave a shrug and said, "Not for a single second did I say that I crafted this weapon. I merely found it in a special ce and brought it out with me."

    It wasn''t just Rondo who knitted his brows when he heard this.

    Even Haley couldn''t help knitting her brows.

    After all, there were things about Zwein that she didn''t understand, especially those surprising things that he brought out.

    She had asked Rose and Cecilia about this, but both of them had said, "I don''t know."

    They too were unaware of where Zwein was keeping all of these things.

    It almost seemed like he pulled them out of thin air sometimes.

    Rondo deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    It wasn''t that he didn''t believe him since he could see Zwein''s hands for himself.

    Those hands were clearly not the hands of a cksmith, so it should have been unlikely that he was the one that had crafted this magic weapon.

    But then how did this human n on beating him in a forging duel?

    The more that he thought about this, the less that it made sense.

    Finally Rondo said with a sigh, "Just do whatever you want."

    He just gave up thinking about it since he couldn''t understand what this human was thinking.

    His father was right, humans really were strange beings that didn''t make any sense at all.

    I just gave a nod and then turned to Haley to say, "Can you get me your best cksmith?"

    Haley looked at me with a doubtful gaze, but she still gave a nod in the end.

    Half an hourter, we were all gathered in the town square where the stage for the forging duel was ced.

    There were two furnaces that were ced opposite each other with anvils in front of them. To the side, there were two identical sets of various cksmithing tools that had been prepared.

    With all of this, there was no excuse if either side lost.

    Everything had been prepared, so the only thing that one could me was their ownck of skill.

    Beside one of the furnaces was Rondo.

    Beside the other furnace was me and arge man with a fierce beard.

    This was the cksmith that Haley had found for me.

 Chapter 308 Forging (2)

    <h4>Chapter 308 Forging (2)</h4>

    The cksmith that Haley found for me was called Bruno.

    This man wasn''t the best cksmith from Haley''spany, but the best cksmith in the town.

    When Rose heard about this duel, she had immediately sent Bruno over to support me.

    Of course, Bruno didn''t mind this since I was technically the lord, so it was an honour to be of service to the lord.

    The only thing that he was worried about was who he was facing.

    After all, standing opposite him was a real living dwarf.

    Dwarves were famous among cksmiths as those with the best skills.

    Even if Bruno was confident in himself, he didn''t feel like he would be able to win against a dwarf.

    So Bruno suddenly said, "My lord, this¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly raised my hand to stop him and said, "Just listen to my instructions and you''ll be fine."

    Bruno looked like he wanted to say more, but he swallowed his words in the end.

    However, it was clear by the look on his face that he wasn''t feeling confident.

    But that didn''t matter since he was a subject and Zwein was the lord.

    If Zwein wanted him to do something, Bruno had no choice but to go along with it.

    Since they had all gathered and even the crowd was here, there was no need to wait any longer.

    Haley came up to the stage and said, "Is everyone ready?"

    There was a cheer that came from the crowd before she continued, "Today we are gathered here for thepetition between our lord Viscount Zwein." She paused here and cheers rang out after this.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help being surprised by how popr I was even though I hadn''t done anything for the town.

    But thinking about it, I realized that it should be Rose''s coattails that I was riding off of.

    It should have been her good merits that had won all this goodwill from the people and I was just benefitting from it.

    After that pause, Haley said, "The challenger is this dwarf friend whoes from afar, Rondo Silvermine."

    As soon as she said this, there was a wave of booing that followed.

    Rondo might have a thick face and arge beard to hide behind, but when the crowd made it very clear which side they supported, it was hard for him not to feel anything.

    There was a frown that appeared on his face, but it onlysted for a second.

    He wouldn''t let something like this affect him or his forging.

    After she had finished introducing the contestants, Haley said, "The challenge that they will be given is to forge a sword. Both contestants will forge a sword of their choosing and then we will beparing the two swords that they forge."

    After that, she went into the details of thepetition.

    Since it was a forgingpetition, the most important thing was time.

    Since it was around noon now, they would be given until the sun set to forge their entries.

    If they took longer than that, it would be considered an automatic forfeit for not finishing in time.

    But of course, the timespan that they gave was quite generous in the first ce.

    From noon to sunset, that was more than enough time for amon sword like this.

    If it was a masterwork, then it could take up to a month to forge it, but there was no need to waste that much time on amon sword.

    This was all about a match of skill, so thismon sword was the perfect way to test this.

    When there was nothing special, the only thing that would stand out is one''s forging abilities.

    After she had finished exining the rules, she turned to both sides and asked, "Are you ready?"

    Rondo gave a simple nod before walking over to his forge.

    Bruno couldn''t help looking at me with a nervous look, but I just gave a nod with a confident smile on my face.

    With that, Haley dered, "Then let thepetition begin!"

    As soon as she started thepetition, Rondo picked up a piece of iron that he tossed into the furnace.

    These furnaces had already been lit since it would take a long time to build a fire from scratch. That would take too long for apetition like this, so they had made sure that the fire was built before they even brought the contestants over.

    With how quickly Rondo started his forging, Bruno couldn''t help feeling even more nervous.

    He was a cksmith himself, so he could see the skill that came from every move that Gondo made.

    This was the skill of a dwarven cksmith.

    It was not one that he could match.

    But when I saw this, I couldn''t help revealing a smile of pity.

    That was because I had confirmed that my information was correct.

    This Rondo, he was still using the most basic method of forging from the game

    This was the level of forging that was avable at the beginning of the game, but as the game progressed, better and better forging skills became avable. The game exined it as the world progressing itself and forging techniques bing more refined.

    But that was just an excuse for natural progression in a game.

    However, now that the game had be a real world, that lore had be real as well.

    As for me who had lived through that game world, I naturally remembered all the information about forging that had been in the game world.

    While it would be hard since I no longer could use a system to automatically forge, I still remembered enough.

    At the same time, I came from a world where technology was much more advanced than this ce.

    I had studied quite a bit about sword crafting during the phase where I had been really into swords.

    All of that knowledgebined with my knowledge from the game¡­there was no chance for Rondo to win.

 Chapter 309 Forging (3)

    <h4>Chapter 309 Forging (3)</h4>

    For the first part of thepetition, there wasn''t that much that was to be seen.

    All that they were doing was melting the iron that they would be forging, so there wasn''t much that could be done.

    This was the most fundamental part of forging and there were no shortcuts.

    Rather, rushing would actually make it worse.

    So they just watched as the two sides stoked the fire and watched the iron melt.

    It was like the calm before the storm.

    Once they were done, the real fight would begin.

    But as they were doing this, Bruno couldn''t help looking over at Rondo from time to time. It was clear that he was filled with admiration with the way that he kept looking over.

    Even from time to time, I could hear him say under his breath, "Look at his steady hands, his calm breathing, that is the experience that he has."

    I couldn''t help shaking my head and finally when I couldn''t take it, I pped the back of his head and said, "Focus on your work or are you trying to lose."

    Bruno revealed an awkward look after his and he quickly apologized before turning back to the forge.

    This time, he slipped into a state ofplete focus as he started heating the iron evenly to reduce the amount of impurities that were left inside.

    As I watched him, I had to admit that Bruno was worthy of the title of best cksmith in the city.

    He really was skilled.

    After the iron was all melted and it was time to shape it, that was when I started giving him advice.

    When Bruno heard what I told him to do, he couldn''t help revealing a shocked look.

    That was because what I was teaching him went against everything that he had already been taught.

    Bruno put the iron back into the furnace and started adding more things in.

    On the other side, Rondo had already finished pouring his iron into the mold and was waiting for it to cool. So he took this time to look over at us to see what we were up to.

    When he saw the different things that Bruno was adding into the furnace, he almost dropped the mold in his hand.

    After a moment of being dazed, he suddenly roared out, "What are you doing?! Are you just making fun of me or are you just ying around? Do you really think that you can make anything good by adding all these random metals in? All it''ll do is corrupt the iron!"

    Bruno had a bitter smile on his face which showed that he agreed with this, but I just calmly said, "This is our method, please stop peeking and focus on your own work."

    Rondo''s face couldn''t help twisting when he heard this.

    It changed expressions several times until he finally roared out, "Fine! Do whatever you want! Don''t me me when you lose!"

    Then he angrily stomped back over to his own forging area, but even then¡­his skills didn''t fail him.

    Even if he was lost in anger, the skills that had been trained over the years weren''t lost. He was able to easily finish the rest of his molding and reach the hammering step.

    The iron was still red from being heated, but it wasn''t so hot that it was too soft to shape.

    So Rondo picked up his hammer and ced his molten sword on the anvil before starting to swing down at it.

    The first few swings that he made were very simple, but it also seemed like he was just testing the sword with these few first swings.

    Once it came to his tenth swing, that was when things started to pick up.

    He started hammering the iron sword at different angles, at different timings. There wasn''t a single thing about the way he was hammering down that seemed uniform.

    It seemed like a child swinging a hammer down at a toy instead of a cksmith forging.

    But there was also something strange about the way that he kept hammering this iron sword.

    With each hit of the hammer, there was a part of the iron sword that bent in response to it.

    However, before that bend could even take form, there was another swing alreadying down at it. This swing hit the jut that came out and forced it back into ce before it could form.

    So while it seemed like random hammering, it was actually all very calcted.

    Every swing was aimed at where a reaction woulde from the iron sword.

    Bruno couldn''t help looking at this with a dazed look as he said, "The 36 Wild Hammers, I never thought that I would be able to see it in real life."

    I also couldn''t help narrowing my eyes to look at Rondo as he wildly hammered down on the iron sword.

    I also recognized this technique since this was one that was from the game.

    However¡­the 36 Wild Hammers was only a first tier technique that was only used to craft tier one items¡­

    And there had been a total of five different tiers in the game.

    So in my eyes, what he was doing was the most basic of all things.

    There really wasn''t a need for me to be cautious of this.

    So I pped Bruno on the shoulder and said, "Focus on what you''re doing."

    Bruno snapped out of his daze and quickly turned back to his furnace.

    However, it was clear by the look of doubt on his face that he didn''t feel like we would be able to win¡­

    Still, it didn''t matter if he thought we would win or not.

    All that mattered was that I knew that we were going to win.

    Once he had finished melting all of the things that I had him add into the iron, we finally took our mixture out of the furnace and prepared a mold for it.

    When Bruno saw the mold, he couldn''t help being shocked.

 Chapter 310 Forging (4)

    <h4>Chapter 310 Forging (4)</h4>

    After staring at it in silence for a bit, Bruno turned to ask me, "My lord, this mold¡­this isn''t like anything that I''ve seen before. Are you sure that this will even work as a de?"

    I just said with a smile, "There''s no problem. As long as you follow my orders, it will all be fine."

    Bruno had a look on his face that made it seem like he didn''t seem to believe me, but he had no choice in the end.

    After all, I was the lord of this territory and the one that ruled over him.

    If I gave an order, he had to follow it.

    So Bruno poured the molten mixture into the mold that I had prepared.

    He had thought that it would even break out of the mold, but to his surprise, the mold worked perfectly.

    After waiting a bit, he opened up the mold to reveal¡­a block of iron.

    This wasn''t iron that was in a specific shape, but rather iron that was in the shape of a square. There was no way that something like this could be used to make a de.

    Or at least that was what Bruno thought.

    Seeing it take form like this, I gave a satisfied nod before saying, "Come, it''s time to hammer it."

    "Eh?" Bruno said in a confused voice.

    But in the end, he still followed me after seeing the way I looked at him.

    I held the tongs that held the piece of metal in ce while he mmed his hammer down on it.

    After he hit the piece of metal a few times, I raised my hand for him to stop before using the tongs to fold it on itself. After folding it, I gave him the signal to m the hammer down again.

    Seeing this, Bruno revealed an even more confused look and he started to hesitate.

    So I had no choice but to say, "Stop stalling and do it already."

    "Oh¡­" Bruno said before bringing the hammer down again on the piece of metal.

    He mmed it a few more times before I folded it again.

    We repeated this a few times before I gave a satisfied nod.

    Bruno couldn''t help looking at me with a very strange look as he couldn''t see how this piece of iron would be a de.

    But I said, "We''re putting it back into the furnace."

    "Huh?" Bruno said, but I was already moving over to the furnace.

    Using the same tools that he used before, I tossed this piece of iron in and waited for it to heat up again.

    This time, I didn''t let it heat uppletely, just enough that it was malleable enough for us to hammer again.

    When it was at this level, I turned to Bruno to say, "Get ready, we''re going to be hitting it again."

    Using the tongs, I pulled the piece of metal out again and put it on the anvil before saying, "Start hammering."

    Bruno snapped out of his daze and started hammering the piece of metal again.

    Like this, we folded the iron a few more times before putting it back into the furnace.

    This time, Bruno wasn''t as dazed as before and stood beside me as I heated it. He looked at the piece of metal heating up as he asked, "How many times are we going to be doing this?"

    I said with a smile, "Normally, traditional cksmiths would do this around ten times to make sure that the metal is properly folded in on itself."

    Bruno looked at me in shock when he heard this.

    Ten times?

    Even if he was a cksmith, he could feel that the strength of this metal wasn''t normal. It was much stronger than anything he worked with before, so it was hard for him to hammer it.

    He could already feel his hands going numb at the thought of doing this eight more times.

    Seeing the look on his face, I said with a teasing smile, "But of course, people have found that the process is basically done after around two times. So there''s no need for us to do that any longer. We just need to shape the metal into the shape of the de and apply thecquer and we''ll be done. It''s not like we''re professionals trying to make a Masamune or a Kotetsu after all."

    Hearing this, Bruno couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    However, he also couldn''t help muttering, "Masamune? Kotetsu? What are those things?"

    I just revealed a mysterious smile without saying anything.

    Once the metal was heated I took out the piece of metal and then showed Bruno a drawing of the shape that I wanted it to be.

    Bruno could tell that this drawing was of a sword, but it was a shape that he had never seen before.

    There was only a de on one side and there was a blunted edge on the other.

    This weapon didn''t seem that efficient¡­but since it was what the lord wanted¡­he had no choice but to go along with him.

    This time, I held the metal with the tongs as Bruno started hammering it into the shape that I wanted.

    He was a bit clumsy since this was his first time doing this, but we were able to get the shape of it in the end since he was a skilled cksmith.

    When he looked at the de, Bruno couldn''t help feeling a strange feeling.

    It wasn''t that he didn''t think this de was good, he just felt that this de seemed very sturdy¡­

    Much more sturdy than any de that he had seen before.

    I ignored this and just put the de into the water to cool it.

    Once it was cooled, I took out thecquer and started applying it onto the blunt edge of the sword before heating it up to let it fuse with the sword.

    When that was all done, all that was left was to polish the sword''s edge and I left that to Bruno since that was something he was familiar with.

    With that, our sword was done.

    At the same time, Rondo had finished his sword.

 Chapter 311 Testing Blades (1)

    When Haley saw that both sides were done with their forging, she said, "And that''s it! It seems that both contestants are ready with their final product!"

    As soon as she said this, the crowd suddenly stirred.

    cksmithing wasn''t the most intense thing that one could watch.

    Other than the cksmiths that hade out to watch thispetition, there were also quite a few normal people.

    So after a while, they couldn''t help feeling bored of watching this.

    But with Haley''s words, she had woken them up and stirred the excitement in them.

    With the way that she did this, she really was suited to be a host. She might even be better suited for this than running her business with her looks.

    But I would never say that to her since I knew that running her own business was her dream. Not to mention, I could see the passion that she put into her business, so I would never say something that would be like an insult to her.

    After letting the crowd build up excitement for a bit, Haley continued by saying, "Now, let''s see the finished works of our contestants."

    Haley turned to Rondo first and said, "First up is our challenger, the dwarf Rondo. Let us see what this master dwarf cksmith has for us."

    Rondo gave a snort at being called this, but he didn''t say anything as he came forward with his finished sword in hand.

    Once he moved to the center of the stage with Haley, he lifted the sword up so that everyone could take a closer look at it.

    With the way that he held it up under the sun, it almost seemed as if this sword was sparkling.

    When the crowd saw this, they all couldn''t help giving a gasp.

    There was no need to mention the cksmiths, even themoners that didn''t have a single bit of knowledge towards forging could see how good this de crafted by Rondo was.

    But for the cksmiths, they could see the sheen of the fine de which told them just how sharp this was.

    There was no doubt in their mind of how good of a de this was.

    But that just made them more worried about the lord''s team¡­

    Even Haley couldn''t help slightly knitting her brows when she saw this de.

    After giving a cough to calm herself down, Haley said, "Now, let''s bring in the home team. It''s our lord and our local cksmith Bruno''s team."

    When I heard this, I picked up the sword that had just finished cooling and brought it over to where Haley was.

    I stood on the opposite side of Haley and then lifted the de up just like Rondo had done so that everyone could see the de.

    When this de appeared under the sun, it didn''t release the same sheen that Rondo''s de had.

    Instead, there was only a sheen that came from one side of the sword while the other side remainedpletely ck.

    It was almost as if there was only one side that could cut while the other side waspletely dull.

    This was a kind of de that they had never seen before.

    As soon as Rondo saw this, he couldn''t help narrowing his eyes to look at this de.

    This de was without a doubt different from what he imagined, but his sharp eyes told him that didn''t mean that this de was bad. At the very least, he could tell that the edge of this de was sharp.

    But the shape of the de really was something that he was unfamiliar with.

    Haley didn''t know what to say at first, but then she decided that she would trust in Zwein like he had told her.

    With a deep breath, Haley said, "Now, shall we move onto testing the des?"

    After she said this, I turned to look at Rondo and said, "Shall we use the traditional method then?"

    Rondo looked at me with one raised brow as he said, "Do you know what the traditional method for us dwarves is?"

    I just said with a smile, "Isn''t it to pit the des against each other and see which one breaks?"

    Rondo couldn''t help revealing a surprised look, but then he gave a slow nod in response.

    That was because he was right, this was the traditional way of the dwarves.

    It was a direct measure of how skilled one was since the more skilled one would have a more powerful de.

    But Rondo couldn''t help looking at Zwein with a strange look as he thought to himself, "How does this human know so much about dwarven culture? He should be too young to have traveled to our Dwarven Empire and he shouldn''t be some kind of sage¡­so how does he know so much?"

    The more that Rondo thought about it, the more confused he became¡­

    Until he finally decided that he wouldn''t think about it anymore.

    He just simply threw all of these thoughts out of his mind because right now, the most important thing was seeing this challenge to the end. Afterwards, he would be able to ask this human whatever questions he wanted.

    So Rondo just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    Seeing this, I said, "How about you go first as the guest?"

    Rondo couldn''t help being surprised by this offer, but he once again gave a nod to ept this offer.

    He didn''t want to put the human in a bad position since he had been very amodating so far.

    If it wasn''t for the situation, he might have even thought that he would have been able to be good friends with this human with how much he understood dwarven culture.

    Rondo walked forward until he was in front of Zwein and then he presented his sword.

    When I saw this, I turned my de around to the blunted side and presented it forward.

    When Rondo saw this, he couldn''t help asking, "Are you sure?"

    I just gave a nod in response.

    Seeing this, Rondo gave a sigh before bringing his sword down on the blunted edge.

 Chapter 312 Testing Blades (2)

    Rondo had a look on his face like he already knew how this would turn out¡­

    But it was just too bad that he was disappointed by the result¡­or rather, he waspletely surprised by the result.

    It was certainly not one that he had expected.

    As soon as his sword made contact with the de in Zwein''s hands, he found¡­that he couldn''t push it down any further.

    Rondo hadn''t been using a lot of strength in the first ce when he brought this de down. He thought that with the difference in skill and sharpness of de, he would be able to cut through it without any effort.

    But that wasn''t the case.

    After recovering from his surprise, he started using a bit more strength to push his sword down.

    But even then, he found that he wasn''t able to cut through this de in Zwein''s hand.

    He started using more and more strength until he was using all of his strength to cut down.

    Even then, he still wasn''t able to make a single dent in the sword in Zwein''s hand.

    I could see and feel that he was using more and more strength, but I just held the sword firmly in my hand until it seemed like his face waspletely red and he was about to burst.

    With that, I said, "I think that it should be clear that your de won''t be able to cut through."

    Rondo had a look on his face that seemed like he was unwilling to ept this, but he didn''t have a choice in the matter.

    After all, the facts were in front of him and he wouldn''t be able to change it no matter how he tried.

    All he could do was admit that this sword was stronger than he had thought.

    However, that didn''t mean that he was ready to acknowledge that this sword was better than his sword.

    With a snort, Rondo said, "It seems like your de is a bit better than I thought."

    Then with that, he pulled his sword back and he started to look at it carefully.

    It was as if he was trying to figure out why his sword hadn''t been able to cut through my sword.

    I just waited for a minute before giving a cough and saying, "Shouldn''t it be my turn now?"

    Rondo had been lost in his thoughts, but he was immediately pulled back when he heard what I said.

    Even if he was a bit rough around the edges, he wasn''t someone that would use underhanded tricks.

    Since he hadn''t been able to cut through Zwein''s sword, naturally it was Zwein''s turn to try cutting through his sword.

    Rondo didn''t feel any fear or worry about this since he knew that there was nothing to fear.

    Even if this strange looking sword was tough, that didn''t mean that it was sharp.

    This was a sword that he had made carefully by purifying the iron as much as possible, so it wasn''t a fragile sword. He didn''t believe that this strange sword made by someone who didn''t even know how to forge himself would be able to do anything to his sword.

    So Rondo just gave a cough and said, "It''s your turn, so what about it? It''s not as if you can do anything even if it''s your turn."

    With that, he lifted the sword up in his hands and presented it in front of Zwein.

    When I saw this, I didn''t say a thing in response.

    I just revealed a smile and turned my sword around so that the sharp side was pointed downwards now.

    I brought my sword over Rondo''s sword and then asked, "Are you ready?"

    Rondo gave a snort and said, "Ready for what? You won''t be able to do anything to my sword."

    Once again, I just smiled without saying anything.

    Instead, I let my actions speak instead of using words.

    With one motion, I let my hand fall down, bringing my sword down over Rondo''s sword.

    Rondo just had a look of disdain on his face, as if he didn''t believe that my sword would be able to do anything.

    The sword continued to fall until it made contact with Rondo''s sword¡­

    And then¡­

    The sword continued to fall without any resistance, cutting right through Rondo''s sword.

    When Rondo saw this, his chin dropped.

    At first, there was a look of disbelief on his face before he looked at the de and looked up at me.

    He looked back and forth, as he couldn''t understand what was happening.

    But during this time, I kept bringing my hand down at a steady pace.

    Then without a sound, my sword cut right through Rondo''s sword, splitting it in half without any resistance.

    Rondo looked down at the two pieces of his sword in his hand with eyes wide open in disbelief.

    He just kept staring at these two pieces in his hand until he finally looked back up again.

    However, when he looked up, his eyes didn''t go to me.

    Rather, they went to the sword that was in my hand.

    He looked at this strange looking sword with a strange look in his eyes.

    It was a look that had a mix of feelings, but the strongest was confusion.

    No matter how he looked at it, he didn''t feel that this sword would be able to cut through his sword.

    It just didn''t make sense at all.

    I just calmly waited for him to say something.

    During this time, the crowd had been silent since they had also been shocked by this result.

    But after taking a minute toe back to their senses, they realized what the result was and they broke out in cheers.

    It was this cheering that snapped Rondo out of his daze.

    His face twisted before he roared, "What is this? I don''t believe that this strange looking thing can cut through one of my swords! Unless you exin this to me, I won''t ept this result at all!"

    After he said this, a silence fell over the crowd.

 Chapter 313 Testing Blades (3)

    But then all of a sudden, the crowd started jeering Rondo.

    "You won''t ept it? It''s clear that you lost and you still won''t ept it!"

    "I already said that this dwarf was shameless! His beard is definitely to hide his shame!"

    "Ha, it''s clear that his sword was weaker or else the lord''s sword wouldn''t have been able to cut through it! And here he''s saying that he won''t ept it!"

    Rondo would have been embarrassed if it was a normal situation, but his curiosity and unwillingness to ept this made him ignore all these jeers.

    I didn''t mind this and just calmly looked at him as I asked, "What is there not to ept? Wasn''t my sword better? Is there anything that I can exin?"

    Rondo was about to say something, but then he realized the hidden meaning implied by my words.

    To exin this would mean revealing the secrets of how to forge this sword.

    This meant that what he was doing was shamelessly demanding Zwein to reveal the secrets of his forging technique.

    This was considered taboo among the dwarves and punishable by death in dwarven culture.

    After opening and closing his mouth a few times, all Rondo could say was, "I, I, I¡­"

    Seeing him struggle like this, I gave a sigh before saying, "It''s not as if I can''t exin, but¡­"

    I left my words hanging, but the meaning in them was clear.

    Rondo''s eyes lit up when he heard this.

    That was right, if he paid a price, wouldn''t he be able to buy this knowledge?

    This was something considered eptable in dwarven culture.

    They knew that to progress one would need to umte knowledge and the first step in that was to share knowledge.

    But they also recognized that knowledge was not cheap.

    This knowledge was something that was gained from the hard work of someone else and to have them share it for free wouldn''t be fair for them.

    So the dwarves had a system where knowledge would be registered and then it could be essed for a fee. A bit of that fee would be kept by the offices that managed this system and the rest would be paid to the person who registered this knowledge.

    In the dwarven society, this was called a patent.

    But there was nothing like this in the human''s society¡­

    So how was he supposed to pay?

    I could see that Rondo was struggling over this matter and could guess what he was thinking, so I said, "I can''t get a patent registered for this, so you can just pay me a small t fee and we''ll call it a consultation fee."

    Rondo looked at me with a surprised look at first, but he still gave a nod in the end.

    He knew that this was the best solution to this.

    After thinking about it for a bit longer, Rondo suddenly thought of something.

    He dug in his pockets for a bit before pulling out a small piece of white metal.

    He presented this to me and asked, "Is this enough for a consultation fee?"

    The moment that this small piece of white metal appeared, the entire atmosphere changed.

    Those that didn''t know weren''t affected at all, but those that knew¡­their expressions immediately changed.

    This was most of the cksmiths and Haley.

    The moment that they saw this small piece of white metal, their eyes started to glow and they almost started to drool.

    This small piece of white metal was¡­mithril as expected.

    It was only a small piece, but this small piece was already worth a king''s amount.

    That was just how rare and expensive mithril was.

    If it was known that there was a piece of mithril here, there might have even been a war started between two noble territories.

    Even I was a bit surprised that Rondo would be able to pull out a piece of mithril like this so easily, but I wasn''t that surprised since I knew that the Silvermine Family behind him owned several mithril mines.

    It seemed like this was an even better deal than I had thought..

    I gave a slight nod and said, "That''s fine, I''ll take that as a consultation fee even though it is a bit of a loss on my part."

    Haley immediately turned to look at me with a shocked look, but I just ignored it.

    Rondo gave a nod in response to this since he knew what I was talking about.

    But that was only the case in the dwarven society where mithril didn''t have value.

    In the Dwarven Kingdom, there was mithril all over that they could use since they controlled mithril mines. So in truth, mithril wasn''t worth anything in the Dwarven Kingdom, especially such a small piece.

    Using this small piece of mithril to obtain knowledge about forging¡­it really was a cheap deal for him.

    Rondo said in a sincere voice, "Thank you. If I have a chance, I will repay you."

    The crowd couldn''t help being surprised by this.

    One moment, this dwarf was questioning the legitimacy of this duel and the next, he was thanking their lord.

    When they saw this, they couldn''t help looking at Zwein with eyes that were filled with admiration.

    I could feel these gazes and I just revealed a secret bitter smile.

    It wasn''t that great, it was just understanding the difference between human and dwarven society.

    I was about to reach out to take the piece of mithril, but before I could¡­

    Haley had alreadye forward and grabbed hold of the mithril.

    Rondo knitted his brows when he saw this and didn''t let go until I gave a nod to him.

    Only then did he let go, but he still looked at Haley with a strange look.

    Haley turned to me and said, "I''ll keep this safe for you, alright?"

    I just shook my head with a smile before saying, "I was going to give it to you anyway. It''s not like I have a use for it."

    Haley immediately revealed a beaming smile when she heard this beforeing forward to whisper in my ear, "I''ll thank you tonight."

    I gave a cough to calm myself down, but I was feeling quite happy deep down.

 Chapter 314 Alloys And Forging Techniques

    I turned to Rondo and said, "Shall we head somewhere else to discuss this?"

    Rondo looked around before giving a nod.

    I turned back to Haley and said, "Can you arrange a ce for us to talk? Preferably a ce with a forge."

    Haley didn''t seem to hear me at first since she was looking right at the small piece of mithril in her hand.

    But she came back to her senses after I gave a cough to snap her out of this state.

    I gave her my request again and she quickly nodded in agreement before running off.

    Though by the look in her eyes¡­I could tell that she was going somewhere private to admire this piece of mithril.

    I was right since it was Kevin who led us to this private forge.

    It wasn''t just Rondo and I that were here, Bruno had alsoe along because I needed his help for this demonstration.

    This forge was also equipped with the same things that had been prepared for the forge during thepetition.

    Even if Haley''s attention waspletely taken by the piece of mithril that she received, she still did her job properly without missing a single thing.

    I couldn''t help being impressed by this, but that was also why I had been drawn to her in the first ce.

    After arriving, I turned to Rondo and said, "Just sit or stand, I''ll give you a demonstration."

    I waved at Bruno to follow me and we prepared two different sets of materials.

    It was one portion that just had iron alone and one portion that had other materials along with iron.

    Bruno recognized them as the things that I had him add into the furnace when we had been forging for thepetition.

    Rondo walked over and looked over this with a confused look, but he waited to see what we would do.

    I had Bruno melt both sets of materials and then poured them into the same mold as before.

    Once they cooled, we had two different blocks of metal.

    I picked up both of them and held it up for Rondo to see.

    Rondo stood there in front of me and looked over both of these pieces of metal.

    As he tapped them, his expression couldn''t help changing.

    That was because he could tell that there was indeed something different between the two different pieces of metal. He couldn''t tell exactly what it was, but he could tell that this second piece of metal was harder than the first piece of metal.

    It was as if there was something inside of it that made it harder.

    After looking at it for a bit, he looked back up at me with a very confused look as he asked, "Just what is this?"

    I revealed a faint smile before exining, "This is called an alloy. It is a mixture of different metals with iron, creating a metal that is much stronger than iron alone."

    Rondo revealed a very confused look when he heard this before saying, "That shouldn''t make sense. If you mix anything with pure iron, that should only work to weaken it with impurities. So how does mixing these things in make it stronger?"

    There were many ways that I could have exined this, but I was certain that most of these ways would be too hard for Rondo to understand.

    It wasn''t that I doubted Rondo''s intelligence, it was just that there was a certain level of technology in this world.

    This was a world that was based on medieval times, so technology and science was not as advanced here.

    If I used scientific terms, Rondo definitely wouldn''t have understood.

    So after thinking about it, I just simply said, "You should know that each metal has its own property, right?"

    Rondo tilted his head before giving a slow nod.

    Then I said, "These properties are unique to each type of metal, but when these properties are mixed, sometimes they can work together to make a better kind of metal. That is the case with this alloy."

    Rondo had a very strange look on his face when he heard this.

    He looked down at the alloy that I had made again and slowly looked at it from different angles.

    There was a part of him that wanted to reject this theory, but with the alloy ced in front of him, he wasn''t able to reject it.

    So in the end, Rondo said with a sigh, "I guess this does merit further study¡­"

    Though he said this, it was clear by the way that he looked at the alloy that he believed in it.

    Once that was done, I took the alloy from his hand and threw it back onto the fire.

    Rondo looked like he had something to say, but seeing the way that I handled it, he closed his mouth and waited to see what happened.

    With Bruno''s help, I was able to bring the piece of alloy metal out of the fire and ced it onto the anvil where he started smacking it with the hammer just like before.

    After smacking it for a bit, I folded the metal on itself before having him smack it a few more times.

    Rondo had been carefully watching us the entire time, as if he was analyzing what we were doing.

    He didn''t understand it at first, but then he suddenly said, "I see! You''re folding the metal on itself to createyers in the metal! That makes it harder than just normal metal on its own!"

    After he said this, I gave a simple nod before having Bruno stop his hammering.

    I then said, "That''s about it for the consultation, do you want to give it a try now?"

    Rondo looked at the piece of metal that I was offering him with a surprised look before asking, "Can I really?"

    I gave a nod before handing the tongs with the piece of alloy metal over to him and then nodding to Bruno to hand over the hammer.

    With that, Rondo fell into his own world as he mimicked the technique that he saw before.

 Chapter 315 Settling Debts (1)

    Rondo didn''t stop as he kept testing the new techniques that I had shown him.

    From time to time, he would look up and ask me for guidance on what he was doing and I wasn''t petty with my advice. After all, he had already paid, so there was no reason for me to be that petty.

    After a while, Rondo was able to create a piece of alloy that was even better than the one that I had made during thepetition.

    This really was the skills of the dwarves, they really were devoted to forging.

    If possible, I wouldn''t want another forgingpetition with them since I was certain that I would lose once they learned my techniques.

    My knowledge was the only thing that would give me an advantage and they were sponges ready to soak up that knowledge from me.

    I made a silent vow that I wouldn''t challenge another dwarf to another forgingpetition in my mind.

    But in the future¡­who knew I would break that vow?

    However, in the present, we were still inside of the forge when Haley came to find us.

    She had finally had her fill of the piece of mithril and made sure to store it safely beforeing to look for us.

    Seeing that we were still in the forge, she called out, "What are you guys still doing? It''s already getting dark outside, why are you still here?"

    Both Rondo and I were surprised when we heard this.

    When we looked out the window, we found that it was indeed already dark outside.

    We hadpletely lost ourselves in what we had been doing that we didn''t even notice all of this time passing.

    Rondo had been lost in the new techniques that he had learned while I had been lost in learning forging from Rondo.

    It was hard for me to give him proper guidance without knowing the basics of forging, so he had been teaching me things while I had been giving him advice. I could already be considered a basic cksmith with how much I had learned.

    Bruno had been looking on with envy since I was receiving a personal cksmithing lesson from a dwarf.

    Though he did try to gain as much knowledge for himself as he could.

    With this lesson, Bruno would go on to cement his position as the best cksmith in town.

    Since it was already getting dark, there was no need for us to continue.

    As the lord, I took this chance to invite Rondo to a meal.

    Rondo was also feeling a bit hungry, so he decided to ept.

    Of course, it was only because it was me that he epted.

    If it was anyone else, he would have rejected their invitation since it was hard for a dwarf to get along with humans in the first ce. There wouldn''t be anything to talk about since they were from two different cultures.

    With me, he could at least ask a few questions about forging while we ate.

    Haley also decided to tag along because¡­she had some business with the two of us.

    I didn''t bring Rondo back to our manor and instead went to one of the bars in town.

    As a dwarf, he was someone that naturally loved to drink.

    So bringing a dwarf to my manor where it would be a formal meal would be a bad idea. It would be better to bring him to one of the local inns and drink him under the table.

    That way, I would be able to get as much information as I could out of him.

    Of course, it was no easy feat to drink a dwarf under the table, but I had a few tricks up my sleeves.

    The tricks that I had learned from my college drinking parties really came in handy here.

    How to pretend to drink and how to keep yourself sober, those were all skills one needed in college. That was the way to properlywork.

    While everyone was drunk, it would be easy to learn things¡­things that could be very useful.

    This bar was a bar that Haley rmended, which I immediately took since I trusted her judgement.

    Haley ran the most sessful business in town for a reason.

    She was someone that was very skilled at building rtionships and knowing which restaurants were the best was one of the skills that she needed for this.

    After all, people were most vulnerable when they were eating.

    At the same time, it was easier to get an advantage when they were drunk¡­

    So she would need to know good ces for these negotiations.

    When we arrived at the bar, we found that it was already filled with people.

    Luckily, we were able to get a table.

    There were others waiting, but when they saw that it was me, Haley, and Rondo, they immediately let us cut in front of them.

    I felt awkward about this, but I still epted in the end since there was business I needed to discuss with Rondo.

    But as we were sitting down, Rondo couldn''t help saying, "You''re quite strange for a human lord. You actually thanked them for giving you their seat when most human lords would have just ordered them to leave."

    I couldn''t help being surprised hearing this and I turned to look at Haley who also gave me a strange look.

    It is true, in this kind of society, it was normal for lords to act this way since there was the idea that nobles were above all. This was a kingdom that had a noble based society that gave nobles the rights to do what they wanted.

    However, I just said, "I was amoner in the first ce, so things like this are strange for me."

    Rondo narrowed his eyes to look at me before giving a nod and saying, "Oh, whatever. Your human culture really is too strange for me to understand."

    I just revealed a bitter smile before ordering some food for us.

    It took no time at all for this food to arrive.

 Chapter 316 Settling Debts (2)

    Once the food arrived, we lifted our drinks and said, "Cheers!"

    With that, Rondo gave arge chug that finished off therge mug that had been brought to him.

    This was a mug that was twice the size of the mug that I had and he had already finished it in one gulp.

    It could be seen that dwarves really could drink¡­

    On the other hand, I just took a small sip before putting down the mug in my hand.

    Once he finished chugging, he gave a loud satisfied sound before saying, "That really is some good beer! Get me another one!"

    The waiter acknowledged this and took the mug he ced on the table away.

    After taking that first drink, we started digging into the dishes that we had ordered.

    I had to admit that Haley really knew what she was doing.

    Every single dish that we had was delicious and went perfectly with the beer that we ordered. This ce really understood what it meant to open a bar,bining both alcohol and food perfectly.

    So this created a happy mood between us while we were eating.

    Halfway through, when a hint of red appeared on Rondo''s cheeks, that was when Haley and I made our move.

    I just calmly said, "Rondo, we need to discuss something."

    Rondo had been happily eating and drinking when I said this, but then seeing the serious look on my face, he calmed down. He looked back at me with a serious look and waited for me to speak.

    "Do you remember before thepetition, we agreed on terms for the oue of the duel?" I slowly asked.

    Rondo just gave a slight nod before revealing a bit of a confused look.

    I then said, "I want to talk about how to contact your family to arrange buying the mithril."

    Haley nervously waited on the side for his answer because this would determine the future of her business.

    Rondo revealed a bit of a surprised look before suddenly saying with a smile, "Is that it? Is that all you had to ask about?"

    This time, it was Haley and my turn to be surprised.

    We thought that this would be a hard matter to approach with Rondo, but we never thought that he would be so carefree about it.

    Rondo just said with a smile, "I''ll tell my family about this matter and they''ll send someone to take care of it."

    Both of us couldn''t help revealing surprised looks at how casual he was about this.

    We had both thought that it would be hard for us to arrange a trade with them since the dwarves isted themselves from the humans. As such, it would take a lot of effort for us to even set this up.

    However, it was settled with just a single word from Rondo.

    While we were still dazed, after thinking about it for a bit, Rondo suddenly added, "Though if you want, it would be easier if you just came back to see my family with me. If we''re all there, we can discuss the terms much easier."

    "Huh?" Both Haley and I reacted the same way before looking at each other.

    As we looked at each other, we couldn''t help wondering why the other person was as surprised as they were.

    But then we both quickly turned back to Rondo and I asked, "Is it really alright for us toe back with you to the Dwarven Kingdom?"

    Rondo gave a frank nod and said with a wide smile, "It''s not a problem. As long as you''re with me, you can go in without any problems."

    Both of us once again looked at each other with looks of shock and disbelief, but in the end, I still said, "Alright, we''ll settle it like this. We''ll go with you to the Dwarven Kingdom and settle this matter there."

    Rondo gave a simple nod before saying, "Let''s order some more!"

    I gave a nod before turning to Haley.

    Haley didn''t hesitate at all to order the best wine from the bar which immediately made Rondo''s eyes light up.

    Dwarves lived for forging and alcohol, that was a fact that was widespread and something that everyone knew.

    So the best way to befriend a dwarf was naturally with alcohol.

    While Rondo was having fun drinking, Haley and I had a secret conversation.

    Haley started by asking, "Why were you so surprised? Also how do you know so much about the dwarves?"

    I had a calm look on my face as I said, "What about you? Weren''t you the same?"

    Haley didn''t bother ying games and just exined, "It''s amon fact that the Dwarven Kingdom is not a ce that can be easily entered. But you¡­you clearly looked like you knew something else."

    I trembled when I heard this.

    That was right, I did know something else.

    I had my knowledge from when this world was a game after all, so I knew a bit more than her.

    The Dwarven Kingdom was hard to enter, but it wasn''t impossible to enter.

    As long as one went through one of the official or unofficial passages, they would be able to enter the Dwarven Kingdom.

    However, being able to enter just with the word of a dwarf was not something that I had heard before.

    The reason I was surprised was that I was certain that this was some kind of special secret method that I hadn''t known about.

    As a gamer who had thought that he had aplished everything that could have been achieved in the game, it hurt my pride to find out that there was something that I had missed.

    But it was getting more and moremon to discover these things now that this game had be a real world.

    In the end, I just calmly said, "I was surprised for the same reason as you. Nothing more, nothing less."

    Haley narrowed her eyes to look at me as if she didn''t believe me, but I didn''t let anything show on my face.

    In the end, she said with a sigh, "Alright, don''t tell me. But I''ll be sure to punish youter."

 Chapter 317 Home Affairs

    After running arge tab, Rondo became dead drunk.

    I had really underestimated how much he could drink.

    If I wasn''t a noble, then I really wouldn''t be able to afford this tab.

    After all, he had drunk enough to feed amoner family for a month without problem. They would even be able to eat in luxury with this amount and have more than enough change to spare.

    That was just how much a dwarf could drink if he was allowed to go all out.

    Luckily, I did have the money to pay for it and even better, I had a concubine who was so rich that this was just a drop in the bucket.

    Haley said with a smile on her face as she threw the gold coins on the table, "It''s on me."

    Once again, I couldn''t help feeling lucky that I was able to meet someone like her.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help thinking how I was lucky enough tond someone like her.

    After paying the bill and having someone take Rondo to an inn, we headed back to the manor to face my greatest challenge.

    After all, waiting at my manor was Rose who I would have to exin to why I would be leaving again so soon.

    I hadn''t even been in town for a day and I was already preparing to leave.

    If I was here, I would be angry too¡­

    So I had to think of a way to appease her or else I wouldn''t be able to go.

    As I was agonizing over this, Haley just had a rxed look on her face that almost irritated me. It was like she thought that this was someone else''s problem and not hers.

    So I broke this thought for her with just a few words.

    "If I don''t, you won''t be going either, you know?"

    As soon as she heard this, she couldn''t help revealing a shocked look.

    She looked at me with many different expressions before she slowly came to ept my words.

    She realized that I was right.

    It was only through my rtionship with Rondo that we would be allowed into the Dwarven Kingdom in the first ce. So if I didn''t go, it wasn''t as if she would be allowed in since Rondo wouldn''t bring them if I wasn''t going.

    Haley opened and closed her mouth a few times before finally revealing a bitter smile.

    She knew what kind of personality that Rose had and she really couldn''t predict how she would act.

    The only weakness that Rose seemed to have was¡­Zwein, their husband.

    So the only one that had a chance of convincing her was him.

    After all of this, Haley raised her hand to pat my shoulder before saying, "Good luck."

    I revealed a bitter smile and shook my head, but I didn''t say a thing.

    When we arrived, I found that Rose was standing outside waiting for me.

    Even though it was still autumn, that didn''t mean that it wasn''t cold at night.

    I immediately came out of the carriage and took off my jacket to drape over her before saying, "What are you doing? It''s cold outside and you''re dressed so lightly. What if you catch a cold?"

    Rose said with a smile, "I wanted to wait for you."

    I didn''t know what to say, so I just revealed a faint smile before walking in with her.

    When we came into the hall of the manor, I found that there were also others waiting for me.

    It was Cecilia, Moon, Veronica, and surprisingly Shaka and Scar.

    It wasn''t as strange seeing Cecilia and Moon, or even Veronica since I was sure that they lived here. Though I would have preferred that Moon and Veronica went somewhere else¡­

    But Shaka and Scar¡­

    Shaka normally lived with his men who lived outside of town.

    They could have lived in town, but they said that it''s better for them to live outside for work.

    Though when I visited, it seemed like they just wanted a secret hideout¡­

    As for Scar, shouldn''t he be with Shaka and his men?

    Aftering in, we all went to the living room and sat down.

    Once we had settled and the maids had brought us some tea, Rose didn''t hold back at all as she said, "It seems that you''ve had an interesting day."

    I couldn''t help jolting the moment that I heard this.

    I looked at her and opened and closed my mouth a few times as if I was trying to exin myself. But then I just revealed a bitter smile and lowered my head to say, "I''m sorry."

    Rose revealed a surprised look before saying, "Why are you apologizing?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised too when I heard this.

    I slowly looked up and found that she had a genuinely surprised look on her face, so I couldn''t help asking, "What do you mean by interesting?"

    Rose revealed a smile as she said, "Well it isn''t every day that one meets a dwarf, I would say that that''s quite interesting. At the same time, you''re even preparing to head to the Dwarf Kingdom, wouldn''t that be¡­"

    Before she could finish, I bowed my head again as I said, "I''m sorry!"

    Rose once again revealed a confused and surprised look when she heard this as she asked, "Why are you apologizing?"

    I decided to go all out by saying, "I decided to go with Rondo to the Dwarven Kingdom on my own without even consulting you. I know that I was wrong!"

    As I said this, I fell to my knees and bowed my head.

    This was the traditional apologizing stance of my previous world and I was putting it to full use here.

    While Rose didn''t understand what this stance was, she could feel the emotions that were behind it.

    So she stood up and came over to help me up before saying, "What are you apologizing for? Didn''t you do this for the good of our town? Mithril is a resource that everyone wants and if our town can make a connection to the dwarves to obtain this resource, it is a good thing."

    I looked up at her smile and could tell that she wasn''t angry at all. She was sincere with her words which warmed my heart even more.

    I looked at her and slowly gave a nod before saying, "Thank you for understanding."

    Rose just looked at me with the same warm smile.

    But of course, this matter wasn''t over yet.

    While we were like this, I could feel three other gazes that were on me.

    When the word ''mithril'' had been raised, there were three people that had suddenly jolted in response to this.

    They had only heard about the dwarf, they had never heard anything about mithril.

    Mithril was of course a valuable resource for humans, so they were naturally interested.

    Not just humans, mithril was also considered a valuable resource for elves, so even the one elf in the room was interested in this matter.

    So even if I had surprisingly managed to easily convince Rose, there were still others that I had to talk to.

 Chapter 318 Scolded By The Boss

    After appeasing Rose, it was time to appease the others.

    The first one to speak was Moon.

    She said, "If you''re going to see the dwarves, I''ming with you."

    She didn''t even ask if she coulde, she just stated that she would being without any hesitation. It was as if she was already certain that she would be allowed to go.

    I just looked at her with one brow raised and asked, "Why would you go?"

    Moon calmly said, "We are friends with the dwarves, so there''s nothing wrong with letting me apany you. Not to mention, there is some business that I have with the dwarves."

    I didn''t say anything as I kept looking at her with one brow raised.

    Moon kept calm under this gaze at first, but in the end, she said, "We have need for mithril for a certain thing. If you''re going, it''s easier if we go with you."

    I still stared at her with one brow raised, but in the end her expression didn''t change.

    It seemed that she wouldn''t be telling me anything more.

    But I didn''t mind since this was already more than enough information.

    Since the elves had a friendly rtionship with the dwarves, that was a good thing. If I showed that I was even friends with the elves, then it would be easier for me to negotiate with the dwarves.

    After all, the friend of a friend was also a friend.

    Not to mention that I was friends with both sides to begin with.

    So this would all help me when it came to negotiating with the dwarves.

    I gave a simple nod and said, "Alright, you cane."

    Moon revealed a happy smile when she heard this before sitting back down to enjoy her tea.

    To the side, Veronica''s expression changed several times, but she remained silent in the end.

    It was clear that there was something that she wanted to say, but Ipletely ignored her since I didn''t want to deal with her.

    But there was one group that I couldn''t ignore¡­

    I could clearly see the looks that Scar was shooting at me, so I had no choice but to say with a sigh¡­

    "I''ll be heading to my office for a bit with Scar and Shaka, we''ll be back soon."

    Rose just gave a calm nod before turning to entertain Veronica.

    Haley had also gotten the hint and she moved over to Veronica as well.

    Veronica had wanted to stand up and follow us, but she was stopped by both Rose and Haley.

    The three of us left the living room and came to a small office.

    This was technically my office, but I rarely used this since most of the paperwork and ruling of this territory was taken care of by Rose. Not to mention, most of the time, I was either traveling or doing something else.

    In the end, I wasn''t someone that was suited for paperwork, so this office really was a waste for me.

    But it made a good ce to have private conversations, which was what I was using it for now.

    As soon as we were seated in the office, Scar pped down on the table and said, "Dwarves now? First it was elves and now you''re bringing in dwarves?"

    I gave a shrug before saying, "It wasn''t me that went looking for them, you should at least know that. You can''t me me if theye looking for me."

    Scar narrowed his eyes to look at me, but he sat back in his seat and gave a sigh in the end before saying, "Fine, you''re right about that."

    But then he narrowed his eyes to look at me again as he said, "But you do understand what kind of a stir this will cause right? After all, we''re talking about mithril! Mithril!"

    It was so important that he had to repeat it twice.

    I had already received a lecture from Haley about the importance of mithril and I had seen how she had acted when she received that small piece of mithril, so it was impossible for me not to know this.

    In the game, the situation with mithril wasn''t that bad since there were still methods of getting it.

    However, it seemed that this was only in the game.

    Those were most likely special loopholes that had been made just so that yers could have ess to mithril items.

    But in reality, the lore of the game stated that mithril was very rare in human countries.

    Still, I couldn''t help being surprised by how shocked everyone was.

    After all, in the game, mithril was still only mid tier.

    It wasn''t as if it was anything that special, so I didn''t feel that emotional about it.

    Seeing the look on my face, Scar said, "This monster, he has nomon sense at all."

    I really couldn''t help taking offense at that. I really felt that mymon sense had improved sincest time, but now he was saying that I had nomon sense.

    I had no choice but toin, but Scar didn''t give me that chance.

    He suddenly looked at me with a serious look and said, "What are you nning to do about this? You should know that this is much more serious than a rtionship with the elves. If you really are able to create a trade route with the dwarves for mithril, this will be much more earth shattering than you can imagine. When the timees, the nobles won''t stop their plots against you to get to this mithril."

    I was about to ask something, but he shut me down right away by saying, "Shadow Garden won''t be able to protect you at that time. There might even be people from Shadow Garden that will move against you."

    "Eh?" That was all I could say in response to this.

    It seemed¡­that I had really underestimated the situation.

    Scar just looked at me and said, "So what are you nning on doing?"

 Chapter 319 Various Deals

    I didn''t know what to say at first since this was out of my field of expertise.

    Even in my past life, I was nothing but amoner.

    I didn''t know how to navigate the fields of politics like a proper politician, so I was sure that I would be eaten up by these nobles eventually.

    I was aware that if it wasn''t for the king''s grace and Shadow Garden''s protection, I would have already fallen into the hands of those other nobles.

    So I was very grateful for that.

    I had also assumed that this would be the same this time, but it seemed that it wasn''t.

    If that was the case, should I just stop this mithril trade?

    But there were many people that were very excited about this and there were many things that I could use mithril for¡­so I really didn''t want to give it up¡­

    Seeing the look on my face, Scar revealed a look like he had already expected this.

    With the look on his face, it was as if he had already expected me to say this.

    So Scar said, "Well, there is a way to handle all of this."

    I couldn''t help looking at him with one brow raised.

    When I saw that look on his face, I knew that I had already fallen into his trap¡­

    But since he had an idea, it was better to listen to it than to not. After all, he was a seasoned noble and knew how to handle things in this situation.

    Not to mention, he had covered for me when we were back in the capital, so I''m sure that he wouldn''t throw me under the bus too hard.

    Scar didn''t say anything at first as he kept me in suspense, but then he suddenly said, "If you offer the king a portion of the mithril, then you''ll be able to gain his support. As long as the kingdom receives its share, this trade will be protected by the kingdom if you know what I mean."

    I just revealed a bitter smile when I heard this.

    In the end, it was all about money.

    And I could guess why he wanted to help me offer this to the king.

    It was most likely being offered through Shadow Garden, so once this deal went through, Shadow Garden would receive benefits for facilitating this deal.

    It was a deal involving mithril, so there wouldn''t be ack of benefits for them.

    But what he said was indeed a good deal.

    This would be the most effective way to solve my problem.

    The only thing that I was worried about was that in cases like this¡­it would take arge slice of the pie to satisfy the higher ranked noble.

    While I was fine with sharing, that didn''t mean that I wanted to give everything to the king¡­

    So I would have to talk to Haley and the others to see how much we should offer if we get anything.

    After thinking for a bit, I said, "For now, I can''t promise anything since we don''t even know if we can trade with them yet."

    Scar gave a nod to show that he understood.

    Then I said, "Once we get a number, I''ll give you an estimate. Is that good enough?"

    Scar once again gave a nod to show that he approved of this.

    After all, he knew that what he had said was true and he knew how hard it was to convince the dwarves to sell their mithril in the first ce.

    While they hadn''t decided anything yet, they shouldn''t be in a rush to promise anything or else they would be the ones to suffer in the end.

    But Scar still said, "For now, I''ll cancel all missions and prevent them from assigning you any other missions. I''ll also send a letter to the boss to let them know about this situation. Is that alright with you?"

    I gave a nod since even if I didn''t agree, it would have happened anyway.

    Shadow Garden was the best information organization in the kingdom, so there wasn''t much that could be hidden from them.

    If I reported thister, I would be punished for not reporting it sooner.

    Scar then said, "I''ll also send Shaka along to help you."

    I was surprised to hear this, but thinking about it, I gave a nod of agreement.

    This mithril deal was an important deal for our kingdom, so it wasn''t strange that he would be sending Shaka along to supervise.

    Since this matter had been settled, we headed back to the living room where the rest of them were waiting.

    This time, Veronica had settled down and was waiting for me toe back.

    When I did walk into the room, Veronica suddenly stood up and said, "Your lordship, I think that it''s not fair that you are leaving my father, your greatest supporter out of this deal."

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this.

    I just looked at Veronica for a bit and she stared right at me without turning away.

    There was no doubting the firmness in her eyes, so I knew that she wouldn''t back down on this matter.

    So all I could say was, "Young miss Veronica, of course I would never leave the duke out of this. As my supporter, naturally there will be a share of mithril for him, but that is dependent on if we can strike this deal. Before doing so, I cannot promise anything."

    Veronica gave an understanding nod, but she really drove the dagger in by saying, "Very good. To make sure that you don''t go back on your word, I will be going with you."

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard when I heard this, but after a moment of being dazed, I said, "Young miss Veronica, is there really a need? It will be a dangerous journey, so it would be better for you to stay here and wait."

    Veronica just red at him after hearing this before saying, "I said that I''m going, so I''m going."

    Even if I was a viscount now, it wasn''t as if I could go against a duke''s family head on¡­

    So I had no choice but to say, "Alright, then if you insist, we''ll be heading out tomorrow."

    Veronica just revealed a smile as she said, "It''s a deal then."

    I just gave a sigh without saying anything after seeing this.

 Chapter 320 Punishment (1)

    After settling this matter, there wasn''t anything left to discuss.

    Since they would be heading out tomorrow morning, then it was better to get an early night''s sleep.

    But it was anything but an early night''s sleep for me.

    I was trapped in the bedroom by these three girls¡­

    After we dispersed, I followed Rose to our bedroom.

    We just sat there in silence for a bit before the doors opened and two figures came in.

    It was Cecilia and Haley.

    When the two of them came in, they sat down on the bed with Rose. The three of them just sat there staring at me, making me ufortable since I had no idea what was happening.

    In the end, I couldn''t help saying, "Did I do something wrong?"

    Both Rose and Cecilia just sat there without doing anything since both of them didn''t know what was happening either.

    They had just been told to gather by Haley and while Zwein had been talking with Scar and Shaka.

    So they honestly had no idea what to do.

    But Haley took charge by asking, "Do you really not know what you''ve done?"

    The moment that I heard this, I couldn''t help jolting.

    What had I done?

    I had no idea at all, but Haley said this in such a firm voice that it seemed like she was certain that I had done something wrong.

    So just what did I do wrong?

    After taking a moment to think about it, I decided on what to do¡­

    Not to worry about it and just apologize first!

    If I apologizedte, it would just hurt me instead of helping me. So I would apologize even if I didn''t know what I did wrong to avoid suffering moreter.

    I quickly bowed my head and said, "I''m sorry."

    However, Rose and Cecilia just revealed even more confused looks. Haley on the other hand just looked at me with a calm look on her face, as if she wasn''t moved by this disy at all.

    Haley just crossed her arms and calmly said, "It''s fine, there''s no need to apologize since you already did it earlier."

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this.

    If I had apologized, then why did she still bring this matter up?

    Unless¡­?

    Haley then just continued by saying, "I''ve already said that I would punish you, so it''s time for that now."

    But before she could do anything, Rose and Cecilia suddenly stopped her by asking, "What did he do this time?"

    Haley stopped herself from standing up and turned to say, "He''s been keeping secrets from us again."

    The moment that the two of them heard this, they narrowed their eyes to look at me like they were ming me as well.

    But I also realized what she was talking about when she mentioned this.

    She was talking about the fact that I had kept why I knew so much about dwarves a secret.

    However, it wasn''t as if I could talk about this!

    After all, it was rted to one of my greatest secrets!

    But in the first ce, it was very unlikely that anyone would believe me even if I were to tell them this secret.

    Reincarnated from another world?

    Who would believe that?

    Well, there were plenty of people in my old world that would believe this, but not in this world¡­

    So I really couldn''t say anything¡­

    I just bowed my head and resigned myself to my fate.

    Seeing this, the three of them suddenly got off the bed and started making their way closer to me.

    But before they could reach me, I suddenly thought of something that I had to say.

    So I looked up and said, "Wait, before you punish me, let me say one thing."

    All three of them were confused by this, but they did stop moving towards me and looked at me as if they were waiting for me to speak.

    Since they gave me this chance, I exined to them what I had talked to Scar and Shaka about.

    After they were done listening, Haley suddenly gave a nod and said, "Not bad, you already took care of this."

    I looked up at her and saw that she had a happy look on her face which made me let out a secret sigh of relief.

    Haley then continued by saying, "I had already considered this matter, but I was nning on dealing with this after we had secured the mithril. However, since you''ve already taken care of it, that''s even better."

    Haley gave a nod and then said, "The king and a duke, there can''t be a better group to rely on when ites to this matter."

    I let out a sigh of relief again when I heard her say this.

    It seemed like she really was happy about this matter.

    But then I couldn''t help asking, "Then would it be better if we got the other dukes to join us as well?"

    This could technically be done with the power of Shadow Garden, though it would take a bit of work. But if it could distract her, what was a bit of work?

    However, Haley shook her head as she said, "No, too many cooks in the kitchen is not effective. If we add another duke in, we''ll have to bnce the benefits of the two dukes and that will hurt us. Just the duke and the king are enough since they are far enough in rank that their benefits won''t conflict."

    I gave an understanding nod to this.

    It was as she said, if there were too many people, we would have too many things to worry about.

    It was better to have just a few backers that were powerful instead of many different powerful backers.

    What I was most relieved about was that Haley seemed distracted because of this¡­

    But then she suddenly said, "Of course, that''s a matter for tomorrow. Tonight, you''re still going to be punished."

    I couldn''t help giving a gulp when I heard this.

 Chapter 321 Punishment (2)

    <h4>Chapter 321 Punishment (2)</h4>

    After they said this, they still came forward towards me.

    Haley was the one that led since she was the one that proposed the punishment, Rose and Cecilia just went along to see what she had nned.

    Haley pulled me up and pulled me over to the bed before pushing me down onto it.

    Then looking down on me, she said, "It''s time for you to receive a bit of your own medicine."

    She said with a serious look, "Don''t you dare move."

    I couldn''t help giving a gulp when I saw this and I just gave a slow nod.

    Haley turned around to pull Rose and Cecilia closer to whisper a few things to them.

    Both of them revealed surprised and confused looks at first, but then they nodded in agreement before moving to the sides of the bed.

    They came right up to my sides beforeing onto the bed and leaning down over me.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by this and wanted to ask what was happening, but before I could¡­

    I saw that Haley had brought a chair over to the end of the bed and sat down on it.

    I just felt more and more confused by all of this as I couldn''t figure out what they were nning on doing.

    After sitting down on the chair, Haley lifted her feet up so that they were on the bed and she took off her stockings to reveal her bare feet.

    Both Rose and Cecilia also reached out to take off my shirt, revealing my chest.

    I couldn''t stop myself from slowly getting more and more turned on by this even if nothing had happened so far. There was this tension in the air that seemed to make this more exciting¡­

    Then all of a sudden, I felt Haley''s foot fall onto me.

    I was caught off guard by this sudden feeling, but her foot was right on my dick¡­

    She didn''t hold back at all as she stepped on me, pressing me down into the bed.

    Then she looked at me and said, "How does it feel to be stepped on like this? Do you feel your pride being crushed? Being stepped on by me like this, do you feel ashamed?"

    I really felt the urge to let out a smile when I saw this, but I held it back in the end.

    However, that wasn''t the end of it yet.

    Rose and Cecilia suddenly came forward and started to lick¡­my nipples.

    They weren''t very skilled and it tickled a bit, but there was no doubt that this was turning me on.

    It was hard for me not to be turned on in a situation like this¡­

    Haley could feel the thing that she was stepping on getting harder and it caught her by surprise, but she also didn''t stop. She didn''t know why, but feeling it get harder like this under her feet turned her on.

    So she suddenly came forward to pull my pants off before using her feet on my bare dick.

    This was apletely different feeling from her stepping on it through the pants.

    The feeling of her feet on my dick waspletely different from the feeling that came from having a hand grab it.

    First, the feet were much rougher than a hand with how they walked all day.

    So this gave it a very different feeling from if a hand wrapped up around it.

    The more that she used her foot to press down on it, the harder my dick became.

    Then there was the feeling that came from my nipples as Rose and Cecilia''s tongues ran over them.

    The way that they teased the tip, the way that they caressed it with their tongues, the way that they¡­

    It really was something else.

    The nipple wasn''t just an erogenous zone for women, but also for me, so it turned me on more and more as they did this.

    It was clear by the sloppy way that they did this that it was their first time doing something like this.

    Even if they tried their best to act like a S, it really was different from the real thing.

    I''ve done plenty of research on how a real S should act¡­though that didn''t mean that I was exactly a M.

    But there were also plenty of S scenes that had once been in this game world.

    The most memorable one was down the demon questline¡­

    Still, this wasn''t the time to reminisce about things like that.

    Even if they did their best, it wasn''t as if this was something that enthusiasm could make up for.

    However¡­it was still enough.

    Did that mean that I was an easy person or did that mean something else?

    For now, I chose to believe that I was an easy person because of myck of experience¡­

    Un, that was what it was.

    But since they had done all of this and had stimted me this far¡­then there was no need for me to hold back any longer, right?

    So without any hesitation, I suddenly raised my hands up and wrapped them around Rose and Cecilia who were still using their tongues to tease me.

    They were surprised to feel my arms around them and they couldn''t do anything to resist.

    Or rather, they didn''t want to resist as they felt my arms around them.

    Haley was about to say something, but I looked at her and said, "Come over here."

    She couldn''t help shaking, but it wasn''t from anger¡­she felt excited by hearing me speak to her like this.

    So she gave a nod and she went on the bed as well, crawling over until she was right atop of me.

    I reached my hands out and took hold of her too as I looked up at the three of them before saying with an evil smile, "It''s my turn."

    All three of them couldn''t help revealing a surprised look before a blush came over their faces.

    All of this punishment¡­was just an excuse for them to do that.

    And now that they have been caught¡­

    The rest of the night went as one would expect.

    They didn''t get much sleep that night.

 Chapter 322 To the Dwarven Kingdom

    <h4>Chapter 322 To the Dwarven Kingdom</h4>

    Early next morning, I woke up feeling tired and refreshed.

    I was tired because of howte we had stayed up, but it was very refreshing doing all the things that we did.

    However, there was no time toy in bed since there was somewhere to go today.

    I would rest in the carriageter when we were traveling since there would be time.

    When I sat up, I found that there was only Cecilia and Rose in bed with me, Haley had disappeared.

    I looked around and I couldn''t find a single trace of her.

    Because of the rustling that came from me moving, both Cecilia and Rose woke up in the end.

    Seeing them look at me with confused looks, I asked, "Do you know where Haley went?"

    Both of them shook their heads to show that they didn''t, but they also quickly got up.

    It wasn''t as if they were that free to lie in bed all day either.

    Since we couldn''t find her, I just assumed that she had gotten up early to take care of some things. Though I was a bit worried about her since we did go at it quitetest night¡­I hope that she would take care of herself and not be reckless.

    But we quickly found where Haley had gone aftering out of the bedroom.

    That was because the maids were waiting outside the bedroom doors for us.

    They had already prepared everything for us and we learned that it was on Haley''s orders that they did this.

    The maids already knew that Haley was my concubine, so they knew what status she had in the manor. But even before that, they were happy to follow her after just a short talk with her.

    It seemed that Haley''s people skills really were something else that she was able to bond with these maids so quickly.

    It turned out that Haley had left early in the morning to prepare for the trip.

    Before heading out, she had given the maids the order to prepare breakfast for the threeof them and to get everything ready so that they could head out right away.

    Since she gave them the order, there must be a reason for this.

    So the three of them quickly finished off their breakfast and headed off to Haley''s store.

    When they arrived, they were surprised to see all the actioning from there.

    There were many carriages and staff members that had gathered, loading things into the carriages and preparing for a long trip.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help revealing a stiff smile.

    I looked around and easily found Haley since she was the one directing everything.

    She was shouting at people that were running all over, giving them all kinds of directions.

    It was clear that she was doing something big with all of the people that were gathered here, but this wasn''t what I wanted. I had just wanted a small adventure to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    I went over to have a talk with her to see if I could change my mind, but it ended with my having my mind changed.

    "We''re trading mithril with them, so we need carriages to transport it all back."

    "We need to bring gifts to meet the dwarves or else it''ll be considered rude."

    "We can''t just go with so few people, it''ll be dangerous on the way."

    These were all good reasons that she gave me that I couldn''t refute.

    So even if I didn''t want to go with such arge group, I had no choice since this was indeed the best n.

    And so went my idea of traveling with a small group to meet the dwarves.

    Though there was a faint moment of light when Rondo arrived.

    When he saw all these humans packing up and preparing to head off, he immediately said, "Why are you bringing so many things with you? It''s just a simple trip back to my family to discuss this matter. The Dwarven Kingdom won''t allow you to bring all of these things."

    Hearing this, I felt a bit of hope that we would be able to reduce our numbers.

    However, Haley was already prepared.

    Haley brought Rondo to one of the carriages and when she opened it up, Rondo couldn''t help knitting his brows.

    He moved forward and took a sniff of the luggage in the carriage before his eyes suddenly lit up.

    He turned to look at the other carriages and Haley just gave a simple nod.

    At this, Rondo revealed an excited look and said, "Alright, alright, it''s not a problem at all if you bring all of this cargo."

    Then he revealed a serious look and said, "You have to make sure to save arge part of it for my family, understand?"

    Haley gave another nod before saying with a smile, "Of course, we''ll be presenting arge batch of this to the Silvermine Family as a gift."

    Rondo''s eyes once again lit up when he heard this and he said whileughing, "Ha, ha, it seems like you really understand us dwarves."

    Once that was settled, he didn''t seem to have any problems and settled in one of the carriages.

    I couldn''t help revealing a stiff smile when I saw Haley''s underhanded methods.

    This was the result of what I had told herst night.

    Dwarves only loved two things, forging and alcohol.

    It was impossible for us humans to give them ores since they would always have better ores because of their ability to find rare ores.

    So the only thing that we could offer were our alcohols.

    Dwarves were good at brewing too, but there were just too many humans in too many different cespared to dwarves.

    The amount of ingenuity that came from the human race was not something that dwarves could match. Especially since we spread out all over the continent, trying out different things.

    Humans had different kinds of alcohols that dwarves didn''t have, which was what allowed the small mithril trade business that already existed to exist.

    Dwarves couldn''t resist good alcohol and humans had that good alcohol, so the mithril flowed whether it was in the form of failed items or the rare mithril ore.

    In the end, humans still had a way to influence the dwarves, even if it wasn''t a big influence.

    After Rondo had been taken care of, there was only the matter of Veronica to take care of.

    She insisted oning with them, so they had no choice but to bring her.

    But where would they let her stay?

    In the end, Haley solved this problem before I could even tackle it.

    She had simply talked to Veronica and convinced her to leave behind the carriage with the duke''s mark on it since it was too eye-catching.

    Instead, she had convinced her to swap to a normal carriage instead.

    At the same time, she had convinced her to leave most of her attendants behind, only taking a few guards that she trusted.

    The leader of these guards was a familiar face¡­

    It was Ron, the old man that had followed Ronnie when we had gone to investigate the undead.

    As for the rest of our group, it was just Cecilia and Shaka who came along as our guards, along with a few of our knights that even included Jessica.

    Nicole also came along as an aide for Haley.

    With all that prepared, we set off to the Dwarven Kingdom.

 Chapter 323 Education

    <h4>Chapter 323 Education</h4>

    It was already mid morning when we set off, so there were quite a few people that were on the streets as we headed out.

    With people on the streets like this, I was able to fully see the results of Rose''s efforts in raising this town.

    When they saw that it was my carriage that passed, many people gathered and cheered. There were many children that also came to watch as we set off.

    Seeing them like this, I looked out and waved at them to receive a happy cheer.

    In this world, children should have been working on their parents'' farms or doing other work, so they weren''t as free as in my previous world.

    But I had changed that with my school n.

    I knew that knowledge was the best way to pave the future, so I had proposed this n to Rose back then when we first took over this town.

    Now the kids were allowed to go to school and learn what they needed for the future.

    Of course to get the parents on board, we had made all of this free of charge and we even offered them a free meal.

    With this, we were able to get most of the kids in the town toe to school.

    Of course there were some that were just too old, which was a pity. I had other ns for them, along with the adults of our territory.

    There were also some that held out against free education for personal reasons, but we were working on measures for that as well.

    Though most kids only started school in the middle of the day for the free lunch and then studied in the afternoon, this was still better than nothing. Especially since we couldn''t make theme early since they had chores that they still had to take care of.

    Just getting them in ss for half a day was already enough.

    It was also why they were here on the streets now as they were heading to school.

    I really had big visions for this territory of mine and it would all start with these kids.

    I hoped that they would all grow up well when the time came.

    But after going through the town, we had properly set off on the road.

    There really wasn''t much to do while traveling, so I took this time to take a nap.

    But as I went to lie down with both Cecilia and Haley, we received a few strange looks from both Veronica and Moon.

    With the way that they were looking at me, it was almost as if they were suspecting me of something.

    As far as I could remember, I didn''t seem to do anything that warranted this kind of suspicion.

    However, that wasn''t the worst nce that I got.

    The one that hurt more was the understanding look from Shaka.

    It was as if he understood what I had been through, which just made it embarrassing for me.

    It was fine if they didn''t know, but if they knew¡­then it was awkward.

    After all, we were doing that the night before a big trip and now we were resting in the carriage¡­

    That was just very awkward!

    Still, the trip went off without a hitch.

    It took several days of traveling before reaching the border and then, it took several more days of traveling before reaching the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Unlike the elves that only had a single capital, the dwarves had gathered together and created arge kingdom that could rival the human kingdoms.

    So in addition to needing ores and crafted items from them, the humans were cautious about fighting the dwarves because of their kingdom.

    Though if several human kingdoms worked together, the dwarves wouldn''t have been able to stand a chance.

    This was a problem of quality vs quantity.

    Once they reached the borders of the Dwarven Kingdom, they were easily allowed to pass.

    In fact, there were quite a few humans that were traveling across the border of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    They didn''t seem to have a problem entering the Dwarven Kingdom, but that wasn''t surprising at all.

    There was a zone right by the border that the dwarves had built to handle the humans that came to visit.

    It was in this zone that humans were able to move freely.

    Beyond that zone¡­that was thend of the dwarves and a ce that humans weren''t able to set foot in easily.

    That was where we were nning on going since it was only there that we would be able to meet Rondo''s family.

    When we arrived at the gate, the guards were surprised to see that there was a dwarf with us.

    Haley had made sure that Rondo''s carriage arrived along with our carriage so that the guards could see that Rondo was with us.

    At first, the guards were curious why Rondo was with us, but they immediately stopped asking questions once he showed them his token.

    This was the token of the Silvermine Family, one of the great families of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    In human society, this would be equal to a noble of the highest ranking.

    With the status that the Silvermine Family had in the Dwarven Kingdom, it wouldn''t be an exaggeration topare them to a human duke.

    So once this token came out, they were immediately let into the Dwarven Kingdom.

    However, that wasn''t where the problem started.

    The real problem came when they wanted to enter the real Dwarven Kingdom, not just the part that was set aside for the human visitors.

    On the other side of the human weing zone, there was another border that was much more strictly guarded.

    It was clear that this was the real border of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    This time, even with the influence of Rondo and the Silvermine Family, they were stopped and kept out.

    We were detained and then there was an important dwarf that came to meet me and Rondo who were waiting in this room.

 Chapter 324 Entering The Dwarven Kingdom (1)

    This dwarf came over and sat down on the sofa in front of us.

    It was because Rondo was from the Silvermine Family that we were being treated this way.

    Otherwise, if another dwarf tried to bring humans into the Dwarven Kingdom, he would have already been locked up with said humans.

    The guards at the border at least had to show some respect to the Silvermine Family.

    So that was why this dwarf hade to see us.

    This dwarf was the captain of the border guards, so he was someone that was considered quite important.

    After sitting down, the captain looked at us¡­or rather looked at Rondo and asked, "What is this about?"

    Rondo calmly looked at the captain and said, "I want to bring some guests back to my family."

    The captain knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "But they are humans?"

    Rondo just said in the same calm voice, "So?"

    The captain revealed a bitter smile as he said, "Young me stoker of the Silvermine Family, you know thews of our Dwarven Kingdom. You should know that my hands are tied in this matter. It isn''t that I don''t want to help, it''s that I can''t help."

    Rondo slightly knitted his brows when he heard this since he knew what the captain was talking about.

    By all rights, he should have contacted the Silvermine Family and then brought this group of humans here.

    With the influence of the Silvermine Family, it would have been easy for them to get passage into the Dwarven Kingdom for these humans.

    But he hadn''t been able to wait because of all the excitement that he had felt over the past few days.

    First, there was the new forging technique that he wanted to bring back.

    Not only was he bringing back a new technique, he was also bringing back the weapon made with the new technique and the one who taught him this new technique.

    The other thing that he was excited by was naturally the beer that Haley had brought with them.

    If there was one thing that dwarves were excited by, it was either forging or alcohol.

    This time, it was both, so he had forgotten himself in his excitement.

    But it wasn''t as if he could just send these humans away now that they were at the border.

    At the same time, if he wanted to get ess through the Silvermine Family, it would take a while before they could arrange this.

    With the time that it would take, it was very likely that the humans would be offended.

    So he had to do something to take care of this matter now.

    After thinking for a long time, he finally thought of something.

    Rondo looked at the captain and said, "These humans are special forging talents that we have invited to our Silvermine Family. Because of that, there is no need for them to get a special pass to enter our kingdom."

    The captain knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He knew that this was indeed thew, but¡­for someone to be deemed a special forging talent, they had to have immense talent that could even suppress that of a dwarf.

    Naturally that also had to be proven, so it couldn''t just be stated that easily.

    If this kid from the Silvermine Family expected him to believe that so easily, then he really was a fool.

    The captain''s expression didn''t change as he said, "Since he''s considered a special forging talent, then you should be able to show me some of his works, right?"

    Rondo didn''t hesitate to give a nod as he said, "If you send someone to check with the others at the carriages, tell them to ask for ''that'' de and they''ll know what you''re talking about. They will give you one of his works to bring over."

    The captain was surprised by how confident Rondo was.

    After raising a brow to look at Rondo for a bit, he followed his advice in the end.

    He turned to one of his guards and gave him instructions just as Rondo had told him to.

    The guard ran off to fulfill these orders and it didn''t take long before he came back with a package that was quiterge.

    Based on the way that the cloth covered it, it was clear that this thing was some kind of sword.

    After the guard ced it onto the table, the captain lifted off the cloth to see the true appearance of this sword.

    When he saw it, he couldn''t help revealing a strange look since this sword looked like nothing that he had seen before.

    It was definitely a one of a kind de, but¡­he had no idea if it was good or not.

    He could tell that whatever this thing was made of was very strong, but he didn''t know anything beyond that.

    So the captain turned back to look at Rondo and asked, "This is the special work you were talking about?"

    Rondo just gave a calm nod in response without saying anything.

    The captain looked at it a bit more before saying, "It doesn''t look that special."

    Rondo said in the same calm voice, "You shouldn''t judge a book by its cover sometimes. I can tell you for certain that this thing is much more special than it looks."

    The captain still had the same doubtful look on his face, but he said, "Alright, if you say so."

    Rondo knew that it would take more than words to convince the captain, so he said, "Why not test the de directly? I''m sure that you have plenty of weapons here, right?"

    The captain was surprised that Rondo would propose something like this.

    He turned to look at me for the first time and I just gave a simple nod to give him permission to do this.

    The dwarves really seemed to respect whoever the owner of a weapon was, that the captain even asked me for permission to do this.

    Once he received my permission, the captain pulled out his sword from his waist and brought it up to the sword.

 Chapter 325 Entering The Dwarven Kingdom (2)

    The captain didn''t know the difference between the two sides of the de, so he was about to test his sword with the sharp side of the katana.

    I quickly said, "Wait, that''s the wrong side."

    The captain couldn''t help revealing a confused look when he heard this.

    As far as he was concerned, there wasn''t anything such as a wrong side when it came to swords.

    However that was because this was a medieval world where swords were the basic double edged des. There weren''t any special swords like katanas here.

    So they didn''t understand things like wrong sides here.

    Rondo was lost in thought after hearing what I said.

    When he remembered what I did in our duel, he gave a nod and said, "That is indeed the wrong side."

    The captain looked even more confused hearing this, but even Rondo had said that it was the wrong side¡­

    Eventually the captain followed what they said and turned it so that the blunt side of the katana was facing up.

    Seeing this, neither of them said anything else and waited for the captain to test the katana.

    The captain just calmly brought his sword down on the blunt edge of the katana.

    When the captain''s sword made contact with the blunt edge of the katana, he found that he couldn''t push down any further.

    The captain knitted his brows when he felt this and started trying to use more force.

    When he had brought the sword down, he had only been using half his strength since he didn''t think that it would take much for his sword to cut through this strange sword they had brought out.

    But now that he couldn''t do that, he started using more and more strength to try to break through.

    However, even when he used his full strength, he found that he wasn''t able to push down any further.

    In fact, it was his sword that started to chip in front of the impressive strength of this strange sword.

    The captain had no choice but to admit that this strange sword was better than his sword, or at least it was better when it came to strength.

    As for sharpness, that was hard to say.

    Seeing that he couldn''t break it, I said, "Now turn it around and try the other edge."

    The captain was surprised to hear this since he was focused on the strange sword in front of him. However, after hearing what I said, he gave a nod before turning the sword in front of him around.

    Then in one swift move, brought his sword down.

    This time, there was no resistance at all as he brought his sword down.

    It was just that it wasn''t the strange sword that had been cut.

    When the de of his sword touched the de of this strange sword, there was no resistance at all as his sword was cut by the strange de in front of him.

    He wasn''t able to stop himself in time and his sword waspletely snapped in half.

    The captain could only stare at the hilt that was in his hand in shock before looking down at the strange sword with an astonished look.

    Just what was this strange sword that it was able to cut his sword in half like this?

    This sword of his wasn''t a normal sword, it was a special made item that he had custom made because of his promotion to captain. It was much better than the normal sword that the other guards had.

    Yet a de of this grade was cut like butter in front of this sword.

    The captain was silent for a bit before suddenly looking up at Rondo and asking, "Where did you get this de from?"

    Rondo just calmly said, "I said before that it was made by my associate here."

    The captain turned to look at me with an astonished look before shaking his head and saying, "This human clearly isn''t a cksmith, how could he make such an amazing de?"

    Rondo didn''t hide it and gave a nod to affirm this before saying, "Indeed, he isn''t a cksmith himself. He directed another human cksmith to create this sword."

    "Huh?" Doubt was almost dripping out of the captain''s voice when he heard this.

    He wasn''t a cksmith and he directed someone else to create this sword?

    How could that be possible?

    If he wasn''t a cksmith, how could he know the techniques needed to craft such an amazing de?

    It didn''t seem logical at all.

    Rondo just gave a sigh before saying, "I can prove that this happened since he beat me in a forging duel because of this."

    Though he didn''t want to admit it for his own pride, he knew that this was the best way to convince the captain.

    As dwarves, they understood the pride that each of them had as cksmiths.

    Unless it was true, they would never admit that they had lost a forging duel.

    So the captain couldn''t help looking at me with amazed eyes.

    In the end, the captain said, "I can''t just trust your word for this."

    Rondo gave a sigh before saying, "Then what do you propose?"

    The captain said with a nod, "It''s very simple. Since he''s such an amazing person, he should be able to give us a little demonstration of this, right? As long as he can prove that he has this ability, it isn''t a problem to let him in as an exception."

    Rondo looked like he had already expected this, so he said with a nod, "Very good, let''s do that then."

    Then both of them looked at me, as if they were waiting for me to say something.

    I had remained silent the entire time since I thought that it was better to leave it to Rondo, who was a dwarf, to take care of this. However, it still came to this as I had expected.

    I said with a sigh, "I can''t do any forging yet, but I can make the alloy that was used to make this sword. Is that enough?"

 Chapter 326 Entering The Dwarven Kingdom (3)

    "Alloy?" The captain couldn''t help saying in a confused voice.

    But in the end, he said with a nod, "Alright, as long as you can prove that you have knowledge that we don''t have, we''ll be able to let you in as a special exception."

    With that settled, all three of us stood up and followed the captain out of the room.

    Even though this was a guard post, since this was the dwarven kingdom, there was also a forge here.

    The captain led us there before turning to ask, "What materials do you need?"

    I thought about it before saying, "Do you have a pen and paper?"

    The captain gave a nod before turning to one of his subordinates to ask for some.

    That subordinate wasted no time in bringing a pen and a piece of paper over.

    I wrote down the materials that I needed before handing these back to the subordinate.

    The captain looked at it with the subordinate and couldn''t help being surprised seeing this material.

    Even if they were guards, they were still qualified cksmiths as dwarves. So they recognized that this list didn''t create anything that they were familiar with.

    But they still got the things that I asked of them.

    When it was all gathered, I just went over to the furnace and tossed it in with the iron.

    The way that I did it seemed so casual that it almost seemed like I didn''t know what I was doing.

    But to the trained eyes of the dwarves, they could tell that it was more of me being rxed rather than careless.

    I was familiar with this process after that tutoring session with Rondo, so it wasn''t a problem for me to make this alloy anymore.

    In fact, it was almost easy for me to do this now that I had some forging knowledge.

    When it was done, I poured it into the mold that I made when we had been waiting for the materials to arrive.

    After the alloy was in the mold for a bit, I opened it up to reveal the still hot alloy and started to hit it with the hammer.

    I could have had Rondo help me with this, but I wanted to do it myself.

    After all, learning a new skill like forging was never a bad thing.

    Back when I had been ying this game, I had made sure to max out all my production skills since I knew that it would help meter in the game.

    So now, that was what I was treating this as.

    I was just maxing out my production skills exp while gaining entry into the Dwarven Kingdom.

    The captain could see that my techniques were sloppy, but he knitted his brows as he saw this. That was because this was a method of processing metal that he had never seen before.

    After a while, I had finished processing the alloy and I presented it to the captain for him to observe.

    The alloy had been cooled, so the captain was able to take it in his hand without a problem.

    He held both the katana and the alloy at the same time, looking back and forth between the two of them, as if he was judging them.

    Finally, he said, "Alright, I understand that you are the one that crafted this strange sword. The metal that you made here is the same as the one that was used to create this strange sword."

    He put them both down before looking at me with eyes that seemed to be sparkling as he said, "How did you make it? How does adding all these different things into the furnace together make this kind of metal? It doesn''t make sense at all."

    When I saw the way that he was looking at me, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    These dwarves really were all the same¡­if there was something that caught their attention, they wouldn''t hold back at all.

    But I had no choice but to go along with him since¡­he still hadn''t said that I would be allowed to enter the Dwarven Kingdom.

    It seemed that unless I told him, he didn''t have any intention of returning to this topic.

    So I gave a sigh before giving him the same speech that I gave Rondo.

    "Different metals have simr properties?" The captain muttered under his breath after hearing this.

    It was clear by the confused look on his face that he wasn''t really understanding this concept.

    Of course, that wasn''t strange since this concept was something that was beyond the level of technology in this medieval world. There wasn''t anything here that would allow them to study the structure of metals, as well as how different metals interacted with each other.

    So they would never be able to fully understand this.

    In the end, the captain gave a deep sigh and said, "This will take a lot of research." But then his eyes lit up as he saId, "But this will also be something that will be very interesting to see."

    He turned back to me and said, "Can we keep this piece of metal that you''ve made? We want to do our own research on it."

    I just nodded as I said, "It''s your materials that were used to make that in the first ce, so I don''t mind if you keep it."

    But then I added, "But does that mean¡­"

    I left my words hanging, but it was clear what the meaning behind my words were.

    The captain looked like he was hesitating over something as he looked at the katana.

    Based on that, it seemed like he had wanted to ask me about the katana as well¡­

    But in the end, he said with a sigh, "Yes, you can enter our Dwarven Kingdom as a result of your talent." However, he looked at Rondo and said, "I will send a report to the king so that he knows about this."

    Rondo looked a bit hesitant at first, but he gave a nod in the end.

    But I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    The Dwarven King¡­

 Chapter 327 Silver City

    Since we had received permission to enter the Dwarven Kingdom, we didn''t waste any time at all.

    As we were about to leave the border checkpoint, Haley had a few of her men take out a barrel of alcohol for the captain and his guards.

    When the captain and his guards saw this, their eyes lit up.

    They could smell the delicious fragranceing from the alcohol, so they naturally knew that this was good alcohol.

    If they were given a gift, they would naturally be happy.

    So the captain took out a map of the Dwarven Kingdom for us as repayment.

    This wasn''t a very detailed map, but it would give them a general idea of how the Dwarven Kingdom wasid out.

    With this, traveling in the Dwarven Kingdom would be much easier.

    But in response to this, Rondo had an ugly look on his face.

    He was clearly unhappy that we were giving this barrel of alcohol to the captain and his guards.

    However, Haley was able to convince him that it was fine by telling him, "This is from the portion that we were nning to sell and not the portion that we had saved for your family. So we''re losing profits from this and you''re not losing any alcohol."

    With this, Rondo was calmed down.

    He was agitated because he thought that there would be less alcohol for himself and his family, but when he found out that this wasn''t the case, he didn''t seem to care.

    Dwarves were only selfish like this in two scenarios.

    One was involving ores that they needed for their forging and two was with alcohol.

    Since that matter was settled, they didn''t waste any time in heading out from the border.

    Their destination was Silver City, the city that was ruled by the Silvermine Family.

    On the way, there were many dwarven travelers that looked at their group with strange looks.

    That was because it was a long time since humans had been let into the Dwarven Empire like this. So any human that was in the territory of the dwarves would be stared at by the dwarves.

    But it didn''t take them long to arrive in Silver City since it was close to the border.

    After traveling for around a week, they were finally able to see the silver walls of Silver City.

    This ce wasn''t just named Silver City for no reason.

    It was because of the abundant amount of silver mines that were found all around this area that this ce was named Silver City. At the same time, that was how the Silvermine Family received their name.

    It was because they had been in charge of these silver mines for generations, starting from when the ancestor of their family first found them.

    But of course, walls that were made of silver alone were weak and didn''t qualify as walls.

    So these were actually silver ted walls.

    The middle of the wall was still made of steel, but the topyer was covered in silver to give it this sheen.

    In terms of defenses, this wall was actually much stronger than normal walls because it was made of steel.

    Humans would never be able to make a wall like this, it was only dwarves that had an abundance of ores like that that would be able to make a wall like this.

    Still, it was a very breathtaking sight.

    When they arrived at the gates of this city, they were naturally stopped by the guards.

    The guards even showed more hostility towards them than towards the other travelers since they were humans rather than dwarves.

    But that was where Rondo came in.

    He jumped out of his carriage and raised his hands to calm the guards down.

    The guards were surprised to see that the humans had a dwarf with them, but they were even more surprised when they recognized him.

    "Young master!"

    The captain of the guards ran forward and kneeled down in front of Rondo as he said this.

    Everyone couldn''t help looking at Rondo with strange looks as the rest of the guards also kneeled down in front of him.

    Rondo however just scrunched his face seeing this before saying, "Thorgrun, you know that there''s no need for you to do this. We grew up together, we are childhood friends, you can just treat me like normal."

    But the captain of the guards who Rondo called Thorgrun shook his head and said, "You are the next head of the Silvermine Family, how could I do that?"

    Rondo gave a sigh when he heard this before saying, "Alright, then let us through. These humans are with me."

    Thorgrun revealed an ugly expression when he heard this before saying, "Young master, even if you vouch for them, we can''t just let them in that easily. We need to check their papers and their luggage before we can let them in."

    Because he was back in his territory, Rondo no longer acted as seriously as he did before and let his real personalitye out.

    We had already seen bits of his real personality back in my town when he had challenged me to the forging duel, but now it had fullye out.

    Rondo just gave a sigh and said, "I said that it was fine, can''t you just let it go with that?"

    Thorgrun revealed a look of difficulty as he said, "We can''t, there are the rules that your father, the City Lord has set."

    When his father was brought up, Rondo had no choice but to back down.

    At the same time, I took this chance to step forward and say, "We will wait for you to finish checking everything."

    Rondo revealed a displeased look, but Thorgrun revealed a grateful look before saying, "Quickly check it all and then send them through."

    This was the little bit of lenience that he could give them as the captain of the guards here.

    So in no time, they were allowed to enter the city even if Rondo had a displeased look on his face.

 Chapter 328 Silvermine Family (1)

    <h4>Chapter 328 Silvermine Family (1)</h4>

    As we were heading through the city, we became the center of attention.

    That was because we were currently being escorted by Thorgrun and a group of guards.

    Though the fact that we were humans was more than enough to draw attention in the first ce.

    This was the Dwarven Kingdom, so humans were rare in the first ce.

    Luckily, it took us no time at all to arrive at the Silvermine Family''s manor in the center of the town since with Thorgrun''s escort, most of the dwarves gave way to us.

    When we arrived at the manor, the guards that were there couldn''t help raising their weapons to point at us.

    We were a group of humans that had suddenlye to their manor, so it wasn''t strange that they were wary of us.

    But they quickly put down their weapons and calmed down after seeing Thorgrun and Rondo step out.

    Just like Thorgrun had done, the guards quickly kneeled down to Rondo and said, "Young master, you''re finally back."

    Rondo just gave a nod before asking, "Is my father here?"

    The guards looked at each other with bitter smiles before saying, "The forge master is currently in his study."

    Rondo gave a nod before moving forward as if he was going to head into the manor.

    But before he could, the guards said, "Young master, what do we do about your guests?"

    Rondo looked at the guard with a confused look before saying, "Of course they''reing in with me."

    But the guards revealedplicated looks when they heard this.

    After a moment of hesitation, one of the guards still said, "Young master, we can''t just let all of these unknown humans into the manor like this."

    Rondo knitted his brows in a displeased manner when he heard this, but before he could say anything, I stopped him by grabbing his shoulder and saying, "Wait, they''re just doing their jobs, don''t get angry at them."

    Rondo turned back to look at me before saying, "This is my house, why can''t I bring my guests in?"

    I just gave a sigh before saying, "It''s an issue of safety, so you can''t me them."

    I turned to the guards and said, "How about this, only I will go in with Rondo and the rest of them will stay out here?"

    The guards looked at each other before giving reluctant nods.

    In truth, they didn''t want to let any of them in before they had a chance to report to the lord of the manor, Rondo''s father. However, they could see the impatient look that was on Rondo''s face and knew that they wouldn''t be able to keep him here for much longer.

    So they had no choice but topromise.

    They would show me and Rondo to the living room while another member would go and report this to Rondo''s father.

    Rondo didn''t seem too happy about this, but he knew that he had topromise in this situation and epted this proposal.

    So the two of us were allowed to head in alone while the rest of our group waited outside.

    Both Cecilia and Shaka looked like they wanted toe with me to protect me just in case anything happened. However, I convinced them to stay since theming with me was a sign that we didn''t trust them.

    We hade here with friendly intentions, so we should act that way for now.

    So I was able to convince them to let me go alone.

    At the same time, before heading in, I got a secret weapon from Haley.

    The guards had to check it first before allowing me to bring it in, but they licked their lips after they checked it.

    The two of us were led to the luxurious looking living room, though the decorations were a bit strange for a human. Instead of the normal decorations that one would have, there were many different ores and gems that were being disyed.

    This was what was considered valuable in dwarven society, so this was what they disyed to show their wealth off.

    I wasn''t as surprised since I had already seen rooms like this before in the game, but other humans definitely would have been surprised.

    After sitting down, Rondo asked the butler that was with us for some tea.

    Since this was his home, he didn''t hold back at all with his orders.

    Of course, the butler didn''t mind since the ones that he served were the Silvermine Family and Rondo was a part of the Silvermine Family.

    Though to be honest, I was surprised to find that Rondo was the young master of the Silvermine Family, the heir to the position of family head.

    He really didn''t seem like someone that would fit the position of family head though in my mind¡­

    Still, it was a good thing that he was since I had already built up a friendship with him.

    That would help with the mithril trade in the future.

    After a bit, while we were sipping our tea that the butler had brought, there was a sound that came from the door.

    It didn''t take long before another dwarf came in, but this one was very strict looking.

    Well, the other dwarves did have strict appearances because of their racial features. They were short stubby men with thick beards and rugged faces, so they all looked very stern.

    However, this dwarf looked more stern than the others.

    This was a kind of presence that came from being in charge¡­

    So it was clear that this person was Rondo''s father, the current head of the Silvermine Family.

    Seeing his fathere in, Rondo stood up and walked over to him before stretching out his arms and saying, "Father!"

    Rondo''s father didn''t hesitate to open his arms as well and he took his son in his embrace.

    It really was strange watching the two of them like this, but the strangest part hadn''te yet.

    There was this young girl that walked in that looked like she was ten years old, but I knew better than to judge by appearance with dwarves.

    She said with a smile, "You two, we have a guest."

    The two of them separated after hearing her say this before Rondo turned to her and said, "Mother, I''m back."

    That was right¡­Rondo had said mother instead of sister.

    Even though this dwarven girl looked very young, she was actually Rondo''s mother.

 Chapter 329 Silvermine Family (2)

    This definitely would have been a surprise for any humans that didn''t know about this.

    After all, the mother looked like a little girl and the son looked like a gruff middle aged man¡­this really was arge disconnect.

    But I had seen this plenty of times in the game, which was why I wasn''t surprised.

    As for why it was like this¡­

    It was because of that b*stard from the design team!

    This was an infamous person from the game studio that everyone sent knives to because of what he did to the dwarves.

    One might imagine female dwarves as th short stacks, but¡­this wasn''t the case with this game. All because of that one perverted designer who hadpletely changed how everyone perceived dwarves!

    It was all because of his own personal preference!

    This personal preference would havended him on a certain watchlist in my previous world¡­but somehow he had evaded it and had been able to put his curse on this game.

    This one designer had turned the entire dwarven female poption into lolis!

    Sure there were people that were into that kind of thing, but at least give a variety!

    Instead, this one damn designer had made it so that all female dwarves would be lolis regardless of their age.

    Of course, since it was a H-game, that meant that there were scenes with these female dwarves, but that didn''t mean that it was illegal. Even if they did look like lolis, they were legal lolis since they all looked like lolis.

    Even grandmothers would look like they were still ten years old¡­

    This was why the entire fanbase of this game had sent knives to this designer.

    I even sent a few myself, as well as mming him on the inte.

    But if that designer hade to this world like me, wouldn''t he be in paradise in this Dwarven Kingdom?

    I couldn''t help shuddering as this thought passed through my mind.

    I just hoped that the authorities took care of that person after I had died in my previous life¡­

    But back to the situation on hand, this was my first time seeing a real female dwarf sinceing to this world.

    One might expect to see some when we were making our way through Silver City, but surprisingly there wasn''t a single one that hade out to see us. It was just a bunch of male dwarves.

    It was the same at the border and at the gate of this city.

    Could it be that female dwarves were rare or could it be that they were hidden away for a reason?

    Either way, that didn''t matter.

    After they finished their reunion, Rondo came over with his parents and we all sat down together.

    His father and mother introduced themselves to me.

    His father was Ivar Silvermine, the current head of the prestigious Silvermine Family.

    His mother was Nisa Silvermine, Ivar''s one and only wife.

    Though other dwarven lords might have had concubines and such, Ivar only had one wife and one son. He was regarded as a picture perfect family man that all men should aspire to be.

    But through the secret signals from Rondo and what I saw just now, I could tell¡­that wasn''t the case.

    Simply put, he didn''t have the courage to cheat or get a concubine.

    It was clear who held the power in their rtionship and who held the power in this family.

    After we finished our introductions, Ivar asked Rondo, "Son, why did you bring this human back with you?"

    Dwarves didn''t like to beat around the bush, so Ivar just directly asked Rondo the question on his mind.

    Rondo looked right back at him and said, "Father, this human has forging techniques that we have never seen before. I challenged him to a duel and lost, so I brought him back with me to fulfill my end of our bet."

    After he said this, both Ivar and Nisa couldn''t help revealing surprised looks as they looked at me.

    Or rather, it could be said that they were looking at my hands.

    Ivar slightly knitted his brows after seeing them before saying, "You''re telling me that this human who has no calluses on his hands at all has forging techniques that we''ve never seen before? Do you take me for a fool?"

    Rondo shook his head with a sigh as he had already expected this, but he still said, "It''s the truth. Would I admit that I lost a duel if it wasn''t?"

    Both Ivar and Nisa knitted their brows when they heard this.

    They both knew how skilled their son was and how much pride he had because of those skills, so they knew that unless it really happened, he would never admit that he lost in a forging contest.

    So it had to be true that he had lost a forging duel¡­but how was that possible against this human who didn''t seem like he knew about forging at all?

    Seeing the looks of doubt on their faces, Rondo turned to me and said with a nod, "Bring that over."

    I gave a nod and stood up to walk over to a package that I had set down earlier.

    When I brought it back and pulled off the sheet covering it, the katana was revealed once more.

    Rondo had already predicted this situation, so he knew that the easiest way to counter it was to provide hard proof.

    Nothing was better proof than this katana.

    Ivar and Nisa both tilted their heads and looked at this katana with looks of doubt, but they still carefully looked it over.

    After looking it over for a bit, their expressions couldn''t help changing.

    They could tell that this was made from a strange metal that they had never seen before, so they couldn''t help being curious about this strange looking sword.

    Seeing the look on their faces, Rondo just simply said, "Shall we test it then? I think that will prove whether I''m telling the truth or not."

    The two of them just gave a simple nod in response.

 Chapter 330 Silvermine Family (3)

    <h4>Chapter 330 Silvermine Family (3)</h4>

    When we sat back down half an hourter, both of Rondo''s parents had satisfied and convinced looks on their faces.

    It had been the same as with the captain at the border where I had to prove my skills.

    They tested the de with one that had been forged by their Silvermine Family before bringing me to the forge to show them how I made the alloy.

    After seeing all of this, they were convinced that I was the one who made this amazing de and had indeed defeated Rondo in a forging duel.

    After we sat back down, Ivar looked at Rondo and asked, "So what led up to this? Why did you challenge our human friend here to a duel in the first ce?"

    Rondo''s eyes lit up when he heard this and he said, "I heard about this amazing magic weapon on my travels and¡­"

    Byt the end of the story, all three of the dwarves were looking at me with excited looks that almost seemed like they were expecting something.

    Seeing this, I knew that I had no choice but to¡­

    So I stood up and reached my hand behind myself before pulling out The Prator.

    After taking it out, I put it onto the table for the dwarves to look at.

    Ivar and Rondo immediately leaned over The Prator, excitedly examining it from many different angles.

    However, Nisa hesitated a bit as she looked at The Prator with a strange look.

    This look made it seem like she recognized the shape of The Prator¡­

    And she even gave me a strange look for a second before turning back to look at The Prator.

    But in the end, she leaned in along with Ivar and Rondo to examine The Prator.

    It seemed that women really had sharp intuition¡­just a single nce was enough for her to tell that something was off about the shape.

    After they examined The Prator for a bit, Ivar and Rondo both gave a sigh of admiration as Ivar said, "This magic weapon really is something else. I can''t figure out how it''s made, but the amount of magic that it contains really is something else. I don''t even know where to begin with this thing."

    Rondo said with a nod, "That''s right, if only we could take this thing apart and study it."

    As they said this, I took a step forward and ced my hand on the handle.

    Though I wasn''t worried that they would be able to do anything to this since it was something I received from the system, I naturally didn''t want them getting any ideas.

    Both Rondo and Ivar revealed awkward looks after seeing this and they said with smiles, "Of course we wouldn''t do that with someone else''s property."

    I just simply gave a nod before putting The Prator away.

    A bit of regret and a bit of confusion appeared in their eyes seeing this.

    They regretted not being able to inspect The Prator any further.

    But they were confused since they had no idea how I was seemingly pulling it out of thin air and putting it away like it never existed.

    After The Prator was gone, Ivar finally got down to business.

    He looked at me and said, "So Rondo has promised you that he would help you buy some of our mithril, is that right?"

    My expression turned serious as I just gave a simple nod.

    I knew that in this situation, it was best to speak as little as possible to not make any mistakes.

    But I quickly found that I was being too serious.

    Ivar suddenly revealed a smile and said, "Well, a promise is a promise, so we''ll sell you some mithril from our mines."

    I was taken aback at how easily he agreed to this, so I couldn''t help looking at him as if I was trying to figure out if he was being serious or not.

    Then I asked, "Are you serious about this?"

    Ivar saw the doubt on my face and he said with a loudugh, "The reason that we don''t sell mithril to humans in the first ce is because it''s a waste of natural resources. They haven''t shown that they are capable of using it in the first ce, so why waste it by selling it to them if they don''t have anything we want?"

    Then he calmed down and said in a serious voice, "You have the skills to use such an ore, so we have no qualms about selling it to you. This is our faith in you."

    I was once again caught off guard, but this time was because I was ttered by what he said.

    To receive a dwarf''s praise when it came to matters of forging really was rare.

    In the game, there had only been two humans recorded to have achieved this feat before and now I could be considered the third.

    Since they trusted me, I had nothing else to say but, "Thank you, I promise that I won''t waste it."

    Though in truth¡­I was nning on selling it to other humans in the first ce¡­

    I just hope that they didn''t mind this¡­or rather, I don''t think there was a need for me to tell them what I did with it¡­

    I guess that was part of being a sly human.

    But since the deal had been made, to celebrate and a bit of easing my guilty conscience, I took out the other thing that I brought.

    When I pulled it out, Ivar and Rondo''s eyes immediately lit up as they licked their lips.

    As dwarves they naturally had the ability to smell good wine and this was what I had brought.

    It was a sample of the wine that we had brought for the Silvermine Family.

    This could count as both a tasting of the product and a bit of a celebration.

    So I asked, "Do you have any cups?"

    Ivar immediately turned to the butler and said, "Bring some cups over for me."

    The butler nodded before quickly disappearing.

    With the spring in his step, it was clear that dwarves took alcohol seriously.

 Chapter 331 Silvermine Family (4)

    <h4>Chapter 331 Silvermine Family (4)</h4>

    After the butler came back, he was also allowed to join in the tasting.

    It was clear that the Silvermine Family was different from the human nobles.

    They didn''t care about status and treated their employees with respect. At the same time, one could see the close bond between them.

    It was clear that they were a kind and gentle family, one that was worth befriending.

    Unlike those human nobles that only cared about their own benefits¡­though it could be considered hypocritical since I was also a noble.

    But then again, there were also other examples of nobles that weren''t like this.

    Take the duke''s family for example¡­

    So it was more of a case of different people having different situations.

    Reflect, I really should reflect.

    After they had finished tasting the wine, they asked me how much more of it I had. With the way that their eyes sparkled, it was clear that they were very happy with the tasting.

    Since that was the case, I didn''t hold back in telling them how much we had prepared.

    "Ten barrels?" Ivan said in a shocked voice.

    He had thought that just one or two barrel would be good, but ten barrels¡­that would be enough tost them a while.

    It was Nisa who then stood up and said, "Let''s go and take a look."

    I couldn''t help revealing a wry smile when I heard this.

    In the tasting just now, she had been the one that had drank the most. She had finished off half of the alcohol all by herself.

    None of them dared topete with her which further proved that she was in control of this family.

    But seeing a little girl drink like this¡­it really felt illegal.

    I wished that I was able to send a few more knives to that b*stard designer¡­I just hoped that my brothers from my past life would continue the good work.

    So our group stood up and followed Nisa out.

    As we headed out, Rondoined to Ivar, "If it wasn''t for the damnws, I would have gotten them to bring more."

    Ivar just revealed an awkward smile when he heard this.

    While Rondo didn''t have any official positions and could say things like this, it was different for Ivar who was the family head.

    Not to mention, the nobility of the Dwarven Kingdom worked differently.

    Instead of rewardingnd based on battle prowess,nd was rewarded based on forging skills. Ivar as the current head of the family had very amazing forging skills.

    Even the king was decided by forging skills, so the current Dwarven King was the best cksmith in the kingdom.

    As such, since they were all highly skilled craftsmen, they got along quite well.

    The current most powerful lords in the Dwarven Kingdom were all brothers with the Dwarven King.

    In that position, it was hard for Ivar to question thews of their king.

    Though there was a small part of him that did agree with him.

    He still said, "Hush, thatw is for the protection of us dwarves."

    Rondo gave a sigh hearing this, but he didn''t say anything else.

    When they came out, the guards were caught off guard at first before bowing to them to show their respect. Though based on the direction that they were bowing in, it was clearly directed at Nisa.

    Once again¡­seeing all of these dwarves who looked like gruff old men bowing to a little girl¡­really seemed strange.

    As for my group, they had no idea what was happening. They just knew that someone important wasing, so they gave a bow as well.

    Nisa just ignored them and walked over to the humans.

    The guards wanted to stop her or at least protect her, but Ivar came out to stop them. He just simply waved his hand for them to back down before turning back to watch Nisa. After walking over, Nisa started going over the carriages before turning back.

    She looked at me and asked, "Where''s the rest of the alcohol?"

    I revealed a bitter smile before turning to look at Haley.

    She looked at me for a moment before slowly understanding what was happening.

    Once it clicked, she stood up and walked over to one of the carriages. She pulled back the back cover of this carriage and revealed the barrels inside.

    With a smile, she said to Nisa, "The product is over here."

    Nisa turned to look at Haley with narrowed eyes, which Haley didn''t flinch in front of at all. Haley just calmly looked back at her with the same smile on her face.

    Nisa was like this for a bit before giving an approving nod. She also revealed a smile and said, "It seems like you''re the one I need to talk to. Then let''s discuss the price."

    Haley gave a gesture towards the carriage with the barrel before looking at her staff. When they saw this gaze fall on them, they quickly moved to help lift the barrels out of the carriage.

    As for Nisa and Haley, the two of them just stood right beside the carriage while discussing something.

    It was clear that they were discussing the price of the alcohol.

    Seeing this, Ivar turned to look at me with a sympathetic look that kind of hurt.

    It was as if he misunderstood something¡­

    It was as if he thought that I was in the same situation as him.

    I admit that sometimes I let them take the lead, but that didn''t mean that I was like him.

    I just respected their independence¡­

    And even if I was a bit whipped, that didn''t mean that I was as bad as him. It was clear how the power dynamic went between the two of them.

    So no, I really couldn''t ept this sympathetic look.

    Please stop looking at me like this Ivar, your gaze really hurts¡­

    But with Haley taking care of this matter, it didn''t take long before the guards started carrying the barrels out of the carriage and into the manor.

    As they were doing it, they too couldn''t help lick their lips.

    Dwarves and alcohol really was abination that couldn''t be separated.

 Chapter 332 Silvermine Family (5)

    <h4>Chapter 332 Silvermine Family (5)</h4>

    Once all of the negotiations were done, we were invited in for dinner.

    We had arrived in the afternoon and after everything was taken care of, it was already getting dark.

    Me and a group of my close confidants would be staying at the Silvermine Family manor, but the rest of them would be staying at an inn.

    They could have stayed, but we couldn''t put our hosts out like this, so we insisted on sending the rest to an inn.

    But for us, we were currently seated for a meal.

    It was me, Haley, Cecilia, Shaka, Moon, and Veronica.

    I had wanted to send Veronica to the inn with the rest, but she used the duke''s influence to threaten me in the end.

    In front of the duke''s influence, I really couldn''t do anything.

    So I had no choice but to let here with us, though I did warn her about acting up. Even then, I could already see troubleing¡­

    But to my surprise, Veronica acted like a properdy when meeting the Silvermines.

    The one that I actually had to worry about was Moon.

    As soon as Moon met with the Silvermine couple, the first thing that she said was, "It seems like you dirt dwellers are still doing alright."

    All of us couldn''t help looking at her in shock as we couldn''t believe the normally silent Moon would say something like this. After all, it was just too different from the usual personality that she demonstrated.

    But the more important thing was seeing how the Silvermine couple would respond.

    So I turned to look at them with an anxious look.

    I was surprised to find that there was a smile that was on the faces of both Ivar and Nisa when they heard this.

    They just looked right back at Moon and Ivar said, "So the tree hugger has finally decided toe out to their trees. It''ll do you some good not to be surrounded by leaves all day."

    The words that he said really didn''t match the smile on his face.

    After all, these seemed like aggressive words that made it seem like he was picking a fight.

    But once again, to my surprise, they suddenly shook hands with one another.

    This situation was just too much for me, so I asked, "What''s going on here?"

    Moon just calmly said, "I''m just greeting these dirt wrestlers."

    I winced when I heard this and carefully looked at the Silvermine couple, hoping that they weren''t offended by this.

    But Ivar and Nisa both just gave nods with smiles on their faces.

    Seeing the scared look on my face, Ivar exined, "This is just how we greet each other, so you don''t need to worry about anything."

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a confused look.

    I didn''t understand the words that wereing out of his mouth, even though I did understand what he was saying.

    Ivar revealed a smile as he said, "The dwarves and elves are long lived races with small poptions. In this world filled with demons and humans, we had to find an ally, so we allied ourselves with the elves. While we do have an alliance, that doesn''t mean that there isn''t a difference in opinion between our two races. It isn''t as if we could force everyone to get along."

    Ivar turned to Moon and pointed at her as he said, "So things like tree hugger and long ears are just affectionate ways of teasing the elves that we dwarves havee up with through the ages."

    Moon nodded and pointed at Ivar to say, "Ore hugger and dirt dweller are the same way for us to describe the dwarves."

    Both of them nodded like it was a natural thing to them, but for us humans¡­we really thought that they would start fighting.

    I wished that I knew about this earlier so I wouldn''t have almost had a heart attack just now.

    However while we had been traveling together, both Rondo and Moon had done their own things and never interacted with each other. So we had no idea that this was how they would greet each other.

    After a pause, Ivar suddenly added, "Of course, there are also those that don''t view us dwarves in a friendly manner and they have their own names for us. Those are the names that shouldn''t be said."

    Moon nodded before saying, "It''s the same for the dwarves, it isn''t as if everyone agreed to the alliance¡­"

    Seeing the way that they acted, I just gave a nod in response.

    It seemed like there was aplicated history between the elves and dwarves, though that was never explored in the game. The elf and dwarf quest lines were separate and had never intersected like this, so I actually didn''t know much about this history between them.

    But as long as it didn''t start a war between elves and dwarves, I didn''t really care what they called each other.

    It seemed like they were quite close, so I could at least let out a sigh of relief.

    After sitting down at the table, we found that the meal brought out to us¡­was quite heavy¡­

    There was a bunch of roasted meat and alcohol in front of us, with very few vegetables if any.

    It seemed like dwarves really liked to eat hearty meals, but it couldn''t be med on them since they had quite muscr physiques.

    It must have taken quite a bit of physical strength to do their forging, so it wasn''t strange that they would need a lot of hearty foods like this.

    But of course, before we could start eating, there was still one more person that we were waiting for.

    There was this little girl who suddenly came into the dining room and after looking around, she ran over to Rondo and said, "Big brother!"

    Rondo revealed a happy smile and opened his arms out to her before picking her up in a hug.

    But all I could see¡­was a middle aged man who needed to be taken down to the police station¡­

 Chapter 333 Silvermine Family (6)

    <h4>Chapter 333 Silvermine Family (6)</h4>

    The curse of that one designer struck again¡­

    But I had to adjust my mentality since in this world, it wasn''t considered illegal.

    This was just how female dwarves were and I would need to ept it.

    The two of them hugged for a bit before separating from each other.

    After that, Rondo turned around and introduced this little girl to us.

    As we had expected, she was his little sister. As well, she was the young miss of the Silvermine Family, Nori Silvermine.

    She didn''t give a polite bow and just greeted us with a smile on her face in the gruff manner that dwarves were known for.

    That is until her eyes fell onto me.

    The moment that her eyes fell onto me, she suddenly revealed a scowl while ring at me.

    It was as if I had wronged her in some way, but that wasn''t possible since I had never met her before. How could I have wronged someone that I had never met before?

    So I could only reveal an awkward look as she red at me.

    Rondo came to my rescue by asking, "Nori, what''s wrong? Why are you ring at Zwein? He''s a guest, you shouldn''t act rude."

    Nori just pouted her lips, crossed her arms, and turned her head as if she wasn''t happy about this which confused them even more.

    Rondo just awkwardly asked, "Nori, what''s wrong? You can tell your big brother."

    After a moment of silence, Nori finally turned back and said, "This is the audacious human who is spreading the lie that he beat my big brother in a forging duel. How could Nori possibly wee a dirty faced liar like this?"

    Everyone couldn''t help revealing awkward smiles when they heard this except for Rondo.

    The Silvermine couple couldn''t do anything since she was the youngest daughter that they both treasured.

    We couldn''t do anything since she was the young miss of the Silvermine Family.

    So all we could do was stand there with awkward looks on our faces.

    But it was different for Rondo.

    He had knitted his brows after hearing what Nori said and after looking at her with a disapproving look for a bit, he said, "It isn''t a lie. I challenged him to a forging duel and I lost fair and square."

    Nori had been about to say something else, but she was taken aback by what Rondo suddenly said.

    She looked at him with her mouth wide open, even forgetting to close it since she was so shocked by what Rondo said.

    After a moment of silence, she said, "Big brother is the best at forging, how could a human possibly beat you in a forging duel? I refuse to believe this lie."

    Rondo gave a sigh before saying with a serious look, "If I dare have a forging duel with someone, I have the pride to admit my defeat or else I wouldn''t have the pride to forge again. I''m not someone that foolishly believes that I am the best in the world, there will always be someone better."

    Nori just didn''t know what to say in the face of Rondo''s passionate rant.

    But both Nisa and Ivar looked at Rondo with proud looks that only a parent would have.

    After a moment of silence, her face suddenly twisted and her eyes started misting over. She stuck her tongue out at Rondo before running over to Nisa.

    Even if Nisa was a tough woman, she was soft when it came to her daughter.

    She reached her arms out and took Nori in her arms, patting her on the back as she broke out in tears.

    "Stupid big brother¡­I hate you¡­"

    That was what came out from Nisa''s chest with the sound of sniffling.

    But Rondo didn''t let his expression change as he forced himself to keep the tough look on his face.

    However, if one looked closely in his eyes¡­they could see that he was a bit hurt hearing this.

    It wasn''t just the parents of the Silvermine Family who pampered the daughter, Rondo was the same.

    She was their precious little girl, so of course she was treasured by them.

    Since it was my fault that all of this happened, I stepped forward to mediate.

    I looked at Rondo with a smile and said, "Rondo, how about we just call our duel a draw? I don''t think anyone will mind that much if we say that."

    The sounds of sniffling stopped when I said this and Nori slowly looked out from Nisa''s chest with eyes that had a faint sparkle in them.

    But Rondo shut that down by saying, "No, my pride won''t allow it."

    When she heard this, Nori''s eyes teared up again and she put her head in Nisa''s chest again.

    This time, both Ivar and Nisa looked at him with an exhausted look.

    Pride was good, but being too stubborn wasn''t a good thing either.

    It was clear that in this situation, it would be better to take a step back andfort Nori, but he was just too stubborn for his own good.

    Nisa was especially disappointed as she turned to look at Ivar beside her before looking at Rondo again.

    Like father like son, these two were cut from the same stubborn mold.

    Since Rondo wasn''t willing to take a step back, it wasn''t as if they could keep going from there.

    So everyone just stood around awkwardly while waiting for the situation to change.

    Finally, Nisa gave a sigh and said, "Nori, you can''t expect this kind of tact from your big brother. You should already know what kind of person he is."

    Then she looked at everyone with a smile before saying, "I hope that you won''t mind, but there will be a slight dy to dinner. If you will excuse me and Nori for a bit, we''ll be back shortly."

    No one had a problem with this since they knew that it was impossible to have dinner like this.

    Thest thing that Nisa did when she left was re at Rondo which made him tremble.

 Chapter 334 Silvermine Family (7)

    <h4>Chapter 334 Silvermine Family (7)</h4>

    Half an hourter, Nisa came back with a calmer Nori.

    But when she came back, she was no longer as warm towards Rondo as she was before.

    Instead, she just turned her head away when she saw him again which made Rondo reveal a bitter smile.

    However, it was clear by the look on his face that he wasn''t nning on backing down either.

    So the two of them didn''t talk to each other at all during dinner.

    This would have made it awkward if not for the alcohol that we had brought.

    Haley had already made a deal with Nisa, so the alcohol had already been transported into the Silvermine Family''s warehouse. That was what they had served with dinner tonight.

    They just couldn''t get enough of this alcohol that we brought, but I also had to admit that it was quite good.

    This was a fine brandy that was made with the best grapes aged in an oak cask that gave it a nice sweet taste that had hints of caramel and vani to it.

    If it was one thing that humans were good at, it was definitely making alcohol.

    But¡­it was strange watching them drink since even Nori was drinking.

    Of course it wasn''t a problem since in dwarven culture, she was already an adult.

    Converting dwarven age to human age, Rondo would be someone in his mid twenties already and Nori would be someone in herte teens, so they were both at the age where they could drink.

    It was just the fact that Nori looked like she was five years old that was off putting.

    This time, it wasn''t just me.

    Even the rest of my group looked at Nori with strange looks as we watched her drink.

    It was Ivar who snapped us out of this by suddenly saying, "So, let''s talk a little business while we eat. How much mithril are you looking to buy?"

    When this was said, we had no choice but to focus ourselves and talk business.

    And by that, I meant that I would leave it to Haley while listening carefully.

    Haley calmly set her utensils down and said, "How much are you willing to sell?"

    Ivar raised a brow hearing this before revealing a wide smile to say, "Well, there are certain limitations that we need to follow since it is thew of our Dwarven Kingdom¡­"

    His voice trailed off at this and we couldn''t help feeling a bit disappointed.

    But then he said, "Since it is our Silvermine Family''s territory and the mithril mines that we own, I think that I can give you a bit of leniency in this matter. Of course, it depends on how much you''re willing to offer."

    As long as he was willing to do this, it didn''t matter what the price was.

    After all, as long as they sold the mithril in the human territory, they would be able to earn countless more times the profit.

    Haley just said with a smile, "I''m sure that we can give you a price that will satisfy you."

    Ivar gave a nod before saying, "I noticed that you had other barrels of alcohol in your other carriages. It seemed that you were saving them for something instead of selling them to us?"

    When we heard this, we couldn''t help revealing wry smiles.

    Haley had tried to hide them as best as she could, but she knew that it was impossible to do so and was already expecting this question.

    Not to mention¡­Rondo had been with us when we loaded all of the alcohol, so he should have seen how much we had brought.

    So it wasn''t strange at all to hear this question.

    Haley shook her head as she said, "Of course not."

    Ivar narrowed his eyes to look at her before saying, "Then is it because you thought that our price was too low that you didn''t sell the rest to us?"

    Haley once again shook her head before saying, "It''s not that at all. Lord Silvermine, please don''t misunderstand."

    This was the truth, it wasn''t because of the low price that we didn''t sell the rest to them.

    It was because we had a different use for that alcohol.

    In fact, we didn''t even care about the low price since we had been nning on giving it as a gift, but we felt that it would be too strange to suddenly give thisrge of a gift. So we had sold it to them at below cost price.

    Haley didn''t mind suffering a loss at all as long as she was able to build a rtionship with the Silvermine Family for the mithril.

    Ivar just waved his hand and said, "Don''t give me that lord stuff, I don''t like being addressed in a stuffy manner." After a pause, he continued in a serious voice, "Then can you exin the reason why you didn''t sell it to us?"

    Haley already had a reason, so she wasn''t frazzled by this at all.

    She just calmly said, "Sir Ivar, we didn''t sell it to you because we have another need for that alcohol. I''m sure that you know that we are outsiders in your Dwarven Kingdom, so we were nning on using this alcohol as gifts when we met with other dwarves. That is why we can''t sell this alcohol to you."

    Ivar gave an understanding nod when he heard this.

    Since they hade here on business, naturally they would want to form as many connections as they could.

    That alcohol that they had really was something else, so it was the best way to build connections.

    It seemed that these humans really did have an understanding of the dwarves.

    But it turned out that we had underestimated the allure of this alcohol.

    Ivar suddenly said, "How about I introduce you to a few friends of mine then?"

    Both Haley and I couldn''t help being taken aback when we heard this.

    In the discussions that we had, we had never expected this kind of proposal.

 Chapter 335 Silvermine Family (8)

    <h4>Chapter 335 Silvermine Family (8)</h4>

    Since we didn''t expect it, we weren''t able to react right away and there was an awkward silence that followed.

    But then Haley quickly said, "Sir Ivar, we can''t really put you out like that. It wouldn''t be right since you are our host."

    Though she really wanted to take him up on this offer, Haley had tactfully rejected this offer.

    She knew that if she seemed too eager, it wouldn''t do her any good. So she kept her voice calm and rejected tactfully.

    Ivar was a bit surprised to hear this, but he also had a reason not to back down.

    After all, his precious alcohol was on the line here.

    So Ivar said with a smile, "It''s not a problem at all. I would have to visit these friends anyway, so it''s just bringing you along. I''m sure that with me, it will make it easier for you to build rtionships."

    He had gone beyond just offering help casually, he was even trying to push them into taking his help by telling them how useful his help would be.

    But that was his panic since he thought that he might miss his chance to get more alcohol.

    Haley was surprised by this, but she said, "Well, if it isn''t a problem¡­then we''ll have to trouble Sir Ivar for this matter."

    Ivar''s eyes lit up when he heard this before he gave a loudugh.

    Afterughing for a bit, he said with a wide smile, "It''s not a problem, it''s not a problem at all."

    Then he suddenly said in a sly and tactful manner, "Speaking of which, you''ll be bringing some of that alcohol with you as a gift¡­so I wonder if I can get some of that as a referral fee."

    Both me and Haley suddenly revealed faint smiles when we heard this.

    So that was what he had been aiming for the entire time.

    If he took the initiative to help introduce us to the various important dwarves, we would have to show gratitude in some way. So he was taking the initiative to get what he wanted as a gift of gratitude.

    Haley looked at me and I gave a nod.

    Then she turned back to Ivar and said, "Since Sir Ivar is so gracious to help us like this, naturally we would have to give a gift of gratitude. I''m sure that we can take a bit of the alcohol we were holding as gifts to give to you."

    Ivar''s eyes lit up when he heard this before he gave a cough and said, "Well, then let''s settle this matter there."

    He quickly settled this just in case they were to go back on their word.

    He had done it so quickly that they hadn''t even been able to discuss how much they would be giving him.

    It seemed like dwarves really were crazy about alcohol¡­

    To the side, both Rondo and Nisa looked at Ivar with looks of admiration.

    They hadn''t thought about getting more alcohol like this even though they had also noticed that there was more.

    Only Nori just had a happy smile at the fact that they were getting more alcohol.

    She hadn''t cared about any of this and was just happily enjoying the alcohol, even though it looked morally wrong¡­

    After dinner was over and dessert came, Ivar finally settled in and talked about real business.

    The butler came over with a piece of paper and a pen that he ced in front of Ivar.

    After thinking for a bit, Ivar wrote something on that piece of paper and handed it all back to the butler.

    The butler brought this piece of paper over for Haley and me.

    Haley took it and looked over it before revealing a confused look.

    That was because there was only a number that was on the piece of paper and nothing else.

    This number didn''t make any sense at all since it was just too much for the amount of alcohol that we had. Even if we gave them all of the alcohol that we had left, it wouldn''t be enough to cover this number.

    So we didn''t know what Ivar meant by giving us this number.

    After a moment of silence, Haley asked in a confused voice, "This is¡­?"

    Ivar calmly looked over and said, "This is how much mithril I can sell you."

    As soon as he said this, we quickly turned back to look carefully at the number.

    The others from our group also wanted to look over to see the number, but they couldn''t get out of their seats right now without a good reason.

    So they could only reach their necks out as far as they could for a peek.

    After another moment of silence, Haley couldn''t help asking, "What unit is this in?"

    Ivar revealed a faint smile as he said, "Of course it''s in kilograms. Or are you telling me that you want it in tons?"

    Haley revealed a slightly disappointed look when she heard this and Ivar didn''t miss it.

    With a wider smile, he said, "You actually wanted it in tons? Unfortunately our Dwarven Kingdom doesn''t produce that much mithril ore. Mithril isn''t as abundant as you think."

    Haley gave a nod to show that she understood, but there was still a disappointed look in her eyes.

    Even if the dwarves had the ability to find mithril, that didn''t mean that there was that much mithril in the world to find. So it made sense that this was in kilograms instead of tons.

    But even if it was in kilograms, there was more than enough to make up a few tons, so it wasn''t a small amount.

    Dialing back her disappointment, Haley said, "Then how much are you selling it for? Or rather, what currency or goods do you want for it?"

    She was subtly implying that she would pay alcohol for it, but to our surprise, Ivar actually rejected this by saying, "We''ll trade in gold coins, that''s the easiest way."

    We had really thought that Ivar would want to trade for alcohol, but he exined, "Mithril trade is regted by thew, so we can''t trade as we like. We need to trade in gold coins."

    As soon as we heard this, we understood¡­or rather Haley understood.

    Any form of trade that was regted by thew had some kind of tax associated with it.

    Mithril was one of the important resources of the Dwarven Kingdom, so it made sense that they would want to control it.

    Alcohol would be easily embezzled or even stolen, which would put Ivar in a hard spot when he needed to pay the tax for selling mithril to the Dwarven King. He would either have to properly guard it, costing him quite a bit of resources or he would have to make up for it if it was stolen.

    So gold coins were the easier way to pay even though gold coins had less value in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    But then again, gold coins were easier for them.

    Haley gave a nod before saying, "That''s not a problem, we''ll be happy to pay in gold coins."

    Ivar gave a nod before turning to Nisa who looked at Haley with a smile.

    It seemed that another price negotiation was about to go down.

    In that case, we would leave it to them while Ivar and I enjoyed our dessert.

 Chapter 336 Exploring dwarven society

    <h4>Chapter 336 Exploring dwarven society</h4>

    The next morning, we were surprised by Ivar and Nisa.

    They had prepared a carriage for us to visit Silver City with them.

    They said that it was a sightseeing trip since this was our first time in Silver City, but in reality¡­it was actually a trip to the mithril mines in the guise of a normal trip.

    They didn''t want anyone finding out about the mithril trade until the time came since there would be some dwarves that would be against this.

    But once it happened, it wouldn''t be a problem.

    So for now, it was best if they kept it a secret.

    It seemed like there were troubles that dwarves faced in their own society, but that was just how it worked in any society.

    Sometimes, there were some things where it would be better to hide certain details until the time was right.

    The reason behind this was mainly because of the anti human dwarf factions.

    There weren''t many of them, but there were some dwarves that had strong anti sentiments towards humans.

    They were in the minority in the dwarven society and they epted that humans visited from time to time. However, it was different once a human changed from a guest to a customer.

    They didn''t want humans taking the resources of the dwarves, so they would certainly take action once they learned that humans were here to trade with the dwarves.

    Ivar assured us by saying, "I''ve already sent a message to the Dwarven King. Once he receives it and gives us permission, then there won''t be a problem. No matter how crazy those anti human dwarves are, they wouldn''t dare do anything once the Dwarven King is involved."

    So with this, we were much more assured.

    It was just like Ivar said, all we had to do now was wait for a response from the Dwarven King.

    Since that was the case, it was best to go along with him and see the mines to check the quality of the mithril.

    At the same time, it would do us good to learn more about dwarven society by going sightseeing in the city.

    With this, we set off in the carriages that had been prepared for us.

    The dwarven made carriages were even better than our own carriages, but that wasn''t surprising since they were better at forging in the first ce. It wasn''t strange that they would be able to make better carriages than human cksmiths.

    After leaving the Silvermine Family manor, we headed to the most popted business street in Silver City.

    Since it was early in the morning, there were many dwarves that were out and about minding their own business.

    When they saw the carriage though, many of them made way for it since they recognized the Silvermine Family''s symbol on the carriage.

    It wasn''t that they moved out of the way because they were scared, but because they respected it. This was made very clear by the look on their faces as they moved aside.

    There were many of them that even hung around as if they were waiting for the Silvermine Family members toe out of the carriage.

    Since they were here to sightsee in the city, naturally they had toe out and put on a show.

    So the carriage stopped on this street and they came out.

    The moment that they did, there were plenty of dwarves that came forward to greet Ivar and Nisa.

    Even though they could be considered nobles, it seemed like they didn''t have the same mentality as human nobles.

    They talked with themoners like there was no difference between them.

    It seemed that quite a fewmoners were actually close to Ivar and Nisa.

    Since they saw that we hade with the Silvermine couple, they were also friendly towards us.

    Everyone was led away by other dwarves and we wandered around this business street.

    Since this was a dwarven city, most of the shops here were forges as expected.

    The cksmiths hammering on their anvils created quite the sound that rang out through the city, but it gave the city quite the lively appearance.

    Of course, it wasn''t just forges that were in the city.

    There were plenty of things that people needed and forges alone wouldn''t be enough to provide.

    They were also general stores and stores for other products.

    Haley was walking around with a few dwarf housewives, but as they were walking around¡­all I could think of was a mother and her children¡­

    Still, the things that they talked about were quite interesting.

    "Eh? You have all those interesting things in your human countries? I wish we had that too, but we just don''t have enough merchants going out and buying things."

    "Right? I tried buying the scented soap from the store the other day, but they told me that they were all out. When I asked when they would have it again, they told me that it would take at least three months before they could get it in stock again."

    "Three months? How does it take that long? I was looking forward to buying some."

    While it seemed like idle talk between the housewives, it was actually a jackpot of information for Haley.

    The idle talk between these housewives told her all about what kind of products they wanted, giving her an idea of what to trade with the dwarves in the future.

    Since we would be introduced to the other dwarven lords through Ivar and would be trading with them in the future, it was a good idea to know what the dwarves were willing to buy.

    Haley was just preparing for what we needed to do.

    And I viewed this as a very important venture.

    After all, the rtionship that we built with the dwarves would be very important.

    If anything happened and we needed to run, this would be a very good ce toe to.

    So I fully supported her doing business here.

    But as I looked around, I couldn''t help feeling that dwarves really were the same as humans in terms of society.

    They lived the same lives, but it was just that they were dwarves that people regarded it as something different.

    If one day everyone could live in harmony¡­that would be great.

 Chapter 337 Mithril mines (1)

    After doing a bit of shopping and gathering information, it was time to visit the mines.

    The visit would be an official visit to see the mines and experience what dwarven mining was like, but in reality they were going there to inspect the ores and finish the deal.

    When they arrived, there wasn''t anyone that came out to greet them.

    All of the dwarves just continued to work like they didn''t even notice anyoneing, but Ivar didn''t mind at all.

    Ivar led the group like this was his home as he came up to one of the main tunnels.

    There was a group of dwarves discussing something when they came over and the dwarves didn''t mind them at all as they kept discussing their matters. However, Ivar just stopped and waited for them to finish.

    In human society, this would be impossible.

    If a noble was made to wait like this, this would be considered an insult to the noble and that person who made them wait might even be executed.

    But it was different in the dwarven society.

    Ivar was even happily willing to wait.

    Once the dwarves had finished, the one that had been in charge of the meeting turned in their direction.

    When this dwarf saw Ivar, he couldn''t help revealing a surprised look beforeing over.

    Raising one hand, he waved at him as he said, "Yo, big brother, what are you doing here?"

    Ivar revealed an awkward smile before saying, "Varric, we have guests."

    The dwarf Ivar called Varric looked over at us before revealing a surprised look and saying, "Eh, isn''t this a bunch of humans? What are they doing here?"

    Ivar put his head in his hand and shook his head with a sigh before saying, "I knew that you wouldn''t read my message. I even made sure to have them tell you to read it, but it seems like you still ignored it."

    As he said this, the dwarves that had been walking away couldn''t help stopping before walking away again.

    But this time, they had awkward looks on their faces.

    It was clear that they knew what Ivar was talking about.

    After muttering this to himself, Ivar looked up and said, "Varric, I told you that I would be bringing some guests over today. They are here to inspect the mithril mines.

    Varric just gave a nod before saying, "Big brother, did you review the proposal that I sent you?"

    Hepletely ignored us and just went on to talk about what he wanted to talk about.

    Ivar revealed a bitter smile before saying, "I already reviewed it, but I can''t agree to it."

    Varric''s expression immediately fell. It had been filled with excitement before, but now it was just filled with despair as he said, "Why not? It''s clearly the most efficient way to mine for more mithril. You should know that¡­"

    He was about to say something, but then he remembered that we were here and stopped himself.

    But the look in his eyes made it clear that there was some kind of problem.

    Ivar knitted his brows when he heard this, but then he said, "Even if that''s the case, this isn''t something that can be decided that easily. We need to consider the cost and the difficulty associated with doing something like this. This isn''t something that could be done that easily."

    Varric had a clear unhappy expression on his face, but there was nothing he could say since he knew that Ivar was right.

    But then he remembered something.

    He turned to look at us and his expression underwent a strange change.

    He looked at us with a strange look at first, but then it slowly changed into a weird looking smile that made us feel ufortable.

    Finally, Varric turned back to say, "There are these humans here. Can''t you just get them to help us with this?"

    Ivar was taken aback by this sudden suggestion by Varric, but then he looked like he was considering it.

    Seeing the look on his face, Varric kept pushing by saying, "You must have brought them here for a reason. They must be humans that we can trust if you''re even willing to bring them here. So why not get them to help us with this matter?"

    Ivar''s expression looked like he was about to give in more and more when he heard this.

    He knew that Varric was right, so in the end¡­he said with a sigh, "I can''t guarantee anything, but I can try asking them."

    Varric''s eyes lit up before turning over to ask, "Do you humans know something about st crystals?"

    I revealed a confused look when hearing this and turned to look at Haley, but she also shook her head to show that she didn''t know anything about this.

    In the end, it was Shaka who gave a sigh and said, "How do you know about this?"

    Both Varric and Ivar were confused when they heard this before Varric said, "It was something that our king told us about."

    Shaka shook his head again before saying with a sigh, "This is a new discovery by the Magicians Tower, something that very few people know about. Even our country is only able to get a few of these things."

    I looked at Shaka with a strange look, but he gave a shrug before giving me a look not to ask more and that he would exinter.

    Varric and Ivar knitted their brows when they heard this.

    But I couldn''t help asking, "Is this really something that you should be discussing out here? Isn''t this something important?"

    Ivar revealed a confused look before suddenly looking like he understood something and saying, "Oh, you don''t have to worry about Varric, he''s not an outsider."

    He turned to look at Varric before saying, "This is my little brother, Varric Silvermine."

    "Huh?"

    We all couldn''t help being surprised by this because the two of them¡­didn''t look like brothers at all!

 Chapter 338 Mithril mines (2)

    <h4>Chapter 338 Mithril mines (2)</h4>

    They both saw the looks of shock that they were receiving before revealing bitter smiles.

    Varric was the one that said first, "We don''t look alike at all, right? I''m the more handsome one."

    Ivar gave a snort before saying, "And yet you''re still single."

    Varric just calmly said, "I have more important things to do, like my job. I live for my job, so I don''t have time to start a family."

    Ivar gave a sigh when he heard this before saying, "When are you going to grow up? Mother and father are both worried about you not having anyone at your age. You should know that you can''t keep this up anymore. In fact, I actually have a few marriage proposals for you here."

    Varric''s face twisted before he said while shaking his head, "I''m good, I don''t need any of those. You can just throw it away."

    Ivar shook his head as he said, "You can''t just run away from them forever. How about you just take a look?"

    Varric''s face turned uglier as he said, "You really don''t find anything wrong with them?"

    Ivar raised a brow in confusion, but he didn''t say anything.

    Varric then said with a sigh, "They all look like human children, don''t you find that disturbing? It''s strange how everyone''s just ok with it, but it feels wrong to me."

    Everyone was surprised by what Varric said, but me especially.

    It almost seemed like his experience was simr to mine¡­

    Could it be that he was also¡­

    But if he was, then what did that mean?

    Still, the chance that there was another reincarnator was something that I couldn''t give up.

    If he was one, then he could be a very important ally in the future.

    So while they were talking, I came forward and said, "If you think that''s bad, then you should see the Lost Dominion."

    In a way, this was my way of being cryptic.

    That was because this was a line that anyone from my old world wouldn''t be able to ignore.

    After all, that was the name of the game this world was based on.

    Varric and Ivar both revealed confused looks when they heard this which I couldn''t help feeling a bit disappointed by.

    In the end, it turned out that Varric wasn''t a reincarnator like me.

    He was just nothing more than an anomaly that found his own situation strange.

    To put it in simple words, he was just a dwarf that had a different taste than everyone else.

    So I couldn''t help feeling a bit disappointed in this, but there were other things to take care of.

    After they had finished discussing this, they turned back to Shaka to see what he was going to say.

    Shaka gave a sigh before saying, "It''s possible for us to get some, but that depends on what you''re willing to offer."

    When he heard this, Varric''s eyes lit up when he heard this.

    Varric turned to Ivar and said, "Big brother, this is our chance. If we can get those things from the humans, it''ll be much easier for us to mine ''that'' out."

    Ivar gave a sigh before asking. "What are you looking for?"

    Shaka just gave a nod and said, "Mithril."

    Ivar couldn''t help being surprised when he heard this, but he shook his head before saying, "Unfortunately, we cannot give you any more mithril. Is there anything else that you will take?"

    Shaka looked like he had to think about it for a bit before suddenly saying, "Gold, silver, and iron."

    Ivar couldn''t help being taken aback again when he heard this.

    He slowly asked, "Are you sure?"

    Shaka gave a firm nod in response to this.

    Ivar looked at him with aplicated look before saying, "Thank you."

    Shaka didn''t say anything in response to this.

    I couldn''t help pulling Shaka aside to question him about this after he had made a deal.

    As soon as we went to the side, I suddenly asked, "Are you sure that you can promise something like this? Didn''t you say that it was a special thing that even the country couldn''t get much of? How are you nning on getting this?"

    Shaka revealed a smile as he said, "Who do you think is backing you? As long as that person gets involved, it isn''t a problem to get those st Crystals that they want."

    The one backing us?

    Oh, right, there was the king behind us involved in this deal.

    If the king was involved, then it would be no problem for us to get these st Crystals.

    But would just these ores be enough to move the king?

    Seeing the look on my face, Shaka could guess what I was thinking, so he said, "You''d be surprised by the situation of our country. Theck of ore is appalling and the equipment of the army is worse than you''d think."

    I couldn''t help revealing a worried look when I heard this.

    If that was the case, weren''t we in danger of being invaded by the surrounding countries.

    Seeing the look on my face, Shaka could once again guess what I was thinking.

    He said with a sigh, "For now, we have a stalemate with the surrounding countries and they don''t dare invade us. It''s mainly the work of our Shadow Garden organization that has kept them at bay."

    I felt a bit confused after hearing this.

    After all, in the future in the game, the Shadow Garden organization was doomed to be destroyed, but there weren''t any invasions.

    In fact, one of the main quest lines even involved getting with the princess and ruling over the kingdom, though they didn''t show what happened after that ending.

    So could it be that the ending was darker than I thought.

    There were many questions that filled my mind, but I shook those questions out as I said, "Alright, since you''re certain that it''ll work, I''ll leave it to you."

    Shaka just gave a firm nod when he heard this.

 Chapter 339 Mithril mines (3)

    <h4>Chapter 339 Mithril mines (3)</h4>

    Since the matter had been settled, we went back over to the rest of the group.

    Ivar and Varric were looking at us with strange looks, but I said, "It should be fine. We''ll have to talk to someone about this, but we should be able to get the st crystals that you were asking for."

    To my surprise, there wasn''t any doubt at all in their eyes as they looked at me.

    Normally in situations like this, one would at least feel a bit doubtful over something like this since I had said it in such an uncertain way. But these two didn''t seem to have any doubts at all, leaving it all up to me.

    It was touching in a way.

    But then again, this was just how the dwarves were in the first ce.

    They were a bit rough around the edges, but they were direct like this.

    It was just how they were and it wasn''t a bad thing.

    Sometimes being direct like this was better than beating around the bush.

    Since they put their faith in me, I just said, "I''ll try to get the good news as soon as possible."

    There were some other things that I had wanted to ask, but I held myself back in the end. After all, it was clear that this involved some kind of secret that they didn''t want others knowing about.

    In that case, out of respect for them and for the sake of our friendship, I would hold myself back.

    With this matter settled, Varric finally asked, "So what did you alle here for?"

    Ivar gave a sigh before saying, "We came here for a tour of the mine."

    But after saying this, he leaned in to whisper something to Varric.

    Varric narrowed his eyes when he heard this and hisplete tone changed.

    He had gone from an excitable person to someone that was serious and shouldn''t be underestimated.

    It could be said that he had gone from a collector to a boss.

    After bing serious, he looked at us for a bit before waving his hand and saying, "Come on then, I''ll show you around."

    With that, he headed into the mines without even caring whether we were following or not.

    Ivar revealed a bitter smile, but he led us forward, following behind Varric.

    As we went through the mines, Varric didn''t say a thing to us, but he did have plenty to say to the dwarves around us.

    All of the dwarves that we passed seemed to have something that they had to bring up with Varric and he dealt with them as he led us deeper into the mine.

    From the fragments that we could hear, it was clear that Varric was the boss here.

    But for a member of the Silvermine Family to personally run this mine, this seemed a bit¡­

    Seeing the look on our faces, ivar filled in the context.

    "It''s what he enjoys doing, so we let him do it. He likes working with the ores and personally extracting them from the ground, so why not let him run the mines?"

    It seemed that it was the whim of a wealthy person.

    His family was rich and they didn''t need him, so he just did what he wanted to do.

    They found him a ce that he wanted to be in and left him there.

    He wasn''t the family head, so it wasn''t as if he was needed in the main manor. So he was the free willed second son that just did whatever he wanted.

    Plus with the fact that he didn''t want to get married, it really fitted the stereotype from my old world¡­

    Finally after walking for a while, we reached the depths of the mine where mithril was being mined out.

    When we reached the vein, Varric finally turned back to say with a wide smile, "This is the product that you''ll be buying."

    I didn''t really react, but the rest of my group did.

    They all looked at the mithril with strangeplicated looks while also having a trace of shock in their eyes.

    It was clear that there was something abnormal about this mithril.

    After a long silence, Haley slowly muttered, "This quality¡­it''s better than anything that I''ve heard of before."

    Quality?

    I took a closer look at the mithril and realized that it was much more silverpared to normal, showing that it was a higher quality of mithril.

    But for someone like me who had already seen things like adamantium, mithril really was just a mid tier ore for me. It didn''t matter what the quality of the ore was since it was just too low grade for me to get excited about.

    But when Varric heard what Haley said, he revealed a satisfied look before saying, "So, what are you willing to pay for it?"

    No one said a thing in response to this, but Varric didn''t mind as he changed his way of speaking.

    Varric calmly said, "I''ve heard that you brought good alcohol with you this time."

    Ivar knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "Varric, this¡­"

    Varric raised a hand to cut him off before saying, "Big brother, we''re just talking about buying alcohol from them. They will pay in gold coins and then we''ll buy alcohol from them."

    Ivar was about to say something, but then he seemed to realize something.

    That was right, it didn''t matter if they bought alcohol with the gold coins afterwards. As long as they paid after receiving the gold coins and there was a proper paper trail, there would be no suspicion of embezzlement at all.

    Of course, this would create more work for the humans, but¡­for the sake of his alcohol, he could only endure and push this onto them.

    After he thought this through, he turned to look at Haley who had alsoe back to her senses.

    She said with a smile, "Of course, it''s not a problem for us."

    Both Varric and Ivar revealed wide smiles hearing this.

 Chapter 340 Sudden summons

    <h4>Chapter 340 Sudden summons</h4>

    I just left the matter of negotiating to Haley, but they weren''t done here either.

    Ivar would bring this idea back to Nisa and she would take care of the negotiating.

    When Nisa was brought up, even Varric couldn''t help revealing a look that had a trace of fear in it.

    It seemed that in the Silvermine Family, Nisa was a name that really invoked fear.

    I would have to make sure that I don''t offend her in the future or else I would definitely suffer at her hands¡­

    Since we knew what we were buying, there was nothing left for us to do here.

    In fact, almost everyone in our group wanted to go back as soon as possible to discuss this matter. They all looked like they wanted to grab the mithril right then and there and stuff it in their pockets.

    Of course, they would never actually do something like that.

    They at least had this restraint.

    But Ivar also wanted to head back to the manor to discuss this since it was also a matter of alcohol for him.

    With the new direction that Varric gave him, he would be able to secure a long term source of alcohol for him and his family. So of course he wanted to make sure that this happened as soon as possible.

    Like this, we headed back to the Silvermine Manor, albeit Varric didn''t follow us.

    He just simply said, "I still have work to do here, so I''ll drop by when I can."

    Ivar gave a nod in response to this and left Varric to his thing.

    It seemed that the rtionship between the two brothers was quite good. It seemed that they were both happy with what they were doing and they didn''t care about who the head of the family was.

    This was always a good thing to see.

    After all, if there was a bad rtionship between the members of a noble family¡­it was very likely that one would betray the other.

    Since they were our potential trade partners, I wouldn''t want to see this.

    I wanted them to be as stable as they could be so that we could continue a long rtionship.

    When we arrived back at the manor, it didn''t go as we had expected.

    As soon as we arrived, Nisa came over with a worried look and a letter in her hand.

    When Ivar saw this, he didn''t ask what was wrong and just took the letter from her hand. This was the trust that had been formed between them over many years of marriage.

    Unless it was something very important, he knew that she wouldn''t act this way.

    As he read the letter, his brows knit more and more and his expression became uglier.

    Once he finished reading the letter, he looked up at me with a strange look.

    I didn''t understand why he was looking at me with this strange look on his face, but it was clear that this wasn''t a good look.

    So I just waited to see what he had to say.

    Ivar looked at me in silence for a bit before suddenly asking, "Have you ever met our king before?"

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this.

    The Dwarven King?

    Naturally I had never met this important figure before, so why was Ivar asking me about this?

    I just slowly shook my head before waiting for Ivar to exin.

    However, all Ivar did was keep looking at me with that same strange look in silence for a while.

    Finally, he took a deep breath and asked, "Are you sure?"

    I was even more surprised after hearing this and this time gave a nod to show that I was sure.

    Ivar looked down at the letter before saying, "This letter is saying that our king wants to meet all of you and me. He is summoning us to the capital to meet him."

    "Huh?"

    All of us said in a shocked voice as we looked at Ivar with looks of disbelief.

    The Dwarven King was the ruler of the Dwarven Kingdom and he was now summoning us to the capital to meet him?

    No matter how one looked at it, this didn''t seem like a good thing.

    This seemed like we were being called in for punishment or for something else bad.

    But what had we done to offend the Dwarven King?

    I looked at Ivar and asked, "Do you know why he''s calling us in?"

    Ivar shook his head before saying, "I think that should be my line for you¡­"

    All of us just stood there in silence, not knowing how to respond to this.

    In the end, Ivar couldn''t help saying, "Is it because of the mithril trade¡­"

    At this, all of us revealed looks of understanding.

    If it really was because of the mithril trade, then that would make sense.

    After all, Ivar had suddenly sent a letter asking to trade mithril with humans.

    Even if he was a dwarven lord and this mithril was from the mine that he owned, it was still a precious resource and it wouldn''t be strange if the king was worried about it falling into the hands of the humans.

    After another long silence, Ivar finally said, "It seems like we''ll have to take a trip to the capital and I''ll have to ask you toe with me."

    I just slowly gave a nod.

    Even if I didn''t want to go, it wasn''t as if I had a choice.

    After all, we were currently in the middle of the dwarves'' territory. Even if we wanted to run away, it wasn''t as if we could escape with all of the dwarves watching the border.

    If we tried to escape, it would just make things worse.

    We would have no choice but to meet with the Dwarven King.

    Ivar gave a nod in response to my nod before saying, "We''ll set off tomorrow morning then. I''ll need all of you toe with me."

 Chapter 341 Dwarven Kingdom capital

    <h4>Chapter 341 Dwarven Kingdom capital</h4>

    After another banquet filled with alcohol, they rested up and woke up early in the morning to get ready to head to the Dwarven Kingdom capital to see the Dwarven King.

    Ivar had said that he wanted to forget his troubles and enjoy the good alcohol while he could that he binge drunk that much.

    For any normal human, that would have been an amount that was enough to cause liver failure.

    However, for a dwarf like Ivar, he wasn''t even hungover the next morning.

    I really had to admire the dwarf''s tolerance for alcohol.

    As for the rest of us¡­we were not just a bit hungover.

    Ivar dragged the rest of us into drinking with him, so we had to drink with him.

    Drinking with a dwarf really was a fight to the death since he didn''t know when to stop and he was never truly drunk. As long as there was enough alcohol, he would drink until it was all gone.

    So for humans with their limited liver capacities, they would never be able to win.

    We werepletely suffering from our hangovers¡­

    It was just a good thing that it would take at least two days to arrive in the Dwarven Kingdom capital.

    At least that gave us enough time to recover.

    At the same time, that would give us some time toe up with a n on how to handle the Dwarven King.

    He had suddenly summoned us like this, it was clearly not for a good reason.

    But regardless of what his reason was, we needed toe up with a way to handle him.

    As such, even if we were hungover, we started grilling Ivar for information on the Dwarven King.

    Ivar was taken aback by the questions that we had, but he answered them in the end.

    In fact, it was surprising how he didn''t hold back at all in answering our questions.

    Normally, information like this would be considered national secrets.

    With this information, one could influence the ruler of a nation which was considered a matter of national security. So information like this normally wouldn''t be spread that easily and only known by those close to the ruler.

    And yet¡­Ivar was just telling us everything without hesitation.

    It really made one give a sigh at how rough and forward the dwarves were.

    But this time, we had no choice but to take advantage of this.

    After all, our lives might be at stake here.

    ¡­

    In the end, it took four days for us to arrive in the Dwarven Kingdom capital.

    It might have been sooner, but we decided to take our time and explore the cities along the way.

    Haley was the one that proposed this since she wanted to gain information on the various dwarven cities for the future and Ivar agreed to this. Though his reasons for agreeing were just as sly as Haley''s reason.

    He was scared of what was waiting for them in the capital, so he had wanted to dy their arrival as much as possible.

    During this time, Ivar had introduced Haley to quite a few of the lords in the cities that they passed which also earned him quite a bit of alcohol.

    We still had the deal where if he introduced us to the different dwarven lords, we would give him a referral fee. So he looked quite happy as he introduced us to all of the dwarven lords.

    The dwarven lords were happy too since they were happy to receive all of this human alcohol as a gift.

    But when we reached the capital, we had grim looks on our faces.

    It almost looked like we were marching off to our execution instead of heading to the most prosperous city in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Though in truth¡­this meeting with the Dwarven King was like an execution since we had no idea what it was about.

    Since we were apanied by Ivar, it was easy for us to enter the city.

    The dwarves didn''t have strict checks like humans did and they just simply checked the carriages before letting us pass.

    Or at least that would have been the case if they didn''t stop us again.

    When they saw that it was Ivar that was with us, they immediately stopped us and had us wait until the captain of the guards came.

    When this captain of the guards came, he gave a respectful bow to Ivar before saying, "Lord Silvermine, if you woulde with us. His majesty had already informed us of your arrival and told us to escort you and your guests to the pce."

    We couldn''t help revealing bitter smiles when we heard this.

    Escort¡­it was more like we were being captured by them.

    But there wasn''t anything that we could do since we were surrounded by them.

    It was as if he was scared that we would run away, so the captain of the guards had already brought a bunch of his men with him.

    It was as if he wasn''t even bothering hiding his intentions.

    So the only thing that they could do was let themselves be ''escorted'' by these guards.

    As they walked through the streets of the dwarven capital, they were impressed by all that they saw.

    It wasn''t just the forges that were all around that impressed them, but also how prosperous this ce was. There were plenty of other products that were also being sold and all the dwarves on the streets looked fed and strong.

    It was clear that the Dwarven Kingdom didn''t suffer.

    But then again, how would they when they had all those resources to trade with.

    There was nock of countries that would want to buy ores from the dwarves, so they would always have plenty of trading partners to get food and other resources from.

    So no matter how one looked at it, it wouldn''t be possible for the Dwarven Kingdom to be weak.

    If only there wasn''t the problem of having to deal with the Dwarven King¡­

 Chapter 342 Audience with the Dwarven King

    <h4>Chapter 342 Audience with the Dwarven King</h4>

    They were quickly led through the capital and to the pce in the center.

    This was a pce that could be seen from far away with how big it was, but it almost seemed wrong to call this ce a pce.

    That was because¡­it looked more like a fortress rather than a pce.

    This was a building that was madepletely of hard ores.

    Instead of being aplete building, it was a mishmash building that had different parts to it.

    There were several different buildings that were made of different ores that all seemed to be put together to form onerge fortress.

    But there was no doubt that this was a powerful fortress with the different ores that it was made of.

    Iron, cold steel, and even mithril.

    These were all powerful metals that only the dwarves would be able to bring out inrge amounts like this because of their natural ability to find metal.

    If this was ced in a human country, it would be ripped to pieces in an instant to be scrapped for all kinds of different things. That was just howcking in ores the human countries were.

    Or at least that was what Shaka told me.

    He had been looking at this fortress with a look of regret and amazement after seeing it.

    It was clear that he was thinking about the forces of our kingdom and theirck of proper equipment.

    After arriving in the fortress, we were led right to the throne room by the captain of the guards.

    When we arrived in the throne room, we found that there were many dwarves that were gathered. However, they were not gathered because of us¡­they were gathered because they were discussing the issues of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    "The humans to the south tried to infiltrate and steal some of the iron from our mines."

    "There''s an infestation of mine bats to the west that''s been giving us quite a bit of trouble."

    "I heard that the breaddy on third street came out with a new recipe, want to try itter?"

    Thest one didn''t seem rted to the Dwarven Kingdom, but the rest were all important matters for the Dwarven Kingdom. These things normally wouldn''t be told to outsiders, but they had no problem discussing it even though they saw us enter.

    Humans to the south¡­luckily that wasn''t us.

    Our kingdom was to the north of the Dwarven Kingdom, so they shouldn''t be talking about us.

    But since they were talking about humans, would that sentiment spread to us?

    I couldn''t help being worried as we were led in.

    Once we fully entered the throne room and stood in front of everyone, the dwarves inside stopped talking and turned to look at us.

    There was one gruff looking dwarf who was sitting right on the throne in the center of this room. He had been sitting there with a bored look on his face as he put his cheek on his left hand.

    With the way that he was sitting, it almost looked like he was dozing off.

    But when he saw us enter, his eyes immediately lit up and opened wide.

    Even though they had already stopped talking, he still raised a hand as if he was stopping them before looking at us to say, "V, are these the ones?"

    The captain of the guard gave a nod before saying, "Your majesty, these are the humans that you requested." Then as if it was an afterthought, he added, "Lord Silvermine is also here."

    The Dwarven King gave a nod, but it was clear that he was more interested in us than in Ivar.

    I didn''t know what to do at first, but then Haley suddenly gave a bow and said, "Your majesty, it is an honour to meet you."

    The rest of our group also did the same except for me who reacted a bit slow, but I quickly followed them and bowed to the Dwarven King.

    The Dwarven King just waved his hand and said, "There''s no need for any of that. We don''t like that kind of formality here."

    All of us slowly stood up again with awkward smiles on our faces.

    We knew that, but he was still a king¡­so at the very least, we should show a bit of respect.

    The Dwarven King just ignored the awkward looks that we had and said, "I heard that one of you was quite good at forging. That you had techniques that even we didn''t have."

    When the other dwarves in this room heard this, they couldn''t help revealing surprised expressions before turning to look at us with curious looks. It was as if they were trying to find the person that the Dwarven King was talking about.

    But I couldn''t help being surprised to hear this.

    How did the Dwarven King know about all of this?

    The Dwarven King saw that none of us answered, so he slightly knitted his brows as he said, "Did that one note with you? I heard Dorin mention that this was a person that used techniques that we had never seen before and that it was much better than anything we currently have."

    At this, the dwarves in the room couldn''t help slightly knitting their brows as apetitive look appeared in their eyes.

    At the same time, there was a bit of displeasure that also appeared.

    Better than anything they currently had?

    Wasn''t that an insult to them?

    Saying that a human could forge better than them, this was like a p to their face.

    Sensing that the atmosphere in this throne room was bing strange, I quickly stepped out and said, "Your majesty, that is me."

    Dorin¡­that was the name of the captain of the guards at the border.

    So it was all because of him that we had been summoned like this.

    The Dwarven King raised a brow to look at me when I stepped out, almost as if he was doubtful of this.

    But then he said with a wide smile, "Alright, have a forging duel with me."

 Chapter 343 Shameless Dwarven King (1)

    <h4>Chapter 343 Shameless Dwarven King (1)</h4>

    The moment that the Dwarven King said this, everyone looked at him in shock.

    But the Dwarven King didn''t care about any of this as he looked at me with an excited look.

    After a long time, the dwarves on the side said, "Your majesty, this¡­this is¡­"

    They were scrambling for a way to convince the Dwarven King out of this, but it was clear by the look on his face that he was already determined to do this. It didn''t seem like anyone would be able to convince him out of this.

    So many of them couldn''t help turning to look at me with res that also were asking for help.

    The only way that this situation can be resolved without any issues was if I rejected this duel and made the Dwarven King give up.

    Of course, I didn''t mind going along with them since I didn''t want to get involved in this matter in the first ce.

    A forging duel with the Dwarven King, that seemed like trouble no matter how one looked at it.

    This was definitely not something that I would agree to.

    So I gave a cough before calmly saying, "Your majesty, I don''t think there''s a need for this, right? If it was known that someone in an important position as yourself was doing something like this, I''m sure that it would be hard for you."

    I tried using his position to put a bit of pressure on him to make him give up this idea.

    But of course, if I just threatened him like this, it would leave a bad impression on him.

    So I added, "If you wish to discuss forging, I would be more than happy to discuss this with you. We don''t need to¡­"

    Before I could finish, the Dwarven King mmed his fist onto the seat of his throne and said, "No, I want to have a forging duel! That is the best way for me to see your abilities!"

    "Eh?" I couldn''t help letting slip as he said this.

    This Dwarven King¡­was acting like a child.

    He was throwing a tantrum just because he wasn''t able to get what he wanted¡­

    Was this Dwarven Kingdom really alright with a king like this ruling over them?

    No matter how one looked at it, it seemed like the Dwarven Kingdom would be in danger like this.

    From the awkward looks on the faces of Ivar and the other dwarves, it seemed like they suffered their fair shares of trouble having to deal with this kind of king.

    But in the end, the dwarves on the side came to my rescue by saying, "Your majesty, you can''t be selfish like this."

    "A forging duel is a matter of prestige and as our king, you can''t just challenge someone to a forging duel that easily."

    "How about we just take a step back and talk this out?"

    The Dwarven King mmed his fist down again before saying, "I don''t want to."

    Was the Dwarven Kingdom really going to be alright with such a willful ruler?

    The Dwarven King seemed annoyed, but there was a glow in his eyes as he looked at me.

    Finally, he revealed a smile as he turned to Ivar to say, "Ivar, didn''t you send in a request to sell mithril to these humans a few days ago?"

    When Ivar heard this, he couldn''t help revealing a slightly confused look, but he still gave a slow nod in the end.

    The Dwarven King revealed a sly look as he said, "Then I''ll deny this request right away."

    The moment that he said this, everyone revealed shocked looks since this was the first time that something like this had happened.

    The mithril mines under the Silvermine Family were private property, so asking the Dwarven King for permission was a formality in the first ce. In this case, the Dwarven King would have approved of this request without even looking at the details.

    But now he was going through the trouble of denying this request in front of everyone like this.

    It was clear that he was trying to cause trouble or looking to gain something.

    After letting his words sink in, the Dwarven King said, "That is unless this human has a forging duel with me."

    When everyone heard this, they understood what the Dwarven King was trying to do.

    He was using this request as a method of threatening them¡­but the dwarves in the room wouldn''t have any of this.

    "Your majesty, you should know what the consequences of doing this are."

    "If you really do something like this, it will set a precedent and then there will be others who will take advantage of this."

    "At the same time, if you set this precedent, there will be countless people trying to take advantage of this."

    "This is the one thing that you cannot do."

    Facing the pressure of all of these dwarves, the Dwarven King had no choice but to back down.

    He might have acted tough earlier, but that was because he knew that these dwarves were willing to y along with him. Now that they were acting this way, he knew that they wouldn''t budge no matter how stubborn he acted.

    So he had no choice but to take a step back and figure out another way of doing this.

    "Alright, alright." The Dwarven King said while raising his hand to calm them down.

    Once they all settled, he said, "I won''t do something like this. It''s an abuse of power and not something that I would do in the first ce."

    All of them looked at the Dwarven King with looks of doubts that really hurt him, but he ignored them as he said, "But I think that there''s something that the human wants more."

    He turned back to look at me before saying, "If you beat me in a forging duel, I''ll double the limit of mithril that you can buy from Ivar."

 Chapter 344 Shameless Dwarven King (2)

    <h4>Chapter 344 Shameless Dwarven King (2)</h4>

    "Eh?"

    That wasn''t just my response, but also the response of the dwarves all around the throne room.

    They all looked at the Dwarven King with surprised looks when he suggested this.

    At first, they didn''t know what to say in response to this, but then they still said, "Your majesty, you can''t do something like this."

    The Dwarven King immediately swept his eyes across them and said, "Why not?"

    The dwarves were caught off guard by this sudden statement from the Dwarven King.

    Why not?

    They actually couldn''t think of a reason why he shouldn''t approve of such a thing.

    After all, if he did beat the Dwarven King, one of the best cksmiths in their Dwarven Kingdom, they really couldn''t say that it would be a waste to sell him this mithril. If he wasn''t able to properly use this mithril, then there was no one that would be able to.

    But to give this much mithril to a human just seemed wrong by nature to them that they couldn''t help rejecting it.

    At the same time¡­there was the matter of what he would do with it.

    It was impossible for a single human to use all of this mithril that he was buying, so it was clear that this mithril wouldn''t just be for him to use. It would most likely be for whatever country that he represented.

    Giving a human country mithril¡­was not a good thing.

    First, it would be a waste of mithril since those human countries wouldn''t be able to use the mithril properly.

    Second, giving humans mithril would just make them stronger which was a matter of national threat.

    The dwarves that were gathered in this throne room were all people that had important positions in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    They needed to care about the entire Dwarven Kingdom and not just what their king wanted, so they couldn''t let this matter of national security go.

    They all seemed like they wanted to say something, but I suddenly said, "I have no need for that much mithril in the first ce. Even if I wanted to buy that much, there is nothing that I could do with it."

    As I said this, I could feel the disappointmenting from the ones behind me.

    It was clear that they wanted to take as much mithril as possible with us, but I knew that all that would cause is a bunch of trouble.

    Sometimes, too much of a good thing wasn''t a good thing at all.

    Sometimes, too much of a good thing would just bring trouble.

    Mithril was something that every human wanted since it was a legendary metal, so if people knew that we had arge amount of it¡­

    I was not someone that was overly ambitious.

    I knew that it was best to just have what I could get.

    The Dwarven King couldn''t help being taken aback when he heard this.

    He had thought that this would be enough to move the human into having a forging duel with him, so he never expected the human to actually turn him down.

    This made the Dwarven King very awkward since he hadn''t thought about what to do if the human did turn him down.

    After thinking about it for a bit, the Dwarven King suddenly said, "What if I also throw in trade deals for copper, iron, cold steel, and other metals?"

    The moment that he said this, silence filled the room as everyone looked at him with shock. The looks on their faces made it seem like they couldn''t believe what he was saying.

    Before I was even able to say a thing, the dwarves immediately started trying to persuade the Dwarven King against this.

    But the Dwarven King raised his hand and said to us, "If you would excuse us for a second. I wish to talk to my people for a bit."

    This was their territory, so they could kick us out whenever they wanted.

    Not to mention, since he was being this polite to us, we had no reason not to agree with this request.

    So V, the captain of the guards, led us out of the throne room and watched over us while the Dwarven King and the minister dwarves talked.

    After a few minutes, we were led back into the throne room.

    However, this time the dwarves looked much more pacified.

    I didn''t know what had happened during this time, but it seemed like the Dwarven King had been able to talk down the dwarven ministers.

    The Dwarven King looked at me with a smile and said, "So how about it, will you have a forging duel with me? I''ll offer you twice the mithril and the trade deals for all of the other metals."

    I just gave a sigh when I heard this.

    When we had been outside of the room while they were having their secret talk, we also had a secret talk.

    We moved away from V before the rest of my group started scolding me for not taking this deal.

    The mithril deal was one thing, but the deal for the other ores was something that we couldn''t turn down.

    The one that had the mostpelling argument was Shaka.

    Ores was the one thing that our countrycked and our troops were ill supplied because of it.

    If I obtained this ore deal, there was no doubt that the king would get involved in this matter. Once he did, I could be certain that I would receive a new title and rewards because of this.

    I didn''t really care about the title and rewards, but the matter of the country''s defenses was something that I cared about.

    After all, a safe kingdom meant a peaceful life¡­so I should at least contribute this much to our kingdom''s defenses.

    With a sigh, I said, "It would be an honour to have a forging duel with your majesty."

    The Dwarven King couldn''t help being taken aback once more hearing this.

    He secretly peeked at mypanions with a knowing look, but he didn''t say a thing on this matter.

    He just said with a smile, "Alright, then let''s do this."

 Chapter 345 Another forging duel

    <h4>Chapter 345 Another forging duel</h4>

    Since this matter was set, they didn''t waste any time in bringing us to the site of the forging duel.

    As this was the Dwarven Kingdom, even the castle had its own private forge.

    But it wasn''t just a private forge¡­it was a giant private forge.

    There were many different dwarves going back and forth in this forge, doing all kinds of different things.

    It really was a sight to behold¡­if one didn''t know the implications of this.

    All of these dwarves were forging weapons and armour for the soldiers of the Dwarven Kingdom. This was where the main supply line of the Dwarven Kingdom came from.

    If anything happened to this forge one day, one can be sure that it would be a blow to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    There would still be plenty of forges in the kingdom to use, but this was the best of the best. This was where the best equipment in the kingdom was, so there would be a decrease in quality of equipment if anything happened to this forge.

    Not that I was nning on doing anything to this forge in the first ce.

    The other human countries might consider it since they had always wanted to conquer the dwarves, but I just wanted to live in peace and harmony with the dwarves.

    They were a rare fantasy race that didn''t exist in my previous world!

    It was hard not getting excited seeing them!

    After we arrived at the forge, the news of the forging duel quickly spread and we were led to the best furnaces in the entire forge.

    This was the private furnace of the Dwarven King, one of the best, if not the best cksmith in the entire Dwarven Kingdom. So naturally these furnaces would be the best.

    To show his generosity, he even allowed me to choose which furnace I would use.

    I could see that there was a difference between the two furnaces, but that meant that there really was only one that I could use.

    Between the two furnaces, there was one that was specialized for skilled cksmiths and one for general use. The one that was specialized required special skills to use, so I could only use the general use one.

    So that was the one that I chose.

    Once that was done, all we had to do was submit our request for materials and the forging duel would begin.

    But before that, I had a request to make.

    "Huh? You want Ivar to help you with the forging?"

    The dwarves all knitted their brows when they heard this.

    Could it be that this human was trying to y them?

    The king had said that he had amazing forging skills which was why they had been convinced to let this forging duel happen.

    The problem with the Dwarven Kingdom now was¡­ack of innovation.

    It had already been two years since they had made theirst major discovery. They were still making minor discoveries here and there, but the problem was ack of new innovation.

    The problem with being the industry leader was having to constantlye up with new ideas and new innovations, or it would be a matter of time before the others caught up to them.

    The human countries had been slowly learning their techniques and catching up to them in terms of forging.

    If they didn''te up with any new ideas, it would be a matter of time before they lost their advantage as dwarves.

    Though they would never lose their skills since dwarves were just gically different from humans.

    But if Ivar was the one doing the forging¡­

    The Dwarven King thought differently though.

    He had read the report from Dorin at the border, telling him that Rondo had been the one to do the hammering for Zwein during the demonstration. It was clear that this human wasn''t able to do the hammering himself, so that was why he needed help.

    But that confused him even more since this human had forging techniques that he had never heard of, yet he wasn''t able to forge himself.

    Just where had he gotten this knowledge from?

    Was he a genius or was it something else?

    He wanted to use this forging duel to find out.

    Since the Dwarven King knew what the situation was, he just casually gave a nod before saying, "Alright, that''s not a problem."

    Ivar was surprised that this request was granted so easily, but he didn''t mind.

    He had seen Zwein''s techniques before, so having the chance to work with him was definitely an opportunity.

    The other dwarves seemed like they had something to say, but the Dwarven King had already spoken. Once the Dwarven King speaks, it really wasn''t their ce to say anything else.

    However, that wasn''t the only request that I had.

    "I also need Moon''s help with the forging." I said in a calm voice.

    Once again, the dwarves were caught off guard.

    After all, they knew that Moon was an elf, they had all met her when she hade into the throne room with me.

    But no matter how they thought about it, they didn''t think that an elf would know anything about forging.

    The reason why the elves had made an alliance with the dwarves in the first ce was because they needed their forging abilities.

    So they didn''t think this elf would be able to do much.

    But the Dwarven King thought differently.

    There was a reason why the dwarves had formed an alliance with the elves too. After all, they wouldn''t have formed that alliance if they didn''t need anything.

    As for what they needed¡­it was the mana of the elves.

    They needed the magic ability of the elves for a certain thing that would help in their crafting.

    "Runes." The Dwarven King muttered under his breath as he narrowed his eyes to look at Moon.

    But in the end, he still said with a nod, "That''s not a problem at all, you can have her help you."

    With those two conditions agreed to, we started our forging duel.

 Chapter 346 Runes (1)

    <h4>Chapter 346 Runes (1)</h4>

    When we submitted the list of materials needed, the dwarf in charge looked at me with a strange look before asking, "Are you sure that you want all of this?"

    I just gave a slow nod in response without saying anything.

    The other dwarves couldn''t help revealing curious looks when they heard this and they went over to that dwarf to see what I had requested.

    After seeing my list, they looked at me with the same strange look.

    I just ignored all of it as I waited for my materials toe.

    It didn''t take long for them to gather the materials, but that was to be expected from the Dwarven Kingdom.

    They had an abundance of ores in the first ce, so it was easy for them to gather the ores that I had requested.

    After everything had been gathered, we began melting our metals.

    Both the Dwarven King and I threw the mithril that we requested into the furnace and waited for it to melt, but there was a difference between us. The furnaces that we used were different from each other, so there was a different effect when it came to melting the mithril.

    The furnace that I used was a simple furnace used for general ore processing.

    The furnace that the Dwarven King was using was a st furnace which would allow him to infuse a jet of air into the furnace itself. This would allow him to quickly increase the temperature of the furnace and greatly increase the heat of the furnace to quickly melt the ores.

    So in no time at all, the Dwarven King was done with melting his ore while we were still waiting for the mithril to melt.

    With that st furnace, he was able to also purify the mithril even more since the st furnace released gas waste in a different location.

    So the ingots that he made were more pure than ones that were made in a normal furnace.

    However, we didn''t let that bother us at all as we slowly worked at our furnace.

    After a while, the mithril finally melted and it was at that point that I threw in another thing.

    When Ivar saw what I threw in, he couldn''t help saying in a confused voice, "Why are you doing that? Wouldn''t that just corrupt the mithril?"

    I just said with a smile, "Remember what I told you about alloys?"

    Ivar knitted his brows slightly when he heard this before his eyes suddenly opened in realization.

    He said in a slow voice, "You mean¡­"

    His voice trailed off, but the meaning in his voice was clear.

    I just slowly gave a nod in response.

    Ivar didn''t say anything else as he looked into the furnace, as if he was trying to see just what was changing with the metal mixture.

    I didn''t say anything until it was time to add in another thing.

    When that time came, we put in thest ingredient and watched it all melt together before taking it out.

    Instead of making something fancy this time, we were just making a simple dagger.

    But the metal that we used looked much different from the metal that the Dwarven King used.

    The dwarves could tell that this metal was like mithril in both its colour and its attributes, but there was something strange about this metal that they just couldn''t put their finger on.

    It was as if the structure of the metal had been changed in a way that they had never seen before.

    But just what was this?

    They really wanted to take this piece of metal out of their hands and analyze it, but they couldn''t do that while the forging duel was happening.

    So the only thing that they could do was watch and wait, hoping that they could see something special about this metal that the human had created.

    We just ignored the gazes of these dwarves and focused on our forging.

    I left everything to Ivar since I didn''t know how to cksmith in the first ce and it took no time at all for Ivar to finish off the dagger.

    A dagger like this was a simple matter for him, though he couldn''t help looking at the metal he was working on with a strange look.

    When he hammered it, there was a resistance that he had never felt before.

    This was a type of metal that he was working on for the first time, so he couldn''t help revealing an excited look.

    The other dwarves understood that look and they couldn''t help looking at him with looks of envy.

    When the dagger was done, the other dwarves were prepared toe over to inspect it, but I stopped them by raising my hand and waving them away.

    I pulled out the engraving knife that had been brought along with the rest of the materials.

    This was a special engraving knife that I had asked for since it wasn''t included with the tools at the forge.

    At the same time, I took out this bag of silverish powder that I ced beside me.

    With this, I focused on the cooled dagger in front of me and started making marks on it with the engraving knife.

    The dwarves were confused as to what I was doing at first, but then they slowly understood as some of them muttered¡­

    "Runes, he''s marking runes on the dagger."

    "Runes, huh?"

    "Runes¡­"

    Many of them seemed like they were disappointed by the fact that I was marking runes, but I understood what they were thinking.

    At this point in the game, runes were still regarded as failed technology.

    There were runes that had been discovered with the help of the elves, but they didn''t have the effect that the dwarves had wanted.

    So rune smithing had been regarded as a failure that was abandoned by the dwarves.

    There were some that wanted to keep studying rune smithing, but now wasn''t the time for that when they had hit a wall in their innovations.

    So rune smithing had even reached a point where it was looked down on in the Dwarven Empire.

    That was why they seemed disappointed when they saw me carving runes in the dagger.

 Chapter 347 Runes (2)

    <h4>Chapter 347 Runes (2)</h4>

    I just ignored their disappointed looks and focused on my work.

    Slowly, I carved more and more ruins onto the dagger, but they were still inactive.

    For these ruins to have any effect on the dagger, they needed to be infused with magic first.

    I was just carving them into the dagger first without the magic. Once I finished engraving these runes on the dagger, I would need Moon''s help to activate them with magic.

    I slowly but surely carved out five different ruins on the dagger.

    There was still space for more runes to be carved onto the dagger, but I felt that five was enough for now.

    If it was any more, Moon might not have enough mana to activate them all and there was no need to mention the miniscule amount of mana that I had.

    So five should be considered the limit.

    But then again, it wasn''t as if I was creating a dagger to kill the gods with, so five was already more than enough.

    Once I finished carving, I waved for Moon toe over.

    She came to my side and looked at the runes that I had carved with a curious look.

    She had never seen these runes before, but she could tell that there was some strange power that wasing from it. She could feel that as long as there was magic infused into these runes, they would demonstrate some kind of incredible power.

    So Moon couldn''t help feeling a bit excited seeing these runes.

    She looked at me and asked, "What do I need to do?"

    I was happy seeing that she was interested in this, it would mean that she would do a better job since she was interested to see how this would turn out.

    I pointed at one of the runes and said, "Inject your magic after I''ve finished spreading the powder. That will finish the magic infusion of the runes and allow it to absorb mana to operate."

    Moon gave a nod before reaching her hand up over the rune.

    Seeing this, I took a pinch of the powder that I had requested.

    This powder was mithril powder.

    Mithril was a metal that was very good at conducting magic, which was why it was a very sought after metal.

    If it was used in armour, it would be able to conduct magic to be stronger. At the same time, it would allow magic to pass through, which would lower the effectiveness of any spell thrown at the person wearing the armour.

    If it was used in a weapon, then it would allow the user to inject magic into the weapon, making it even more powerful either in the form of making it sharper or infusing it with some kind of elemental magic.

    Mithril was a metal that was very useful in this sense, which was why it was so sought after.

    As for the powdered mithril, it would also conduct magic, allowing us to create a magic circuit on the runes that would allow them to absorb mana and activate.

    Once the mithril powder was spread on the first rune, Moon released her mana and infused it.

    The main magic circuit was in the rune, so the powder was just there to catch the mana that Moon infused.

    Once the mana was infused into the rune, the rune released a glow before dimming.

    However, the rune no longer looked like scratches made on the surface of the dagger. Rather, it looked like a silver painted rune on the dagger because of the mithril powder sticking to it.

    Seeing this, I knew that the first rune had been finished, so I moved on to the second rune.

    Using the same process as the first rune, we infused the second, third, fourth, and fifth rune with magic.

    When we were done, the dagger now had five silver looking runes engraved onto it.

    At the same time, there was a strong magic power that came from the dagger itself.

    Just based on this, it was clear that these runes had turned this dagger into a magic weapon.

    But just that wasn''t enough for this dagger to qualify as a proper magic weapon.

    It would depend on what abilities these runes would give the dagger.

    When the dwarves looked at the dagger that I held, they noticed that they didn''t recognize the runes at all. The runes that were engraved on this dagger werepletely different from any runes that they had seen before.

    Even those that had studied runes before weren''t able to figure out what these runes were or what they meant.

    So they all couldn''t help being curious as to what this dagger was capable of.

    But it wasn''t time to demonstrate that yet since the Dwarven King still wasn''t finished with his forging yet.

    He had been watching our forging a bit, but he had also been focused on his own weapon.

    This was a normal sized sword that waspletely made of mithril.

    With the sheen that this sword possessed, it was clear that it was a very sharp sword.

    It seemed like it could even cut a hair in half with how sharp it was.

    After putting on the finishing touches, the Dwarven King brought his sword forward with a satisfied look on his face.

    When he was done, the Dwarven King was finally able toe over and admire our dagger.

    The other dwarves who had been crowding around it, trying to figure out just what these runes did made room for him to study this dagger.

    After looking at it for a bit, he said, "These are quite interesting, I''ve never seen them before. But I can sense the magic powering from them and I can tell that these runes definitely aren''t weak. How did you engrave them on?"

    I just said with a faint smile, "How about we test them first before I say anything?"

    The Dwarven King looked at the dagger again before saying with a nod, "Alright."

    He was also interested in seeing this dagger in action.

    He wanted to see just what these runes could do.

 Chapter 348 Power of runes

    <h4>Chapter 348 Power of runes</h4>

    Since both sides had finished forging, the only thing left to do now was to test the des that they had created to see which side had forged the better de.

    But since I had crafted a dagger with runes, it wasn''t suitable to do the same test as before.

    Testing the des against each other wouldn''t show the true power of the de.

    Especially since both of them were made of mithril.

    Mithril weapons would be stronger when magic was injected into them, so just testing them against each other wasn''t a good measure of how good these weapons were.

    So instead, we settled on the armour test.

    This was testing the weapons against armour prepared.

    This would be considered a waste of good armour, but the armour had been prepared by the dwarves in the first ce. The armour used were failed products, so it didn''t matter if they were cut up.

    But even if they were failed products¡­these were pieces of armour that were made of mithril.

    When my humanpanions saw this, they all revealed looks of regret.

    Mithril armour, even failed mithril armour, was considered rare in the human kingdoms.

    If they could obtain just even a single set of this failed mithril armour, they would be able to die of happiness.

    However, here we were using them as tests for our des.

    It really seemed wasteful¡­

    After the mithril armour was set up, it was our turn to test our des.

    The mithril armour was put on a stand that had a magic crystal inside of it that would release magic into the mithril armour, making it much stronger than normal.

    This set of mithril armour failed because it absorbed more magic than normal, which made it harder than normal mithril. That was a problem since that made it too heavy for anyone to wear, so they couldn''t find a use for it.

    Even if one controlled the amount of magic that they injected into the armour, the mithril armour just kept draining magic without a care.

    So there really was no way to use the armour¡­that was until now.

    Since it was so hard, it would be perfect to test the des on them.

    The Dwarven King stepped up first and said, "I''ll go first."

    I didn''t mind at all since I knew that the results from my dagger would go beyond what they expected. It was better to let the Dwarven King go first before going myself since I was confident that I would be able to destroy this armour.

    The Dwarven King gave a nod in response to my nod and stepped up in front of the mithril armour with his sword in hand.

    He took a deep breath before suddenly giving a roar.

    When he did, he shed out with that sword in his hand.

    There was the sound of metal shing with metal that rang out when the mithril sword in his hand hit the armour, but he didn''t cut through it.

    He was only able to make a gash in the mithril armour with the sword in his hand, but that was already enough to shock the other dwarves.

    They all knew just how hard this failed mithril armour was, so just being able to make this gash was already proof enough of how sharp this mithril sword was.

    But on the face of the Dwarven King was a look of disappointment.

    It was almost as if he wasn''t satisfied with this mithril sword that he forged at all.

    With a sigh, the Dwarven King came back and said, "It''s your turn now."

    I gave a nod before walking forward with the dagger in hand.

    As I walked forward, I could feel the gazes of the dwarves on me. Even the Dwarven King''s eyes were on me as I came up to the armour.

    The Dwarven King had shed down at the armour from one side, creating a gash on one of the shoulders.

    So I would be shing down on the other shoulder and thenparing the results with the Dwarven King''s gash.

    But I knew that there wouldn''t be anything topare.

    I just calmly stood in front of the armour and took a deep breath before bringing the dagger to ce on the left shoulder of the set of armour.

    Taking another deep breath, I released my magic power to fill the dagger.

    Ever since I obtained the Orb of the Dead, my magic power had awakened.

    It was still very weak, but I had been working with Moon to learn how to control it.

    She had given me exercises on how to use that magic power and I had been diligently training with those exercises.

    So I was able to squeeze out a bit of magic power to use this dagger with.

    That was all that I needed since the runes on the dagger already contained magic power. They just needed a little bit of mana to activate the power that was inside.

    When the dagger received my mana, the first rune on it started to glow.

    Then as more and more of my mana flowed in, all five runes were lit up.

    Only then did I bring the dagger down with a deep breath.

    The moment that the dagger made contact with the mithril armour¡­there was no resistance at all.

    The dagger cut right through the mithril armour like a hot knife through butter.

    I didn''t stop after cutting into armour and just pulled my arm all the way down until the dagger came out of the armour the other way.

    Just like this, I had cut not only the armour, but also the stand that it was on in half.

    The top part of the armour with the stand inside fell off the bottom part.

    The bottom part fell to the ground since there was nothing holding it up anymore.

    There was a loud ttering sound as both parts fell to the ground.

    All that followed afterwards was silence as everyone stared on in shock.

 Chapter 349 Learning about runes (1)

    <h4>Chapter 349 Learning about runes (1)</h4>

    In truth, I was even shocked by this.

    I never thought that the runes would be this powerful even though I knew that they were powerful.

    I had thought that this dagger would get stuck halfway through the armour, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    Regardless, I couldn''t act surprised now, so I forced myself to reveal a calm look.

    After a long silence, the dwarves suddenly came forward.

    They immediately surrounded me as expected, but they also surrounded the stand and mithril armour. They looked at it carefully as if they were trying to see if there was a w with it.

    But they couldn''t find a single thing wrong no matter how they looked at it.

    This mithril armour was still the same as before, it was just that the dagger¡­was sharper than it.

    That was how it had cut through it like a scythe through wheat.

    Once they recognized this, they all turned their attention to the dagger.

    With the results like this, there was no need for them to argue who had won. Even a fool would be able to see that this dagger was much better than the mithril sword.

    In that case, there was no problem in them inspecting the dagger now.

    I had already guessed this, so I walked over to a table and put the dagger down for them to look over.

    The dwarves took a while inspecting the dagger and from time to time, I could hear¡­

    "This metal, it''s like mithril¡­but it''s even lighter and harder than mithril¡­just what is this metal?"

    "How can that be? Mithril is already one of the lightest metals out there, how could there be something lighter than mithril?"

    "How would I know? I''m looking at the same thing as you and I can''t figure it out either."

    There were a few dwarves that seemed like they were about to start fighting as they discussed this, but then one dwarf suddenly shouted something.

    "Silver!"

    All of the other dwarves looked at this one dwarf with a confused look as they waited for this dwarf to exin.

    But this dwarf didn''t say anything as he looked more closely at the dagger.

    The other dwarves waited at first, but they became more and more impatient when they saw that this dwarf wasn''t saying anything.

    So they surrounded this dwarf and asked, "What do you mean by silver?"

    With the way that he was surrounded, it really seemed like they were threatening him at this point.

    But that dwarf didn''t care as he kept staring at the dagger.

    Slowly, that dwarf said, "Silver, there are traces of silver in this dagger as well that makes it this light."

    When this dwarf said this, all of the other dwarves stuck their head in closer to the dagger to examine it. When they did, they started muttering things.

    "That''s right. When I look closer, there really are traces of silver mixed in with the mithril¡­"

    "But how does that work? If you add metals in the furnace together like this, that would just increase the impurities of the ingot you make. It shouldn''t make something that''s stronger and lighter like this?"

    "How would I know? I''m looking at the same thing as you are."

    "What did you say?"

    As they were muttering, they started arguing with each other and in no time at all, it almost seemed like they were about to fight.

    It seemed that dwarves really were passionate when it came to forging¡­

    But they didn''t start fighting as they all turned to look at me.

    I had already expected this and said with a sigh, "It''s true that if you put random metals together, they will just add impurities in the final product. However, there are some metals thatpliment each other¡­"

    I knew that I would have to give another lecture about alloys, so I didn''t hold back at all as I started giving them this lecture.

    During the lecture, there were many questions that they had, but I was able to answer them all.

    It was a good thing that the questions that they asked weren''t thatplicated.

    But that was only because this was a new concept for them and they didn''t really know what to ask yet.

    If they had some time to study it¡­I wouldn''t be able to keep up with them and would run out of answers.

    For now though, I was still able to act like I knew more than them.

    Once we were finished talking about the alloys, the dwarves started discussing many different things.

    They already had different ideas for what kind of ores they would be able to mix together to create new alloys.

    There were many that I had already heard of both in the game and in my past life.

    As expected of dwarves who were obsessed with forging.

    It really wouldn''t take them long to surpass me in terms of creating alloys¡­

    I should really take advantage of my advanced knowledge while I still can.

    But the Dwarven Kings suddenly said, "That''s not the key thing."

    When they heard this, the dwarves couldn''t help looking at the Dwarven King with a confused look.

    The Dwarven King came forward and reached a hand out to point at the runes on the dagger before saying, "You need to remember that there are these runes on this dagger as well."

    When they heard this, they all started paying attention to the runes that were drawn on it.

    That''s right, there were also these runes that had been on this dagger.

    They knew that it was impossible for the dagger alone to demonstrate that kind of power even though it was a new kind of metal.

    So it had to be the power of the runes that had allowed this dagger to cut right through the mithril armour and the stand.

    If they were able to put these runes on the items that they forged¡­wouldn''t they be able to make even better items?

    All of the dwarves turned back to look at me with curious looks that just made me reveal an awkward smile.

 Chapter 350 Learning about runes (2)

    <h4>Chapter 350 Learning about runes (2)</h4>

    Since I was willing to take this out, naturally I was willing to teach them.

    But before that¡­I had to make sure that I was getting something that was worth this information.

    I didn''t exin what these runes were like I had done with the alloy right away.

    Instead, I looked at the Dwarven King and calmly asked, "The results of the forging duel?"

    The dwarves were taken aback when they heard this, but then they all suddenly revealed wide smiles.

    The Dwarven King gave a chuckle before saying, "You still need to ask? If I wanted to proim victory after that disy, I would be a fool, right? My eyes are still clear, so I can see the difference between our des. There''s no need to worry, I ept my loss."

    After he said this, all of the other dwarves gave a chuckle.

    They knew what personality their king had, that was why they were willing to follow him in the first ce.

    After that, the Dwarven King said, "Since I''ve challenged you to the forging duel, naturally you''ll receive the reward you deserve."

    His expression became serious as he said, "I''ll permit you to buy double the amount of mithril that you''ve requested and I''ll allow you to buy a certain amount of other ores from our Dwarven Kingdom."

    He looked at me with that serious expression and said, "Is that alright?"

    I gave a firm nod after hearing this.

    This was all that I wanted.

    I wanted to make sure that I would be able to collect the prize once it was all over.

    The Dwarven King gave another chuckle before saying, "It''s not like I would go back on my promise in the first ce. The things that you humans worry about really are trivial and silly, but then again, that''s just how you humans are."

    The dwarves all nodded with knowing smiles when they heard this.

    I couldn''t help revealing an awkward look when I heard this.

    It was true, these were just the things that we humans were worried about and there was no changing it.

    So I just acted like I didn''t hear anything and said with a cough, "So let''s talk about the dagger."

    When they heard this, the eyes of all dwarves lit up and they paid attention to me.

    They immediately gathered around the table with the dagger, with quite a bit of pushing between them as they tried to get a better position to watch my exnation. Even the Dwarven King wasn''t an exception to this as he pushed his way to the front.

    Even though he was their king, they didn''t give any preferential treatment to him as

    I just stood there in front of the table with the dagger on it and pointed at one of the runes.

    This was the first rune that I had carved at the hilt of the dagger.

    After pointing at it, I said, "This rune is the rune of sharpness. It increases the sharpness of the de when activated."

    "Sharpness?" The dwarves repeated after me.

    The Dwarven King then asked, "How do you know that it''s sharpness? Also, how sharp does it make the weapon?"

    I just said with a shrug, "That''s what I''ve learned, I don''t know the runenguage at all."

    After I said this, all of the dwarves couldn''t help looking at me with surprised looks as the Dwarven King slowly asked, "You¡­don''t know the runenguage?"

    I just gave a calm nod in response.

    All of them looked at me with strange looks before the Dwarven King asked, "Then how do you know how to carve runes? Don''t you have to know the runes to do something like that?"

    I shook my head before saying, "As long as you know what the runes are, you can carve them with a bit of technique. You should have seen my sloppy technique, right? Even someone like me could do that, so anyone should be able to."

    Of course¡­that wasn''t the truth.

    I knew how to do this because I had seen it in the game.

    It was a good thing that there was a detailed cutscene of this, or I really would have been in trouble trying to pretend like I knew rune carving.

    The dwarves had sharp eyes for technique since this was what they specialized in.

    They could see that my technique was sloppy, a clear sign that I was an amateur and yet I was able to carve such amazing runes on this dagger. So they had no choice but to ept my exnation as the truth since the facts were in front of them.

    After epting this truth, the Dwarven King once again touched on the key thing here as he asked, "How many of these runes do you know?"

    That was when I revealed a smile.

    This was the question that I had been waiting for since this was the only real card that I had in my hand.

    Perhaps there would be a way to develop new runes if one understood the runenguage, but that was just too advanced for me. Instead, I had my knowledge from the game.

    I knew different runes that didn''t exist in this period of the game, but existed further in the future of the game.

    As long as I took these runes out, I could advance rune smithing by at least several decades.

    But of course, I wouldn''t bring it out that easily.

    After pretending to think for a bit, I casually said, "Maybe around ten or so."

    Hearing this, the dwarves revealed looks of shock and admiration.

    They had thought that it would be good if I knew one more, but I knew five or so more.

    This was without a doubt a very meaningful thing.

    If they could get these runes¡­

    The Dwarven King once again touched on the main thing as he asked, "How did youe across these runes? Did you find them or were they given to you by someone else?"

 Chapter 351 Learning about runes (3)

    <h4>Chapter 351 Learning about runes (3)</h4>

    I just shook my head and said, "I was just lucky enough to chance upon these runes and the technique to engrave them. I don''t have any other runes."

    All of the dwarves looked at me with narrowed eyes as if they didn''t believe me.

    After all, I had taken out these amazing runes, so it wouldn''t be strange if I could take out a few more.

    But I wasn''t going to just give them everything that I had.

    They were my future trump cards and it wouldn''t be good to take them out early.

    Seeing that I didn''t react at all even with all of them staring at me, the dwarves had no choice but to give up.

    Since they couldn''t get more out of me, they just went back to the rune.

    They asked me all kinds of different questions, but there were some that I didn''t answer deliberately.

    Unlike before, rune smithing was something that had great potential and it wasn''t something that I wanted to give them that easily.

    Alloys would eventually be discovered on their own, but rune smithing was impossible to develop unless they found that thing¡­

    In a few years, the dwarves would open up some ruins that had a book on runes. That would allow them to decode and learn the runenguage, which would give them the ability to develop runes on their own.

    I was even considering taking that book for my own since I knew exactly where it was and how to get to it¡­but until the situation had settled and I had more free time, it wouldn''t be time to get it yet.

    After all, even if I did get it, it would just be taken by me since I wasn''t strong enough right now to defend it.

    So it was better not to open that can of worms.

    After answering their questions for a bit, I gave a live demonstration.

    They brought over the pieces of the mithril armour that had been cut earlier and after cutting it a bit more, they put two separate pieces down on the table in front of me.

    First, I just used the dagger alone to cut through the chunk of mithril armour held by a single dwarf hand.

    There was no resistance at first, but then the dagger was slowly stopped by the mithril armour.

    It still made a bigger gash than the gash that the Dwarven King had made with his sword which made him reveal an awkward smile.

    It seemed that even without the runes, he still would have lost this forging duel.

    This really put into perspective just how strong the alloys I had introduced were.

    Then for the second chunk of the mithril armour, I used a bit of magic to activate the sharpness rune on the hilt and just that sharpness rune alone. There was only a single rune that was glowing on this dagger as I held it over that chunk of mithril armour.

    Then in one swift motion, I brought the dagger down on the chunk of mithril armour.

    There was no resistance at all from that mithril armour as the dagger cut right through it.

    Then¡­it cut right through the table as well since I didn''t stop it in time.

    The table split in half and fell apart as the dwarves moved back to avoid it.

    The dwarf that had been holding the piece of mithril armour to supply it with magic quickly released it out of fear that his hand would be cut as well.

    There was a loud sound as everything just fell to the ground.

    After that¡­the dwarves just looked on in shock.

    They looked back and forth between the table on the ground and the dagger in my hand with the same shocked looks on their faces.

    It was as if they didn''t know what to make of this¡­until one dwarf said.

    "How incredible this is¡­"

    As soon as he said this, all of the dwarves suddenly rushed forward as if they wanted to grab the knife and examine it, but I quickly moved away from them.

    After all, I still had the rune activated and if they grabbed it, they might be cut by it.

    The dwarves revealed a bitter look at first, but then they realized what I was doing and stopped moving forward.

    Instead they quickly brought over another table for me to put the dagger down.

    When I saw this, I let out a sigh of relief and put the dagger on the table before backing away.

    I knew what was about to happen, so it was better to evacuate before it did happen.

    As expected, they all started fighting over the dagger.

    They all wanted to pick it up and test its power with the rune activated, so this time an actual fight broke out between the dwarves.

    But once again, the Dwarven King came in and took the dagger from them.

    The title of Dwarven King wasn''t an empty one as he easily took the dagger from them with his strength. Then with his prestige, they had no choice but to give up and let him test it for them.

    The Dwarven King held the dagger in his hand and brought it up in front of his eyes to look at it carefully.

    As he did, he slowly injected a bit of mana into the dagger and lit up the first rune.

    He brought his other hand up to the de of the dagger and reached a finger towards it.

    Before his finger could even touch the de of the dagger, there was a cut that appeared on his finger and a drop of his blood fell onto the dagger.

    The Dwarven King didn''t react at all to this and just said with a smile on his face, "Beautiful. This truly is a beautiful work of art."

    He immediately turned to me and asked, "How much for this de?"

    As soon as the other dwarves heard this, they all acted like they had been woken up by something.

    After a moment of being stunned, they quickly surrounded me and offering me prices for this dagger without a single trace of respect for the Dwarven King.

 Chapter 352 Trading with the dwarves (1)

    <h4>Chapter 352 Trading with the dwarves (1)</h4>

    The Dwarven King''s voice suddenly cut through the voices around me.

    "I''ll give you an iron mine and a copper mine."

    When he said this, all of the dwarves couldn''t help looking at the Dwarven King in shock.

    The things that they had offered were all material things and not a single one of them offered mines like the Dwarven King did.

    After all, they knew that it would be bad for their Dwarven Kingdom if they gave up resources like this.

    There were many that quickly turned around and surrounded the Dwarven King to try persuading him against this.

    However¡­just like before, after they talked for a few minutes, all of the dwarves suddenly seemed convinced.

    They all just turned to look at me, as if they were waiting for my response.

    I could already feel the ring gazesing from behind me, almost as if they were forcing me to ept this deal.

    However, there were other things that were still on my mind.

    After all, even if I epted this deal, there was the matter of workers that needed to be solved. A mine that didn''t have any workers didn''t have any value since there was no way to get the ores out of the ground.

    With a cough, I said, "I am interested in this offer, but I have to ask something first."

    The Dwarven King was surprised to be asked this since he had thought that Zwein as a human would ept this deal without much fuss. But after giving a cough, he asked, "What''s your question?"

    I took a deep breath and asked, "Can our peoplee and work in the mines?"

    The Dwarven King and the other dwarves were naturally surprised to be asked this.

    But after knitting their brows in thought for a bit, they understood why he had asked this question.

    Mines without workers had no value at all, so if he couldn''t bring workers to work in this mine, there was no reason to take it.

    But¡­workers that a human brought¡­would naturally also be humans.

    For the Dwarven Kingdom to allow these human workers in¡­was naturally a very bad idea.

    It would be fine if they were any other race, but humans really were bad for their Dwarven Kingdom.

    There were many humans that surrounded them and many humans that wanted to take theirnd from them.

    This had festered anti human feelings among the dwarves.

    So this had created a group of dwarves that had very strong anti human sentiments and would act radically if humans were found in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    But before that¡­it wasn''t good for them to let humans in their Dwarven Kingdom in the first ce since there was plenty of information that the humans could steal from them.

    Even if Zwein didn''t want to steal information, that didn''t mean that there weren''t other humans who didn''t.

    They would be able to use this job at the mine as a way to steal information from their Dwarven Kingdom.

    So in the end, the Dwarven King shook his head and said, "Unfortunately, we can''t allow this."

    I had already expected this, but that just makes it more clear on what I should do. There was no reason for me to ept this since there would be nothing that I could do with these mines.

    It was better to just buy the ores that we needed instead of taking the mines.

    I could feel the disappointmenting from behind me, but there was nothing that I could do about this.

    Or at least that was what I thought.

    "But I can help you find workers among the dwarves for the mine." The Dwarven King said after a long silence.

    I couldn''t help looking at him with a shocked look when I heard this.

    After all, I never thought that he would propose something like this.

    I had thought that thest thing that dwarves would want to do is work for the humans, but now that didn''t seem to be the case since even the Dwarven King was suggesting it.

    I didn''t keep looking at the Dwarven King and instead looked at the dwarves around him.

    These were his close advisors, so if this was just a whim from him, they wouldn''t let him get away with it.

    But the fact that they didn''t say anything to oppose this meant¡­that it was actually possible.

    Would dwarves actually work for humans?

    Seeing the shocked look that I had, the Dwarven King changed the topic again to what he cared about the most.

    "I heard that you brought some alcohol to our kingdom?"

    The moment that he said this, the eyes of the other dwarves also lit up.

    There was only a single dwarf who revealed an ugly expression when he heard this.

    Ivar revealed a very bitter look when he heard this.

    After all, he had made sure not to include this matter in his report to the Dwarven King¡­

    So how had he found out?

    I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile when I heard this.

    I had already seen the effect that good wine would have on dwarves, so I knew that this must be what he had been after all along with this.

    So I nodded to Haley who had caught my sign and she went to bring in the thing that we had brought along.

    This was a royal audience, so it wasn''t as if we could just bring whatever we wanted in.

    But after letting the guards get a sip of it¡­they didn''t stop us.

    I said with a smile, "Indeed, I have brought some fine wine with me."

    Ivar''s face sank when he heard this, but all I could do was look at him with an apologetic look.

    The other side was the Dwarven King, so it wasn''t as if there was anything I could do here.

    When Haley came back, the scent of alcohol immediately filled the air and all of the dwarves couldn''t help turning in her direction.

 Chapter 353 Trading with the dwarves (2)

    <h4>Chapter 353 Trading with the dwarves (2)</h4>

    As they watched Haley walk over, all of the dwarves couldn''t help licking their lips.

    But of course, it wasn''t out of lust.

    It was because they were looking at the bottle that was in her hand.

    This was the bottle that the smell of alcohol wasing from.

    Based on the smell that came out, they could tell that the alcohol that Haley was bringing in was very good alcohol.

    Even for people of their position, this was alcohol that they rarely had the chance to drink.

    After all, there were few humans that could even trade in the Dwarven Kingdom in the first ce.

    It wasn''t that there weren''t humans that came, it was just that few humans brought quality goods.

    The humans thought that they could trick the dwarves with inferior products, but of course the dwarves had sharp eyes as craftsmen. Even when it came to wine, the dwarves had such sharp noises that they could tell the difference with a single sniff.

    That was just how much dedication they had with both.

    So it was rare for them to have quality productse into the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Of course, the other side of the coin was¡­the humans didn''t want to give the dwarves good products.

    There was still the matter of racism between the two sides, so the humans never treated the dwarves properly¡­

    It was different when the humans brought quality goods, but the humans didn''t learn from their mistakes and kept looking down on the dwarves.

    Sincerity begets sincerity, but it''s hard to have sincerity when one''s eyes are clouded with bigotry.

    They all seemed like they wanted to rush at her to take the bottle out of her hand, but they were able to keep this bit of restraint.

    But the look in their eyes¡­were putting pressure on her, like they were telling her to go faster.

    With a secret bitter smile, Haley started moving a bit faster.

    However, as she came closer, the dwarves suddenly realized a problem.

    There were only so many of them, so¡­how would they split it?

    They knew that it was impossible for them to get the entire bottle, but even a cup might be hard with how many there were.

    Half a cup or a quarter of a cup was just too little for them to enjoy themselves, so they all looked at each other as if they were plotting on how to get more alcohol for themselves.

    The Dwarven King was no exception, but he did have the advantage of being the Dwarven King, so he was less worried.

    It was those that had lower positions that had to worry about how to im their cup of alcohol.

    After ring at each other for a bit, one of the dwarves made their move.

    "As the minister of trade affairs, how about I have a taste first? Since we will be trading for alcohol with the humans, I should make sure that it''s up to standard."

    This dwarf tried toe forward, but the moment that he did, he was immediately stopped by the two beside him. At the same time, there were several other dwarves that hade forward to block him.

    "Minister of trade affairs? All you do is count the ores we trade each year and you''re trying to make yourself sound so important. You think that we''ll let you get ahead of us?"

    Another dwarf then said, "Ahem, since I am the minister of foreign affairs, I think that I should be the one to test this since this will determine our future rtions with the humans."

    Once again, he was immediately stopped by the dwarves around him.

    It seemed that none of them would yield a single inch when it came to this alcohol.

    While they were still civil, it seemed like they were about to start fighting with what they said.

    "What foreign affairs? All you do is sit around and check the borders once in a while. You don''t even go to the human countries to talk to them."

    "Agriculture? How is that even rted to this?"

    "Finances? You think that we don''t have enough money to buy the alcohol ourselves?"

    As Haley came closer to the table they were all around, she really couldn''t help revealing an even more bitter smile. She didn''t even bother hiding it this time since she knew that it didn''t matter.

    They were just too focused to even pay attention to her.

    But¡­she also knew that she was in trouble.

    Since she was the one that brought the alcohol, it would fall onto her to divide it.

    It was clear that the dwarves wouldn''t be able to figure this out themselves, so in the end¡­they would rely on her.

    She of course couldn''t take one side over the other since that would mean offending people and that was thest thing that she could do as a merchant.

    So this really put her in a bad position.

    The captain of the guards had followed her in with cups in hand.

    He didn''t need toe, but he had thought that he would be able to scrounge a bit of alcohol if he came with her.

    But now¡­that seemed like a futile thought.

    There was no way that he would be able to get any with so many of thempeting.

    The Dwarven King had been silent the entire time, as if what they were saying didn''t bother him at all.

    It was only when Haley reached the table that he suddenly pped his hand down and directed their attention to him.

    In a firm voice, he said, "Enough!"

    All of them fell silent when he said this.

    Seeing that they were all silently looking at him, the Dwarven King calmly said, "There''s no reason to fight over this. We''ll solve this the old way."

    When the dwarves heard this, they all couldn''t help revealing smiles before looking at each other withpetitive looks.

    It seemed that they were quite used to this already.

 Chapter 354 Trading with the dwarves (3)

    <h4>Chapter 354 Trading with the dwarves (3)</h4>

    But after the captain of the guard put the cups on the table, the Dwarven King grabbed one of them before anyone could react.

    He said with a smile on his face, "Of course, I won''t participate, so one of these cups will be mine."

    All of the dwarves look at the Dwarven King like they thought that he was shameless, but not a single one of them stopped him.

    They gave him this respect at the very least that they didn''t try to take the cup away from him.

    Or it was that they didn''t want to waste the energy fighting him for this.

    Instead, they looked at each other withpetitive looks before bringing a hand up above the table.

    They all red at each other before raising their hands.

    Then they said, "Rock, paper, scissors."

    They moved their hands up and down before finally releasing either rock, paper, or scissors.

    Even though they acted so seriously, they were using rock, paper, scissors to decide this¡­

    It seemed a bit too serious for just rock, paper, scissors. It was almost as if they were deciding which one of them would be dying¡­

    But for the ones that did lose, they acted like they did die.

    After all, they would be missing out on this delicious wine which was like a death sentence for them.

    At the very least, they didn''tin about the results of the game.

    It took a few minutes, but they were finally able to decide who would be partaking in the alcohol.

    The ones that had cups in their hands revealed triumphant looks while the ones that didn''t have cups in their hands looked like they had just lost everything.

    Haley saw that they had all settled down, so she brought the bottle forward to pour for them.

    But before she could, she was stopped by the dwarves with the cups.

    They had her put the bottle on the table before they all carefully poured out the alcohol inside into their cups. With how careful they were, they were able to make sure that each cup had just the same amount of alcohol in it.

    It was surprising when these cups were lined up since the fill line was perfectly the same.

    This was the skill that they had as dwarven craftsmen, their fingers didn''t tremble even in the slightest when pouring the alcohol, allowing for such perfect distribution.

    Once the cups had been filled, the ones that had cups brought the cups up in front of them and took a deep sniff of the alcohol.

    Then instead of chugging it like one might think, they took a small sip of the alcohol.

    This waspletely different from when we gave Ivar and his family a taste test.

    But that situation was also different since there were far less of them and there had been more alcohol avable then.

    After taking a few sips, the dwarves that had cups lowered their heads.

    The other dwarves looked concerned seeing this, but they didn''t have time to overthink it.

    The dwarves with cups suddenly looked up and said, "Good! Good wine!"

    All of the other dwarves were surprised to hear this, but then they revealed even more regretful looks.

    After all, they knew what qualified as good wine to thesepatriots of theirs and since they were saying it with such force, it was clear that this was very good alcohol.

    They looked like they had missed the opportunity of a lifetime.

    Haley just revealed a faint smile before reaching into her bag to pull out another bottle.

    There were only a few dwarves that noticed this at first, but then they immediately turned to look at her when they realized that the scent of alcohol in the air became stronger.

    Their eyes immediately fell onto the bottle in her hand.

    One dwarf pointed at it and slowly asked, "Is¡­Is that¡­?"

    Haley gave a nod in response.

    She had wanted to use this second bottle to make a bigger impression, but she had been scared to bring it out since she had thought that it would make the dwarves angry that she had hid it.

    But seeing the looks on their faces, she knew that this was the right time.

    As she had expected, the dwarves immediately revealed happy smiles and snatched the cups from the hands of theirpatriots before taking the bottle from Haley.

    The dwarves just happily enjoyed their alcohol without caring about Haley at all.

    All of them had looks of enjoyment on their faces as they drank.

    But those looks quickly disappeared when they realized that there was no more alcohol left.

    There were only two bottles and there were a bunch of dwarves here that could drink, so naturally the two bottles didn''tst long. It was just enough for each dwarf to get a single cup before running out.

    Once they had finished off the two bottles, they immediately turned to Haley as if wondering if there was more.

    But this time, Haley didn''t take anything else out.

    This was all that she had brought since there was strict security and there was the amount that she had used to bribe the guards.

    After they had finished drinking, Haley said, "I''m sure that you can all tell that this is fine wine that we''ve brought with us."

    The dwarves easily nodded in agreement to this as a trace of reminiscence appeared on their faces.

    Haley was very satisfied seeing this as she knew that her n had worked.

    So she said, "Now, let''s talk about the price of this alcohol. We can bring more, but I want to know what you are willing to pay for it."

    The Dwarven King just calmly said, "What do you want?"

    This time, Haley couldn''t remain calm as she revealed a surprised look.

    She looked at the Dwarven King and was surprised to find that he was being serious.

    For a merchant like her who was used to dealing with people that used sly tricks, it caught her off guard when someone was being direct with her like this.

    But she was a professional merchant, so she recovered quickly before saying, "Well¡­"

 Chapter 355 Banquet

    <h4>Chapter 355 Banquet</h4>

    The negotiations went smoothly because of how capable Haley was.

    She didn''t have a problem negotiating the prices with her skills and she even got much more than she had even expected, so she was all smiles in the end.

    At the same time, she also made sure to negotiate all of the terms needed to hire dwarven workers for the mine.

    That was also an important matter for the future, so she needed to make sure that it was all taken care of beforehand.

    Once this was all done, the Dwarven King said, "Let''s go."

    We were all confused when we heard this and didn''t follow him as he headed out.

    Seeing the confused looks on our faces, the Dwarven King exined, "A banquet has already been prepared to wee all of you. Let''s go, the dishes are getting cold."

    We couldn''t help being surprised hearing this, but we did follow him this time.

    It seemed that from the very beginning, the Dwarven King had been nning on treating us with kindness.

    Of course¡­I knew that there was a certain limit to that kindness before all of this happened.

    If I hadn''t shown him my cards¡­then he wouldn''t have given us all of this.

    There would be no mentions of mines or being able to hire dwarven workers. At most, it would have just been a permit to trade in ores with the dwarves.

    So I was d that I decided to go along with it.

    After all, I hade up with a new n during all of this.

    Just in case it didn''t work out in the human kingdom, it would be possible toe here.

    I would have mines to rely on, the only thing that I would need isnd and I''m sure that I would be able to get some if I showed a few more cards.

    Always having a way out was a good idea and the Dwarven Kingdom was a very good way out.

    So I was nning on making some good connections at the banquet.

    When we arrived, we found that there were many dwarves that were waiting at this banquet, much more than we had met before.

    All of them seemed like they were important dwarves since they were able toe to this banquet that was being hosted by the Dwarven King.

    However, the banquet for the dwarves was very differentpared to a banquet held by humans.

    Instead of it being stuffy, it was very rxed and open where everyone ate what they wanted and drank what they wanted. There was even an open bar that catered to anyone that came.

    As long as they had a request, there would be alcohol brought out.

    It seemed much different from the banquets that I had been forced to attend when I had been in the capital.

    I was able to have quite a bit of fun, though I did make sure to hold myself back under the watchful eyes of Shaka and Haley.

    They made sure that I didn''t let myself go too much.

    Halfway through the banquet, I excused myself to go to the bathroom.

    When I got away from the rowdy banquet, I finally had a moment to myself to take a deep breath and calm down.

    As I stood there in the hallway, I couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    The dwarves¡­really were something else.

    They weren''t like the humans at all with their strict rules and manners, they were free to do whatever they wanted to do.

    If possible, I even wanted to be a dwarf¡­

    But that was just wishful thinking.

    As I was heading to the bathroom, I saw that there was a female dwarf that was walking through the halls with a worried look on her face.

    I would have walked right past her since I knew that it was better not to get involved, as well as a small part of me not wanting to interact with female dwarves because¡­of their appearances.

    But I couldn''t help being stopped when I saw this female dwarf''s appearance.

    That was because¡­she waspletely different from the other female dwarves that I had met before.

    Her face was still the same, but her body¡­

    She had a figure that didn''t fit that appearance at all.

    This was a figure that was full and busty,pletely different from the t figure that the rest of the female dwarves had.

    Wasn''t this the legendary oppai loli?

    I really couldn''t help stopping and taking a second look when I saw her, but that female dwarf misunderstood.

    When she saw me stop, she thought that I had stopped to help her.

    So she looked at me and was about to speak, but she stopped herself and revealed a surprised look as well.

    It was most likely because I was a human that she was surprised like this.

    However, she didn''t remain surprised for long as she asked, "Do you know the way to the banquet hall? I was walking around and I got lost."

    I didn''t seem to hear her at first, so she said, "Are you alright? Is there something wrong?"

    When she said this, I realized my mistake and gave a cough before saying, "No, there''s nothing wrong at all."

    I gave another cough before turning around and pointing to the left to say, "If you follow this corridor and go left, you''ll go back to the banquet hall."

    The female dwarf''s face lit up when she heard this.

    She grabbed me and I could feel softnessing from her, but that just made me turn stiff since her face¡­made it feel illegal.

    She said in a happy voice, "Thank you!"

    Then without waiting, she headed off

    But at the end of the corridor¡­she suddenly turned right instead of left.

    I was surprised by this, but I quickly chased after her and corrected her.

    But it seemed that wasn''t the end just yet¡­

    Since she got lost once again even though it was a direct path.

    Since I had already helped her, I had no choice but to help her to the end.

    I guided her back to the banquet hall, or close enough that she would be able to see it and make her way there. However, I didn''t walk her in since I didn''t want to give anyone the wrong idea.

    After we were in sight of the banquet hall, I asked her, "Will you be alright now?"

    The female dwarf revealed a bright smile and said, "Thank you for helping me, I should be fine now."

    But I couldn''t help standing there watching just in case as she headed back into the banquet hall.

    After all, I had seen her get lost on a straight path before.

    She was able to reach the banquet hall in the end since it was in sight and it seemed that I was worried for nothing.

    After this worry disappeared, I couldn''t help suddenly trembling as that feeling came back.

    I had been on my way to the bathroom and I had been holding it in because I had been worried about this female dwarf.

    But once that worry was gone, that feeling of needing to pee came back again, so I rushed back to the bathroom.

 Chapter 356 Causing trouble

    <h4>Chapter 356 Causing trouble</h4>

    After I came back from the bathroom, I found that the mood of the banquet was a bit strange.

    It was no longer as lively as before.

    It was almost as if something had happened while I was gone that I didn''t know about.

    So I went over to find Haley and the others to find out what had happened while I was gone, but before I could¡­there was someone else who found me first.

    This was a dwarf, but this was a dwarf that I had never met before.

    However, the moment that this dwarf saw me, he immediately came right at me.

    With the determined look that he had as he headed towards me, it seemed like he was on some kind of mission.

    I knew that this wasn''t going to be good.

    At the same time, I could tell by the way that the other dwarves looked at this dwarf that he was most likely the reason why the mood of the banquet had changed.

    Aftering over to me, that dwarf looked at me with narrowed eyes before saying, "So you''re the famous human?"

    I looked back at him with a calm look as I gave a shrug and said, "I wouldn''t say that I''m that famous. I''m just a normal human."

    The dwarf gave a snort when he heard this before turning his head away as if he was displeased with what I had just said.

    I knew that he was here to cause trouble, but I didn''t want trouble with him.

    So I said, "I''m sorry, I have some other matters to handle. It was nice meeting you, I hope we have the chance to talk again next time."

    This was all polite talk and naturally I didn''t mean it at all.

    As soon as I said this, I turned around to leave, but¡­

    That dwarf suddenly reached out to grab my hand and prevented me from leaving.

    I could have easily thrown his hand off, but I couldn''t do it with everyone looking at us like this.

    If I did, it would have surely hurt our rtionship with the dwarves.

    So I had no choice but to turn around and ask, "Is there something else that I can help you with?"

    This dwarf just looked at me with narrowed eyes again before saying, "I''ve heard that you had a forging duel with his majesty and you won."

    The moment that he said this, all of the dwarves looked at me with strange looks.

    I could tell from the moment that these strange looks fell on me that they didn''t know about this before.

    It seemed like none of the dwarves other than the ones that had witnessed it had learned of this matter.

    So how did this dwarf know about this?

    He clearly was not a dwarf that I recognized¡­so he shouldn''t have been at the forging duel.

    Just who was this dwarf?

    Still, those questions were forter.

    Right now, I have to take care of this situation.

    With another cough, I said, "I justpared notes with his majesty, I wouldn''t say that there was a winner or a loser."

    The dwarf knitted his brows the moment that he heard this. I could see that there was a trace of anger that appeared in his eyes in response to this answer.

    He then gave another snort before saying, "You humans and your sly way of words. Do you really think that we can''t see through them? You think you can look down on us because you know some fancy words?"

    I knitted my brows when I heard this.

    Judging by the way that he was reacting, it was clear that this would be leading up to a fight.

    However, that was thest thing that I wanted.

    So I said, "How about we calm down first. If there''s any ce where I''ve offended you, I can apologize. There''s no need to let ourselves get too emotional."

    The dwarf''s expression turned even darker when he heard this and he raised his fist as if he was about to punch me.

    I also prepared myself just in case anything happened, but nothing happened.

    That was because before he could punch me, there was a female dwarf that suddenly ran over to grab this dwarf''s arm.

    I was also surprised since I recognized this female dwarf.

    It was hard not to recognize her when she had a very distinctive feature¡­which was her body.

    This was the curvy female dwarf that I had met before.

    After grabbing this dwarf''s arm, she said, "Drogath, what are you doing?"

    The dwarf she called Drogath immediately knitted his brows as he turned to look at her. Then with a flick of his arm, he threw her away from him.

    After pushing her away like this, he said, "Woman, who told you to interfere? Do you think that an inferior woman like you can interfere in men''s matters?"

    I once again knitted my brows after hearing this.

    This dwarf named Drogath, it seemed that he wasn''t just racist against humans, but also a misogynist.

    He was the mix of the worst kinds of people, someone that everyone clearly hated.

    I really couldn''t understand why he was allowed in this banquet in the first ce.

    After all, anyone should have been able to figure out that he would have caused trouble at this banquet. So why would they allow him to attend in the first ce?

    The female dwarf didn''t mind what Drogath said to her and said back, "This human''s different, he''s not like them. He was kind enough to show me the way back to the banquet hall earlier."

    Drogath''s face twisted when he heard this.

    Then he roared out, "You sl*t, you just cling to whoever you want, don''t you? Now you''re even getting chummy with humans? I really need to teach you a lesson!"

    As soon as his voice fell, his hand came up as if he was about to p her.

 Chapter 357 Sheâ€™s my woman

    357 She¡¯s my woman

    I narrowed my eyes seeing this and I couldn''t stop myself as I moved forward.

    I knew that acting here might cause some tension with the dwarves, but I couldn''t call myself a man if I didn''t stop the injustice happening in front of me.

    So before Drogath could send out that p, I had already grabbed that hand.

    As soon as he felt someone grabbing his arm, Drogath immediately turned around.

    There was a trace of surprise that appeared in his eyes when he saw that it was me, but then he narrowed his eyes to look at me again.

    He looked like he was about to say something, but I knew that I couldn''t let him take the flow.

    So I saId, "I''m sure that we''ve all had a few too many drinks, but there''s no need to act this way."

    Then my eyes turned sharp as I said in a cold voice, "Please don''t do something that you''ll regret."

    Drogath was taken aback when he heard this and his eyes couldn''t help trembling a bit when he heard this.

    But then he still said with a snort, "Human, do you know what you are doing?"

    This time, he didn''t even bother hiding the disdain that was in his voice.

    I narrowed my eyes when I heard this, but I didn''t back down as I said, "It doesn''t matter what I''m doing. All that matters now is whether you will stop or not."

    Drogath suddenly broke out inughter when he heard this which made me very confused.

    I just looked at him with one brow raised as I waited to see what he had to say.

    Afterughing for a bit, he finally said, "She''s my woman, my property. I can do whatever I want with her."

    I knitted my brows as I had an idea of what he was implying, but I didn''t want to acknowledge it since it would put me in a worse position.

    So instead I said, "I didn''t know that the Dwarven Kingdom had ves. I thought that it was illegal to do such a thing here, but now you''re telling me that''s not the case?"

    It was indeed illegal to have ves in the Dwarven Kingdom unlike in the human kingdoms.

    Anyone who was found owning ves would be severely punished.

    Drogath didn''t even bat an eye when he heard this.

    He just gave a chuckle before saying, "Look at how barbaric you humans are. The first thing that you think of is that she''s a ve."

    He turned around and grabbed her by the chin, pulling her in.

    As he did, the female dwarf didn''t resist at all¡­the look on her face almost made it seem that she was used to such a thing¡­

    Drogath pulled her in and said, "She''s my wife, my property. So whatever I want to do with her, I can do. I don''t need an outsider to tell me how to treat my wife."

    After saying this, he looked at me with a smug smile.

    It was almost as if he was daring me to do something to him.

    I couldn''t help clenching my fist after hearing what he had said, but I didn''t step forward in the end.

    The female dwarf looked at me with an understanding look which just made it all the more worse.

    For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to kill someone.

    This piece of sh*t really wasn''t worth keeping alive.

    It was just too bad that I couldn''t do a thing to him since we were in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    The way that he looked at me with that smug look on his face, it was clear that he was trying to provoke me.

    But it wasn''t me that dealt with this racist dwarf in the end.

    "Is that so? I never heard such a thing when the two of you got married." A powerful voice suddenly rang out through the hall.

    When this voice rang out, everyone immediately turned in that direction.

    As they had expected, it was the Dwarven King and the look on his face¡­wasn''t good.

    Seeing the Dwarven King walking over, Drogath revealed an ugly expression.

    He had sent his people to hold back the Dwarven King while he antagonized this human, but he never expected the Dwarven King toe by so quickly.

    Just what were they doing?

    Drogath gave a cough to calm down before saying, "Your majesty, I was just having a chat with this human."

    The Dwarven King narrowed his eyes to look at him before saying, "Is that so?"

    Then he turned to look at the hand that was still at the female dwarf''s throat and said, "Then are you nning on letting go yet?"

    Drogath was caught off guard by this question, but he did let go in the end.

    Though there was an unwilling look on his face since he didn''t want to listen¡­but he had no choice since the other side was the Dwarven King.

    After letting go, he said, "Your majesty, this is a matter between me and the human. I hope that you will not interfere."

    The Dwarven King gave a snort before saying, "The human is my guest, so doesn''t that concern me? Or do you not care enough to give me face and do whatever you want in my ce?"

    Drogath was once again caught off guard since he never thought that the Dwarven King would defend the human like this.

    So this put him in an awkward position.

    Even if he did have some influence among the dwarves, that didn''t mean that he would be able to do anything to the Dwarven King.

    So with a cough, he said, "Your majesty, I have some other business to attend to. I hope that I will be able to see you again soon."

    The Dwarven King just gave a simple nod without saying anything.

    Drogath turned to the female dwarf and said in a sharp voice, "Get moving! We''re leaving!"

    Though she had her head down, she still followed him out of the banquet hall.

    As they walked out, she couldn''t help turning back to give onest look to me before following him out.

    When I saw the look of gratitude and apology in her eyes, I couldn''t help feeling that I had let her down¡­

    Eventually, someone is going to give up.

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 Chapter 358 Sister

    Once Drogath had been sent packing, the mood of the banquet regained its momentum a bit.

    However, it was impossible for it to return to the liveliness that it once had after that interruption.

    It was safe to say that this banquet was over.

    The Dwarven King gave a sigh before turning around. He waved his hand and said, "Come, let''s go talk in a private ce."

    I looked at him with one brow raised for a bit before following behind the Dwarven King.

    He didn''t leave the banquet right away and made ap to talk to a few people. At the same time, he also went to pick up Haley and the others from my group.

    After we had picked everyone up, he finally left the banquet hall and went down one of the side halls.

    As we left, I could hear the party ending behind us.

    Since the Dwarven King and even us as the guest of honours had left, there was no meaning to this banquet anymore.

    So they all started to disperse after we left the room.

    The Dwarven King led us to a private room and we all sat down before waiting for him to say something.

    We had no idea why we were here, we had been brought here by him after all.

    So all we could do was wait for him to say something.

    But the Dwarven King just sat there without saying a single thing.

    The only thing he did was give sighs again and again.

    It was as if something was bothering him, but he wasn''t willing to talk about it.

    Eventually, he still said something.

    "I''m sorry for what happened back there. It was my mistake for not making sure that they couldn''t sneak in."

    As we had expected, that Drogath hadn''t been invited and had snuck in.

    The Dwarven King had shown that he wanted to cooperate with us, so he wouldn''t have brought someone like that to the banquet.

    Seeing the way that we looked at him, he said with a sigh, "I don''t have a way to deal with him either. I want to, but he has a position that''s considered quite vtile."

    Seeing that we had confused looks, he exined, "That Drogath is the head of the anti human faction."

    We were surprised, but we weren''t that surprised since we had already expected this with the way that he had acted. It was clear that he didn''t like humans, but we had never expected him to be the head of the anti human faction.

    The Dwarven King continued by saying, "It''s not that we don''t want to deal with them, but if we take down Drogath¡­they''ll just go even more overboard. He''s considered mellowpared to some of the others, so it''s better to leave him in his ce."

    "The lesser of two evils, huh?" I couldn''t help saying.

    The Dwarven King''s eyes opened a bit wider before he gave a nod in response.

    He then continued by saying, "Not only that, he''s also quite the cksmith that he has the respect of quite a few people. So unless someone crushes him with skill, it''s not likely that they will be changing leaders."

    I looked at him and could see that there was something off about the Dwarven King.

    It was almost as if there was something that he wasn''t telling us.

    So I asked, "What''s wrong? What are you hiding?"

    The Dwarven King couldn''t help jolting when he heard this before looking at me with a strange look.

    It was almost as if he was trying to figure out how I had been able to see through him like this.

    But in the end, he said with a sigh, "He''s a childhood friend, so I don''t really want to do anything to him either. He''s just strayed down the wrong path¡­"

    His voice trailed off after he said this, but it was clear by the look on his face how he was feeling.

    He just wasn''t saying it.

    In the end, he said, "But since he''s a childhood friend, that''s why my little sister married him in the first ce. She''s the one that I''m worried about the most since I''ve seen the way that he treats her."

    There was no response to this since we all looked at him with shocked looks.

    The part that we were shocked by was¡­''little sister''.

    We never thought that busty loli would be the Dwarven King''s little sister.

    It seemed that this matter was moreplicated than we thought¡­

    In the end, I said with a sigh, "This doesn''t affect our rtionship. They can do what they want, but it shouldn''t affect our business, right?"

    The Dwarven King was surprised to hear this, but he revealed a grateful look afterwards.

    Then he said in a soft voice, "It would be great if I could separate my little sister from him, but I can''t do anything about it because of my position. If only there was someone that could defeat him in a forging duel."

    While saying this, he kept peeking at me from time to time.

    But I ignored this as I didn''t want to get involved in the matters of the dwarves.

    This was clearly an internal issue and not something that I should get involved in¡­but it didn''t seem like the Dwarven King would drop this issue that easily.

    The look in his eyes seemed like he wanted to bring me in again¡­

    I didn''t want that, so I said, "I don''t want to get involved in this. As long as he doesn''te at me, I won''t do anything to him."

    The Dwarven King surprisingly gave a nod of agreement when he heard this before saying, "I''ll do my best to keep him away from you. I promise that I won''t let anything ruin our friendship."

    I was surprised by this, but I didn''t feel like anything was wrong with what he said.

    Though I couldn''t stop the bad feeling that filled me like something was about to happen¡­

 Chapter 359 Going Shopping

    A few days passed since the banquet.

    Even though we had finished negotiating everything, the process of recording everything down was much moreplicated.

    Everything that we had discussed up to this point was nothing more than a verbal agreement and to put it in effect, we had to put it down on paper.

    So we stayed in the Dwarven Kingdom capital to take care of this matter.

    I just left most of this to Haley since this was what she was skilled at.

    During this time, I had been building rtions with the dwarves by working in the forge with them.

    I learned how to forge and I taught them about runes and alloys.

    With this, I was able to forge a reputation as an expert on runes and many dwarves treated me kindly.

    But out of the corner of my eyes, I could see that there were a few that still looked at me with disdain.

    I didn''t even need to think about it to know that these were definitely the anti human faction dwarves that were here to watch over me. I could also sense that they wanted to act, but they knew better and held themselves back in the end.

    So I wasn''t able to cause any trouble for them.

    But just to put my own mind at ease, I had Shaka watch over them for me.

    This morning, we met with the Dwarven King who wanted to meet up.

    I hadn''t seen the Dwarven King in a few days since he was the king of this kingdom and quite the busy person. He didn''t evene to the sessions that I had held at the forge, showing just how busy he was.

    But he summoned us early in the morning saying that he wanted to meet.

    When we met up, the Dwarven King said, "It''s been a while since you''vee to our kingdom, how are you holding up? Have you already had your fill? Are you getting tired of us yet?"

    I was surprised and confused when I heard this question, but I didn''t show it on my face.

    Instead, I just calmly said, "How could that be? We would even want to stay here forever if we could."

    The Dwarven King revealed a knowing smile and he didn''t say anything on this matter. Instead, he changed the topic by saying, "I''m sure that you''ve been busy the past few days and will probably want a day off."

    I couldn''t help once again being surprised by what he said.

    It¡­wasn''t a lie that it had been busy.

    I could see it when I exchanged looks with everyone else.

    But at the same time, we could see the looks of doubt in each other''s eyes.

    The Dwarven King wouldn''t suddenly suggest such a thing without a reason.

    So what was the reason?

    Was he trying to hide us because something had happened or was it something else?

    The Dwarven King could see the doubts that we had on our faces, but he didn''t answer any of those doubts.

    Instead, he just calmly said, "I''ve prepared a carriage for you all. It will take you to one of the business streets where you can shop to your heart''s content."

    I didn''t say anything in response to this since I still felt like there was something off about this, but I just couldn''t put my finger on it. I couldn''t think of what was wrong with this proposal of his, so it wasn''t as if I could deny it.

    After thinking for a bit, I gave a slow nod and said, "Alright, let''s go with your n."

    I wanted to see just what the Dwarven King was up to, so I agreed to go along with this.

    The Dwarven King revealed a wide smile and summoned someone to go with us.

    This was one of his trusted aides and one of the dwarves that had been there when we had our forging duel. This dwarf was named Kali Stormhammer, the master of the Stormhammer Family.

    This was a family that was on par with the Silvermine Family, so Haley was very happy to talk to him while we were on our way to the business street.

    By the end, she was even able to get a trade deal for iron ores out of him for some of their liquor.

    It had to be said that Haley really was something else when it came to her business sense.

    As long as she smelled the scent of money, she would jump onto it.

    Once we arrived, I couldn''t help looking around to see if there was anything out of sorts here.

    However, I wasn''t able to find a single thing wrong with this ce.

    It just seemed like a normal street lined with businesses.

    It didn''t seem like any kind of trap at all.

    So as time passed, my guard was slowly lowered as we went through the different stores.

    Kali had wanted to say that the Dwarven King would pay for what we brought, but Haley immediately rejected this.

    This was thest thing that she would ept since it would mean having a disadvantage in future negotiations as the one that owed something.

    So in the end, I pulled out my wallet and started spending.

    The things that Haley bought were all things that she would sell when we got back, so everything that I spent was an investment.

    Or at least that was what I told myself as she emptied my wallet.

    After shopping for a bit, Kali suddenly said, "If I may rmend a store, it''s one that I''m sure that you''ll like."

    He had been rmending stores along the way and so it wasn''t strange hearing him say this.

    But I couldn''t help feeling that the way that he said this sounded a bit strange¡­

    Almost as if he was leading us somewhere¡­

    Still, Haley followed him, so I had no choice.

    She had found quite a few good things at the spots that he rmended, so she wasn''t against following his rmendation.

    When we arrived at the store, we found that it was the store for a forge.

 Chapter 360 â€˜Coincidenceâ€™

    This shop had all kinds of different things made of iron.

    It wasn''t just weapons and armour, but also many daily necessities that one would need.

    Looking at these items, I could tell that they were finely made.

    I had spent enough time with dwarves in the forge that I had learned quite a bit about forging.

    This was without a doubt a very special store since I could tell that all the goods were very high quality.

    But why would Kali bring us to a ce like this?

    Even if the goods were of good quality, it wasn''t as if wecked these things.

    Even human cksmiths could make these things, so there was no need for us to buy these things here.

    Even if we could sell them back in human territory, it wouldn''t be that profitable.

    So I didn''t understand why Kali would bring us here.

    At the same time, I felt like there was something strange happening around us.

    Though the dwarves around didn''t look at us directly, I could feel that they were peeking at us out of the corner of their eyes. It was almost as if they were sizing us up while also being surprised that we were here.

    Shaka leaned in and said, "It seems like there are people watching over us¡­Their gazes aren''t hostile, it seems like it''s more surprise than anything else."

    I gave a nod to show I understood before falling into deep thought.

    While it is surprising that humans would be in the capital of the Dwarven Kingdom, it shouldn''t be at this level since we had shown ourselves quite a bit during this time. Most people should have already known that there were humans in the capital.

    At most, they would be surprised before having that surprise change into curiosity over us being humans.

    However, they were only surprised that we were here.

    So that could only mean¡­there was something special about this ce.

    I was about to say something, but before I could, there was someone that spoke first.

    "Eh? It''s you?"

    This was a familiar voice, a voice that I recognized right away.

    It was the Dwarven King''s sister, Elsa.

    She came over and asked, "What are you doing here?"

    Kali took a step forward and gave a slight bow to her before saying, "Mrs Elsa, I was just bringing our human friends here for a bit of shopping."

    Her eyes lit up when she heard this and she came forward to pick up one of the swords. Then she came towards us with that sword in hand, but the precarious way that she was holding it really made us fearful and we couldn''t help taking a step back.

    During this whole time, she said with a smile on her face, "This sword is great! It cuts so well!"

    A clutz, she was a real airhead.

    She was someone that went at her pace and didn''t care about anything else, which usually caused trouble for others around her.

    I had already learned this when I had guided her back to the banquet hall, but now it had be even more dangerous since she had a sword in her hand.

    However, that wasn''t my biggest concern.

    My biggest concern was¡­if she was here, that meant that it was very likely that someone else was here as well.

    As if on cue, a voice filled with disdain suddenly said, "What are you doing here in my store?"

    I didn''t need to turn around to know who this voice came from.

    It was Elsa''s husband, Drogath.

    The misogynistic and racist piece of sh*t.

    But since he was antagonizing us, it wasn''t as if I could just back down.

    So I calmed my expression and turned to face him.

    "We came to do a bit of shopping, but it seemed that we chose the wrong store."

    "Humph, do you think that humans are wee in my store in the first ce?" Drogath said with a snort.

    That was what I had thought as well, which was why the other dwarves in the store were so surprised to see us here.

    But of course, I couldn''t back down in front of his provocation, so I said, "Then we''ll be leaving this ce. It isn''t as if there''s anything that great here anyway."

    Drogath''s face turned dark when he heard this and he said, "You¡­"

    But in the end, he held himself back when he saw that Kali was also here. It still wasn''t time to tear away all face between the two sides, so he had to endure¡­

    Instead, he turned his anger on¡­Elsa.

    He came over and roared, "What do you think you''re doing? Fraternizing with the humans like this, don''t you find yourself disgraceful?"

    When she heard this, she couldn''t help trembling.

    Her hands were trembling so much that she dropped the sword that she was holding, though it almost looked like she threw it with how much force it had when it came out.

    If it wasn''t for Kali''s quick reactions, he might have been pierced by that sword that ''fell'' out of Elsa''s hands.

    In the end, the sword stabbed into the ground without hurting anyone.

    However, Drogath didn''t let it end there.

    He came forward and raised his hand as he roared, "Now you''re even damaging the merchandise? You really are useless!"

    Elsa once again flinched when she saw this and she brought her hands up instinctively as if she was already used to this.

    Kali had knitted his brows and was about to step forward to stop this, but before he could¡­someone else had made a move.

    When Drogath felt someone grabbing his arm, he immediately turned to look at that person.

    What appeared in his vision was a young face with blonde hair and blue eyes.

    What appeared in his vision was my face.

    I had stepped forward to grab him before he could do anything.

    Whether this was a ''coincidence'' or not, I had already decided that I would need to take care of Drogath eventually for the sake of my continued deals with the Dwarven Kingdom.

    So since I was given this chance, I decided to take it.

 Chapter 361 Lay Down Your Hammer (1)

    Drogath narrowed his eyes as he looked at me.

    There was a tense silence that hung in the air as no one said a thing.

    But in the end, Drogath said in a voice filled with disdain, "Who do you think you are? In my own shop and in my own home, you''re trying to tell me what to do?"

    He wanted to pull his hand away, but he found that there was something that was preventing him from doing so.

    Why was this human so strong?

    I just calmly looked at him which made Drogath feel a bit of pressure.

    He didn''t know why he was feeling pressured from this human, but there was this strange invisible pressure that fell onto him.

    I had been thinking about how to deal with Drogath since we hadst met and I hade to a single conclusion.

    The only way that I would be able to stop him without causing too much trouble was if¡­

    "A big man picking on a woman like this, he really is a great man, isn''t he?"

    My voice wasn''t too loud or soft, but everyone in the shop was able to hear it clearly.

    There were many that looked like they agreed with me, but there were still some that supported Drogath.

    These were clearly the members of the anti human faction along with Drogath¡­

    No, even before that, they were clearly just dwarves that shared the same misogynistic views as him. After all, not a single one of them had even flinched when Drogath went to hit Elsa.

    So it was clear that there weren''t any good members of the anti human faction.

    That made it clear why the Dwarven King didn''t do anything to them.

    They could be much more troublesome than they currently were, but Drogath could be considered a mellow leader. Since he didn''t cause any trouble and even restrained the rest, there was no reason for the Dwarven King to do anything to him.

    But there was a personal matter that the Dwarven King wanted to take care of.

    Drogath''s face twisted when he heard this and he was about to say something.

    I just didn''t give him that chance as I suddenly said, "Since you''re a big man, how about you prove it?"

    The look of rage that had been on Drogath''s face slowly turned into a look of confusion as he looked at me.

    He didn''t understand what I was trying to say.

    So I just calmly said, "If you''re a man, how about you ept a forging duel from me?"

    This time, Drogath''s face filled with shock and disbelief as he looked at me, trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. When he saw that my serious expression didn''t change, he couldn''t help being more shocked.

    After a long silence, he finally said in a slow voice, "Are you serious?"

    There were many dwarves around them that were looking at them with the same expression on their faces.

    After all, this was a human challenging a dwarf to a forging duel.

    This seemed like nothing more than a joke to them since they didn''t believe that a human would be able to take a dwarf on when it came to forging.

    I just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    There was someughter that came from around us, but Drogath looked at me with a strange look.

    It seemed like he was more well informed than I thought.

    This human was challenging him to a forging duel, this was simply insulting him and his pride.

    But Drogath had heard before that this human had even had a forging duel with the Dwarven King. There were even rumours that he had beaten the Dwarven King in their forging duel.

    Of course, he wouldn''t believe such false rumours since as the Dwarven King''s childhood friend, he had a very good idea just how skilled the Dwarven King was.

    He didn''t believe that a human would be able to defeat him in a forging duel even if he was beaten to death.

    Still, as the leader of the anti human faction, he had to be cautious of these things.

    He couldn''t just act rashly or else it would all be over for them¡­

    But in the end, his pride still won out.

    He didn''t want to let this human belittle him like this.

    "A forging duel? What are you willing to wager then?" Drogath said in a dark voice, almost as if he was trying to threaten him.

    I just calmly said, "What are you willing to offer?"

    Drogath couldn''t help being taken aback when he heard this, but then he narrowed his eyes and said in the same dark voice, "What if I said that I wanted your head."

    There was a cold gasp that came from around us, but I just looked back at Drogath calmly when he said this without saying a word.

    There was a silence that lingered for a bit before Drogath started saying, "Well, if you don''t have the cour¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly said, "Then are you willing toy down your hammer if you lose?"

    Drogath''s face immediately twisted when he heard this as he looked at me with a very ugly expression.

    Laying down the hammer¡­that was not as simple as it sounded to the dwarves.

    This was a term that meant¡­quitting forging forever.

    If a dwarf ever made a vow that they wouldy down their hammer, it would mean that they would never forge again.

    So for the dwarves that had such passion for forging, this was a sentence that was worse than death.

    It wasn''t ever used unless there was a serious grudge between groups.

    Drogath slowly said, "Do you even understand what that means?"

    I calmly said, "If you want my life, then I''lle for yours. But I''ll make you live a life that''s worse than death."

    Drogath couldn''t help taking a step back when he heard this.

    Just what was this human?

 Chapter 362 Lay Down Your Hammer (2)

    The conviction that this human showed couldn''t help making Drogath hesitate.

    However, there was no going back for him.

    The moment that I had chosen to do this in public, he was already doomed to ept.

    After all, if he backed down now after everything that would happen, he would be known as a coward for the rest of his life. So he was already trapped in a corner unless he was able to talk his way out of it.

    Drogath narrowed his eyes to look at him before saying, "You think that you can get out of the promise of giving your head since you''re a guest of our king, don''t you? You want to make fun of us dwarves?"

    He was trying to use both logic and emotion at the same time.

    He used the logic of him being guests of the Dwarven King to break a promise while also invoking the emotions of the dwarves around him.

    But I smoothly shut it down by saying, "Do you want it in writing?"

    Drogath''s mouth opened and closed a few times as he didn''t know what to say.

    He didn''t understand why this human was pushing him so far.

    It wasn''t as if he had done anything that bad to this human, he had just tried oppressing him with his words.

    It wasn''t as far as them wanting each other''s lives yet¡­

    Yet this human just didn''t back down.

    I knew that he would copse with just a single push, so I said, "I guess you''re man enough to beat women, but you''re not man enough to ept a duel when offered one. I guess you need to hide behind women after all."

    I knew that the final part was insulting to women, but it was the most effective way to provoke this misogynist, so I had no choice. I could only apologize in my heart.

    As expected, Drogath''s face twisted when he heard this.

    His expression changed several times as if he was trying to figure out what to say.

    But in the end, he revealed a dark and calm look as he said, "You really want to push me that far? Then don''t me me when you die."

    I looked at him and said, "That depends on if you have the skill."

    He didn''t fall for my provocation this time and simply stated, "What are the terms?"

    "A simple duel of forging des, nothing more, nothing less. Whoever forges the best de will be the winner of the duel."

    Drogath narrowed his eyes as a bit of surprise appeared in them, but then he said, "What about time and ce."

    I calmly replied, "We''ll have the Dwarven King act as our witness, so he''ll provide the location. As for the time, let''s set it for three days from now so we all have enough time to prepare."

    These terms were fair, but Drogath couldn''t help being surprised by one thing, "The Dwarven King, you''re involving him? Do you think that he''s so free that he has time for a forging duel?"

    This time, it was Kali who interrupted by saying, "His majesty has the time. He wille as the witness."

    Drogath was caught off guard hearing this, but he didn''t deny this since he recognized Kali. He knew his position and how close he was to the Dwarven King, so he was qualified to make this statement.

    But even getting the Dwarven King involved, this was getting more and moreplicated.

    That meant that this situation was getting worse and worse for him.

    With a frown on his face, he asked, "Then the prizes? Are you really sticking with that?"

    I looked at him with narrowed eyes as I said, "You''re backing down now?"

    Drogath''s face twisted hearing this, but I didn''t give him a chance to speak, "We will use the terms that we''ve already agreed on. My head for your hammer."

    But then after a pause, I added, "Oh, and one more thing."

    Drogath knitted his brows, but he said, "What else do you want?"

    I simply said with a smile, "It''s nothing thatplicated. If I win, you''ll divorce your wife."

    "Huh?" Both Drogath and Elsa were shocked when they heard this before Elsa looked at me with a grateful look.

    Drogath on the other hand just looked disgusted seeing this, so he said, "Fine, do whatever you want with this tramp, like I would want her." But then he added, "Of course, that depends on your skill."

    After hearing this, Elsa revealed a hurt look.

    "Hmm, very well then. I think that we''ve set the terms. Should we put it in writing?" I said in a teasing voice.

    Drogath''s face twisted when hearing this, but he waved his hand and said, "Do whatever you want. There''s all these witnesses, do you really think that either of us can back down now? Especially since it even involves his majesty?"

    I shook my head as I said, "No, it''s far toote for that."

    Drogath gave another snort before ignoring me.

    He was going towards Elsa, but before he could reach her, Kali suddenly stepped forward to stand between them.

    Drogath revealed an ugly expression before saying, "What are you doing? Are you also getting between a man and his wife now?"

    Kali''s expression didn''t even flinch as he said, "His majesty has requested that Mrs Elsae to the castle for a few days. He misses her and wishes to discuss a matter with her."

    This was a clear excuse, but Kali didn''t back down under Drogath''s re.

    So in the end, Drogath just said with a sigh and wave of his hand, "Do whatever you want with this woman. I never should have married her in the first ce, she''s nothing but trouble."

    The hurt look became even stronger in Elsa''s eyes when she heard this.

    With all of this settled, I didn''t want to stay in this store for a moment longer.

    So with Kali leading the way, we headed back to the carriage and headed back to the castle.

    It was fine since I also had a few things I wanted to talk to the Dwarven King about.

 Chapter 363 Confronting The Dwarven King

    When we arrived at the pce, there were many dwarves that had gathered.

    It seemed that news spread fast since the moment that we arrived, many of them turned to look at me with a strange look.

    It was as if they wanted to say something, but they were kept back because of the look on my face.

    I had a rare serious look as I followed the captain of the guards V to a private room.

    This wasn''t the throne room that we had gone to before, this was the Dwarven King''s private room.

    The throne room was for weing guests in a grand manner while this private study was just for discussing private matters.

    But as the king of dwarves, the Dwarven King didn''t use this study much in the first ce.

    If it wasn''t for what he had done, he wouldn''t have even been here in the first ce.

    When we came in, he looked at us with a bitter smile on his face as he saw the look on mine. With that bitter smile he gestured with his hand to the seats in front of him and said, "Come, let''s sit and talk."

    After sitting down, he said with a sigh, "I know what you''re going to say."

    "Oh really?" I said in a sarcastic voice.

    If this was before, it would be unthinkable to talk to the Dwarven King like this. After all, this was a king that ruled over this entire kingdom of dwarves, a king that wasn''t inferior to the king of our kingdom.

    Normally this kind of tone would have even sparked a war between kingdoms.

    But after getting close to the Dwarven King, I felt assured in using this tone.

    I even deserved it a bit after what he had put me through.

    The Dwarven King just revealed another bitter smile before saying, "It''s not like I had a choice. If I didn''t do this, you wouldn''t have helped."

    "And do I have a reason to help?"

    The Dwarven King''s smile became more bitter after hearing this, but he didn''t refute it.

    After all, he knew just how big of a favour he was asking in the first ce.

    So he just said with a sigh, "I know that what I''m asking for is overboard, but could you have remained calm if it was your little sister in this situation?"

    He had given up trying to act dumb, he just directly stated what was on his mind.

    In a way, this was much more effective than if he told a lie.

    With a sigh, I said, "Fine, what''s done is done, there''s no time to regret it. But you''ll have to tell us what you''re willing to give us for helping you with this."

    The Dwarven King revealed a serious look when he heard this before taking out a few pieces of paper that he ced on the table. He pushed these forward for us to look at and we couldn''t help being surprised.

    These were the deeds for several mines.

    The Dwarven King then said, "These are some of the mines under my name and not the kingdom. I will give you these mines for helping me."

    We couldn''t help being more surprised because among the deeds, there was even one for a mithril mine.

    Mithril mines were fiercely guarded by the dwarves and they would never let such important things out of their hands.

    For the Dwarven King to offer something like this¡­it was clear that he was being sincere.

    Since he was being sincere¡­

    I just gave a sigh and said, "Alright, I''ll help with this n of yours." Then under my breath, I added, "Of course, it isn''t as if I have a choice on this matter."

    The Dwarven King chose to ignore this as he said with a smile, "Thank you."

    Then he became serious as he asked, "What is the current situation? I only know that you''ll be having a forging duel with Drogath, I haven''t learned the details yet."

    With a sigh, I told him everything that happened.

    By the end of the story, the Dwarven King had a heavy look on his face.

    After a pause, he said, "Why did you do such a reckless thing? Betting your life like that, do you really think that he''s that weak that you can beat him that easily?"

    I was about to say something, but Haley cut in first by saying, "That''s right! I''ve been holding myself back the whole time, but how could you do something like that? Don''t you know how dangerous this is!"

    It wasn''t just her, but also the others that had followed me that said this.

    They all disapproved of this gamble that I had made since it was too risky betting my life like this.

    Hearing them nag me like this, all I could do was let out a bitter smile.

    But there was a part of my heart that felt warm because of their nagging.

    After all, they were nagging me because they cared about me.

    That was enough to show that they cared.

    I calmly listened to all of them and waited for them to finish before saying, "I have a reason for doing this."

    All of them revealed surprised and confused looks when they heard this, but they waited for me to exin instead of saying anything else.

    I just calmly turned to the Dwarven King and said, "I''m going to destroy him, are you alright with that?"

    "Huh?" The Dwarven King was taken aback by how firm and strong my voice was.

    It was as if I couldn''t already see myself crushing Drogath in this forging duel, though that wasn''t too far off from the truth.

    There had been things that I had kept hidden that I was going to use now.

    There was no chance that Drogath would ever be able topete unless there was something about him that I didn''t know.

    The Dwarven King revealed aplicated look after hearing this, but he still gave a nod in the end.

 Chapter 364 The Dwarven Kingâ€™s Past

    Then he said with a bitter smile, "It seemed that you held back in our duel."

    There was a bit of a ming tone to his voice, but it was more teasing than it was angry.

    I just smiled back at him without saying anything.

    There was no need for words, the look on my face made it clear what I was trying to convey.

    The Dwarven King also didn''t push this since he knew that everyone had to hide some of their cards. This was just the natural order of things when one was in a foreignnd.

    Only by keeping cards hidden would one be able to remain safe.

    He didn''t hold it against Zwein since he knew that he would do the same.

    Instead of continuing this discussion, I suddenly asked, "What happened between the three of you that this happened?"

    If Elsa was here, I definitely wouldn''t have asked this question.

    But since she wasn''t, I couldn''t help being curious about this.

    After all, the Dwarven King clearly seemed unwilling to act personally to handle Drogath. That was why he had gone in such a big circle to take care of him.

    However, Drogath was a big enough problem that the Dwarven King didn''t mind the fact that I had bet his hammer in this forging duel.

    This meant that it was quite serious¡­

    Just what had happened that he was so unwilling to act directly?

    The Dwarven King didn''t respond after hearing this.

    Instead, he gave a long sigh before looking down with dull eyes, as if he was looking into the past.

    After a long silence, he finally said, "It''s a long andplicated story, if you''re willing to listen."

    We didn''t say anything, but I gave a nod in response to this.

    After he saw this, the Dwarven King also peeked over at Haley.

    It was almost as if¡­he was asking if there was any alcohol for him.

    This was a hard story for him, so he wanted to have a drink while he told this story.

    But since we had juste from shopping, it wasn''t as if we had anything like that with us.

    So he could only give a disappointed sigh before he started telling his story.

    It wasn''t that umon of a story and it almost could be considered cliche.

    The three of them were childhood friends who grew up together, but at the same time, Drogath and the Dwarven King Thorin had been rivals at one point. They hadpeted with each other in technique and that was what had pushed them to their current level.

    The Dwarven King was the one that came out on top, but Drogath never minded this and just did all he could to improve his technique.

    Elsa, who had always been with them had seen this and she was filled with admiration for him because of it.

    That was what had brought the two of them together in the end.

    The Dwarven King was happy to see his best friend and rival end up with his little sister since he could see the attraction between the two of them. Especially since his little sister was teased because her figure¡­was different from the other dwarves.

    So seeing him protect her made him feel that he could entrust her to him.

    That was until Drogath had suddenly changed.

    "What made him change?" I couldn''t help asking in a very curious voice.

    The story that I listened to made Drogath sound like apletely different person from the one that I had met.

    How could a person change this much?

    The Dwarven King shook his head to show that he didn''t know before saying, "It was a sudden change that happened a few years back. He had just taken a trip to the south when he suddenly came back with all these new ideas."

    He couldn''t help giving a sigh before continuing, "When he preached these ideas, he started gathering a following. They were naturally willing to follow him because he had the forging skills to make them follow him. They thought that he would be the one that would take the throne and change the country into the one that they dreamed of, a country just for dwarves thatpletely isted itself from the humans. But I know that such a dream is impossible since there are just too many humans to begin with. If we really did such a thing, it wouldn''t take long for the humans to find a way to destroy us."

    With another sigh, the Dwarven King said, "I know that the way forward is co-existence, but they just won''t listen."

    It was clear that he had his fair share of troubles, but there was something that I couldn''t help finding strange.

    "He never challenged you for the throne?"

    In dwarven society, the throne wasn''t a hereditary thing.

    The throne was for the most skilled craftsman in the kingdom that wanted the throne.

    So only those that had the skills would be able to take the throne in the first ce.

    If there was anyone that wanted the throne, they were free to challenge the current Dwarven King to a forging duel for it.

    This was the right that every dwarf had, but of course there were limits.

    One challenge per dwarf in their lifetime, that was the limit.

    If one failed, there was no second time.

    That was to make sure that dwarves didn''t keep challenging the Dwarven King for his throne since that would just hurt the Dwarven Kingdom.

    The Dwarven King shook his head as he said, "I don''t know if it''s because he''s not confident in his skill or if it''s out of respect for me, but he has never challenged me. But that is a problem in itself since that just causes the anti dwarf faction to grow¡­"

    With another sigh, the Dwarven King said, "I really don''t know what to do about them."

    But then he looked at me with a worried look and said, "I can''t say anything about his personality, but I can guarantee that his skills areparable to mine. If you really want to crush him, you''ll have to take out something very shocking."

    I just revealed a faint smile and said, "That''s not a problem. I have my ways."

 Chapter 365 Elsaâ€™s Request

    The matter had been set and all that was left was to prepare the venue.

    The Dwarven King promised to take care of everything since he was the one that had been responsible for this mess in the first ce.

    But before we could discuss this any further, there was a knock on the door.

    All of us froze when we heard this knock as we didn''t expect anyone to disturb us.

    But then a voice said, "Big brother, can Ie in?"

    It was Elsa.

    She had been guided away by Kali earlier and he should have been keeping her busy while they discussed business.

    So what was she doing here?

    Still, it wasn''t as if they had the time to slowly think about that since she was already here.

    They quickly put away the things that were on the table before the Dwarven King said, "Come in."

    The door opened and as expected, Elsa was standing outside.

    As she looked into the room after the door opened, she couldn''t help revealing a surprised look. After all, it was clear that she didn''t expect us to be here as well.

    She just gave a bow to us before moving over to stand in front of both me and the Dwarven King.

    The two of us looked at each other, but it was clear by the looks in each other''s eyes that neither of us knew what was happening.

    So the Dwarven King cleared his throat and asked, "Little sister, what is¡­"

    Before he could finish, Elsa suddenly gave a deep bow to both of us which caught us both off guard. Neither of us were able to say a word as we just stared at her in shock.

    But in the end, we finally reacted and both stood up to help her get up.

    The Dwarven King also said, "What are you¡­"

    Once again, before he could finish, she cut him off by saying, "Please save him."

    Both of us were once again caught off guard when we heard this.

    Still, we didn''t need to ask to know who she was talking about.

    With a sigh, the Dwarven King asked, "Why are you doing this? You should know how he treated you, he''s not worth you asking for forgiveness like this."

    I just remained silent since I knew that this was a matter between the two of them, but there was a look of approval in my eyes.

    I too had seen how he had treated her, so I would stand with the Dwarven King on this matter.

    Elsa''s body trembled a bit when she heard this and she remained silent for a bit after the Dwarven King''s voice fell.

    But in the end, she still said with a sigh, "You don''t know him like I do¡­"

    Both of us knitted our brows when we heard this.

    This was the one thing that we had been worried about.

    What would we be able to do if she still had feelings for him?

    If she still did have feelings for him, it didn''t matter what we did as she would still try to stand on his side.

    As I was trying to figure out a tactful way to ask this question, the Dwarven King suddenly said, "What''s wrong? Are you saying that you still have feelings for him even after the way that he treated you? Are you trying to say that you can save him?"

    I couldn''t help looking at him like he was crazy when I heard this.

    There was clearly a much gentler way of putting this, but the way he was doing it was like he was stabbing a stake in her heart.

    It was clear by the trembling of Elsa''s body that she was affected by his words.

    But then she said, "It would be a lie to say that I still had feelings for him, but there are things that you don''t know."

    We didn''t doubt her words since we could hear the sincerity in them, but that just made us even more confused.

    After all, what was she basing this on that she was so certain of this.

    We couldn''t help deeply knitting our brows after hearing this.

    After a pause, the Dwarven King said, "What don''t we know?"

    We couldn''t see her face since she was still bowing down, but we could tell what kind of expression she had based on the shaking in her voice as she spoke.

    "In the middle of the night, I can hear the things that he says. It''s clear that he''s struggling with something that he can''t deal with."

    Both of us knitted our brows even more after hearing this.

    It seemed that there really was a story behind this.

    After all, the mumblings of a person in their sleep came from their subconscious. There was no way for them to lie about something like that.

    And the fact that he was mumbling in his sleep meant that there was something bothering him.

    But it was clear that the Dwarven King was more bothered by this than me.

    He looked at me with a concerned look after a moment of silence. The way that he looked at me almost seemed like he was leaving this decision up to me.

    I didn''t say anything right away since this could be considered a big decision.

    After a brief period of thinking, I gave a sigh and said, "As long as he doesn''t go too far, I can step back as well."

    The Dwarven King''s face lit up when he heard this, but that look didn''tst long.

    I then said in a serious voice, "But if he shows no sign of remorse, there''s no need for me to hold back. If he intends to hurt me or the people that I care about, I won''t show any mercy."

    The Dwarven King''s expression stiffened when he heard this, but he gave a nod with a sigh as he said, "That''s fair. It''s already more than I should ask for."

    At the same time Elsa stood up and said, "Thank you."

    I couldn''t help thinking that I really was too soft hearted at times.

    But the looks on their faces¡­seemed like it was worth it.

 Chapter 366 Private Meeting

    That night, in the residence that the Dwarven King had prepared for us.

    The group that hade with me was gathered around a table and I was sitting at the head of that table.

    All of them were standing around me and ring at me like I had done something wrong.

    Though if one thought about it¡­I had done nothing right this entire time.

    Not only did I get involved in the Dwarven King''s private matters, I had even gotten involved in the national matters of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    I had gotten involved with the anti human faction of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    No matter how this ended, it would be messy¡­

    So they had all the right to be angry.

    But it turned out that it was for a different reason.

    After a long period of silence, Haley suddenly pped the table and said in a sharp voice, "What were you thinking? Putting your life on the line like that, did you really think that was the best idea?"

    I couldn''t help flinching when I heard this voice.

    I also secretly looked at the others and found that they all had simr looks on their faces, showing that they agreed with what Haley was saying.

    I just lowered my head and said, "I''m sorry."

    But she saw right through it and pped the table again before saying, "I don''t believe you."

    Though I had apologized, it was more instinct than it was sincere.

    I was apologizing since I knew that it would be easier to apologize now thanter.

    But in truth, I believed that what I did was right.

    After all, if I didn''t use something big like my own head as a bet, it wouldn''t have drawn Drogath out.

    He wouldn''t have been forced into a corner where he would have no choice but to take my provocation.

    So I didn''t actually think that I was wrong.

    Haley could of course see this, so she was even more angry.

    I lowered my head and expected more angry words toe from her, but they didn''te in the end.

    I slowly looked up and saw that she was looking at me with a sad look.

    My heart couldn''t help trembling when I saw this sad look on her face.

    I immediately stood up and came over to take her in my arms as I asked, "What''s wrong?"

    "What''s wrong?" She repeated slowly before saying, "You really are something! Don''t you understand my feelings at all!?"

    I was taken aback when I heard this.

    But she wasn''t done yet as she said, "You''re putting your life on the line like this without even telling me anything and you expect me to be alright with it? Why don''t you think about how it feels for me?"

    I was even more shocked hearing this.

    However, I was slowlying to realize my mistake.

    I was indeed being too selfish.

    I was certain that I would win, but for them¡­it wasn''t as certain.

    What I was doing in their eyes was putting my life on the line in this forging duel.

    And they were just worried about me.

    Even if I was confident that I would win, the fundamental principle was still wrong since I was expecting them to know something that was impossible for them to know.

    At the same time, I was just being selfish by acting the way that I wanted to.

    In essence, this was just them being worried about me and I waspletely ignoring it.

    I turned to look at Shaka and the others and found that they all had the same sad look in their eyes.

    I opened and closed my mouth a few times, but words didn''te out as I didn''t know what to say here.

    In the end, all I could say was, "I''m sorry."

    But this time, it was sincere. This was sincerity that came from the bottom of my heart.

    I realized my mistake once again.

    When I started using my knowledge from the game, I started taking this world as a game too.

    That was why I was so callous with my life.

    But this wasn''t the case.

    This world was a real world that I had reincarnated into and each of my actions had consequences.

    If something changed and I lost, then it wasn''t as if I would get out of having to give up my life¡­

    Those were the real consequences of my action.

    Seeing that I was apologizing for real, they all slowly calmed down and we were finally able to get the real meeting under way.

    Haley wiped away the tears that had been in her eyes and she looked at me with a serious look as she said, "What is your n?"

    The others all looked at me with serious looks as well as they waited for me to tell them.

    Seeing them look at me like this, I took a deep breath before deciding to tell them what I was nning to do.

    If I kept it from them, it would just make them more worried about me and that was thest thing that I wanted.

    Since they were people that were close to me, thest thing that I wanted to do was worry them or hurt them.

    So I started exining what my n was.

    They had confused looks on their faces as they listened to my n, making it very clear that they didn''t understand what I was saying.

    But I couldn''t me them since most dwarves wouldn''t understand what I was saying either.

    This was a very advanced technique that very few people knew, so there would be no problem in taking care of Drogath in a few days.

    After looking at each other and making sure that no one knew what I was saying, Haley looked at me and asked, "How certain are you that this will work?"

    I gave a firm nod and said with a confident look, "I''m 100% certain that I''ll win."

    They still had worried looks on their faces despite hearing this, but they still gave a nod and said, "Alright, we trust you."

 Chapter 367 What Is This? (1)

    A few days passed and it was time for the forging duel.

    The Dwarven King hadn''t held back at all when it came to preparing for this forging duel.

    The location that he had found¡­was the stadium in the center of the capital.

    This was the stadium that was used for the most important ceremonies of the Dwarven Kingdom, but now it was being used for a forging duel.

    That was the power of the Dwarven King.

    As long as he willed it, he could make almost anything happen in this kingdom.

    When Drogath arrived, he had an ugly expression on his face.

    After all, he never expected this matter to blow up this much.

    But since it had reached this point, he had no choice but to face it.

    At the center of the arena was his opponent waiting for him along with the Dwarven King.

    Seeing the two of them, he couldn''t help knitting his brows again.

    But he still came up to them and said, "It seems like you really want to let the whole world see your loss. I guess it''ll be a public execution then."

    I wasn''t triggered at all by these words and just calmly looked at him with a smile before saying, "Are you sure that you can still say those words when this is over?"

    Drogath also didn''t react since he knew that this was nothing more than an exchange of provocation.

    The one who actually fell for it would be the loser and he wouldn''t be the loser in this case.

    So he just gave a snort and turned to look at the forges prepared.

    As he looked at it, he couldn''t help revealing a look of praise.

    Even with his personality, the thing that came first was his identity as a dwarf and his identity as a cksmith.

    When he saw these fine furnaces that had been prepared, along with all of the tools that they needed, he couldn''t help praising how well prepared they had been. After all, a lot of these tools were specialized tools that only masters would be able to use.

    These were not tools that normal people would even touch.

    As such, there weren''t many such tools avable in the first ce.

    There was only a small provider, so they were considered rare.

    However, Drogath would never let the Dwarven King or this human know that.

    So with a snort, he walked over to his own station.

    I shook my head with a faint smile when I saw this as I couldn''t help feeling that dwarves really were tsun tsun sometimes.

    But then I looked at the Dwarven King and gave him a nod.

    When the Dwarven King saw this, he couldn''t help revealing aplicated look.

    Casting a nce at Drogath with thatplicated look, the Dwarven King gave a sigh as he returned that nod.

    Receiving this nod, I turned and walked over to my station.

    Following me was Ivar who had been waiting on the side. When he saw me walking over, he came to my side to walk with me.

    Drogath had been preparing his things when he suddenly looked at me. He couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when he saw Ivar with me before saying, "What are you doing? This is a forging duel, this is not a ydate! Are you bringingpanions with you now?"

    I just calmly looked at Drogath and said, "Since I cannot do the forging part myself, I have brought an assistant to help me. Or are you scared?"

    "You can''t forge?" Drogath slowly repeated before suddenly shouting, "Are you kidding me? If you can''t forge, where do you get the nerve to challenge me to a forging duel? Are you crazy?"

    I didn''t flinch at all when I heard this.

    I just said with a calm look, "I am not a cksmith by trade, so I can''t do the forging myself. I have brought an assistant to make up for this, is there a problem with that?"

    "Do you even hear yourself? You''re saying that you''re challenging me to a forging duel without even being to forge yourself? Am I going crazy or is the world going crazy?" Drogath roared out.

    Once again, I said with a calm expression, "My forging knowledge is far beyond what my skills are, so I''ve brought an assistant to help me. Or are you telling me that you''re scared of a human?"

    When his pride was provoked, Drogathpletely lost it as he roared, "You dare say that I''m scared of a human? Do you really think that you threaten me in the slightest?"

    I just gave a shrug as I said, "It seems that way."

    Drogath looked like he wanted to explode, but he held himself back in the end and said with a snort, "Do whatever you want. But if he does more than the cksmithing, I will not hesitate to call you out."

    Once again, with a shrug, I said, "Do as you wish."

    After he epted Ivar, there was someone else that walked over to our group.

    It was Moon.

    When Drogath saw this, he couldn''t help saying with a snort, "Are you telling me that an elf is going to help with the forging as well now?"

    I shook my head and said, "She''s my assistant for something else."

    "Huh? So you''re telling me that elves can forge now?" Drogath said with a snort.

    I simply responded with a shrug before heading over to my furnace.

    Drogath didn''t make as much of a fuss this time and just focused on his own work.

    That was what I had been targeting.

    Since he had already epted Ivar, I knew that it wouldn''t be a problem for him to ept Moon as well.

    That was why I had here up after Ivar.

    But it didn''t take long before Drogath found something else toin about.

    It was while I was throwing metals into the furnace.

    The way that I did it made it seem like I was just throwing random things into the furnace.

    This made Drogath explode once more.

    "What are you doing? Are you just ying around at this point?!"

 Chapter 368 What Is This? (2)

    I didn''t bother answering him when he roared out at me and just focused on my own work.

    When Drogath saw this, he couldn''t help almost dropping what he had been holding, but he caught himself in time and stopped that from happening.

    If that did happen, then he would have dropped something he didn''t want to put in the furnace and that would have ruined the ingot that he had been forging.

    But the anger of this caused him to explode even further.

    "You! If you''re just ying around, then all you''re doing is insulting me and all the other dwarves who dedicate our lives to forging!"

    There were quite a few nods that came from the crowd after he said this.

    The Dwarven King had actually gathered quite a crowd today since I had said that I wanted to give Drogath an execution.

    With them all around us, it did give off quite a bit of pressure.

    But I didn''t mind it at all.

    That was until Drogath said, "That is all humans are good for, they just y around and mess with us dwarves thinking that we are inferior to them."

    When he dragged race into this, I naturally couldn''t just let him get away with this.

    So I calmly said, "Instead of sticking your nose into what others are doing, you should focus on your own work. How are you so certain that I''m messing around when you don''t even know what I am doing. Do you know everything about my technique?"

    Drogath''s face twisted when he heard this.

    He looked at me with narrowed eyes for a bit before giving a snort and turning back to his own furnace.

    Most of the crowd nodded along when they heard this since this was something that they could get behind.

    If they weren''t dwarves, they might not have backed me like this.

    It was only dwarves that could keep this kind of open mind.

    Humans¡­were incapable of this.

    So I ignored him and continued focusing on my own furnace.

    I watched the mixture being melted inside of the furnace and slowly added more things in ordingly.

    Even when Drogath was finished with his smelting, I was still focused on my molten metal.

    He looked at me with disdain when he saw this before turning away with a snort.

    Since he was done, he would be focusing on forging his metal.

    But I wasn''t worried at all about this.

    After all, this was a challenge of skill and not speed.

    Just being fast didn''t mean that one was able to make a good weapon.

    However, I did peek at his technique out of the corner of my eyes.

    The Dwarven King had been right about one thing, he was very skilled.

    I had seen the Dwarven King''s techniques before when we had our forging duel and I could tell that Drogath wasn''t much worse than him. He was still a bit worse, but if he was focused instead of paying attention to what I was doing, he might have been able to catch up to the Dwarven King.

    It took a bit longer for me to finish with my smelting, but I slowly took out my molten metal when it was done.

    I poured it into the prepared mold and let it cool before bringing it out.

    When it was taken out, everyone couldn''t help revealing a surprised look.

    That was because they had never seen a kind of metal like this before.

    This was a piece of metal that waspletely white in colour and almost seemed like it was transparent, but there was a blur that was in it that prevented people from seeing through it.

    If one didn''t look closely, they might even think that this metal was ss.

    But it was without a doubt metal.

    Drogath just gave a snort when he saw this and decided to stop caring. He had reached a crucial part of his forging, so he couldn''t let himself be distracted at this moment.

    He entered a state of pure focus, which was quite impressive to see.

    But I focused on my own forging as well.

    Since the metal had been prepared, it was time to hit it with the hammer.

    That was where Ivar came in.

    Seeing that it was his turn, Ivar grabbed the hammer in one hand and the tongs in the other. He used the tongs to bring this almost see through metal onto the anvil and then mmed his hammer down on it.

    "ng! Snap!"

    The moment that the hammer fell down on the metal, it snapped.

    The wood handle of the hammer snapped cleanly in half and the top half of the hammer flew through the air before mming down on the ground.

    At the same time, there was a small dent in the shape of the piece of metal that had formed in the anvil.

    Ivar looked at the handle in his hand in shock before looking down at the piece of metal on the anvil.

    In a stunned voice, he asked, "Just what is this thing? Why is it so hard? I''ve never seen anything like this before."

    I looked at the piece of metal on the anvil for a bit before suddenly saying in a voice that seemed like I had remembered something, "That''s right, it won''t turn malleable without a source of magical fire. How could I forget?"

    I turned to Moon and said, "Can you use your magic to create some fire for us?"

    She was surprised to be called, but she gave a nod and came over with her hand up. In her hand, there was a small me gathered.

    She brought this me up to the piece of metal on the anvil, but she found that it didn''t have any effect at all.

    So she created an even bigger me in her hand.

    She had to put more and more of her magic power into this until she finally saw the piece of metal changing colours.

    This thing¡­really ate up her mana.

    Seeing this, I called to Ivar, "It''s time,e and hit it."

    Ivar snapped back out of his daze and with a doubtful look, he picked up another hammer.

    But this time, he found that the hammer was able to shape this piece of metal.

    So he continued hitting it again and again under my direction.

 Chapter 369 What Is This? (3)

    As we continued, Moon revealed a more and more strained look.

    After all, she had to maintain the magic mes that were being used to heat the metal to make it malleable.

    The amount of mana she needed to maintain these mes wasn''t a small amount, so she was slowly being drained by having to maintain these mes. It really was hard for her to keep going.

    It was just a good thing that before she ran out of mana, I said, "Alright, that''s enough."

    Moon let out a sigh of relief and released the mes at that moment.

    Ivarnded onst blow to the metal and finished forming the de.

    The moment that the mes disappeared, the metal quickly cooled down and returned to its hard form.

    At this point, even if Ivar wanted to forge it, he wouldn''t be able to do a thing to it.

    All that would happen is that it would break the hammer just like before.

    But seeing this de, I gave a satisfied nod.

    Now it was my turn.

    Instead of carving right into the de, this time I pulled out a bag of powder and a brush.

    Even if I wanted to carve into the de, it would have been impossible with how hard it was. Unless I was able to gain some kind of magical strength that defied all expectations to be able to carve into this de.

    Though whether I had a tool that could do that was still a doubt.

    Still, that wasn''t what I had been nning to do in the first ce.

    This powder that I had was a special powder that I had prepared for this duel.

    This powder was made from a mixture of special ores and herbs, creating a catalyst that would absorb mana at a rate far greater than before.

    The powder that I had sprinkled into the runes carved before was only a low grade powder. It was actually the weakest form that I could have brought out, out of all the ones that were in my head.

    The one that I had taken out now¡­was an upper middle catalyst.

    Without finding more materials, this was already the highest level catalyst that I could take out.

    But the effects of this¡­were without a doubt shocking.

    It took me a while to finish drawing the runes on since I had decided to go all out.

    A total of eleven different runes.

    At this moment in time, this could be considered a sword that could even kill gods.

    But that was only because this was the beginning of the game.

    If it was measured in levels, this was a sword that was around level 50 while everyone here was currently only around level 20.

    There was no doubt that this would be considered a divine weapon.

    The only thing that I had to worry about was not having enough mana to finish this weapon.

    But luckily that was where the Dwarven King came in.

    He had provided quite a few magic stones. These magic stones came from A Rank monsters, so the mana that they contained wasn''t small.

    These would be more than enough to make a god killing sword.

    This time, I didn''t even need Moon''s help to use the magic stones to fill the runes with mana.

    Since there were these magic stones, all that was needed was a gentle nudge for it to happen.

    I had been practicing my mana control this whole time, so I was able to do this on my own.

    As the mana flowed into the sword, Moon couldn''t help revealing a shocked look.

    That was because she could sense the amount of mana that was in the magic stones and how much of it was being transferred into the sword.

    With this much mana¡­this would be without a doubt a terrifying weapon.

    The mana easily flowed into the runes that I had drawn, that was the effect of the catalyst.

    It didn''t even take much mana on my part to induce this.

    The mana inside the magic stones almost seemed to flow out the moment that the connection was filled.

    This was just how powerful this catalyst was.

    When all the runes were filled, the magic that was contained within this de reached an incredible level.

    This was without a doubt a divine weapon.

    All that was left was to sharpen the edge of the de and finish it off.

    Once again, I needed Moon''s help.

    This was an incredibly hard metal and unless we used magic, it wouldn''t work.

    My mana alone was far from being enough for this, so I needed her to help me.

    She had used this time to recover her mana, so she was able to help me with this.

    Moon used her mana to cast a strengthening enchantment on the sand stone, so it was able to grind down the edge of the de.

    The grind stone was able to easily smooth out the edge of the de to form a sharp de.

    After grinding it a few times, I gave a satisfied nod as I looked at the sword.

    Then I turned the de around and put a little mark at the bottom of the de.

    I had never done this before because I never thought much about the des that I had made before, but this time¡­it was different.

    This was a de that I had put my heart into, one that I felt was a fine work of art.

    It was with this de that I understood why craftsmen would put their marks on the works that they were most satisfied with.

    It was a way of passing down their name.

    It was a way of marking their pride.

    It was even a way of saying that this de was like their children.

    When I finished putting that mark on the bottom of this de, I turned to find that Drogath had also finished with his de.

    It was time for us to test our des against each other.

 Chapter 370 What Is This? (4)

    When we had finished forging, the first thing that Drogath did was¡­

    "Ha, is that a de or a piece of ss art that you''ve made? It seems more like a piece of decoration than an actual weapon." He said this in a derisive tone with a snort at the end.

    I just ignored this and asked the Dwarven King who was the judge, "How are we going topare them?"

    The Dwarven King said with a nod, "We''ll use the most simple method, we''ll let them sh with each other."

    I turned to look at Drogath before walking forward to the table that had been prepared.

    This was the most simple method, but there was no doubt that this was the most effective method to crush a person. After all, there was nothing that one could say when their piece of work was smashed directly by someone else''s.

    Drogath just gave a snort after seeing me like this and walked over to the table as well.

    The two of us brought forth our swords and ced them on the table.

    Drogath''s sword was without a doubt a fine piece of work.

    It was a fine sword that was made of mithril, a sword that wasn''tckingpared to the one that the Dwarven King had made.

    But just this alone made me reveal a disappointed look.

    If this was it, then I might have taken this too seriously¡­

    When Drogath saw the look on my face, his face couldn''t help twisting as he said, "What is that look for? Do you really think that you can act that arrogantly?"

    I just gave a sigh and shook my head before saying, "So who goes first?"

    Drogath''s face twisted a bit more and he narrowed his eyes to look at me, but then he said with a snort, "You can go first. I don''t want youining that I didn''t give you a chanceter."

    I just shook my head and said, "No, that''s you. So you can go first."

    "You, you, you!" Drogath looked like he wanted to explode the moment that he heard this.

    The way that his face twisted, it was almost as if he wanted to beat me up on the spot.

    The Dwarven King also looked at me with a strange look.

    He knew that this was just an act, but even he was getting second hand influence from this. Even he wanted to beat me up with the arrogant way that I was acting, so there was no need to mention Drogath.

    But Drogath knew that he couldn''t do that in front of such a crowd.

    The moment that he did¡­something really bad would happen.

    Especially since the other side was a human.

    He knew as the faction leader of the anti human faction that they weren''t even close to being ready for this.

    So he endured what he was feeling.

    Instead, he turned his anger to something else.

    Since he was being asked to go first, then he would go first.

    He didn''t believe this shy sword that looked like it was made of ss would be able to resist his finely made mithril sword.

    "Since you insist, then I will go first."

    Drogath picked up his sword and was brining it up as if he was about to swing down on the ss sword.

    But before he could, the Dwarven King stopped him, "Wait, before you do, let him inject mana into the sword. This sword is a rune sword, so it needs mana to power it up first."

    "Che." Drogath said under his breath.

    As one of the best cksmiths in the Dwarven Kingdom, Drogath naturally recognized the runes on the sword. While he didn''t know exactly what they did, he did know that these would strengthen the sword when activated.

    He had wanted this chance to smash this sword before he was able to activate the runes.

    This runes gave him a bad feeling, so he had wanted to destroy this sword before anything could happen.

    But the Dwarven King stopped him.

    Drogath brought his sword down and waited for me to move over to the sword.

    Even if he wanted to just ignore the Dwarven King and shatter this ss sword, he had to hold himself back in front of the crowd. At the very least, he had to act like he was following the rules properly.

    But to his and the Dwarven King''s surprise, I just gave a shrug and said, "There''s no problem. There''s no need for that."

    The expressions of both the Dwarven King and Drogath changed the moment that they heard this.

    Drogath once again had a look of rage, but the Dwarven King revealed a worried look.

    He slowly said, "Are you sure about that? Most of the power in a sword with runes lies in the runes themselves. If you don''t activate them, then the sword won''t be at its full power."

    Though it sounded like he was just slowly exining what a rune sword was, he was actually putting silent pressure on Zwein.

    He was using this to stress to him to stop ying around and to take this seriously.

    But all I did was give a shrug and said, "It''s not worth it for him. There''s no need to activate the runes against a sword of this caliber."

    The expressions of both the Dwarven King and Drogath changed again.

    This time, Drogath couldn''t take the rage that filled his chest, but then again¡­he didn''t have to.

    He was perfectly justified to explode when his opponent was looking down on him this much.

    He turned to the Dwarven King and said, "Since he''s given his permission, I can go, right?"

    The Dwarven King hesitated a bit, but he still gave a nod in the end.

    In this case, he would just trust Zwein.

    Drogath gave a snort before saying, "You want to act tough? Then I''ll go all out to help you!"

    After saying this, he swung his sword down at the ss sword on the table with all of his might.

    "Crack!"

 Chapter 371 What Is This? (5)

    There was a sword that was broken, but it wasn''t the one that everyone thought would break.

    The crowd was filled with dwarves and they could see the difference between the two swords, so they knew that it was very likely that the ss sword would be shattered.

    But when they actually shed with each other¡­it was the mithril sword that was snapped in half.

    When Drogath swung his mithril sword on the ss sword, there was no resistance at all from the mithril sword as it suddenly snapped in half.

    The part that snapped off rebounded back at Drogath and if he hadn''t reacted in time, he might have been stabbed in the face by it.

    But he was able to dodge out of the way at thest second, leaving a cut on his cheek as the top half of the sword flew past and stabbed itself into the ground behind him. It fully stabbed into the hard stone floor, cutting into it like it was nothing.

    This showed just how sharp this mithril sword was even though it had snapped.

    Even then, this mithril sword hadn''t been able to do a single thing to this ss sword.

    In fact, it didn''t even leave a single dent on this ss sword.

    There was only silence that filled the stadium when everyone saw this.

    Looks of shock appeared on the faces of everyone in the stadium.

    Only I was standing there with a bitter smile on my face while shaking my head.

    I had already expected this, but I never thought that it would be this dramatic.

    The silence hung in the air for a long time before Drogath broke it by saying, "What is this?!"

    As soon as he broke the silence, the crowd also filled with gasps and exmations of shock.

    It was as if they were trying to figure out just how this had happened.

    "Is this a trick? Could it be that this ss sword is made of something very dense that it would only be very strong. Something like that must be too heavy to use."

    "Still, what kind of material would be that strong? Even if it can''t be used with weapons, we can use it in other things."

    "Right, right, this can be used to make castles and we would have the strongest defenses."

    Whispers like this quickly filled the crowd, but one had to admit that this was a valid theory.

    It was this theory that Drogathtched onto.

    If this sword was just too heavy to carry and wield, then it would fail as a weapon. So even if his sword had been cracked in half by it, he couldn''t be considered the winner of this forging duel since it was a failed sword.

    But it seemed like everyone had forgotten something.

    How had Zwein carried it to the table if it was too heavy to begin with.

    It was clear that Zwein wasn''t the most muscr person, so if it really was that heavy¡­he shouldn''t have been able to carry this ss sword over.

    So how had he done it?

    They were justtching onto this theory instead of actually trying to figure it out just for their ownmon sense.

    They didn''t want to believe that there was something that was this amazing in this world.

    But it was too bad for them that I was here to shatter those thoughts.

    So I picked up the ss sword that was on the table with one hand before Drogath could even say a thing.

    When they saw how easily I picked it up, everyone couldn''t help revealing looks of shock.

    After all, thispletely destroyed the theory that they had.

    While they were all staring at me in shock, I just casually lifted the sword in front of me and pointed it at¡­Drogath.

    With a smile, I said, "I think now it''s my turn."

    When they heard this, Drogath and the crowd all revealed bitter smiles.

    What turn?

    You''ve already destroyed the mithril swords, what else was there left for you to destroy?

    But I didn''t stop as I suddenly swung the sword down.

    The Dwarven King reached his hand out to stop me as he said, "Wait, don''t!"

    But it was already toote.

    He had seen that when I lifted the ss sword up, there were lights that light up on the de of the sword. Those were the lights that came from the runes receiving mana and powering up.

    He knew that this was definitely not a sh that Drogath or the mithril sword could take.

    However, I had already swung the sword down at him.

    When the sword came down, it cut through the air with a loud sound.

    It was almost as if this sword was cutting the air itself.

    Then the sword cut right down through the mithril sword that was in Drogath''s hand.

    When he felt this shing at him, Drogath had frozen in ce.

    He had felt the pressure that came from this sword falling down on him and he couldn''t move at all.

    In his heart, it was as if he moved a single inch, he would be cut down in ce.

    So he didn''t dare move.

    The ss sword went right through the mithril sword without any resistance and then went straight down to the ground.

    It didn''t stop when it reached the ground and just went right into the stone floor.

    If I didn''t stop it, it might have cut even deeper than that.

    However, the influence that this sh had wasn''t just that.

    There was a burst of dust that came up after I finished the sh that hid us from the crowd.

    When the dust settled, they all revealed shocked looks at what they saw.

    It wasn''t because of the mithril sword handle that had been cut in half that they were shocked¡­

    Rather, they were shocked to see therge gash that had appeared on the ground right next to Drogath.

    This was a gash that they couldn''t see the bottom of.

    This was a gash that seemed like it went all the way down to the abyss.

 Chapter 372 What Is This? (6)

    "Oi, what are you doing?" The Dwarven King shouted aftering back to his senses.

    I just said with a friendly smile, "I was just taking my turn. I don''t think I did anything wrong."

    The Dwarven King shook his head as he looked at me before putting his head in his hand.

    He came forward and lowered his voice to say, "You''re taking it too far."

    I just looked back at him with the same smile on my face.

    Since I had decided to do this, I would go all the way.

    Drogath had been frozen in ce, but he slowly defrosted when he heard the Dwarven King''s voice.

    Slowly, he turned to his right and looked at his hand holding the sword.

    If he had moved an inch further out, he might have gotten his fingers sliced off¡­

    The cut was a very clean cut, without leaving a single fragment behind. There was only the handle of his mithril sword left in his hand that he couldn''t help dropping to the ground.

    After that, he turned to look at the ground when he didn''t hear the sound of the handle dropping.

    Instead, it was his chin that dropped when he saw this abyss by him.

    No matter how he tried, he couldn''t see the bottom of it.

    He could still see the handle getting further and further as it fell down into this hole.

    Just how deep was this thing!

    Drogath''s legs went soft and he jumped away from the gash in the ground, almost as if he was afraid that he would fall into it.

    As he fell on his butt, he turned to look at the sword in Zwein''s hands with a look of shock and disbelief.

    He didn''t believe that such a sword would be able to do something like this.

    After looking exasperated for a bit, the Dwarven King still said, "I think that the results are clear. The winner is¡­"

    Before he could finish, Drogath suddenly shouted, "Wait! I want to ask the judges to check that sword before anything is dered! I suspect that they used magic to cheat!"

    This was unsightly, but this was something that he could do.

    Especially since this was a formal duel.

    Since this was a formal and official duel, there was a council of judges that had been gathered for such an asion.

    If one of them suspected the other one of cheating, they would have an option of appealing to the judges which was what Drogath was doing now.

    But of course, that was considered very unsightly, especially when the results were this clear.

    But Drogath couldn''t just let this duel end like this.

    So no matter what it made him seem like, he would fight to the end.

    The Dwarven King looked at Drogath with aplicated look, but he still gathered the judges in the end.

    All of the judges that had been called were famous cksmiths of the capital, so they were dwarves that were easily recognized by the crowd.

    There were many people that even started to fangirl over these judges when they came in.

    The Dwarven King didn''t waste any time and brought these judges over to Zwein''s sword.

    He reached his hand out and I simply handed it over to him without any care.

    Taking this sword, he went over to a table which he ced it on before letting the judges take a look at it.

    There was a silence that filled the air as the judges leaned over the sword on the table.

    But then all of a sudden¡­

    "What is this?!"

    That was the first thing that any of the judges said.

    Once this was said by one of them, the others all started shouting out in shock as well.

    It was as if they couldn''t believe what was in front of them.

    They all leaned in even more to take a closer look at this sword in front of them.

    When Drogath saw them acting like this, his hopes were brought up.

    They wouldn''t be acting this way unless there was something very shocking or something wrong with this sword.

    So he hoped that it was thetter rather than the former.

    After another long silence, the judges all turned to look at me with a strange look.

    It was as if they weren''t certain about something and they wanted to get the answer from me.

    But when Drogath saw this, he thought that it meant somethingpletely different.

    He thought that the judges had found something wrong with the sword and came forward to say something.

    But all that he received was the hands of the judges as they all pushed him out of the way.

    Not a single one of them cared about Drogath as they all surrounded Zwein.

    "How did you make such a thing? I''ve never seen this kind of metal before."

    "That''s right! Not only is it lighter, it''s even stronger than mithril."

    "This kind of metal is what I''ve been looking for! If you can give me some, then I''ll give you anything you want!"

    At the same time, there were some that wereining to the Dwarven King.

    After all, it was him who had prepared the resources for this forging duel.

    They assumed that he knew what kind of metal this was and that he had been keeping it secret from them the entire time.

    "Your majesty, you can''t do this to us."

    "If you''ve found something good, you should share it with the rest of us."

    "That''s right! That''s right!"

    But the Dwarven King could only reveal a bitter smile.

    After all, he also didn''t know anything about this.

    The materials that he had prepared, he had given the same set to both sides.

    So there wasn''t any special metal that was used.

    If he had to guess, this was most likely another one of the alloys that Zwein had told him about that he had kept secret until now.

    He actually wanted toin to Zwein about this.

 Chapter 373 What Is This? (7)

    Seeing the dwarves surrounding me like this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    This was the same thing all over again.

    But then again, these dwarves were different from the ones that had been there previously.

    These were the dwarves that were famous in the capital, so they didn''t take positions in the castle by the Dwarven King''s side. These were the craftsmen that focused on their own work instead of on politics.

    So they weren''t there for the duel between me and the Dwarven King.

    They also weren''t there for the lecture that I gave on alloys.

    I raised my hands for all of them to calm down before saying, "I would be happy to exin all of this, but first let''s all calm down."

    Since I was the one saying it, the dwarves had no choice but to calm down.

    But the look in their eyes was still scary.

    It was the look of a predator looking at prey.

    It was as if they wanted to crack me open and tear me piece from piece to find the knowledge that they were looking for.

    This was a very strange feeling, but it was a feeling that I was familiar with.

    After all, the Dwarven King and hispanions had looked at me with the same look before.

    This was just the passion that they had for knowledge, especially forging knowledge.

    After they calmed down, I said, "I will exin all of this to you, but before that, I think that there''s still something else left to do."

    The judges all revealed confused looks when they heard this.

    It was as if to them, there was nothing else that mattered other than the knowledge that they wanted.

    I said with a sigh, "The results of the forging duel?"

    The judges all revealed looks like they had suddenly realized something before all of them revealed wide smiles.

    One of them spoke for the rest and said, "Of course it is your victory. There''s noparison between the two swords."

    After he said this, the other dwarves all nodded in agreement without any hesitation.

    It was as if they were fully convinced of this fact.

    But all that did was make Drogath''s face turn dark as he roared, "Why?! It''s clear that he cheated!"

    All of the judges looked at Drogath in disdain when they heard this.

    However, before any of them could say a thing, I cut in by saying, "Cheating? Why do you think that I was cheating?"

    Drogath''s face twisted before he said, "It''s clear that you used some kind of magic spell on this sword that made it stronger. How could this not be considered cheating?"

    I just gave a sigh and said, "Ignorance isn''t a sin, but refusing to learn is."

    Drogath''s face twisted even more when he heard this.

    But before he could explode, I said, "You don''t even bother learning from your mistakes and just keep shouting these excuses as to why you''ve lost, don''t you feel embarrassed?"

    Drogath looked like he was about to faint from the rage that he felt, but he didn''t move.

    I waited a bit before continuing, "I''ll exin to you the reason that you lost then."

    Moving over to the sword on the table, I picked it up and said, "This sword is made of a thing called an alloy."

    With that, I went into the exnation on alloys that I had given before.

    The judges all listened seriously, but it was clear that they had already heard this before.

    Even Drogath seemed like he had heard this before.

    I looked at the Dwarven King and he just looked back at me with a smile.

    It seemed like the Dwarven King hadn''t been idle during this time, he had already spread the information on the alloy to the various master cksmiths of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    It seemed like he had even given this information about alloys to Drogath.

    After I finished that exnation on alloys, there was a lot of discussion that came from the audience since they didn''t know about this.

    Most dwarves had knowledge of forging even if they didn''t work as cksmiths, so they had some understanding of what I said.

    "But how does it not cause impurities?"

    "Shouldn''t the ores repel each other and refuse toe together?"

    There were many different questions that came from the audience, but I ignored them as I continued with what I said.

    "The alloy that I used for this sword is called adamant. If you looked at it closely, you would have seen that I threw in diamonds to my mixture. Diamonds are famous for how hard they are, but they aren''t used for forging since they are hard to work with, but if you use it to create this ore."

    I raised the sword up when I said this and it entered the light.

    When it did, it almost seemed like it was glowing.

    The judges all gave nods of agreement when they heard this.

    They had already tested how hard this sword was and they knew that it wasparable to diamonds.

    Drogath also had no choice but to ept this fact after hearing the speech about alloys.

    He might want to deny it, but when so many people ept this and the facts were in front of him, he had no choice but to ept it.

    Though, he would rather die than admit it.

    Just with this adamant alloy alone, it was more than enough for him to win this forging duel.

    But that wasn''t all there was¡­

    Drogath pointed at the sword and said, "There are clear magic fluctuationsing from it, far greater than what runes should give off. How do you exin that if not that you used a magic spell to strengthen this sword?"

    I just shook my head and said, "It''sughable how ignorant you are."

    Drogath''s face twisted in rage once again, but then I said, "How are you so certain that it can''t be the runes that are releasing this magic fluctuation?"

 Chapter 374 What Is This? (8)

    Drogath opened his mouth to say something, but he found that there was nothing that he could say.

    After all, he wasn''t able to refute this.

    He might know some things about runes, but it couldn''t be said that he knew everything about them.

    It was perfectly logical that there should be runes that have capacity for this much mana.

    So he couldn''t justpletely deny this.

    But the one thing that he could deny was¡­

    "You''re saying that someone like you who can''t even forge his own weapon can write runes of this capacity? If you want to tell a joke, I think that you should find a better one." Drogath said with a snort filled with disdain.

    The judges all looked at Drogath in disdain when they heard this.

    I just gave a chuckle before suddenly lifting the sword up to point at Drogath.

    When he saw this sword pointing at him, there was a trace of fear that filled his heart.

    He had already been on the receiving end of this sword, so it had left a trauma in his heart.

    When he was facing this sword again, his legs turned soft and he couldn''t help taking a step back.

    With a stutter, he said, "What¡­What are you doing? Are you trying to cause trouble now that I''ve hit the nail on the head? Do you know where you are?"

    I didn''t react at all to his provocation and just injected a bit of mana into the sword.

    When the sword received this mana, the first rune near the hilt of the sword suddenly lit up. There was a powerful mana fluctuation that came from it as the rune lit up.

    This was more than enough to prove that this mana fluctuation had indeede from the sword itself.

    But I wasn''t satisfied with just that.

    So slowly, I injected more mana into the sword.

    With more mana received, the runes of the sword started to light up one by one.

    As the runes lit up, the mana fluctuation that came from this sword also became stronger and stronger until they reached the same level as before.

    I looked at Drogath with a smirk on my face and asked, "How about now? Is it still impossible?"

    Drogath didn''t know what to say since there was nothing that he could say to refute it.

    If I didn''t do this, he might be able to say that this was just a trick.

    But when I gave such a clear demonstration, there wasn''t a thing that he could say that would twist this around.

    Everyone was able to see it clearly just where this mana fluctuation came from.

    After showing this, I put the sword back onto the ground and went back to my furnace.

    I picked up the empty magic stones that I had used to imprint these runes on the sword before saying, "You should be able to see what kind of magic stones these were. If even these were used, then you should know just how much mana is contained in this sword, in these runes."

    Even the crowd gave a nod of agreement when they heard this.

    Everyone could see just how big these magic stones were, so they were able to tell what grade of magic stones had been used for this sword.

    If magic crystals of this grade were used, it was no wonder there was so much mana contained in these runes.

    They all looked at Drogath with looks of disdain once more after hearing this.

    It was clear at this point that he wasn''t willing to ept his loss and was making all these excuses.

    As fellow dwarves, they couldn''t help feeling ashamed of him.

    I just ignored him and went back to the judges while being bombarded with questions.

    "It isn''t just the magic stones used, there''s something special about the runes as well."

    "That''s right, where did you find these runes?"

    "Also, how did you imprint them that they could ept this much mana? It just doesn''t make any sense at all."

    I just revealed a smile without saying anything.

    The judges couldn''t help bing more and more anxious when they saw me like this.

    But slowly, they also started to recognize what was happening.

    It was wrong to get knowledge without paying for it, so if they wanted this knowledge¡­they should show their sincerity.

    After a moment of hesitation, they all started making different offers for this knowledge.

    However, the offers that they made were all shallow.

    They offered their skills which was what they had the most confidence in, but I wasn''t interested in that at all.

    After all, I had knowledge from the game, so my techniques were far greater than theirs.

    I didn''t need their abilities since I could make things that were better than what they had.

    The sword on the table was already the best example of this.

    As they kept making their offers, it was clear that they weren''t nning on going in the direction that I wanted them to.

    So instead of forcing it, it was better to give them some time to mull it over so that they could think it through and finallye to the conclusion that I wanted them to.

    With a smile, I said, "Thank you everyone for your offers, but let''s talk about thister."

    I turned to look at Drogath who was just frozen in ce and walked over to him.

    When he saw me walking over, he couldn''t help taking a step back as if he was scared of me.

    But then he realized what he was doing and stopped himself from moving backwards.

    Instead of backing down, he looked at me with a defiant look and said, "What do you want?"

    I just asked with a smile, "You didn''t forget about what we bet on this duel did you? I''m here to collect what is due."

    When Drogath heard this, he couldn''t help shivering as if a chill ran down his spine.

 Chapter 375 Give Me Your Hammer

    Drogath didn''t say a single word in response to what I said.

    It even looked like he was debating whether he should run away or not.

    But of course, that didn''t matter even if he wanted to run away. The bet that we had made had already spread all over the capital, so it didn''t matter where he ran, he wouldn''t be able to get out of the terms of the bet.

    There was only one path forward for him.

    Well¡­there was a second path, but it was a very foolish path.

    The Dwarven King had already taken precautions against that second half.

    Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see that there were a few dwarves in the crowd who looked like they were preparing to charge out onto the stage.

    These were dwarves from the anti human faction that were under Drogath.

    It seemed that he had snuck his own men into the audience today.

    It was most likely because he was afraid that I would try to back down on our bet when he won, so he had posted them there to watch over me so that I wouldn''t be able to escape.

    Or in a worst case scenario, they would be able to cut me down since they were justified to do so.

    But now, this was the worst case scenario for them.

    Not only had Drogath not won, he had been crushed soundly that he had no choice but to admit his defeat.

    With no path back, there was only one path forward.

    Drogath''s subordinates in the crowd were holding their weapons as if they were preparing to attack.

    The only path left for them was to cut down the Dwarven King and the human, take over this kingdom in a brutal coup.

    Only then would Drogath be able to ignore his promise since dead men tell no tales.

    But the Dwarven King had already expected this.

    There were also several dwarves that were around Drogath''s subordinates.

    These were guards that had been snuck in by the Dwarven King.

    The moment that Drogath''s subordinates made a move, they would be ready to arrest all of them in one fell swoop before they could even do anything.

    Unlike Drogath''s subordinates, these were the elite guards of the kingdom and were much stronger than them. In a fight, they wouldn''t be able to resist at all.

    Drogath was silent for a long time before finally saying, "Is there really no way we canpromise? Are you really that set on this?"

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this.

    I didn''t know why, but it felt like there was something else that he was trying to imply with this.

    Something much more sinister¡­

    But that wasn''t important to me.

    Right now, the only thing that mattered was taking care of Drogath so that it would be easier in the future.

    I just said in a strict voice, "No, there''s nopromise with someone like you. Are you regretting it now?"

    Drogath revealed a strange smile when he heard this before saying, "No, I would never regret my actions, but you will one day."

    I knitted my brows even more when I heard this.

    For some reason, it didn''t feel like this was just an empty threat even though I had no idea what Drogath was talking about.

    After a long silence, he suddenly went back over to his forge and picked up the hammer that was there.

    He walked back in front of everyone and then taking that hammer in both hands¡­he snapped it in half.

    With that, it could be said that his promise had been fulfilled.

    But everyone was shocked at how easily he had chosen topromise.

    After what he had done earlier, they had thought that he would try to weasel out of it. But he hadn''t hesitated at all to shatter his hammer to signify that he would be dropping his hammer.

    Why would he act this way all of a sudden?

    It almost seemed like he had two different personalities¡­

    After shattering his hammer, Drogath looked at me and said, "You''ve won this time, but I promise that it won''t be thest time. I will make sure that you pay for this in the future."

    Once again, he had gone back from a man of his word to a petty viin.

    It really seemed like there were two different personalities in him¡­

    Then all of a sudden, Drogath said in a serious voice, "You should have let me be. I was the one that was holding back the real monsters and now that you''ve defeated me, there will be no one keeping them in check. Since I won''t have any influence left, I won''t be able to stop them."

    Both the Dwarven King and I knitted our brows when we heard this.

    ''Monsters''?

    What was he talking about?

    Could it be that we had been underestimating the anti human faction the entire time?

    The Dwarven King asked with a frown on his face, "What do you mean by that?"

    Drogath just ignored him when he said this as he kept staring at me.

    The look in his eyes was veryplicated that I couldn''t see through it at all.

    I didn''t even know just what he was looking at exactly even though he was staring right at me.

    But then, Drogath suddenly turned around to leave.

    Before he could, I said, "Wait, you''re forgetting something."

    When he heard this, his foot suddenly stopped moving and he slowly turned around to look at me. Looking at me with a hint of confusion, he asked, "What?"

    I wasn''t scared by him and just calmly said, "You''ve forgotten about the other part of our agreement."

    With a nod to the Dwarven King, he pulled out a piece of paper, some ink, and a pen for Drogath.

    He handed all of them to Drogath and waited for him to read it.

    Drogath looked down at this piece of paper with a confused look, but then he understood when he saw the words at the top of this piece of paper.

    Divorce papers.

 Chapter 376 Free Now (1)

    Surprisingly, Drogath suddenly revealed a smile when he saw this.

    He said with a chuckle, "So you''re still concerned with her?"

    The Dwarven King''s lips twitched when he heard this and the look in his eyes changed. It was almost as if he wanted to punch Drogath in the face when he heard this, but he was able to hold himself back in the end.

    Drogath could see this, but he ignored it and looked at me still before saying, "Why? Why are you so concerned about her?"

    The Dwarven King finally couldn''t take it anymore when he heard this.

    "You son of a¡­" Before he could finish, I had already gone forward to grab him.

    Though if he really wanted to, he could have thrown me as well.

    He was the Dwarven King, the muscles that he had as a dwarf and the muscles that he had been building through a lifetime of forging wasn''t weak. It definitely made him much stronger than me who only started exercising recently.

    I wouldn''t be able to hold him back by normal means¡­

    So that meant that he was allowing himself to be held back.

    Even if he wanted to punch Drogath, there was still the history between them and their positions.

    If he as the Dwarven King were to punch the leader of the anti human faction like this, there was no doubt that it would start a war.

    So he allowed himself to be held by me.

    Drogath didn''t seem bothered at all when he saw the Dwarven King acting this way.

    Instead, he gave a sigh and asked, "Is she well?"

    Both the Dwarven King and I were caught off guard when we heard this.

    He suddenly stopped ''struggling'' and I stopped ''holding'' him back.

    The two of us looked at Drogath with strange looks, as if we were trying to figure out if he was being serious or not.

    But all he did was look at the piece of paper as he gave another sigh.

    The Dwarven King''s face filled with anger after he saw this and he roared out, "What do you care! It''s not as if you feel anything towards her!"

    Drogath didn''t respond right away, but he slowly gave a nod and said with a smile, "You''re right about that."

    Once again, the Dwarven King went as if he was going to punch him and once again, I had to ''restrain'' the Dwarven King.

    But as I looked at Drogath, I couldn''t help feeling that there was something different about him.

    It was as if there was a bit of regret in his eyes¡­but what did he regret?

    There was a long silence as we just stood there waiting for him to sign the piece of paper.

    He did sign it in the end and held it out for me to take instead of the Dwarven King.

    He looked at me with a strange look before saying, "Tell her to take care of herself for me."

    I knitted my brows once more after hearing this.

    The way that he said this, it almost seemed like he still cared about her¡­but if he did, then why would he act the way that he did before?

    Then after taking a few steps, Drogath suddenly turned back and said in a voice filled with rage, "I''ll remember what you did to me today. You''ll see, I''ll have my revenge."

    All this did was make me even more confused.

    One second, he was acting a certain way and the next, he was acting like a petty viin.

    Did he have a split personality or was there something wrong with his brain?

    He really couldn''t keep a consistent personality?

    There had to be something wrong with him.

    But when I thought about it, it didn''t seem like it was rted to me.

    The only reason that I had gotten involved in the first ce was because of the anti human faction. Now that they had lost their leader, I was certain that this anti human faction would also go underground.

    They wouldn''t dare cause any trouble now that their leader was like this.

    So that should mean that the anti human faction was taken care of.

    As for what happened to Drogath after this¡­that was none of my concern.

    As Drogath walked away, the Dwarven King kept looking at his back with aplicated expression.

    They were childhood friends and even if he was angry with what Drogath had done recently, there was no denying the rtionship between them.

    I didn''t say anything as I just silently watched over the Dwarven King.

    Even after Drogath had left, the Dwarven King just stood there staring forward in a daze.

    After a long silence, he finally said with a sigh, "I''m fine, you don''t need to worry about me."

    I didn''t say anything as I just calmly waited for him to move.

    After another silence, he turned to me and said, "Come, let''s head back to the castle. I''m sure that Elsa''s waiting for the news."

    I just gave a simple nod before following him.

    When the judges saw us leave, they immediately came forward to surround us.

    They hadn''t even learned what they had wanted to learn yet.

    They had been patiently waiting for me to finish my business with Drogath, but now that it was over, they wouldn''t let me leave that quickly.

    That was unless I gave them what they wanted.

    The Dwarven King revealed an annoyed look when he saw this, but he knew that he needed to do something to take care of them or else they would keep bugging him.

    So the Dwarven King said, "I''ll send an invitation to all of youter and hold a conference so that you can discuss the terms of this. For now, Zwein and I have other things to do."

    The judges looked like they had more to say, but the Dwarven King suppressed them with a single re.

    In the end, they had no choice but to follow his suggestion since it was already better than nothing.

 Chapter 377 Free Now (2)

    After pacifying the judges, the Dwarven King wasted no time in bringing us back to the castle.

    There was something that he needed to do, something that was very important to him.

    He went through the castle without a care for the people that tried to stop him and headed in a specific direction. It was like he already knew where he was going and was determined to reach there no matter what.

    The ones that worked in the castle knew which direction he was heading in, so they didn''t bother stopping him.

    I just silently followed behind him, but there was a look on my face that made it seem like I didn''t agree with this.

    The two of us made our way through the castle until we reached a garden.

    Sitting in the middle of that garden on a bench was a female dwarf.

    Even though it was winter, this garden was still warm since this was a greenhouse garden.

    So she was dressed lightly in a dress as she sat there in the middle of this garden.

    She wasn''t staring at anything in particr and seemed to be staring off into space, as if she was thinking about something.

    The Dwarven King paused for a second when he saw the female dwarf like this, but he still charged into the room with the divorce papers and said, "Elsa, he signed it. As long as you sign it, you''ll be free."

    The one who had been sitting in the middle of the garden was Elsa, the Dwarven King''s little sister.

    She had been sitting there in a daze because she knew what today was.

    She had wanted to go, but the Dwarven King had his people bring her to this garden and keep her here.

    Letting her go to that forging duel and seeing him was thest thing that he wanted to do.

    Elsa slowly looked up when she heard his voice, but she ignored him as she looked at the piece of paper in his hand.

    As the Dwarven King came closer, she could see that there was a signature that was on this piece of paper.

    She knew what this piece of paper was based on his words, but when she saw it with her own eyes¡­she couldn''t help feeling a bit emotional.

    It was a lie to say that she didn''t feel anything at all.

    After all that time that she had spent with him wasn''t a lie and it was impossible for all of her feelings to die.

    So her eyes started misting over.

    When the Dwarven King saw this, he immediately froze and he waved his arms around like he didn''t know what to do.

    This was a situation that he wasn''t familiar with, so he had no idea how tofort her.

    The only thing that he could do was¡­turn around and look at me for help.

    I revealed a bitter smile when I saw this.

    I had tried to stop the Dwarven King in the first ce, but he had just rushed forward without thinking about the consequences. So all I could do was think of ways to soften the blow.

    It could be said that I was already prepared for his rashness.

    It was impossible to erase everything of the past and showing someone something like this without a single n was just asking to be hurt.

    So I knew that there was one thing that I could do to soften the blow.

    "Do you regret it?" I suddenly asked.

    Both the Dwarven King and Elsa trembled when they heard this.

    The Dwarven King quickly turned to look at me with a look like he was telling me to cut it out, but I just ignored him as I looked at Elsa, waiting for her response.

    After Elsa heard what I said, she had her head down as if she was still trying to work through her emotions.

    In the end, she suddenly looked up and shook her head before saying, "No, I don''t regret it. This was the way that it had to be. This was the way that things had been heading towards in the first ce, so it was natural it would end like this."

    As she said this, there was still a mist in her eyes, but they looked much more firmpared to before.

    It was as if she hade to a conclusion for herself.

    That was what I had wanted to see.

    After all, the only way to make someone move on was to force them to face their emotions.

    When people were put in a situation like this, their first instinct was to¡­run away.

    Running away from their feelings was easy and it saved them from the pain of having to confront them.

    So their first instinct would be to run and hide.

    But the only way to move on was to face those feelings and ept them.

    What I was doing was forcing her to confront those feelings so she would move on sooner instead of suffering.

    After she said this, I said with a nod, "You don''t need to think about him anymore. Just think about your future."

    Elsa looked up in a daze as she repeated in a soft voice, "Future¡­"

    I gave a nod before saying, "You''re free now, you don''t need to worry about the past."

    She didn''t say anything and just stared at me in a daze, as if she wasing to some kind of realization.

    I knew that with that, there was nothing else to worry about.

    All that was needed was some time for her to arrange her thoughts, so it was better to leave her alone.

    I grabbed the Dwarven King and said, "Let''s go."

    He looked like he had something else to say, but he could also see the look on Elsa''s face. So in the end, he allowed me to drag him away.

    Once we were gone, Elsa couldn''t help revealing a blush and saying, "Can I really look to that future?"

 Chapter 378 Time To Leave

    A few more days passed after the forging duel and everything returned to normal.

    The anti human faction and Drogath seemed to disappear from the capital, so everything was peaceful.

    I spent more time teaching more dwarves about alloys and runes.

    This time, the Dwarven King had even brought dwarves from outside the castle to learn from me.

    These were the judges that had presided over the forging duel.

    The Dwarven King had kept his promise about bringing them in to learn about runes from me.

    As for the price, it was one that made Haley satisfied.

    But the dwarves didn''t feel any pain since they were just excited to learn from me.

    So I had more students learning from me during this time.

    The other change that happened was that Elsa spent her time in the castle now, but that wasn''t strange since she was now divorced. It wasn''t as if she could just go to her old home since that was where Drogath was.

    So she moved into the castle with the Dwarven King who was her big brother.

    She spent most of her time with Haley, which was surprising.

    But it was good to see that she wasn''t too hung up over her divorce and was having fun spending time with her.

    The Dwarven King was also happy to see this.

    Everything seemed to be going well.

    However, one night, I suddenly said¡­

    "It''s time for us to leave."

    The ones that were gathered in the room with me were those that had followed me to the Dwarven Kingdom in the first ce.

    This was the group that included Haley, Shaka, Veronica, and Moon.

    They were all surprised that I would suddenly say this, but slowly they nodded in agreement.

    We had already aplished our goals ining to this Dwarven Kingdom and there was no longer a need for us to stay any longer. We had already prepared everything for the ore trade, so all that was left was going back and preparing people for that trade.

    So it was actually bad for us to stay any longer since all that would do is dy this ore trade.

    They all recognized this, so Haley asked, "When should we leave?"

    I thought about it before saying, "Let''s leave in two days."

    "Two days?" They all repeated with concerned looks.

    It wasn''t that they didn''t want to leave, but they were worried about something.

    They had been invited here by the Dwarven King and they didn''t know how he would react if they suddenly said that they were leaving.

    I knew what they were worried about, but I knew what kind of personality the Dwarven King had after interacting with him for this long.

    I knew that he wouldn''t try to stop us if we left.

    So I said, "Don''t worry, let me talk to him. I''m sure that he''ll be fine with it."

    There were doubtful looks on their faces, but they didn''t say anything as they decided to trust me.

    It was true that I had a close rtionship with the Dwarven King.

    ¡­

    In a different part of the castle.

    "Is there anything you want to tell me?" The Dwarven King said in a calm voice.

    When Elsa heard this, she couldn''t help looking surprised.

    After a long silence, she lowered her head and asked, "How did you know?"

    The Dwarven King revealed a smile as he said, "I''m your brother, do you really think I wouldn''t know what you are thinking? I can see the way that you were looking at him."

    Elsa''s face turned red and she lowered her head even more when she heard this.

    She also reached a hand up and lightly punched the Dwarven King in the chest.

    The Dwarven King just revealed a faint smile when he saw this, but then he asked, "So how are you going to do this?"

    Elsa revealed a lost look when she heard this before shaking her head and saying, "I don''t know."

    Even if she hade to ept her feelings over the past few days, she had no idea how to act on them.

    After all, there was arge barrier between them.

    Not only was he married, he was also of apletely different race.

    Could things work between humans and dwarves?

    It was a hard question that no one had an answer for.

    The Dwarven King could see the look on her face and he felt sympathy for her.

    But he epted her regardless of what her choice was and he would do all he could to help her.

    Because she was his little sister.

    With a sigh, he said, "If you don''t mind, I actually have something that you can do for me. I think that it''ll help solve your problem."

    Elsa was surprised when she heard this and she looked up at him with a curious look.

    The Dwarven King said with a smile, "I''m looking for an ambassador to send to the human country. Since we will be engaging in trade with them in the future, it will be a good idea to learn from them and see the differences between our two races. That way, we will be able to work together better in the future."

    Elsa just gave an empty nod before saying, "Oh."

    She really didn''t understand why her brother was mentioning this.

    The smile on the Dwarven King''s face became wider when he saw this reaction from her.

    Then he said in a meaningful voice, "The ambassador will be following Zwein and his group back. They will be going with Zwein to see human culture, if you know what I mean."

    Slowly, a look of understanding appeared on Elsa''s face.

    She looked at the Dwarven King with wide eyes and said, "Really? You''re letting me go?"

    The Dwarven King said with a wide smile, "You''re the Dwarven King''s little sister, I think that has some meaning in human society. You could even be considered a princess for our kingdom by their standards."

    Elsa gave a nod, but then she said in a soft voice, "Thank you."

    The Dwarven King patted her head with the same wide smile.

    This was his little sister and he would do what he needed to do for her.

    That was the vow that he had made all those years ago.

    Though the other person who had made that vow had already broken it¡­

 Chapter 379 Farewell Banquet

    The next morning, the first thing that I did was go and find the Dwarven King to tell him about our ns to leave.

    But to my surprise, I found that he was also looking for me for something.

    So the two of us gathered in the same room as before.

    This was the royal study that the Dwarven King almost never used.

    It was just the two of us in this room without anyone else to distract us.

    After sitting down, neither of us said a thing as we just sat there in silence looking at each other.

    Finally, the Dwarven King broke the silence by saying, "So, you''re nning on leaving?"

    The moment that I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look.

    I never would have thought that this was the first thing that the Dwarven King would say to me. After all, I never thought that he would have known about this since this was something that we had just decided onst night.

    For him to know about this so soon¡­could it be that he had been watching me?

    No, it didn''t seem like something that he would do.

    The Dwarven King revealed a smile when he saw the way that I looked at him and he said, "Do you really think that I would do something like that? It''s just a good guess."

    I gave a slow nod of agreement before saying, "You really are good at guessing."

    But then I also slowly said, "So you''re alright with it?"

    The Dwarven King looked at me with that same smile before saying, "So I''m supposed to be not alright with it? I''m supposed to use my authority to keep you here?"

    I shook my head and said, "No, it''s not that. It''s just that¡­"

    My voice trailed off as I didn''t know how to exin myself.

    After all, a single wrong word might cause an international problem.

    I had no choice but to be careful.

    But before I could answer, the Dwarven King just said, "There''s no point in keeping you here, we''ve already learned more than we can digest at this point. It''s better to take things slowly instead of being greedy. Plus, it''s not as if you wouldn''te back to our kingdom ever again now that we have a trade deal. You''ll have toe back eventually and we''ll have our chance to trap you then."

    I couldn''t help being surprised by how open minded the Dwarven King was.

    Was it because he was a dwarf and that was just how he was?

    No, it wasn''t that alone.

    It was because he was the ruler of this country that he was like this.

    He was thinking about the long term future for his country, so he knew what he needed to do and not be greedy.

    I couldn''t help feeling like I had underestimated the Dwarven King a bit because of the way he normally acted around me.

    In the end, this was a great person who was in charge of a country.

    He was not someone that could be looked down on that easily.

    I gave an appreciative nod and said, "Thank you for understanding."

    The Dwarven King waved his hand before saying, "It''s just the way that it is, there''s nothing to thank. There''s no need to act so politely between us."

    I hesitated for a moment before giving a nod.

    The Dwarven King didn''t waste any time in moving on to the next topic, "I''ve already prepared a farewell banquet for you tonight. You''ll at least stay for that, right?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised by how fast the Dwarven King moved. At the same time, I couldn''t help being in admiration of how determined the Dwarven King was.

    If his guess had been wrong and we weren''t leaving, then that would have made him look like quite the fool.

    But even then, he still went with his gut and prepared this banquet.

    Was this the courage that one needed as a ruler?

    What Zwein would never know was that the Dwarven King had apletely different idea for this banquet.

    He had been preparing this banquet for a different reason, but since he found out that his guests were leaving¡­then it would serve multiple purposes.

    ¡­

    That night, we arrived at the banquet that the Dwarven King was holding.

    When we arrived, it was just like the banquet that he had held when we had first arrived. The only difference this time was that there wasn''t anyone here to cause trouble.

    This time, the Dwarven King had made sure that no one uninvited would be able to sneak in, so there was quite the lively mood to this party.

    That was until they found out that we were leaving.

    It turned out that the Dwarven King had hidden the purpose of this banquet until the banquet itself.

    The ones that came to this banquet were all the important dwarves of the kingdom, which included the judges that had taken part in the forging duel before.

    When they found out that I was leaving, they all had devastated looks.

    But the Dwarven King just said, "Since they came as guests, it''s only natural that they would leave in time. This is just how things work."

    When they saw that the Dwarven King wouldn''t help them, they could only look at me pleadingly as if they were asking me to stay.

    But I just ignored them all and continued saying goodbye to the people that I had met.

    They had no choice but to give up¡­or at least that was what it seemed.

    My one worry was that they would chase after me ande to our human kingdom, but I had to trust the Dwarven King to stop them for me.

    Halfway through the banquet, the Dwarven King suddenly got everyone''s attention by shouting, "Listen up!"

    This was very different from the human country where someone would use more subtle methods to get attention, but it wasn''t bad either.

    The Dwarven King went up to the stage that had been prepared, almost as if he was about to announce something.

 Chapter 380 Ambassador

    Standing on the stage, the Dwarven King looked over everyone before his eyes fell onto me.

    With the way that he was looking at me, I couldn''t help feeling a bad feeling¡­almost as if he was nning on doing something that would entrap me¡­

    But I didn''t know why I felt this way.

    The Dwarven King looked at me for a bit before turning in a certain direction and waving his hand at someone.

    There was a dwarf that started walking up onto the stage when he did this.

    This dwarf was one that almost everyone recognized because¡­she had a very unique figure.

    It was Elsa who walked up to the stage and stood beside the Dwarven King.

    Only when she came up on stage with him did the Dwarven King finally start speaking.

    "We have gathered here today to say farewell to our human friends. During this time that they''ve been here, they''ve shown us that humans have many things that we can learn from and we shouldn''t becent because we''re better at certain things."

    The dwarves that had gathered were all those that had learned from me during this time, so they all nodded in agreement.

    Though I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile since¡­this most likely wasn''t true.

    After all, the things that I taught them all came from my memories of the game.

    There wasn''t a single other human that actually knew any of this.

    In fact, most of the things that I knew were actually learned from dwarves in the game.

    So it could even be said that I was just returning knowledge to the ones that it would have belonged to.

    After he said this, the Dwarven King said in a more serious voice, "Since we have much to learn from each other, I know that we can''t keep to ourselves forever. We isted ourselves in the past because we thought that we couldn''t trust the other races and that there was nothing to learn from them. But it is different now."

    With that, he turned to Elsa and said, "As such, I have decided that we will be sending an ambassador to the human country to further deepen our rtionship with them."

    As soon as he said this, the entire banquet hall fell to silence as everyone looked at the Dwarven King with shocked looks.

    This was their first time hearing about this after all. Even the ministers who helped the Dwarven King run the Dwarven Kingdom were hearing about this for the first time.

    So there was no doubt that they were shocked.

    But I was even more shocked when I heard this.

    I had thought about what the Dwarven King could have said, but I never expected this.

    While everyone was stunned, Elsa came forward and said, "Thank you for this duty and I will do my best for our Dwarven Kingdom."

    When her voice fell, everyone snapped out of their daze.

    The ones that reacted first were¡­the top cksmiths.

    One of them asked, "Where will this group of ambassadors be sent?"

    As soon as he asked this, everyone turned to look at the Dwarven King.

    That was the most important thing for them right now.

    The Dwarven King had already been expecting this, so he said with a smile, "Since we have our human friends here, I think it would be best if we had our ambassador follow them back to their country and let them guide them around."

    My brows immediately knitted when I heard this, but I didn''t say a thing since this wasn''t the time.

    The eyes of these dwarven cksmiths lit up immediately after hearing this.

    Then they all raised their hands and said, "We want to volunteer!"

    They finally understood what this ambassador post was all about.

    It was just an excuse to send people to follow Zwein back!

    There were still plenty of other things that they wanted to learn, so this chance to follow him back was just what they wanted.

    But all I could do was reveal a bitter smile.

    This was why he had wanted to hold this banquet¡­he wanted to trap me¡­

    By announcing this in front of everyone like this, there was no way for me to reject this.

    The moment that I did, this would turn into an international issue, something that I definitely couldn''t take responsibility for. The moment that it became serious, it was the moment that I might lose my head.

    So no matter what he said now, I had to ept this.

    While I wasmenting my fate, the Dwarven King said, "This matter will be left to our lead ambassador, Elsa. I have entrusted her with everything rted to this matter, so you may ask her if you want to go."

    When they heard this, all of them turned to look at Elsa with glowing eyes.

    It was as if they were trying to pressure her to take them along for this trip.

    The Dwarven King didn''t care about any of this as he started to walk off the stage, leaving Elsa to handle this matter.

    Elsa surprisingly handled this matter quite well as she skillfully talked to everyone that came forward.

    It was as if she became apletely different person from before.

    Could it be that she was only acting that way because she was being abused and lost all confidence?

    Could it be that she was only acting that way because of Drogath?

    If that was the case, it really was good to see her recovering like this.

    I had worried that she might be emotionally scarred because of this matter, but it seemed that she was adapting quite well.

    The Dwarven King walked over to me and said, "Well, how do you like my surprise?"

    I looked at him with a bitter smile as I didn''t have any words for him.

    All I could think was, "You really got me well."

    But of course, I would never say that out loud.

    So with a sigh, I said, "I''m looking forward to deepening our friendship."

    The Dwarven King reached his hand out with a smile as he heard this.

    I had no choice but to shake it.

 Chapter 381 Leaving The Dwarven Kingdom

    It was two dayster that we finally set off.

    We had nned on leaving a day earlier, but because of the ambassador matter, we had no choice but to wait.

    We had to give some time to Elsa to pick the ones that woulde with her.

    Among them were famous cksmiths of the Dwarven Kingdom who hade from all over to learn from me. They had been in the capital during the banquet and all applied for this ambassador matter.

    Of course, it wasn''t wrong for them to go as ambassadors.

    After all, these were lords of the Dwarven King since they were skilled cksmiths.

    They were equal to the nobles of the human kingdom, so this was a proper group of ambassadors.

    They even set off with a carriage filled with gifts to show their sincerity.

    So it took a while for them to gather.

    But we were still heading off.

    We went back the same way with Ivar leading us.

    It wasn''t the most direct path, but we still had some business in Silver City.

    As well as picking up ourpatriots who were waiting there for us. We had left them there to take care of business with the Silvermine Family.

    So we had some time to get to know the dwarves we were traveling with.

    Most of them I already knew because I had been interacting with them on an almost daily basis when I was teaching them about alloys and runes.

    The one that I wanted to get to know better was Elsa.

    She was the ambassador of the Dwarven Kingdom, so she was someone that I couldn''t offend.

    Getting to know her better was the best way of making that happen.

    So during one of the nights, I spent some time talking to her alone.

    When we were alone, she no longer acted as confident as before and returned to the shy way that she acted when I first met her. I couldn''t understand why she was acting this way, but it wasn''t good for me since I wouldn''t be able to get to know her better at all.

    As I was about to say something, Elsa suddenly said, "I''m sorry."

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard when she said this.

    I looked at her with a confused look as if I didn''t understand what she was saying.

    Seeing this, she exined in a hesitant voice, "For my big brother''s actions. For him suddenly springing all of this on you."

    I revealed a bitter smile when I heard this, but then I said with a sigh and a wave of my hand, "It''s fine, it''s fine, it''s not as if I don''t understand where he''sing from. This is an important thing for your kingdom, so I can understand why he did it."

    Then after a pause, I added, "Plus, it''s not as if this was your idea. You don''t have to worry about this.

    When she heard this, she suddenly revealed a guilty look that I couldn''t understand.

    All I knew was that she seemed ufortable talking about this, so I changed the topic by asking, "So why did you want toe to our human country?"

    After I said this, there was a blush that confused me that appeared on Elsa''s face.

    It was as if this was something else that she didn''t want to talk about, but that didn''t seem to make sense either.

    After a long silence, she said, "I wanted to go out there and see a new world. I''ve been trapped in the Dwarven Kingdom my entire life and I want to see what the world outside is like."

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this.

    I looked at her with aplicated look before simply saying, "I understand."

    Perhaps the Zwein of this world wouldn''t understand, but the Lin Fan of the previous world would¡­

    After giving a sigh, I changed the topic again to something much more light hearted and this time, Elsa was much more responsive.

    It seemed that she was quite the talkative person which made me think that it really was all because of Drogath that she acted the way that she was before.

    This Elsa in front of me now was the real Elsa, the one that had been suppressed by him over the years.

    Though she was still clumsy as shown by her verbal mistakes, she was much more cheerfulpared to before.

    It really was good to see her like this instead of what she was like before.

    I couldn''t help even cursing Drogath for what he did to her in the past.

    But while we were talking, Elsa suddenly changed the topic by asking, "What kind of things do you like eating?"

    One moment, we had been talking about random things and then she suddenly asked what I liked to eat.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by this, but I still answered honestly, "There''s not much that I won''t eat, but I can''t lie when I say that I like fried things."

    Elsa gave a nod before taking out a piece of paper and writing something down.

    I was confused why she did this, so I asked, "What are you doing?"

    She looked at me with a smile to say, "I''m just making some notes on what humans like. Since I''m the ambassador, I should at least do this much."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Hmm, but I don''t think that I would be the best example for this."

    She tilted her head and said, "But you''re a normal human male, aren''t you? So wouldn''t your tastes reflect the tastes of other human males?"

    I opened and closed my mouth a few times as I didn''t know what to say.

    Her logic didn''t seem to have a w at all, but it felt like there was something off about her questions¡­something that I just couldn''t put my finger on¡­

    Still, she didn''t stop there as she kept asking me more questions.

    So all I could do was answer even if I felt that they were strange¡­

 Chapter 382 Silvermine Family Again

    After traveling for a few days, we arrived in Silver City again.

    Waiting for us at the gate of the city were Nisa and Rondo and hiding in the back was Nori.

    They led us to the Silvermine Family Manor where the rest of our group was waiting for us.

    This was the group that had stayed in Silver City to take care of the ore trade with the Silvermine Family.

    They had been talking to the ones that they would get the ores from and preparing everything for when they came back with the goods they would trade them with.

    They wereying the foundation for the future trades.

    Once they were all gathered, Nori showed them to a dining room that was waiting with dishes.

    She had already heard about the group that wasing, so all of this was prepared for the ambassadors.

    Many of them were friends of Ivar and the Silvermine Family, so it wasn''t a problem for them to rx here.

    It was a very lively dinner in the end.

    The only one that had trouble fitting in was Elsa since she wasn''t that close to the Silvermine Family as the others.

    It was funny seeing how both Elsa and Nori were cautious with each other, even though they were around the same age.

    Nisa was the one that broke the ice for the two of them and the topic that they found inmon was their big brothers.

    As little sisters, they were able to bond from that experience.

    But on the topic of that, Ivar suddenly asked Elsa, "Is it alright if my son goes with you?"

    Elsa was surprised to hear this, but she quickly gave a nod in response.

    The Silvermine Family was one of the most influential families in their Dwarven King and she had already heard all about the rtionship that Rondo had with Zwein''s group, so she had no reason to deny this request.

    Rondo was happy to go since he wasn''t someone that could stay at home without feeling stuffy.

    That was why he had been traveling in the first ce.

    But all this did was cause a problem with Nori.

    "Don''t take my brother away from me!"

    She said as she grabbed Rondo''s arm.

    When everyone saw this, they couldn''t help revealing awkward looks. Especially Nisa and Ivar who had spoiled Nori to this extent.

    They never thought that she would even act this way in this kind of situation.

    Of course, they still couldn''t get angry with her even like this.

    So all they could do was look at Elsa with a look like they were asking her to be gentle on her.

    Elsa just calmly said to her, "You love your big brother, right?"

    Nori couldn''t help being surprised when she heard this.

    After a pause because she didn''t know what Elsa was doing, she slowly gave a nod of agreement.

    Elsa then said with an encouraging smile, "Since you love your big brother, you wouldn''t want to stand in his way, right?"

    Noir was even more confused when she heard this.

    Elsa didn''t mind this and slowly exined, "This is a very important task for our Dwarven Kingdom, especially since this is our first time engaging with the human kingdoms. This will be an event that will be recorded in the books of our Dwarven Kingdom and will be known by all. As one of the ones that goes, naturally your big brother will also receive a part of the honour."

    Seeing the slow look of understanding on Nori''s face, Elsa continued by saying, "If you really want what''s best for your big brother, wouldn''t you want the entire world to know how amazing he is."

    This time, Nori''s eyes lit up when she heard this.

    It was clear that she was slowly being coerced by Elsa''s words.

    But there was still a trace of hesitation in those eyes as she seemed like she was still unwilling to let go.

    In the end, she said with a sigh, "Will it really be the best for him?"

    Elsa didn''t say anything as she just gave a nod with a smile on her face.

    Nori took a while to ept this, but in the end, she still said with pouted lips, "Alright, but don''t take him away from me for too long."

    Elsa promised that she wouldn''t and patted her on the head.

    For some reason, Nori didn''t resist this even though she normally didn''t ept anything from anyone. It was as if Elsa had tamed her with just a few words.

    After that, Nori went back over to Rondo to say a few more things, but the situation had been settled.

    I couldn''t help looking at Elsa with a surprised look.

    She just looked back at me with a smile and said, "It''s surprising how good I am with children, right? I''ve always had a way with children."

    Then as if she was proving something, she stuck out her chest with pride.

    But all that did was make things awkward for me, especially with her figure¡­

    The way that she stuck out her chest, it almost popped open the buttons of her dress.

    That was how big they were¡­

    Seeing the awkward look on my face, Elsa looked down and realized what I was looking at.

    With that look of realization, there was a blush that appeared on her face as well.

    I quickly turned away and said, "I''m sorry for staring."

    But Elsa said, "It''s alright¡­you can stare more if you want."

    I was shocked when I heard this and I immediately figured that she was teasing me, but I really couldn''t take this teasing.

    So I immediately stood up and said, "I have to use the restroom. If you''ll excuse me."

    As I walked away, there was a trace of disappointment that appeared in Elsa''s eyes.

    This was a look that Haley, Moon, and Veronica hadn''t missed.

    Their womanly instincts told them something and it wasn''t wrong¡­

 Chapter 383 Where To Now?

    After spending a few days in Silver City finalizing everything, we were on the road again.

    But this time I had a bitter look on my face.

    That was because of a talk that I had with Shaka.

    "What are your ns now?" Shaka suddenly asked me when we were alone one day.

    I was a bit confused when I heard this, but I replied, "We''re going back to the town. Where else would we be going?"

    Shaka shook his head with a sigh before saying, "I knew that you would say this¡­It seems like you stillckmon sense."

    I couldn''t help pursing my lips when I heard that.

    I had learned quite a bit during this time and I felt that I was quite logical, how could he still say that I wasckingmon sense?

    But before I could say anything, Shaka suddenly looked back up at me and said, "Do you realize what you''ve done here?"

    I was even more confused when I heard this, so I just slowly shook my head to show that I didn''t.

    Shaka gave a sigh before saying, "You''ve opened up not just the ore trade for mithril, but also for all those other ores. For our country that has a severeck of said ores, what do you think this means?"

    There was a look of slow realization that appeared on my face.

    I of course knew what this meant, but I had thought that they would take care of this matter by themselves.

    All I would need to do is leave it to Scar and the others at Shadow Garden to report this matter and I would return to my own territory.

    But now¡­it didn''t seem to be the case.

    I slowly asked, "Does that mean that¡­I''ve been summoned again?"

    Shaka gave a nod which sealed my fate.

    I had a grim look on my face as I said, "But it hasn''t even been that long since thest time¡­"

    Shaka gave a shrug and said, "Who told you to show off like this? What can we do if you do all these things that defymon sense? Just ept your fate."

    "I, I, I¡­" I stammered out without being able to give a real response.

    A royal summon, this was not something that I could ignore¡­

    Since it had already been given, there was nothing that I could say.

    So the only thing that I could do was go to the capital again.

    With a sigh, I said, "Then do we have enough time to go back to my territory first?"

    Shaka gave a nod before saying, "We have to meet up with our boss anyway, so we''ll be heading that way."

    "Scar''sing?" I said in a surprised voice.

    Shaka gave another nod as he said, "He said that he''sing and he has a few choice words for you."

    I could already guess what these ''choice words'' were. It was going to be another scolding¡­

    But it was deserved if I thought about it.

    This was indeed arge matter that I was trying to push onto them, even if I had tried to downy it.

    This wasn''t just a few simple trades, but trade that would affect the entire future of a nation.

    So it would make sense that it was such a big deal.

    I just didn''t feel like it was rted to me since I wasn''t even the one that made these deals. It was all done by Haley under my name, so it felt a bit detached to me.

    With a sigh, I asked, "What''s the damage?"

    Shaka was a bit confused when he heard this, but then a look of understanding appeared on his face.

    With a faint smile, he said, "Damage? What damage? This is a good thing, don''t you know?"

    I didn''t say anything in response and waited for him to tell me.

    Shaking his head again, Shaka said, "At the very least, you''ll be receiving another title. You''re climbing up the noble ranks so quickly, it really is amazing to see."

    He let out a sigh after saying this.

    But there was a look of despair on my face.

    Another title?

    I was just made a viscount not that long ago and I was already receiving another title?

    I knew that climbing up thedders so quickly wasn''t a good thing.

    After all, a tall tree would often attract lightning.

    If I climbed too high, I would surely attract the attention of more nobles and that would just cause even more problems.

    Shaka saw the look on my face and said, "You''re looking down on this? You think that it''s that easy?"

    I shook my head before saying, "I''m just afraid of trouble."

    Shaka''s expression became a bit serious when he heard this before he said, "This will attract the attention of quite a few people, you''ll have to be careful from now on."

    I gave a sigh when I heard this, but I wasn''t surprised since I had already expected this.

    As expected, a tall tree attracts lightning.

    But then he suddenly said, "We''ve already made a few moves to protect you when the timees, so you don''t need to worry about this for now."

    This time, I was surprised.

    I never thought that they would have been this decisive to protect me even without seeing how things would turn out.

    Shaka said with a faint smile, "Of course, the problemes from our side in the first ce. So it was only natural that we would make a move."

    I also revealed a smile when I heard this.

    I knew something that they didn''t know¡­that Shadow Garden was filled with internal strife.

    So it wasn''t strange that they would be doing this.

    In a few years, it would be strong enough that the entire organization would fall, so it was definitely serious.

    With a sigh, I said, "Still, thank you for doing all of this."

    Shaka just gave a nod in response.

 Chapter 384 Being Scolded Once More

    After traveling for a few more days, we passed the border and arrived back in my town.

    Waiting for me was Rose and another person that I was familiar with.

    It was Scar who weed me with a smile on his face, one that was anything but kind.

    It was clear that he was angry with me, but he wasn''t able to show that in front of the dwarves.

    They were here as ambassadors officially, so offending them was thest thing that he could do.

    So he asked to see me in private and I followed him since I was still technically his subordinate.

    We went to my study once more and when we sat down¡­

    "What were you thinking?"

    Those were the first words out of his mouth, but I had already expected this.

    I just revealed a bitter smile before saying with a shrug, "I didn''t n on this either. It just happened."

    "It just happened?" He repeated with twitching lips.

    Then all of a sudden, Scar pped the table and said, "How could something like this just happen? Do you really think that it''s that easy to do something like this? Do you know how long we''ve been trying to build a rtionship with the dwarves only to be rejected by them?"

    I didn''t say a thing since I knew that all of these questions were rhetorical.

    There was no need for me to say anything since¡­

    "It''s been hundreds of years since anyone has been able to make contact with the dwarves like this and you''re telling me that it just ''happened''?" He said while pointing a finger in my face.

    I gave a shrug without saying anything.

    Seeing the look on my face, Scar gave a sigh and shook his head while saying, "He reallycks allmon sense. It was my mistake expecting anything out of this crazy kid, if only I had taken this seriously and sent more people to watch him¡­"

    I couldn''t help resenting this and said in an aggrieved voice, "It wasn''t as if I could do anything. If the Dwarven King wants something, it isn''t as if I could say no."

    Scar raised a brow as if he doubted me, so he turned to look at Shaka.

    Shaka gave a nod to confirm that this was indeed the case.

    Shaka had been following me the entire time, so he knew everything that happened.

    Scar turned back to look at me with a strange look.

    He looked at me like this for a while before suddenly asking, "How did you learn all those things that you showed the dwarves?"

    As he said this, there was a trace of suspicion that appeared in his eyes.

    It was as if he was saying, "If you already knew all of this, why didn''t you give it to us first?"

    I just calmly looked back at him, this time without any fear at all as I said, "This is my secret. I don''t think I need to tell you anything about this."

    Scar narrowed his eyes when he looked at me, but then he said with a sigh, "Indeed, you don''t need to tell me where you learned these things, that is what we agreed on in the past. But, there''s one thing that I do need to ask¡­"

    His eyes turned sharp as he said, "What are your intentions towards our kingdom?"

    This was the bottom line.

    He wanted to believe in him because of all the things that he had done before, but the secrets that he kept were just too suspicious.

    So if he didn''t ask this, he wouldn''t be doing his job properly.

    I had already been expecting this since I even knew that I had too many secrets that it seemed suspicious.

    But I still calmly said, "I have no ill intentions towards the kingdom. My home is here."

    There was a tense moment of silence between us as Scar just looked right into my eyes.

    With the way that he looked at me, it was almost as if he was trying to see right into my soul.

    But in the end, he said with a sigh, "I hope that this is the case."

    I also let out a secret sigh of relief at the fact that I had been able to convince him.

    If I wasn''t able to convince him, this would have be much harder¡­

    After another silence, Scar said, "Did you think that you would be able to get out of a scolding like this though?"

    A bitter smile crept onto my face when I heard this.

    Scar narrowed his eyes to look at me as that bitter smile on my face became wider.

    He just kept scolding me about how Ickedmon sense and how I didn''t know how to hold back at all.

    He told me that I should at least try to stay low profile and that I had a habit of causing trouble wherever I went.

    I would have refuted this, but it seemed like this was the case when I thought about it.

    After all, every time I had gone to travel, I had caused a big incident.

    This trip to the Dwarven Kingdom wasn''t any different.

    When he was done with his scolding, I raised my hands in surrender and said, "I got it, I got it. I promise that I''ll be careful next time."

    "Next time?" He repeated before suddenly putting his head in his hand and giving a long sigh.

    "There''s going to be a next time?" He said in an exhausted voice before saying, "Of course there''s going to be a next time with this kid¡­he doesn''t have any self awareness at all¡­"

    I resented this and I made myself clear as I said, "I don''t think that''s true. I don''t want to cause trouble at all, it just happens."

    "It just happens he says¡­" He once again repeated in an exhausted voice.

    After another long silence, Scar''s tone changed as he said, "Let''s get down to business then."

 Chapter 385 Deciding Splits

    With this sudden change in tone, the entire atmosphere of the room changed.

    It was clear that he was about to talk about something serious, so I revealed a serious look as well.

    Scar looked at me with that serious look and asked, "How much ore did you secure?"

    I had already expected this, plus Shaka should have already reported this to him since Shaka had been there when we made all the negotiations, so I just brought out a piece of paper that I had already prepared.

    This was a list of all the ores that I was willing to split with the kingdom, as well as the prices for all of these ores.

    The price was already considered quite good, so as long as they weren''t too greedy, this would be a good deal for them.

    Scar just calmly took this list and looked it over.

    When he finished, he gave a satisfied nod before asking, "How are you nning on dividing this?"

    That was the main thing that he had wanted to ask.

    Division of the ore trade.

    This was something that we had already talked about before, but now he was trying to get the specific numbers.

    This was something that most likely the king had asked him for, so it could be said that this was a direct negotiation with the king.

    I narrowed my eyes and looked at him before saying, "Half."

    There was no change to Scar''s expressions, but there was a trace of surprise that appeared in his eyes.

    He looked back down at the list before giving a slow nod.

    But there was still something else that he needed to ask, "What about the transport and the guards, who will be responsible for that."

    I narrowed my eyes again when I heard him say this, but this was the one thing that I wouldn''tpromise on.

    "We''ll take care of everything." I said in a calm voice.

    But all that this did was make Scar knit his brows.

    It was clear that he wasn''t happy about this.

    This trade with the Dwarven Kingdom was an important matter for their kingdom, so naturally he wanted them to be more involved in this matter.

    Not only would that allow them to build a better rtionship with the dwarves, it might even open up new opportunities for them.

    But if they followed my n, then they wouldn''t have that chance.

    Of course, I could see what he was thinking from the expression on his face. I could see that he was dissatisfied with this arrangement.

    Before he could say anything, I said, "I''m the only one that they trust right now. If you try to push your way into this, then all that will happen is that a good thing will be ruined."

    Scar couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when he heard this.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at me, but I just stared right back at him with a calm look.

    Neither of us seemed like we were nning to back down until he finally said, "Alright, let''s take a step back then."

    With this, it showed that he was at least willing topromise¡­it was just too bad that this wasn''t something that I was willing topromise on.

    After a pause, he said, "What if we sent our people to go with your group? They would follow your orders while they were traveling with you."

    But I shook my head and said, "No, no one will be allowed toe with us."

    Scar deeply knit his brows this time.

    He was willing topromise, but it didn''t seem like Zwein was willing to ept this olive branch with how firm his voice was.

    I could see the look on his face, but I just calmly said, "Even if you only send people, can you guarantee that they will follow my people''s orders? At the same time, can you guarantee that other people won''t sneak people in?"

    Scar still deeply knitted his brows without saying anything.

    That was because¡­he really couldn''t guarantee this.

    It was impossible for him to guarantee that such things wouldn''t happen since there were always such possibilities.

    Seeing this look, I said, "That is why I won''t allow a single person to join my group. If anyone causes damage to our rtionship with the dwarves, this isn''t something that any of us can handle."

    Scar just silently looked at me with this grim look for a bit before asking, "Even if it was his majesty''s will?"

    My eyes twitched a bit hearing this, but I still said in the end, "Even if it was his majesty''s will."

    Scar just carefully looked at my expression, as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not.

    Then he said with a sigh, "Fine, but what about guards? With such important cargo, there is no doubt that the other countries will not remain idle. When the timees, will you be able to protect this cargo with your people?"

    This time, he had struck at my sore spot.

    Indeed, it would be hard for me to protect it since I didn''t have enough guards for this if other countries were to get involved.

    I was still training up guards and even then, they would be used to guard my territory instead of being all sent to protect this caravan.

    When he saw that I didn''t say anything, Scar finally felt like he had found a way in and was about to say something, but I cut him off first.

    "We''ll have the kingdom''s army guard us."

    Scar was surprised to hear this before revealing a faint smile.

    But that smile didn''tst long when he heard thetter half of my words.

    "But only in the territory of our kingdom."

    Scar knitted his brows once more when he heard this.

    I looked right at him and said, "The dwarves will protect us while we are in the Dwarven Kingdom, so we only need to be protected when wee back."

    Scar narrowed his eyes to look at me as he said, "Do you really think that the troops of our kingdom can be moved that easily? They''ll just protect you when you need it?"

    I gave a shrug as I said, "This is important cargo, so they''ll move when needed. Not to mention, it''s only for a few days each month, so it isn''t as if it is anything that bad."

    Scar kept looking at me with those narrowed eyes as if he still couldn''t ept this.

    So I used myst card, "The dwarves have sent an ambassador team this time to build rtions with our kingdom."

    Scar once again revealed a shocked look and he turned to look at Shaka.

    Shaka just gave a calm nod to show that this was indeed the case.

    Scar looked at me with a strange look as he muttered, "This kid¡­"

    I didn''t show any reactions to this.

    Finally, Scar said with a sigh, "Do whatever you want, I can''t stop you anyway."

    I just revealed a smile without saying anything.

    But then Scar said, "You still have to talk to his majesty about this."

    At that, the smile on my face turned bitter.

 Chapter 386 Explain Yourself

    Before leaving this office, there was one more thing that Scar had to mention.

    "I''ve heard that you obtained some mines in the Dwarven Kingdom¡­"

    His voice trailed off after saying this, as if he was waiting for me to say something.

    I just calmly looked at him and said, "And?"

    Scar was taken aback when he heard this.

    He just looked at me with that shocked and confused look on my face.

    I took advantage of this to say, "Are you saying that the kingdom is trying to take my private property away from me? Not to mention, private property that I have in another kingdom? Who knows what would happen if they were taken from me."

    Scar revealed a bitter smile when he heard this.

    He shook his head and said, "Of course not, how could I be saying that?"

    I said with a smile, "That''s good because I don''t know what I would do if you were implying that."

    Scar just looked away with an awkward look on his face after I said this.

    But in the end, I did help him out of this hole that he dug for himself by saying, "Of course, if the kingdom was willing to buy the ores that I mined from these mines, then I would be grateful."

    Scar was once again surprised when he heard this, but then he said with a serious look, "The price?"

    I calmly said, "Same price."

    Scar looked a bit awkward when he heard this before saying, "Can''t you give us a little discount? Since we are all friends andrades here, you can cut the price a bit, can''t you?"

    I shook my head before saying, "You should know that since I''m running a mine as an outsider, it actually costs more for me to mine these ores. The price that I''m already giving you is considered a discount."

    Scar looked like he thought otherwise, but this was something that he didn''t have any information on.

    Even Shaka shook his head to show that he didn''t know.

    This had all been left to Haley by me, so Shaka hadn''t actually gotten any information on this.

    Scar turned back to look at me with narrowed eyes, almost as if he was trying to put pressure on me.

    But I just calmly looked back into those eyes without a single care.

    The two of us just stared at each other in silence for a bit before Scar finally said with a sigh, "Fine, we''ll use the same price as before."

    I gave a nod, but deep down I had let out a sigh of relief.

    If it wasn''t for Haley already expecting this, I really might not have known what to do.

    But luckily she had predicted this and told me everything.

    Since that was settled, there was nothing else left for us to discuss.

    Everything else would be settledter when we reached the capital since we still needed to talk to the king about this.

    After that, we went out to have lunch that Rose prepared.

    Since we had arrived in the morning, there was still plenty of time to show our guests around our town.

    The dwarves didn''t seem that interested other than Elsa who actually wanted to learn more about humans. But since she was the leader of their group, they had no choice but to follow her around.

    After an uneventful day, we settled in for the night.

    But that was where my real problems started.

    Rose brought me into a room alone, she didn''t even bring Haley and Cecilia with her.

    I had thought that it was for ''that'', but it turned out that it wasn''t.

    After we arrived in this room, she immediately had me sit down before she stood there with her arms crossed in front of me.

    She was ring at me like I had done something wrong.

    With the way that she red at me, I knew that she must know something¡­but I didn''t know what she knew.

    I didn''t know what she was angry about, so that made it hard to apologize.

    All I could do was wait for her to tell me while hanging my head down.

    After a long silence, Rose finally said, "Do you know why I brought you here?"

    I shivered when I heard this.

    This was the worst thing that she could ask me since I really had no idea why she had called me here at all.

    Anything that I said would have the chance of hurting her and making things worse. But if I didn''t say a thing, she would also be angry because I chose to remain silent.

    So in truth, there was no right answer here¡­

    But the longer that I stalled, the worse that it would get for me.

    In the end, I chose the path that would be less painful.

    I shook my head and said, "I don''t know."

    Rose narrowed her eyes to look at me beforeing forward towards me.

    She leaned in and put her hands on the armrests of the chair, pushing me back with her face until she was right up in front of me.

    She looked right into my eyes like this for a few seconds before suddenly saying, "I heard something quite interesting from the others. I heard that you had a forging duel in the Dwarven Kingdom."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this.

    I had many forging duels when I was in the Dwarven Kingdom, but I didn''t know which one she was talking about.

    Rose saw the confused look on my face and calmly said, "I heard that there was a specific duel where you bet something very dangerous."

    I trembled when I heard this.

    I finally knew what she was talking about.

    It was the same reason why Haley and the others had been angry with me back in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    She was referring to the duel with Drogath where I had bet my head.

    Seeing this look on my face, Rose said with a scary smile, "Would you care to exin yourself?"

 Chapter 387 A Different Punishment (1)

    I just gave a secret bitterugh when I heard this.

    It wasn''t that I didn''t believe that I didn''t deserve this, it was just that I knew that I was suffering from the consequences of my own actions. If I hadn''t tried to risk my own life, perhaps things wouldn''t have turned out this way.

    But since it did, there was nothing that I could me it on.

    Taking a deep breath, I said, "I''m sorry, it was all my fault. I was too arrogant and didn''t think about anyone else."

    Rose looked deep into my eyes when I said this and after looking at me for a bit, she said with a sigh, "Alright, I understand that you are indeed reflecting on your actions."

    My expression was slowly rxing until I heard her next words.

    "But that doesn''t mean that you can escape your punishment." She said with an evil look on her face.

    I was taken aback when I heard this, but then I gave a calm nod to show that I would take whatever punishment that she gave me.

    This was what I deserved for what I had done, so I wouldn''t shy away from it.

    But it was a lie to say that there wasn''t a part of me that was excited for this¡­

    I would just never admit it no matter what anyone did.

    Then to my surprise, she suddenly pulled out a few straps.

    I couldn''t help staring at them while wondering what she would do with them¡­

    Rose came forward with those straps in hand and leaned in over me before she¡­used those straps to tie my hand to the chair so that I couldn''t move at all.

    Now, I couldn''t help feeling a bit concerned.

    "What is this? What are you doing?" I asked in a slightly worried voice.

    But all she did was look at me with that same evil look as she simply said, "Punishment."

    I couldn''t help feeling a shiver run down my spine when I heard this.

    It was both out of fear and excitement.

    That was because the way that she had said this¡­it was just like when I had first met her.

    It seemed like that part of her was part of her personality in the first ce, it was just amplified by the locket¡­

    So now that she was about to release it, I couldn''t help wondering how it would be released.

    As I waited to see what would happen next, Rose suddenly stood up straight and moved away from me.

    She was the one that had led me to this room, so I didn''t even know what this room was for. There were plenty of rooms in our manor that I didn''t know what every room was for.

    This was one of those rooms that I had never seen before.

    Taking this chance, I slowly looked around to see what this room was.

    It was an empty room that didn''t have much, it seemed like it was just a normal bedroom.

    That was until I noticed a few things that I shouldn''t have seen.

    Why was there something that looked like a cross?

    Also why was there something that looked like a wooden horse?

    The way that it was allid out in this room was very familiar¡­like I had seen it somewhere before.

    Of course, I wasn''t talking about this life, but rather my previous life.

    I had seen rooms like this in my ''research'' sessions.

    Just what was this room!?

    After looking around, I couldn''t stop the bad feeling from filling me.

    I quickly turned back to Rose and I found that she had already finished changing.

    When I saw her new appearance, I waspletely shocked.

    That was because she was now dressed like a BDSM queen.

    With that skin tight bunny girl outfit, the stockings, and the high heels, she really gave off a different feeling.

    But the most terrifying thing of all was the whip in her hands.

    My chin dropped down when I saw this and after taking a moment to gather myself, I slowly asked, "What, what are you doing with that?"

    Rose had just turned around when I said this and she said with a smile on her face, "It''s your punishment, what else would it be?"

    I gave a gulp when I heard this.

    This¡­might have gone a bit too far¡­

    I didn''t even know why she had suddenly be like this, but I might have been at fault here.

    After all, I had been leaving again and again, leaving her all alone at home.

    Could it be that her resentment was piling up and she was angry at me?

    Giving another gulp, I said, "Can¡­we not do this?"

    Rose said with the same smile on her face, "No, this is your punishment."

    I felt a chill run down my spine when I heard this before saying, "But it''ll hurt."

    She tilted her head and said, "Well, it''s a whip, so it should."

    My chin dropped after hearing this.

    There was nothing wrong with what she had just said, but¡­the way that she said it really was something else.

    I also couldn''t help feeling a bit ashamed of myself for thinking that she was a bit cute when she said it like this¡­

    Seeing that I stopped talking and just stared at her, Rose revealed another smile beforeing towards me step by step.

    With the way that she walked, her body swayed and bounced. It was almost as if she was showing her body off.

    With each step she took, her breastspressed into that tight bunny girl outfit bounced up and down, jiggling to show how big they were.

    At the same time, her hips swayed as she walked over, giving off a mature beauty.

    I couldn''t help myself as my dick started getting hard and when it did, arge tent was pitched.

    Rose revealed another smile seeing this before raising the whip in her hand and saying, "It''s time for your punishment."

    Before I could say anything, she suddenly brought that whip down on me.

    "Ah!"

 Chapter 388 A Different Punishment (2)

    "Ah! Ah?"

    I slowly opened my eyes and looked down at my chest where Rose had whipped me.

    It didn''t seem like it was hurt at all.

    It didn''t even leave a mark even though she had clearly whipped me.

    I looked down at my chest before looking up at her hand which had the whip down, so it was clear that I had indeed been whipped.

    What was going on here?

    Rose saw the look on my face and she raised the whip with a smile on her lips.

    I had been trying to figure out what had happened, but seeing that she had raised the whip again, I couldn''t help panicking again as I said, "Wait, don''t!"

    But she didn''t listen to me at all as she brought the whip down on my chest once again.

    This time, I watched as the whip fell down on my chest.

    "Ah!"

    However, even though I saw the whip hitting me, there was no pain at all.

    I looked down at my chest once more and found that it was the same as before, my clothes weren''t even rustled because of the whip hitting me.

    That just didn''t make sense at all.

    This was clearly a proper whip, so why was it like this?

    Rose just looked at the expression on my face with a smile on her face.

    It was as if she was enjoying my reaction to this whip of hers.

    After watching me stare down in shock for a bit, she finally said, "It''s just a replica."

    I looked up at her with a confused look on my face as I couldn''t understand what she was saying even if I understood the words.

    A replica?

    A replica of a whip?

    But that would still make it a whip that could hurt people instead of this thing¡­

    It didn''t make sense at all how she was hitting me with it and it didn''t hurt me at all.

    Rose saw the look on my face, so she took that whip and hit her other hand with it to demonstrate.

    As she did, she didn''t show a single sign of pain.

    After doing it a few times, she said, "See? This thing is just for show, it doesn''t hurt at all."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile on my face when I saw this.

    The only question I had was¡­ "Why did you do this?"

    Rose said with a smile, "Isn''t this what you like?"

    "Huh?" I said in a confused voice.

    She pointed down at my crotch and said, "I saw the tent that you were pitching just now. Plus, when we did this before with Haley and Cecilia, I saw how wild you went."

    I couldn''t help revealing an awkward look when I heard this.

    I would have wanted to deny it, but I knew that I wasn''t able to since she already had that certain look on her face.

    She looked like she already knew everything and there was nothing for me to say.

    So I said with a sigh, "Even if it is, why are you doing this?"

    For the first time, the smile on Rose''s face disappeared.

    She looked at me with sad eyes and said, "I missed you."

    I couldn''t help being shocked when I heard this as I didn''t know what to do.

    It was a fact that I left her in our territory often since she was the one that took care of it.

    No matter what I said, I couldn''t apologize for this¡­

    Plus, I had even risked my life without even thinking about her feelings.

    No matter how one looked at it, these were the signs that I was a bad husband¡­

    I wanted to reach a hand towards her, but then I remembered that I was still binded to the chair by the straps.

    So all I could do was say, "I''m sorry."

    Rose looked at me and shook her head as she said, "You don''t need to feel guilty about this since I know that you''re working hard for our people."

    Then after a pause, she added, "It''s just that I get lonely sometimes when you''re not here."

    Once again, I wanted to reach out and once again I forgot that I was still tied up.

    So I said, "Can you untie me first?"

    Rose gave a nod beforeing forward to untie my hands.

    She was no longer ying the role that she had yed before.

    After she untied me, the first thing that I did was take her in my arms.

    Without any hesitation, I took her in my arms and said, "I''m sorry¡­but let me make it up to you now."

    Rose was surprised to hear this before she said with a smile, "How are you nning on doing that?"

    I also revealed a smile as I suddenly stood up from the chair and lifted her up.

    It might have been hard for me before, but now that I had trained my muscles a bit, I was able to carry her up without any problems.

    With her in my arms, I walked over to the bed in this room and put her down before climbing up onto the bed over her.

    While I was over her like this, I said with a smile, "I''ll show you how."

    There was a blush that appeared on Rose''s face when she saw me acting this way, but she didn''t hide her body or stop me. It was clear that she was allowing me to do whatever I wanted with her.

    But I couldn''t help being stunned by how beautiful she was with this faint blush on her face.

    She was already a beautiful woman with her red hair and perfect face, but that blush just added anotheryer of depth to her beauty.

    I couldn''t stop myself as I leaned in and sealed her lips with a kiss.

    The two of us engrossed ourselves in this kiss, poking our tongues into each other''s mouths for a long time before finally separating to catch our breath.

    Seeing her panting like this, a tent was soon pitched in my pants.

 Chapter 389 A Different Punishment (3)

    When I saw her like this, I couldn''t hold myself back any longer.

    The first thing that I did was pull off my pants and free the beast.

    The next thing that I did was bring my lower half forward so that it was right up in front of her face.

    Rose had just caught her breath when she saw my dick appear in front of her.

    She didn''t even need any orders to know what to do.

    She brought her hand forward and opened her mouth wide to take it into her mouth.

    As soon as it entered her mouth, I could feel the familiar feeling of pleasure wrap around my dick.

    No matter how many times I did it with her, there was always this feeling of pleasure that I could resist.

    Whether it was the warmth of her mouth, the softness of her tongue, or the wetness that came from her licking it, it was all pleasurable.

    I didn''t even need to grab her head as Rose pushed herself forward to take it as deep into her throat as possible.

    After being together for so long, she knew exactly what I liked.

    But it was just too big for her in the end and she could only take it halfway in before she felt herself choking,

    "Ah." I said as I felt her tongue rolling across my dick, feeling myself getting closer and closer.

    But then all of a sudden, Rose stopped her licking and pulled herself back.

    She knew that he was about to finish, so she stopped herself before he could.

    After all, there was still more that she wanted from him before that happened.

    After Rose pulled my dick out of her mouth, she suddenly sat up and pushed me down so that I was sitting on the bed. Then she moved her body forward so that her breasts were right over my dick.

    Then she pressed them together and enveloped my dick inside of that pillowy valley.

    At the same time, she let her saliva drip down from her mouth so that it fell right onto my dick in between her breasts.

    She held the sides of her breasts and moved them up and down while still squeezing my dick.

    The soft feeling that came from her breasts was hard to describe. It was like being enveloped in the softest pillow, but these pillows also had a pressure to them that filled him with pleasure.

    As she moved her breasts up and down, the fabric of her bunny suit started to slip.

    It was from the saliva that she had dripped down onto my dick.

    It had started getting all over her breast and had lubed up the fabric so that it started to slip from her breasts.

    Slowly, the triangr piece of cloth slipped off and her soft pink nipples were revealed.

    They were standing tall and proud, showing just how turned on she was.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t hold myself back.

    It wasn''t fair that I was just enjoying it all by myself, right?

    So my hands came up and I reached out towards those soft pink tips.

    In one swift move, I used both my hands to pinch both of those soft pink tips.

    "Ah, don''t! Not there, I''m still sensitive~"

    Hearing this, I couldn''t help revealing an evil smile.

    The more that she acted this way, the more turned on I was.

    That could be seen by how my dick grew inside the soft valley of her chest, peeking out over the top of those peaks.

    Seeing this, Rose didn''t hesitate to lower her head down so that she was able to reach the tip of my dick and she reached her tongue out to start licking it all while she kept moving her breasts up and down.

    "Ah!" I said as I felt her tongue moving back and forth across the tip of my dick.

    "Muu, don''t stop."

    The two of us kept teasing each other like this, but as we did, we came closer and closer to climaxing.

    Finally, it was Rose who gave a tremble first to show that she was close.

    When I felt this, I didn''t hesitate as I started ying with her nipples even more.

    I pulled hard on them and suddenly twisted them.

    "Eee, not so hard¡­Ah, you''re going to make me¡­"

    In response to this though, she also started licking even harder and moving even faster with her breasts.

    This caused me to tremble as well.

    The two of us couldn''t take it anymore and I said, "I''m cumming."

    When I did, even though she was clearly filled with pleasure, Rose suddenly stopped moving herself up and down.

    Instead, she brought her head down over my dick and opened her mouth wide.

    Without hesitation, she brought my dick into her mouth and wrapped it tightly as I climaxed.

    I also couldn''t help myself as I grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in while shooting my load deep into her mouth.

    As she took this load in her mouth, I could hear her trying hard to breath as if she was choking.

    At the same time, I could see the spraying from behind her, shooting out onto the bed behind her.

    Only after I had finished shooting my load did I let go of her head and let her drop.

    Rose fell right back onto the bed after I let go and she tried to breath, but it seemed like she was choking on something. She had to take a big gulp before she was able to breathe again, but there was also a bubble that came out of her nose when she let out that deep breath she was holding.

    After catching her breath, she opened her mouth wide for me to see that it was all gone.

    I didn''t even need to tell her to do this, she just knew that I liked to see this.

    "You little minx¡­you better get ready." I said as I saw this.

    Rose just revealed a smile and reached her arms out for me.

    I didn''t hesitate to move forward and press her down under me.

    Again and again we went that night until we finally fell asleep together.

 Chapter 390 Hosting the dwarves

    <h4>Chapter 390 Hosting the dwarves</h4>

    The next morning, we woke up a bitte, but we both rushed out since we had things to do.

    We still had to show the dwarves around today, so we couldn''t wait.

    When we met up with the dwarves, they looked at the two of us and the male dwarves all revealed knowing looks.

    Elsa revealed a blush, but she didn''t say anything about this.

    I just pretended that everything was normal as I guided them around the town.

    But I did receive a few shoulder ps from the male dwarves¡­or at least they tried for the shoulder, only managing to reach the middle of my back.

    ¡­

    That night, we held an official banquet to wee the dwarves.

    As the lord of this territory, it was only right to do so since they were here as ambassadors.

    But with the dwarves, it naturally turned into a drinking party.

    There was nothing we could do when it came to stopping them, so all we could really do was bring the best wine that we had for them.

    The dwarves didn''t stop at all as they drank with everyone that came.

    But the only thing that fell were the people that drank with the dwarves.

    The dwarves had an amazing tolerance and didn''t go down no matter how much they drank.

    Humans naturally weren''t able to keep up with them.

    So we had to keep bringing people who had knocked themselves out with how much they drank away.

    I just left them alone since it wasn''t a bad thing that they were enjoying themselves like this.

    This would let them get closer to one another, making it easier for them to connect with the dwarves.

    I went over to where Elsa was sitting.

    She didn''t drink like the rest of the dwarves.

    While she still drank, she took sips instead of chugging it down.

    She was on the side with Haley and the other girls.

    It was clear that the one that she was closest to was Haley since they had gotten close during the way back, but it seemed like she was also slowly getting closer with the others.

    This was something that I was happy to see.

    When I came over, her eyes lit up, but she wasn''t the one that came over.

    It was Rose who came over to me with a smile on her face, but it didn''t seem like there was a smile in her eyes.

    I couldn''t help wondering why she was like this, but I also knew that it was better to apologize sooner thanter.

    So I pulled her aside to a private room and said, "I''m sorry."

    Rose shook her head with a smile on her face before saying, "What are you sorry about?"

    I trembled when I heard this.

    The fact that she said this was not a good sign, it meant that she was testing me to see if I was sincere¡­

    So my brain quickly turned as I tried to figure out what she was upset about.

    Then I thought of one thing.

    The fact that I was leaving again in a few days to go to the capital.

    Though she had already said that she didn''t mind itst night, I knew that it was impossible for her not to mind it at all.

    A husband that was always away, how could a wife be alright with that?

    So I said, "I''m sorry I''m leaving again. I really don''t want to, but¡­"

    As my voice trailed off, I had a bitter look on my face.

    Even if I didn''t want to go, there was nothing that I could do.

    After all, it was a royal summon that was calling me to the capital, so I had no choice but to go.

    It was the king that was on the other side and this was not someone that could be offended.

    But to my surprise, Rose simply shook her head with a smile as she said, "No, I already told you that I don''t mind that. You are doing your best for our territory, so how could I be mad about that?"

    I was surprised to hear this since I could tell that her tone was sincere.

    So if that wasn''t it, then what was it?

    Rose''s smile turned a bit sad as she said, "I already said that I don''t mind you having other girls, I know that is just how outstanding you are."

    I was even more confused when I heard her say this.

    Why did she suddenly say this?

    What was this about?

    After a pause, Rose said with the same sad smile, "But it''s hard when you''re a bit too outstanding."

    She looked right into my eyes and said, "You should try to at least have a bit of restraint."

    I was even more confused when I heard this.

    What was she talking about?

    What did she mean by having more restraint?

    Seeing the look on my face, Rose just shook her head with the same sad smile.

    Then she suddenly came towards me.

    I couldn''t help being surprised, but I just firmly stood there and waited to see what she was nning on doing.

    Rose leaned in forward and wrapped her arms around me. She wrapped me up in a hug while her head went to the side, so that she was positioned right beside my head.

    Instead of turning to look at me, she went behind me and then suddenly¡­bit me.

    I couldn''t help wincing in pain at being suddenly bitten like this, but then I just looked at her with a confused look.

    When Rose let go of me, she said with a much happier smile, "That''s my mark, you are my man. No one can take that away."

    I didn''t know what was happening, but I felt like I should do something¡­

    So I reached out to pat her head in the end and said, "I am your man."

    Rose gave a satisfied nod before turning to leave.

    Before she left the room, she said, "Go and talk to the other dwarves, I need to have a private chat with Elsa tonight."

    Then without turning back, she walked out of the room.

    I was just left therepletely speechless and confused.

 Chapter 391 To the capital again

    <h4>Chapter 391 To the capital again</h4>

    After a few more days, we were finally heading off to the capital.

    Scar had wanted to leave as soon as possible, but the dwarves had other ns.

    They kept me in the town, forcing me to go to the forge with them for a few days before they finally epted going to the capital.

    As for the reason why¡­

    It was because Scar told them that the best forges were in the capital.

    If it wasn''t for that, they wouldn''t have bothered going to the capital even though they were an ambassador group.

    He also looked at me with bitter gazes during these days as if he was ming me, but I acted like I didn''t see them at all.

    When we headed off, there was a parade that sent us off.

    I was happy to see this because it seemed like the dwarves had made quite a few friends during this time that were sending them off.

    The dwarves also were sad to leave this ce, which showed that they had formed a connection here.

    This would be important for the future¡­

    In case anything happened, my backup n was the dwarves after all.

    I would move into the Dwarven Kingdom if anything happened with this human kingdom I was currently in.

    It didn''t take us long to travel to the capital this time.

    Instead of slowly taking our time, we passed through each of the towns and cities without a problem.

    That was because Scar had taken out a royal decree to let us pass.

    There were lords that had wanted to stop us when they heard that we came with a group of dwarven ambassadors, but there was nothing that they could do in front of the royal decree.

    So in just four days we had reached the capital.

    It was also different this time when we arrived.

    Last time, we followed the queue to enter the city.

    This time, an entire gate had been closed and there was a parade that was prepared.

    There was a group of armoured guards that came to escort us through that parade and to the castle.

    This was all because we came with the dwarven ambassadors.

    But it was clear by the looks on the faces of the dwarves that they didn''t like this.

    They liked making things rowdy, but when things were too formal like this, it had the opposite effect.

    Being guarded by these elite guards made them cautious rather than allowing them to rx.

    They would have preferred entering the city at their own pace and then seeing the king when they were ready, but now they were being escorted over. It was almost like they had been turned into zoo animals for the humans to stare at.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that I was here, they might have already left¡­

    Scar could also see this, so he pushed me forward to talk to them and appease them.

    It was a good thing that I was able to calm them down in the end, or else this might have ended very poorly.

    Luckily, the guards also didn''t stall them for too long and led them right to the castle.

    When they arrived, the prime minister himself was actually outside waiting for them.

    Other than the king, this was the highest ranking person that could havee out.

    And of course, the king wouldn''t personallye out to greet the guests even if they were ambassadors from another kingdom.

    That was the bottom line when it came to the king''s prestige.

    So it was the prime minister who stepped up.

    It was clear that the kingdom was putting quite the importance on this matter.

    As soon as the prime minister saw the carriageing towards the castle, he immediately stepped forward with a smile on his face.

    Then when we came out, he stepped forward to greet the dwarves.

    It was just too bad that he hadpletely misread the situation.

    He approached the male dwarves and said, "Wee, guests from the Dwarven Kingdom. I would like to officially wee you to our Misfid Kingdom."

    That was his one and most important mistake.

    This also showed just how unfamiliar he was with the dwarves.

    But that couldn''t be med on him since the dwarves liked to keep to themselves in the first ce.

    He had assumed that these male dwarves were the ones that led this ambassador group instead of Elsa.

    However, could that be med on him?

    It wasn''t that he was looking down on her as a woman, but¡­

    It was a bunch of short hairy men and one little girl.

    In this situation, would one assume that the little girl was the one in charge by human standard?

    This was the design of that one wicked designer harming the people of this world again.

    One of the male dwarves gave a cough before saying, "I think that you''ve made a mistake here."

    The prime minister couldn''t help revealing a surprised and confused look when he heard this.

    He looked at the other dwarves with the same confused look as he didn''t know what was happening here.

    What mistake did he make?

    Elsa gave a cough and said, "Thank you for the warm wee. I am Elsa, the leader of this group and the Dwarven King''s sister."

    When the prime minister heard this, he couldn''t help looking at her in shock.

    After all, he had thought that she was one of the children of the other dwarves¡­he never thought that she would be the one leading the ambassador group.

    He couldn''t help looking at Scar who just gave a nod to confirm it.

    After giving a cough to hide his embarrassment, the prime minister quickly recovered as he said with a warm smile, "Miss Elsa, it is an honour to meet you."

    He reached his hand out towards her as he said this.

    Elsa just took his hand and shook it before saying, "It''s an honour to meet you as well."

    The prime minister couldn''t help revealing an awkward look.

    After all he had reached his hand out so that he could kiss her hand¡­but all he received was a handshake.

    It seemed that there was still much for him to learn about dwarven society¡­

 Chapter 392 Another royal audience (1)

    <h4>Chapter 392 Another royal audience (1)</h4>

    The prime minister''s eyes couldn''t help wandering as he looked at Elsa.

    Even though she looked like a child with her big wide brown eyes, fair skin, and long brown hair, her figure was anything like that of a child.

    These were bigger than his wife, bigger than any woman that he had seen before.

    That hourss figure on that short body¡­it really felt illegal¡­

    I could see his wandering eyes, so I couldn''t help revealing a smile that had a trace of sympathy in it.

    After all, I knew what the prime minister was feeling.

    I still cursed that one designer whenever I saw these female dwarves.

    I wish that I could send interdimensional mail and send him a few knives in envelopes¡­

    But since I couldn''t¡­I could only ept that this was my new world.

    After a long silence, the prime minister gave another cough and said, "Then shall we head in? His majesty is already waiting for us."

    Elsa gave a quick nod since she could feel the awkwardness in the air.

    The sooner that they went in, the sooner that this would disappear.

    As they walked through the halls of the castle, they just walked in silence.

    The prime minister would normally have a few things to say as they walked through the halls, but he really felt ufortable looking in her direction. And if he didn''t look in her direction, he really didn''t know which direction to look in.

    So the only thing that he could do was look forward and lead the way.

    There was no introducing the castle and bragging about how well built it was.

    But what he didn''t know was that he had just saved himself some embarrassment.

    For these dwarves, the craftsmanship of this castle wasn''t that great in the first ce.

    It didn''t take them long to reach the throne room, but the prime minister had them stay here for a second before heading in first.

    It was after a few minutes that he came back to lead us into the throne room.

    As we walked in, there was someone that announced, "Introducing the Dwarven Kingdom''s ambassador group."

    As soon as we walked in, we immediately became the center of attention.

    Compared tost time, there were even more ministers that were standing on the side.

    It just went to show just how important this matter was for our kingdom.

    Since the prime minister had already gone in to give them a warning, they knew who the leader of this group was and they all looked at Elsa.

    She just calmly walked up to the center of the throne room and then gave a slight bow to the king.

    The king didn''t mind this and just gave a wave of his hand before saying, "Rise."

    The dwarves all quickly returned to normal and there was a silence that hung in the air.

    No one spoke because both sides were sizing up the other side.

    Both sides wanted to learn more about each other, but neither side wanted to give up more information than they were willing to give.

    So they were waiting for the other side to engage first.

    In the end, it was Elsa who spoke first by saying, "Your highness, I am here on behalf of my brother, the Dwarven King to send his regards. Our country has admired yours for a long time and we wish to open up diplomatic rtions."

    When her voice fell, there was only silence that followed as all of the ministers stared at her in shock.

    This was thest thing that they had expected her to say.

    After all, the dwarves were famous for being istionist against the humans.

    It had already been over a century since thest meaningful interaction between the dwarves and the humans.

    So it was hard for them to believe that they would suddenlye forward to build rtions with their kingdom.

    But here they were.

    The status of the sister of the Dwarven King meant that this was a princess, so this was not a weak title.

    She was definitely worthy of being able to represent the Dwarven King on this matter.

    But when the king saw her standing there, he couldn''t help being taken aback.

    As he just stared at her, the corner of his eyes couldn''t help twitching and he turned his gaze slightly as he didn''t know where to look.

    In the end, he settled for looking up a bit higher than usual so he didn''t see what he shouldn''t see as he said, "Thank you foring to our country. It would be our honour to build rtions with your Dwarven Kingdom. If there is anything that you need, then please feel free to tell us."

    Elsa gave a nod before saying, "For now, we hope that we will be able to continue to work with the talents of your kingdom to develop our forging techniques."

    When the ministers and even the king heard this, they couldn''t help revealing confused looks.

    Talents of their kingdom?

    As far as they knew, there was no such thing.

    Everyone in the world knew that the dwarves were the best when it came to forging, there was no one that couldpare to them when it came to forging techniques.

    So how could they want to work with humans when it came to this?

    After a moment of being surprised, the king suddenly asked, "Miss Elsa, though you say you wish to work with the talents of our kingdom, I was not aware that we had such talents. Can you please tell us who these talented people are so we can cooperate with you better?"

    Elsa was surprised to hear this before turning to look at me and saying, "Of course we''re talking about Sir Zwein here."

    When they heard this all of them couldn''t help looking at me with shocked and confused looks.

    All I could do was reveal a bitter smile when I saw this since I had already expected something like this to happen¡­

 Chapter 393 Another royal audience (2)

    <h4>Chapter 393 Another royal audience (2)</h4>

    After a long silence, the king gave a cough to calm down before saying with a smile, "I was not aware that Sir Zwein here had this kind of talent."

    He then turned to me and asked, "Sir Zwein, is this true?"

    I said with a calm look on my face, "It''s just a bit of skill, it isn''t as exaggerated as Miss Elsa says it is."

    The ministers gave a nod as if they agreed with this.

    But then Elsa said, "Sir Zwein, there is no need to be humble."

    With a wide smile, she turned to look at everyone else in the room and said, "Sir Zwein''s abilities are even on par with my brother''s. It can be said that Sir Zwein is a true master of the craft."

    Once again, there were shocked looks that filled this room after she said this.

    The bitter smile that had been on my face before returned and there was even more bitterness to it this time.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at me as he asked, "Is this true, Viscount Zwein?"

    This time, he didn''t address me as ''sir'', but rather called me out by my title.

    This was him using his prestige as a king to ask a question now.

    I calmly looked up at the king and said, "Your majesty, I justpared notes with the Dwarven King in terms of forging. It isn''t as great as Miss Elsa says it is."

    But even then, Elsa wouldn''t let me go as she said, "Sir Zwein truly is modest. He¡­"

    Before she could say anything else, I suddenly red at her as if telling her to stop talking.

    When Elsa saw this re, she couldn''t help flinching before suddenly revealing a faint blush.

    I didn''t understand what this blush was, but at the very least, I could let out a sigh of relief since she had stopped talking.

    The king also saw this, but he decided not to pursue it for now.

    Instead, he turned back to Elsa and asked with a smile, "Miss Elsa, may I ask what kind of rtionship you are seeking with our kingdom?"

    Elsa took a moment to calm herself and gave a cough before saying, "Your majesty, we are here to request a trade rtionship be opened up between our two kingdoms. We will be needing arge amount of magic stones in the future, so we are hoping that we can buy them from your kingdom in return for ores."

    I slightly narrowed my eyes when I heard this.

    I had thought that the dwarves would just seek some kind of trivial rtionship with their kingdom, but it didn''t seem to be the case.

    It seemed like the dwarves had already nned for the future.

    The magic stones that they were asking for, it was the key thing that they needed for imprinting runes on weapons.

    They were already seeking a source of these magic stones before they started mass producing these rune weapons, so they wouldn''t need to worry about them in the future.

    The human kingdoms wouldn''t know about this until it''s toote, so they would be ripped off while thinking that they had earned arge profit.

    I was the only person that was able to see through this in this room, but I didn''t say anything in the end.

    If I spoke up now, it was certain that I would be involved in this matter and this was thest thing that I wanted.

    After hearing what Elsa said, the king also narrowed his eyes.

    But he had less information than me, so he wasn''t able to understand everything.

    For the king, all he knew was that this was a strange request from the dwarves.

    Before this, the dwarves never would have even considered trading their ores for anything that the humans had.

    There were many human kingdoms that had tried to trade with the Dwarven Kingdom, but they had all been rejected by them.

    So for the Dwarven Kingdom to suddenlye forward with this request¡­

    It was without a doubt strange.

    But the king just couldn''t understand what it was.

    It had something to do with magic stones, but what?

    He turned to look at me, but I just had a calm look on my face.

    Then he turned to look at Scar and Shaka, but they also shook their heads.

    Shaka though shook his head a bit more hesitantly since he was putting a few things together¡­

    After seeing this, the king knitted his brows slightly as if he was deep in thought.

    Elsa didn''t mind this since she understood what he was hesitating over.

    This was a first for their Dwarven Kingdom as well, so it was without a doubt a decision that one needed to mull over.

    After a long time, the king finally said, "Alright, that''s not a problem."

    With a pause, the king added, "If I may ask, is there a reason why you''re in need of magic stones? If there is a problem, perhaps our kingdom can help?"

    Elsa just shook her head before saying, "This is a matter rted to the benefits of our Dwarven Kingdom, so it isn''t something that is convenient for us to share."

    The king knitted his brows again, but they rxed soon after as he said with a sigh, "Of course. I hope that I did not offend you by asking this question."

    Elsa said with a smile, "Of course not. I hope that we will be able to continue this cooperation for a long time."

    The king gave a nod as he said, "Of course, that is our intention as well."

    Then he said with a smile, "I''m sure that you are all tired from your journey. Please rest up tonight and let''s discuss this further tomorrow."

    Elsa gave a nod before also saying with a smile, "Thank you for your concern."

    The audience ended there with the king standing up to leave.

    But as he left, he turned to look at me, Scar, and Shaka.

    It was clear what he was implying with this.

    I could already guess what would happen next.

 Chapter 394 Private meeting with the king

    <h4>Chapter 394 Private meeting with the king</h4>

    A few minutester, we were sitting in a room waiting for someone else to arrive.

    As I had expected, one of the servants of the castle came to find the three of us after we left the throne room.

    The other servants led the dwarven group to the manor that had been prepared for them.

    But for the three of us, we were led to a private room in the castle.

    The dwarves were hesitant to go at first, but I was able to convince them to go in the end.

    When they left, they couldn''t help turning back to look at me like worried lovers¡­even though they were a bunch of short scruffy men¡­

    That definitely wasn''t a sight that I had wanted to see.

    But after they were gone, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    It was the same for Scar and Shaka.

    All three of us knew that there had to be a special reason that we had been summoned like this and it most likely wasn''t a good reason.

    However, we didn''t really have a choice.

    After all, the person who was summoning us was the king.

    He was the only one that couldmand the servants of the castle like this.

    If it wasn''t him, there was no one else who could summon us like this in this castle.

    So it could only be the king who was summoning us.

    As I expected, it was the king that walked into the room after we waited for a while.

    He didn''t even bother greeting us as he walked over to the couch in front of us and sat down.

    When we were about to stand up and bow to him, the king just waved his hand and said, "It''s fine, just act as you were."

    All three of us looked at each other with awkward looks, but we remained sitting in the end.

    There was a silence that hung in the air when the king sat down.

    He just sat there with narrowed eyes as he looked at us, almost as if he was scoping us up.

    But I knew that he was actually looking at me.

    After all, this whole thing started with me.

    After a long silence, he finally said, "What''s the damage?"

    I didn''t say anything and just left it to Scar.

    When Scar heard this, he took out a piece of paper that he had in his pocket the whole time and ced it on the table.

    The king took it and looked it over before turning to me to say, "How much?"

    I calmly looked back at him and said, "Half."

    The king once again narrowed his eyes to look at me for a bit before slowly giving a nod as if he epted this.

    Both Scar and I couldn''t help being taken aback when we saw this.

    After all, neither of us had expected the king to ept this so easily.

    Then he asked, "Will you sell the rest?"

    I slowly gave a nod.

    He looked down at the piece of paper and asked, "At the price listed here?"

    Once again I gave a slow nod.

    The king gave a nod this time and said, "Alright, that''s eptable."

    Once again, I was surprised by this.

    The negotiations seemed like they were going too smoothly¡­

    But that meant that there was something off.

    After all, this was the king of this kingdom¡­if he just easily agreed to every condition that we had, it wouldn''t make sense since that would go against his pride as the king.

    So just what was his ploy here?

    I slowly looked at him and waited for him to continue speaking, but the king just sat there in silence.

    After a long while, he finally asked, "I heard that you also had your own mines."

    When I heard this, I felt like this was it.

    This was most likely what he was after.

    If they were able to get some mines in the Dwarven Kingdom, that would without a doubt be arge card for the future. If they had these mines, they would be able to start messing around in the Dwarven Kingdom and seeing if they could take down the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Of course, that was something that I couldn''t go along with, so I had every intention of rejecting this.

    But before I could say a thing, the king said, "We''ll buy the ores that you sell from those mines that you own at the same price as the other ores. That is as long as you are willing to sell."

    I once again was caught off guard since I never expected him to say this.

    Aftering back to my senses, I carefully looked at the king and it didn''t seem like he was kidding.

    It seemed like he really was nning on going through with this.

    But why?

    It just didn''t make any sense.

    Seeing that i was just staring at him without saying anything, the king ignored my caution and continued by saying, "As for the workers for transporting these goods¡­"

    He didn''t finish his sentence and picked up the piece of paper to look at it again.

    "Ah, so that''s how it is." I said to myself.

    He was giving me all this just so he could argue for sending his own people to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    All the material goods meant nothing as long as he was able to get people into the Dwarven Kingdom.

    So that must be the reason why he had epted all those conditions that easily.

    But once again, before I was able to say anything, the king said, "Scar has already submitted your proposal and I agree with it. You will be in charge of the transport and we''ll be in charge of security."

    lights¦­¦Ïv¦Ål ?¦Ïm My chin dropped as I looked at the king.

    This was basically agreeing to all my conditions without saying a single thing.

    This was the dream condition¡­

    So why was it happening?

    Then the atmosphere changed as the king narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "What is your y here?"

 Chapter 395 Are you an enemy?

    <h4>Chapter 395 Are you an enemy?</h4>

    I couldn''t help being taken aback and revealing a confused look when I heard this.

    My y?

    What did he mean by that?

    I didn''t have a y here, I was just trying to find a way toy low while getting the things that I wanted.

    So I really couldn''t understand just what he meant by this.

    The king saw that I didn''t respond at all, so he gave a sigh and said, "Do you know why I''ve agreed to all of your terms?"

    I was even more surprised when I heard this, but I slowly shook my head.

    The king calmly looked at me and said, "It''s because I can''t see through you at all."

    There was only confusion on my face as I asked, "What do you mean by that?"

    The king took a deep breath and said without answering my question, "Normally, I feel like I have a good judge of character. I feel that I''m able to see through people without much trouble. That is how I''m able to maintain my rule and keep the peace of the kingdom."

    The way that he said this, it almost seemed like he was bragging about himself.

    But I knew that it wouldn''t just be that.

    After a long pause, he narrowed his eyes to look at me as he said, "But you''re one that I can''t see through at all. As such, I consider you dangerous."

    My chin dropped the moment I heard this as I looked at the king in shock.

    It opened and closed a few more times as I didn''t know what to say in this situation.

    After all, a single wrong word would mean being in danger.

    If I said the wrong thing and was considered dangerous, that would be bad for me.

    No, it wouldn''t just be bad, it would be considered disastrous.

    After all, the other side was the king of this kingdom.

    Having the king as an enemy was the worst thing that could happen.

    If that happened, I would have no choice but to leave this kingdom and find a new ce for me and my people.

    If that was the case, it really was a good thing that I had made preparations in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    But that was the worst case scenario.

    After all, being chased out was not a good thing.

    So after taking a moment to catch my thoughts, I looked at him and said, "I don''t think that I present any danger at all."

    The king gave a chuckle when he heard this before saying, "Why do you think that?"

    Instead of answering, I responded with a question, "Why do you think that I present danger?"

    The king gave another chuckle before narrowing his eyes in a cold manner and saying, "One, how about the fact that you''ve hidden your abilities like this?"

    I gave a shrug and said, "I''ve never tried to hide anything. I just never had a chance to show off. You should know that I was a ve before, right?"

    The king narrowed his eyes even more when he heard this.

    He was the king, so how could he not know such a simple fact?

    It would take him no time at all to dig up something like this.

    It had also been included in the packet on Zwein that had been presented to him when he joined Shadow Garden.

    So he did know about this.

    Only, he didn''t understand why he would bring this up now.

    Seeing the look on his face, I continued by saying, "As a ve, I never had a chance to use my abilities. If it wasn''t for the fact that Rose saved me, then I would have been a ve even now."

    This time, it wasn''t just the king who narrowed his eyes to look at me.

    Scar and Shaka also had strange looks on their faces as they looked at me.

    It was clear that they never expected me to bring this up.

    After a moment of silence, the king said, "Are you an enemy of our kingdom or are you an ally? Do you have any ill intentions towards us?"

    It was a very simple question, but the meaning behind it was very heavy.

    But the way that he asked it¡­was so casual¡­

    After a moment of being surprised, I calmly said, "I have no ill intentions towards this kingdom. It is where the people that I care about live and the ce that I call home."

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at me, but I didn''t flinch under this gaze.

    I looked right back at him and met his gaze as he looked at me.

    After a long silence, the king suddenly gave a nod and said, "Alright, I''ll trust you then."

    He suddenly stood up and said, "We''ll keep the terms as agreed upon."

    Without even waiting for an answer, he turned around and started heading to the door.

    I couldn''t help letting out a secret sigh of relief when I heard this.

    At the very least, I had weathered the storm for now.

    What the future held was uncertain, but I was safe for now and I took that as a victory.

    But I wasn''t able to remain rxed for long.

    "What are you doing? Are you noting?"

    I suddenly heard thating from the door and looked to see the king looking back at us.

    He waved his hand and said, "Let''s go."

    Then he turned to leave without looking back.

    We just looked at each other with confused looks before standing up to follow the king out.

    As we walked through the halls of the castle, we recognized the way that we were going.

    It seemed like we were heading back to the throne room.

    But why were we heading back there?

    All of the ministers had already left, so there was no reason for us to go back there.

    Or at least that was what I thought.

    When we arrived, I found that there were still many ministers who were waiting in the throne room.

 Chapter 396 Another rank

    <h4>Chapter 396 Another rank</h4>

    There were a few ministers that were gone, but most of the ones that had been here before were still standing around.

    As soon as they saw use in, they immediately took their ces like before.

    The king just ignored all of them as he walked right up to the throne and sat down.

    Then while sitting there, he waved his hand at me as if telling me toe forward.

    I looked at Scar and Shaka, but both of them just stood where they were standing. They were giving gestures as if telling me to go up to the throne.

    I could also see the ministers looking at me with different expressions.

    It was clear that I was the center of attention.

    So I had no choice but to move in front of the throne.

    Once I was there, I kneeled down and waited for the king to give his orders.

    The king just raised his hand and said, "Rise."

    With that, I stood back up and looked up at the king sitting there on his throne.

    The king looked around the room before saying, "I have called you all back here for one reason."

    All of the ministers knitted their brows when they heard this and they all turned to look back at me.

    Seeing this situation, they all knew that it was rted to me, but they had no idea what was going toe.

    I had given them quite a few surprises today, this was not something that they would forget so easily. So they were naturally all curious what other surprise I would give them now.

    After a pause, the king continued by saying, "I''m sure that all of you know that we''ve had a dwarven ambassador arrive in our capital city today."

    All of the ministers couldn''t help revealing bitter smiles when they heard this.

    How could they forget this?

    It had just happened not that long ago, it was impossible that they would already forget about this.

    After another pause, the king continued by saying, "The one who brought this group of ambassadors is the one in front of you right now. It is our own Viscount Zwein."

    None of the ministers were surprised since they had already heard what Elsa had said and seen that they hade with him.

    They all already knew this.

    But they couldn''t help wondering why the king had suddenly brought this up.

    lights¦­¦Ïv¦Ål ?¦Ïm The king waited for a bit before saying, "For this merit, we naturally need to reward Viscount Zwein."

    The moment that his voice fell, everyone couldn''t help knitting their brows.

    That included me as I could guess what was about to happen.

    One of the ministers couldn''t help stepping forward and saying, "Your majesty, while this is arge merit, this is something that should be done as a noble of this kingdom. Is there really a need for¡­"

    Before he could finish his words, the king suddenly narrowed his eyes to re at him.

    The moment that this minister saw this re fall into him, he immediately bowed his head as if he didn''t dare stare at him.

    After ring down this minister, the king said, "So are you suggesting that we ignore the merit that Viscount Zwein has performed? Or are you saying that you are doubting our judgement?"

    The minister trembled once more when he heard this, but he didn''t dare say anything.

    The king''s eyes swept over the rest of the ministers and none of them dared to meet his gaze.

    The king was fully releasing his aura as he said this, almost turning into apletely different person.

    After a long silence, the king finally said, "Then it seems like there''s no one else who has an objection to this."

    At this point, it was impossible for any of them to have an objection.

    All of the ministers were actually shocked by how this had developed.

    None of them had thought that the king would be this adamant over this matter.

    If the king really insisted on this, there really wasn''t anything that they could do about this.

    But the one that felt the most bitter about this was¡­me.

    I didn''t want any of this in the first ce, but now I had no choice in this matter.

    Especially after the disy that the king had just given.

    If I were to say anything now¡­

    After he said this, the king looked back at me and said, "For his merit, we shall be honouring Viscount Zwein with a special reward."

    He waved his hand at the servant beside him and that servant came forward to bring a scroll on a pillow forward.

    That servant came right up in front of me and presented that scroll to me.

    I hesitantly took it, but I still took it in the end.

    Seeing that I took it, the king gave a nod as if he was telling me to open it and read it.

    I slowly opened it up and couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I saw what was written.

    It was another rank.

    This time, I was being raised from a Viscount to a Count.

    This was the piece of paper that had the king''s decree for that.

    After seeing that I had opened it up, the king said, "For his merits this time, we shall grant Viscount Zwein the rank of Count."

    When they heard this, all of the ministers revealed bitter looks on their faces.

    They had also expected this, but the looks on their faces were better than before.

    They had thought that the king would go much further than this, but a count¡­that was something that they could ept.

    After he said this, the king looked at me as if he was expecting something.

    I had no choice but to bow to him and say, "Thank you, your majesty for this honour. I shall not let down the responsibilities thate with this title."

    After saying this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile while my face was hidden.

 Chapter 397 Another surprise

    <h4>Chapter 397 Another surprise</h4>

    There was apuse that followed after I received my title.

    Though it was definitely considered weak for the amount of people that were here.

    It was clear that they weren''t enthusiastic about this.

    In fact, most people looked like they would rather eat a pound of shit than to watch this.

    But since this was what the king had decided, there was nothing that they could do.

    In this kingdom, he was the absolute authority. If he decided to do something, there was nothing that anyone could do.

    So they could only just ept it while nning their next move.

    I could guess what most of them were thinking judging by the way that they were looking at me.

    If my guesses were correct, they would try to contact me when this was all over.

    Their goal?

    To see if they could establish a trade with the dwarves through me.

    But Haley had expected this and had thought of a n for me.

    Throw it to the king.

    He would receive half of the trade, so we would let him deal with the rest of the nobles. We would only trade with those that we had already created a rtionship with and those that we had to trade with.

    Namely, the princes.

    It would be a whole messter on¡­

    But right now, the mess in front of me still isn''t over yet.

    Once the apuse died down, the king wasn''t done yet.

    He raised his hand for everyone to fall silent before saying, "Before we disperse, there''s one more thing for me to announce."

    The moment that he said this, all of them immediately knitted their brows and focused their minds.

    If it was another surprise¡­they really wouldn''t be able to handle it¡­

    But there was nothing that they could do if he had already made a decision.

    So the only thing that they could do was try their best to minimize the damage.

    The king gave a pause before saying, "I''m sure that you are all aware of the situation with the Dwarven Kingdom."

    All of them revealed bitter smiles when they heard this.

    How could they forget?

    It had been less than an hour since they had met with the dwarven ambassadors. If they had actually forgotten, then wouldn''t there be something wrong with their brains?

    But why was he bringing this up?

    A few of them looked at me with thoughtful looks.

    "Could it be that something had changed while the king had talked with him?"

    The king gave another dramatic pause while all this happened before he finally said, "In response to this matter, I have deemed it necessary to create a new position to make it easier to negotiate with the Dwarven Kingdomter on."

    All of the ministers were surprised to hear this, but they all slowly gave nods in agreement to this.

    After all, the future rtionship with the dwarves was something that they all regarded as something important.

    They all wanted a part of this for the future.

    After all, ore was one thing that they werecking in this country.

    After a moment of silence, the ministers all looked at each other as if they were preparing to fight each other over this position.

    But what they didn''t know was that the king had already prepared who he wanted to take this position.

    He looked down at me and I could already guess what was about to happen.

    Before I could say anything, the king raised his hand and said, "I hereby decree that Count Zwein will be named our ambassador to the Dwarven Kingdom. All matters rted to the Dwarven Kingdom will fall under his jurisdiction."

    The moment that he said this, everyone once again turned to look at me.

    This time, the looks in their eyes were not as kind as before.

    This time, it was clear that they were angry with me for this.

    After all, they all wanted to take this position for themselves to benefit from the Dwarven Kingdom.

    And now I had taken it without them being able to do a thing.

    It would be strange if they epted it easily.

    After a moment of silence, the ministers looked like they were about to say something.

    It wasn''t just a single minister that wanted to speak up, it was multiple ministers that seemed like they wanted to say something.

    But once again, before they could say anything, the king spoke, "For those of you that doubt this, I only have one thing to say. Can you do the same thing he can?"

    As soon as his voice fell, all of them revealed shocked looks.

    It didn''t take much thought to understand what the king was implying.

    As such, they didn''t know how to respond.

    After all, there was truth in what he said.

    Even if they wanted to, they wouldn''t be able to achieve the same thing as Count Zwein.

    They had all seen how the dwarves acted with him, so they knew that he had already built a rtionship with them.

    If they could do the same, they would have done it already.

    But there was a reason why the dwarves hadn''t formed rtions with any human nations before this.

    If it could be done that easily, they would have already done it.

    Seeing the looks on the faces of these ministers, the king knew that they wouldn''t do anything else, so he turned back to look at me and said, "Count Zwein, will you ept this post?"

    The question that he asked was a rhetorical one.

    Even if I wanted to refuse, it was impossible for me to refuse in this situation.

    Not to mention, even if I did refuse, it wouldn''t benefit me since it would just ruin the rtionship between our kingdom and the dwarves. That would make it harder for my n in the future.

    So I had no choice but to ept this post.

    With a sigh, I said, "I humbly ept this appointment."

    The king gave a nod with a satisfied smile when he heard this.

    The ministers¡­all looked at me with strange looks.

 Chapter 398 Father and daughter again

    <h4>Chapter 398 Father and daughter again</h4>

    My n to put all the attention on the kingpletely failed.

    The moment that he made me the ambassador, it was decided that I would be bothered by the nobles looking to request things from the dwarves.

    I was able to keep them back for now by giving the excuse that I would need to meet with the dwarves first before discussing anything.

    But I was certain that I would be seeing plenty of nobles in the next period of time.

    I just hoped that I would be able to escape to my territory soon enough¡­

    Once I was there in my remote territory, it would be hard for these important ministers and nobles that needed to stay in the capital to bug me.

    They might send the asional letter, but that was still better than them following me around.

    But for now, it would be a mess for me¡­

    ¡­

    After returning to his room, he found that there was someone waiting there for him.

    This girl who had been sitting there drinking some tea suddenly stood up when she saw hime in.

    She revealed a smile and ran over with her arms raised as she said, "Father, you''re finally back."

    The man revealed a smile when he saw her running over and he picked her up in his arms before cing a kiss on her cheek.

    After the two of them bonded for a bit, the man put her down and they sat down together to enjoy the tea that had been prepared.

    The most eye-catching part about the two of them were the crowns that were on their heads.

    The king looked at the princess and said, "So are you here to ask about him?"

    When she heard this, she couldn''t help jolting before lowering her head in a shy manner.

    She didn''t say anything and there seemed to be a blush that appeared on her face, but she slowly gave a nod after being silent for a bit.

    The king revealed a faint smile and slowly shook his head before saying, "Once you find love, youpletely forget about your family."

    The princess immediately shook her head before saying, "Of course I wouldn''t forget about my family. It''s just that¡­"

    Her voice trailed off as she lowered her head again with that same shy look.

    The king shook his head with a sigh before saying, "He''s fine, he even received another title."

    When she heard this, she immediately looked up with an excited look and said, "Really?"

    The king gave a nod before giving another sigh and saying, "That kid really knows how to cause messes. Last time it was the elves and this time it is the dwarves. I really don''t know what he''ll bring back next time."

    The princess couldn''t help revealing a happy smile when she heard this before saying in a yful voice, "Maybe a giant, maybe a halfling, or maybe something else."

    The king looked at her with an exasperated look when he heard this and he shook his head before saying, "It really is true. Once a girl has love, shepletely forgets about her family."

    The girl raised her hand and gently tapped his arm before saying, "It''s not like that at all! Stop teasing me!"

    The king gave a chuckle before saying, "Whatever it is, he really is giving me quite a few surprises. But that doesn''t mean that they are all bad surprises. If we can really open up rtions with the elves and the dwarves, our kingdom will be much stronger than before. When that timees¡­"

    As he said this, his voice trailed off and he couldn''t help giving another sigh.

    The princess didn''t say anything, but the look on her face made it clear that she understood what he was going through.

    As a princess, she naturally had an understanding of the kingdom''s politics even if they did try to shield her from these things.

    She knew what he was feeling anxious over, but she knew better than to interfere.

    The only thing that she should do was¡­

    The princess reached her hand out and patted her father on the arm.

    The king took a deep breath before looking up at her with a smile as if saying that he was alright.

    He changed the topic by saying, "So now that his rank has been raised, are you feeling more excited?"

    The princess'' face turned red again when she heard this before slowly giving a nod. But then after a pause, she also slowly shook her head.

    The king knitted his brows when he saw this, but he knew why she had given this response.

    It was because¡­of the power struggle right now.

    The prince''s were all trying to gain more power so that they could take the throne from him one day.

    If the princess were to suddenly get engaged or even married, then it would surely affect this and the princes wouldn''t remain idle.

    When that timees, they might even do something drastic to change the situation¡­

    So for now, it was better if the princess remained idle like she had done all this time.

    The king was silent for a long while before giving a sigh and saying, "You''ve been sneaking around with old fourth, haven''t you?"

    The princess jolted when she heard this.

    When she was about to shake her head to deny this, the king said, "You don''t need to deny it, it''s not as if you''re doing anything wrong. I know what the two of you are nning and I''m not saying that I''m against it."

    Then the look in his eyes changed.

    It went from the eyes of a king to the eyes of a concerned father, "Are you sure you''ll be alright with this? If this n seeds¡­"

    He didn''t finish his sentence, but the meaning behind his words were clear.

    The princess took a deep breath before saying, "Fourth brother has been determined since the beginning, There is no changing his mind once he sets it on something."

    The king took a deep breath before letting it out and saying, "Old fourth has always been clever since he was a child¡­It''s my fault for letting things develop like this that he would need to do this."

    The princess revealed a sad smile, but she still patted the king''s hand and said, "Father, fourth brother just wants to do what he can."

    The king gave a nod without saying anything.

 Chapter 399 Banquet for the dwarves

    <h4>Chapter 399 Banquet for the dwarves</h4>

    "Count Zwein, when you have the time, you muste to my territory and have a tour."

    "No, no, if you have time, you muste to my territory. My daughter has been talking about you all this time and has been looking forward to meeting you."

    "Your daughter? That girl that ys around? Count Zwein, you shoulde and meet my daughter."

    Surrounded by these nobles, the only thing that I could do was give a polite smile and say, "If I have the time, I certainly wille and visit all of your territories."

    The nobles didn''t give up as they started talking about all the specialties of their territories.

    As for why I was trapped like this, it was because this was a banquet for the dwarves.

    This was a banquet that the king was holding to wee the dwarven visitors and there were many nobles invited.

    As the ambassador to the Dwarven Kingdom for our kingdom, I had no choice but to attend.

    It wasn''t just me who was surrounded by these nobles right now.

    It was the same for the dwarves.

    They werepletely surrounded by nobles that were trying to build rtions with them for their own benefits.

    But¡­this was exactly what these dwarves hated about humans.

    Other than Elsa who was surprisingly holding up well with these humans, the others all had looks on their faces like they wanted to die.

    Elsa was the only one who was able to converse with all of these humans normally. She even seemed like she was having fun talking to these human nobles.

    The only thing awkward for them was that they didn''t know where to look when talking to her.

    The dress that she wore definitely wasn''t doing her any favours¡­

    It took a long time before I finally got some free time.

    The first thing that I did was¡­head to the buffet that had beenid out.

    As soon as I arrived, I was swarmed by the nobles. Now that I finally had a free moment, I really needed to get some food before my stomach ate itself.

    When I reached the buffet, I found that Elsa was also there and she had a te filled with food.

    When she saw me, she couldn''t help revealing an awkward look.

    As for why she felt embarrassed, it was because she had arge te of food in her hand.

    It was basically a mountain of food that she was holding, much more than one would think she would be able to eat.

    In the end, she was a woman too and she was embarrassed to be caught like this.

    But I didn''t mind things like this.

    In fact, I even felt that it was a bit cute how she acted.

    But to sympathize with her, I also got arge te of food before saying, "Shall we find a ce to eat?"

    Elsa revealed a surprised look before nodding with a smile.

    The two of us made our way to a table of our own while everyone was distracted by the other dwarves.

    These other dwarves were mainly cksmiths who stayed out of things like politics, so they weren''t used to things like this.

    They were looking all around for anyone to help them¡­

    After we made our way over to the table, we were able to hide ourselves with the mountain of food that we brought over.

    As we ate, it was silent at first.

    Then I couldn''t help breaking through the silence by asking, "So how are you doing? Are you overwhelmed by being in human society?"

    Elsa had her head down while she was eating, so she looked up when she heard this question.

    The moment that I saw her face, I couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    That was because it really was a cute scene.

    When she looked up, her cheeks were puffed out as it was filled with food and there was even a strand of spaghetti sticking out of her mouth.

    It was like a little chipmunk with how she had all that food in her mouth.

    Elsa was a bit stunned before she slowly realized what I was staring at and a blush came over her face.

    She quickly swallowed the food in her mouth and then wiped her mouth with a napkin before saying, "It''s alright. I used to interact with humans when I was working at the store."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this.

    Elsa saw this look and exined, "Our store used to take orders from human countries. It was a way for us to earn money, though we didn''t ept many orders each year."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this.

    The anti human faction leader, Drogath was taking orders from human countries?

    It definitely wasn''t as simple as doing it for money¡­

    He must have had ulterior motives¡­

    There was a part of me that really wanted to ask about this, but I held myself back in the end. This was a matter for the dwarves to deal with, not for me.

    The most that I should do is tell the Dwarven King about this.

    After all, I could tell that Elsa had most likely not told her brother about this.

    So the least I could do was make him aware of this.

    Other than that, there wasn''t much else for us to talk about.

    We just talked about some random things that didn''t really matter.

    I found that Elsa was quite good at talking once she found her confidence. She wasn''t shy and hesitant like before, she was able to hold the conversation quite well.

    It should be said as expected of the Dwarven King''s little sister, but it wasn''t just that.

    It was also her hard work, which I could admire.

    But as we were having our fun talk, there was someone that suddenly cut in.

    "What do you think you''re doing?" A young voice suddenly said.

 Chapter 400 Who do you think you are? (1)

    <h4>Chapter 400 Who do you think you are? (1)</h4>

    Both of us were caught off guard when we heard this and we turned to see a young man standing there.

    This young man was clearly the son of some noble with the way that he was dressed.

    Not to mention that this was a special banquet held to wee the dwarven ambassadors, so unless he had some kind of status, he wouldn''t have been invited to this banquet in the first ce.

    But if he wasn''t a fool, then he wouldn''t have called me out like this.

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, the young noble came forward and said, "I asked you, what do you think you''re doing? Do you know what this ce is?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile when I heard him say this.

    After all, he just sounded like a typical little viin with the way that he was speaking.

    He sounded like someone that would be taught a lesson right away and would lose everything that he held dear because of a mistake.

    It was just too much like the small viins that I had read about before.

    But the young man mistook the smile that appeared on my face.

    "What are you smiling at? Do you really think that you''re that special?" The young man''s face twisted a bit in anger as he said this.

    I just raised my hands in an innocent manner and said, "This friend, I''m not trying to cause any trouble."

    "Trouble?" The young man gave a snort when he heard this before giving a cold chuckle, "Who do you think you are? Do you really think that you''re even worthy of that word?"

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard this.

    At this point, it was clear that this young man was trying to pick a fight with me.

    But why would he do that?

    I didn''t know who this young man even was, so there shouldn''t have been a reason for him to pick a fight with me like this.

    However, his actions that came after made it clear why he was doing this.

    He just ignored me as I was trying to figure out what was happening and came over to Elsa sitting there with a concerned look.

    He gave a slight bow before saying, "Young miss, you don''t have to worry anymore. I''ll take care of this scoundrel bothering you."

    As he said this, he also peeked at Elsa with eyes that held a bit of lust.

    When he made it this obvious, it was impossible to miss.

    He was just using me as an excuse to approach Elsa and get closer to her. At the same time, it was clear that he wanted more than just a casual rtionship with her.

    This young noble most likely thought that he was being so clever sacrificing this person that he didn''t recognize¡­but he never would have thought that he would kick a steel te¡­

    After all, I had a status that was second to none at this banquet.

    If it was anywhere else, I wouldn''t have this status, but here I was invincible.

    Elsa pulled herself away from this young man andpletely ignored him even though he was clearlying onto her.

    The young man didn''t seem to notice this at all as he reached his hand towards her.

    But before he could reach her, I came forward and grabbed his hand.

    The moment that this young man saw this, his face twisted in anger once again as he red at me.

    It was clear that he was very unhappy with me for ruining his good thing.

    He immediately flicked my hand away and pointed at me as he said, "Who do you think you are? Acting this way at the royal banquet? And even trying to force thisdy to go with you? Do you even have anyone in your eyes anymore?"

    As he said this, he deliberately raised his voice so that everyone around us could hear what he was saying.

    It seemed that he wanted to use the opinion of the public to crush me.

    As he had wanted, the attention of the nobles around us were attracted because of his loud voice.

    They all turned to see what themotion was, but when they saw who was in the center of themotion¡­

    They all revealed bitter smiles and looks of sympathy.

    The young man saw that everyone was looking in our direction and it seemed like they were focused on this matter, so he didn''t hold back as he continued to nder me.

    "At a banquet held by his majesty, you''re even trying to have your way with our guests of honour. Do you feel no shame?"

    The young man said in a self righteous voice as if he was the hero in this situation.

    He also turned back to Elsa and said, "Young miss, please don''t worry about a thing. I will take care of this ruffian for you."

    Then in a more smooth voice, he said, "If you don''t mind, how about we have some dinner at ater date?" While saying this, he turned his face as if he was trying to show off the good side of his face.

    But when Elsa saw this, all she could do was reveal a look like she was looking at a fool.

    But then again, this young man was nothing more than a fool as he fooled himself into thinking that this was just her way of acting shy.

    He thought that to make that final push, he would need to show off a bit more.

    So he reached for his sword and pulled it out to point it in my face before saying, "For tarnishing the honour of this young miss, I challenge you to a duel. Do you dare ept, you coward?"

    He had a smug look on his face as he said this.

    It was as if he could already see things going his way.

 Chapter 401 Who do you think you are? (2)

    <h4>Chapter 401 Who do you think you are? (2)</h4>

    It was just too bad that things wouldn''t go the way that this young man wanted.

    After a moment of silence, there was a voice that cut through the silence.

    This was a voice that was filled with majesty and prestige.

    "Who do you think you are?"

    The moment that the young man heard this, he couldn''t help knitting his brows slightly.

    He couldn''t help feeling that this voice was familiar, but he couldn''t tell where he had heard it before.

    Still, he didn''t feel like he would lose, so he said, "Who am I? Who do you think you are?"

    After saying this, he turned around while still pointing that sword forward and saying, "I am the son of Marquis Heiman, Timothy Heiman. I''m someone that is far more noble than you."

    But the moment that he turned around, he couldn''t help being shocked.

    After all, even if he didn''t recognize the person, there was no missing the crown on this person''s head.

    Standing behind him was the king.

    The king was the one that had just spoken.

    When the king saw this, he couldn''t help revealing a smile. It was just that this smile never reached his eyes.

    After a moment of shock, Timothy immediately brought his sword down as he couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine.

    Even if he was an idiot, he still recognized what he had just done¡­

    Pointing a sword at the king, was this any different from treason?

    His only hope now was to exin the situation before it got worse or else he might really get executed¡­

    So Timothy quickly put away his sword and said, "Your majesty, this cretin¡­"

    Before he could say anything else, the king suddenly raised his hand.

    Timothy''s mouth froze as if there was some kind of magic that had been cast and he wasn''t able to say a single thing no matter how hard he tried.

    Though it wasn''t magic that the king had used.

    He was just suppressing Timothy with his natural prestige and majesty as a king.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at Timothy before saying, "Where did this foole from?"

    The moment that everyone heard this, they all couldn''t help trembling and looking away. Not a single one of them dared to look at Timothy, as if they were afraid of being associated with him.

    Even Marquis Heiman who had juste over tried to avoid looking at his own son as he regretted his decision.

    He knew that his son was an idiot, but he never thought that his son would be this much of an idiot.

    After all, the person that he had chosen to pick on was¡­

    Seeing that no one said a thing, the king gave a snort and said, "Then is everyone ming us for hosting this banquet that invited this fool?"

    The moment that he said this, everyone trembled again before quickly bowing down in fear.

    Not a single person dared to look up, but they all red at Marquis Heiman.

    The looks in their eyes were ming him for not stepping out to take me for his son, causing all of them to be caught in the crossfire as well. If he didn''t go forward to take the me soon, who knew what the king would do.

    So there were many people that even started threatening Marquis Heiman with their gazes.

    Seeing that he had no choice, he came out and said, "Your majesty, please forgive my foolish son. I will make sure that he will be severely punished when we return home."

    The king just seemed to ignore him as he stroked his chin.

    Everyone waited anxiously for the king to say something, but they all felt that this wouldn''t be something good¡­

    Finally, the king said, "Punishment? If I recall, the punishment for treason is execution."

    The moment that his voice fell, it was like the two of them had suddenly fallen into a casket of ice.

    Both of them started shaking out of fear as neither of them really knew what to say in response to this.

    But when desperation set in¡­people could do anything.

    That was the case with Timothy.

    When he heard that he was to be executed, he broke free of the shackles of his fear and pointed at me to say, "He''s the one that caused all of this, your majesty. This wretch was the one that was harassing the miss ambassador and I was just standing up for her. The one that should be executed is him!"

    After he said this, everyone looked at him with looks of pity while shaking their heads.

    This kid¡­was too stupid.

    He hade to this banquet and he didn''t even recognize the person that this banquet was held for, as well as ming it all on him.

    They could only look at Marquis Heiman with looks of pity.

    Elsa seemed like she wanted to say something, but before she could, I grabbed her arm. When she looked at me, I just shook my head for her to stay calm.

    This was a matter between humans and she shouldn''t get involved in this matter or it would get moreplicated.

    The king narrowed his eyes as he said in a curious voice, "So you''re saying that he is the one that was causing trouble with the ambassador?"

    Timothy immediately nodded along to this with a look of hope in his eyes.

    If the king was able to understand this, then there was still hope of surviving.

    "That''s right, your majesty. He was the one that came onto the miss ambassador first and I was just¡­"

    Before he could finish, the king suddenly said, "But he''s our ambassador as well. Doesn''t it make sense that he talks to the ambassador from the Dwarven Kingdom?"

    The moment that his voice fell, Timothy had a look like he was dying on his face.

    He slowly turned back to look at me with a look of disbelief on his face.

    He never would have thought that this person who he thought was a lowlymoner was actually someone this important¡­

    Timothy opened his mouth and made some more noise like he wanted to make more excuses, but the king didn''t have any of that. The king just simply raised his hand and said, "Take them away and lock them up. The punishment for the crime of treason is death and no one can escape that."

    He then turned to Marquis Heiman and said, "You will be stripped of your title and yournds will be reimed. Your entire family will also be executed along with you to pay for this crime."

    Marquis Heiman''sst bit of hope copsed when he heard this.

    At worst, he had been nning to sacrifice his son¡­but he never thought that the king would be so ruthless and decisive.

    Both he and Timothy wanted to make more excuses, but the king wouldn''t have any of it.

    The king just waved his hand and said, "Take them away and lock them up in the dungeon. Don''t let them ruin this joyous asion anymore."

    The guards quickly came forward and took both Marquis Heiman and his son Timothy away.

    While they were being dragged away, they were both still making excuses and pleading for mercy.

 Chapter 402 Real villain

    <h4>Chapter 402 Real viin</h4>

    Once the father and son pair had been taken away, the king''s eyes swept across the room before he turned back to Elsa.

    With a smile, he said, "I''m sorry for ruining the mood. It seems that a few of my subjects had a few too many drinks and acted rudely. I hope that Miss Elsa will not mind this."

    Elsa gave a slow shake of her head before saying, "No, no, it''s not a problem at all. I understand that these things happen."

    Of course, even if she wanted to say something, it wasn''t as if she could say it here with everyone watching.

    So the mood quickly returned to normal with that.

    I couldn''t help thinking that the king really was sly, making this kind of move here.

    It was like killing two birds with one stone with the way that he handled this.

    First, he was able to show a good side to the dwarves, allowing them to be more friendly.

    Second, he was able to show how important I was to the entire court.

    After all, the other side was a marquis while I was only a count, but the king didn''t hesitate to strip that person of his title and throw him in the dungeon waiting to be executed for me.

    This was more than enough to convince everyone of how important I was to the king.

    In the future, there would be few people that would dare to mess with me.

    After all, messing with me meant the possibility of offending the king and no one dared to take that risk.

    So that meant that after the king left to attend to other things, we were pretty much left alone since no one dared to take this risk.

    That was except for the true viin.

    Since this was a banquet that was hosted by the king, naturally the princes were also invited.

    The other princes all went for the other dwarves, it was only the fourth prince who came over to see me and Elsa.

    With a smile on his face, he said, "Count Zwein, will you introduce me to your friend here?"

    When I saw the fourth princee over with that smile on his face, there was only one thing on my mind.

    Here was the true viin.

    He was much better than Timothy, that halfwit viin.

    He had been biding and waiting for his chance to strike and now he had found that chance.

    He came over and put his arm around me before I could even react.

    Even if I wanted to throw it off, I couldn''t do so in the end.

    Not to mention, I had already said that I would be the fourth prince''s friend. If I were to back down on this promise now, there was no knowing what he would do.

    While others didn''t know how terrifying the fourth prince was, I was well aware.

    So I had no choice but to say with a smile, "Elsa, this is my friend Noah, the fourth prince of this kingdom."

    The fourth prince reached a hand forward and said, "A friend of my friend is also my friend."

    Elsa looked at this hand for a bit before slowly reaching out to take it.

    The fourth prince didn''t do anything rude and just simply gave her a handshake before letting go.

    I had no idea what the fourth prince wanted, but there was no way that it was just as simple as being introduced to Elsa.

    He definitely had something that he wanted from me or her¡­

    But during our conversation, it didn''t seem like he wanted anything from either of us.

    All we talked about were some simple things that didn''t seem to matter.

    And then the fourth prince prepared to leave as if he had other matters to take care of.

    During all of this, he didn''t make a singlement that showed his true intention.

    That was until he was walking away.

    I had been in the middle of letting out a secret sigh of relief when the fourth prince suddenly turned around and said, "Oh right, Sir Zwein. If possible, can you make some time for me tomorrow. There''s something that I want to discuss with you in private."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this.

    I had beenpletely caught off guard since I had thought that he was already leaving, so my mind wasn''t turning fast enough to think of a proper excuse.

    This was the act of a true viin, he was always two steps ahead of his opponent so that they wouldn''t be able to do a single thing.

    It was no wonder the fourth prince was able to gather all that power in the game¡­

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, the fourth prince said with a smile, "There''s no need for you to worry about anything, I will send a messenger to you tomorrow to pick you up. I just hope that you will not reject my request."

    As he said this, the smile on his face remained, but the smile in his eyes disappeared.

    It was almost as if he was implying something¡­

    So I had no choice but to say with a smile, "It would be an honour, your highness. I will make sure that I have the time for you tomorrow."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before saying, "Very good, I will see you then."

    With that, he walked off without turning back once.

    As I watched him walk away, all I could do was reveal a bitter smile.

    A true viin was always different from a two bit viin.

    His ns were much deeper and much harder to resist.

    After he was gone, Elsa couldn''t help saying, "That man isn''t simple. Are you sure that you want to be his friend?"

    I shook my head with a bitter smile before giving a shrug and saying, "What other choice do I have? You''ve seen how he acts if you don''t give him what he wants."

    Elsa turned back in the direction that the fourth prince left in before slowly giving a nod.

 Chapter 403 Picking herbs

    <h4>Chapter 403 Picking herbs</h4>

    The banquet didn''tst long after that.

    After all, no one dared to approach the main guests after what had just happened.

    If they made a mistake, there was no doubt that they would end up as the next Marquis¡­no, former Marquis Heiman.

    So we were allowed to go back to the residence that was prepared for us.

    I was living in the same residence as the dwarves since I was officially named the ambassador, which was a relief since I didn''t have a residence in the capital in the first ce.

    If I were to go back to the same inn as before¡­I would just receive the same treatment asst time.

    No, it would have been even worse thanst time since everyone now wanted even more from me.

    There would have been even more people and maybe even people with bad intentions¡­

    So it was better for me to be here where guards from the kingdom were guarding.

    The king had made sure to put a full security team around the residence just in case anything happened.

    But if one thought about it from a different perspective, it could also be said that they were here to monitor the dwarves just in case they wanted to do anything. If the dwarves did anything, they would be immediately surrounded by these knights of the kingdom.

    But for the sake of friendship between the two kingdoms, people chose to ignore this fact.

    When morning came, I found that the dwarves were up bright and early.

    The other dwarves that I had lived with were the same.

    Even though they had drunk so much that it would have knocked out an elephant, they were still perfectly fine the next morning.

    This was just their tolerance and their work ethic.

    But since they were here in the human kingdom, it wasn''t as if there was anything for them to do.

    There were no forges for them and if they were to go out, they would immediately be swarmed by nobles. Until the treaty between their two countries and the trade agreements were signed, there wasn''t anything for them to do.

    So the dwarves were all bored out of their mind and tried to swarm me since they had alle to chase me in the first ce.

    But I had something else that I needed to do.

    "I am here on behalf of his fourth highness to invite Count Zwein. He is eagerly waiting for your presence." A well dressed butler was the one that said this.

    This well dressed butler had been waiting outside the residence early in the morning and had invited me the moment that he saw me.

    It seemed like the fourth prince hadn''t forgotten about what had happened yesterday.

    On the contrary, it seemed like he ced quite the importance on this matter which wasn''t a good sign.

    Just what did the fourth prince want from me?

    Elsa looked at me with a concerned look and said, "Can you not go?"

    I just slowly shook my head without saying anything.

    She said with a sigh, "Be careful and take care of yourself."

    I gave a slow nod before turning to the butler.

    Seeing me look at him, the butler said with a bow, "Count Zwein, shall we?"

    Once again, I gave a slow nod before following the butler to a carriage that was parked on the side.

    This carriage soon headed off in the direction of the fourth prince''s manor.

    ¡­

    "I want you to go out into the forest around the capital and find a few herbs for me. These are herbs that are very important for me to find, so I needed a friend that I could trust to help me find them." The fourth prince said with a faint smile on his face.

    But my chin had dropped the moment that I heard this.

    Gathering herbs?

    Gathering herbs?

    Was it really just gathering herbs that the fourth prince had summoned me here?

    While I was sitting there with a shocked look on my face, the fourth prince just casually took a piece of paper from the butler on the side. He put this piece of paper on the table and casually slid it towards me.

    I looked down at that piece of paper before slowly reaching for it and picking it up.

    When I read what was written on it, I couldn''t help being even more shocked.

    This piece of paper was a list, but it wasn''t just any list.

    It was a list of herbs.

    Most likely the herbs that the fourth prince wanted me to pick from the forest around the capital.

    But if that was the case, this was even more confusing.

    After all, these weremon herbs that anyone could have found for him. There was no need to specifically call me here to get these herbs for him.

    In fact, these herbs were somon that picking them was considered a F Rank quest at the Adventurer''s Guild. This was something that every rookie adventurer had to do to climb up the ranks.

    Was he looking down on me or was there a deeper meaning to this?

    Was there something else that he wanted me to do or was he just ying with me?

    As I looked back up at the fourth prince, I couldn''t help feeling more and more confused.

    After a long silence, I slowly asked, "Is this all that you want me to find?"

    The fourth prince just gave a nod with a faint smile before saying, "That''s right. I just need you to find the herbs on this list for me."

    As he said this, I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes.

    I couldn''t see anything from the fourth prince''s expression.

    It didn''t seem like he was looking down on me and it didn''t seem like he was ying around.

    Then did he seriously want me to pick these herbs for him?

    While I still had that confused look in my eyes, the fourth prince suddenly said, "Oh, that''s right. I''ll also be sending one of my confidants with you. I hope that you will not mind."

 Chapter 404 Familiar figure

    <h4>Chapter 404 Familiar figure</h4>

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows the moment that I heard this.

    A ''confidant''?

    Slowly, this was starting to make sense¡­

    He was sending me out alone with his ''confidant'' into the middle of the forest. It would be strange if this ''confidant'' didn''t do anything.

    But I hadn''t done anything that would offend or threaten the fourth prince, so why would he do something like this?

    I just couldn''t understand at all.

    "Can I refuse?" I slowly said with a wry smile on my face.

    The fourth prince just shook his head and said one word, "No."

    All I could do was give a sigh and wait to see who would be waiting for me.

    But in the end, it wasn''t what I expected.

    The one that came out wasn''t a terrifying killer or a sharp assassin like I thought, it was a small figure that was wrapped up in a cloak.

    Judging by the stature of this cloaked figure, it seemed like she was a young girl¡­

    But when I looked closely, I couldn''t help feeling that there was something familiar about this figure.

    It was like I had seen this person before, but I just couldn''t remember where.

    After this person came in, she gave a curtsy like she was a properdy before stopping herself midway. It was as if she had suddenly realized something and stopped herself before she could finish this.

    Then she just gave a slight nod to me as if she was greeting me.

    I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes when I saw this.

    That was because that feeling that she was familiar became even stronger when I saw her give this half curtsy.

    The fourth prince just put his head in his hand and gave a sigh before saying, "Count Zwein, this is my confidant who will follow you into the forest."

    Then after a pause, he added, "This confidant of mine is only skilled at picking herbs, so please make sure to protect her while you two are out." He narrowed his eyes and started pressuring me as he said, "Please make sure that nothing happens to her."

    I couldn''t help being taken aback when I felt this pressure on me.

    Why would the fourth prince be so cautious about this?

    Also, shouldn''t it be the other way around?

    If you already had someone that was good at picking herbs, why would you need me?

    It''s not as if I was somebody that was famous for being strong, so it wouldn''t make sense just to call me here to guard this confidant of his.

    After all, it would be more likely that I would need to be protected when the time came¡­

    But then I saw something that was even more shocking.

    The cloaked figure suddenly came forward and hit the fourth prince on the shoulder.

    It wasn''t a strong hit, but it was without a doubt a hit to the shoulder.

    I couldn''t help wincing as I waited for the fourth prince to fly in a rage at this, but to my surprise¡­nothing happened.

    Instead of flying into a rage like I had expected and like I had seen many times in the game, he just revealed a faint smile and turned to lean in to whisper something to the cloaked figure.

    The cloaked figure just punched him in the shoulder again.

    It was clear that there was some kind of close rtionship between the two of them, but were they really close enough to be acting like this?

    The way that they acted, it almost seemed like they were brother and sister¡­

    But the fourth prince I knew wouldn''t act this way with his subordinates.

    Just who was this cloaked figure?

    I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes to look at that cloaked figure, but that cloaked figure suddenly turned away when she saw me looking at her.

    Huh?

    Wasn''t this almost like a shy girl turning away when she felt embarrassed?

    But why?

    The more that I interacted with this person, the more confused I felt.

    The fourth prince just gave another sigh before saying, "You should head out, it''ll be noon soon."

    Then he turned to me and said, "Be sure to bring her back before the sun sets or else we''ll all be in trouble."

    "Trouble?" I couldn''t help repeating in a confused voice.

    The fourth prince gave a nod without borating further.

    The cloaked figure also didn''t say anything as she came forward to my side and waited for me to move.

    I looked at the two of them, going back and forth¡­but I still stood up in the end toe to the cloaked figure''s side.

    When I walked over, I couldn''t help being surprised again.

    That was because there was this nice faint fragrance that wasing from the cloaked figure.

    I didn''t know what that fragrance was, but it was very pleasing to the nose.

    It was the smell of a beautiful young girl.

    Even if I couldn''t see what she looked like, I could guess that she was a beauty under that cloak.

    That just made me even more curious as to who she was.

    Seeing that I just stood there, the cloaked figure softly asked, "Is something wrong?"

    I jolted after hearing this beforeing back to my senses, realizing the mistake that I had made.

    I gave a cough to calm myself down before saying, "No, nothing''s wrong. Let''s go."

    Then I started walking forward without hesitation.

    The cloaked figure just gave a nod before following after me.

    But it was at that moment that I saw the final clue that put it all together.

    When she nodded, there was this strand of blonde hair that came out of her hood for me to see.

    When I saw this, I finally put it all together.

    That familiar figure, the way the fourth prince treated her, and this blonde hair¡­

    It was no wonder they acted like brother and sister¡­

    That was because they actually were brother and sister!

    The one that I was escorting was the princess!

 Chapter 405 Escort (1)

    <h4>Chapter 405 Escort (1)</h4>

    The moment that I realized this, I couldn''t help stopping for a second.

    The princess noticed that I had stopped and she also stopped to ask, "Sir Zwein, is there something wrong?"

    I looked at her with a stunned look for a few seconds beforeing back to my senses.

    I gave a cough and turned around before saying, "No, nothing''s wrong."

    Then without waiting for a response, I started walking again.

    The princess paused for a second before following me.

    But behind, the fourth prince had narrowed his eyes as he whispered to himself, "So he realized? But how?"

    After we left the room, the fourth prince waved his hand and there was someone else that appeared in this room.

    This was a figure cloaked in ck that knelt down on the ground the moment that they appeared as they said, "Your highness, your order?"

    The fourth prince was silent for a few seconds before saying, "Help me check him out. See if there were any other times where he met with the princess."

    The figure in ck gave another bow of the head before disappearing just as suddenly as they had appeared.

    When they were gone, the fourth prince just sat there with knitted brows on his face.

    But he didn''t say anything in the end.

    ¡­

    As the two of us walked out of the fourth prince''s manor, I couldn''t help peeking back at the princess following behind me.

    She didn''t seem to have a problem following my pace at all.

    It was almost as if she was already used to moving around quickly.

    But from what I knew about her, I wasn''t that surprised since I knew that she was a tomboy princess.

    This was true in the game and this was true in this world.

    After all, my first meeting with her was when she snuck into my carriage to sneak into the city.

    When we came out, there was a carriage waiting for us with the same butler as before.

    He was waiting for us to help us into the carriage, but I made the first move.

    I reached out for the princess and said, "Let me help you."

    She couldn''t help jolting when she saw this before slowly reaching a hand out.

    Was she really that scared of me?

    I guess it made sense since I wasn''t someone that was close to her, but why would the fourth prince make me escort her out of the city if that was the case?

    None of this made sense¡­

    It was clear that the real mission was to escort and protect the princess as she went out of the city for her own fun.

    So that meant that I had to do everything that I could to ensure that she had fun and was safe.

    If even a single hair went missing on her head¡­then my head would go missing next.

    Just what was the fourth prince''s game here?

    After taking my hand, I made sure to help her into the carriage before getting up myself.

    The butler saw this and then took his position in the driver''s seat of this carriage.

    With a crack of the reins, we started moving.

    The direction that we moved in was the northern gate of the city since that was the closest gate.

    As we sat there in the carriage, there really wasn''t much for us to talk about.

    The princess didn''t say a thing and I didn''t dare say anything since I was scared of offending her.

    This was the princess of this kingdom¡­a single wrong word would mean losing my head.

    Especially since I knew how much the king cherished her.

    Others might not know, but there were plenty of events in the game that told me this.

    It really was a hard road getting that royal ending because of the king''s love for his daughter.

    But the silence put pressure on the two of us until we finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    The princess suddenly broke the ice by saying, "It''s lovely weather outside today, isn''t it?"

    I looked up at the sky and I couldn''t help revealing a bit of a bitter smile.

    That was because¡­the sky was overcast with clouds.

    No matter how I tried, it was impossible for me to agree that this was good weather¡­

    But for the sake of the princess, I just gave a nod and said, "Un."

    Then there was silence that filled the carriage again.

    After a bit of silence, the princess once again said, "It seems like it''s about to rain."

    I just gave a nod and said, "Un."

    I couldn''t help feeling strange after hearing the princess ask this.

    By my memory, she shouldn''t be this bad at conversing¡­there were plenty of CGs where I was able to see the princess speaking in quite the eloquent manner.

    So why was she acting so strange now?

    What he would never know was¡­that the princess had been kicking herself the entire time.

    She didn''t know what was happening, but she wasn''t able to say the things that she normally would have been able to say.

    When she tried to say anything, it was as if her mind had gonepletely nk and she couldn''t think of what she wanted to say.

    So all she could do was say these dumb questions out loud like she was crazy.

    When in truth, the princess was actually quite eloquent.

    But then again, she was a princess, so this was something that she had to be skilled in.

    There was this strange feeling inside of her chest that just made her unable to act the way that she wanted, so that caused an awkward feeling to fill the carriage.

    The only real sound that rang out were the wheels rolling across the road.

    It was a long time before the carriage finally stopped and the butler opened the door to say, "Sir Zwein, young miss, we have arrived at our destination. You cane out now."

 Chapter 406 Escort (2)

    <h4>Chapter 406 Escort (2)</h4>

    When the butler called out, it saved us from the awkward atmosphere in the carriage.

    I went over to the door and opened it before getting out first.

    Then I stood by the door and waited for the princess toe out. When she came over, I reached out for her hand and helped her down from the carriage.

    We were currently in the middle of the forest, but still by the road.

    This road was the main road that led to the capital, so it wasn''t a small road by any means.

    It was wide enough to fit at least four of these carriages side and by side and this carriage was already wider than most carriages.

    The butler stood on the side during all of this, waiting for the two of us toe out.

    When we were standing on the side of the road by the forest, the butler said, "Young miss, Count Zwein, I will remain here and watch over the carriage. Please head into the forest and fulfil his highness'' request."

    I couldn''t help looking at the butler with a shocked look.

    Was he really just sending me and the princess alone into the forest like this?

    Wasn''t this just too irresponsible?

    Or was I supposed to protect her?

    Before I could react, the princess had grabbed my hand and was already pulling me into the forest.

    The butler just watched this with a faint smile on his face.

    When we had disappeared into the forest, the butler suddenly gave a snap and there was a cloaked figure that appeared beside him.

    The butler wasn''t surprised at all by this cloaked figure and said, "Clear the area and make sure that nothing disturbs her highness."

    The cloaked figure gave a nod before disappearing.

    At the same time, there were several branches in the trees around them that shook slightly.

    It was like someone had stepped off them.

    ¡­

    After we had gone some way, the princess finally stopped and turned around to look at me, but she didn''t say anything in the end. It was almost like she was about to say something, but then she swallowed her words at thest second.

    It was as if there was something that she couldn''t say.

    So I was the one that broke the silence in the end.

    "Shall we go around looking for the herbs that his highness requested?" I said in a slow and careful voice.

    The princess looked at me, but I couldn''t tell what kind of expression she had because of her hood.

    But in the end, she gave a slow nod.

    So with that, I moved away from the princess and started looking around the area for these herbs.

    I was nning on finding these herbs as soon as possible so that we could return as soon as possible.

    Luckily, these herbs were verymon, so they weren''t hard to find at all.

    Just casually searching around was enough for me to find several of these herbs.

    Now the only thing that I had to do was pick them and we could get ready to head back.

    But before I could actually pick them, the princess suddenly came over to where I was and reached down to grab these herbs.

    I thought that she wanted to harvest these herbs herself, but instead she just grabbed them in a rough manner and pulled them out without any delicacy. When she pulled them out, they were crushed in her hands and there was no saving these herbs anymore.

    After she pulled them out like this, all she could say was, "Oops, I''m sorry."

    But she was the princess¡­so I could only say, "It''s fine, there''s still plenty of other herbs around that we can harvest."

    I quickly turned and moved over to another herb, but before I could pick it¡­she had already moved over as well to grab it.

    She pulled it just as roughly as the first herb and it was crushed to pieces before letting those pieces drop to the ground. Then she just simply said once more, "Oops."

    My expression couldn''t help turning ugly when I saw this¡­

    Once was an ident, but twice couldn''t be a coincidence.

    It was clear that she was doing this on purpose¡­

    As for why she was doing this, it was most likely to avoid going back to the castle.

    This was her rare free moment away from the castle, so she wouldn''t want to go back that soon.

    But I was different from her.

    I wanted to go back as soon as possible so I wouldn''t have to be responsible for this.

    The longer that I spent here, the more likely that an ident would happen.

    The moment that an ident happened involving this princess, it was certain that I would lose my head.

    I liked where my head currently was, so I didn''t want to change that.

    However, it wasn''t as if I could just lose my temper with the princess¡­

    So the only thing that I could do was¡­

    Taking a deep breath, I stood up and walked over to where another patch of herbs was growing.

    But before I could pick them, the princess suddenly ran over and picked them roughly like before. She almost seemed like she was pulling out potatoes from the ground rather than picking fine herbs.

    My face turned very ugly at this point.

    Was the princess really that determined not to go back?

    But I couldn''t have that.

    I didn''t hesitate to go to another patch of herbs, but the princess followed me again.

    During this time, the princess revealed an unhappy look under her cloak.

    "Is he really that unwilling to spend some time with me?" She thought to herself which made her feel even more unhappy.

    So just like this, the two of us continued our dance of going around looking for herbs.

    I would try to pick the herbs while she did all that she could to destroy them.

    We didn''t make any progress at all.

 Chapter 407 Escort (3)

    <h4>Chapter 407 Escort (3)</h4>

    Around and around we went.

    It didn''t seem like the princess was nning on giving up at all as she kept crushing all the herbs that I tried to pick.

    It took no time at all for us to exhaust all of the herbs that were in this area.

    And at the same time, both of us were panting with exhaustion since we had been running aroundpeting for these herbs in the first ce.

    The strangest thing was¡­there was a faint smile on our lips.

    Halfway through this, I couldn''t help feeling that this was almost fun.

    The way that I tried to pick the herbs and the way that she tried to sabotage me, it was almost like a game.

    Even if it was frustrating, it strangely gave me a sense of enjoyment that I didn''t understand.

    When we had cleared out all the herbs in this area, there wasn''t anything else for us topete over.

    The two of us sat there on the ground trying to catch our breaths.

    It was also at this time that the butler came over with a basket in hand and a piece of cloth under his arm.

    He came over with a smile and said, "It''s time for lunch. Shall I set things up for the two of you?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I saw this, but my stomach was more honest. When I smelled the scent of the fooding from the basket, my stomach couldn''t help growling.

    I also heard the sound of another stomach growling and when I turned in that direction, I saw the cloaked figure of the princess holding her stomach.

    If I had been able to see her face, I was certain that I would have seen the blush on her face.

    When he heard this, the butler didn''t seem to react at all to the sounds of our stomachs growling.

    He just came forward to find a clear area before setting down the piece of cloth under his arm.

    Once he put down that piece of cloth, the butler spread it out on the ground and put the basket down. He opened the basket and slowly started taking food items out before spreading them out on the nket.

    It didn''t take him long to finish spreading out the pic.

    When he was done, the butler turned back to us and said, "Young miss, Count Zwein, if you please. I''ll prepare the food for you now."

    The two of us looked at each other before slowly sitting down on the nket.

    The princess sat down first and then I sat down on the opposite side of the nket from her.

    I didn''t see what expression she had, but it almost seemed like she was unhappy seeing me act this way.

    In fact, she even stood up and moved closer to me to sit down.

    I felt ufortable like this, but I couldn''t just stand up and move away. That would be considered an insult to the princess, so I had no choice but to sit there with her close to me.

    The butler didn''t seem to notice any of this as he prepared some food for us.

    Even though this was a pic, the spread that the butler had brought definitely wasn''t small.

    This was a spread that even included roasted chicken and many different kinds of roasted meat. It was definitely not a spread that amoner would be able to get that easily.

    Yet the butler had brought it out into the forest with us.

    That was just how the rich and powerful acted, they would have things thatmoners would never have.

    Still, there was no reason for me to hold back.

    Since I had been forced toe on this escort mission, I should at least enjoy the perks that came with it.

    But to my surprise¡­the princess suddenly took the te that the butler had prepared for me.

    I thought that she was angry at me and didn''t want me to eat, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    Instead, she used her fork to pick a piece of the chicken and she brought it up to my mouth as if she wanted to feed me.

    My chin couldn''t help dropping when I saw her do this.

    What was her n here?

    What did she mean by this?

    Was she doing this as a sign that this would be myst meal for annoying her?

    Or was she just harassing me for no reason?

    I really couldn''t understand what she was trying to do here¡­

    But of course I couldn''t let her actually go through with it.

    If the fourth prince found out¡­or even if the king found out.

    I could see that the fourth prince was the same as the king, where they both doted on her. If I did anything that could be considered taking advantage of the princess, there was no doubt that they would execute me.

    So no matter what I couldn''t let her feed me like this.

    Instead of taking a bite of the chicken that she offered me, I reached my hand out towards the te and the fork she was holding. As I reached out for them, I said, "It''s not a problem, I can eat it myself."

    But to my surprise, I found that she wouldn''t let me take them at all.

    The moment that I tried to take them, she immediately pulled her hands away to prevent me from taking the te and fork.

    Then she said, "All you have to do is eat. You don''t need to worry about anything else."

    I couldn''t help feeling a bad feeling when I heard this.

    It wasn''t as if it was an ominous feeling, it was just like something bad was about to happen.

    I really didn''t know what this feeling was, but I knew that I couldn''t go along with it.

    So I tried taking the te and fork from her again.

    In the end, the princess put them both down and crossed her arms as if she was angry with me.

    But what had I done?

 Chapter 408 Escort (4)

    <h4>Chapter 408 Escort (4)</h4>

    Before I could say anything, the princess suddenly said, "Do you really hate me so much that you won''t ept this favour from me?"

    The moment that she said this, a bitter smile appeared on my face.

    As soon as she said this, my fate had already been sealed and there wasn''t anything else for me to do.

    If I kept rejecting her like this, it would only get much worse.

    After all, an angry princess was much worse than an angry brother or father.

    An angry princess would cause me much more trouble than the king or the fourth prince since they would be restrained because of my use to the kingdom.

    The princess wouldn''t care about such a thing and would incite the king and the fourth prince constantly, making things worse and worse.

    So between the two, I knew which one I preferred¡­

    So I had no choice but to say, "Of course not. Please do it again, I''ll eat it this time."

    The cloaked figure looked at me and although I couldn''t see her face, I could tell that she was surprised.

    However, she still took the te and the fork before bringing the same bite up to my mouth and saying, "Alright, here you go."

    This time, I had no choice but to take that bite of chicken into my mouth.

    As I chewed it, I could only reveal a bitter smile.

    I was so focused on trying to bnce the consequences of this matter that I didn''t even taste the chicken.

    But I could tell that the princess was happy since she was no longer as tense as before.

    The princess was indeed happy, but there was a part of her that was suspicious of this. After all, he had changed his mind a bit too quickly that she couldn''t help feeling that it was suspicious.

    But in the end, she chose not to think too much about it since she was just happy that he had chosen to ept it.

    I was about to reach for the te and fork again when I saw that she didn''t move, but then she started getting more food and bringing it to my mouth.

    So I had no choice but to sit there and let her feed me the entire time.

    As the princess brought food to my mouth, I could only open it and let her put it in.

    When I chewed, there was a bitter smile on my face.

    As she fed me, she also asked, "Does it taste good?"

    I gave a nod so that she wouldn''t be angry, but in truth, I wasn''t able to taste a single thing.

    If one looked at us from afar, they might think that we were a happy couple enjoying a pic, but¡­

    The only thing that I felt during all of this was tense.

    There was nothing else that I could feel as I had no idea what was happening and what the consequences of this would be.

    The butler was just on the side preparing more food for us¡­or rather for the princess to feed me.

    It didn''t seem like they would stop, so I had no choice but to say, "Um, I''m already full and I can''t eat anymore."

    The princess had been in the middle of bringing more food to my mouth when she heard this.

    She looked at me with a bit of a tilt to her head before bringing the fork back down and putting the te to the side.

    She then turned to the butler who had already prepared another te for her.

    This waspletely different from the te that he had prepared for me.

    This was a bnced dish that had a mix of vegetables and meat.

    The te that had been prepared for me was a te that had been filled with all kinds of meat without any vegetables at all.

    It was a te that had been covered in oily meats, which had given me heartburn from eating so much.

    It seemed that they had really misunderstood what kind of things I liked to eat.

    But where did this misunderstandinge from?

    Or was it just what she thought I liked to eat?

    I didn''t think that I gave off that kind of image, so why did she think that I was into these things?

    No, I quickly stopped myself from thinking about these things.

    After all, that wasn''t what was important right now.

    I had to figure out a way to collect the herbs as soon as possible so that we could go back as soon as possible.

    So taking a moment to digest the food that I just ate, I stood up and started to walk away from the pic nket.

    I wanted to seize this chance while the princess was eating to go and pick the herbs before she could mess it up for me again.

    But before I could take more than two steps, there was a dark clothed figure that appeared in front of me.

    This dark clothed figure was taller than me and had a mask covering up their face, so I couldn''t see what they looked like. However, that didn''t matter as they just stood there in front of me, stopping me from going any further.

    It was as if they had suddenly appeared to stop me from going anywhere.

    This dark clothed figure looked down at me before pointing at the pic where the princess was still eating.

    It was as if they were telling me to go back or else¡­

    The look in the eyes of this dark clothed figure made it clear that they weren''t ying around¡­

    I just stood there in silence looking at this dark clothed figure for a bit before slowly turning around and heading back to the pic.

    As I sat down, I couldn''t help falling into deep thought.

    It was clear that this dark clothed figure was one of the princess'' hidden guards.

    If that was the case, why was I here?

 Chapter 409 Escort (5)

    <h4>Chapter 409 Escort (5)</h4>

    The princess had been oblivious to everything that had happened as she slowly enjoyed her meal.

    When she was finally done, she stood up and asked the butler, "Is there anything fun nearby?"

    The butler gave a bow and said, "There was a pond found not far from here. I''m sure that will be the perfect ce for an after meal rest."

    The princess gave a nod and then turned to me to say, "Count Zwein, shall we go and walk around the pond?"

    I shook my head as I said, "Young miss, shouldn''t we finish his highness'' request? If we keep wasting time like this, I''m afraid that it''ll be dark soon."

    The princess just casually said with a smile, "There''s no need to rush for this matter. Fourth¡­His highness will understand if there is some dy."

    The tone that she said this with made it clear that she was absolutely certain of this.

    Of course, she was qualified to say that since she was the princess.

    If there was anyone that could say that about the king and the fourth prince, it was her.

    But of course this wasn''t what I wanted¡­

    I was about to say something, but before I could say anything, the butler suddenly turned to look at me.

    He was positioned behind the princess so that she wasn''t able to see him.

    The way that he was looking at me¡­was just like the way that the ck clothed figure had looked at me before.

    It was as if he was threatening me to go along with this¡­

    If I had to guess, it was most likely this butler who had called that cked clothed person just now to stop me from going to search for the herbs.

    It was clear that the princess was well guarded, so why did she need me as an escort?

    The more that I learned about this, the more confused I became.

    But it also wasn''t the time to be thinking about that.

    The butler was still looking at me, waiting for my response.

    I could feel the sense of dangering from this butler, showing that he wasn''t a normal person.

    If I had to guess¡­he was most likely some kind of secret assassin that had been trained by the fourth prince.

    That was usually what the secret identities of butlers like this in novels were.

    And he had been trusted to guard the princess, so there was no doubt that he was capable.

    Since he was threatening me¡­there was nothing that I could do.

    I gave a sigh and said, "Young miss, how about we go and check out that pond?"

    The princess suddenly looked up at me and said, "Really? You really want to go?"

    I gave a bitterugh deep down.

    Even if I said that I didn''t want to go, was there such a choice for me?

    With the way that the butler was looking at me, there was only one real answer for me.

    I just gave a slow nod without saying anything.

    There was a moment of hesitation as the princess seemed to doubt something. She also turned around to look at the butler, but he had already turned away and was taking care of his own business.

    It was only when she turned away that he turned back to re at me once more to put pressure on me.

    The princess gave a happy p and said, "Let''s go then."

    She stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me up with her before running forward.

    Then she suddenly came to a stop as she realized something.

    Judging by the way that she looked around, it was most likely that she didn''t know which direction the pond was.

    She turned back to look at the butler and he just calmly pointed in a direction.

    With that, she ran off into the forest.

    It took us five minutes of walking to reach the pond and it really was as the butler said, this really was a beautiful ce for an after meal walk.

    When the princess saw the pond, her eyes immediately lit up and she didn''t hesitate to run forward to the edge of it.

    She lifted up the bottom of her cloak and revealed her fair legs. Then she took off her fancy shoes to reveal her fair white feet as well.

    As she pranced around in the pond, it really was a beautiful sight even if I wasn''t able to see her face.

    The way that she kicked the water around as she pranced in the pond, it really was like watching a fairy y in the water.

    Then the princess suddenly turned around and came to the edge of the pond to pull me in as well.

    I could only reveal a bitter smile as I stopped her so that I could take off my shoes as well.

    But I still went into the pond with her after taking off my shoes.

    It really was a pleasant feeling standing in the cool water. This was definitely the highlight of this long and chaotic day.

    Then all of a sudden, I was sshed with some water.

    I turned to see that it was the princess who had sshed me with this water.

    If I could see her face, I was sure that there would have been a smile on her face.

    Since it had alreadye this far, then I wouldn''t hold back anymore.

    I did the same thing as her and sshed her with the water.

    She dodged out of the way and then started sshing me even more.

    I could also hear a giggle that was like a beautiful bell ringing as she sshed me.

    The two of us just let go of everything and had a small water fight like this.

    When it was over, I found that the butler was waiting there on the shore with towels in his hand for us.

    It was as if he was already prepared for everything¡­

 Chapter 410 Escort (6)

    <h4>Chapter 410 Escort (6)</h4>

    We took the towel and dried ourselves off the best that we could, but our clothes were still a bit wet since it was the middle of autumn.

    If we stayed like this, there was no doubt that we would catch a cold.

    I couldn''t help feeling regret over following the princess in.

    If I had stopped her, perhaps none of this would have happened.

    If the princess was to catch a cold, then there was no doubt that I would be the one med for this and the prince and the king would retaliate on me¡­

    I should think of a way to dry us off while we still could.

    But before I could do anything, the butler led us to the side where he had already set up a shelter with a roaring fire inside of it. As long as we stayed by the fire, it would warm us up and it would dry off our clothes.

    As long as we stayed here, then there was no doubt that we would be able to dry off and keep warm.

    It was just¡­how did the butler know to prepare this?

    Still, there wasn''t any time to think about that now since the princess was certainly cold.

    I could even see that she was shivering a little bit when the cool autumn breeze blew across us.

    So I escorted her into the shelter prepared and the two of us sat down in front of the fire.

    As we felt the warmthing from it, I couldn''t help rubbing my hands together and putting them in front of the fire.

    Across from this fire, I could see that the princess was doing the same thing.

    As we looked at each other doing the exact same thing, I couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    I was sure that if I was able to see her face, she would be doing the same thing as well.

    It was then that the butler came back.

    He had left to do something and I had no idea what he was doing, but I understood what he went off to do when he came back.

    He hade back with two mugs in his hand that had steaming from them.

    There was also a faint scent of chocte in the air when he came over.

    He handed one to the princess beforeing over to hand me the other one as he said, "Count Zwein, please drink this to warm yourself up."

    I looked down to see that it was a fresh cup of hot chocte that had been prepared.

    There was even what seemed to be a bit of milk foam that was on top of the hot chocte.

    I couldn''t help looking at the butler with a strange look.

    How did he prepare everything that he was even able to bring out two cups of hot chocte like this?

    It was almost as if he had already expected all of this to happen.

    Not to mention, why would he bring hot chocte in the first ce?

    The pic was one thing, but would people normally bring hot chocte out to pick herbs?

    This was a very strange thing to do, right?

    In the end, I couldn''t ask the questions that were in my heart.

    Partly because I didn''t know how to ask them and partly because I knew that I wouldn''t get an answer from the butler.

    The butler had even gone as far as threatening me to go along with the princess, I was sure that he wouldn''t give me an answer if I asked.

    So all I could do was take the hot chocte and enjoy warming up by the fire.

    The two of us remained here for a bit.

    Eventually, the sun even started to go down.

    It wasn''t dark yet, but it was clearly gettingte.

    This would have been fine if we were here to have fun, but we were here to do a job.

    The herbs still hadn''t been picked yet¡­

    So I couldn''t help saying, "Shouldn''t we go and pick the herbs before it gets too dark? Our clothes are close to dry, so we should go now."

    The princess didn''t seem willing to move as she just sat there by the fire, looking in my direction.

    I couldn''t help feeling awkward seeing her look at me like this, but I didn''t turn away as I waited for an answer.

    But it was the butler who gave me one.

    "Count Zwein, there''s no need to worry about this."

    After he said this, the butler raised a sack that he had brought over from the side before continuing, "The herbs have already been gathered, so there''s no need for you to do anything."

    I couldn''t help being shocked when I heard this before reaching out for the sack.

    The butler just gave it to me without a single word.

    I opened the sack and looked inside to find that these were indeed the herbs that we needed. There wasn''t a single one of them missing and there was even more than we needed gathered.

    After seeing this, I couldn''t help looking at the butler with a very strange look.

    If he had already gathered everything, why didn''t he tell us already?

    If he had already gathered everything, we could have already gone back to the city instead of wasting our time here.

    But the butler didn''t care about the way that I looked at him.

    Instead, he went over to the princess and said, "Young miss, shall we spend some more time here? There''s still some time before sunset, so we can stay here a bit longer before heading back. We shouldn''t have a problem making it back to the city before the gates closed."

    The princess just gave a casual nod in response to this.

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I heard this, but there wasn''t anything that I could say.

    After all, it was the princess that said this¡­

 Chapter 411 Escort (7)

    <h4>Chapter 411 Escort (7)</h4>

    We just spent another hour sitting there by the fire.

    During this, the princess slowly moved closer and closer to me until she was sitting right beside me.

    I had tried moving away at first, but then the butler appeared beside me.

    He was taking care of the fire, but it wasn''t as if he couldn''t do that from the other side of the fire. He chose to sit down right beside me so that I couldn''t move as he took care of the fire.

    So I had no choice but to let the princesse closer until she was sitting right beside me.

    It felt very awkward since she didn''t say a single thing¡­

    Not to mention, I couldn''t even see her expression because of the cloak, so I had no idea what she was even thinking¡­

    Only when she was satisfied did the princess stand up and head to the carriage.

    With that, the butler started cleaning everything up and we were heading back to the city.

    For me, it was a very exhausting experience since my mind had been turning the entire time, trying to figure out what was happening. I had expected to be killed during this, but¡­that didn''t seem to be the case.

    On the way back, the princess also sat beside me instead of sitting opposite of me.

    At this point, I just gave up and let her do what she wanted.

    After all, I had already guessed what this trip was about.

    It was to let the princess have fun and I was just the escort for that. The herb collecting mission was nothing more than a ruse¡­

    But why would they choose me out of all people?

    Was it because I was around the same age as the princess?

    But if that was the case, there were plenty of other people that could have fulfilled this role.

    Was it because I was married?

    So were they not worried that I would do anything to the princess?

    Unless someone had a death wish, there wasn''t a single person that would dare do a thing to the princess.

    So there shouldn''t have been anything to worry about.

    I just couldn''t help being confused about all of this.

    After entering the city, the first ce that we went was the fourth prince''s manor.

    The princess got off here before the carriage sent me back to the residence prepared for the dwarves.

    As I was leaving, I became more and more confused.

    Just what had today been for?

    ¡­

    "Did you have fun?" The fourth prince said the moment that the princess came into the room.

    The princess took off her cloak and revealed a face that had a wide smile on it.

    That was more than enough to answer the fourth prince''s question.

    The fourth prince gave a sigh before saying, "Don''t let yourself go too far or else you''ll chase him away."

    The princess'' smile twitched when she heard this before it slowly disappeared.

    She took a deep breath and said, "I know, you don''t need to worry."

    Then she looked at him with a smile and said, "Thank you for setting all of this up. I''m sure that it wasn''t easy to escape royal father''s eyes."

    The fourth prince revealed a faint smile when he heard this.

    He knew that she was teasing her.

    He knew that she was jabbing at him since without the approval of their royal father, it was impossible for her, the princess, to stay out thiste.

    The fourth prince just said with the same smile on his face, "As long as you''re happy, we''re happy."

    The princess revealed a wide smile after hearing this.

    The fourth prince then asked, "How did it go?"

    As soon as he asked this, he felt regret.

    It was like opening up Pandora''s box by asking this question.

    The princess didn''t hesitate at all to tell him about everything that had happened.

    For the fourth prince who was still alone, to listen to the love story of another person like this really was hard for him. It was like being force fed dog food as a single dog¡­

    But since he was a good brother, he just sat there and listened to the whole thing.

    He didn''t just listen, but also gavements from time to time to show that he was actually listening.

    The princess went on for an hour before she was finally done.

    But it wasn''t because she had run out of things to tell him, rather it was because her throat was getting dry and she was getting hungry. She wanted to have some dinner first before she continued to tell him more about this.

    The fourth prince told the servants to prepare dinner while the princess went to go change and wash up.

    The bitter smile on his face made it clear that he knew what he would be in for during dinner.

    Still, what could he do?

    After the princess left, there was a cloaked figure that suddenly appeared in the room.

    The fourth prince wasn''t scared or surprised at all by the appearance of this cloaked figure. He just looked at the cloaked figure and then reached his hand out as if he was expecting something.

    The cloaked figure took out a document from his cloak and presented it to the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince opened it and looked it over for a bit before narrowing his eyes.

    He looked at the cloaked figure and asked, "Is this true?"

    The cloaked figure just gave a simple nod in response.

    The fourth prince knitted his brows and was silent for a bit before finally saying, "Go and make preparations. We can''t just let them do whatever they want."

    The cloaked figure gave another nod before disappearing just as suddenly as they had appeared.

    When the fourth prince was alone in the room, he rubbed his knitted brows in silence before saying in a soft voice, "Brothers, if this is how you want to y, then don''t me me."

 Chapter 412 Eldest prince

    <h4>Chapter 412 Eldest prince</h4>

    After that strange excursion with the princess, I thought that I would be able to get some peace and quiet.

    But that wasn''t the case since there was someone else that came the next morning.

    If it was just a normal noble, I would have ignored them.

    However, the one that came was the messenger of the eldest prince.

    Since it was a prince, I had no choice but to go with the messenger and meet the eldest prince.

    I didn''t know what the eldest prince wanted, but it was clear that he wanted something judging by the messenger he sent.

    During the trip, the messenger kept looking at me as if I owed him something.

    At the same time, he kept singing praise of the eldest prince.

    "You really are lucky, Count Zwein. To be able to catch the attention of the eldest prince is a true honour. If you y your cards right, there will be a bright future for you."

    When I was faced with this kind of enthusiasm, the only thing that I could do was give an ambiguous answer.

    After all, being caught up in the battle for the throne was not something that I wanted.

    I just wanted to remain neutral and stay in my own territory until it was all over.

    Not to mention¡­I knew that the eldest prince wouldn''t have a chance of winning the throne.

    There was a reason why he was known as the eldest prince instead of the crown prince.

    The eldest prince was different from the crown prince.

    If he was the crown prince, it would mean that the king was already supporting him to take the throne.

    Then there wouldn''t be a session battle at all.

    But that clearly wasn''t the case since he was still the eldest prince instead of the crown prince.

    The eldest prince¡­there was a big problem with him that prevented the king from acknowledging him as a sessor.

    That was that the eldest prince¡­was a fool.

    He was someone that was easily manipted by the nobles and waspletely enthralled with himself. He was not someone that cared about taking care of the nation and only cared about his own enjoyment.

    If he were to be the king, there was no doubt that he would ruin this country.

    So the king had never even considered making him the crown prince.

    But even if the king didn''t consider it, that didn''t mean that the eldest prince didn''t have this ambition.

    He was supported by the nobles that wanted to use him as a puppet and some of these nobles were quite powerful.

    After all, these were the nobles that had ambition of taking down the royal family and establishing their own dynasty.

    These were the nobles that had been restrained by the current king, but if they could put a puppet on the throne, there would be nothing stopping them.

    So I had never once considered having anything to do with the eldest prince.

    But now that he was calling me, I was certain that there would be trouble.

    So I had to act as ambiguous as possible.

    If I showed even a single sign of supporting the eldest prince, I could be sure that there would be troubleing my way.

    I would never let myself be caught up in this for both me and the people that I cared about.

    In a worst case scenario, I had already called Scar and Shaka so that they could save me if need be.

    After all, Shadow Garden wasn''t afraid of a prince.

    When the carriage arrived, I couldn''t help being surprised by the manor that was in front of us.

    This manor was without a doubt the manor of an important person, but it was more than that.

    This manor¡­was clearly the manor of a conceited person.

    The decorations were much more luxurious than they needed to be and there were many things that showed off how conceited the owner was. There were all kinds of nt sculptures and actual statues of the owner of this manor ced all over the manor.

    It was clear that whoever owned this ce was very much in love with themselves.

    And that was the problem with the eldest prince.

    This kind of vain person would never be good to work with¡­

    The carriage came to the entrance of the manor, but there wasn''t a single person who was there waiting for me.

    The messenger even didn''t bother going with me to the door and sent me to the door all on my own.

    I really wanted to leave this ce, but there were guards at the gate, so it wasn''t as if I would be able to escape.

    So I had no choice but to go forward and knock on the door.

    When I did, the door was immediately opened by a person who was in a butler''s uniform.

    He gave a nod to me before saying, "Please follow me."

    This person didn''t even wait to see if I was following them as they headed into the manor.

    I gave a sigh before following them in.

    The lobby of this manor was just like the outside, it was filled with portraits of the owner, the eldest prince.

    But these portraits were also different from the statues and sculptures that were outside.

    These portraits¡­were clearly beautified.

    I had seen the eldest prince before in the game and I knew that he wasn''t as beautiful as the portraits made him seem.

    These were all themissioning of a vain person.

    The butler led me through the lobby and to arge door on the side, but he didn''t bring me in.

    Instead, he raised his hand as if he was telling me to stop and wait.

    After I stopped, he opened the door and went in without me.

    I had to wait there for a few minutes before the butler came back.

    He opened the door this time and waved his hand for me to follow him.

    So I walked into the room after the butler.

 Chapter 413 Offer to join (1)

    <h4>Chapter 413 Offer to join (1)</h4>

    When I came in, the butler suddenly said, "Count Zwein is here to request a meeting."

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard this.

    When he said it like this, it was almost as if I was the one asking to meet with the eldest prince instead of being summoned by the eldest prince like what had happened.

    The people in the room all snickered when they heard this, except for a single person who wasying down on a couch.

    This person was a blond haired young man who had chiseled features. He couldn''t be considered handsome, but he couldn''t be considered ugly either.

    He was just average.

    This was the eldest prince.

    This personying on the couch raised his hand and gave a simple wave before saying, "Let him in."

    At this, the butler turned to look at me and gave a nod, as if indicating for me to go in.

    Seeing this pompous disy, I really wanted to leave¡­but I couldn''t since the other side was the eldest prince. While he didn''t actually hold any power, the nobles that backed him couldn''t be looked down on.

    They were strong enough to keep the eldest prince in contention for the throne, so that was a testament to their power.

    I came forward and gave a slight bow before saying, "Greetings to the eldest prince."

    The eldest princeying on the couch didn''t even bother looking at me as he just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    Then he pointed at one of the chairs that was ced on the side and said, "Sit."

    He just said it as if he was giving an order, an order that shouldn''t be disobeyed. The way that he said this was like he was the master of this ce, but then again, that was true.

    Still, it was very annoying seeing him act this way.

    If I could, I really would have wanted to punch him in the face.

    In the end, I walked over to the chair and sat down, waiting for the eldest prince to say something.

    But the eldest princepletely ignored me after I sat down.

    He turned back to the others that had been in the room before I came and said, "I heard that the new painting from Master Louvre is simply divine. We really do need to find the time to see it."

    The others nodded and offered their own opinions on this.

    The way that they acted, it was as if theypletely ignored me.

    Seeing the eldest prince act this way, I couldn''t help knitting my brows even more.

    Was he doing this on purpose to shame me or was he doing this because he simply did not care?

    Was he smart enough to use this kind of tactic?

    No, he shouldn''t be that smart since I knew what the eldest prince was capable of because of my memories from the game. He was someone who was aplete fool through and through.

    So why did he summon me if he didn''t care about me?

    I could have just stood up and left since he was ignoring me, but I had no idea what the eldest prince was nning, so I didn''t dare act rashly.

    I just sat there and waited to see what he was going to do.

    But the eldest prince just kept talking to hispanions without a single care for me.

    It really seemed like he didn''t care about me at all.

    "Your highness, I must leave now. I''lle and see you again next time."

    The eldest prince gave a nod before saying, "Don''t be so cold ande more often."

    With that, their talk was over and the ones that had been sitting there stood up to leave.

    As they walked past me, not a single one of them acknowledged me.

    I could even hear snickeringing from them as they walked past.

    It seemed that birds of a feather really flock together.

    These young nobles were clearly as bad as the eldest prince.

    Once they left the room, it was only me, the eldest prince, and the butler left in the room.

    But even then, the eldest prince didn''t acknowledge me at all.

    He had the butler pour him a cup of tea while stillying there on the couch.

    He just took a casual sip of his tea and closed his eyes as if he was about to take a nap instead of acknowledging me.

    At this point, I knew that I couldn''t just act passive anymore, so I gave a cough and said, "Your highness¡­"

    Before I could say anything else, the eldest prince said, "Join my faction and offer yourself to me."

    He didn''t even bother opening his eyes as he said this. He had even said this in a voice that made it seem like this was the natural thing to do.

    He said it like all things should belong to him and they should all offer themselves to him.

    I deeply knitted my brows after hearing this.

    There was a silence that hung in the air as I waited for the eldest prince to say anything else, but he justid there with his eyes closed. If one didn''t know any better, they would have thought that he had already fallen asleep.

    I took a deep breath and said, "Your highness, thank you for this offer, but I''m not looking to join any factions right now."

    Then I stood up before saying, "If that is all, then I have other business to attend to."

    I was about to walk to the door, but the butler suddenly came forward to stop me.

    As he did, he pulled out a dagger from an unknown ce that he pointed at me.

    I took a step back when I saw this before asking, "This is¡­?"

    The eldest prince just calmly said, "Since you refuse, I can''t let you leave here."

    He opened his eyes to look at me before saying, "These are your choices, what will you choose?"

 Chapter 414 Offer to join (2)

    <h4>Chapter 414 Offer to join (2)</h4>

    Once again, I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this.

    I looked at the eldest prince with narrowed eyes to see if he was being serious, but he had that calm and careless look like he didn''t care about any of this.

    It was as if regardless of what I chose, it wouldn''t affect him at all.

    After a pause, I asked, "Are you being serious?"

    The eldest prince finally opened his eyes to look at me when he heard this.

    He narrowed his eyes slightly to look at me before saying, "I don''t like repeating myself. Since that''s the case, it seems like you have already made your choice."

    He turned to the butler and gave a small nod before saying, "Take care of him."

    The butler gave a nod before there were several armed men that appeared in this room through hidden entrances. All of them had weapons in their hands that they were raising towards me.

    At the same time, there was one person with a sack that seemed to be for cleaning up.

    I couldn''t help being shocked since I never thought that the eldest prince was such a decisive person.

    He was going to kill me just with a few simple words.

    But before anyone could do anything, there was someone dressed in servant clothes that came in.

    When they saw this, all of the people in this room knitted their brows as they looked at this person.

    That person was naturally scared when seeing this, but he still bowed his head as he said in a stammering voice, "Your, your highness. The fourth prince is here."

    As soon as his voice fell, they all knitted their brows even more.

    For the first time, the eldest prince lost his calm as he said in a deep voice, "What did you say?"

    The servant immediately fell to the ground and lowered his head when he heard this.

    He didn''t dare repeat himself at first, but he had no choice when he felt the pressureing from the eldest prince.

    "The fourth, the fourth prince is, is here."

    The eldest prince immediately mmed his fist down on the armrest of the couch before standing up while roaring, "Why is he here?!"

    No one said anything since none of them actually had an answer for this.

    All of them had shocked looks which made it clear that they never expected things to develop like this either.

    The eldest prince looked at the servant who was on the ground and reached his foot up as if he was about to kick him. But before he could send his foot down, there was a knock that came from the door.

    Everyone immediately tensed when they heard this knock and looked in the direction of the door.

    The door was still open from the servant rushing in, so they were able to see who was standing there.

    It was the fourth prince who stood there with a smile on his face and a hand up by the door, which he had used to knock the door earlier.

    When they saw the fourth prince standing there, all of them stood there in a daze.

    Or at least that was until all of the people who had weapons realized what was happening and immediately put them away. The one with the sack quickly went back into the hidden entrance to the room that he came from and disappeared.

    After a long moment of silence, the fourth prince said with a faint smile, "Am I disturbing something here?"

    The eldest prince''s expression changed a few times before he revealed a smile of his own and he said, "Fourth brother, of course not. If you told me that you wereing, I would havee to see you."

    The fourth prince just replied, "Well, it was a spur of the moment thing."

    He turned to look at me before saying, "I came here to pick up my friend here, but I didn''t know that you still had business with him."

    In thetter half of his words, the tone of his voice shifted a bit which caused a chill to run down the spines of everyone in this room, including me.

    The eldest prince''s smile turned stiff before he said, "No, we don''t have any more business with him."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before turning to me to say, "Then shall we go? Or did you have any other business with my older brother?"

    I shook my head and walked over to where the fourth prince was.

    As I walked over, I watched the people in the room carefully just in case they tried to make a sudden move. But with the fourth prince here, it wasn''t as if anyone would dare do that.

    In fact, they were even feeling pressure from the fourth prince.

    It was clear that there was a powerful guard following the fourth prince and if they dared to move, they would be cut down right away.

    So of course not a single one of them dared to make a move.

    They valued their lives, they wouldn''t throw it away that easily.

    After I went to the side of the fourth prince, the fourth prince turned to the eldest prince again and said with a smile, "Eldest brother, since there''s nothing else, I''ll be leaving with my friend now."

    The eldest prince was silent for a bit before he suddenly asked, "Fourth brother, may I ask what business you have with this friend of yours?"

    The fourth prince just calmly said, "It''s just some random business, it isn''t anything worth eldest brother''s attention." But then his eyes turned sharp as he said, "But since he is my friend, I hope that eldest brother won''t have any other matters with him from now on."

    The eldest prince also narrowed his eyes when he heard this.

    The two of them just stared at each other in silence for a bit before the eldest prince revealed a smile and said, "Since he is fourth brother''s friend, I won''t make it hard on him."

    The fourth prince gave a nod with a smile before saying, "Then I''ll have to thank eldest brother."

    He swept his gaze across the room and all of the others in that room avoided his gaze.

    When his eyes fell on me, he gave a nod before turning to walk out.

    I just silently followed behind the fourth prince.

    There was nothing that happened at first as we walked away, but then there was a sudden loud sound that came from the room that we just left. It was the sound of something being smashed.

    Then following that, there were the sounds of someone cursing in a loud voice.

    We couldn''t hear specifically what they were saying, but it was clear that there was hostility in their voice.

    But the fourth prince just ignored all of it as he continued walking out of the manor.

    It was clearly the eldest prince who was venting his anger after we had left.

    The fourth prince led me out of the manor and then over to a carriage parked in front of it.

    After we got in the carriage, it headed off in the direction of the residence prepared for the dwarves.

 Chapter 415 Offer to join (3)

    <h4>Chapter 415 Offer to join (3)</h4>

    There was silence at first as we sat there in the carriage.

    The fourth prince sat across from me, but he wasn''t looking at me. Instead, he was looking out the window of the carriage as if he was enjoying the ride.

    For me, that just meant that I had to sit there awkwardly since there was nothing for me to say.

    After a bit, when we moved away from the eldest prince''s manor, the fourth prince finally turned back to me.

    He looked at me with narrowed eyes without saying a thing which made me feel even more awkward.

    Even though he looked at me like this, I still didn''t have a single thing to say.

    Finally, the fourth prince broke the silence by saying, "I''m sorry about getting you caught up in that."

    I revealed a visible look of surprise when I heard this.

    After all, I never would have imagined that the first thing out of the fourth prince''s mouth would be an apology.

    Apologies and princes, they just didn''t seem to match¡­

    I raised my hands and waved them before saying, "Your highness, there''s no need for you to apologize. This matter isn''t your fault, it was all the eldest prince."

    The fourth prince revealed a bitter smile when he heard this, but he didn''t exin why he had this bitter smile on his face.

    Instead, he just said, "From now on, it won''t be just the eldest prince who will being to bother you. The other princes will also take notice after what you''ve done and they won''t leave you alone, unless¡­"

    His voice trailed off when he said this.

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard this because I had some idea of what he was implying and what he was implying was not good for me¡­

    Seeing that the fourth prince wasn''t saying a thing, I took a deep breath and said, "Your highness, I''m not looking to take any sides in this matter. I just want to live out my life in peace, without getting involved in this."

    After I said this, I carefully looked at the fourth prince and waited for his reaction.

    I knew that he wouldn''t be happy about this since I was basically refusing him to his face, so I was waiting to see how to deal with him.

    But to my surprise, I found that the fourth prince suddenly revealed a wide smile as he said, "Is that so? You really just want to stay out of everything?"

    I couldn''t help raising a brow as I didn''t understand why he would look at me like this, but I just gave a simple nod.

    Then the fourth prince gave a chuckle as he said, "Very good, very good, it seems that I was worried for nothing."

    I was even more confused when I heard this.

    The fourth prince stoppedughing after a while and he looked at me to say, "I fully support your idea of wanting to stay out of the session race. It''s best if you remain neutral during all of this."

    I just looked at the fourth prince, wondering if he was alright.

    I had thought that he was trying to get me to join his side, but now he was telling me to remain neutral.

    Naturally I knew just how much value a connection to the elves and the dwarves would be when it came to this session race, but the fourth prince didn''t seem to care.

    It wasn''t that I was hurt by this, I was just very confused.

    The fourth prince then revealed a serious look as he said, "But it won''t be easy to stay out of this. There will be many people that will want to drag you into this matter no matter what you want, so you''ll have to be prepared for that. People like my eldest brother¡­"

    His voice trailed off when he said this.

    But I couldn''t help knitting my brows again when I heard this.

    It wasn''t that I was confused by the fact that he said this anymore, but because of the fact that he still called the eldest prince his eldest brother like this.

    It was clear that they were on opposite sides and were destined to fight, yet the fourth prince still acknowledged him as his brother.

    This waspletely different from the fourth prince in the game that I knew.

    But then again, this was a few years before the plot of the game.

    There were many things that could change in the span of a few years.

    So could it be that something had happened between now and then that had changed the fourth prince like that?

    I know that I shouldn''t get myself involved in this matter, but as a gamer¡­I couldn''t stop my curiosity.

    I was able to hold myself back in the end though.

    I looked at the fourth prince and said, "Then what should I do so that they''ll leave me alone?"

    The fourth prince was pulled out of his thoughts and he turned to look at me, but he didn''t say anything as he revealed a hesitant look. It was as if there was something that he wanted to say, but he didn''t know how to say it.

    After a long moment of hesitation, he still said, "It isn''t as if there isn''t a way for them to leave you alone, but it depends on what you n on doing."

    I revealed another confused look when I heard this as I asked, "What does that mean?"

    The fourth prince hesitated a bit more before saying, "It depends on if you''re willing to trust me or not."

    I still looked at him with that confused look, but I also slowly gave a nod.

    The fourth prince saw this and said in a decisive voice, "As long as you borrow my name, they won''t be able to make a move against you. You''ll be able to do what you want without worrying about anything."

    There was silence that followed after his voice fell before I revealed a wry smile.

    After beating around the bush like this, we still came back to the same thing.

    He was still telling me to fall under him, to be one of his subordinates so that the others would leave him alone.

    It seemed that I really couldn''t escape this fate.

    But when the fourth prince saw this wry smile of mine, he suddenly said, "It''s not what you think at all. I will not give you any orders and I will not use you for my own gains. I willpletely leave you alone even if you borrow my name."

    I knitted my brows deeply this time as I looked at the fourth prince, trying to figure out what he meant by this.

    No matter how one looked at it, this didn''t seem like a fair deal for him.

    He had no reason to do something like this.

    The fourth prince saw the way that I looked at him and he said, "All I need from you is to maintain the deal you have with our kingdom. As long as you keep providing our kingdom with ores from the Dwarven Kingdom, I don''t need anything else from you."

    After saying this, he reached his hand out towards me as if waiting for me to take it.

    I looked down at his hand before looking up at him.

    It didn''t seem like there was any deception here, but he was the evil viin prince¡­

    Still, for now, it didn''t seem like there was anything to lose from taking his hand so I slowly reached out for it and shook it.

 Chapter 416 A new guard

    <h4>Chapter 416 A new guard</h4>

    The fourth prince brought me back to the dwarven residence and then dropped me off in front of it.

    After we hade to an agreement, there wasn''t much else that we had talked about, so we had spent much of the ride back in silence.

    The fourth prince seemed to be thinking something as he looked out the window.

    As for me, I was trying to figure out just what the fourth prince had wanted.

    No matter how I thought about it, it didn''t seem like the fourth prince would make a deal where he would suffer a loss like this.

    This deal not only required him to protect me from the other princes, he would also not get a slice of the trade with the dwarves and the elves. He told me to give all of that to the king for the kingdom, so none of that would go to him since it would all be arranged by the king.

    Why would he do that?

    But I just couldn''t figure it out by looking at the fourth prince.

    It was as if his mind waspletely hidden from me and I wasn''t able to see a thing.

    I normally thought that I was quite good at reading people, but that didn''t seem to be the case this time.

    But then again, there was a reason why he was known as the final boss.

    His thoughts had been hidden for so long that no one had been able to notice anything until it was toote.

    After getting out of the carriage, I was heading into the residence when the fourth prince suddenly called out to me.

    "Wait, before you go, I have something for you." The fourth prince''s voice came from behind me.

    I turned around to see the fourth prince sticking his head out the window of the carriage.

    This scene really didn''t fit the prestigious and handsome fourth prince, but here he was doing it.

    It was just a good thing that there was no one around to see him do this.

    The fourth prince gave a snap of his fingers and then there was a cloaked figure that appeared.

    I couldn''t help being taken aback by this cloaked figure that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Looking at them with a cautious look, I took a step back away from them.

    The fourth prince saw this and revealed a faint smile before saying, "There''s no need to be cautious, this is one of my guards. I''ll be leaving them to you to protect you just in case anything happens."

    My brows slightly knit when I heard this.

    He said that this was a guard that was sent to ''protect'' me, but all I could see was a guard that was here to watch over me.

    The fourth prince that I knew definitely wouldn''t do anything like this without something to gain, so it made me more certain that he had something that he was hiding from me. That was why he was sending this guard to ''protect'' me.

    After a moment of silence, I forced myself to stay calm as I said with a smile, "Your highness, there''s no need for that much trouble. I can take care of myself."

    But the fourth prince just wouldn''t take no for an answer as he said, "You never know what will happen, so it''s better if you have more guards by your side. This guard of mine is an elite that can fight on par with the captain of the knights. They definitely will not let you down."

    The more that he endorsed this person, the harder it became for me to reject.

    After all, if I did, it would be like pping the face of the fourth prince by saying that I didn''t trust him.

    At a delicate time like this, I couldn''t do something like that.

    So in the end, I had no choice but to say with a sigh, "Then I''ll have to thank your highness for your concern."

    The fourth prince gave a nod with a smile before turning to the cloaked figure to say, "You will take your orders from Count Zwein from now on. Make sure to protect him, even if it costs your life."

    The cloaked figure suddenly fell to one knee in front of the carriage and said, "Yes, your highness."

    I was surprised to hear that the voice of this cloaked figure wasn''t hidden and it was a female voice.

    I couldn''t tell at all that this was a female because her figure waspletely hidden by the cloak that she wore.

    But I didn''t look down on her since she was a female.

    This was a world where females could be just as strong as males, this was very evident when it came to the case of Cecilia.

    She was much stronger than most male knights that were in the same position as her.

    I was just worried that there might be other orders that the fourth prince has given this guard that could cause me trouble¡­

    The fourth prince didn''t seem to care at all as he brought his head back into the carriage.

    With one final wave, he said, "Count Zwein, I hope that I''ll be able to see you again, but I don''t think that there will be time for that soon. You should be careful during this time, there''s no knowing what my brothers will do."

    He didn''t give an exnation for this as he just left, but I couldn''t help deeply knitting my brows when I heard this.

    The leaving of this guard and the cryptic message that he met, it seemed that he knew something that I didn''t. And it seemed that this thing was rted to the other princes¡­

    After thinking for a bit, I gave a sigh.

    I would ask Scar and Shaka about thister since I needed Shadow Garden''s resources to find out this information.

    I wouldn''t be able to do anything worrying about this and excessively worrying about this wouldn''t be good for me either.

    I would deal with these things when they came.

    I was about to go in when I suddenly remembered the guard that the fourth prince had left me standing there.

    She had been standing there in silence after the fourth prince left, almost as if she was waiting for an order.

    I slowly turned to look at her before asking, "What are you going to do now?"

    She said in a cold voice, "My orders were to follow you and protect you, so I will do that. If there''s anything that you want me to do, then I''ll do it."

    Though she said this, it was clear that there was a trace of unwillingness in her voice.

    But there was no doubting the conviction that she said this with.

    It was as if she really would follow my orders, regardless of what orders they were.

    It seemed that she would even follow some orders that wouldn''t be as good for her¡­

    But I didn''t have that intention at all.

    I just asked, "No, I mean what are you going to do now? Are you going to follow me around, or what?"

    She said in the same cold voice, "I''ll do as you order."

    "Eh?" I couldn''t help saying with a surprised look. But in the end, I said with a sigh, "Alright, follow me then."

    Before going in though, I remembered one more thing, "What should I address you by?"

    The cloaked figure just simply said, "There''s no need for names. Just call me Shadow Five."

    I looked at her with a strange look when I heard this, but I didn''t dive deeper into it.

    I''m sure there''s a story behind this, but that was her story and it wasn''t my ce to ask.

    So I simply said, "I''ll be counting on you then, Shadow Five."

 Chapter 417 A dark night (1)

    <h4>Chapter 417 A dark night (1)</h4>

    It was already the afternoon when I arrived back at the residence.

    The dwarves to my surprise had been waiting for me the entire time.

    When I came in, the first thing that they did waspletely surround me and see if there was anything wrong.

    Elsa was the one that led this, but the other dwarves also didn''t hold back as they surrounded me.

    It was almost as if I was some kind of raremodity that they had obtained and they were making sure that I wasn''t damaged.

    The one line that I drew was taking off my clothes.

    If I didn''t stop them, the dwarves might have really ripped off my clothes just to make sure that I was fine.

    I was touched that they were this worried about me, but they really were taking it too far.

    After they had finished checking my body, they all let out sighs of relief before asking¡­

    "How about we go and do some rune carving?"

    "I have this new alloy that I''ve been wanting to make, can you help me with it?"

    "There''s this new sword that I''ve been working on, I just don''t know how to go about it."

    The reason that they were so worried¡­was because of my knowledge. It didn''t seem like they were actually worried about me, they were just worried that they would miss out on this knowledge that I had about forging.

    I had already expected this, but it still made a bitter smile appear on my face.

    In the end, it was only Elsa who asked, "Are you really alright? They didn''t do anything to you, right?"

    I was surprised to hear this from her, but I just said with a proper smile, "It''s not a problem. It wasn''t anything that I couldn''t handle."

    She looked at me with a bit of doubt as if she didn''t believe what I said, but she didn''t say anything else after that.

    In the end, I spent the rest of the day with the dwarves going over the things that they wanted.

    But I received a surprise at dinner.

    Elsa had cooked something for me personally. Even though there were chefs that came with this residence, she had gone off in the afternoon to cook for me.

    I didn''t understand why she did this, but I had to admit that it was delicious.

    She really could cook.

    "You really would make a good wife." I couldn''t help saying this before suddenly realizing my mistake.

    She had been a wife before, but it hadn''t worked out¡­after all it had ended in divorce with Drogath.

    But Elsa didn''t seem to mind as she asked, "Do you really think so?"

    I was surprised to see how much mental fortitude she had, but I was also surprised by the blush that was on her face.

    Why would she suddenly reveal a blush like this?

    Still, I didn''t push it since I knew that it was a mistake.

    If I stay on this topic for too long, I might hurt her identally¡­so it was better to change the topic.

    The rest of the meal was spent with a happy mood and we headed off early to go to sleep since there wasn''t much else that needed to be done.

    Or it could be said that I had run away to bed to avoid the dwarves.

    If I didn''t give the excuse that I was tired after what happened today, they might have dragged me off to talk about forging all night.

    So I could only use this as an excuse to run away.

    As Iid there in bed, I couldn''t fall asleep right away as I thought about everything that had happened today.

    I knew for sure that it wouldn''t be the end¡­after all, only the eldest prince had made a move.

    Even if I had the protection of the fourth prince, the other princes wouldn''t let this go that easily. Not to mention, the promise that I had made with the fourth prince was flimsy in the first ce.

    It was just a verbal agreement without any actual terms, so it was impossible that he would go all out to protect me.

    In the end, I would have to think of a way to protect myself.

    It was just a good thing that I had something that no one else in this world had.

    I had the cheat that was knowledge of the future.

    I had yed the game for countless hours, so there were many things that I knew about the princes that even they didn''t think anyone knew about. I knew things that even they wouldn''t know about themselves because these were things that would happen in the future.

    With this knowledge, it would be easy for me to act against the princes if the need came.

    So I started going over everything that I could use against the various princes.

    There were nine princes in total.

    Some of them were so insignificant that they didn''te up in the plot much, but I still wouldn''t let them go.

    After all, I had no idea which of the princes would act against me.

    As Iid there in bed thinking about all of this, I could feel my eyes slowly drooping.

    While it had been hard for me to sleep earlier, the more that I thought about this, the sleepier I became.

    Eventually, I wasn''t able to fight it anymore and decided to go to sleep.

    There was no need to rush this, there would be plenty of time to think about thister.

    For now, I should get my rest since I had no idea what woulde tomorrow.

    If it was my own territory, I wouldn''t need to worry, but the capital was ever changing.

    Just like today, anything could happen tomorrow¡­

    So I closed my eyes and was about to fall asleep¡­but a minute after I closed my eyes.

    "Watch out!"

    I suddenly opened my eyes and saw two swords shing in front of me.

 Chapter 418 A dark night (2)

    <h4>Chapter 418 A dark night (2)</h4>

    I couldn''t help jolting awake when I saw the two swords in front of me.

    Neither of the swords were moving, but I could see that they were shaking.

    It was clear that the owners of the sword were both trying to push back the other side, but they were evenly matched.

    I didn''t dare move too suddenly out of fear of drawing attention, but I also knew that I couldn''t just stay here.

    I quickly looked around and found that there were two cloaked figures that were standing there above my bed.

    I recognized one of them since I had made sure to recognize what their cloak looked like this afternoon.

    It was Shadow Five.

    When I saw her, I realized that she had disappeared sinceing back to the dwarven residence.

    In fact, I hadpletely forgotten about her because the dwarves had dragged me away. But seeing her now, I realized that she had been hiding and watching over me the whole time.

    There was a small part of me that almost wanted to ask how long she had been watching¡­

    After all, I had taken a bath earlier¡­

    But it wasn''t the time for that now.

    My life was in danger after all.

    After a moment of hesitation, I asked in a decisive voice, "What should I do to help?"

    Shadow Five was surprised to hear this, but then she said, "Move to the side and give me space to fight. I''ll hold him back, so get ready to move on three."

    I gave a nod and then started counting in my head.

    On the count of three, I suddenly stood up and ran to the other side of the room.

    At the same time, Shadow Five had thrown a small dagger out at the other cloaked figure to force them away.

    They jumped all the way to the window, making sure that they had an escape route, but they didn''t jump out just yet. They were watching carefully to see what we would do next.

    Shadow Five however didn''t give this cloaked figure a chance to catch their breath.

    She charged right at the cloaked figure and shed out at them.

    This time, the cloaked figure was at a disadvantage.

    This cloaked figure had been able to go even with Shadow Five before because they hadunched a sneak attack, but in a direct sh, the cloaked figure was clearly weaker.

    It wasn''t about strength anymore, but technique.

    The sword techniques of Shadow Five made her sword disappear, making it hard for the cloaked figure to even follow her sword.

    They weren''t able to stop these attacks and it didn''t take long before shes appeared on the cloak of this cloaked figure.

    The cloaked figure was being pushed back more and more, but they moved closer and closer to the window. If they wanted, they would still be able to escape at any time.

    I knew that I couldn''t just remain idle here or else we would never be able to find out who sent this person to kill me.

    So I moved to the door while saying, "Help, there''s an¡­"

    Before I could finish, I could sense dangering from the door.

    This was the sense of danger that I had built up over being in countless life and death situations, so I didn''t doubt it at all. It wasing right from the door in front of me.

    So I immediately ducked down.

    When I did, there was something that smashed through the door, creating a hole in it. This thing flew over my head and stabbed into the wall.

    This thing created arge hole in the wall after stabbing into it before falling to the ground.

    When it fell to the ground, I saw that it was arge broadsword that had been thrown through the door.

    This was a giant broadsword, but it had been thrown through the door that easily. It was clear that whoever did it had immense strength that couldn''t be looked down on.

    But it was a good thing that they had made such arge sound when they threw the broadsword through the door that it alerted the guards outside.

    It didn''t take long for there to be the sounds of guards stirring outside this room.

    It didn''t sound like it would take long for them to arrive.

    I just had to hold out until then.

    But through the hole in the door, I could see another cloaked figure with arge broadsword.

    This cloaked figure had not only brought one, but two broadswords.

    Now that I was on the ground like this, it was unlikely that I would be able to dodge this if he attacked me.

    I had an ugly expression on my face when I saw this.

    The cloaked figure also knew this, so he raised his sword as if he was about to throw it at me.

    But before he could, I heard a voice say, "Duck!"

    I didn''t hesitate at all to follow this order and ducked out of the way.

    As I lowered my head, I saw a dagger fly by past my head.

    This dagger was familiar¡­it was like the dagger that Shadow Five had thrown at the cloaked figure earlier.

    That dagger flew through the hole in the door at the cloaked figure outside.

    That cloaked figure was caught off guard by this dagger, but they were still able to react in time to lift the broadsword sideways to block this dagger.

    The dagger hit the broadsword and then bounced back into the door.

    This dagger throw didn''t do much, but it was more than enough to distract the cloaked figure, giving Shadow Five the chance to run back to my side so that she could guard me.

    The two cloaked figures looked at each other and then shared a nod, as if they were nning to attack together.

    But before they could, the sounds of the guards running up could be heard.

    When they heard this, they knew that they couldn''t stay here any longer.

    So therger cloaked figure swung his broadsword forward at the door in front of him.

 Chapter 419 A dark night (3)

    <h4>Chapter 419 A dark night (3)</h4>

    When the broadsword made contact with the door, the door wasn''t able to put up any resistance at all.

    The force at which the broadsword was swung with was transferred into the door and shattered the door to pieces.

    The fragmented pieces of wood flew out into the room.

    Seeing this, Shadow Five moved in front of me and swung her sword around to cut down the pieces of wood flying at us.

    During this time, she had made sure to keep her other hand on a dagger in her cloak just in case these cloaked figures made a move.

    But therge cloaked figure didn''te in our direction.

    Instead, therge cloaked figure started moving towards the other cloaked figure in the room.

    The two of them gathered right beside the window before suddenly¡­jumping out the window.

    They didn''t even bother looking back at us as they jumped out.

    That was how decisive these cloaked figures were.

    The moment that they realized that they had failed in the assassination, they didn''t hesitate at all to jump out the window to escape.

    Shadow Five and I hesitated for a second before slowly moving over towards the window to see what was happening outside.

    It was also at this time that the guards had reached my room and came in to see what was happening.

    When they saw Shadow Five, they immediately raised their weapons and shouted, "Don''t move! Step away from Count Zwein this instant!"

    I couldn''t help shaking my head when I heard this. But I raised my hand to stop them and said, "Stop, she''s my guard. The culprits just jumped out the window and ran away."

    The guards didn''t put down their weapons right away as they looked at me with doubt, but they eventually put their weapons down and turned to run outside to chase after the culprits.

    There were a few that stayed behind to make sure that I was alright.

    These guards looked at Shadow Five with a strange look, but they didn''t do anything to her.

    I just ignored them and walked over to the window with Shadow Five.

    When we looked outside, we were surprised by what we saw.

    The two cloaked figures were still there.

    I had thought that they would run away, but it turned out that this wasn''t the case.

    They were still standing outside the residence with their weapons raised, as if they were fighting someone.

    I couldn''t see that well since it was dark outside, but with the torches of the guards, I could see that there was someone standing there in front of them.

    I didn''t recognize this person at first, but then I saw that it was Shaka who had stopped them.

    As soon as I saw that it was Shaka, I turned to Shadow Five and said, "Go and help him capture those two. These guards can protect me."

    Shadow Five looked at me as if she was hesitating, but she gave a nod and jumped out the window in the end.

    She fell right down above the two cloaked figures and she swung her sword down at them, but they had noticed her and were able to react in time.

    Therge figure raised his broadsword and blocked Shadow Five''s sword. Then with onerge swing, he threw her back into the air.

    Shadow Five flipped a few times in the air beforending on the opposite side of these cloaked figures.

    The two cloaked figures were now trapped between her and Shaka.

    Shaka was surprised to see this new cloaked figure appear, but seeing that she was attacking his targets, it seemed like this new cloaked figure was an ally.

    To make sure of this, I shouted from the window, "She works for me! Work together to take them down!"

    Shaka looked up at me and his eyes rxed a bit when he saw that I was alright.

    Then he turned back down to look at Shadow Five.

    Shadow Five gave a nod before suddenly charging at the cloaked figures.

    When Shaka saw this, he also charged forward from the opposite side.

    The cloaked figures went back to back as they faced off against the two approaching enemies.

    The smaller cloaked figure was facing Shadow Five while therger cloaked figure was facing Shaka.

    But there was no contest at all.

    Shaka had been able to suppress both of them alone and now that he had backup, there was no chance that they would be able to fight back.

    There was a green glow that suddenly appeared around Shaka as he disappeared. When he reappeared, he was already in front of therge cloaked figure and was swinging his sword down at him.

    Therge figure was barely able to raise his broadsword in time, but he wasn''t able to resist the force of Shaka''s swing and was carried back by it.

    He hit the smaller cloaked figure behind him, knocking him off bnce which made it easier for Shadow Five to sh the smaller cloaked figure''s hands, forcing him to drop his sword.

    The two of them quickly fell to the ground and their weapons were thrown away from them.

    When they tried to get up, they found that both Shaka and Shadow Five had their weapons pointed at them so that they couldn''t move anymore.

    The guards had just approached at this time and quickly moved to surround the cloaked figures so that they wouldn''t have a single path of escape.

    Once they had trapped these two, Shaka asked in a deep voice, "Who are you?"

    Neither of the cloaked figures responded to this.

    Instead, they looked at each other as if they were trying to decide what to do next.

    But then¡­both of them suddenly started to shake.

    This shaking became more and more intense, almost as if they were having a seizure.

    Then all of a sudden, both of these cloaked figures copsed to the ground and stopped moving.

 Chapter 420 A dark night (4)

    <h4>Chapter 420 A dark night (4)</h4>

    When they saw these two cloaked figures copse, both Shaka and Shadow Five immediately moved away from them.

    They moved several steps back and kept their weapons at the ready, just in case this was some kind of trick the cloaked figures were ying.

    But the cloaked figures still didn''t move even when they had moved away.

    There was a tense silence thatsted in the air for a minute before Shaka slowly started moving towards the cloaked figures on the ground.

    When he came close enough, he poked the two cloaked figures on the ground with his sword.

    Only when he saw that they didn''t react at all to this did he finally lean down and touch their bodies with his bare hands.

    He slowly turned them around so that they were facing up before slowly reaching for the parts covering their face. But before he could reach it, there was a voice that called out¡­

    "Don''t touch them!"

    Shaka''s hand immediately froze in the air before he quickly pulled them away.

    He turned around to see me walking over.

    I was the one that had called out to stop him.

    I had started running out the moment that I saw the two cloaked figures drop to the ground like this.

    I knew that there was something special about this, so I had to stop Shaka from making a mistake.

    When they saw meing over, both Shaka and Shadow Five came forward to stop me from approaching.

    I didn''t challenge them on this and stopped before getting too close to the cloaked figures on the ground.

    But then I said, "Don''t touch them with your bare hands."

    Before either of them could say anything, I turned to the guards around us and said, "Someone get me some gloves!"

    The guards all looked at each other with confused looks, but there was one guard that ran off in the end.

    That guard came back with several pairs of gloves and a bunch of dwarves.

    These gloves were special gloves that were used for forging by the dwarves, so they were much thicker than usual. So these were gloves that were better than any gloves that he could have brought.

    I went over to that guard and took the gloves, but before I could put them on, Shaka and Shadow Five took them from me.

    I looked at them for a bit, but then I just gave a sigh as I said, "Put on the gloves and carefully open up their cloaks. Make sure that you don''t ssh any of it on yourself."

    The two of them were confused when they heard this, but they quickly understood what I meant when they pulled away the cloaks of the two on the ground.

    There was a green liquid that was dripping out of their mouths that had stained the cloak.

    Just one nce was enough for them to tell that this green liquid was some kind of poison.

    So they quickly pulled back their hands after peeling the cloak off the faces of these two.

    But when they saw their faces, they couldn''t help knitting their brows.

    That was because the faces that had been revealed werepletely disfigured.

    They were so disfigured that it was hard to believe that this was the face of a human.

    It was clear that whoever these two were, they were pawns that could have been sacrificed at any time.

    That was why they had been poisoned to death the moment that they were caught.

    Whether it was by their own volition or not¡­it was their fate.

    Shaka and Shadow Five both knitted their brows when they saw this, but there wasn''t anything that they could do about this since even they wouldn''t be able to find anything from these two.

    In the end, I came forward to take a look at the two of them and just shook my head.

    I turned to the guards and said, "Can you find someone to take care of these corpses? See if you can get them buried and if not, try to cremate them."

    Even if they were enemies that had tried to kill me, they were still victims who had no choice but to go through with this. I didn''t know their reason, but I couldn''t help feeling pity for these two who had been forced into this.

    So I wanted to at least give them a proper burial.

    Though when it came to the name for the tombstones¡­

    They would just be left nk.

    The guards looked like they had other thoughts about this, but they still listened to my orders in the end and went to find someone to take these corpses away.

    It didn''t take long for someone to arrive with a carriage to take them away to be buried, though judging by the looks of that person, it was most likely to be thrown in a mass grave.

    At least it was better than nothing.

    I was about to head in after that, but I didn''t get a chance since there were other carriages that suddenly arrived.

    When they opened their doors and people came out, I couldn''t help being surprised by who came.

    It was the fourth prince and the prime minister.

    Both of them were surprised to see each other, but then they came over together to ask me what had happened.

    I just gave a simple summary of what happened.

    When they finished listening to this, they couldn''t help knitting their brows.

    They wanted to see the corpses, but the person we had found had already taken them away.

    Though even if they did search the corpse, it wasn''t as if they would have been able to find anything.

    The prime minister was the one that spoke first, "Are the dwarven friends alright?"

    There was a slightly displeased feeling that came up inside of me, but I understood where he wasing from.

    This residence was the residence for the dwarven ambassador group.

    If an assassin had actually seeded, this would have be an international problem.

    So naturally that would be his first concern.

 Chapter 421 Who dares? (1)

    <h4>Chapter 421 Who dares? (1)</h4>

    I just calmly said, "The dwarves are fine, they weren''t here for them in the first ce."

    The prime minister let out a sigh of relief, not even bothering to hide it.

    He was about to say something else, but he suddenly closed his mouth when he saw the fourth prince re at him.

    He wanted to turn to say something to me, but the fourth prince was ahead of him.

    The fourth prince came over and asked with a concerned look, "Are you alright?"

    I was surprised since I never thought that the fourth prince would be so concerned about me.

    I just waved my hand and said, "I''m fine, they didn''t get to me."

    I turned to look at Shadow Five and said, "She saved me in the end. If it wasn''t for her, they might have gotten me in my sleep."

    The fourth prince looked at Shadow Five and gave a nod before saying, "Good work."

    He said it in a very simple manner that it didn''t seem like he was praising her, but Shadow Five was definitely touched by it.

    She immediately fell to one knee and said, "This subordinate is not deserving of this praise."

    The fourth prince just waved his hand and said, "Get up."

    Shadow Five stood up and then moved back to give the fourth prince space.

    The fourth prince turned back to me and said, "It''s good that you''re safe." Then his face turned a bit dark as he said, "Even though I had already made it clear that you''re one of mine, they still dared to move against you¡­"

    The things that he was mumbling seemed dangerous, so I pretended like I didn''t hear a thing.

    After mumbling for a bit, he looked at me and said, "Take care of yourself for now. I''m sure you''re tired after all of that. I''lle and see you tomorrow."

    I was surprised by thest part, but I didn''t even have time to say anything as he was already moving away.

    The fourth prince took onest look at me before turning to the prime minister to say, "Let''s go, we''re heading to the castle."

    The prime minister looked at the manor as if there was something that he wanted to do and he looked like there was something that he wanted to say when he turned back, but the fourth prince''s words made him swallow those words, "I''m sure that my royal father will want to know about this."

    When the prime minister heard this, he gave a gulp before quickly giving a nod.

    He realized that the fourth prince was right.

    The king was most likely waiting for a report.

    This was a matter of absolute importance after all.

    The dwarves were national guests and now they''ve been attacked in the residence that the king had provided for them. If this was known, it would be a p to the king''s face.

    So he naturally would want to know about this as soon as possible.

    So the prime minister gave a nod in the end before saying, "We should head back and report to his majesty."

    After that, the prime minister''s carriage followed the fourth prince''s carriage in the direction of the castle.

    It didn''t take long for them to disappear.

    Once they were gone, it was just our group that was left standing there.

    I turned to look at Shaka and asked, "What are you doing here? Didn''t you go back with Scar earlier?"

    Shaka just calmly said, "Boss told me to stay here and keep you safe. I didn''t know why, but it seems like he knows more than I do."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this.

    Did that mean that they already knew about the assassination attempt, so they sent Shaka to prevent it? Or was it something else?

    Shaka then added, "For now, all of my other missions are cancelled and I won''t be receiving any new orders. Until you leave, I''ll be guarding you."

    I gave a reassured nod when I heard this.

    I knew how strong Shaka was, so it was reassuring having him guard me.

    I had thought that I would have to get through this next period without him since he had been called back to headquarters by Scar, but now it seemed that they were going to protect me.

    Of course, I also knew that this was because they wanted to protect their own investment, but I was fine with it.

    As long as I had a powerful guard, it didn''t matter what the reason was.

    Plus, I could say that I''m quite close to Shaka after all that we''ve been through.

    I looked at him again with an inquisitive look, but he just gave a shrug as he said, "I don''t know anything else. No one told me a thing, so there''s no reason to look at me like this."

    I looked at him carefully, but dropped it in the end.

    After all, even if he was lying, I wasn''t able to see through it.

    Even after all the time that we had spent together, I still wasn''t able to read his expressions at all since he had a great poker face.

    Still, that didn''t really matter for now.

    After that was settled, we started heading back into the residence.

    But then I remembered one more thing.

    There was still Shadow Five standing there looking in the direction that the fourth prince had left in.

    It didn''t seem like she had moved an inch since he had left.

    I gave a cough before saying, "Do you want to go back to him? I have another guard now, so there''s no need for you to stay here anymore. You can go back to his side."

    Shadow Five slowly turned to me before saying, "My master has ordered me to protect you, so that is what I will do."

    Then before I could say anything, she disappeared without a trace.

    This was just like before where she had disappeared, but now I knew that she was most likely somewhere nearby hiding in the shadows watching over me.

    I just gave a sigh before heading in with Shaka.

 Chapter 422 Who dares? (2)

    <h4>Chapter 422 Who dares? (2)</h4>

    When the fourth prince arrived at the pce, there was no one that stopped him from entering.

    All of the guards immediately moved out of the way when they saw that it was the fourth prince.

    As for the prime minister who followed the fourth prince, no one seemed to care about him.

    It was as if they were all already used to seeing the fourth prince enter the pce like this.

    The fourth prince was very familiar with the corridors of the pce, as if he had been here many times before. But judging by how the guards acted around him, that seemed like it was very likely the case.

    The fourth prince didn''t take any time to reach a certain part of the pce.

    In this part of the pce, the guards were clearly different.

    As for how they were different¡­these guards were clearly much stronger and more serious than the guards outside. These guards were the elite guards of the castle, the ones that were all made of knights.

    And as for what they were guarding.

    As the fourth prince entered the room, the person inside said, "What''s the situation?"

    The fourth prince revealed a serious look and said, "They''re safe for now."

    The person inside the room gave a nod before saying, "Good. If anything happens to them, we won''t be able to live it down. All of our hard work will go to waste then."

    The fourth prince gave a nod of agreement, but he didn''t say anything.

    It was as if he didn''t want to say what he wanted to say next.

    As if he was hesitating to say what he wanted to say.

    The person in the room knew this, so he said, "Just say it already."

    Taking a deep sigh, the fourth prince said, "The ones that are behind this¡­"

    His voice trailed off after saying this, but before he could say the rest, the person in the room cut him off.

    "I know."

    The fourth prince closed his mouth and didn''t say anything, but the look on his face made it clear what he was thinking.

    The person in the room gave a sigh before saying, "Which one was it?"

    "Old second." The fourth prince said after a long sigh.

    The person in the room mmed his fist down the moment that he heard this before saying, "They dare to go against me directly like this? Who do they think they are?"

    The fourth prince shook his head before saying, "They weren''t nning on going against you per say, they were¡­trying to take out Count Zwein. He is too much of a variable in terms of the future, so they were trying to cull him while they could."

    "Even so, do they think that this crown means nothing?" As he said this, the person in the room pointed at the crown on the side.

    This was the crown of the king.

    The person that could be guarded by these elite guards was naturally the king.

    The fourth prince just shook his head and said, "That''s just how it is now. If they seeded, they could have med it on many other things. But once they fail, they will start cutting off their tails to escape."

    The king deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    Of course he had already expected the fourth prince to say this, so he said, "Have you made your preparations yet?"

    The fourth prince hesitated for a second before giving a nod.

    The king gave a nod back as he said, "Then do it."

    The fourth prince once again hesitated for a bit and this time, he said, "Are we sure that this is the best choice?"

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at the fourth prince before saying, "They are the ones that are colluding with others for their own benefits. Once they have betrayed the royal family, there''s nothing else we can say."

    The fourth prince still had a look like he was hesitating over something.

    The king saw this and knew what he was thinking, so he said, "Our duty as royals is to the people of the kingdom. It is our right to protect them and to keep them safe, that is our duty as the rulers of this kingdom. Once one of the royal family goes against that, they no longer deserve to be a part of the royal family."

    The fourth prince understood what the king was saying, but he still had to say, "Is there really no other way? Can we not¡­exile him?"

    The king shook his head before saying, "It was how it was when I took the throne and it is how it has to be now. You have to understand that showing weakness will be taken advantage of."

    In the end, the fourth prince gave a sigh before saying, "I will take care of this matter, royal father."

    The king gave a nod of approval when he heard this.

    He looked at the fourth prince with a look of appreciation.

    Since he was young, the fourth prince had always shown a knack for handling these matters. That was why the fourth prince was the prince that the king trusted the most out of all the princes.

    If he was willing, he would have chosen to give the fourth prince the throne.

    But the fourth prince just wasn''t willing, so it wasn''t as if the king could do anything.

    All he could do was wait for the one that they had decided on to take the throne to arrive.

    Once that person came, he would be able to rest easy.

    After a moment of silence, the king said, "How did it go with your sister?"

    The fourth prince revealed a faint smile that had a hint of bitterness to it when he heard this as he remembered what he had been through.

    But in the end, he kept it short for the king.

    The king revealed a faint smile before saying, "It''s good that she''s happy."

    The fourth prince nodded in agreement.

 Chapter 423 Act as bait

    <h4>Chapter 423 Act as bait</h4>

    The sun was bright the next morning even thoughst night had been so dark.

    There were even more guards that had been sent to the residence during the night.

    It seemed that the king was taking this event very seriously.

    Whether it was because it was rted to the dwarves or to me, it was hard to tell, but at least he was taking it seriously which was a good sign.

    I saw no sign of Shadow Five, but Shaka had stayed in the residence and was having breakfast with us.

    When we sat down, I asked him, "Did you get any more information about who attacked usst night?"

    Shaka slowly shook his head before saying, "We''re still investigating it, but¡­" He couldn''t help pausing as if he was hesitating to say something, but he still spoke in the end, "ording to my sources, we might be dropping this investigation."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this before quickly asking, "Shadow Garden, the biggest information organization in the kingdom is dropping this case?"

    Shaka took a deep breath before saying, "It''s said that it''s an order from his majesty."

    I knitted my brows, but I didn''t keep questioning him.

    After all, I could make a few guesses as to why this was the case.

    The biggest one was that the king didn''t want to make too much noise.

    If this made too much noise, it would be troublesome for not just the king, but the entire kingdom because it would ruin the new rtionship that they were building with the Dwarven Kingdom.

    There was also the fact that this was a p to the king''s face¡­

    He most likely would send his own people in to take care of this, people that he trusted more than Shadow Garden.

    Shadow Garden was arge organization with different people that had different agendas, so it was hard to control sometimes.

    Sending a small group of trusted individuals would always be better.

    Since they had decided not to push this matter, there was nothing that I could do about it.

    All I could do was try to keep myself as safe as possible so that nothing else like this happened.

    The dwarves were naturally concerned about me as well when they came in for breakfast, but they didn''t get any time to talk to me about this.

    That was because the fourth prince hade back.

    The fourth prince hade in right after the dwarves, so there was an awkward moment before they went to eat.

    I was surprised that the fourth prince was here as well, but I still said, "Your highness, are you here for a special reason, or are you here to just check in?"

    The fourth prince didn''t answer this question and instead looked at the breakfast on the table. He then said with a smile, "I haven''t had any breakfast yet, do you mind if I join you?"

    I was caught off guard by this sudden question, but since he was the fourth prince¡­it wasn''t as if I could say no.

    "Please help yourself. I just hope that you will not mind this poor selection."

    The fourth prince waved his hand with a smile before saying, "No such thing. This is a fine breakfast."

    All during breakfast, I kept watching the fourth prince, waiting to see just what he was here for.

    But the fourth prince didn''t do a single thing as he just ate.

    From time to time, he would chat with the dwarves, but it didn''t seem like there was much inmon for them.

    The dwarves were more open and free while the fourth prince¡­well he was sly by nature that it just seemed like there was a natural repulsion between the two sides.

    After we had finished breakfast, that was when the fourth prince finally made his move.

    "Count Zwein, if possible, may we speak alone?" The fourth prince suddenly asked as the maids were clearing the dishes away.

    I narrowed my eyes a bit as I looked at him, but I slowly gave a nod.

    I couldn''t read what the fourth prince wanted, so the only way to figure it out was to go along with him.

    The fourth prince gave a nod before saying, "Is there a ce where we can talk in private?"

    He looked at the dwarves when he said this.

    Once again, I gave another nod before standing up.

    As I stood, Shaka was about to follow me until the fourth prince said in a firm voice, "There''s no need for you toe. This is a private conversation."

    Shaka was taken aback when he heard this, but he was about to say something until the fourth prince took out something.

    It was a piece of paper that he showed only Shaka and not me.

    Shaka''s eyes narrowed when he saw this, but he backed down in the end.

    I tried to sneak a peek of that piece of paper, but the fourth prince put it away before I could.

    He turned back to me and said with a smile, "Shall we?"

    I looked at him with a strange look, but I still turned around and led him out of the dining room.

    As we left, there were some concerned looks that were pointed in our direction. However, the dwarves didn''t stop him since they knew who he was and they knew that this was my decision.

    We came to a room on the side which was used as a sitting room.

    I was about to go in, but the fourth prince suddenly stopped me.

    He looked around and said, "Where are you?"

    As soon as he said this, Shadow Five appeared out of nowhere.

    As I had expected, she had been hiding and watching over me.

    When she appeared, she fell to one knee and bowed her head to the fourth prince.

    He just said, "Stand by the door and keep guard."

    Shadow Five gave a nod before standing at the door without moving.

    The fourth prince ignored her and walked in.

    As I walked past, I couldn''t help looking at Shadow Five with a strange look.

    When the two of us were seated, the fourth prince suddenly said, "I want you to be bait."

 Chapter 424 Auction trap (1)

    <h4>Chapter 424 Auction trap (1)</h4>

    When I heard this, I immediately revealed a bitter smile.

    I had expected the fourth prince to ask me something since there was no way that he woulde see me for no reason.

    But never in my wildest imagination would I have thought that it would be this.

    After looking at him for a bit, I took a deep breath and asked, "Bait for what?"

    This time, the fourth prince hesitated as he didn''t answer right away.

    Instead, he just looked troubled for a bit before slowly saying, "We need you to bait someone that we want to catch."

    I just looked right at him and repeated again, "Bait for what?"

    I could understand what he was asking me, but I didn''t want to hear it.

    What I wanted to know was¡­who was behind this.

    It was clear that there was a reason why the fourth prince wanted me to be bait.

    My guess was¡­it was because I was bait for the person who sent those assassins yesterday.

    The fourth prince knitted his brows a bit when he heard this.

    He naturally knew what I was asking of him and it seemed like he was thinking about whether he was going to tell me or not.

    But in the end, he said with a sigh, "It''s the second prince¡­or rather the subordinates of the second prince."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this.

    I never thought that it would be the second prince who sent those assassins after me.

    However, I could understand why he would do this.

    The ore trade with the dwarves, it was an important thing for the military. There was a severeck of ores to forge weapons and armour for the military, which was why this deal was so important.

    So naturally the one who controlled the deal would have a lot of sway in the military in the future.

    The ones that supported the second prince were the generals and the important characters of the military.

    So if I gained sway in the military, it would be the same as encroaching on his territory.

    Not to mention, I didn''t support the second prince.

    If I weakened his hold over the military and gave that power to another prince, it would be dangerous to him in the future.

    What the second prince was doing was covering his bases, making sure that the foundation of his power was secure.

    That meant taking care of me before I could take over his power.

    This was just a survival strategy which I could understand, but of course I couldn''t approve of it since it was a strategy that sacrificed my life.

    Since that was the case¡­

    I looked at the fourth prince and gave a nod of agreement.

    The fourth prince wasn''t surprised seeing this since he could understand what I was thinking, so he started telling me the n.

    "There will be an auction held this afternoon. I need you to go to that auction and be bait for the second prince. He should already know that his assassination attempt failed, so he will be desperate. If you appear in a public ce like this at a time like this, he will without doubt try to kill you. When that timees, we will capture him."

    I gave another nod to show that I understood, but I still asked, "Why are you doing all of this to catch him? Why not just catch him? You should know where the second prince is."

    The fourth prince revealed a bitter smile before saying, "It''s not as simple¡­It''s not the second prince that we want, but rather the people that are behind him. They''re the ones that really sent the assassins, so they''re the ones that we want to catch to prevent this from happening again."

    Then with a sigh, the fourth prince added, "They''ve been hiding for a while now and we haven''t been able to find them, but we''re certain that they will move on you if you appear in a public ce."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows a bit when I heard this before asking, "How are you so certain of this?"

    The fourth prince didn''t borate this time as he just said, "I have my methods."

    I looked at him with a strange look, but since he didn''t want to speak, it wasn''t as if I could force him to speak.

    So I just said, "Alright, then how should we do this?"

    The fourth prince gave an appreciative nod when he heard this and he started exining the n. At the same time, he pulled out a piece of paper for me which turned out to be a map of the auction house.

    It turned out that this was an auction that was run by the royal family, so that was why they chose this ce to be the ce where they took action.

    After he exined everything, the fourth prince added, "For your help, we''ll be sure to cover your expenses at the auction house."

    I narrowed my eyes after hearing this before asking, "You mean¡­"

    I let my voice trail off, but the look in the fourth prince''s eyes showed that he understood what I meant.

    So the fourth prince bluntly said, "You can buy whatever you want."

    I revealed a faint smile when I heard this, but I still had to ask, "The limit?"

    The fourth prince was surprised to hear this, but then he said with a faint smile, "Well, you should know what the limit is in your heart. There''s no need for me to say anything."

    The smile on my face became wider.

    Basically, I had been just given a ck card to spend however I wanted at the auction.

    Since this was an auction that was being held by the royal family, there was sure to be some treasures there.

    I would have helped even without this since this was something that threatened my life, but since they were offering, there was no reason for me to reject this.

 Chapter 425 Auction trap (2)

    <h4>Chapter 425 Auction trap (2)</h4>

    That afternoon, there was a carriage that was outside the residence waiting for me.

    This carriage had been prepared by the fourth prince and was supposed to bring me to the auction that was being held.

    When I came out, there was only Shaka who was following me.

    As for Shadow Five, she was hiding somewhere in the shadows.

    The dwarves came out to send me off, but they had worried looks on their faces.

    The one that had the most worried look on her face was Elsa.

    I had told them about what the fourth prince had told me since this was something that involved them.

    They had naturally been worried, even if they were worried for ulterior motives.

    It was only Elsa who seemed like she was genuinely worried.

    Before we left, she asked, "Do you really have to do this?"

    I just gave a slow nod and said, "It has to be done or else they''lle after me again."

    She deeply knitted her brows when she heard this before saying with a sigh, "Just be careful."

    I gave a nod before turning to the other dwarves and saying, "You guys should be careful here as well. There''s no telling what they will do while I''m gone."

    The other dwarves all patted the axes that they had beside them as if they were telling me not to worry.

    Seeing them with their axes like this, I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile.

    After all, this was what I thought of when I thought of fantasy dwarves.

    That or with hammers at their side.

    But I also knew that there was no need to worry about these dwarves.

    They were powerful enough that they would be able to fight against armoured knights even without any armour on themselves.

    That was just how strong dwarves were in this game.

    I wouldn''t need to worry about them.

    What I needed to worry about was myself.

    So after a few parting words, I got in the carriage and we headed off.

    The driver was also someone sent by the fourth prince and would act as a guard if need be.

    I could see that there was a dagger hidden on the seat near the driver, so he was most likely some kind of assassin that worked for the fourth prince.

    To send all of this, it really made it hard for me to calm down.

    I was about to walk into a situation where I would be acting as bait, it would be strange if I was actually able to calm down.

    After all, this was a very dangerous thing that I was about to do.

    As we headed to the auction house, Shaka suddenly said, "If worstes to worst, just run. Once you get to the main street, they won''t be able to do a thing to you. You don''t need to worry about me."

    I was surprised to hear these selfless words from him, but then again, they weren''t that strange.

    Shaka had been a very loyal guard during all of the time that we had been together.

    He had always been there to protect me when I was in danger and even now he was putting his life on the line for this.

    While I didn''t know why he was doing all of this, it was a lie to say that I wasn''t touched.

    I knew that he was showing his concern for me by saying this, so I said, "You don''t need to worry. I have a few tricks up my sleeve."

    Shaka raised a brow to look at me, making the doubt in his eyes clear.

    But he didn''t say anything else as he just left things as they were.

    Even though this was a carriage that had been prepared by the fourth prince, it took longer than normal for us to get to the auction house.

    This was arge scale auction that was well known throughout the city, so there were plenty of people that wereing to this auction.

    These were all people with wealth and influence in this kingdom, befitting of an auction that was run by the royal family.

    So the streets were closed off for their carriages to get through.

    This carriage that we were taking was disguised as a normal carriage so as to not attract attention, so it took even longer than usual for us to arrive.

    Because of this normal appearance, the guards of the auction house even came forward as if they wanted to make us leave.

    But when the driver showed them a token, they immediately cooperated with us and guided us to the main entrance.

    Normally, I would have entered through the side entrance for events like this to avoid attracting attention, but attracting attention was what I had to do here.

    That was my job as bait.

    The normal carriage was just to make sure that we didn''t get ambushed on the way.

    Once we were here, it was time to create as big a scene as possible.

    When we arrived at the main entrance, there was a crowd that was gathered.

    Seeing everyone here like this, it was almost like a red carpet even from my past life.

    But thinking about it, it did make sense since the guests were all rich and powerful people.

    There were also some regr guests, but they were entering in a much more lowkey manner.

    The people that had gathered around the entrance were those that worked with the news and those that had gathered to watch the fun.

    When each carriage arrived, the owner of the carriage was announced before they came out in front of everyone.

    So when our carriage arrived, the crowd couldn''t help being surprised.

    Many of them thought that it was a mistake for our carriage to be here.

    That was until the person announcing people said, "Presenting Count Zwein."

    As soon as he said this, all of the onlookers realized that they shouldn''t judge a book by its cover.

    I took a deep breath before opening the door anding out of the carriage.

 Chapter 426 Auction trap (3)

    <h4>Chapter 426 Auction trap (3)</h4>

    When I came out, there were many different whispersing from around me.

    But the gist of it was¡­

    "He''s so young¡­I never thought that there would be a count this young."

    Most of the crowd was surprised by my age.

    There were some that doubted that I was a count, there were some that were wondering where I hade from, and there were some that¡­

    "I wonder if he has a wife or a concubine. If he doesn''t, I would volunteer."

    "Psh, a skinny girl like you? He needs a real woman like me."

    "None of you will be able to satisfy him. Only someone as thick as me would be able to satisfy him."

    Thestment sent a chill running down my spine.

    It wasn''t because I was turned on by it¡­it was because the one who had said it was a muscr man who acted in a feminine manner.

    The way that he looked at me sent a powerful chill down my spine.

    One that made me want to leave this ce as soon as possible.

    But I forced down that feeling and slowly walked towards the auction house.

    I could have made my way through quickly, but the point of all of this was to draw attention. So I made my way slowly through the crowd and to the entrance of the auction house.

    Before I could make it, one of the people who had gone in before me suddenly turned around and walked over to me.

    It seemed like he wanted to talk to me with the way that he was walking over, but I didn''t know this person at all.

    I only knew that he must be some kind of noble to be walking through the crowd like this, but I didn''t know who he was or what his rank was.

    When he came over, this man revealed a wide smile and said, "Count Zwein, I''ve been wanting to meet you for a long time now."

    I had no choice but to reveal a smile as I said, "Um, I don''t believe that we have met before. May I ask who you are?"

    The man didn''t seem offended since it was true that we had never met before. He just reached a hand out and said, "I am Viscount Teomold, I have some territory near your territory. I was nning on visiting you when you became a viscount to greet you, but I was told that you were making a trip to the Dwarven Kingdom. I can see now that you were there on some important business."

    I was surprised to hear that he was someone that had territory near mine.

    Since I left most of the management of my territory to Rose, I didn''t actually know much about the surrounding area of my territory.

    I peeked at Shaka and he gave a nod to confirm this.

    Seeing this, I looked at Viscount Teomold with a smile and said, "Sir Viscount, it is an honour to meet you. I''m sorry that we never had a chance to meet before, but I''ve been busy with my work."

    Viscount Teomold said with the same smile, "Not a problem, not a problem. I''ve already heard of all your aplishments, so I don''t me you at all. I''m just d that you were able to make this auction, or else I really might not have had the chance to meet you."

    Just like this, the two of us exchanged a few simple greetings.

    Then, Viscount Teomold suddenly changed the topic.

    The topic that he chose made me understand why he had approached me in the first ce.

    "I''ve heard that you''ve secured a trade deal with the dwarves." He said in a slow and deliberate voice.

    After I heard him say this, I gave a secret coldugh.

    As I had expected, this noble wouldn''t approach me unless he had a reason for approaching me.

    And his reason was that he wanted a slice of the ore trade with the dwarves.

    But I didn''t mind this.

    If he was anyone else, I might deflect this to the king.

    But since he was someone that had territory near mine, it was inevitable that we would have contact with each other.

    He was someone that I had to deal with regardless of how I felt.

    So it was a good idea to build a good rtionship with him now¡­

    Well, a good rtionship was a stretch.

    What I really wanted to do was make him dependent on me.

    Once he was dependent on me, no matter what happened in the future, he would be on my side. If he didn''t stick with me, he would lose out on all the benefits that he gained from me.

    My ultimate goal was to make him so dependent on me that his territory would copse if he tried to separate from me.

    This was the goal for all of the territory around me and it was possible because of the trade deal with the dwarves.

    So I said with a sly smile, "Yes, that is the case."

    When he heard this, Viscount Teomold''s eyes suddenly lit up before he forced himself to calm down. He gave a cough as if he was calming himself down before saying, "That is quite the impressive feat. I''ve heard that the dwarves are quite istionists, I never thought that anyone would be able to crack that shell."

    He was just beating around the bush at this point.

    It was clear what his goal was, but he didn''t know how to jump into it.

    It was hard for him just to say that he wanted the ore.

    But my n hinged on him wanting a piece of this trade, so I decided to throw him a little bone.

    "The ore trade will be bringing quite a few ores to my territory, much more than we can digest by ourselves." I said in a deliberate manner.

    Viscount Teomold''s eyes lit up when he heard this.

    "If that''s the case, I think I can help you with that." He said with a smile on his face.

    I revealed a faint smile when I heard this.

 Chapter 427 Auction trap (4)

    <h4>Chapter 427 Auction trap (4)</h4>

    "Then let''s discuss this further at ater date." Viscount Teomold said with a wide smile on his face.

    I said with a nod, "I hope that you''ll help me spread the news to the others."

    Viscount Teomold''s lips twitched a bit, but in the end, he still said, "I''ll do my best." Then after a pause, he added, "But there are some people that aren''t as willing to listen, so I hope that you understand if I fail, Count Zwein."

    I revealed a knowing smile when I heard this before saying, "Just do what you can. I''m not expecting much."

    Viscount Teomold''s smile became wide again when he heard this as he said, "Of course, of course. I hope to have a long cooperation with you."

    I gave a nod without saying anything.

    As Viscount Teomold walked away, I looked at him and gave another secret coldugh.

    There are people that aren''t willing to listen?

    In front of all this ore and a connection to the Dwarven Kingdom, who wouldn''t be willing to listen?

    I knew that he was just trying to keep this secret so he could earn as many benefits as he could off me. At most, he would just tell this to a few other nobles that he was close with so that he could keep the benefits within his group.

    But his thinking was just too small.

    After all, there was no way that he and his noble friends would be able to digest all of the ore that I was getting from the Dwarven Kingdom.

    After he saw all this ore, if he still didn''t tell others, it would be equal to offending me.

    He would have no choice but to spread word of this.

    At the same time, it wasn''t as if I would just rely on him alone to spread the word.

    The actions of a small viin really weren''t worth paying attention to.

    After Viscount Teomold left, there were other nobles that came forward to talk to me.

    Most of them were talking to me for the same reason, they had all heard about the trade deals with the Dwarven Kingdom and they wanted a slice of it. But when it came to these people, I didn''t respond as enthusiastically as I did with Viscount Teomold.

    All of them were nobles that I had never met before and they were nobles that didn''t have territory near me.

    There was no incentive for me to build this rtionship with them while I was still trying to take over the area around my territory.

    If one stretched their business too wide, there would be holes that would form.

    Once holes formed, there would be the danger of creating gaps and dangers of making mistakes.

    One had to make sure that they kept the core of their business tight so that no one could take advantage of it.

    As such, I gave them all ambiguous responses when they asked me about the ores.

    It was clear by the looks on their faces that they were unhappy about these responses, but I didn''t care at all. I wasn''t afraid of them since this was a trade that was backed by both a duke and the king.

    Even if they were unhappy, it wasn''t as if there was anything that they could do to me.

    Of course, I didn''t burn the bridge with thempletely since I didn''t know what Haley wanted to do.

    We couldn''t use up all of the ores and it was impossible even if we included all of our neighbours. So we would have to eventually sell these ores to others.

    It was just that before we did, I wouldn''t make anymitments.

    I would leave it all the Haley when the time came.

    After talking to these nobles for a bit, I was finally able to enter the auction house.

    But before entering, I gave Shaka a look.

    He gave a nod in response to this to show that he had also seen it.

    There were some cloaked figures that had entered from the side entrance while we had been talking to the nobles.

    They were either our targets, or here to do some shady business.

    It was better to keep our eyes on them than to let them leave unnoticed.

    So Shaka gave a sign to the driver to let him take care of this.

    The driver was our link to the fourth prince''s forces, so he would pass this message on to the fourth prince for us.

    After entering the auction house, we were immediately greeted by a beautiful woman.

    At first, I didn''t think that she was here for me, but then she came up right in front of me.

    She gave a bow before saying, "Count Zwein, thank you foring to our auction house today. I will be your guide for today''s auction."

    It seemed that she worked for the auction house and was here to guide me.

    As we followed her in, I looked over at Shaka.

    Shaka saw me looking over and shook his head.

    What I was asking him was if this beautiful woman was an assassin or a guard and his response was no.

    As far as Shaka could tell, she was nothing more than a simple worker for the auction house.

    The beautiful woman led us up a set of stairs and up to a different floor.

    The rooms that were on this floor werepletely different from the rooms down below.

    It was clear that this was some kind of VIP space.

    But we didn''t stop there.

    She led us up another set of stairs and brought us up to an even more luxurious floor.

    This was most likely the VVIP area, reserved for only the most important guests.

    I couldn''t see how I would be able to make it up here, but I knew why I was here today.

    It was the fourth prince.

    He was the one that had prepared this room for us.

 Chapter 428 Auction trap (5)

    <h4>Chapter 428 Auction trap (5)</h4>

    After showing us to our room, the beautiful woman just stood there by the door as we settled in.

    Shaka was about to go stand on the side, but I waved for him toe over and sit down with me.

    He was about to say something, but I just shook my head.

    In the end, he came over and sat down with me.

    When the beautiful woman saw that we had settled in, she moved forward from the door where she had been standing and came to the side.

    I was surprised to see her still here since I thought that she would leave after showing us this room, but she came right up beside me and said, "Count Zwein, how are you liking this room? Is there anything that I can do to make it morefortable for you?"

    I narrowed my eyes a bit, but sensing no hostility from her, I said, "No, there''s no need for anything. I''m veryfortable right now."

    But even after I said this, she didn''t seem to get the message and came in closer.

    She leaned forward and said, "If there''s anything that you want, please feel free to tell me."

    After saying this, she brought her hands up to her chest and crossed them under her breasts, entuating them before saying, "And I do mean anything."

    When she made it this clear, even a fool would be able to understand what she was trying to say.

    I had thought that she was an assassin, but that wasn''t the case.

    She¡­was just trying to pull herself up with her beauty.

    She was most likely a middle level worker for this auction house, so she was trying to use her body to seduce me so that I would take her as a concubine.

    I couldn''t help wondering just how many people she had tried this with before and then a feeling of disgust filled me.

    I liked my women ssy instead of cheap like this.

    She was without a doubt beautiful, but the inside¡­was rotten.

    So I couldn''t help feeling disgusted by this fruit.

    I flicked my hand to push her back before saying in a cold voice, "I''m fine. That is all."

    When I spoke in this cold voice, the beautiful woman felt a chill run down her spine and she couldn''t help taking a step back. She opened and closed her mouth, but in the end, she just said, "Alright. If you need anything, please don''t hesitate to call. I will be waiting outside the door to serve you at any time."

    I didn''t say a word as she left the room, I didn''t even bother looking in her direction since I was disgusted with her.

    But I could have sworn I heard something¡­

    "Could it be that he swings that way? No, it can''t be since he has a wife¡­Then is it because I didn''t show enough skin?"

    I did what I could to ignore all of this, but I did hear snickeringing from beside me.

    When I turned over, Shaka already had a straight look on his face.

    There were no signs that he had been the one that hadughed, but I knew that it was him.

    That was just how familiar we were with each other.

    I made a mental note to get back at himter on, but I couldn''t help thinking about how the beautiful staff member had acted.

    She did this so naturally¡­so did that mean that they were already trained for this?

    Not to mention, most of the people that could afford to use these VVIP rooms were all nobles and powerful merchants. For her to do this so naturally, did that mean that most of them were perverts in the first ce?

    This world was based on a H-game, so it wasn''t strange to see this.

    But I still couldn''t help feeling disgusted.

    Before I could think about this any further, there was a voice that came from in front of us.

    We looked down to see that it was some performers who had stepped onto the stage.

    It wasn''t the auctioneer since there was still around half an hour before the auction started.

    When we looked down, I could also see that there were a few people that were looking up and pointing at us while whispering.

    Shaka and I had deliberately brought our seats forward a bit just so people could see us.

    Some might think that we were vain because of this, but this was all part of the n.

    After all, we wanted to draw attention to ourselves so that we could aplish our goal.

    The show that was on the stage seemed to be some kind of y, but I really couldn''t get into it since we weren''t here to have fun in the first ce. All I could do was look down at the crowd, trying to find anyone that could be considered suspicious.

    But there wasn''t anyone that seemed to fit the bill.

    That was until I heard a voice call out from beside me.

    "Count Zwein, it seems that we''re meeting again."

    I could help being surprised when I heard this voice since I never thought that I would hear this voice again.

    Sitting in the VVIP room beside me was¡­the eldest prince.

    It was as if he hadpletely forgotten about what had happened between the two of us and he was acting like we were friends.

    But just yesterday, he tried to kill me.

    The thickness of his skin really was something else.

    However, it wasn''t as if I could just ignore the eldest prince since he had spoken to me.

    I looked at the eldest prince and calmly said, "Your highness, I never expected to meet you here today."

    The eldest prince revealed a faint smile before saying, "As you know, my royal family is the one that backs this auction house. I heard that there were some good items being sold this time, so I came to have a look."

    I couldn''t help narrowing my eyes slightly when I heard this.

    Was he telling the truth and it was just a coincidence or did he follow me here¡­

    Was he a part of the n to assassinate me?

    I couldn''t tell, so I had no choice but to force myself to smile right now.

 Chapter 429 Auction trap (6)

    <h4>Chapter 429 Auction trap (6)</h4>

    The eldest prince talked to me for a bit before sitting back down on his own balcony.

    After he was gone, I deeply knitted my brows as I tried to figure out just what the eldest prince was doing here.

    But I couldn''t think of anything no matter how I tried.

    It just didn''t make sense that the eldest prince would suddenly appear in this ce¡­

    I just spent the rest of the time before the auction thinking about all the different reasons that this might be possible.

    It was only when the auction began that I was finally pulled out of my thoughts.

    The auction started with the lights dimming in the room and a spotlight appearing on stage.

    When the spotlight appeared, there was a person that walked out who stood under it.

    This person didn''t look like an auctioneer, he looked like the perfect example of a crooked merchant. With his top hat, his round sses, his pencil thin moustache, and the evil look on his face.

    No matter how one looked at him, he seemed like someone that would rip you off.

    But when he came onto the stage, there were quite a few people that cheered for him.

    It seemed that he was quite the famous auctioneer.

    That evil looking auctioneer revealed a smile before saying, "Everyone, thank you foring to our auction today. I''m sure that there will be something here that will satisfy everyone''s tastes."

    With a wave of the hand, there were several people that suddenly pushed something onto the stage.

    This was arge thing that seemed like arge cage of some sort, but it was covered by a cloth so I wasn''t able to see what it was.

    But when I looked at it, the only thing that I could think of was that this¡­was some kind of cage.

    In the game, ves were a thing.

    Even in this kingdom, ves were a thing.

    I had stayed away from that since I just didn''t feel right about using ves, but that didn''t mean that the rest of the kingdom didn''t use them¡­

    So it was likely that there was a ve under that cloth¡­

    However, it turned out that I was wrong.

    When therge cage thing was brought onto the stage and the cloth was taken off, I found that it wasn''t a cage at all.

    Under that cloth was arge ss case that had something in the center of it.

    When I looked at it closely, it seemed like a shield that was carved out of jade.

    But one would think that a shield like this would only be for decoration and not for actual use.

    Not to mention, it didn''t seem that luxurious in the first ce.

    So why was the auction house selling this shield?

    The auctioneer could see the looks of confusion on the faces in the crowd, but he didn''t seem to panic at all when he saw this. He just revealed a faint smile as if he had already expected this and gave time for the crowd to carefully look at this shield.

    After letting them stew for a bit, the auctioneer suddenly said, "I''m sure that everyone is confused on what this thing is. Well, let me give you some ideas then."

    He walked over to the side of the ss case and raised a hand to gesture at this shield before saying, "This shield is a magic item that was discovered in the northern reaches of the kingdom. It is unknown what this item can do, but it does have one thing special about it."

    His voice fell after he said this and he didn''t tell everyone what was so special.

    Instead, there was a man with arge hammer that came onto the stage.

    This was a powerful looking man withrge muscles that lifted thatrge hammer like it was nothing.

    Aftering onto the stage, the staff members by the ss case opened it up and carefully brought out the shield. Another staff member had brought out a table that they ced the shield on.

    Therge man with the hammer came up in front of this and then lifted the hammer up.

    Everyone watched with bated breath as they waited to see what would happen.

    Then as they expected, therge man with the hammer mmed that hammer right down on the shield ced on the table.

    The force of this smash caused the legs of the table to split in half and the table copsed under this force.

    Everyone couldn''t help raising their hand to block the gust of wind that came from the stage.

    Once the gust of wind died down, they all stretched their heads out to look at the stage, to see what had happened to the shield.

    When therge man lifted up his hammer, they were all shocked to find that the shield under it didn''t even seem to have a single scratch on it. Even though it had been smashed with such force, there wasn''t a single dent.

    They had all expected it to be ruined, if not damaged from the force of this smash.

    Not a single one of them had expected the shield to be perfectly fine like this.

    Just what was this shield that could block this kind of strike?

    Or was it all a trick?

    The auctioneer came forward after therge man''s demonstration and said, "As you can see, this is a shield that is indestructible as far as we can tell. We have experimented with many different things, but not a single one of them was able to put a single dent in this shield. There is no doubt that whoever owns this shield will have the strongest absolute defense."

    The auctioneer then waited for a bit to let the tension rise in the crowd.

    He knew exactly what he was doing as everyone started to whisper to each other.

    After letting them go for a bit, he said, "Now, let''s start this auction. Do I hear an opening bid?"

 Chapter 430 Auction trap (7)

    <h4>Chapter 430 Auction trap (7)</h4>

    After that exaggerated demonstration, the bidding for this shield was quite intense.

    There were many people''s curiosities that were piqued by the absolute defense of this shield.

    Many of them were people that were very careful with their own lives.

    If they had this kind of absolute defense, then they would have another trump card to preserve their lives if they were ever in danger.

    However, I wasn''t interested in this item at all.

    It might seem tempting to others, but I knew the dangers that came with such an item.

    First, it would be hard to use.

    While an indestructible shield sounded great, it was just a shield in the end. Unless you were proficient with it, it was easy to avoid the shield and stab you still.

    Second, this was a magic item ording to the auctioneer, but they weren''t able to determine just what kind of magic item it was.

    In cases like this, the magic item would usually be some kind of key to open a rted questline.

    When I was trying to keep a low profile, buying something like this was sure to put a target on my back and that was thest thing that I wanted.

    So there was no reason for me to bid for this item.

    As we sat there, Shaka suddenly asked me, "Are you really not going to bid for this thing?"

    I was surprised when I heard Shaka ask me this.

    I never thought that he would want me to buy something.

    Seeing the way that I looked at him, Shaka said, "If it''s as strong as they say, it would be useful to have for your protection."

    Then as if he was adding it like an afterthought, Shaka said, "Not to mention, it''s not your wallet that you''re using."

    I revealed a faint smile when I heard this, but I still shook my head and said, "It''s not worth it."

    Shaka revealed a confused look when he heard this before asking, "How so?"

    I looked back at the shield on disy and said, "That thing is anything but ordinary. The price to pay for such a thing isn''t just the price it costs at this auction. You''ll be paying quite a bit more if you buy this thing."

    Shaka raised one brow as if he was doubting as he said, "Are you sure about this?"

    I just gave a nod as I said, "My instincts are usually right."

    He still looked like he didn''t believe what I said, but he didn''t say anything else on this matter.

    The bidding continued for this shield, but in the end, there was one bidder who won with a single bid.

    That bidder was the eldest prince.

    The moment that he made his bid, he stood up in front of everyone so that they could see him.

    They all looked up at him and immediately fell silent.

    Since the people that coulde to this auction were all powerful and rich people, they naturally recognized the eldest prince with a single nce.

    The moment that the eldest prince stepped out, this item was destined to be his.

    After all, there wasn''t a single person in this room that could offend the eldest prince.

    It didn''t matter what bid the eldest prince made, even a single gold coin extra was enough. But his pride wouldn''t allow himself to win in such a cheap manner, so he raised it by a proper amount.

    The auctioneer knew that this was over, so he quickly ended this first auction by selling it to the eldest prince.

    The eldest prince stood up once more after winning this bid to wave his hand at everyone.

    Since he won this item and revealed his face for it, he had no choice but to stand out a bit more.

    Once that was done, the auctioneer continued by bringing out the next item, but this item wasckingpared to this first one.

    It seemed that they had used this shield as the item that drew everyone''s attention and the following items were nothing more than normal items.

    This was amon strategy used for any sale.

    You put the best item out front to attract attention and then slowly sell the other items that weren''t as good.

    So there was a lull that fell onto this auction as the excitement from the first item died away.

    That didn''t mean that the items that were being auctioned were not good items.

    These were items that had been put in this auction backed by the royal family, so of course they were still top tier items. There were still people that were fighting to get these items, just less than before.

    As the items came out, I really didn''t see anything that caught my attention.

    However, I knew that I would have to bid on something eventually.

    It was my job to attract attention to myself at this auction, so I had to make a big bid to do that.

    I didn''t mind since it wasn''t my money in the first ce, but there just wasn''t anything that I wanted.

    As more and more items were sold, I couldn''t help thinking to myself, "Do I just have to bid on something random?"

    These things weren''t bad, but they really weren''t things that I wanted for myself.

    Instead of bidding for something that I didn''t want, I would have preferred bidding for something that I did want.

    Time kept passing and more items were sold.

    It finally reached a point where I thought that I had no choice but to bid on something random or else there would be no items left for me to do so.

    But before I did that, there was finally something that came out that caught my attention.

    "Ladies and gentleman, please turn your attention to the next item." The auctioneer said as a beautiful woman brought up something small on a pillow.

    She came right up onto the stage with the auctioneer and stood there beside him while holding this item.

 Chapter 431 Auction trap (8)

    <h4>Chapter 431 Auction trap (8)</h4>

    The moment that I saw this beautiful woman, I knew that something was up.

    Before this, all of the staff that had brought the items up were normal staff members that weren''t excessively showing their beauty.

    For them to suddenly swap this up¡­

    It was very likely that this item was a bust that they were trying to use sexual appeal to promote.

    Hence the beautifuldy bringing it up.

    But when I saw what it actually was, I couldn''t help revealing a wide smile.

    This was just the thing that I had been looking for!

    This was something that I wanted!

    When the auctioneer pulled away the cloth hiding the item, a small bag was revealed.

    On the pillow, there was this small bag that seemed like a coin pouch that was ced there. There wasn''t anything special about this small coin pouch other than the symbol that was right in the center of it.

    However, not a single person in the crowd was able to recognize the symbol.

    There were a few people that were more magically inclined that were able to sense the magic energy fluctuationsing from this coin pouch, so they were able to tell that this was a magic item.

    They were now just waiting to see what the auctioneer had to say.

    But the auctioneer had been silent for a reason¡­

    in and simple, there wasn''t much for him to read in the first ce.

    When he finally spoke, all he said was, "This is a magic pouch that was found in the north. We have no idea what it does, but the magic energy fluctuationsing from it do indicate that it''s a magic item."

    That was it.

    There was nothing more than that.

    That was all the information that he had been given.

    They were just selling this item because they were told to sell the item, but with nothing special about this item, it made it really hard for them to sell.

    That was why they had to do all that they could to try and sell this item, hence having this beautifuldy bring it up.

    But after the crowd heard this, they all revealed disappointed looks.

    Not a single person looked like they were interested in this item.

    Though there were a few that seemed like they wanted to take advantage of this.

    Even if they didn''t know if it did anything, this thing was still a magic item. As long as they bought it and sold it to someone unsuspecting, they would be able to get a good price for it.

    Or for the nobles, they could use it as a gift and pretend that it was something amazing.

    So there were still people that wanted to take advantage of this and get this magic bag for cheap.

    It was just too bad for them that I had set my eyes on this thing.

    After all, I recognized the symbol that was on the bag, so I knew what this thing actually was and what its true value was.

    The auctioneer just wanted to get the auction of this thing over with as soon as possible, so he said, "Now, let''s get this auction started. The starting price will be fifty gold coins and each bid needs to increase by a minimum of five gold coins."

    Comparing this to the other bids, the starting price and the minimum bid increase was quite low.

    After all, the shield from before had sold for over ten thousand gold coins.

    This magic bag was only going for fifty gold coins which was considered nothing.

    One could even hear the disappointed tone in the auctioneer''s voice as he said this.

    But even then, there wasn''t a single person that was willing to bid.

    They all thought that fifty gold coins was too high of a price and were waiting for the auctioneer to reduce the starting price.

    Only then would they make a bid to get this thing for cheap.

    Or at least that was the n for these people until I made a bid.

    I suddenly stood up to Shaka''s surprise and walked out onto the balcony so that everyone could see me.

    However, no one was paying attention to me until I spoke since no one had expected me to give a bid.

    "A thousand gold coins."

    I said this in a calm voice, but because of the spell that had been cast on this balcony, they were able to hear my voice clearly. As my voice rang out through the auction hall, everyone revealed shocked looks.

    They slowly looked up at me with those shocked expressions and looks of disbelief in their eyes, as if they couldn''t believe what they had just heard.

    Even the auctioneer looked at me with that same look of shock and disbelief.

    There was only silence that hung in the air after I made this bid, but that was the reaction that I wanted.

    I could have just made a smaller bid of a hundred gold coins, or even bid fifty like they wanted without anyone wanting topete with me, but that wouldn''t have stood out as much.

    Only by making thisrge bid would I be able to make thisrge impression.

    In the end, it wasn''t my money anyway, so there was no hesitation in making thisrge bid.

    After that long moment of silence, the auctioneer couldn''t help asking, "This guest, can you please repeat what you just said? I don''t think I heard it correctly."

    Once again, I calmly said, "A thousand gold coins."

    The auctioneer''s eyes lit up when he heard this before he quickly said, "This guest on the third floor has made a bid of a thousand gold coins. Is there anyone else willing to make a bit for this?"

    When they heard this, all of the other guests couldn''t help revealing a bitter look.

    A thousand gold coins for this small bag?

    Was he crazy?

    This was a price that none of them would pay for such a small thing.

    Not to mention¡­the one that made this bid was someone from the third floor.

    That was the VVIP floor that only had the most powerful guests.

    The other person who had made a bid from that floor earlier was the eldest prince, so whoever this person was definitely wasn''t someone that could be underestimated. If they dared to bid against this person, there was no doubt that they would offend him.

    For a small trinket like this bag, no one was willing to take this risk.

    So there was only silence that followed after the auctioneer asked this question.

    Of course, the auctioneer had already expected this reaction from the crowd.

    The only reason that he had asked this question was because he was doing his job. He had been required to ask this question since this was an auction.

    Seeing that there were no responses from the crowd, the auctioneer quickly gave the three count and said, "Sold to the guest on the third floor!"

    I just gave a nod before sitting back down with a satisfied look on my face.

    In one move, I had achieved my goal and had obtained something very valuable to me.

    It seemed that this trip had been worth it.

 Chapter 432 Auction trap (9)

    <h4>Chapter 432 Auction trap (9)</h4>

    After I finished bidding, I sat back down in my seat.

    Shaka looked at me with a raised brow, but I just ignored him as I waited for the item I had won to arrive.

    But before that, there was another nuisance.

    "Count Zwein, is there something special about that small bag that you would pay this much to buy it?"

    This was a voice that came from beside my room. This was a voice that came from the room next door.

    It was the eldest prince who had suddenly asked this question.

    I turned to see that he was leaning on the edge of the balcony, looking over at me.

    I just calmly looked at him and said, "I have no idea. I was in need of a coin purse and I felt that this pouch looked good. It''s a magic item too, so it''ll be good to show off to others."

    The eldest prince looked at me with slightly narrowed eyes when he heard this.

    The doubt in his eyes were clear, but there wasn''t anything that he could say.

    After all, there was nothing wrong with what I had just said.

    A noble spendingrge amounts of money to show off like this was normal. Not to mention that I was a noble that hadrge amounts of money because of the trade deal that I had with the dwarves.

    So for me to spend arge amount to show off now was just the perfect thing to do.

    After a long moment of silence, the eldest prince said with a smile, "Then I hope that you''ll have the chance to show off that coin pouch of yours."

    I just looked back at him with a smile as I said, "Thank you, your highness."

    Both of us returned to our private space after that.

    After he had turned around, the eldest prince looked at the butler that came with him and said in a cold voice, "Go and inform them of our friend''s presence at this auction. I''m sure that they will be very interested."

    The butler didn''t even ask any questions as he walked out of the room.

    The eldest prince sat down with a satisfied cold smile on his face.

    As I watched the eldest prince walk away, I could already guess what he was nning to do.

    But of course, this was what I wanted to see.

    The n was to draw attention to draw out the ones that would want to hurt me.

    If I could use the eldest prince to draw them out, that would make it easier for me.

    So there was no reason to use the eldest prince if he was willing to be used like this.

    It didn''t take long after sitting down for a knock toe from the door.

    After I said, "Come in." There was a beautiful woman that walked into the room with an item on a pillow.

    This was the same beautiful woman who had disyed this item on the stage, she was the one that had brought this item over.

    As for what this item was, it was the magic bag that I had just brought.

    She came over with that item and then presented it to me. As she did, she posed her body in such a way that I could see the sensitive parts of her in full.

    But I just ignored this and reached out to take the magic bag from the pillow.

    After I took it, Ipletely ignored her as I held that magic bag up in front of my face, looking at it from different angles.

    The beautiful woman wasn''t bothered by this at first as she waited for me to finish inspecting it.

    But then after I had finished inspecting it, I still didn''t spare her a nce.

    That was when she became worried.

    With a cough, this beautiful woman said, "Your lordship, if there is anything else that I can do for you, please don''t hesitate to tell me." Then as if she felt she needed to emphasize, she crossed her arms in front of her chest to emphasize her breasts which weren''t small in the first ce before saying, "Anything at all."

    I just calmly looked at her and asked, "You''re still here?"

    There was a look of shock that appeared on her face as she didn''t understand what was happening.

    When she made her intentions this clear, he still didn''t seem to care¡­

    She had never encountered this situation before.

    So she didn''t know what she should do in this situation.

    "I, this, I, this¡­" The beautiful woman stammered a bit without being able to say aplete sentence.

    I just looked right at her and said, "Can you please leave? I wish to be alone right now."

    Now that I''ve made my intentions clear, the beautiful woman didn''t dare stay.

    After all, I was someone that she didn''t dare offend.

    But as she walked away, I seemed to have heard something.

    "Does he swing the other way?..."

    "Pft."

    I heard more snickeringing from the side and I immediately turned to look at Shaka, but he already had a straight look on his face.

    As expected of someone who works in this line of work, his poker face really was something else.

    I just calmly said, "We''re not here for that kind of thing, are we? We should focus on what we have to do."

    He looked at me with a teasing smile as he said, "I don''t mind if you want to have a bit of fun before then. I can leave for a bit if that''s what you want."

    My face turned dark when I heard this as I said, "Stop ying around."

    Shaka just gave a chuckle before giving a nod and turning back to watch the auction.

    I couldn''t help giving a secret sigh after all of that.

    The nobles of this world really were giving all nobles a bad reputation that these women are just throwing themselves at them like this¡­

    I couldn''t stop the headache that was developing because of this¡­

 Chapter 433 Auction trap (10)

    <h4>Chapter 433 Auction trap (10)</h4>

    Since I had obtained the bag, I naturally couldn''t just leave it alone.

    I pulled the bag out again and started looking it over, as if I was trying to find something specific.

    Shaka peeked over from time to time to see if I could find anything, but I didn''t in the end.

    Or rather¡­I was deliberately not finding anything.

    The symbol that was on this bag was a dead giveaway of what this bag was.

    The symbol that was on this bag was the symbol of a famous magician, but he had long been forgotten because of the passage of time. His name was a name that only existed in history books and was known by famous magicians of this era.

    That was because he had once been the strongest magician in the world and the one that hadid the foundation for the current system of magic.

    It was the symbol of the first magician, Merlin.

    Of course, it wasn''t that Merlin from my world. Other than the name, they didn''t share anything inmon¡­well, other than being known as the greatest magicians in the world.

    The Merlin in this game world had been a ve who had awakened his magic powers when he was a child and had slowly developed them until he became the greatest magician in the world.

    With that, he was able to create the current Magicians Tower, which was the strongest magician organization in the world. The holynd of anyone that imed to be a magician.

    The reason why I recognized this symbol was because this bag was something that I had obtained in the game before.

    But the ce that I obtained it was different from here.

    This was an item that should have been found in the eighth prince''s treasury during the noble main quest line.

    After the eighth prince was defeated, this bag was supposed to be imed by the yer with the rest of the eight prince''s treasures.

    But this bag didn''t y a role until muchter when one unlocked the Merlin quest line.

    It was only then that the yer would be able to find the real use of this bag.

    It was a bag with spatial magic, just like the Storage Ring of the elves.

    However, this was a bag that was created by the greatest magician, so there was arge difference in storage space.

    There was a special way to open it, but I wouldn''t open it here while surrounded in danger.

    I would wait until I was alone to open this bag.

    So for now, it was time to watch the auction.

    The auction continued for some time after that.

    I had thought that they would be running low on items after the lull with the bag, but it seemed that this item was just considered an intermission. After this bag, there were many special items that were brought out one after another.

    There were some that I was even interested in, so I didn''t hesitate to bid for them.

    Since it wasn''t my money in the first ce, I didn''t care. If someone else was paying, then my wallets were quite loose.

    The crowd was surprised to see how much I was spending, but there were people that looked at me with thoughtful looks.

    These were most likely those that knew that I had obtained the trade deal with the dwarves.

    The way that they looked at me made it clear that they were surprised that I had this much money to spend. It was as if they didn''t expect me to earn this much money from trading with the dwarves.

    At the same time, it was clear that they were nning on talking to me about this.

    But that was too bad for them since I wasn''t interested in them.

    At the same time, it wasn''t as if this was my money.

    So that was why I didn''t hesitate to spend it.

    But seeing all the attention that I got, it was clearly a good sign.

    It just meant that our n was working well and hopefully the ones that we wanted to lure in would take the bait.

    After a long while, it was finally time for the final item.

    Since it was the final item, it was naturally a very special item.

    When it was brought out, there were several guards that came with it. They set up a perimeter around the stage so that not a single person was able to approach it.

    It was as if they were going all out to protect this thing.

    For the auction house to do all of this, it was clear that whatever they were about to bring out was beyond normal precious.

    When it was brought out, it was even surrounded by four powerful looking guards that wouldn''t let anyone approach.

    This thing covered by a cloth was brought right up onto a stage.

    When it was covered like this, one could clearly tell that it was some kind of tall case that held something.

    As for what was underneath that cloth, we would have to wait and see.

    But as this happened, I could see the looks of a few people in the crowd.

    It seemed that some people had already received leaked information and knew what this thing was.

    Judging by how excited they were, it should be something that was very special.

    Once the thing was brought onto the stage, the auctioneer revealed a wide smile.

    It seemed that even he was excited about this.

    So this thing that they had saved for the finale should be something that even the auctioneer didn''t get to see that often.

    With all of these signs, I couldn''t help feeling a bit excited.

    If it really was something that special, then I might have to buy it.

    After all, I currently had a special ck card that would let me buy anything I wanted.

    All I could do was apologize to the fourth prince''s wallet.

    The auctioneer came forward to the item brought up and reached out for the cloth as he said, "Now everyone, please get ready for our final item."

 Chapter 434 Auction trap (11)

    <h4>Chapter 434 Auction trap (11)</h4>

    With a single pull, he pulled the cloth off the case and revealed what was inside.

    When it was revealed, everyone couldn''t help but gasp.

    That included me since I recognized the item that he had just brought out.

    This was a sword that was disyed in this case that was as tall as him. It was a jet ck sword that had irregr juts out of the side of the de, making it look very sinister.

    This was a de that looked very dangerous.

    But because of this unique de, it was very easy to recognize what this item was.

    It was one of the Seven Cursed Swords.

    This was the Pain Sword Durand.

    But for me who had a deeper knowledge of this world than normal people, I couldn''t help finding it very strange that Durand appeared in this ce.

    That was because I knew where it was supposed to appear¡­

    This was an item that was supposed to appear from a dungeon that spawned not far away from the capital. This was a dungeon that was supposed to appear in three years from now, a dungeon that had caused a disaster for the kingdom.

    This had been considered a major event in the noble quest line.

    So what was this sword doing here?

    It should have been in that dungeon¡­

    No, that dungeon didn''t exist yet, so this sword shouldn''t have existed either since it was generated by that dungeon as loot.

    First there was Merlin''s bag and now there was Durand¡­there were just too many things that appeared that shouldn''t have been here¡­

    I couldn''t help feeling more and more confused about all of this.

    However, it only took a bit of thinking to realize what was happening.

    It was all because I was in the past that I encountered these things. These items existed in the world even before the events that I had experienced, so there was a history to them.

    Durand was a sword that had been famous for generations along with the rest of the Seven Cursed Swords, so it wasn''t as if it just existed in that dungeon.

    The reason why the yer couldn''t get it before was that the code of the game didn''t spawn this item before it was time for it to spawn. So in the game, this item only existed when the dungeon appeared.

    But now that this game world had be a real world and this was the past of that real world, it was only natural that these items appeared here¡­

    So someone must have won Merlin''s bag here and then handed it to the eighth prince.

    If that was the case though¡­then did that mean that the dungeon that appeared wasn''t actually a random event?

    Someone must have bought Durand today and they would have been the one that caused the incident in the future. Or they would have lost Durand to someone else and that person might have caused the incident in the future.

    In short, this meant that the dungeon hadn''t appeared at random like the game had presented.

    There was some kind of backstory for why it had appeared and I was now a part of that backstory.

    It really was a surreal feeling, like lifting the curtains and seeing all the careful preparation made behind the scenes. It was a feeling of being able to change the story before it was written.

    This was a feeling that I wasn''t use to, but it was an empowering feeling.

    If I were to buy Durand before it was used in whatever incident created that dungeon, wouldn''t I be able to save myself quite a bit of trouble?

    This was when I had the ability to pay however much I wanted to pay for this sword.

    I had an unlimited ck card from the fourth prince¡­

    I could only apologize to the fourth prince on this matter since I had made up my mind to buy this sword.

    If this would save me the trouble of having to deal with it, I wouldn''t hesitate.

    After he pulled off the cloth, the auctioneer could hear the gasps and see the reactions on the faces of the crowd. As he saw this, he revealed a faint smile before saying, "It seems like the guests recognize this item, so there''s no need for an introduction. Since everyone recognizes how valuable this item is, we will start the auction without dy."

    He walked back in front of the podium and said, "The starting price for this item will be ten thousand gold coins and each bid must increase by an increment of a thousand gold coins. Now, do we have any¡­"

    Before he could finish his words, there was a voice that rang out through the auction hall.

    "A hundred thousand gold coins!"

    It wasn''t my voice that rang out.

    This was a voice that came from my side.

    I didn''t need to look over to see who it was that said this.

    It was the eldest prince who had stood up in front of everyone and made this bid.

    When the people saw that it was the eldest prince, they all revealed ugly expressions on their faces.

    This was different from the first item where they had just given up as soon as the eldest prince made a bid.

    There were many of them that looked like they still wanted to make a bid when they saw that it was the eldest prince. It was just that they were hesitating as they were considering the pros and cons of this.

    But in the end, there was still someone that made a bid.

    "One hundred and ten thousand gold coins."

    "Two hundred thousand gold coins."

    As soon as that person made that bid, the eldest prince immediately doubled his original bid and suppressed them.

    Once he did that, it was no longer an issue of just his status, but also an issue of how much money he was willing to throw at this.

    This was not something that most nobles couldpare to.

    So it didn''t seem like anyone would be able to bid against the eldest prince.

 Chapter 435 Auction trap (12)

    <h4>Chapter 435 Auction trap (12)</h4>

    There was a silence that filled the auction hall after this bid from the eldest prince.

    Not a single person seemed like they were willing to raise the bid anymore after hearing the bid from the eldest prince.

    The auctioneer had waited because this was their big ticket item, the finale of their auction. If he just let the bid for this item end like that, then it would be bad for their auction house.

    But the auctioneer was also an experienced person and could read the room.

    He knew that at this point, it was very unlikely that there would be anyone else making a bid for Durand¡­

    He couldn''t me the eldest prince for this, it was just what it was.

    So with a secret sigh, the auctioneer said, "We have a bit from the VVIP guest on the third floor for two hundred thousand gold coins. Is there anyone that is willing to make another bid for this final amazing item. This is an item that you won''t be able to find anywhere else¡­"

    He went on to talk about all the amazing things about Durand, as if he was hyping it up.

    But everyone knew that he was just stalling for time so that other people would have the chance to bid.

    It was just too bad that no one had the intention to bid now.

    They just couldn''tpete with the eldest prince in terms of status or wealth, so they could only let him win.

    The auctioneer was quite skilled at stalling, but the eldest prince wasn''t about to let him keep stalling.

    The eldest prince knew that he had this bid all but won, so he didn''t want to waste more time with these games.

    The eldest prince came out and gave a cough.

    This cough wasn''t loud or soft, but it was heard all over the auction hall.

    When the auctioneer heard this, his words couldn''t help trailing off.

    He slowly looked up to see that the eldest prince was looking down at him.

    When the eldest prince did this, it was clear that he was putting pressure on the auctioneer to make him finish this auction sooner.

    The auctioneer had an awkward look on his face when he saw the eldest prince looking down at him like this, but there was nothing that he could do.

    After all, when the eldest prince acted like this, he would be the one that suffered the consequences if he disobeyed.

    So the auctioneer had no choice but to start the three count for this bid.

    "Two hundred thousand gold coins going once."

    "Two hundred thousand gold coins going twice."

    "Two hundred thousand gold coins going¡­"

    "Two hundred and one thousand gold coins."

    Right before he could finish this count, there was a voice that rang out through the auction hall.

    As soon as that voice fell, there was a silence that filled the hall.

    The eldest prince deeply knitted his brows when he heard this before he recognized this voice.

    The auctioneer had also been silent since he had been shocked by this sudden interjection, but he recovered quickly as a professional.

    Right before he was able to say anything, the eldest prince suddenly said, "Three hundred thousand gold coins."

    Everyone took a cold breath after hearing that, including the auctioneer.

    The eldest prince really didn''t y around.

    As soon as someone made a bid, he raised the price by another hundred thousand gold coins.

    This was something that only someone as powerful as the eldest prince could do.

    But at this point, this price was much more than what this item should be worth.

    Yet the eldest prince made this bid without any hesitation.

    It showed just how powerful the eldest prince was.

    The auctioneer revealed a relieved look after getting over his shock.

    He had been scared that this auction would end before it reached a point that he wasfortable with, but now that the eldest prince had made this bid, it was fine for him to end it.

    He really had to thank whoever made that bid just now or else it would have been him who would have been in trouble.

    Wasting no time at all, the auctioneer was about to count down the eldest prince''s bid since he didn''t believe that anyone else would make a bid.

    "Three hundred and one thousand gold coins."

    The same voice as before rang out and raised the price by a thousand gold coins just as before.

    The auctioneer turned in the direction of this voice with a strange look as he thought, "Brother, you''ve already done your job! There''s no need for you to keep bidding!"

    But I didn''t care at all as I made this bid.

    Yes, it was me who had made that bid at thest second earlier.

    I was the only one that didn''t care about the eldest prince and made this bid.

    This time, there was a deathly silence that hung in the auction hall as everyone looked up at the VVIP rooms with scared looks.

    This person had just outbid the eldest prince not once, but twice.

    And each time that he did this, he only raised the price by a thousand gold coins, the minimum amount needed to increase the bid.

    If this wasn''t an attempt to provoke the eldest prince, they really didn''t know what it was.

    If the eldest prince became angry, it was certain that his wrath would roll out on them in the audience. So they were all afraid of what would happen next, though not a single one of them dared to run.

    If they did, they would draw attention from the others and be punished first.

    So they all sat in their seats with tense nerves.

    The eldest prince didn''t say anything when he heard this bid, he just stood there with knitted brows as if he was trying to process this.

    But then he walked over to the side of the balcony and leaned in towards my balcony to say, "Brother Zwein, I really need this item. Will you give me some face and concede this bid?"

 Chapter 436 Auction trap (13)

    <h4>Chapter 436 Auction trap (13)</h4>

    When I heard this, I didn''t react at all.

    As he said this, the eldest prince had made sure to keep the voice enhancing magic on so that his voice was spread all over the auction hall.

    When they heard this, the crowd revealed shocked looks before looking up at us.

    Or rather, they were looking at the eldest prince since I was just sitting there without reacting.

    No one would have thought that the eldest prince would actually ask for a favour like this.

    After all, it was the eldest prince¡­

    There were few people that would have the same power as him in this kingdom, but there was someone that was strong enough that would make him ask for a favour.

    Just who was this person?

    As for those that recognized me, they couldn''t help revealing strange looks.

    After all, not a single one of them thought that I would be this powerful enough to make the eldest prince act this way.

    Even Shaka couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look when he saw that I wasn''t doing anything.

    There was a long silence that hung in the air as the eldest prince waited for a reaction.

    Though he had a calm look on his face, it was clear by the slight twitch of his lip that there was something happening beneath the surface. However, that couldn''t be med on him since that was just who he was.

    He was the eldest prince of this kingdom, the one who was only below a few people.

    He was not someone that was supposed to lower his face and yet when he did, he was being ignored like this by someone that he thought was beneath him. It was just too bad that he couldn''t directly do anything to this person that he thought was beneath him, or else he wouldn''t be acting this way.

    So after a bit of silence, the eldest prince said, "Then since I have Brother Zwein''s silent agreement, I''ll be taking this item."

    It had been my bid during this time, but the auctioneer was so shocked that he hadn''t said a single thing. He had just been waiting for the eldest prince''s reaction since he knew that the eldest prince wasn''t someone that he could afford.

    After the eldest prince said this, everyone let out a sigh of relief.

    It seemed that the person in the other VVIP room was still reasonable.

    He knew that there was nothing to gain from offending the eldest prince like this, so he was taking a step back with his silent acquiescence.

    The eldest prince turned back to the auctioneer and said, "Three hundred and two thousand gold coins."

    This time, he didn''t jump up another hundred thousand gold coins.

    Even for the eldest prince, this price was already a bit high and he wasn''t willing to spend more money than he had to. So he didn''t push it up any higher than he needed to.

    The auctioneer immediately let out a sigh of relief and was about to answer in kind.

    But then¡­

    "Three hundred and three thousand gold coins."

    Everyone took a cold breath when they heard this.

    This time, not a single one of them dared to look up since they could feel the rage that wasing from the eldest prince. Even if they didn''t see his face, they could feel the rage that wasing from his direction.

    So no one dared to look up at him out of fear of attracting his attention.

    The eldest prince''s face was really ugly to look at at this moment.

    It waspletely scrunched up with rage as he looked in my direction, but Ipletely ignored him.

    After another silence, the eldest prince said, "Brother Zwein, didn''t you already agree to let me have this item? What is the meaning of this?"

    There was a dark tone that appeared in his voice in thetter half of his words.

    This time, I didn''t keep my silence.

    "That''s just your own foolish delusions, when did I ever say that?"

    My voice wasn''t loud or soft, but it rang out clearly through the auction hall.

    The previous good feelings that everyone had for me hadpletely disappeared as all of them started to curse at me in their minds.

    "Who is this crazy idiot? Why would he provoke the eldest prince like this!? Didn''t he know that this was just taunting a bull with a red cape?!"

    All of them kept their heads down and not a single one of them dared to look up out of fear of being caught up in this.

    Even the auctioneer couldn''t help taking a few steps back as if he was afraid of getting caught up in this.

    The eldest prince looked like he wanted to eat me alive, but I just ignored it all.

    Shaka also looked at me like I had gone crazy, but I ignored him as well.

    Finally, the eldest prince took a deep breath and said, "Do you really mean this? Are you sure you understand what you''re saying right now?"

    I just gave a yawn before saying, "Can you hurry up and call it already? I still have other things to do."

    A synchronized cold breath passed through the crowd the moment that everyone heard this.

    They all felt like they had been thrown into a cooler with the chill that hit them.

    This man wasn''t just crazy, he was absolutely nuts!

    He was ignoring the eldest prince now even though the eldest prince was directly talking to¡­or rather directly threatening him.

    Where did such a persone from where he didn''t care at all about any of this?

    The eldest prince''s expression looked like he had eaten a bucket of shit when he heard this before he mmed his fist down and roared, "You son of a b****, do you really think that you''re special just because of a lucky break? You''re nothing more than¡­"

    From afar, there were a pair of eyes that watched all of this with an interested look.

 Chapter 437 Auction trap (14)

    <h4>Chapter 437 Auction trap (14)</h4>

    Beside the owner of this interested pair of eyes, there was a cloaked figure that leaned over and said, "Your highness, should we stop this?"

    That person who was watching was the fourth prince.

    He had been watching from another one of the VVIP rooms.

    Of course he would also be here since this was an operation that he was running. He had to be on site to make sure that nothing went wrong.

    After he was asked this, the fourth prince just shook his head and said, "Leave it, he''s just doing his job."

    The cloaked figure visibly trembled with surprise when they heard this before asking, "Your highness, what do you mean by that?"

    The fourth prince didn''t answer that question and instead asked another question in return, "What do you think he''s doing right now?"

    The cloaked figure hesitated a bit before saying, "Provoking the eldest prince?"

    The fourth prince gave a nod as if that was the answer that he was giving, but that confused the cloaked figure even more. They couldn''t understand just what the fourth prince meant by this.

    After all, in their mind, provoking the eldest prince was a bad thing.

    If the eldest prince lost his temper and did something irrational, that would be very bad for them.

    So in the end, the cloaked figure still couldn''t help asking, "Then shouldn''t we stop him? If the eldest prince loses control of himself and does something irrational¡­"

    The fourth prince shook his head before saying, "Why would we do that?"

    Though the expression of the cloaked figure couldn''t be seen, it was very clear by their bodynguage that they were absolutely shocked and confused when they heard this.

    Just what was the fourth prince implying with this?

    The fourth prince hadn''t nned on exining, but since the cloaked figure wouldn''t leave him alone if he didn''t exin, he had no choice but to with a deep sigh.

    "Why is this so hard to understand? He''s baiting the eldest prince to act. That will help our n."

    But still, he knew that the cloaked figure wouldn''t understand based on that alone, so he asked, "The eldest prince will act when he''s provoked like this, right?"

    The cloaked figure gave a slow now of agreement to this.

    The fourth prince then continued by saying, "If the eldest prince acts, who would be the one that profits the most from this?"

    The cloaked figure was silent for a bit before slowly saying, "The¡­second prince?"

    The fourth prince gave a nod in response before saying, "They''re already on edge because of our actions, so they wouldn''t dare takerge measures. But what if they had an excuse in ce? What if they had someone else to me for their actions?"

    The cloaked figure once again fell silent as if they were in deep thought.

    Slowly but surely, the cloaked figure seemed like they were figuring something out as they muttered, "If there was someone else to me for their actions¡­If the eldest prince was a scapegoat¡­"

    Finally they said in a voice of understanding, "If there''s someone else to take the me, then they can send out more people and me it all on that person! If the eldest prince has a reason to act, then they can just say that they work for the eldest prince if they are caught and no one would be able to say anything since they know what happened between Count Zwein and the eldest prince!"

    The fourth prince gave a slow nod of approval when he heard this.

    He turned his gaze away from the cloaked figure beside him and looked at the VVIP room that Zwein was sitting in.

    There was a thoughtful look that was on his face as he looked in that direction.

    In truth, he had only worked with this Zwein because of his little sister.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that she cared about him, he would have used him just like everyone else.

    He was a valuable piece because of his rtionship with the elves and dwarves, but that was it. He wasn''t much beyond that, so he had been nning on using him like a piece in a chess game.

    But now¡­he realized that he had been wrong.

    This Zwein was much smarter than he thought.

    He was able to adapt on the fly like this and create ns that even he didn''t think of.

    So he had to admit that he was wrong about Zwein.

    This kind of intelligence was almost on the same level as his own.

    He had almost missed this because of how low profile Zwein stayed, but now he knew what he was capable of.

    If that was the case¡­this Zwein might really be the one.

    If he was this smart and if his little sister was this in love with him, then he would do what he could to make it happen.

    After thinking for a bit, the fourth prince suddenly turned to the cloaked figure and said, "I want to make a few changes to our n."

    The cloaked figure was surprised to hear this, but they could hear the tone in the fourth prince''s voice. So the cloaked figure immediately fell to one knee in front of the fourth prince and said, "Your highness, please give me your order."

    The fourth prince gave a nod as he told the cloaked figure a few words.

    The cloaked figure didn''t look up, but there was a tremble that came from them showing how surprised they were.

    But in the end, they still said, "Yes your highness, I will pass down your orders now."

    The fourth prince gave a nod as the cloaked figure left.

    Then he turned back to look at the fight between the eldest prince and Count Zwein again before saying, "This is very interesting."

    But he never would have known that his guess was incorrect.

    He had thought too deeply about this.

    In truth, Zwein''s ideas weren''t as deep as he thought.

 Chapter 438 Auction trap (15)

    <h4>Chapter 438 Auction trap (15)</h4>

    After cursing me for a bit, the eldest prince realized that none of this mattered if I didn''t react.

    After all, he had heard about what the king had done after learning that this Count Zwein had been offended¡­

    So he couldn''t do anything in public no matter how enraged he was.

    The only thing that he could do now was¡­

    The eldest prince took a deep breath before turning back to the auctioneer and saying in a deep voice, "Three hundred and fifty thousand gold coins."

    Since he couldn''t convince him, then he would crush him with money.

    That was the only way to end this with him getting what he wanted.

    But the eldest prince didn''t jump up another hundred thousand this time.

    That was because¡­he couldn''t afford it. He needed to save as much as he could since there were other things that he needed to do with his money.

    But this time¡­it was him to be pressured.

    I knew that the eldest prince would have a limit and it seemed that he was getting close to that limit which was why he was slowing down his bid.

    Since that was the case, then I would use my bid to pressure him.

    After all, it wasn''t my money in the first ce.

    The auctioneer quickly recovered and was about to give the three count as fast as he could. He wanted to end this auction and send the eldest prince off before they suffered the consequences of his rage.

    But before he could¡­

    "Four hundred thousand gold coins."

    My voice slowly rang out through the auction hall once more and they looked up at my VVIP room in shock.

    Before this, I had only ever raised the price by a thousand gold coins.

    But now I was going toe to toe with the eldest prince in terms of bids.

    The eldest prince turned to look in my direction with a bewildered look, almost as if he couldn''t believe what he had just heard.

    After a moment of silence, he gritted his teeth and turned to the auctioneer to say, "I wish to raise a formalint! I don''t believe that this person actually has the ability to provide these funds and is just causing trouble! I wish to confirm whether this person can actually afford such a bid or I will be raising a formalint against the auction house!"

    The auctioneer was taken aback when he heard this, but he revealed a look like he believed what the eldest prince was saying.

    He didn''t know anything about the guest in the VVIP room making the bid, but he couldn''t help finding it suspicious that they were able to make such bids.

    So the auctioneer was about to see if he could find out the truth about this.

    After all, if he could stop this person, that would appease the eldest prince.

    But before he could say anything, he suddenly knitted his brows.

    It was almost as if there was someone invisible talking to him that made him stop in his steps.

    He knitted his brows before mouthing something before knitting his brows even more.

    The eldest prince saw that the auctioneer wasn''t saying anything, so he gave a cough and said, "I said that I wish to raise a formalint."

    The auctioneer had an ugly expression on his face as he looked up to the eldest prince and said, "I''m sorry, but we cannot ept your formalint. We have already checked the assets of the guest in the VVIP room and they are more than capable of paying this amount. So we will be epting their bids."

    The eldest prince deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He had thought that since he couldn''t suppress Zwein, he would just suppress the auction house.

    But to his surprise, the auction house didn''t back him up at all and instead took Zwein''s side.

    This didn''t make any sense at all!

    Why would they do that?

    In the end, the eldest prince didn''t lose his temper with the auction house.

    He knew who was behind the auction house and no matter how enraged he was, he wouldn''t lose his calm at a time like this.

    Even if he had all the courage in the world, he wouldn''t actually do anything to the auction house since he couldn''t afford the consequences.

    The eldest prince just gritted his teeth and said, "Four hundred and fifty¡­"

    Before he could even finish, I was already cutting him off.

    "Five hundred thousand gold coins."

    The eldest prince tightly clenched his fists when he heard this and it almost seemed like his eyes were filled with mes of rage.

    He looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel with the amount of rage that he was feeling, but he had no choice but to force this anger down.

    He looked over at my room, but I just ignored him as I remained sitting there.

    The eldest prince tried one more time as he said, "Do you know who you''re messing with?"

    "Does it look like I care?"

    That was my only response to this.

    The eldest prince had the strangest look on his face since he never thought that I would respond this way.

    His entire body shook as he stood there, but the look on his face made it clear that he didn''t know what to do.

    Or rather, it could be said that he really didn''t have any more options.

    "Five hundred and one thousand¡­"

    "Six hundred thousand gold coins."

    I said, cutting him off once more.

    Our positions hadpletely changed now.

    He was the one that was raising by a thousand and I was the one raising by a hundred thousand.

    The eldest prince once more looked at the auctioneer, but the auctioneer also ignored him.

    So the eldest prince had no choice but to clench his teeth and turn around, disappearing back into his VVIP room.

    With that, the bid came to a close.

 Chapter 439 Auction trap (16)

    <h4>Chapter 439 Auction trap (16)</h4>

    Since the eldest prince had gone back in without making a bid, it was clear that he was giving up on this item.

    The auctioneer waspletely caught off guard by this and it took him a while before he was able to react.

    But after he did, he started counting it down without any hesitation.

    He remembered what he had heard earlier, so there was no need for him to doubt it. He was nothing more than a simple auctioneer, so he wouldn''t involve himself in this matter.

    In the eldest prince''s VVIP room, the butler that came with him just hesitantly stood there in the corner as if he was afraid of making a single sound.

    He could sense the rage that wasing from the eldest prince, so he knew that he should stay out of the way to avoid attracting his wrath onto him.

    But¡­the eldest prince had other ns.

    With a cough, the butler came forward and said, "Your highness, is there anything you need?"

    The eldest prince didn''t say a word as he just sat there staring down at the auctioneer.

    Finally, he said in a deep voice, "Go and call our people. Make sure he disappears tonight."

    The butler trembled when he heard this, but then he slowly said, "Your highness, is this really the best idea? You should have heard about what happened with Marquis Heiman¡­if you were to do anything now¡­"

    The eldest prince mmed his fist down on the armrest of the chair before saying, "Don''t you think that I know that?"

    He narrowed his eyes and looked at the butler with a dangerous look before saying, "Since you''ve already passed down the message to those people, we''ll take advantage of that. We''ll watch from afar and only strike when the time is right."

    The butler slowly understood what the eldest prince was saying before bowing his head and saying, "Yes, your highness. I will make sure that everything is ready."

    The eldest prince just waved his hand as if he was dismissing him.

    The butler didn''t dare dy the moment that he saw this wave of the hand.

    He left with his head down, almost as if he was being spared.

    After the butler left, the eldest prince turned to look in the direction of Zwein''s VVIP room and muttered under his breath, "Do you really think that you would get away with making a fool of me? I''ll dance on your grave."

    ¡­

    After the eldest prince went back into his room, I couldn''t help letting out a disappointed sigh.

    I had been hoping that the eldest prince would keep the bid going, but it didn''t seem like he was going to.

    So I couldn''t help feeling disappointed, but I didn''t keep poking at him since I knew that there was nothing worse than a beast that was trapped in a corner.

    When he is pushed too far, he might start biting like he really means it.

    So it was better not to push the eldest prince into a corner.

    But at the very least, I had aplished what I wanted to aplish.

    When he went back in, I could see the look that was on his face.

    I knew what he was nning and that was just fine with me since that was what I wanted in the first ce.

    I wanted the eldest prince to involve himself in this matter and try to kill me.

    Once that happened, he would be caught by the fourth prince and dealt with by him.

    The eldest prince had already tried to kill me once, so I wanted to use the fourth prince to take care of him. After all, I didn''t believe that the eldest prince would let me go that easily.

    Since there was an opportunity now, I would be a fool not to take it.

    As for whether the fourth prince would be strong enough to take down the eldest prince and the second prince at the same time, I had no doubts about that.

    In the game, the fourth prince had taken down all of the other princes at the same time.

    I might be the only one in the world who knew just how deep the fourth prince''s hands reached.

    So I was the only one that could fear him properly.

    He wouldn''t be bothered by just the eldest and second prince.

    Shaka had been silent the entire time, but after seeing the eldest prince leave, he couldn''t help asking, "Was that a smart move? Did you really have to provoke him like this? Won''t he be a problem?"

    I just shook my head and said, "You shouldn''t underestimate the fourth prince. He won''t have a problem taking care of both of them."

    Shaka was very confused when he heard this and he raised a brow in doubt as he looked at me, but I didn''t say anything else in response.

    I just waited to see the show that woulde.

    After the auctioneer finished the count, the item was sold and quickly brought to our room.

    This time, it was the manager of the auction hall that came with several guards to bring the item to us.

    When they came in, the guards stayed outside as if they didn''t need to guard the manager and the manager brought the sword in himself.

    Aftering in, he didn''t even ask about the payment as he presented the sword to me and said, "Count Zwein, here is the item that you''ve bought."

    As he said this, there was a reverent look on his face while he looked at me.

    I just gave a casual nod before taking the sword and saying, "Is there anything else I need to do?"

    The manager quickly shook his head as he said, "No, no, everything has been handled for you."

    He seemed like he was about to say something else, but I said, "Alright, then I''ll be leaving. Help me call my carriage around."

    The manager had a visible disappointed look when he heard this.

    He clearly had wanted to invite me to something else, but since I had said that I was leaving, he didn''t dare go against me.

    So he just said, "Yes, we''ll call your carriage right away."

 Chapter 440 Auction trap (17)

    <h4>Chapter 440 Auction trap (17)</h4>

    The manager left to prepare the carriage, but the guards remained outside the door.

    We didn''t leave after the manager left since we knew that it would be dangerous for us to leave like this.

    Only when our carriage came would we leave.

    As for the guards, they were here to protect us in case anything happened.

    But of course, anyone that would make a move in this auction house was a fool since this auction house was backed by the royal family. Naturally, there would be the best protection here.

    When the two of us were alone in the room, I picked up Durand and held it up in front of me.

    As I looked at it, I couldn''t help admiring it.

    This de was just like the one in the game, but there was something different about seeing it in real life instead of through the screen.

    Holding it in my hand like this, I can sense just how sharp and powerful this sword was.

    If one wasn''t careful, they might just cut themselves on the de just by touching it.

    But at the same time, I could feel the dark energy that wasing from this de.

    After all of my adventures, I had be quite sensitive to mana. So I could sense the dark attributed mana that wasing from Durand.

    As expected of one of the Seven Cursed Swords.

    In the game, the description of Durand had been that this was a sword that was forged with the intense pain of ten thousand souls. The cuts that Durand made would never close and would ache eternally, draining on the mind of those that it was used on.

    That was why it was called a cursed sword.

    But at the same time, there was another curse that came with it.

    Those that used this sword would suffer the pain that they inflicted.

    In the game, it was damage equal to the damage that was inflicted with the sword that was would be inflicted on the user of the sword.

    It was basically suffering the same amount of damage that one dealt.

    But of course, this damage could be negated with armour and various different buffs, or this item would bepletely unusable. It was only the yer character that had this special right and all other people would suffer the damage that they inflicted.

    After staring at this sword for a bit, I was about to put it away into my Storage Ring.

    However, before that could happen, there was some kind of glow that came from my hand.

    When I looked down, I saw that there was a glowing pair of wings that appeared on the back of my hand.

    This was the Mark of God that I had received from Solista.

    I didn''t know what to do, so I just watched as the mark glowed on the back of my hand, waiting to see what happened.

    But Shaka wasn''t as calm and patient as me as he asked, "What''s happening?"

    I shook my head and said, "I don''t know, but it shouldn''t be something bad."

    Shaka had a look of doubt in his eyes when he heard this, but he fell silent as he waited to see what would happen.

    The Mark of God on the back of my hand glowed for a bit before that glow suddenly appeared on Durand. This glow appeared where my hand was holding the sword and it slowly began spreading across the sword.

    It went from the hilt where my hand was until itpletely covered the sword.

    As Durand was covered in this glow, it was as if the dark energy that wasing from it was getting weaker.

    It was almost as if this glow was slowly purifying the darkness of Durand¡­

    I wasn''t certain since I couldn''t appraise it like in the game, but it felt like Durand was changing.

    This glow remained around Durand for a bit before it slowly started to fade.

    When it was gone, the feeling that I got from Durand waspletely different from before.

    It was as if this was nothing more than a normal sword¡­No, it wasn''t a normal sword since I could still feel the powerful energying from it. However, it definitely wasn''t as dark as it was before.

    It was as if the glow from the Mark of God had purified the sword.

    Shaka had been staring at the sword just now as it was covered in this glow, but once that glow disappeared, he looked at me with an inquisitive look. It was as if he was asking me what had happened.

    I could see this, so I slowly turned to look at him before shaking my head and saying, "I don''t know."

    Shaka narrowed his eyes to look at me, as if he doubted what I said.

    But even if he did, there was nothing that I could say since I had no idea what just happened.

    This Mark of God was something that I had gotten from Solista, but I never thought that it had this kind of power¡­

    The two of us just remained silent for a long time as we both stared at the sword.

    We were finally interrupted by the door opening and someoneing in.

    When we looked over, we found that it was the manager who hade back.

    He had walked in and then stopped to look at us. On his face was a worried look.

    That was because he saw the two of us just standing there looking at Durand and he couldn''t help fearing that something was wrong with it, so he said, "Count Zwein, is something wrong? Is there a problem with the item?"

    I slowly shook my head before saying, "Is my carriage here yet?"

    The manager was surprised to be asked this, but he gave a nod before saying, "Yes, your carriage is waiting for you downstairs."

    I gave a nod before putting Durand away and saying, "Lead the way."

    The manager was surprised to see Durand disappear into thin air, but he gave a nod and gestured for us to follow him as he said, "Please follow me."

 Chapter 441 Auction trap (18)

    <h4>Chapter 441 Auction trap (18)</h4>

    After we came out of the room, the guards that had been waiting outside immediately surrounded us.

    The manager quickly turned around and said, "Count Zwein, I hope that you will not mind. We have prepared guards to escort you to your carriage."

    I gave a nod since I already knew that this was the case.

    If anything happened to me while I was still in the auction house, they would naturally be the ones that would be punished. Not to mention that if I was robbed of the item that I won, they would lose all their reputation.

    So that was why the manager was being so cautious.

    I didn''t mind since this was just how it was.

    Plus, it would be a good way of attracting attention like I wanted.

    As we walked through the auction hall, it was definitely eye-catching with all the guards around me.

    There were many people that pointed and whispered as we walked through, but that was fine with me.

    However, we didn''t go to the entrance. Instead, we went to the back entrance where my carriage was waiting for me.

    After I got in, the manager came forward to ask, "Count Zwein, do you require an escort back home? This is one of the services that our auction house provides for our important members."

    I just shook my head and said, "There''s no need for that."

    Then before the manager could say anything else, I gave the driver a signal and he started moving the carriage. The manager could only watch as we drove off without giving him a chance to speak.

    After we left the area of the auction house, I asked the driver, "Is everything set up?"

    The driver was someone who was sent by the fourth prince, so he had been taking care of the setup while we had been at the auction.

    After hearing what I said, the driver gave a simple nod before saying, "When theyeter, all you have to do is remain in the carriage. We will take care of the rest."

    I gave a nod back, but the look in my eyes told a different story.

    The look in my eyes made it clear that I would act on what I thought was correct.

    The driver didn''t care though since this wasn''t a part of his orders.

    All he had to do was bring us to the ambush location.

    As we got closer and closer, the driver made sure to give us signs to tell us that we were getting close so we could prepare ourselves.

    While we were driving through the streets, I noticed that there were fewer and fewer people walking around.

    It was clear that this area had been cleared so that normal people wouldn''t be caught up in this. At the same time, the other side would clear out the area so that there would be fewer witnesses.

    While we passed by them, Shaka said, "These people aren''t normal."

    I looked at him with one brow raised and he just gave me a look that exined everything.

    These people that were walking around in the streets, they were people that had a dangerous vibe to them. It was a vibe that Shaka would recognize right away because he too had a vibe that was simr to this one.

    It was the vibe of someone who¡­was involved in certain shady businesses.

    They were either guards or assassins that had been hired by the fourth prince or the other princes.

    Regardless of what I wanted, we were already deep into the n and there was no turning back.

    So I revealed a serious look and focused my mind for what was about toe next.

    The carriage continued onward and only stopped after traveling for a while longer.

    But this wasn''t a sudden stop, this was a stop that came from the carriage slowing down. And they didn''t stop because they had arrived at their destination, but rather because there was something that stopped them.

    Looking out from the window, I could see that there was a group of people that had suddenly appeared in front of our carriage.

    With the way that they stood there, it was clear that they didn''t have any good intentions.

    In fact, it looked like they were about to attack us.

    The driver stopped right in front of them before asking, "Is there anything that we can do for you?"

    The leader of this group revealed a smile before saying, "Yes, you can leave your lives and your goods here."

    The driver knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "I don''t know who you are, but you should be aware that this is the carriage of the lord Count Zwein. Do you really think that you''ll be able to get away with this?"

    The leader of the group gave a chuckle before saying, "Isn''t that the reason why we''re doing this? You shouldn''t be a fool, so just leave now and we''ll spare your life."

    The driver didn''t say anything as he looked at this leader with knitted brows, but his hands weren''t idle. They were still firmly gripped on the reins connected to the horse in front of him.

    Then all of a sudden, the driver raised the reins and was about to drive the horse forward to break through this group.

    But before he could, the leader suddenly threw a knife at the driver.

    The driver was able to dodge out of the way, but that knife cut through the reins and freed the horse.

    At the same time, his subordinates all aimed their daggers at the horse.

    Now that the horse was free from the control of the driver, it ripped itself out of its harness when it saw the daggers flying at it. When it did this, it also destroyed part of the carriage while breaking free.

    So by the end, the horse was able to run off past these attackers and leave the carriage stranded there in the middle of the street.

    There was no escape for them now.

 Chapter 442 Auction trap (19)

    <h4>Chapter 442 Auction trap (19)</h4>

    "Do you want to leave? As long as you leave, we won''t make it hard on you." The leader of these attackers looked at the driver and pulled out a dagger when he said this.

    The driver just looked right at the leader and said, "Are you saying that you''ll really let me go if I leave?"

    The leader said with a smile, "I am a man of my word. You aren''t involved in this matter, so there''s no reason for you to suffer. As long as you are willing to leave, we don''t do a single thing to you."

    The driver slowly came down from the carriage when he heard this.

    The way that he was acting, it was as if he really was moved by what the leader of the attackers had said.

    Once he was off the carriage, the driver raised his hands to show that he didn''t want any trouble. The attackers just watched and waited to see what he would do next.

    The driver slowly moved forward towards the attackers, but still they didn''t do a thing.

    With his hands up, he said, "I''ll walk out of here and you won''t attack me. Can you promise me that?"

    The leader just gave a nod before moving to the side, clearing a path for the driver to go through. Then he said with the same smile on his face, "As long as you''re willing to leave, then we won''t do anything to you. We only have business with the one in the carriage."

    Though there was a path prepared for him, the driver moved slowly towards it.

    It was as if he still didn''t trust the attackers even though they had done all that they could to show that they really meant no harm to him.

    The distance between the two sides decreased until the driver was only a few steps away from the attackers.

    It was at this time that the driver suddenly slowed down even more.

    The leader of the attackers narrowed his eyes to look at the driver as he said, "Is there a problem?"

    The driver gave a nod before saying, "How do I know that you won''t track me down after this? You''ve seen my face and I''ve seen yours, so I could be considered a witness. You would want to silence all witnesses, don''t you?"

    The eyes of the leader of the attack rxed when he heard this.

    He once again revealed a smile as he said, "I can give you my word, for whatever that is worth. I can promise you that we won''t do anything to you provided that you leave right away and don''t talk to anyone unless they look for you."

    Then after a pause, as if he realized that there was something wrong with what he said, he added, "That is as long as you aren''t in danger, you won''t say anything."

    The driver looked at the leader of the attackers with one brow raised, almost as if he was doubting him.

    But the leader of the attackers just looked back at him with the same smile on his face.

    Finally, the driver said, "Alright, that''s very reasonable. I''ll be going now."

    After he said this, he started moving forward once again.

    The attackers didn''t make a move as he came right in front of them.

    But once he was there, the driver stopped once again to look at the leader of the attackers.

    The leader narrowed his eyes once again and there was a trace of impatience that appeared in his eyes as he asked, "What''s wrong now?"

    The driver calmly said, "Well, it''s like this¡­I still haven''t been paid by the count yet, so I was wondering¡­"

    His voice trailed off, but it was very clear what he was implying.

    The leader knitted his brows as he said, "Is money really worth more than your life?"

    The driver started to cry as he said, "Please sir, I have an elderly mother and many young children that I have to take care of. If I don''t get this money, I don''t know how we''ll make it to the end of the month."

    The leader knitted his brows even more and it was clear that he was losing his patience.

    He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a dagger to point at the driver before saying, "If you don''t leave now, you won''t have a life to leave with."

    The driver suddenly leaned forward, almost as if he was about to grab the leader''s legs¡­but then he suddenly stabbed his hand out towards the leader''s face.

    The leader wasn''t caught off guard at all as he raised his hand with the dagger in it to meet this hand stabbing at him.

    There was the sound of metal nging against each other as two daggers shed.

    The leader looked at the driver and said with a smile, "It seems like there really are no decent people left in the world. You offer someone a chance to live and not only do they not take it, they even try to stab you in the back."

    The driver looked up with a cold smile as he replied, "Stab you in the back? Can you really say that you wouldn''t have stabbed me in the back if I really left?"

    The leader acted like he was offended as he said, "I am a man of honour, of course I would never do anything like that."

    The driver just gave a scoff before saying, "Sure you are."

    The leader didn''t mind this as he casually said, "But don''t you see the problem here?"

    With a wave of his hand, his men started moving forward to surround the driver. Once the driver was surrounded, he said, "I think that you might be at a disadvantage here."

    However, the driver didn''t seem worried at all even though he had been surrounded.

    He just looked up with a smile before saying, "Is that so? I think that things might not go the way that you want them to."

    Then all of sudden, he shouted, "Now!"

 Chapter 443 Auction trap (20)

    <h4>Chapter 443 Auction trap (20)</h4>

    As soon as the driver gave this cry, there were daggers that suddenly flew through the air.

    The attackers immediately moved away from the driver since the daggers were aimed at them.

    They all went in different directions since the daggers came at them from different directions.

    When they stopped, they found that they were all split up.

    It was clear that the daggers hadn''t been thrown to hurt them, but rather to force them to move away from each other. It was all to split them up so that they could be taken down separately.

    The attackers realized this toote as several cloaked figures suddenly jumped down from the rooftops and surrounded these attackers.

    The driver just looked at the leader of the attackers and said, "Now, shall we?"

    The leader of the attackers revealed an ugly look, showing that he clearly didn''t expect this. However, he didn''t panic since he was a well trained person.

    These attackers were without a doubt trained people sent by someone and not just normal thieves. So they didn''t panic when they were surrounded by all of these cloaked figures.

    Instead, they started coordinating with each other to push them back.

    The cloaked figures found that the attackers worked quite well together.

    These attackers used daggers as their main weapons, but it was used in a different manner.

    Instead of stabbing and shing with these daggers, they threw them. These daggers were thrown at the cloaked figures that had jumped down to surround them.

    But the problem wasn''t that they were throwing these daggers.

    If it was just daggers being thrown, then it would be easy for them to deal with. After all, it wasn''t that hard to dodge daggers that were thrown.

    The problem was their coordination when throwing these daggers.

    Every time that a dagger was thrown, there would be another attacker behind that would catch it and throw it back. This meant that there would always be a follow up attack that came from behind them.

    This forced the cloaked figures to be on guard for attacks that came from in front of them and behind them.

    It didn''t take long before the attackers were once again at an advantage.

    The leader and the driver had been shing with their daggers the whole time.

    When the leader saw his men pushing the cloaked figures back, he looked at the driver with a smile and said, "It seems like your people aren''t doing that well. Do you want to go and help them?"

    The driver pushed the leader back with a quick sh before stopping himself. He looked at the leader and said with a smile, "Do you really think that this is all that we have?"

    The leader couldn''t help slightly knitting his brows when he heard this.

    Then what followed was a cry of pain before a person fell to the ground.

    As for which side this person belonged to, he was one of the attackers.

    There was a dagger that was sticking out of his back when he fell, but the angle that the dagger inserted itself into his body was strange. The angle made it seem like the dagger hade from above.

    The attackers immediately backed away when they saw that one of their own had been killed.

    At the same time, they quickly looked in the direction that the dagger hade from.

    When they looked up at the roof of one of the buildings around them, they found that there were more cloaked figures standing there. They had daggers in their hands that they were preparing to throw.

    The leader also looked up and found that it wasn''t just this one building that had these cloaked figures on it. There were many cloaked figures on the roofs all around them with daggers in hand.

    They werepletely surrounded by enemies.

    The leader couldn''t help revealing an ugly look that almost seemed to be saying, "How did we not notice this?"

    But there wasn''t time for him to think about what to do as the driver was already charging at him again.

    After the first attacker was stabbed in the back by the dagger that was thrown from the roof, they all started looking for ways to escape this ce. They knew that they were surrounded and this was a situation that was very bad for them.

    This was not a ce that they could stay in for long if they wanted to keep their lives, so they were all looking for a ce to escape to.

    But how could the ones on the roof allow that to happen?

    Let alone those that were down there with them.

    The cloaked figures on the ground immediately went forward to chase after the attackers that had wanted to escape.

    The attackers immediately threw out daggers to dissuade them from chasing, but the cloaked figures didn''t care at all as they faced these daggers head on. After all, throwing these daggers would divert their attention and stall them, so they wanted to see these attackers throw these daggers.

    This would give openings for those on the roof to attack these attackers.

    The tide of the fight hadpletely changed with these new cloaked figures that appeared.

    Slowly but surely, the attackers were being cut down by these cloaked figures.

    It was almost certain that they would all die at this rate.

    However, the leader of these attackers didn''t seem to panic. Instead, he just focused on his fight with the driver.

    Not for a single second did he seem like he was going to give the order to retreat.

    It was almost as if they were going to fight to the very end¡­but that didn''t make sense.

    The driver couldn''t help feeling that something was off.

    It was almost as if these attackers were stalling for something¡­

    What no one noticed was that under the carriage, there was another pair of eyes that had been watching the entire fight.

    Now that this fight had reached its climax, it was this person''s time to shine.

 Chapter 444 Auction trap (21)

    <h4>Chapter 444 Auction trap (21)</h4>

    This person clinging to the bottom of the carriage had only gotten under when the carriage had slowed down.

    They had slid under while no one was looking and had been clinging to the carriage the entire time, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

    Though they could see that the attackers were struggling against the cloaked figures, this person didn''t even spare them a second thought as he only focused on the people that were inside of the carriage.

    After all, his one job was to kill those people.

    Seeing that the driver was distracted by the leader and the cloaked figures were all focused on the attackers, this person dropped down from the carriage and rolled out to the side before standing up.

    There was no hesitation in his actions as he pulled out two daggers and jumped up at the carriage.

    He was nning to kick the door in and then stab whoever was inside.

    But before he could do that, the door suddenly flew out at him.

    This person had a look of shock on his face, but he also quickly brought his hands up in front of him to guard his body.

    The door hit this assassin and then sent him flying through the air.

    As he flew through the air, he flipped twice beforending on the ground and looking up at the opened door. There wasn''t a single second where he had let his guard down even though he had been sent flying through the air like this.

    He was prepared to fight at any moment.

    Standing at the door of the carriage was Shaka with a strange looking sword in his hand.

    The assassin was surprised to see that there was someone inside of the carriage as well, but that didn''t mean that he was ready to give up that easily.

    After all, there were only two paths in front of him.

    Finishing the job or death.

    Of course, all of this had made quite a bit of noise, which had drawn the attention of the driver and the cloaked figures.

    When they saw the assassin standing there by the carriage, they all immediately knitted their brows and wanted to go help. But before they could, the attackers and the leader all went into action.

    Instead of being scared for their lives, they went all out as if their lives didn''t matter.

    A beast that was cornered fought the most fiercely, so when these attackers and the leader fought without care for their own lives, they were very powerful.

    Once they stopped caring about whether they died or not, the cloaked figures and the driver were actually pushed back by them.

    Of course, the downside to this was that they sufferedrge wounds that made it very likely that they would die soon. There would be no way out for them now that they had been injured to this extent.

    But that didn''t cross their minds at all since they only had one thing to do.

    They would buy time while the assassin attacked the person in the carriage.

    The assassin narrowed his eyes to look at Shaka, but he didn''t panic. Instead, he just threw the daggers that were in his hand up into the air.

    Shaka didn''t lose focus when he saw this and just narrowed his eyes to focus on the assassin.

    After throwing his daggers into the air, the assassin suddenly pulled out two more daggers that he threw forward.

    Those daggers hit the two daggers that were falling in the air, sending all four of these daggers flying at Shaka from different directions.

    Shaka had been watching all of this and his eyes had followed those daggers, so he just swept that strange looking sword in his hand out.

    With the sound of metal shing, all of the daggers around him were knocked out of the air.

    But¡­there was one more daggering at him.

    This was the dagger that had been thrown after all the other daggers had been sent in Shaka''s direction. This was the dagger that had been dyed so that it woulde from Shaka''s blind spot after he knocked away all the daggers.

    Shaka might have been in danger if it wasn''t for his keen senses warning him of this already.

    He already knew that thisst dagger wasing, so he went with the force of the sword swing and twisted his body out of the way. The dagger flew past him with just a few centimeters to spare.

    With another turn, Shaka suddenly dashed forward as a green glow appeared around him.

    In an instant, he appeared in front of the assassin and swung the strange looking sword in his hand down at him.

    The assassin was surprised to see Shaka appear in front of him like this, but he still reacted as he pulled out another pair of daggers from his sleeves and brought them up to block Shaka''s sword.

    It was just too bad that these daggers weren''t able to resist the sword for even a second.

    The moment that the daggers made contact with the sword, there was a cracking sound that rang out before the daggers shattered to pieces.

    The assassin didn''t even have time to reveal a shocked look as the strange looking sword mmed down into his chest, mming him into the ground.

    After being mmed into the ground, the assassin just stopped moving as his chest had caved in.

    It was clear that his ribs had been shattered from this one strike from Shaka.

    But one could still see his chest moving a bit, showing that he was still alive.

    Even with his chest shattered like this, he was still alive which really was amazing.

    That showed just how skilled Shaka was that he was able to hold back to this extent.

    After the assassin had been beaten down like this, the rest of them weren''t able to hold on any longer and the attackers and leader were all subdued or killed by the driver and cloaked figures.

    It seemed like it was all over.

 Chapter 445 Auction trap (22)

    <h4>Chapter 445 Auction trap (22)</h4>

    Once all of the attackers had been subdued, the driver came back to the carriage to check on me.

    But before any of them could reach the carriage, there was a ball of fire that suddenly appeared.

    Before any of them could do a thing, the ball of fire hadnded on the carriage and blew it up.

    There was only a second of silence before they all ran over to check on the carriage. But all they could see was a smouldering mess that had once been the carriage burning in the middle of the road.

    The driver looked at Shaka and Shaka looked back at him before both of them rushed forward. With the way that they raised their hands, it was as if they were prepared to pull apart this burning mess to look for the person who had been inside.

    But before they could, there was a voice that said, "There''s no need for that, I already left the carriage."

    As soon as they heard this voice, they immediately turned to see me standing there with Shadow Five by my side.

    Both of them immediately came to my side and surrounded me, making sure that there wouldn''t be any other spells cast before checking on me.

    I waved my hand at the two of them before saying, "I''m fine, I''m fine. I got out before the fireball even came."

    Both of them looked at me with strange and confused looks, as if they were asking me, "How did you get out?"

    I could see that, so I said, "You should know that I''m sensitive to magic." Shaka gave a nod since this was more for him than the driver since I didn''t know the driver that well. Then I continued by saying, "As soon as they started casting the spell, I already knew what wasing and I got out of the carriage before it coulde."

    But only I knew the truth¡­

    I didn''t get out of the carriage on my own since there was no time for that.

    So I had no choice but to get Shadow Five to carry me out of the carriage before the fireball came.

    However, I would never admit that even if I was beaten to death!

    So I just said that I came out on my own.

    Shaka and the driver both gave nods before turning back around to focus on the surrounding area.

    They wanted to make sure that there was nothing elseing before they started moving.

    After confirming that there was nothing, the driver waved his hand at the cloaked figures that were standing over the captured attackers.

    Half of them came over while the other half picked up those attackers and headed off in a different direction.

    Once they came over, he turned to me and said, "We need to get out of here. It seems that there are still more of theming."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Lead the way."

    The driver turned back to look at the burning carriage before saying with a bitter voice, "It seems like they really aren''t putting his highness in their eyes that they''re even using theserge spells in the city."

    But then his eyes turned sharp as he said, "When we get them, I''ll make sure that they''re punished for looking down on his highness like this."

    I could hear the loyalty in his voice and I respected that, but this wasn''t the time.

    So I gave a cough to remind him of the situation.

    The driver came back to his senses and without a word, he headed off in a certain direction. He waved his hand behind him for us to follow him and we quickly went after him.

    The cloaked figures formed a circle around me, as if they would protect me with their lives.

    The way that I was traveling was just like some of the celebrities from Earth, beingpletely surrounded by bodyguards like this. However, I didn''t have the time to enjoy this feeling since my life was in danger.

    We went into one of the alleys to the side and quickly made our way to another street. But this street was just as abandoned as the one from before.

    As we made our way through, there were more people that appeared.

    This time, there were far more attackers than before.

    However, that seemed a bit confusing.

    If they had all of these people, why didn''t they send them all earlier instead of sending that small group?

    Or was it that they were just using that other group as bait to see what cards we were hiding?

    Regardless, when this group appeared, the driver immediately gave orders to the cloaked figures and they took a battle formation around me.

    They had covered me from every single angle, so that no one would be able to reach me.

    But with how outnumbered we were¡­this did look a bit bad.

    One of the attackers stepped forward to stand in front of the driver to say, "I never expected to see you here."

    When the driver saw this person, he deeply knitted his brows.

    But the look in his eyes showed that he recognized this person.

    After a long pause, the driver suddenly asked, "You betrayed us?"

    The person who had stepped out gave a shrug before saying, "It''s not so much as betrayed you as never being on your side to begin with. From the very beginning, I was never on your side, so it can''t really be considered betrayal, can it?"

    The driver''s brows rxed a bit as he said with a sigh, "That''s right, it really can''t be considered that." Then his eyes turned sharp again as he said, "Which is why this can''t be considered betrayal either."

    As soon as he said this, many of the attackers that had surrounded us suddenly turned and stabbed theirrades.

    More than half of them had suddenly attacked the people that they had been standing with.

 Chapter 446 Auction trap (23)

    <h4>Chapter 446 Auction trap (23)</h4>

    In a matter of seconds, the attackers had all been killed or subdued by the ones that had turned traitor.

    The one that was standing in front of them looking at the driver slowly turned back before revealing a look of shock.

    The expression on his face changed several times before he roared out in rage, "What do you think you''re doing!"

    But none of them cared about him as they finished off all that were left.

    The driver took advantage of this to suddenly move in front of this person and put a dagger to his throat.

    When he turned back, the only thing that he could do was raise his hand in an attempt to surrender.

    The driver gave a snort of disdain before using his hand to knock him out. As he did, he said, "Did you really think that his highness didn''t notice your betrayal? From the very beginning, he was just using you for information."

    There was a look of regret in the traitor''s eyes as he fainted.

    The driver looked at the ones who had betrayed theirrades and gave them a nod.

    They quickly responded, dividing themselves in half.

    Half of them went to secure the ones that had been captured, along with the leader that the driver had knocked out. The other half went to bolster the driver''s forces and surrounded me.

    Once they were in formation, the driver waved his hand and they set off again.

    As we were walking off, I could see that Shaka was looking in the direction of the other group. He was looking at the person who had been taunting and then was knocked out by the driver.

    It almost seemed like he recognized that person.

    So I asked, "Is something wrong?"

    Shaka didn''t answer right away when he heard this as he kept looking at that person. But he slowly turned back and said, "It''s not so much that something is wrong as¡­"

    His voice trailed off, but then he said, "I know that person."

    I was surprised since I didn''t know who that person was and I knew most of the important people under the fourth prince. So that meant that this person shouldn''t have been someone important in the game.

    But then again¡­Shaka also hadn''t been in the game, but he had be someone that was quite indispensable for me.

    So sometimes, I couldn''t just rely on my knowledge from the game. Sometimes, I had to judge people based on my experience with them.

    I asked, "Who is he?"

    Shaka was silent for a bit before saying, "Major Iver, he once served on the battlefield against the demons with me."

    I knitted my brows slightly when I heard this.

    I had heard bits about Shaka''s past, but I had never actually heard about it. I just knew that he had once fought against the demons and he had been regarded as quite the terrifying existence.

    Shaka gave a sigh before saying, "It seems that people still can''t ovee the situation that they were born in. I don''t know why he did it, but I''m sure that he had a reason."

    I didn''t say anything and just gave a nod to show my support.

    But the driver said, "Alright, that''s enough chatting. There''s something up ahead."

    As soon as he said this, we immediately focused our minds and threw all of these thoughts now.

    While I was sure that Shaka would want to talk about this, it just wasn''t the time now. For now, all I could do was make a mental promise that I would buy him a drink once this was all over.

    We moved slowly, but there was no stopping the inevitable.

    When we turned the corner, we found that there were a bunch of horses and people riding on horses.

    It was a full cavalry unit!

    For the first time, even the driver was shocked.

    When he had faced the betrayal from that Major Iver, he wasn''t as shocked as this.

    But now that there was this cavalry unit in front of us, he revealed a shocked look that I had never seen before.

    It was clear that he didn''t expect this at all.

    But then again, how could anyone expect something like this?

    Even if there had been plenty of fighting today, they were still in the streets of the capital city. Even if the civilians had been evacuated to get them out of the line of fire, that still didn''t mean that this was the ce for a full cavalry unit.

    The assassins had alle at them with daggers because these weapons made very little noise and were easy to clean up after. Even the fireball that had been shot was considered excessive already.

    But now, they had brought all these horses with heavy armoured troops on them¡­

    This was going far beyond a simple assassination.

    If one looked at it from a different angle, one might even consider this a full blown rebellion.

    After all, these were armoured troops that had appeared in the capital.

    The driver walked up in front of the cavalry and looked at the one who was leading them?with narrowed eyes before saying, "General Valleta, don''t you think that this is going a bit too far?"

    The one that had been called General Valleta gave a snort before saying, "Isn''t it your own fault for driving us to this far?"

    The driver deeply knitted his brows when he heard this before replying with, "Do you realize what this means for you and your family? Have you thought about the consequences of your action?"

    General Valleta gave a disdainfulugh as he said, "Do you really think that you can shake us? We all came here with the conviction to either kill you or die today. You won''t be able to make us back down with just words alone."

    The driver knitted his brows even more when he heard this.

    General Valleta suddenly raised his hand and said, "Get ready!"

 Chapter 447 Auction trap (24)

    <h4>Chapter 447 Auction trap (24)</h4>

    As soon as his voice fell, the soldiers behind him all raised their spears and pointed them in our direction.

    It was clear that they were done talking and were prepared to charge us.

    As for our group¡­we didn''t have any preparations to deal with a cavalry charge like this.

    We had no shields, no spears, no blockades. The only thing that we had were the daggers in our hands and those were far from being enough to handle this group of cavalry.

    If they charged us now, the only thing that would end up happening would be us being pierced full of holes.

    So I looked at the driver, waiting to see what he had up his sleeve. Though that thought was quickly crushed when I saw the grim look on his face.

    It was clear that he didn''t expect this, so it would be strange if he coulde up with a n for this.

    The only thing that I could think of was that if we had time, we could run into the alley where it was too narrow for the cavalry to charge. Then we would just have to work together to pick them off one by one when they tried toe after us.

    A full charge was impossible to deal with, but one or two horsemen were easy to deal with given our numbers.

    It was just too bad that we weren''t given the time as General Valleta shouted, "Charge!"

    Then with a crack of his reins, his horse started dashing forward at us.

    The situation had gone from bad to worse, but for some reason, the driver just stood there with that grim look on his face. It was almost as if he didn''t know what to do.

    I started going through all the different things that we could do in my head, but I found that it was useless.

    These horses that they were using were the highest quality horses, so their speed couldn''t be looked down on. They cut this distance in an instant and were soon right in front of us.

    But even then¡­the driver didn''t say anything.

    I was about to say something, but then the driver gave a sigh and said, "It seems like we have to use one of our trump cards in the end."

    He used his hand to give a signal to the others and soon they had all pulled out some kind of wand.

    These were wands that weren''t that big that all had crystals of various colours on them.

    The one that had the biggest crystal in it was in the hands of the driver.

    As the horsemen came closer and closer, the driver aimed his wand right at the leader, General Valleta. With a sigh, the driver said, "We didn''t want to use this, but you''ve forced us into using this."

    With another sigh, he said, "Fireball."

    As soon as he said this, there was a bright orange glow that came from the crystal of his wand. This glow became stronger and stronger as mes appeared around it.

    In no time at all, there was a giant fireball that was gathered in front of the driver that he shot out with a single thought.

    The eyes of the cavalry filled with shock since they never expected the driver to have this kind of trump card in his hand, but it was already toote. There was only so much space on this road and they were already in full charge, so they weren''t able to turn, let alonee to aplete stop.

    The only thing that they could do was finish this charge.

    General Valleta gritted his teeth before saying, "Shields!"

    It seemed that they were preparing to use their shields to block this fireball.

    The fireball showed no mercy at all as it was shot right out at the cavalry.

    With how big it was, it was wide enough to cover the entire cavalry group and burn them all.

    This fireball mmed right into the cavalry formation, engulfing them in mes.

    But a few secondster, there were horses that charged right through these mes.

    It seemed that most of them had been able to guard against the mes of this fireball, though they did suffer a few burns. There were also a few that had their horses knocked down by the mes of this fireball.

    As soon as they fell, they were immediately trampled by the horsemen behind them.

    There really was no mercy in this cavalry charge.

    It was just too bad for them that¡­there were still other wands with different coloured crystals on them.

    Even if they had blocked this fireball, would they be able to block all of these different spells?

    It was time to find out as countless spells were fired at the cavalry.

    There were ice spells, earth spells, wind spells, fire spells, and all kinds of different spells shot out.

    They rained down on the cavalry, knocking more and more of them to the ground.

    Eventually, there was only a single horseman left charging at them, but he left a trail of blood behind him.

    This was the leader of the group, General Valleta.

    He was worthy of this title of general, as shown by the might that he demonstrated.

    He swatted down the spells that came at him, but there were just too many for him to cut downpletely.

    So he had been hit by quite a few of these spells and was bleeding profusely.

    Even then, he didn''t bend.

    He kept charging at us, even though his horse was clearly exhausted from resisting all these spells with him.

    The driver saw this, so he pulled out two daggers.

    With an urate throw, he stabbed the front legs of the horse and the horse flipped as its legs crumbled under it.

    With this flip, General Valleta was thrown into the air.

    He spun twice through the air beforending in front of the driver.

    The driver had already pulled out another dagger and had ced it right in front of his face.

    When General Valleta looked up, he knew that it was over.

 Chapter 448 Auction trap (25)

    <h4>Chapter 448 Auction trap (25)</h4>

    "Heh, just do it. Finish me." General Valleta said in a brave voice.

    But the driver didn''t stab his dagger down right away. Instead, he said, "Do you know what you''ve done? Bringing cavalry like this into the capital, do you understand what kind of damage you could have caused?"

    General Valleta didn''t show any fear even though there was a dagger pointed right in his face.

    This was his years of military experience on disy that he didn''t show any fear.

    Instead, he just keptughing as he said, "And what choice did we have? If we didn''t do this, wouldn''t we just be sitting around waiting for death?"

    The driver deeply knitted his brows without saying anything.

    Seeing that his words had caused a crack, General Valleta continued, "It''s all that b*stard fourth prince''s fault! If it wasn''t for him insisting on doing all of this, do you think that we would have wanted to do this? If it wasn''t for him¡­"

    Before he could finish, his mouth was suddenly filled with blood.

    The driver had brought the dagger down and stabbed General Valleta right in the throat, as if he was silencing him.

    Even though his mouth was filled with blood and he was clearly dying, he didn''t show any fear. He just spat out all that blood and said, "I curse you, I curse you all! If it wasn''t for that hated fourth prince, none of this would have happened! I''ll be waiting in the¡­pits of hell¡­to punish you!"

    Then with these final words, he copsed onto the ground.

    The soldiers who had followed him, the ones that were still alive, looked like they would bleed from the eyes seeing this scene.

    It looked like they wanted to stand up and fight to thest breath, but the driver''s men didn''t allow them to.

    With a few thrown daggers, all of them were executed and it fell silent.

    The driver looked down at the dead General Valleta in silence for a bit before standing back up and waving his hand as he said, "Let''s go. It''s not over yet."

    But to his surprise, he found that I wasn''t moving at all.

    When he turned around, he saw that I was looking right at him.

    The driver revealed a surprised look before saying with a serious expression, "Count

    Zwein, we can''t stay here. We need to go or else they will surround us."

    But even then, I didn''t move at all.

    I just calmly looked at the driver and said, "Are you sure that you don''t have something to tell me?"

    The driver slightly knitted his brows when he heard this before asking, "Your lordship, what do you mean by that?"

    Though he was being respectful, it was clear that there was a trace of disdain in his voice.

    However, I just ignored it since I knew that there was nothing to gain from addressing it. Instead, I just said, "This is clearly turning out differently from what I was told." Then I looked down at the dead General Valleta and said, "Plus, there''s what he said just now. I think that I deserve an exnation, don''t I?"

    The driver knitted his brows even more when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything other than, "Count Zwein, this is not the best time for this. We should continue with the n and head to the next area."

    I gave a snort when I heard this before saying, "I''m not going any further if you don''t answer my question."

    The driver''s expression turned ugly since he could hear the firm tone in my voice.

    There was a part in his eyes that made it seem like he was debating whether he should just get his men to bring me along or not, but I just simply turned around and started walking away.

    The driver and his men all panicked when they saw this.

    With a gesture from the driver, his men immediately came forward and surrounded me, as if they wouldn''t let me take another step.

    I looked at the driver and said, "What is the meaning of this?"

    The driver revealed a deadly serious look as he said, "Count Zwein, if his highness were to know about this¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly said, "If the fourth prince were to know about how you treated me, who do you think would be in trouble?"

    The driver and all of his men jolted when they heard this.

    They all remembered what the fourth prince had told them before this operation.

    He had told them that they weren''t allowed to let a single scratch befall Count Zwein or they would pay the price¡­

    They had thought that he was joking, but the serious look on his face had made it clear that he wasn''t.

    So while they had surrounded him just now, not a single one of them had actually dared to do anything to Count Zwein.

    If the fourth prince were to learn of this, they wouldn''t be able to endure the consequences.

    The driver had an ugly expression on his face as he looked at me.

    It was clear that he was struggling over something, but in the end, he said with a sigh, "I can''t tell you, but his highness will tell you everything when this is all over." Then as if he felt that he should add something on, he said, "I can promise you that his highness had no ill intentions. This was all designed to help you and keep you safe in the future."

    I couldn''t help deeply knitting my brows when I heard this.

    I looked carefully at the driver, I couldn''t find a single trace of guilt as he looked right back into my eyes.

    It was as if he fully believed what he was saying.

    So I couldn''t help faltering a bit.

    In the end, I said with a sigh, "Alright, but until then, I will move on my own. If I feel that your orders will harm me, then I will not listen to them. If you can''t ept this, then I can''t work with you."

    The driver was taken aback when he heard this.

    He looked like he was agonizing over something, but in the end, he said with a sigh, "Alright. But I just hope that you will work with us as much as you can. All I can do is promise that this is all for your benefit."

    I couldn''t help raising a brow as my eyes filled with doubt at this.

    But once again, he looked at me with the same serious look thatcked a single trace of guilt.

    It was as if he fully believed what he said and what he was doing.

    I slowly looked around at his men around me and they all seemed to have the same expression.

    It was as if they all fully believed in what they were doing.

    I couldn''t help faltering once again in the face of this determination¡­

    So I said with a sigh, "For now, I''ll do my best to cooperate with you since we''re in this dangerous situation together."

    The driver gave a nod and said, "Thank you."

    I just gave a nod in response.

 Chapter 449 Auction trap (26)

    <h4>Chapter 449 Auction trap (26)</h4>

    Aftering to an agreement, the driver led us along the nned route again.

    We were supposed to eventually meet up with the fourth prince''s people, but this had been dyed because of our carriage being destroyed by that fireball.

    So we had to take a detour to reach where we were supposed to go.

    It took a bit longer, but we arrived in the end.

    After we arrived, we just stood there in the empty square.

    This was a square that was supposed to be filled with people, but right now, there wasn''t a single person here. All of the stall vendors, the people walking by, and everything else had disappeared from this square.

    It was as if this ce had suddenly been abandoned.

    But I knew that this wasn''t the case.

    The reason why there was no one here was because they had all been evacuated before this since this was the ce that had been chosen for the final confrontation.

    After we arrived, we moved to the center of the square and it didn''t take long for some people to show up.

    They were running into the square as if there was something chasing them.

    Once they were in the square, they suddenly stopped moving as if whatever had been chasing them had stopped.

    It wasn''t just this group that appeared in the square, but also several other groups that ran into the square just like this group. They all seemed like they had been chased by something.

    As soon as they entered the square, they all stopped running just like the first group.

    After they arrived in the square, they all just stood there with cautious looks on their faces instead of charging at us. It was as if they were afraid that something would suddenly attack them.

    At the same time, they all looked at each other with grim looks on their faces.

    It was clear by the way that they looked at each other that they recognized each other.

    Even judging by the way that they were dressed, it seemed that they were from the same ce.

    After a long time, there was one final group that arrived.

    This group was different from the rest since they were all guarding a single person as they ran into the square.

    It was clear that this person was a very important person to them with how closely they guarded him.

    At the same time, when they arrived in the square, the other groups all moved over to guard this one person.

    They formed arge group in this square that faced our own.

    It was only at this time that there were a bunch of people that suddenly appeared on the roof around the square. These were all people with weapons in hand, as if they were prepared to fight at any moment.

    When that group saw these people, they immediately formed a shield wall outside the perimeter to protect that one person in the center.

    No one said a thing and a tense silence filled the air.

    That was until another group arrived in this square.

    When this group arrived, the driver immediately waved his hand for us to follow as he went over to that group.

    Our group reached that group and then I was brought to the center of that group where there was a familiar face that was there.

    It was the fourth prince.

    When he saw me, he greeted me with a smile, "Count Zwein, it seems that you''ve made it. How was the trip? Did you have fun?"

    The way that he greeted me almost seemed like he was casually greeting a friend instead of us being in a dangerous situation like we currently were.

    I just calmly said to him, "It seems like some things aren''t going as nned."

    The fourth prince revealed a faint smile before saying, "Well, there are some things that have gone wrong, but¡­it seems like it''ll end the way that it was supposed to."

    I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this before turning to look back at the group in front of us.

    They still had their shields up like they were scared of being attacked.

    It was clear that whoever was in the center, they were very important to these people.

    The fourth prince saw that I wasn''t saying anything, so he said, "Alright, let''s go and end this."

    I looked back at him and seeing the smile on his face, all I could do was give a slow nod in response.

    Then with a wave of the fourth prince''s hand, we started moving towards that other group.

    They didn''t move since there was nowhere for them to move.

    Behind them were a bunch of people on roofs with weapons pointed at them, so they wouldn''t be able to escape even if they went that way.

    The only thing that they could do was hold their ground and wait for an opportunity to break out.

    The fourth prince didn''t lead our group forward that far, we just went up in front of this other group and stopped.

    Our two groups stared at each other and both sides held their shields up, just in case the other side decided to do something. But neither side did anything as they just stood there with a tense feeling in the air.

    After a while, the fourth prince waved his hand and the shields moved aside to reveal him.

    The other side was surprised to see this, but eventually they also moved aside so that the person they were protecting could be seen.

    When I saw who it was, my guesses had been confirmed.

    It was the second prince who was standing in the middle of this formation.

    It wasn''t just the men that the second princemanded, but rather the second prince himself that was standing in the center of this formation.

    If it was anyone else, I might not recognize him, but it was a different story if it was the second prince.

    My one question was¡­what was he doing here?

 Chapter 450 Auction trap (27)

    <h4>Chapter 450 Auction trap (27)</h4>

    There was a tense silence that hung in the air as the fourth prince and second prince faced each other.

    Neither of them had any expressions on their faces as they just stared at each other.

    Then all of a sudden, they revealed smiles. However, if one looked carefully, they would see that these smiles never reached their eyes.

    These were smiles that were as fake as some women''s br¡­

    The fourth prince was the first to speak as he said, "Second brother, I didn''t expect to see you here."

    The second prince replied with the same smile on his face, "It really is a surprise to see you here, fourth brother. What winds have blown you here today?"

    Though it seemed like they were having a friendly conversation, the atmosphere became even more tense as the two sides were just waiting for the inevitable.

    They were just waiting for the princes to drop this act and all hell broke loose.

    The two of them didn''t seem like they were in a rush as they exchanged pleasantries, but if one had a sharp eye, they would be able to catch what was happening. After all, there were quite a few barbs in the second prince''s voice.

    It was clear that he was ming the fourth prince for something.

    Finally, the smile on the second prince''s face disappeared and he said with a serious tone, "Fourth brother, is there any chance that you''ll let this matter end here today? Is there any chance that you will let me go?"

    As soon as he said this, the already tense atmosphere of this ce became even more tense.

    Everyone prepared for a fight to break out, but they also all turned to look at the fourth prince, waiting for his reaction.

    The fourth prince just calmly looked at the second prince and asked, "Second brother, what do you think?"

    Everyone couldn''t help being shocked since this didn''t seem like something the mething that the fourth prince would say. He was someone that was humble and respectful of others, not someone who would use a taunting tone like this.

    It was so different from his usual tone that everyone couldn''t help being surprised.

    Or at least that was the case for most people.

    There were a few that knew the fourth prince''s real personality and that included me.

    I knew that this was just how the fourth prince acted in private, so this wasn''t surprising to me.

    The second prince revealed an ugly look when he heard this before he said, "Why are you doing all of this?" He turned to look at me as he said, "Is it all because of him?"

    The fourth prince shook his head and gave a sigh before saying, "Second brother, do you still not understand?"

    The second prince revealed a confused look when he heard this, showing that he indeed didn''t know what the fourth prince was talking about.

    The fourth prince gave another sigh before continuing, "Royal father has already given you all these chances and you still collude with others against our family. Do you really think that our royal father is just going to watch this happen?"

    The second prince revealed a very ugly look when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything.

    His expression changed several times before saying, "Isn''t it because you all forced me into this?"

    His eyes turned firm and determined as he asked, "Do you know why I did all of this?"

    The fourth prince also revealed a serious look as he said, "No, please tell me."

    The second prince raised a hand to point at the fourth prince as he said, "It''s all because of you."

    This time, it was the fourth prince''s turn to be confused.

    The second princeughed when he saw this before saying, "It seems that you aren''t even aware of this. What a joke."

    The fourth prince looked even more confused when he heard this.

    He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but the second prince cut him off, "It''s all because of how close you are with our royal father. Do you really think that the rest of us can''t see what''s happening? Do you really think that we don''t know?"

    The fourth prince just knitted his brows without saying anything, but the look in his eyes made it clear that he didn''t understand what the second prince was saying.

    But of course, that didn''t matter.

    The second prince had already started letting it all out, so there was no stopping it.

    His voice kept growing louder and louder as he continued, "This is all because of the special bond that you have with our royal father! We all know that he''s already chosen you as his heir, do you really think that we wouldn''t find out?!"

    Then he grabbed his hair and pulled as he roared, "But I''m not willing to give up! I want to be the king!"

    The fourth prince deeply knitted his brows at this point.

    He raised one hand as if he wanted to calm the second prince down before saying, "Second brother, you''re thinking too much. Royal father doesn''t have those intentions, he just wants our family to be at peace."

    "Screw peace!" The second prince shouted right back at the fourth prince, "All I want is the throne! All I ever wanted was the throne and the absolute power thates with it! I don''t care about anything else!"

    His eyes slowly turned dark as he said, "I will do whatever it takes to get that throne, no matter who I have to throw away."

    The fourth prince still had that deep frown on his face as he said, "Second brother, that is why there''s no turning back."

    The second prince once again broke out inughter as he said, "Ha, ha, ha, so what? Isn''t this an opportunity for me now?"

    He roared out to his men, "Whoever kills the fourth prince now will receive whatever they desire!"

    When his men heard this, all of them revealed greedy looks.

    The fourth prince just shook his head again before giving a sigh.

 Chapter 451 Auction trap (28)

    <h4>Chapter 451 Auction trap (28)</h4>

    The fourth prince just looked at the second prince with a look of pity before saying, "Goodbye, second brother."

    Then his men didn''t even need his order to close the shield wall.

    If they had been even a second slower, then they might have been stabbed by the weapons that had been thrown out by the second prince''s men.

    But they closed the shield wall just in time and those weapons just bounced off their shields.

    When those weapons hit those shields, there was a glow that appeared around them.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help feeling a familiar sensation from these shields.

    They were most likely magic items with how easily they bounced those weapons off.

    There wasn''t even a single dent that was left on those shields after they bounced these weapons off.

    This showed just how strong the magic in these shields were.

    Of course, that didn''t mean that the fourth prince''s men would just let themselves be attacked without fighting back.

    As soon as those weapons were thrown, there were weapons that fell down on the second prince''s formation.

    They also closed their shield wall as soon as they threw their weapons since they knew that they would be retaliated against the moment that they attacked. They didn''t dare have their shields down when that happened.

    But unlike the shields of the fourth prince''s group, these shields didn''t block these weapons as well.

    There were some that cracked when the weapons mmed into them and there were some that dented. Regardless of whether it cracked or not, it was clear that these shields that had broken weren''t able to protect its wielders.

    There were many holes that formed in the formation of the second prince''s group.

    The ones beside the ones that fell had no choice but to fill in the gaps for the ones that fell.

    But even then, it was clear that their formation wasn''t holding.

    It was clear that they were being overwhelmed by the difference in equipment.

    So it would only be a matter of time before they were worn down by the rain of weapons that fell on them. It was only a matter of time before their formation broke and they were ughtered.

    The people of the second prince''s group couldn''t help feeling worried since they recognized this fact.

    They looked to the second prince for guidance, but the second prince also had an ugly expression on his face.

    He too was feeling the pressure of this situation and he didn''t know how to get out of it.

    He still had onest trump card up his sleeve, but he knew that the moment he used it, it would be the end of pretenses. The moment that he used this, it would mean that he was desperate and the fourth prince wouldn''t show any mercy.

    So he was hesitant in using it.

    But the fact that they were trapped here was more than enough to tell him that he couldn''t wait anymore.

    So he looked at two people who had been standing by his side the entire time.

    They had never left his side, so it was clear that they were important to him.

    The two of them were surprised when they saw him looking over, but they revealed serious looks before giving a nod back as if they were trying to assure him.

    Then both of them pulled out what seemed to be staves.

    As soon as they pulled out their staff, there was mana that gathered around these two.

    It turned out that these two trusted subordinates of the second prince were magicians.

    One of them had blue magical energy gathering around them while the other had red magical energy.

    This was based on the element of magic that they used.

    The one with blue magical energy was clearly an ice elemental magician and the one with red magical energy was clearly a fire elemental magician.

    The two of them were gathering their mana to cast their spells, but before they could finish gathering their mana, it suddenly scattered away.

    The two of them revealed shocked looks as they looked down at their staff.

    They waved their staff and moved their hands as if they were testing something, but the glow never appeared again.

    It seemed that there was something that was suppressing their mana that stopped them from casting their spells.

    They looked at the second prince with a distressed look and the second prince revealed an ugly expression.

    He didn''t know what happened, but he was certain that it was done by the fourth prince.

    So after a moment of silence, the second prince raised his voice and said, "Fourth brother, what did you do?"

    The fourth prince in his own formation revealed a smile when he heard this.

    Contrary to the second prince who had a grim look on his face, the fourth prince had a very rxed expression on his face as he stood there in his own formation.

    It was as if everything was in the palm of his hands and he was controlling everything.

    Though with how easily the second prince''s formation was being worn down, it wouldn''t be strange if that was the case.

    The fourth prince just casually said, "Is there a problem, second brother? Are you having a little magic deficiency?"

    The second prince''s expression became even uglier as he said, "Noah, you son of a b****, what did you do?"

    The second prince had ripped off all pretenses at this point and even swore at his own brother.

    That was just how desperate he was.

    But the fourth prince deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    If one didn''t know better, they would have thought that he was deeply hurt by what the second prince said.

    After a moment of silence, the fourth prince said, "Keep agonizing over it until your death. This is the fate of one who betrays the royal family."

    His voice was so cold that it was like being thrown into a cier.

    Just a single word was enough to freeze a person.

 Chapter 452 Auction trap (29)

    <h4>Chapter 452 Auction trap (29)</h4>

    Since the fourth prince had already sealed his fate, there was no way out for the second prince.

    After these words from him, the fourth prince''s men didn''t hesitate to throw everything that they had at the second prince.

    The weapons that they used also changed.

    These were weapons that had a magical fluctuationing from them, so they were like the shields that the fourth prince''s men used. These weapons being thrown were all magic items.

    With the power of these magic items, they crushed through the shields of the second prince''s men and destroyed their formation. Once the shields were crushed, they had no way of defending themselves and many of them fell under these weapons.

    When it was all over, there was only the second prince and a few of his most trusted men who were left.

    They had done all that they could to protect themselves and the second prince, but they were covered in wounds from having weapons rain them on them like this. They couldn''t do a single thing against the relentless attacks of the fourth prince''s men.

    When it was only these few people left, the fourth prince suddenly raised his hand and all of his men stopped attacking.

    He took a step forward and the shield wall opened up to reveal him to the second prince.

    The second prince just had an exhausted look on his face as he looked at the fourth prince.

    His men helped him to his feet, but it was clear that he was alreadypletely spent.

    It was clear that he had epted his end.

    The second prince gave a deep sigh before saying, "Do what you want with me. I give up, I won''t resist."

    But then he also took a deep breath and said, "I just hope that you will show mercy since we are brothers."

    The fourth prince didn''t say a single thing as he looked at the second prince.

    The second prince''s men looked at the fourth prince with narrowed eyes, but they didn''t do anything even though it looked like they wanted to do something.

    The fourth prince finally gave a sigh before saying, "Do you regret your actions?"

    The second prince was surprised to hear this from the fourth prince.

    He looked at him with an uncertain look like he didn''t understand why the fourth prince had asked him this.

    But he gave a nod and said, "Yes, I¡­"

    Before he could finish, the fourth prince had given the signal with his hand.

    The men on the roof suddenly threw more weapons at the second prince.

    The second prince''s men werepletely caught off guard by this and they couldn''t guard themselves or the second prince.

    The second prince only had the time to reveal a look of shock before he was stabbed by all the weapons thrown at him.

    Even in his death, he never thought that the fourth prince would do anything this underhanded.

    His men had tried to block the weapons for him, but all they did was get pinned to him with these weapons. In the end, they be arge mass with all of these weapons pinning them to each other.

    With the second prince dead, it was all over.

    I couldn''t help looking at the fourth prince with a strange look.

    After all, I had never expected the fourth prince to actually kill the second prince.

    I had thought that he would just capture the second prince and use him for something else, but it seemed that it had reached a point where he could no longer be spared.

    But the death of the second prince confirmed my guesses, while also giving me some new information.

    The death of the second prince¡­it was rted to the king.

    That was made evident with the argument that they had.

    It was an argument that deeply involved the king, so it was clear that the king was rted to this.

    It seemed that regardless of which world it was, the royal family needed to be heartless.

    They didn''t even care about killing off their princes, as long as it meant that the royal family would survive¡­

    The fourth prince just ignored the gaze that I cast in his direction as he moved forward.

    His men tried to stop him, but he stopped them with a single wave of his hand and they all backed down.

    The fourth prince slowly closed the distance between him and the mass of corpses in front of him.

    Then he raised his hand and grabbed one of the weapons that pinned them together.

    After grabbing that weapon, he pulled it out of the mass, causing one of the corpses to fall to the ground.

    The fourth prince just ignored this corpse as he reached out for another weapon that he also pulled out of the pile.

    The fourth prince continued to pull the weapons out one by one until all of the corpses had fallen away. The only corpse that was left was the second prince''s which surprisingly was still standing there.

    That was because there was a long spear that had stabbed through the second prince and had pierced right into the ground, propping him up and making him unable to fall down.

    The fourth prince slowly pulled that spear out of the second prince, letting his corpse fall into his arms.

    He held the second prince, not caring that his blood was staining his clothes at all.

    He lifted the second prince''s corpse up and then put him down on the ground in an empty spot.

    After putting the second prince down, the fourth prince looked down at his corpse with a sad look on his face.

    He just silently stood there over the second prince''s corpse with that sad look on his face.

    After a long silence, he leaned down and reached a hand out towards the second prince''s face. With that hand, he closed the eyes of the second prince which had been wide open in shock.

    "Second brother, I hope that you will be a better person in the next life."

 Chapter 453 Auction trap (30)

    <h4>Chapter 453 Auction trap (30)</h4>

    After a long moment of silence for the second prince, the fourth prince stood up again and moved back to our formation.

    He looked at one of his men and said, "Bury him properly. You are free to dispose of the rest of them as you wish."

    There was no need for this person to ask who ''he'' was.

    There was only one person that the fourth prince could be referring to, the second prince.

    His subordinates didn''t ask anything else and just gave a bow before heading over to the corpses on the ground. Though they would treat the second prince''s corpse differently, they still had to take care of all the corpses that were here.

    The others would most likely be burnt or thrown in a ditch, the second prince would receive a small private burial plot.

    After he gave this order, the fourth prince walked off without even looking back.

    However, before going, he waved his hand at me as if he was telling me to follow him.

    I took onest look at the second prince''s corpse before following the fourth prince out of this ce.

    There was only silence as I followed him.

    I had questions that I wanted to ask, but I could see that it wasn''t the right time to ask them. The fourth prince clearly had some thoughts on his mind and it would be¡­wrong to ask these questions while he was in this state.

    So I was waiting for an opportunity to ask what was on my mind.

    That opportunity came very quickly.

    The fourth prince led us to a carriage that was waiting for us.

    The three of us got into the carriage and then the carriage started driving off.

    In no time at all, there were people that appeared on the streets again. They were walking around, going about their normal lives like they had noticed nothing happening in this capital city.

    They had no idea that such an important event had just happened.

    But that wasn''t important to us either since the fourth prince finally spoke.

    "I''m sure that you have plenty of questions, so feel free to ask them now." The fourth prince said with a smile, but there was still a clear trace of sadness in his eyes.

    I looked at him for a bit before calmly giving a nod.

    Taking a deep breath, I said, "You used me, didn''t you?"

    There was a silence that hung in this carriage.

    Shaka looked at me with a cautious look, as if he was surprised that I would be so direct with this.

    However, the smile on the fourth prince''s face slowly grew wider as he looked at me.

    Finally, he said, "Yes, I did."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this, but I quickly gave a sigh and rxed them.

    I knew that there was nothing to gain from being angry, so I just forced myself to calm down and ask, "Why?"

    "Because it was necessary." The fourth prince said without a single fluctuation to his voice. There was no expression on his face, as if what he was saying was the most natural thing.

    But this caused me to knit my brows slightly.

    I looked at him with narrowed eyes for a bit before suddenly saying, "Even though it broke our original agreement?"

    The fourth prince didn''t seem bothered by this as he said, "But now you''ve aplished your goal. There''s no need for you to stay in the capital anymore.

    No one will dare make a move against you since you were one of the ones that took down the second prince."

    I knitted my brows even more when I heard this.

    I didn''t know how I was supposed to react to this.

    One moment, the fourth prince showed remorse over killing the second prince and the next, he was stating it like it was nothing more than a fact.

    This change really was just too sudden for me and I couldn''t adapt.

    There was a long silence that hung in the air before I said, "The crime of killing a prince isn''t one that is easy to bear. Don''t you think that you should have told me about this before you put your n in action?"

    The fourth prince raised a brow as he revealed a smile and said, "Would you have worked with me then?"

    I deeply knitted my brows since I could hear the almost taunting tone in his voice.

    He was right, I definitely wouldn''t have worked with him if I knew.

    After all, this was the death of a prince. This was not something that was light.

    This was an event that would affect the future of this nation, an event that no one in this kingdom could avoid.

    So there would be a lot of attention that woulde from this.

    Attention which was thest thing that I wanted.

    I had only thought that this was a n to cripple a few of the second prince''s limbs, not to kill the second prince.

    If I knew, I definitely wouldn''t have agreed!

    I took a deep breath after staring at the fourth prince for a bit and said, "Regardless of the circumstances, do you really think that it is right to lie to your allies? Or is there anything else that you''re not telling me?"

    The fourth prince didn''t answer this question, but the smile on his face really annoyed me along with the way that he looked at me.

    The way that he looked at me was almost like he had found an interesting toy.

    I knew that he wouldn''t stop using me for different things in the future unless I made things clear.

    But before I could say anything, the fourth prince said, "It''s fine as long as you receive somepensation, right?"

    He leaned in and said with a smile that was like the devil''s, "What kind ofpensation do you want? As long as I can get it for you, you can have it."

 Chapter 454 Auction trap (31)

    <h4>Chapter 454 Auction trap (31)</h4>

    As I looked at the fourth prince, I couldn''t help deeply knitting my brows after hearing him say this.

    To anyone else, this should have been a dream.

    After all, the promise of a free favour from the fourth prince was something that countless people in this kingdom wanted.

    However, it was anything but a dream for me.

    I knew that once I made this request, he would be free to do whatever he wanted with me. It would wipe out the debt of this one favour that I had already done for him, freeing him to do what he wanted with me without any regret.

    That was the worst case scenario for me.

    This time it was killing a prince¡­what would it be next time?

    Would he make me start a coup with him next time?

    I definitely couldn''t allow that to happen.

    But if I were to reject him¡­would that offend the fourth prince?

    He was going out of his way to make this offer and if I rejected this offer directly, it would seem like I didn''t appreciate him and this offer. It would make it seem like I was looking down on him and his kindness.

    So it was all about how to decline the fourth prince.

    I looked at him in silence for a bit before finally deciding on what to do.

    "Your highness, thank you for this kind offer, but I will have to reject it. It was a deal that was about necessity for both of us, so I can''t feel right about taking anything. We were just doing what we needed to do." I said in a slow and calm voice.

    The fourth prince raised a brow as if he was surprised by this before saying, "Is that so. Are you sure that there isn''t anything that you want?"

    I shook my head and said, "I just hope that your highness will continue to look out for me in the future."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before saying, "Of course, I''ve already given you my promise that I would and I won''t back down on that now."

    This time, it was my turn to be surprised.

    After all, I never thought that the fourth prince would be so enthusiastic about making this promise.

    It was as if he had something personal at stake here¡­

    That was also why I couldn''t help feeling that there was something bad here¡­almost as if something bad was about to happen to me.

    I suppressed that feeling and said in a polite voice, "Then I''ll have to rely on your highness in the future."

    The fourth prince revealed a wide smile as he nodded in agreement.

    But then as if he felt that something was off, he said, "No, I can''t just let you go back empty handed. I should give you something for everything that you''ve done."

    "Shadow Five." The fourth prince suddenly said and a cloaked figure suddenly appeared in the carriage.

    It seemed that she had been here the entire time, but she had hidden herself. As for how she had hidden herself, I really had no idea¡­

    The fourth prince turned to the cloaked figure that had already fallen to one knee and said, "I want you to keep protecting Count Zwein for me. Be sure to follow his orders and keep him safe."

    Though her face couldn''t be seen, it was clear by her bodynguage that she seemed disappointed by this.

    The fourth prince didn''t seem to notice this at all as he turned back to me and said, "In addition to this, I will be giving you a few more things that will help you with your territory."

    I was taken aback by this sudden generosity from the fourth prince, but I quickly said, "Your highness, there is no need for that. As long as your highness is willing to support me, then that will be enough."

    The fourth prince knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He just looked at me with this frown on his face beforeing forward to say, "Are you looking down on me?"

    I couldn''t help trembling when I heard this.

    This was the one thing that I was afraid of when trying to reject the fourth prince''s offer.

    But before I could say anything to rectify this, the fourth prince suddenly revealed a smile and said, "I can guess what you are thinking, but you don''t need to worry. I won''t involve you in anything else from now on since there''s no need for you to be involved. I will take care of everything on my own and you can just return to your territory until it''s time."

    "It''s time?" I couldn''t help repeating under my breath as I didn''t understand what he meant by this.

    However, before I could ask the fourth prince, he already sat back down in his seat and looked out the window.

    The look on his face made it seem like nothing I said would change his mind¡­so I could only sit there with a worried look on my face.

    I didn''t know what the fourth prince had nned, but I didn''t think that it would be anything good.

    I knew what kind of personality the fourth prince had because of my knowledge from the game, so I knew that whatever n he had¡­it would be very bad for me.

    I just couldn''t stop it¡­

    All I could do was think of a way to minimize the damage so that I could protect the things that I cared about in the future.

    As we traveled through the streets, I heard the fourth prince mutter under his breath, "If I don''t make sure that his ce has everything, I''ll never hear the end of it from her¡­She''ll surely be angry that I didn''t take care of everything."

    I couldn''t help looking at the fourth prince with a strange look, but he waspletely lost in his own world and wasn''t in any mood to talk to me.

    However, there was a bad feeling that built up inside of me¡­

    It felt like something was going to happen, something bad.

 Chapter 455 Brother

    <h4>Chapter 455 Brother</h4>

    The destination of this carriage was the residence given to the dwarves.

    When we arrived, they immediately came out to meet us.

    The first thing that they did was go around and check my body to see if there were any injuries.

    Then they asked me about what had happened.

    During all of this, the fourth prince just stood there with a smile on his face. But his eyes¡­were sharp as he looked at the dwarves. It was almost as if he was analyzing them to see if he could find something special about them.

    But if one looked closely, they could see that it wasn''t with kind intentions that he was looking at them with¡­

    Rather, it seemed like he was trying to find something that he could use against them in the future.

    Even when he wasn''t trying to do something specific, he was still trying to find something that would help him in the future.

    It was no wonder he was able to do all that in the game.

    But now¡­the flow of plot had changed with the death of the second prince¡­

    The second prince''s death was supposed to happenter in the plot, at least several years in the future. However, because of my interference, the second prince had died early.

    Even the speech that he made in the end about wanting the throne, that was just like the one that he should have made when he died in the future.

    Others wouldn''t know this, but I couldn''t mistake it since it was one of the important cutscenes in the noble quest line.

    It seemed that I really was having an effect on this world.

    After they finished asking me about what happened, the dwarves were about to pull me inside to start the banquet that they had prepared.

    But before they could, I turned back to the fourth prince who had been silently waiting the entire time.

    If I just left without saying anything to the fourth prince, then it wouldn''t be good.

    So I went to give him a bow, but the fourth prince suddenly came forward and said, "Count Zwein, there''s no need for you to do that. You can just act around me like you would a friend."

    I was caught off guard by these sudden words from the fourth prince.

    I looked at him with a cautious look like I didn''t understand what he was nning, but I couldn''t read anything from his face.

    So I just said, "Your highness, thank you for everything."

    The fourth prince raised his hand when he heard this and said, "Count Zwein, there''s no need for that. We both got what we wanted out of this and I feel like we''ve gotten closer because of it."

    He came forward with a smile and reached his hand out around my shoulder to pull me in.

    As I came closer to him, he looked at me with that smile and said, "Count Zwein, since we''ve be much closer, I feel like we should change the way that we address each other."

    I waspletely caught off guard by this sudden suggestion from the fourth prince.

    At the same time, I looked at him with a confused look as I had no idea what he wanted to do.

    The fourth prince didn''t mind this confused way that I looked at him and said with the same smile, "I feel that you are someone that I''m destined to meet, someone I''m destined to get along with. I feel that we will be in each other''s lives for a long time."

    I couldn''t help revealing a strange look when I heard this¡­

    Was the fourth princeing on to me?

    In the game, the fourth prince had never had a wife or even a fiancee¡­so there were rumours that he swung the other way that was sprinkled into the game.

    I had thought that it was just some vour text, but¡­

    The way that he was acting now, it really seemed like he was into ''that''.

    Was he going to ask me to¡­?

    The fourth prince didn''t care about the way that I looked at him as he said, "I feel like we were destined to be brothers, so how about we be sworn brothers?"

    I let out a secret sigh of relief after hearing this, but I still had a shocked look on my face when I heard this.

    Sworn brothers, that was not a pact that could be made that easily¡­

    Yet the fourth prince wanted to be sworn brothers with me?

    Still, even if I didn''t want to do this, it wasn''t as if I had a choice.

    The fourth prince was offering this to me and if I turned him down, there was no doubt that this would offend him.

    Before that though, I had to ask, "Your highness, are you sure about this? This isn''t something that can be done that easily."

    The fourth prince said with a wide smile, "Brother, you don''t have to worry about that. Plus, you should call me brother and not your highness anymore."

    It was as if he had already gotten an agreement from me with the way that he was calling me ''brother''.

    Still, he was right since I wasn''t about to disagree.

    So I said with a sigh, "Then brother, please take care of me in the future."

    The fourth prince gave a satisfied nod as he let go of my shoulder and said with the same smile, "Brother Zwein, you don''t need to worry about a thing in the future. Let me take care of it for you."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Thank you, brother."

    Though on the inside, I couldn''t help feeling exhausted.

    The fourth prince gave another satisfied nod before heading back into his carriage.

    I just stood there and waved at him as he left. He also waved back at me from inside the carriage.

    Once he was gone and I was certain that he was gone, I couldn''t help giving a small stomp of my foot.

    I was frustrated that I had been yed by the fourth prince like this and that there was nothing that I could do about it. At the same time, I couldn''t help feeling that my future would be dark¡­

    After all, I would be caught up in the ns of the fourth prince.

    While others might not know how terrifying he was, I waspletely aware of it.

    He was the real viin of the game, an existence that was as terrifying as the demon king, but he was a human.

    So there was no doubt that bad things would be in store for me.

    I could only give a sigh and ept this since it was already determined.

    Even if I wasn''t happy, there was nothing that I could do about it.

    So instead of agonizing over this, it would be better toe up with ns for the future. I had toe up with ways to keep myself and the people that I cared about safe¡­

    ¡­

    After the carriage left, the fourth prince sat there with a smile on his face as he said to himself, "I have to make sure to get him on my side before they get married or else my sister will make me suffer in the future."

 Chapter 456 Sudden departure

    <h4>Chapter 456 Sudden departure</h4>

    The fourth prince kept his promise and we were allowed to leave in just three days.

    It was very shocking that we were allowed to leave this quickly.

    After all, it wasn''t just me that was leaving, but the entire dwarven ambassador team.

    They would be allowed toe back to my town to set up an embassy for further rtions with the Dwarven Kingdom. So there would no longer be a need for them toe to the capital.

    It made sense since my territory was where most of the trade with the Dwarven Kingdom would be happening, so it was easier for us to discuss things here. But I never thought that the king would actually allow such a thing to happen.

    After all, this was basically giving me all the rights to negotiate with the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Along with my title as ambassador, I would be able to do whatever I wanted with the trade.

    I could abuse it and set the price as high as I wanted to gouge the other nobles, not that I would do that in the first ce.

    But it was possible with this arrangement.

    So how could the king allow this to happen?

    Still, this was what happened in the end, so there was nothing that I could say about it.

    I didn''t want to question it just in case it would change his mind, so I quickly left with the dwarven ambassador team.

    When we left, it was under the protection of several guards that all hid their identities.

    It seemed that we were leaving in secret.

    But then again, if we didn''t leave in secret, there was no knowing what the different nobles would have done.

    I actually hadn''t checked in with any noble during this time because of the circumstances, so I had no idea what the situation of the capital was like.

    However, as we moved through the streets, it was as I had expected.

    There were far fewer people moving through the streets after the second prince died.

    The official announcement was that he had suddenly fallen ill and sumbed to his illness, but everyone knew what the truth was. Even the citizens knew that it had something to do with the session race.

    So the capital had be very quiet during this time as no one dared to step out of ce.

    After all, a single misstep would be the difference between life and death.

    After we left the capital, we met the fourth prince who had been waiting outside for us.

    Seeing him waiting there for us, I had no choice but to go out and talk to him alone even though I very much didn''t want to.

    When he saw mee over, the fourth prince waved at me toe over with a smile on his face. When I came over, he said with a smile, "Brother Zwein, it really is hard to say goodbye after all that we''ve been through, but it seems like the time muste. I hope that you will be able toe to the capital again in the future."

    Though I very much disagreed with this, I smiled and said, "Your¡­"

    Before I could continue, I suddenly realized my mistake when the fourth prince gave a cough.

    So I changed how I addressed him, "Brother Noah, it really is kind of you to say this, but I feel like I''ll be busy with my territory from now on. I''ll try toe, but it should be a long time before I have the free time toe to the capital again."

    The fourth prince gave a nod of agreement before looking at the carriage, "With your new job hosting the dwarven ambassador, I''m sure that will be the case."

    Then he looked around as if he was looking for something before saying, "Come out."

    As soon as he said this, Shadow Five appeared out of nowhere and bowed to the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince slightly knitted his brows when he saw this before saying, "What are you doing?"

    Shadow Five couldn''t help trembling when she heard this before bowing her head and saying, "Your highness, have I made a mistake?"

    The fourth prince shook his head before saying, "You''re going to be following Brother Zwein here and you''re still acting like this? Take off your cloak already and stop hiding in the shadows. You will be protecting him openly as his guard."

    Shadow Five trembled when she heard this before looking up slowly at the fourth prince.

    But seeing that his expression didn''t change, she slowly took off her cloak to reveal¡­a beautiful face.

    She had long pink hair that framed a perfect fair white skin that had red eyes. She was without a doubt a beauty that it was almost a shame for her to cover herself up like this.

    The only thing that she wascking¡­was a few curves.

    After seeing her take off the cloak, the fourth prince gave a satisfied nod before turning to say to me, "Brother Zwein, feel free to use her however you want. She will follow all of your orders while protecting you."

    While I felt that there was some hidden meaning to this, I said with a straight face, "Brother Noah, thank you, but I don''t think that there''s a need. I have my own guards, so there''s no need for you to send one of your personal guards to protect me."

    There was a faint glow that appeared in Shadow Five''s eyes when she heard this, but it was quickly buried.

    The fourth prince shook his head and said, "Nonsense. You are my brother, so naturally I will protect you. Shadow Five here is one of my trusted guards, so I wouldn''t be assured unless you were protected by her."

    Shadow Five''s eyes lit up when she heard this before she revealed a determined gaze.

    Seeing this, I just gave a secret sigh.

    I knew that there was no convincing them to change their mind, so I just gave a simple nod and said, "Then I''ll have to thank you, Brother Noah."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before waving his hand and saying, "Come with me. Before you go, there''s someone that I want you to meet."

 Chapter 457 A surprise meeting

    <h4>Chapter 457 A surprise meeting</h4>

    I didn''t know what the fourth prince wanted to show me, but the only thing that I could do was follow him.

    We walked for a bit beforeing to a carriage that was parked by the side of the road.

    This carriage was the same carriage that I saw him riding in before, so I knew that this was the fourth prince''s carriage. But when I looked closely, I found that there was a cloaked figure that was sitting inside.

    For some reason, I felt that this cloaked figure seemed familiar.

    It was like I had seen this cloaked figure somewhere before.

    When we came over, the fourth prince raised his hand for me to stop before going over to the carriage alone.

    He went into the carriage and seemed like he was saying something to this cloaked figure.

    I just watched the two of them, trying to figure out where I had seen this cloaked figure before.

    After a while, the fourth prince came out first and then helped that cloaked figure down from the carriage.

    When that cloaked figure came out, I realized who it was.

    Though she had changed cloaks, I was able to recognize her from her body figure.

    It was the princess¡­

    I don''t know why she had snuck out of the castle again, but I knew that it wouldn''t be simple since she had gone to all this trouble toe and see me.

    There had to be a reason for this.

    Once they came out of the carriage, the fourth prince came forward with her and said, "Brother Zwein, this is who I wanted you to meet."

    I didn''t know what they wanted from me, but the first thing that I should do is at least make a good impression, right?

    So with a bow, I said, "A friend of Brother Noah is always a friend of mine."

    After I said this though, there was a weird feelinging from in front of me.

    It was almost as if there was some kind of strange pressureing from in front of me and the one that it wasing from was the cloaked figure. However, that strange pressure wasn''t aimed at me, rather it was aimed at the fourth prince.

    When he felt this pressure on him, the fourth prince couldn''t help revealing an awkward smile.

    I didn''t understand why the princess was putting this pressure on the fourth prince, but I acted like I didn''t feel anything.

    After a moment of silence, the fourth prince said, "Brother Zwein, this is my sister and the princess of our kingdom, Princess Ang."

    After he said this, the princess slowly took off her cloak to reveal her appearance.

    I was surprised, but not surprised because I didn''t know she was the princess.

    Even though I had already seen her in the game before, seeing her in real life was something else.

    Her beauty really knew no bounds¡­

    That light blonde hair, those soft blue eyes, and that fair white skin. She really seemed like one of those princesses from a fairy tale with how she looked.

    If this was a fairy tale, then there would be some kind of evil stepmother that would be jealous of her beauty.

    But this wasn''t¡­

    After she pulled off her cloak, she suddenly reached a hand out towards me.

    I was caught off guard by this, but I quickly realized what she was doing and I reached out my hand to take her hand. I then bowed down and ced a kiss on her hand like a gentleman.

    After that kiss on the hand, I said, "It is an honour to meet you, your highness."

    The princess just looked at me with a smile on her face without saying anything.

    The fourth prince gave a satisfied nod when he saw this before saying, "Brother Zwein, the reason I''m introducing you to my sister here is because she will be in charge of visiting your territory in the future on behalf of my royal father."

    I immediately turned to look at the fourth prince with a shocked look when I heard this.

    He wasn''t surprised to see me looking at him like this and instead continued by saying, "She will be in charge of the matters with the dwarves on behalf of my royal father, so you will be working a lot with her in the future. I wanted to let you meet her before so you could get acquainted ahead of time."

    I slowly turned back to look at the princess with a shocked look on my face, but she just kept looking at me with that smile on hers.

    It was almost as if this didn''t seem to concern her.

    Giving a deep sigh, I just said, "I look forward to working with you in the future, your highness."

    The princess just gave a simple nod in response to this before turning to look at the fourth prince.

    When the fourth prince saw this look, he came forward to take her by the hand and said to me, "Brother Zwein, I think that we should end it here today. I''m sure that you have a long journey ahead of you, so I don''t want to keep you here for long."

    I was surprised once again by how suddenly the fourth prince ended this, but he wasn''t wrong.

    I wanted to leave as soon as possible to avoid being caught up in anything, so I said with a nod, "Brother Noah, thank you for everything that you''ve done." I then turned to the princess and said, "Your highness, it was an honour to meet you."

    The fourth prince gave a nod and then said, "Then Brother Zwein, until we meet again."

    I said with a smile, "Brother Noah, until we meet again."

    The two of us stood there for a few seconds before turning around to head to our own carriages.

    Both of us had different thoughts in mind that the other never would have expected.

    But as I was walking off, I felt the urge to turn around.

    When I did, I saw that the fourth prince had also turned around.

    Seeing that I was looking at him, he mouthed, "Good luck."

    Without saying anything else, he turned back around and didn''t turn back once.

    I was just confused why he would mouth this to me.

 Chapter 458 Who was this?

    <h4>Chapter 458 Who was this?</h4>

    After we set off, I couldn''t help falling into deep thought.

    As for what I was thinking about, it was naturally what the fourth prince had said to me.

    He had told me that it would be the princess that would be in charge of the matter with the dwarves in the future. What he meant by this was the trade with the dwarves that would be done on behalf of the king.

    Would the king really leave something this important to the princess?

    As far as I knew, the princess never got involved in things like this.

    She was the princess that the king loved and spoiled, which was why she was such a tomboy. She had never been involved in royal affairs before, so she definitely never did anything like this before.

    So why would the king suddenly give her this role?

    It was impossible that he didn''t know how important this role was, so why would he give it to someone who had never been involved in this kind of thing before?

    Wouldn''t this be bad for him?

    The more that I thought about it, the more confused I was.

    After all, there were just too many things that were different from the world that I knew.

    The second prince''s death and now the princess being given this role.

    If I had to find one thing inmon with this¡­it was that I was involved in this matter.

    No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like I was changing the course of this world''s history.

    That was something to be expected since I was not someone that belonged to this world, but at the same time¡­it was terrifying. That was because if this world was going to progress differently from the knowledge that I knew about this world, it would mean that this knowledge that I possessed was useless.

    If I didn''t have my knowledge, there was very little that I would be able to do¡­

    After all, the system that I had was¡­the Sex Toy System.

    Other than a few useful items, I had gained nothing else from it so far. It had even gone into hibernation because I hadn''t been able to gather all the resources that it needed for the next step.

    But then I suddenly realized something¡­

    Wait, with the trade with the dwarves, didn''t that mean that I had enough resources now to start producing items with the system like it had been waiting for?

    Did that mean that I would finally be able to use the system again?

    But that hope died just as quickly as it came.

    The system that I had was the Sex Toy System, so even if I could use the system to produce items, what good would that be?

    What would I be able to do with a bunch of sex toys?

    The more and more that I thought about my situation, the more I fell into despair.

    It didn''t seem like there was a light at the end of this tunnel¡­

    I just had no idea what to do.

    But the mood waspletely different on the other side.

    ¡­

    The fourth prince couldn''t help looking at the princess with a strange look on his face.

    That was because the princess currently had a look on her face that the fourth prince had never seen before.

    This kind of shy expression that she had never revealed once in her life was creeping the fourth prince out.

    He really wanted to say, "Just who are you?"

    But of course, he was able to keep it in and not say it out loud in the end.

    Though it did take quite a bit of effort on his part to stop himself from saying it out loud.

    Finally after a long silence, the fourth prince asked, "Are you happy with how that turned out? You didn''t get to say a single word to him in the end."

    The princess jolted when she heard this before shyly lowering her head.

    The fourth prince''s chin almost dropped when he saw her acting like this.

    Was this really his rough and tough big sister who didn''t seem like a girl at all?

    Was this really the one that had tormented him when they were younger?

    He just couldn''t help refusing to believe this.

    After lowering her head for a bit, she said in a soft voice, "Well, it felt like my heart was about to jump out of my chest when he kissed my hand like that¡­"

    The fourth prince''s lips twitched when he heard this.

    He never thought that there would be a day where he would see his big sister like this¡­

    But then he said with a sigh, "If you act like this around him, then what will happen in the future? How will you be able to even talk to him if you keep acting like this around him?"

    The princess revealed a sad look when she heard this, but she still said, "I know¡­but it isn''t that easy. I''ve never felt this way before and it''s hard for me to adjust to this new feeling¡­"

    Then after a pause, she added, "But I am trying. I will get better and talk to him properly next time we meet."

    The fourth prince''s lips couldn''t help curling into a smile when he heard this.

    Though there was a bit of doubt in his mind, he still said, "I believe in you, big sister."

    After another silence, the princess suddenly came forward and took the fourth prince''s arm with her hands. Holding that arm, she looked up with a pleading look and said, "Little fourth, you have to help your big sister. How did you get so close to him already? Please tell me your secret."

    When he was hit head on this time, the fourth prince couldn''t hold himself back anymore as he said, "Who are you?"

    When she heard this, the expression of the princess changed.

    It slowly went from a pleading look to an angry look as she released his arm and slowly brought her hand to his head.

    Then she¡­grabbed him in a death grip as she said, "It''s your loving big sister, don''t you recognize me?"

    The fourth prince revealed a bitter smile when he was in this death grip, but for some reason¡­he couldn''t help feeling relieved.

    This was the big sister that he was familiar with.

 Chapter 459 Strange return

    <h4>Chapter 459 Strange return</h4>

    It took a few days for us to arrive back in my territory, but it was good to be back.

    When we arrived though, we received a strange wee.

    Instead of the normal wee that we received, it was almost as if we werepletely ignored by the people of the town.

    Everyone seemed to be running around as if they were busy with something.

    It didn''t seem like things were normal here.

    So the first thing that I did was head to my manor to see if I could find Rose.

    If there was anyone that could give me answers, it was her.

    When I arrived, I found that she was trapped inside her office with piles of papers on her desk. As well, she was surrounded by many people who had papers in their hands, as if they were trying to get approval from her.

    They all turned to look at me when I came in, but then they just ignored me and went back to what they were doing.

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I saw this.

    It was only right that they acted this way since I left most of the management of my territory to Rose. Even if I was back, they would still go to her for approval rather than me.

    It was only Rose who raised her hand to stop the one talking to her and stood up toe over to me.

    When she walked over, she said, "Oh, right, you wereing back. Ipletely forgot."

    The bitter smile on my face became even more bitter when I heard this.

    There was nothing that a husband liked to hear more from his wife than this.

    But still, I couldn''t me her since I was most likely the reason why she was this busy.

    So I asked, "What''s going on here? Why is it so busy?"

    Rose was about to say something when she suddenly looked behind me at someone there.

    I slowly turned and followed her gaze and found that she was looking at Veronica who had followed me here.

    I had honestly forgotten about Veronica during my trip to the capital since she had been so quiet and there had been so many things going on. It was only now that I remembered that she had been with me the whole time.

    Rose pushed me to the side and took Veronica by the hand.

    She pulled Veronica over to her desk and said, "Miss Veronica, please help me with these decisions. You''re the one that knows what''s best here."

    Veronica just slowly nodded in agreement.

    But before that person could start their report again, I quickly came forward and said, "Wait, wait, wait, before you start, tell me what''s going on."

    Rose looked like she suddenly remembered that I was still here and then she looked at me like she wanted me to leave.

    Veronica had to be the one to tell me what was happening.

    "Right, Ipletely forgot to tell you¡­I received a letter from my father saying that he would be visiting your territory soon and he asked me when you would be back. I think that he should be arriving in a day or two."

    A look of shock appeared on my face, but also a slow look of understanding.

    If a duke wasing, then it would make sense that they would all be busy like this.

    After all, someone with the status of duke couldn''t be treated lightly.

    They had to make sure that everything was taken care of perfectly so that they wouldn''t offend the duke.

    That was why everyone was so busy.

    Once she finished saying this, she was pulled back to the matter that Rose had been dealing with.

    With the way that they were treating me, it was almost as if I had been dismissed for being useless. But of course, that was the truth of the matter.

    No matter how smart I was, it didn''t matter since I had never been in charge of a territory before. There were many things that one had to learn to take care of their territory and it couldn''t be done rashly.

    If it wasn''t for Rose, my territory would have copsed.

    After all, the only real experience that I had running a territory was in the game and that was all simplified by the game system. Running a real territory wasn''t something that would be very fun to put in a game, so there was just a simplified version that one would normally see in games.

    So even if I wanted to get angry, I had no right.

    Not that I would get angry since I knew that she was doing all of this for me.

    I just awkwardly stood there as I thought about what to do before turning around to leave so that I could leave them alone to do what they needed to do.

    But before I reached the door, I still turned back and asked, "Is there anything that I can do to help?"

    Rose looked up from the report that she was looking at to look at me before raising her hand to stop that person again.

    When he was stopped from reporting, he turned to look at me like I was getting in the way. It wasn''t a look of jealousy, it was just a look of annoyance at the fact that I was dying their important matters.

    The staff that Rose had trained were all professional, so work was the only thing on their mind.

    I just revealed an awkward look as I waited for her to say something.

    After thinking for a bit, Rose suddenly said, "You can go and find Haley, I think that she needs some help lifting things."

    An awkward smile appeared on my face when I heard this.

    I wasn''t even relegated to doing something small, I was sent off to lift things.

    But that was just the position that I was in and if it made it easier for her, I would naturally do it.

    So neither of us said anything else as we turned to go back to business.

    Rose went on with the nning while I went off to find Haley to help.

 Chapter 460 The dukeâ€™s visit (1)

    <h4>Chapter 460 The duke¡¯s visit (1)</h4>

    The days passed by quickly and we received word two dayster that the duke would be arriving soon.

    It was the scout team on the edge of our territory that had noticed the duke''s carriage and immediately sent word to the town to inform us.

    When that happened, Rose started running things with even more of an iron fist than she did before. This time, I wasn''t able to escape since I was the count and the lord of this ce, so I had to prepare myself to greet the duke.

    As such, I was dragged off by a few of her maids and made to sit still for several hours as they prepared what I would be wearing to greet the duke.

    Actual formal wear was much more troublesome than normal formal wear, this was something that was used to impress the guests that came, so there were many different parts to it.

    From the clothes to the essories to even the smallest details of my hair, it all had to be perfect.

    So I was basically turned into a dress up doll before the duke arrived.

    But there was one good thing that came from this.

    Rose also had to put on formal wear and¡­the moment that I saw her, my breath was taken away.

    She was already a beautiful woman, but when she went all out like this¡­there was nothing that I could say.

    In fact, there was a part of me that wanted to bark for her, but I held myself back in the end.

    The two of us were dressed up like this as we waited in our manor for the duke''s arrival.

    Since I was a count and she was a countess, it wasn''t as if we could wait outside for the duke.

    We had to wait for our people to pick him up and bring him here.

    During this, it really was ufortable sitting there since we were just waiting without having a thing to do.

    If we moved around too much, it would ruin our formal wear and give a bad impression. So we had to sit as still as possible until the duke arrived.

    Finally, the duke''s arrival was announced and we stood up to greet him.

    To our surprise, we found that it wasn''t just the duke that came, but also his wife.

    The way that they acted, it was almost as if they were on vacation rather than visiting the territory of another noble.

    But that was just how it was for nobles of higher rank, they felt less pressure in situations like this since the pressure wasn''t on them. They didn''t need to worry about offending others, it was others that had to worry about offending them.

    So they could just act as casual as they wanted, there would still be people that would try to tter them.

    After they came in, I stood up and walked over to the duke before saying, "Duke Beauchamp, it is an honour for us to have you visit our territory."

    This time, I hadpletely changed how I addressed the duke.

    Before, I had been overly courteous and had addressed him in a very respectful manner.

    But this time, I addressed him properly as a noble of slightly higher ranking.

    That was because now that I was a count, that was what was expected.

    If I were to keep acting like I had done before, then it would have been insulting.

    After all, trying too hard made things seem fake. If I were to keep acting humble like I did before, then all it would do is offend the duke.

    The duke looked at me with narrowed eyes when he heard me addressing him like this.

    Seeing him look at me like this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit worried¡­

    But then the duke revealed a smile and said, "Count Zwein, you''re too kind. I should say that it is an honour for me toe to your territory."

    Rose revealed a surprised look in her eyes when she heard this, but I quickly patted her hand to calm her down since I was already used to this.

    The duke knew that I was a part of Shadow Garden, so he had acted this way when I had been in Bright Water City.

    I was already used to hearing him talk like this, so I said with a smile, "Then it could be said that it is both of our honours to be here today."

    The duke was surprised by this, but he revealed a faint smile as he nodded in response.

    After that, the four of us all sat down and some tea was prepared for us.

    Since they had just arrived, we didn''t get right into business and talked about some small things that weren''t important.

    We were just letting the duke and the duchess settle before getting into it.

    However, the duke was the one that changed the topic to a subject that hurt him quite a bit.

    "Where''s Veronica? Shouldn''t she be here?" After he said this, he looked around as if he was searching for her.

    But there was no ce that she could be since we were in the living room of our manor.

    If she was here, he would have already seen her.

    Both Rose and I revealed awkward smiles when we heard this.

    We had tried to get Veronica toe with us to meet the duke, but she had refused.

    It wasn''t as if we could force her toe with us if she wasn''t willing, so we had no choice but to meet the duke and duchess without her.

    Now that they had brought the topic up, we had no choice but to give the excuse that we had already given.

    Rose said with a smile, "Lady Veronica has been interacting with our dwarven friends quite a bit recently. They invited her to help out with their forging today, so she couldn''t cancel and had no choice but to miss this meeting. Of course, she will being to dinner tonight."

    The duke revealed a bitter smile when he heard this.

    He looked at the duchess and both of them had bitter smiles on their faces.

    When we saw this, we couldn''t help feeling worried about this and I said, "If you wish, we can send someone to get Lady Veronica and have her join us."

    The duke just shook his head and said, "There''s no need for that."

    He looked at us with that bitter smile as he said, "We know what kind of personality our daughter has, so there''s no need for you to give excuses. It''s clear that she just didn''t want toe see us."

    When we heard this, the two of us suddenly jolted and panicked.

    We were about to offer up more excuses, but the duke just raised his hand and said with the same bitter smile, "There''s no need for you to make excuses for her. There''s nothing that you can do if she doesn''t want to see us."

    Then after a pause, he said, "But that does mean that she''s having fun if she''s still willing to stay after all this time."

    We couldn''t help revealing a bit of worry when we heard this.

    There was a bad feeling that filled us after he said this¡­

 Chapter 461 The dukeâ€™s visit (2)

    <h4>Chapter 461 The duke¡¯s visit (2)</h4>

    The duke continued to say, "Thank you for taking care of her during this time. If it wasn''t for you, who knows what kind of ces she would have run off to."

    Both Rose and I couldn''t help looking at each other with confused looks before turning back to look at the duke.

    Slowly, I said, "Duke Beauchamp, of course we would take care of her for you since she came here as your envoy. But are you sure that you''re alright with all the things that she''s been doing?"

    The duke raised a brow before asking, "Why wouldn''t I be alright with it?"

    Both Rose and I couldn''t help being surprised again when we heard this.

    Why wouldn''t he be alright?

    Well, she had followed me to another kingdom and had even followed me to the capital to get involved in the session war. If I was her father, I wouldn''t be happy that my daughter was involved in all of this.

    But it didn''t seem like he was lying.

    It seemed like he really was alright with what Veronica had been getting up to.

    It was just that this was strange¡­

    The duke saw the way that we looked at him and after a moment of silence, he said, "While it is hard to imagine interacting with the elves, I''m sure that she''s doing fine. She is my daughter after all."

    After saying this, he couldn''t help raising his head as if he was showing pride in Veronica.

    But when we heard this, we finally figured out what was going on.

    He didn''t know.

    It was very simple, he didn''t know about all the things that Veronica has been getting up to, which was why he didn''t say anything about them.

    It seemed that even though she had been sending her letters back, there were a few things that she had left out in those letters. Things that she didn''t want her parents knowing since they would certainly disapprove of.

    I could see that Rose also realized this and as we exchanged looks, we immediately came to an understanding.

    Since Veronica didn''t tell her parents about this, it wasn''t up to us to tell them.

    We would leave that to her when she met them again.

    For now, we will just go to the next topic.

    I gave a cough to adjust myself before changing my tone to say, "Duke Beauchamp, shall we move on and discuss some business?"

    The duke was surprised by how sudden I had changed the topic, but he gave a nod and revealed a serious look as well.

    The moment that he did, the aura around himpletely changed.

    It went from the friendly person that he had been acting just now to the aura that a duke should have.

    This was a change that I hadn''t seen since our time in Bright Water City.

    It was during the undead crisis that I had seen this side of the duke.

    It was without a doubt daunting facing the duke like this, but this just went to prove how powerful of a person he was. That made me even more assured in having him as our trade partner.

    I nodded to Rose and she stood up to move to the side.

    When she came back, she had a piece of paper in her hand that she ced on the coffee table in front of us. She made sure to ce it on the side that the duke was sitting on, so that he would be able to take it.

    The duke raised a brow when he saw this, but he still took that piece of paper.

    Rose just sat down by my side again and we silently waited for the duke to read what was written.

    After reading for a bit, the duke started to knit his brows.

    It was clear that he had some thoughts about what was written on this piece of paper.

    As for what that was, it was the list of ores that we had set aside to be sold to him and the price that we were selling it at.

    The look on his face was quite ambiguous, so it was hard to judge what he was thinking.

    But in this situation, when one revealed a look like this, it most likely meant that they were¡­unhappy with what they had been presented.

    Still, we silently waited for the duke to finish reading and to respond.

    After a long silence, the duke put the piece of paper down and looked up at us with that same look on his face. He just calmly looked at us, as if he was trying to gauge us.

    After another long silence, he finally said, "Is everything written on this paper true?"

    We couldn''t help revealing frowns when we heard this, but I calmed myself down and gave a nod in response before saying, "Yes."

    The duke just looked at me with narrowed eyes for a bit before suddenly giving a nod and saying, "Alright, I ept these terms."

    I waspletely taken aback when I heard this.

    After all, none of us expected the duke to agree to this first offer.

    Rose, Haley, and I had all expected the duke to make some kind of counter offer, so we had already prepared a bottom line that we would be willing to ept.

    This offer that we made was just the negotiable first offer.

    Yet the duke had epted it so easily.

    It was the same with the king¡­

    They all epted these things so easily, as if they weren''t concerned by the numbers at all.

    But that didn''t make sense.

    This was clearly not the best offer that they could get, so why would they ept so easily?

    The duke just ignored the surprised look that I had and said, "Where''s the contract for me to sign?"

    I was even more taken aback when I heard this, but Rose reacted right away and pulled out a contract that had been written up. After filling in the details, she presented it to the duke to sign with some pen and ink.

    The duke didn''t hesitate to pick up the pen and sign the contract, sealing our deal as this.

    I couldn''t help feeling very strange at how smoothly everything had gone, but the duke had a look on his face like he thought that he had gotten a very good deal.

 Chapter 462 The dukeâ€™s visit (3)

    <h4>Chapter 462 The duke¡¯s visit (3)</h4>

    Also for some reason, Moon and Elsa had also chosen to join us which the duke was very happy to see.

    There were also Cecilia and Haley who joined since they were technically my concubines and it was required for them toe to dinner with the duke, my esteemed guest.

    When we all sat down, the waiters didn''t hesitate to bring the dishes out.

    The smell immediately filled the room and we were all looking forward to it.

    The duke''s eyes especially lit up when he saw the portion size that he had been given.

    This was the one thing that I had insisted on when we were nning this. I knew that the normal idea was to have smaller portion sizes to make it seem fancy, but I insisted on havingrge portion sizes.

    I had seen the way that the duke had looked during the dinner I had with him, so I knew that he wasn''t a fan of this.

    The meal went by very harmoniously, we were able to talk to the duke about many different topics since there were so many of us here. So we were able to swap out with each other and talk about things that we were enthusiastic about.

    There was only a twist that happened at the end when dessert was being served.

    It was when Veronica who had managed to stay silent the whole time suddenly shot herself in the foot.

    She had let her guard down seeing this harmonious mood, thinking that her lie had been exposed and she had sessfully put the me on Rose and me.

    So when we were on the topic of the Dwarven Kingdom, she suddenly pitched in with, "The Dwarven Kingdom really was something else. The buildings were allpletely different from our kingdom and there were all kinds of different¡­sights¡­"

    Her voice slowly trailed off when she saw the way that her parents looked at her.

    They had confused looks on their faces as if they couldn''t understand what she was saying.

    When she looked at us, she found that Rose and I also had the same confused look on our faces. However, it was different from the look of the duke and duchess, the confused looks on our faces didn''t go all the way to our eyes.

    It was at that moment that she realized that she had messed up.

    The duke was about to say something, but before he could, the duchess raised a hand to put on his arm to stop him. She turned to look at Veronica and slowly said, "When did you go to the Dwarven Kingdom? How do you know so much about this?

    Veronica revealed a look of panic for the first time.

    It was one thing if her father scolded her, but when her mother scolded her¡­she knew that it was serious.

    After all, her mother wouldn''t say anything unless it was very serious.

    The duchess didn''t wait for an answer from Veronica as she turned to me and asked, "Count Zwein, do you know anything about this?"

    I shook my head before saying, "We recently went on a trip to the Dwarven Kingdom, I''m sure that you already knew this."

    The duke and duchess both nodded when they heard this.

    They of course knew about this since they had specifically made this trip because of this.

    But as far as they knew, it had only been Zwein and his group that went to the Dwarven Kingdom. There had been no mention of their daughter going along with him.

    After seeing this, I continued by saying, "When we set off, your daughter told us that she wasing along as your representative, which was why we had allowed her toe with us." After a deliberate pause, I asked, "Did she not mention this to you in her letters? I''ve heard that she has been sending many letters back to you both."

    After hearing this, both the duke and duchess immediately turned to look at Veronica with narrowed eyes as if they were demanding an exnation from her.

    Veronica immediately looked down when she felt these gazes fall onto her.

    She couldn''t help cursing in her mind, wondering how her n had fallen apart.

    It had been the perfect n to put all the me on Zwein, so where did it go wrong?

    Seeing that she wasn''t saying anything, the duchess cleared her throat before saying in a serious voice, "Veronica Grace Beauchamp, exin yourself."

    Veronica couldn''t help trembling when she heard this.

    As for the rest of us, we knew that she was in trouble.

    After all, when a parent said a child''s full name, it was never a good thing.

    It was usually only done when that child was in serious trouble, like Veronica currently was.

    She had run off to another country without even informing her parents first.

    If I was a parent, I would definitely be angry about this.

    So there was no doubt that she was in danger.

    Seeing that Veronica didn''t say anything, the duchess suddenly turned to me and said, "Count Zwein, is there a ce for my daughter and I to talk in private? We have some things that we need to discuss."

    Even I couldn''t help being terrified when I heard this.

    I quickly looked at Rose and she said with a smile, "Duchess Beauchamp, let me get someone to prepare a room for you."

    The duchess gave a grateful nod before turning back to re at Veronica.

    During this, she had turned to look at me for help, but I quickly turned away.

    Between her being angry at me or her mother being angry at me, I preferred having her angry at me. I could tell that the duchess definitely was not someone to be messed with, so I didn''t dare get involved in this matter.

    Not to mention, she had tried to throw me under the bus in the first ce.

    I wasn''t that naive that I would forget about that so soon.

    Plus, I knew from the way that the duke looked away from his own wife that it would be dangerous to get involved. So no matter what, I would ignore that look asking for helping from Veronica.

    It didn''t take long for the servants to prepare a room and soon the duchess was leading Veronica off.

    The duke didn''t seem like he wanted to go as he remained seated at the table, but then the duchess said, "Honey."

    It was said in a very calm tone, but the duke trembled when he heard this.

    With a bitter smile on his face, he stood up and said, "If you''ll excuse us."

    We all nodded with understanding smiles on our faces and we let out sighs of relief once they were gone.

    It was clear who held the power in their family¡­

    As for me, my smile was more bitter than everyone else''s.

    It was quite clear that women were powerful in this world and I shouldn''t get on their bad side.

 Chapter 463 The dukeâ€™s visit (4)

    <h4>Chapter 463 The duke¡¯s visit (4)</h4>

    The next morning, we could see the exhausted look that was on Veronica''s face.

    It was clear that she had been scoldedte into the night by her mother.

    When she saw us, she looked at us with a resentful look. But that wasn''t strange since we had basically abandoned herst night to her fate.

    However, I didn''t feel guilty at all when she looked at me like this.

    After all, she had set up a trap for me in the first ce and had wanted to throw me under the bus.

    Since that was the case, it was only right that I turned this back on her.

    In the end, she just got what she deserved.

    The ducal couple looked much more rested than Veronica.

    It was most likely because she had received some kind of punishmentst night after they had gone to sleep.

    This morning, we were heading on a tour of my territory with the ducal couple.

    But when they came, we received arge surprise.

    It wasn''t a surprise from them, but rather a surprise from Veronica.

    She was dressed normally during breakfast, but when she came out to the carriage¡­she lookedpletely different.

    Gone were the simple clothes and hair, she was now in a magnificent dress that matched her mother''s. At the same time, her face waspletely different since she now had fine makeup on.

    She had gone from a normal vige girl to a fine nobledy.

    When she saw us staring at her, she immediately red and said, "Not a single word."

    Unfortunately for her, her mother was nearby and heard this. She turned to look at Veronica and said, "Sweetie, that''s not propernguage for a youngdy."

    Though it sounded sweet, there was a clear dark tone underneath that almost seemed threatening.

    Veronica immediately trembled when she heard this before bing much more suppressed.

    It was clear that her punishment wasn''t over yet.

    Still, there was no need for us to make fun of her, so we just set out from the manor to show them the town.

    The first ce that we went to was Haley''s store since it was the main attraction of our town now. It was where all themerce was based, so our economy relied heavily on it.

    Sometimes I even wondered if it relied on it a bit too much¡­But since it was Haley''s store, I stopped those thoughts.

    It was fine to just be happy that her store was doing well.

    The duke and duchess walked around like they were shopping and enjoying themselves. From time to time, Veronica was also dragged over to try out a few things that the duchess wanted her to try.

    They really seemed like a happy family enjoying a day off, instead of being a ducal family visiting another noble''s territory.

    For some reason, I was also called along when Veronica tried these various outfits.

    Was it because I was the only other man here so they were asking for my opinion?

    But I could have sworn that there was a different kind of look in the eyes of the duke and duchess when they asked me to help judge it.

    Even Veronica seemed to be acting weird when she showed me these dresses.

    Of course, I acted as professional as I could and just gave my honest opinion.

    When I went back to the others, they looked at me with strange looks that I didn''t understand.

    It was almost as if they were amazed by me, but I didn''t feel like I had done anything special.

    I had just acted like a proper gentleman.

    But to them, it seemed like it was the wrong thing to do.

    After shopping for a bit, Haley had all of the things that the ducal couple bought sent to our manor where they were staying. As for the payment, they insisted on paying even though we had said that we would consider it a gift to them.

    However, to our surprise, the duke seemed to refuse to ept this gift.

    His words were, "A cooperation is done between two sides who are on equal standings. If we ept gifts like this, it will corrupt that bnce and taint our future cooperation."

    The way that he said it almost seemed like he would give up on cooperating with us if we insisted on giving this gift, so we had no choice but to take it back.

    After that, the next ce that we headed to was the forge since the ducal couple wanted to meet the dwarves.

    The forge was a ce that had already existed in our town, but after the dwarves arrived, Haley and Rose had been working on expanding it. At the same time, they had recruited many different cksmiths to work there to learn from the dwarves.

    The only problem was that the dwarves had to go to the capital with me during this time, so it was just the cksmiths running it up to now.

    But now that the dwarves were back, they had taken over and it was in full swing.

    When we arrived, there was the loud sound of hammers striking metal and many different furnaces running, along with many cksmiths running about. It seemed like a very busy time for them, but they all had happy looks on their faces.

    I was about to suggest going to another ce, but the ducal couple immediately went forward to observe the cksmiths and dwarves.

    It seemed that they were fascinated even though they didn''t understand what was happening.

    It was just like Veronica when she had gone to the Dwarven Kingdom with me.

    It seemed that this curiosity ran through the family.

    They just kept watching the dwarves forge for a few hours before they finally moved away.

    They had basically stayed during the entire forging process, watching the dwarves forge a sword from beginning to end.

    By the time that it was finished, it was already getting dark.

    But there wasn''t a single moment that they had been bored.

 Chapter 464 The dukeâ€™s visit (5)

    <h4>Chapter 464 The duke¡¯s visit (5)</h4>

    All throughout the night, they kept talking about the forging process that they had seen.

    Veronica happily talked with her parents about this.

    With the way that they talked to each other, it was almost as if they had forgotten about the fact that Veronica had lied to them.

    The apple really didn''t fall far from the tree.

    This ducal family was very simr to each other.

    Once they found something that they were interested in, theypletely lost control of themselves.

    That was demonstrated even better by what the duke asked me at breakfast the next morning.

    "Can we go see the elven vige?"

    As soon as I heard this, the spoon in my hand dropped onto the table.

    I looked at the duke as if I was trying to figure out if he was being serious or not, but the duke just looked at me with a smile on his face like the question that he had asked wasn''t a big deal.

    However, this was the elven vige!

    This was a vige that didn''t allow human visitors and he was asking to be shown the elven vige.

    This wasn''t something that could be done easily even if I had built a rtionship with that vige.

    So I had to think about it¡­

    In the end, I just decided that I would bring them there and see if the elves would be willing to allow them in. If not, then we would just head back since it wasn''t my fault that the duke couldn''t enter the vige.

    Now it was all about whether the duke would agree to this or not.

    To my surprise, the duke was perfectly fine with this since he understood that this wasn''t something that I could control.

    I had expected a much more different result since he was a noble, but it didn''t seem like he cared too much about that.

    But then there was another surprise thrown at me.

    The duke didn''t just want to go alone, he wanted to bring the duchess along as well. It was as if they were going on a fun trip together instead of going to a dangerous ce.

    Then when Veronica wanted to join in, they brought her along as well.

    This ducal family¡­they really were just like each other.

    There was no hesitation from any of them in going to this dangerous ce just because they found it interesting¡­

    Since we were heading to the elven vige, naturally there would be an escort required just in case anything happened.

    So Moon and Cecilia were called toe along with us while Rose and Haley were left behind in the town.

    Haley had been to the elven vige before to discuss the trade deals with them, but since there was no need for her to go this time, she chose to stay.

    As for Rose¡­I wouldn''t let her go there with this group since it was dangerous.

    If It was just the two of us, then it would be fine.

    But she was too busy to ever do that.

    After gathering everyone, we headed off into the forest.

    In front of us were a bunch of elves that followed Moon while behind us were a bunch of knights that were led by Cecilia.

    If the elves didn''t already know us, they might have thought that we wereing on an expedition to suppress them.

    So it was a good thing that they did know us.

    But to our surprise, there weren''t any elves that were patrolling in the forest when we arrived.

    Normally, we would have been greeted by some elves before we even entered the forest.

    When Moon saw this, she couldn''t help slightly knitting her brows, but she didn''t say anything in the end.

    When we reached the pond that would lead us to the elven vige and still no one came to greet us, that was when Moon finally decided that there was something wrong.

    She raised a hand to stop us before waving at me toe over.

    After I came out of the carriage and came over, she leaned in and said, "There''s something wrong."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I slowly gave a nod since I figured that something was wrong when we didn''t meet any elves at all.

    After a pause, Moon said, "Let me go and see what''s wrong. If I don''te back in ten minutes, you should leave this ce."

    I was once again surprised to hear this, but I slowly gave another nod.

    Moon didn''t say anything else as she revealed a serious look and turned to the pond.

    Then raising her hand, there was a portal that appeared.

    When the ones in the carriage saw this portal, they thought that it was time to go, so they were about toe out. But before they could, I raised my hand to stop them and shook my head to show that it wasn''t the time for that.

    The duke and his family were surprised, but they went back into the carriage after seeing this.

    Moon went right up to the portal and took onest look at us.

    With a determined look, she gave a nod before walking through the portal.

    We didn''t do anything but wait after that.

    Around eight minutes passed and we were starting to get worried, but there was still no response from the portal.

    As nine minutes passed, we were thinking about leaving¡­

    Right as it was about to reach ten minutes, the portal finally reacted and there were two figures that came out.

    One of them was Moon and the other was the green haired elder who was her grandmother.

    When she came out, she had a troubled look on her face as she looked at us.

    She walked over to where I was with Moon beside her and looked right at me before shaking her head and giving a sigh.

    I couldn''t help being confused when I saw this.

    "You shouldn''t havee here, it''s a bad time right now." The green haired elder suddenly said this.

 Chapter 465 The dukeâ€™s visit (6)

    <h4>Chapter 465 The duke¡¯s visit (6)</h4>

    I revealed a surprised look when I heard this, but I still asked, "What do you mean by that?"

    The green haired elder gave a sigh without really exining anything.

    It was almost as if there was something bothering her that she couldn''t really talk about.

    But in the end, she still said, "There are some visitors right now and it''s best if you don''t meet them. They are¡­not as friendly towards humans, so it would be bad if you¡­"

    Before she could finish her words, the portal behind her lit up once more.

    The green haired elder turned back with an ugly look on her face before waving her hand at me to move back.

    I knitted my brows slightly when I saw this, but I followed her instructions and moved away from the portal.

    There were two other green haired elves that suddenly came out of the portal.

    When they came out, they looked around for a bit until their eyes fell onto the green haired elder.

    The one on the left said, "Elder Lia, we have been looking for you. You suddenly left during the middle of our discussion, so we were wondering what kind of important things you had to take care of."

    The one on the right suddenly looked at me and said, "It seems that there are human intruders in your forest. Shall we take care of them for you?"

    As soon as their voices fell, they immediately pulled out bows that they pointed at me.

    These elves didn''t seem like they were ying around at all. They really seemed like they were nning to kill me.

    But the green haired elder raised her hand and said, "Wait, these are guests, not intruders."

    As soon as the two green haired elves heard this, they immediately knitted their brows.

    Both of them looked at Elder Lia with serious looks before the one on the left asked, "Are you serious?"

    The one on the right then added, "You should know what the consequences of such a lie is."

    The green haired elder gave a sigh before saying, "They are indeed guests." She pointed at me and said, "This one is a friend of my daughter."

    As soon as these two elves heard this, they immediately knitted their brows even more before turning to look at me.

    This time, they were actually looking at me instead of just looking at me like I was a piece of trash in their minds. They seemed like they were sizing me up, seeing what I was capable of, that I could be considered a friend of the elder''s daughter, the High Elf Aisha Bellthorn.

    After a long silence, the one on the left said, "How are you certain of this?"

    The one on the right added, "That''s right, anyone can say that they are rted to someone, but how can they prove it?"

    The green haired elder looked at me as if she was waiting for me to do my thing.

    I gave a sigh before giving them the proof that they needed.

    As they watched me, the two of them revealed very strange looks.

    However, neither of them looked like they approved of me.

    It was clear that they weren''t happy that I was a human that got along with elves.

    After a long silence, the one on the left said, "Alright, we ept that this human is a guest."

    The one on the right then said, "But, that doesn''t exin why he is bringing other humans with him."

    The hostile tone in their voice made it very clear what they were implying.

    The green haired elder came forward and said, "We have a trade agreement with the humans, which is why they are here."

    The two elves knitted their brows once again before saying, "Alright, since they are here to trade, let''s see what they have for trade."

    The green haired elder nodded in agreement to this.

    I was the only one with an awkward look on my face since I didn''t expect it to go this way.

    We definitely were not here to trade, we were here to be rejected entry into the elven vige¡­but now we had to go into the vige trade¡­

    We didn''t have anything to trade at all!

    My mind quickly turned, but there was no denying this anymore.

    After all, I could see how the green haired elder were treating these two elves.

    It was clear that these two elves had a special status among the elves¡­

    The two of them narrowed their eyes to look at us again before turning around to head back through the portal.

    Once they were gone, the green haired elder gave a sigh before saying, "Sorry for getting you caught up in this mess. But at the very least, you''ll be able toe into the vige."

    I revealed an awkward look before saying, "I wasn''t nning oning today, so I didn''t actually bring anything. I was hoping that you would have turned me away¡­"

    The green haired elder''s chin dropped as she looked at me before she revealed a bitter smile and said, "Then you better think of something, or else we''ll both be in trouble."

    I gave a slow nod in response before turning to look back at the portal.

    After a pause, I asked, "Who are those two?"

    The green haired elder gave a sigh before saying, "Well, that''s aplicated story."

    I looked at her with a faint smile as I said, "Then give me the short version."

    The green haired elder shook her head and gave another sigh before saying, "I''m sure that you can already tell based on how they look and act."

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard this since I did indeed have an idea, but I was hoping that it was wrong.

    The green haired elder paused before saying, "They''re from the capital, they''re here on behalf of the Elven Kingdom."

    As expected, it really was troublesome.

 Chapter 466 The dukeâ€™s visit (7)

    <h4>Chapter 466 The duke¡¯s visit (7)</h4>

    After a moment of silence, I couldn''t help asking, "What did theye here for, or did they not tell you?"

    The green haired elder looked very hesitant this time.

    It was as if she was debating on whether to tell me or not, but that wasn''t strange since this was most likely a private matter for the elves.

    Seeing this, I said, "If it''s not something that you can tell me, then¡­"

    She shook her head when she heard this before saying, "It''s not that I can''t tell you. It''s just that I''m worried that you''ll want to get yourself involved in this matter when you do hear the reason."

    I couldn''t help revealing a confused look when I heard this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for her to exin.

    The green haired elder gave another sigh before saying, "They''re here looking for Apollo. They were sent by his father."

    I deeply knitted his brows when I heard this.

    This was definitely the one answer that I didn''t expect to hear.

    It had even been a long time since I had heard that name.

    After taking a moment to gather my thoughts, I couldn''t help giving a secret bitterugh.

    Even in death, he was still causing troubles for me.

    But then I realized something else.

    Why would the green haired elder be worried that I would want to get involved in this matter?

    Did she know something?

    As far as she knew, I wasn''t involved in this matter at all since I had no connection to Apollo''s disappearance. Even if I butted heads with him when he was here, that didn''t mean that I would get involved in this matter.

    When she saw the way that I looked at her, the green haired elder also couldn''t help revealing a confused look.

    She looked at Moon and back at me before saying, "Are you two not¡­"

    Before she could finish, Moon suddenly came forward to stop her by covering her mouth.

    I couldn''t help revealing an even more confused look since I had no idea what she had even wanted to say. However, it seemed like it did concern me, so I was curious what it would be.

    The green haired elder looked at Moon and revealed a look of understanding.

    She reached up to move Moon''s hand from her mouth and then she said, "It seems that I was wrong. It seems that I had nothing to worry about¡­yet."

    I looked at her with an even more confused look, but the green haired elder didn''t seem like she was about to exin.

    Instead, she looked at me and said, "Alright, let''s go into the vige. If we stay here for too long, they''ll get suspicious."

    Without even waiting for a response from me, she walked through the portal.

    Moon looked at me with a strange look before going into the portal with her.

    We were left there standing all on our own.

    I looked around myself with a helpless look before heading back to the carriage.

    I gave some instructions to the driver before sitting down in the carriage.

    Seeing that I was back, the duke asked, "Is something wrong?"

    I looked at him for a bit before shaking my head and saying, "It''s just a small problem that the elves are facing, it isn''t our concern. But they did give us permission to go into the vige."

    The eyes of the duke and his family all lit up when they heard this.

    I felt a bad feeling when I saw these looks, so I quickly said, "When we get into the vige, you''ll need to stay silent and follow along. I know that you''re excited, but there''s no knowing what will offend the elves, so you need to keep calm and not do anything. Do you understand?"

    The duke and his family were surprised to hear the serious tone that I had, but since I was the expert on the elves that had built the rtionship with them, they just agreed to remain silent.

    I still felt the same bad feeling even though they had agreed, but there was nothing else that I could say right now.

    If I really pushed this matter, then there was the chance of offending the duke and that was thest thing that I wanted.

    So I could only make a mental note to watch over them.

    If I really need to, I could always have Cecilia watch them to make sure that they did nothing wrong.

    Since we had been given permission, our group headed right through the portal and we came out in the elven vige.

    When we arrived, I could tell that something was off about the vige.

    There seemed to be more elves that were here, but these elves were very stern looking instead of being free like elves were supposed to be.

    The elves that I had seen before in the vige were all hiding inside of their homes, as if they were afraid of these elves.

    These should be the elves that had been sent from the capital.

    When they saw using through the portal, they all red at us. They made no signs of hiding their hostility towards us, but at the very least, they didn''t do anything to us.

    It seemed that they had already received the order to let us by, so they just watched as we passed.

    When they saw this, the duke and his family knew that something was off about this vige. Even if I hadn''t told them anything, they could tell just from the tone that hung over this vige that something had changed.

    They looked at me with gazes as if they were asking what was happening, but I just ignored them as I focused on what was in front of us.

    Waiting in the square in the center of the vige was the green haired elder, Moon, and the two green haired elves from before.

 Chapter 467 The dukeâ€™s visit (8)

    <h4>Chapter 467 The duke¡¯s visit (8)</h4>

    When they saw use over, the two green haired elves gave a nod to the green haired elder before turning around to leave.

    The green haired elder came over with Moon before waving her hand at me.

    I turned around and looked at the duke and his family.

    When they saw me looking at them, they looked back at me with understanding looks before settling in the carriage.

    While they did want to go around the vige, they could tell that there was something off about it. So they knew that the best thing for them was to settle in the carriage and wait for Zwein to tell them what was happening.

    I let out a secret sigh of relief when I saw this.

    The one thing that I was worried about was the duke and his family running off, but it seemed that they did understand the seriousness of this situation.

    I came out of the carriage and was pulled away by the green haired elder.

    We were heading to the same tree house that we had gone to when I had firste to the tribe.

    This was the tree house that the elders gathered in for their meeting.

    When we came up, I found that all of the elders were already gathered and at the head of them all were the two green haired elves. They just sat there naturally as if they deserved to be at the head of it all.

    The green haired elder just stood by my side as we walked up in front of them all.

    Once I was standing there, the two green haired elves looked at me.

    The one on the left said, "So, you are a human merchant?"

    The one on the right said, "What kind of things do you have to sell to us?"

    The green haired elder couldn''t help revealing a slight trace of worry in her eyes as she turned to look at me.

    However, I wasn''t worried at all since I had already found something while we wereing over.

    After what had happened in the capital, I had received quite a few rewards.

    When I arrived back at my territory, I had found a cache of treasures that the fourth prince had sent. These were treasures that had been confiscated after the second prince was taken care of.

    I knew because these were items that I had found in the game before.

    I never expected the fourth prince to give up these items since they were considered quite precious.

    These were things that were considered special drops in the game, so they were very rare to find. They couldn''t be found even if one had the money to buy it because it all depended on luck to be able to find these things.

    Yet the fourth prince was willing to hand them to me¡­

    Just what was he thinking?

    For now, I didn''t know and there was nothing to gain from thinking about it.

    So I just focused on the situation that I was currently facing.

    With a wave of my hand, I pulled out three items that I ced on the floor in front of me. I sat down in front of these items and then introduced them one by one.

    The moment that these three items appeared, all of the elves revealed shocked looks.

    These items were all magic items, so elves that were sensitive to magic naturally could sense the magic fluctuationsing from them. At the same time, since they were sensitive to magic, they could tell that these items were anything but normal.

    "The first thing that I have to show is¡­"

    Before I could finish speaking, the one on the left suddenly cut me off by saying, "I know what this thing is. What are you looking for in return for it?"

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard by how forward this elf was.

    I looked over at the one on the right and I found that he didn''t have any expressions on his face.

    It seemed that he agreed with the elf on the left.

    But then again, it wasn''t strange that they were this excited about this thing.

    This was a magic fruit, it was called the Mana Peach.

    It was a fruit that contained arge amount of mana and those that ate it would experience arge growth in their magic energy stores.

    But the real important effect was its hidden effect.

    It had a special effect for women which was that it could help their skin be much smoother.

    For women that cared about their appearance, this was something that they would even kill to obtain.

    I just never expected this elf to care this much¡­

    I gave a cough to calm down before saying, "It''s a very special item that''s very hard toe by. For something like this¡­"

    The elf on the left once again cut me off by saying, "Human, I don''t want to y your boring games." She raised her hand and pulled out a crystal that she held up before saying, "Is this enough? Just say yes or no."

    I couldn''t help being surprised by how forward she was again, but what shocked me more was the item that she was holding.

    This was an item that I had recognized with a single nce since this was an item that was considered a special item in the game as well.

    This crystal was called a Life Crystal, it was a magic crystal that had the very essence of life in it. This wasn''t the essence of life stolen from another living creature, but the essence of life that came from pure natural life energy gathered for thousands of years.

    These crystals would only be found in ces of high concentration of mana, so they were very rare.

    For the elves that worshipped the Goddess of Life, it was easier for them to find these things. But they had never been willing to trade these with the other races.

    Only when one took the elf quest line would they be able to find some.

    This Life Crystal had many uses, so it was definitely something valuable and could be considered equal to the Magic Peach.

    After a moment toe back to my senses, I slowly gave a nod.

    The elf on the left didn''t even bother saying anything as she threw the crystal at me while using her magic to bring the Magic Peach over to her.

    There was ayer of wind that appeared under the Magic Peach and it lifted it over to where the elf on the left was sitting.

    I had to quickly move forward to catch the Life Crystal, but I wasn''t able to reach it in time and it dropped to the floor.

    Luckily, this was a very strong thing, so it didn''t crack when it hit the floor.

    I reached down to pick it up, but I could feel a strange sensation from the way the two green haired elves were looking at me.

    It was as if they were looking down on me as I picked up the Life Crystal.

    It almost seemed like that was her goal in the first ce.

    Putting this lowly human in his ce.

 Chapter 468 The dukeâ€™s visit (9)

    <h4>Chapter 468 The duke¡¯s visit (9)</h4>

    The green haired elder knitted her brows and looked at me with a worried look.

    But I looked at her with my head down and showed her a smile that everything was fine.

    These two elves¡­they were very easy to deal with.

    Just from this, I knew what kind of people they were.

    They were those that believed that elves were superior to the other races and they looked down on anyone that wasn''t an elf.

    For people with this kind of pride, it was easy to manipte them.

    As long as you went along with it and let them feel good, then they wouldn''t bother you in the future. They might even slip up and give you some information without them realizing it.

    So I didn''t mind that they were making a fool of me.

    Though for some reason, I could see that there was some anger on Moon''s face.

    Was she getting angry on my behalf because we were friends?

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit touched.

    We had known each other for a while now, but there always felt like there was this kind of disconnect between us. However, seeing her act this way, it seemed like our rtionship was still better than I thought.

    That was good since the rtionship with the elves was an important thing.

    I knew that it was impossible to be friends with all the elves since there were elves like these two that existed among the elves.

    So I just aimed to be friends with the elves that I could be friends with like Moon and the elves of this vige.

    After picking it up, I went back over to the two items that I had left on the ground and continued to introduce them with a smile.

    These other two items also piqued the interest of the two green haired elves.

    This time, it piqued the interest of the one on the right.

    The other two items that I had brought out were also magic items, but they weren''t beauty items like that Magic Peach.

    One of them was a special piece of wood called Dead Man''s Wood.

    This was a branch that looked like a withered piece of wood, but it gave off very powerful magic fluctuations. This was a piece of wood that grew in a decayednd that absorbed all of the death energy of that ce, creating this decayed piece of wood.

    That was why it was called the Dead Man''s Wood.

    But life and death were two sides of the same coin.

    From life came death and from death came life.

    So this Dead Man''s Wood when purified was a very powerful receptor for life energy, which was why the elves wanted this thing to make a staff with. Staves that were made from this wood were very powerful and could enhance the spells that elves used.

    In fact, staves made from this wood were used in worship ceremonies for the Goddess of Life they worshipped, so it was something that they wanted as much as they could get.

    I knew this because of my knowledge of the elves from the game, so I knew that this piece of Dead Man''s Wood would sell well to these elves.

    The price that they paid was a few leaves.

    These leaves were anything but normal since they were surrounded by thick life energy.

    These were leaves from the Tree of Life that the elves protected, so these were leaves that could be considered the most powerful elixirs in the world.

    Just a single leaf would be enough to save a person from death if it was used on them.

    The final item that I introduced was a book.

    This was a simple looking book that didn''t seem like it had anything special about it other than the magic fluctuationsing from it. However, this book was a grimoire that contained a special magic.

    This was magic that was very enticing to the elves since it was the attribute that they had.

    This was a grimoire filled with wind magic.

    It was the Wind God''s Tome.

    This was a grimoire that was filled with high level wind spells that if one could decode could allow their wind magic to reach a whole new level.

    Of course, I knew that it was impossible for them to actually decode it since there was something else that was needed to use this item. It was something that I knew that the elves didn''t have since it was being guarded in a certain ce.

    It was a special orb that was filled with wind energy called the Wind God''s Orb.

    It was guarded by the Wind God Religion in their most important church and wasn''t something that could be easily obtained by the elves.

    But then again, both of these items had the name Wind God in them¡­

    Could it be that they were rted to an actual god?

    There was Solista and Vivrum, so it could be possible that there was an actual Wind God¡­

    The item that I obtained in return for this Wind God''s Tome was a bow.

    This was a bow that was enhanced with wind magic that would generate gusts around the arrows that were shot from it. This would give the arrow greater force and spin, making it much more powerful.

    This was definitely a powerful magic weapon that I was surprised that the elves would be willing to trade.

    But it seemed that their honest personalities didn''t allow them to cheat me.

    Once all three items were traded, the two green haired elves had satisfied looks on their faces.

    It was as if they had obtained something very good and they were very satisfied with the price that they paid.

    Of course, they didn''t know how much trouble those items caused me.

    It wasn''t the first item that caused me trouble, but rather thest two since they were hard for me to keep.

    The Dead Man''s Wood released a death energy that hurt everything around it while the Wind God''s Tome was useless to me.

    So I was happy to get rid of these two items.

    But they would never know about this.

 Chapter 469 The dukeâ€™s visit (10)

    <h4>Chapter 469 The duke¡¯s visit (10)</h4>

    After the two green haired elves enjoyed themselves for a bit, they turned their attention back to me.

    They looked at me with those smug looks on their faces.

    It waspletely different from before where they had acted indifferent.

    Now, they acted like they were much better than me as they looked down at me sitting on the ground.

    Now, they acted like they were far above me and couldmand me however they wanted.

    That was the image that I had put on while I had been selling these items.

    After all, each time that they paid, they always dropped the item on the ground for me to pick up.

    It was as if they were saying that I was only fit for picking up their scraps.

    Still this was what I wanted to see.

    After all, it was only like this that I was able to get them to let their guard down and give me the information that I wanted.

    The next words that they said immediately did that.

    The one on the left said, "I''ve heard that you were here when Sir Apollo left."

    The one on the right said, "We also heard that you two didn''t get along¡­"

    His voice trailed off as if he was implying something.

    As I had expected, they hade here to find out what had happened to Apollo.

    When he didn''t return, his father must have gotten worried and sent these people to check on him. Or¡­his father might even know that he was dead, so he was trying to find the culprits who killed his son to take revenge.

    Regardless, it was clear that they were targeting me.

    Whether it was because I was a human and it seemed likely that a human would do something like this, or if they were just using me as a scapegoat, it was clear that they were targeting me.

    At the same time, I learned something else from their words.

    It seemed that these two already knew some things about me.

    As for how they learned these things¡­it was clear that there were some people that were involved in this matter.

    The people who were sitting around the room with us.

    The elders of this elven vige.

    But I didn''t me them since I''m sure that they had no choice but to tell these two. These two elves were from the capital, so I''m sure that this held quite a bit of pressure for the elders.

    I calmly looked at them and said, "We did have some difficulties between us, but that was just normal since we didn''t have matching personalities. It''s just a difference of opinion, nothing more."

    The two of them narrowed their eyes to look at me, as if they didn''t seem to believe me.

    But I just kept looking at them with that calm look on my face.

    For some reason, the two elves couldn''t help feeling strange since this was different from how he had acted before. For some reason, now that he was looking right at them, it was almost as if he was standing up to them.

    This wasn''t something that they felt good about since their egos had be inted.

    So the one on the left said, "Difference in opinion?"

    The one on the right said, "Is that all it was?"

    I didn''t say anything as I looked back at them with that same calm look.

    It was clear that there was something that they were implying, but I didn''t fall for their bait and just waited for them to say what they wanted to say.

    Seeing that I wasn''t going to say anything, the one on the left said, "Do you know that Sir Apollo has gone missing?"

    The one on the right added, "It''s not even certain that he''s still alive."

    Right after they said this, they looked at my face carefully as if they were waiting to see what reaction I would have to this.

    However, all they got was a stone cold look on my face that showed that I didn''t know anything about this.

    They just deeply knitted their brows when they saw this.

    After a long moment of silence, the one on the left said, "Are you saying that you have nothing to do with this?"

    The one on the right said, "Be aware that whatever you say now can and will be used against you when the timees."

    I just calmly looked at them and said, "I really have no idea what happened to him. After I left, I''ve had many other things that I''ve had to deal with, so I have no idea what happened here."

    The two elves looked at Moon as if they were trying to get her to testify against me, but all she did was nod in agreement to this.

    Moon had been following me the entire time, so she knew all the business that I had been taking care of.

    She was the perfect alibi for me.

    When the two elves saw this, they deeply knitted their brows.

    After all, they had expected this to go much differently, but now they were the ones that looked like fools.

    After a long moment of silence, the two of them looked back at me and said, "Alright, then we hope that you will remember what you have said here today."

    I looked at them with a smile and said, "I think that we haven''t been introduced yet. I am Zwein, a count of this kingdom."

    As soon as they heard this, the two elves revealed ugly expressions.

    Even if they disliked humans, they knew what it meant to be a count.

    They had thought that the other side was a lowly human that they could easily deal with, but now it turned out that he was a noble of this kingdom.

    While the Elven Kingdom wasn''t afraid of this kingdom, it wasn''t as if they would willingly cause trouble for the humans.

    After all, the humans far outnumbered them and if they worked together, it would be easy for them to take care of the elves. It was just that the humans were too busy fighting each other that they hadn''t done anything to the elves yet.

    So they wouldn''t provoke the humans for no reason.

    The two of them knew that the title of count wasn''t a lowly title. It was considered quite high among the humans, so this person wasn''t an easy person to deal with.

    Seeing the look on their faces, I revealed a faint satisfied smile.

    This was the result that I had wanted to see and this was the result that made me the most assured.

    It was clear that they wouldn''t do anything now that they knew that I was a count. Unless they wanted to start a war with the humans, these elves would give up the idea of making me scapegoat.

    Or¡­they would have other ideas¡­

    I would take preparations against these other ideas, but I hoped that they wouldn''t actually go through with it since it would be troublesome to deal with.

    At the very least, I knew that they wouldn''t do anything to me right now.

 Chapter 470 The dukeâ€™s visit (11)

    <h4>Chapter 470 The duke¡¯s visit (11)</h4>

    After they dropped this matter, we were allowed to leave.

    The green haired elder came out with me and Moon.

    When we did, the elves that had been standing around were clearly surprised, but they didn''t do anything in the end.

    But judging by the way that they were just standing around like this, it seemed that they had been nning to arrest me or execute me on the spot. It was clear that they were all in on this n, so they were surprised to see that it was suddenly called off.

    A few of them couldn''t help heading into the tree house as if they were going off to verify if they really should let me go just like this.

    However, when they came back, they had strange looks on their faces.

    The other elves looked at them and they shook their heads.

    In the end, the elves scattered and left this area, but there was no hiding the disappointed looks on their faces.

    Once they were gone, I made my way back to the carriage where my group was waiting.

    As soon as I went over, Cecilia immediately came over to bring me back into the

    carriage.

    She had been in the back when I had been called over, so she couldn''t make it over in time to object. But now that I was back, she made sure to check every part of me to see if I had been hurt anywhere.

    To my surprise, Veronica helped her with this.

    I looked at the duke with an awkward smile, but I found that the duke and the duchess were looking at us with a warm smile on their faces.

    It was as if they approved of this.

    When they were finished, I turned to the duke and duchess and said, "Duke Beauchamp, it seems that we have arrived at a bad time for the elves. I hope you won''t mind if we head back now instead of walking around the vige?"

    There was a trace of disappointment that appeared in the duke''s eyes when he heard this, but he gave a nod of agreement in the end.

    He was a sharp man, this was a given since he was able to head an entire ducal family.

    So he had been able to spot that there was something wrong with this elven vige.

    It almost seemed like they were under some kind of suppression from an unknown force.

    While he did want to go around the elven vige to sate his curiosity, he knew that it was more important for them to leave since it was a matter of safety.

    Zwein might have said it lightly, but he could see the worry that was in his eyes.

    In this situation, naturally he would prioritize the safety of his family rather than fulfilling his own wishes.

    Since I had received the agreement of the duke, I went back out to where the green haired elder was and told her that we were leaving.

    When she heard this, she gave a nod of approval.

    She too didn''t want us staying too long as long as these envoys from the capital were still here. So she didn''t hesitate to bring us back to the portal to the vige.

    But when we arrived, we found that the elves from the capital were already there.

    Theypletely surrounded the portal and it seemed like they were doing something to it.

    The green haired elder immediately knitted her brows and went forward to say, "What are you doing? Get away from there immediately?"

    The elves from the capital revealed frowns when they heard this, but when they turned around to see that it was the green haired elder who was saying this, they backed down after a moment of hesitation.

    The green haired elder quickly made her way over to the portal and when she saw what shape it was in, she couldn''t help knitting her brows.

    She turned around to look at the elves from the capital and said, "What is the meaning of this? What did you do to the portal?"

    The elves from the capital seemed a bit annoyed at being used like this, but before they could say anything¡­

    The elders of this vige quickly came over and said, "Elder Lia, it isn''t what you think. There was something wrong with the portal and they just came here to take a look at it."

    "Something wrong?" The green haired elder repeated before saying, "I think that there''s something wrong with your heads. It''s clear what happened based on the evidence and you''re here defending them?"

    A few of the vigers also came forward to say, "Elder, it''s true."

    When she was faced with all of these people telling her that it was true, the green haired elder really couldn''t keep up the fierce tone that she had. With so many people providing evidence, she had no choice but to start epting this.

    But the real problem was that the portal was out.

    She gave up on scolding the elders and the elves from the capital to look at the portal.

    I made my way out of the carriage and walked over to her side before asking, "How long will it take to fix?"

    The green haired elder deeply knitted her brows as she looked at the portal before shaking her head and saying, "I don''t know. I''ve never seen the portal like this before¡­I have no idea how long it will take."

    This time, it was my turn to knit my brows.

    As we were considering what to do, the two green haired elves walked over.

    The one on the left said, "Is there a problem?"

    The one on the right said, "Do you need some help?"

    The way that they said this, it was clear that they had some kind of connection to this.

    But the green haired elder refused to take this bait, so she said, "There''s no problem at all."

    There was a tense silence that filled the air after she said this.

 Chapter 471 The dukeâ€™s visit (12)

    <h4>Chapter 471 The duke¡¯s visit (12)</h4>

    As the tense silence hung in the air, the elves from the capital started moving towards the two green haired elves.

    It was as if they would stand on their side if a fight broke out¡­when a fight broke out.

    With the way that everyone was positioning themselves, it really seemed like a fight would happen.

    But to everyone''s surprise, it was the two green haired elves who eased the tension.

    The one on the left said with a smile on her face, "Now, now, there''s no need to act this way."

    The one on the right also revealed a smile as he said, "We''re just trying to help here, there''s no need to be so aggressive."

    The green haired elder narrowed her eyes to look at the two of them.

    The look in her eyes made it very clear that she didn''t trust them, but she couldn''t just tell them off here in front of everyone.

    Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down and said, "Thank you for your concern, but there''s no need for your help. We will figure out something on our own since this is our vige."

    The two of them looked at each other before the one on the left said, "But doesn''t this pose a problem for your guest?"

    The one on the right nodded in agreement to this before saying, "Since it''s caused a problem for your guest, how about we help you solve it?"

    The one on the left continued by saying, "How about we bring our people and help escort you out of the forest?"

    Everyone looked at her in shock when she said this.

    The elves from the capital had unwilling looks of shock on their faces, making it clear that they didn''t want to do this. The elves from the vige were shocked since they never thought that these elves from the capital would make such an offer.

    From beginning to end, they had acted in an arrogant manner that made it seem like they were unwilling to help anyone.

    The green haired elder looked at the two of them like she didn''t believe what she was hearing.

    But in the end, she still said, "Thank you for your offer, but there''s no need. We will take care of our own guests."

    The two of them just gave shrugs before the one on the left said, "Alright, if that''s what you want."

    The one on the right added, "If you ever need help, feel free toe talk to us."

    With that, the two of them turned to leave.

    The elves from the capital looked at the two of them with surprised looks since they didn''t think that they would leave this easily. They thought that they would cause some more trouble before leaving¡­

    But it didn''t seem like they were nning on doing anything.

    So they had no choice but to leave with these two.

    Once they were alone, the green haired elder let out a sigh of relief before knitting her brows again.

    I could see that something was wrong, so I asked, "What is it? You can just tell me."

    The green haired elder looked at me with aplicated look before saying, "They are right though. With the portal down like this, the only way to leave the vige is to travel through the forest."

    I looked right at her and could tell that there was something else on her mind, so I said, "But there''s something that you''re worried about?" I turned to look in the direction those elves from the capital left in, "Something that has to do with them?"

    The green haired elder looked at me before giving a sigh and saying, "You already know what I''m worried about, you''ve already thought of the same thing."

    I slowly gave a nod in response.

    The way that they acted was just too strange just now.

    It was clear that those two were nning something and if I had to guess what it was, it was very likely that they were nning an ambush.

    If they took care of me in the forest and hid the evidence, it wasn''t as if anyone could do anything.

    After all, that was the same thing that I did with Apollo.

    To think that they would want to do the same to me, was that considered karma or something else?

    The green haired elder gave a sigh before saying, "I can''t send people to escort you out or else it''ll be too suspicious. I can only send a few people that can help guide the way¡­"

    Her voice trailed off as she revealed an awkward look.

    After all, as far as she knew, this was a problem that was caused by their side for me so she was put in an awkward position.

    But I knew better since I was actually the cause of this.

    If I hadn''t made Apollo disappear, none of this would have happened.

    So in a sense, these were the consequences of my own actions.

    I shook my head and said, "It''s fine, it isn''t as if my people are that weak. If they really try something¡­"

    My voice trailed off, but the way that I looked at the green haired elder made my intentions clear.

    She was surprised when she saw how decisive and firm I was, but she understood where I wasing from.

    If this was ever found out, then it would be very likely that a war between the humans and elves would start. This was thest thing that either of us wanted, so of course we wanted to handle this matter as properly as possible.

    That meant not leaving a single trace of evidence if something did happen.

    The green haired elder was silent for a bit before saying with a sigh, "I hope that you will show as much mercy as you can. They won''t say anything if they get away¡­"

    I looked at her and said, "But they will hold a grudge."

    The green haired elder opened her mouth, but closed it again before giving a nod.

    She knew that I was right, so there was nothing that she could say.

    But in the end, she still said, "I still hope that you will show as much mercy as you can."

    I looked at her and slowly gave a nod before saying, "I will try."

    That was all I could promise her.

    The rest would depend on them.

 Chapter 472 The dukeâ€™s visit (13)

    <h4>Chapter 472 The duke¡¯s visit (13)</h4>

    In the end, the ones that guided us were Moon''s group.

    The green haired elder had wanted to send a few of her trusted people to guide us out, but Moon stopped her from doing that.

    Moon knew what was happening as well, but she didn''t want to get them involved.

    So she volunteered for this position¡­though she would have had toe with us in the first ce since she was going back to the town.

    But the ones that hade back didn''t need to. They were free to choose if they wanted toe and go because that was just how our arrangement was.

    They stayed with Moon in the end, showing how loyal they were to her.

    As we left the vige, the green haired elder looked at us with a worried look.

    She went over to Moon and patted the back of her hand as she said, "Be careful."

    Moon didn''t say anything and just gave a simple nod before leading the way.

    Once we were out of earshot, I got out of the carriage and went to her side. As I walked there beside her, I asked, "Do you feel any regret? If you do, you don''t have to do this."

    Moon looked at me and shook her head before saying, "It''s our fault for getting you involved in this matter."

    There was a tinge of bitterness that filled me when I heard this.

    After all, the truth of the matter was that it was my fault in the first ce.

    After all, I was the one that had gotten rid of Apollo and his men.

    Shaka who was with Cecilia''s people also knew this, but he had a poker face the entire time, so no one had been able to find out anything.

    Seeing the way that I looked at her, Moon looked back at me and said, "I''m fine. They have chosen their path just as we have chosen ours. If that puts us on opposite sides, then there''s nothing that we can do."

    I looked at her with the sameplicated look, but I gave a sigh and said, "You don''t need to act tough. I understand how you feel."

    Moon didn''t respond to this as she just turned to face forward again.

    With this, it was clear that she was saying that this conversation was over.

    With a sigh, I went back to the carriage.

    The journey could be considered quite smooth since we were able to make it about halfway without encountering any monsters. Even if we did encounter monsters afterwards, they were weak monsters that we were able to make short work of.

    It seemed like we were going to make it out of the forest without any problems.

    At least that was what it seemed like.

    That was until there was some kind of trembling that came from the ground.

    As soon as we felt this tremble, we immediately stopped moving and took a defensive position.

    At the same time, Moon immediately had two of her elves go scout out where this trembling wasing from.

    It took them no time at all to find the source of this trembling.

    "It''s a goblin stampede."

    As soon as we heard this, we couldn''t help being shocked.

    I looked at Moon as if I was asking if this wasmon, but Moon just shook her head to show that she had no idea. As far as she knew, she had never heard of arge goblin settlement in this area.

    After a long pause, Cecilia looked at Moon and asked, "What should we do?"

    Though she was the captain of the knights, this was unfamiliar territory for her, so she deferred this decision to Moon who was more familiar with the surrounding area.

    Moon deeply knitted her brows before turning to look at the two elves who had gone scouting.

    They bent closer together and started whispering, as if they were discussing something.

    From time to time, they would raise their voice, but there wasn''t much that we could pick up from this. At the same time, the elves that Moon was questioning shook their heads from time to time as if they were denying what she was asking them.

    By the end, Moon suddenly said in a louder voice, "So you''re telling me that it''s all blocked off?"

    The two elves looked at each other before slowly nodding.

    At this, I came forward and asked, "What''s wrong?"

    Moon looked at me, but she didn''t answer right away.

    After taking a deep breath and giving a sigh, she said, "The ce that we''re currently in is surrounded by two cliffs on both sides. There''s a small passage that we could have taken to get out of this ce just ahead of us, but the goblins have already blocked that up. Even if we want to go there now, there are just too many goblins."

    Cecilia knitted her brows as she said, "Then why don''t we just go back the way that we came?"

    Moon shook her head before gesturing to the carriage, "That''s too slow, it''ll never make it in time. We''ll be surrounded by goblins before we can get out of the way."

    All of us fell silent when we heard this.

    Though we were silent, there were looks of deep thought that were on our faces.

    Even though this seemed like a bad situation, that didn''t mean that we had given up.

    Cecilia took a deep breath and said, "What are the cliffs like? How tall are they? Can we climb them?"

    Moon was surprised to hear this, but then she waved at the two elves that had gone out scouting.

    They came over and answered all of the questions that Cecilia had.

    After that, she fell into a period of deep thought as if she was processing all of this.

    When she was done, Cecilia looked up at us and said, "We''ll fight them off in this ce. As long as we trap them in this valley, we should be able to take them down easily."

 Chapter 473 The dukeâ€™s visit (14)

    <h4>Chapter 473 The duke¡¯s visit (14)</h4>

    A few minutester, we were all positioned ording to Cecilia''s n.

    There were elves that were positioned on the sides of the cliffs that all had their bows at the ready. They were ready to fire as soon as they saw the enemy.

    The ones that were still in the valley surrounded the carriage, as if they were nning on using the carriage as a blockade against the goblins.

    At this point, the trembling on the ground had be even stronger and it was clear that the goblins were getting closer.

    There was even a disgusting smell that filled the air as this happened.

    It didn''t take long before the goblins came into view.

    Though it was a stampede, they were moving at a moderate pace into the valley.

    However, as soon as they came into the valley and saw the carriage, they stopped moving. But this was nothing more than the calm before the storm as the goblins organized themselves.

    The goblin riders with their wolves came to the front while the rest of the goblins formed a wall formation. There were even goblin archers that were lined up in the back of this formation, ready to let their arrows fly into the sky at any moment.

    The way that the goblins moved, it was clear that they weren''t a random group, but rather a trained group that had gathered for a specific reason. For a group of this size, there had to be something like a Goblin General holding them all together.

    A Goblin General, this was something that they hadn''t faced in a long time¡­not since the town had been hit with that beast wave.

    After the goblin riders were in position, they charged out without any hesitation.

    The rest of the goblins slowly made their advance towards the carriage while the goblin archers prepared to shoot.

    The moment that the goblins made contact, they would let the arrows rain down.

    Cecilia raised her hand for her people to hold as the goblin riders charged at them.

    Seeing these goblins on wolvesing, the knights couldn''t help feeling the pressure that came from this.

    However, Cecilia still didn''t give them the order to charge.

    The goblin riders came closer and closer until they were almost upon them.

    That was when Cecilia suddenly dropped the hand that she had been holding up while saying, "Do it now!"

    As soon as she gave this order, the ones that weren''t on horses suddenly pulled the ropes that had been hidden in the ground with all their might. As soon as they pulled on these ropes there were hidden wood spikes that suddenly came out of the ground.

    The goblin riders weren''t able to react in time and many of their wolves were impaled by these wooden spikes. With the speed that they were going at, it was an instant death as the spikes pierced their heads and brains.

    There were also some of the riders that were pierced by these spikes and were killed by the momentum.

    However, there were more of them that were thrown into the air from their wolves as their wolves were impaled on the spikes.

    They couldn''t stop themselves as they were thrown right at the mounted knights.

    These goblins riders tried to turn themselves in midair to strike back at these mounted knights, but they didn''t have a chance. As soon as they were in range, the knights easily cut through these goblin riders.

    It wasn''t just that they were stronger after the intense training that they had undergone after the beast wave, it was also because of the special swords that they had in their hands.

    Even though the dwarves had only been here for a few days, that was more than enough time for them to outfit each of the knights with special swords.

    The main reason that the dwarves had followed Zwein back was because they wanted to learn his rune and forging techniques. So during this time, they had been practicing with what he had taught them.

    At the same time, there was quite a bit of mithril that was brought back from the Dwarven Kingdom for them to use.

    So all of the knights had mithril swords with runes engraved on them.

    The sharpness of these swords was guaranteed and they cut through the goblin riders like a hot knife through butter.

    There was no resistance at all from the goblin riders.

    Even the ones that had raised their swords to block found that these swords couldn''t resist the mithril swords at all.

    The swords of these goblin riders were made from bad quality iron that they found, so naturally they couldn''tpete with these special made mithril swords.

    Just like this, most of the goblin riders were wiped out. The ones that were able to avoid the spike trap were quickly disposed of by a few knights that had been waiting in the wings in an ambush.

    The goblins in the back couldn''t help hesitating when they saw what happened to the goblin riders, but that onlysted a few seconds. As if they were spurred on by something, the goblins didn''t hesitate to march again.

    It almost seemed like they were driven by fear based on the looks on their faces.

    As they came closer, the goblin archers prepared to fire their arrows, but¡­before that could happen¡­

    There was a rain of arrows that suddenly fell down on the goblin archers.

    It was the elves who had been waiting on the cliffs the entire time.

    They hadn''t fired their arrows when the goblin riders had charged forward, they had been waiting with their bows drawn the entire time for the goblins toe forward.

    These arrows pierced right through the goblins and mowed down all of the archers. All of the arrows were aimed perfectly at the goblin archers, so there wasn''t a single one that survived.

    All these arrows that were shot out were those with mithril arrowheads, so the goblins didn''t stand a chance against them. These were also made by the dwarves in town during this time.

    There were only the regr goblins that made up the bulk of this group left, but¡­it didn''t seem like they stood a chance against these humans and elves.

 Chapter 474 The dukeâ€™s visit (15)

    <h4>Chapter 474 The duke¡¯s visit (15)</h4>

    However, even though the archers fell under these arrows, the mass of goblins didn''t stop charging forward.

    Judging by the look in their eyes, it almost seemed like they were terrified of something. It was almost as if they would be killed if they stopped charging forward.

    But these goblins were no match for Cecilia and her formation.

    They just ran right into the spikes that were protruding out of the ground while having arrows rain down on them. The ones that were able to make it through all of this reached Cecilia and her knights only to be cut down by their mithril swords.

    In a sense, they were charging right into the meat grinder and they didn''t care.

    It really was strange why they were doing all of this¡­

    That is until there was a roar that rang out.

    When everyone looked in the direction of this roaring, they found that it was a Goblin General that came out.

    With the way that the goblins looked at this Goblin General in fear, it should be that this Goblin General was forcing the goblins to charge without care for their own lives.

    But it didn''t make sense¡­

    Why would the Goblin General treat its subordinates like this?

    There was nothing for the Goblin General to gain from doing something like this.

    Still, the fact that the Goblin General was here meant that the situation had changed.

    Regardless of what reason it had, that wasn''t the main concern right now.

    The main concern was the fact that there was a Goblin General here and it was clearly targeting them. If they didn''t take care of this Goblin General, there was no telling what it would do.

    So Cecilia left a few of her knights to keep cutting down the goblins while she focused on the Goblin General.

    The situation was different from a few months ago where she was barely able to fight against this Goblin General. She had undergone fierce training and had gained a new set of mithril weapons.

    With her new abilities, she would be able to take down this Goblin General.

    Not to mention that she was charging with her knights who had also be stronger.

    Together, they would be able to easily take down this Goblin General.

    It was just too bad that the Goblin General was¡­just a distraction.

    As soon as Cecilia led her group of knights to charge at the Goblin General, when everyone''s attention was attracted by this Goblin General¡­there were arrows that suddenly flew through the air,

    These arrows flew straight and true,nding right on the carriage before suddenly bursting into mes.

    With these arrows being shot at from different directions, this carriage was instantly lit on fire. There was no stopping it as the carriage was suddenly covered in mes.

    In no time at all, there was only the burnt carcass of a carriage lying there on the ground.

    Cecilia and her knights had swerved around the Goblin General and had tried toe back to the carriage, but they were toote.

    The Goblin General didn''t hesitate to charge at Cecilia and her knights when it saw them running away.

    It stomped on several of the goblins that were in front of it, crushing them without any hesitation.

    One could even feel sorry for these goblins as they didn''t deserve such a fate, if only they weren''t goblins.

    However, once the Goblin General had gotten too far and isted itself from the rest of its group, Cecilia and her knights suddenly turned around.

    The Goblin General wasn''t able to keep up with the horses that they were riding, so it could only raise its arms to block the attacks that came from Cecilia and her knights.

    Unfortunately for the Goblin General, Cecilia and her knights all had the mithril swords.

    They had no problem cutting through the thick muscles of the Goblin General and in no time at all, the Goblin General was covered in cuts as it fell to its knees. The Goblin General did all it could to try and stand up, but it was no use at all.

    It just couldn''t do anything as it fell forward, bleeding out from all of the wounds that had been inflicted on it.

    As the Goblin General fell, Cecilia couldn''t help looking at the Goblin General with aplicated look.

    In the past, this had been a powerful monster that had caused her a lot of trouble.

    But after months of training and new equipment, she was able to take it down easily with her knights.

    She really didn''t know how to feel about this, but there was a part of her that did feel pride. There was also a part of her that was satisfied knowing that her training hadn''t been in vain.

    But she quickly suppressed this as she turned in a specific direction.

    She knew that this wasn''t over yet.

    It wasn''t the goblins that were the problem, but rather the ones that had fired the arrows.

    Cecilia just left a few knights to deal with the remaining goblins while she led the rest of them to find those that had shot the arrows.

    When she climbed up the cliff, she found that there was already a fierce battle that was happening here.

    It was a battle between the elves led by Moon and a few cloaked figures that were trying to escape.

    These cloaked figures didn''t use any special techniques, only shooting arrows at Moon and her elves. However, when one looked closely, they could see that there was a faint green energying from their bows.

    It was clear that they were capable of using magic, but they were holding themselves back.

    When these cloaked figures saw Cecilia''s group, even though their expressions couldn''t be seen, it was clear that they recognized that they were in danger.

    So they no longer held back.

    These cloaked figures started using magic, casting all kinds of different spells at Cecilia and Moon''s group.

 Chapter 475 The dukeâ€™s visit (16)

    <h4>Chapter 475 The duke¡¯s visit (16)</h4>

    Once they started casting spells, it made it a bit easier to identify them.

    After all, the magic that they cast¡­was very simr to the magic that Moon and her elves were using.

    It was clear that the other side was eitherposed of elves or they were rted to the elves in some way.

    But these spells didn''t do anything to Cecilia and Moon''s group.

    The arrows and swords that they used were made of mithril, which was very sensitive to magic. Not only was it easy to infuse magic into mithril, mithril could also be used to cut right through magic energy.

    So they were able to easily dispel all of the spells thrown at them while still putting pressure on the cloaked figures.

    The cloaked figures saw that their spells weren''t working, so they did the only thing that they could do. They turned around and wanted to run away, but they found that a few of the knights had already circled around and cut them off.

    They werepletely pinched in here.

    When a beast was cornered¡­they didn''t hold back. When a beast was cornered, that was when they were their most terrifying.

    Seeing that they had no way out, the cloaked figures looked at each other before seeminglying to a consensus.

    They knew that unless they did something drastic, they wouldn''t be able to escape¡­so they pulled out a scroll.

    As soon as this scroll was pulled out, Moon immediately said, "Stop them! That''s a fireball scroll! It contains an A Rank Fireball Spell!"

    Cecilia narrowed her eyes as soon as she heard this before shouting, "Cover me!"

    Then without hesitation, she charged at the cloaked figure that had pulled out this scroll.

    The cloaked figure moved back while the other cloaked figures came forward to protect them. They threw all kinds of spells as Cecilia, not caring that they were being attacked from the other sides.

    However, not a single one of these spells reached her as arrows flew right past her to scatter all of these spells.

    All of these arrows came from a single elf, Moon.

    She had given up on protecting herself and focused only on covering Cecilia.

    She was able to scatter all of these spells, but there were some that came for her.

    The elves around her tried their best, but there was one that caught her arm and knocked her back a bit.

    Even then, Moon didn''t fall down as she looked at Cecilia with gritted teeth and said, "Do it!"

    Cecilia didn''t look back once as she put her faith in Moon.

    She was able to make it all the way to the cloaked figures and then to their surprise, she suddenly jumped. Before any of them could react, shended on one of their heads and jumped at the cloaked figure that had run away.

    That cloaked figure had almost finished injecting their magic energy into the scroll and was about to cast the spell when¡­

    Cecilia suddenly fell down from the sky with her sword swinging down.

    The cloaked figure wasn''t able to react at all as the sword cut right through their arms, severing both of them while they were still holding the scroll up to use.

    The faint glow around the scroll slowly faded as the two arms fell to the ground.

    "Ah!"

    A scream of pain rang out before that cloaked figure fell to the ground.

    Cecilia quickly picked up the scroll and put it away, but that didn''t mean that she was out of danger yet.

    Because of her reckless charge to stop this scroll from being used, she was now deep in enemy territory and cut off from the rest of her group. There were some knights behind her who had gone around to stop these cloaked figures from running, but they were too far to help her.

    The cloaked figures were only stunned for an instant before suddenly raising their hands to gather their magic energy.

    They knew that the only thing that they could rely on was that magic scroll, so they did all that they could to get it back.

    They didn''t even care that there were a bunch of elves aiming arrows at them or a bunch of knights charging at them, they just focused all of their attacks on Cecilia.

    Cecilia knew that she was in a very bad situation, but she couldn''t let them get the scroll back.

    So taking a deep breath, she braced herself.

    It seemed that she was nning on taking all of these attacks head on and blocking them with her body¡­but there were just too many of them for her to deal with alone.

    Before anyone could do anything, the cloaked figures had already finished gathering their mana and pointed their hands at her.

    Before anyone could stop it, there were a bunch of spells shot at Cecilia.

    All kinds of different spells, fire spells, ice spells, wind spells, earth spells, and everything else, were thrown at Cecilia.

    This mass of mana was clearly not something that she could deal with alone.

    But she didn''t show any traces of fear as she raised her sword as if she was about to cut right through all of these spells shot at her.

    The only other thing in her eyes was¡­a trace of regret.

    She shouldn''t have been so rash about this.

    If she had calmed down, she might have thought of a different way to take care of the cloaked figure with the scroll instead of diving too deep like this.

    But in the end, there was no cure for regret.

    So all she could do was face these attacks that came her way.

    However, before these attacks could reach her¡­there was a cloaked figure that suddenly appeared in front of her.

    This was a different cloaked figure from the ones that were attacking her.

    This one stood in front of her, as if they were protecting her.

    This cloaked figure raised their arm and a bracelet was revealed that released a bright glow.

 Chapter 476 The dukeâ€™s visit (17)

    <h4>Chapter 476 The duke¡¯s visit (17)</h4>

    The bright glow from this bracelet became stronger until it formed a barrier in front of them.

    This barrier was translucent, making it hard to see, but it was clearly there.

    After the barrier appeared, there was a powerful sensation that came from it. It was a powerful source of magic energy that was far stronger than the spells that wereing at Cecilia.

    When these spells mmed into the barrier, they were scattered in an instant.

    They weren''t even able to make a single dent in the barrier before being scattered away into magic energy.

    It seemed that this barrier was on apletely different level.

    The cloaked figures were shocked when they saw this, but they quickly came back to their senses and wanted to throw out another round of spells.

    It was just too bad that the knights and elves behind them had already caught up to them and were pinning them to the ground. The knights jumped them while the elves shot arrows into the robes, pinning them in ce.

    Just like this, all of the cloaked figures were caught.

    Cecilia looked at the cloaked figure in front of her who had put up this shield.

    At first, she didn''t recognize this cloaked figure, but then she slowly recognized who it was.

    It was Shadow Five who had followed Zwein back on the order of the fourth prince to protect him.

    Aftering back, she had put on her cloak again even though the fourth prince had given her the order to take it off. It was what she was used to wearing, so Zwein had given her permission to do so.

    After recognizing her, Cecilia said, "Thank you."

    Shadow Five looked at her before saying in a calm voice, "I was ordered to do it."

    She didn''t have any emotions in her voice as if she didn''t care about anything other than her orders.

    Cecilia revealed an awkward look when she heard this, but since Shadow Five didn''t want to say anything, she didn''t force her to say anything.

    She turned to look at the cloaked figures that were captured and asked her knights standing over them, "Is that all of them?"

    The knights turned to look at her and confirmed that it was indeed all of them.

    It was only then that Cecilia turned in a different direction and said, "It''s clear, you cane out now."

    There was what seemed to be a distortion in space before several figures came out.

    It was me and the ducal family with a few knights guarding us.

    The moment that we appeared, the cloaked figures looked up at us with visible shock. Though we couldn''t see their faces, it was clear that they were shocked based on their bodynguage.

    After all, as far as they knew, we should have been burnt to a crisp when the carriage had been set aze.

    But in reality, the carriage was nothing more than a bait.

    The only things that had been inside were a few dummies with magic crystals in them to simte living creatures. So the only things that burnt down were just a few dummies.

    After walking out, I narrowed my eyes to look at the cloaked figures.

    I looked at them this way not because I was wondering who they were or who they worked for, but because I was wondering what I should do with them.

    After all, I had made the promise to show mercy if I could¡­

    So I was torn on just how to take care of these cloaked figures.

    But before I could do anything, Moon suddenly came forward and pulled off their hoods.

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I saw this.

    After all, once their identities were exposed, then it would make it hard to show mercy.

    But there was no stopping her since she already had her hand on the hoods.

    I just gave a sigh and looked closely at who these cloaked figures were.

    They were elves as expected, but they weren''t any elves that I recognized.

    I turned to look at Moon and she also shook her head to show that she didn''t recognize them either.

    Then that meant that they weren''t from the group that hade from the capital.

    Before we left, Moon had made sure to memorize the faces of all the elves that were in the vige so she could identify them if we were attacked. However, it didn''t seem like any of these elves were from that group.

    They must be from another group that they had kept hidden all this time.

    It really was strange, they even kept another group hidden from the elven vige who should have been theirrades. Was this a sign that they didn''t trust them or was there something else?

    Since Moon had already pulled off their hoods and revealed their faces, then there was no need to hesitate anymore.

    I should do what I can to get information from them or else this might repeat itself.

    If I could get some information to make the other side back down now, that was the best case scenario.

    But either way¡­these elves had to be buried or else it would be very bad.

    Moon took the initiative to ask, "Who are you?"

    But none of the elves even looked at her when she asked this question.

    All of them were either looking at me or looking around as if they were trying to find a way to escape.

    Moon naturally saw this as well and was about to go forward to stop them.

    But before anyone could react, one of the elves suddenly broke free of their ropes and started charging at me. As they charged at me, there was a green energy that appeared around them that seemed to make them go even faster.

    No one was able to react in time to stop that elf from charging at me

    In his hand, I could see that there was a shiny glint¡­

    It was a knife that he had hidden away!

 Chapter 477 The dukeâ€™s visit (18)

    <h4>Chapter 477 The duke¡¯s visit (18)</h4>

    No, when I looked closely, I found that it wasn''t actually a knife.

    It was what seemed to be distorted space¡­it was a spatial spell.

    That was why no one had been able to take it from this elf when they tied him up, it wasn''t something that they could take away in the first ce.

    If it was possible, I really wanted to capture this elf alive and see how his spatial magic worked since it was considered rare magic in the first ce.

    But that wasn''t the real problem right now.

    The real problem was that they wereing right at me with that spatial knife.

    I hesitated a bit as I was torn on what to use...but in the end, I pulled out a strange looking sword.

    No, it wasn''t The Prator this time since I wasn''t sure if it could resist spatial magic. I didn''t want to take that risk and ruin the one weapon that I had been relying on the entire time.

    Instead, I pulled out Durand.

    The elf was caught off guard by Durand suddenly appearing before he said, "Demon sword¡­"

    That was all that he was able to say before I cut him with Durand.

    I had nned on holding back so that I didn''t hurt him that much, but I found that there was no resistance at all when I swung Durand. The weight of the sword carried me forward in the swing and when it was over¡­I found that the elf had been cut in half.

    Wasn''t this too sharp?

    Wasn''t this too strong?

    But then I braced myself as I waited for the pain toe back to me.

    While it wouldn''t kill me¡­it would be the pain of being cut in half which was not something to scoff at.

    That was the power of Durand and the price of using it.

    However, even though I braced myself for that pain toe, it never came in the end.

    I just stood there with my eyes narrowed, looking like an idiot.

    After a while, I couldn''t help looking down at Durand and found that it was idle. There didn''t seem to be a single thing that changed about it.

    The others ran over after the elf had been cut down and they all looked at me with worried looks.

    Cecilia did the usual and went around me to make sure that there was nothing wrong with me.

    Once she was done, she stood in front of me and looked down at the sword in my hand before slowly saying, "This is the sword that you bought in auction?"

    I slowly gave a nod without saying anything.

    I could tell that there was a strange look in her eyes as she looked at Durand. In fact, there was a strange look in the eyes of most of the people around me as they looked at the sword in my hand.

    These looks weren''t considered good looks, but they also couldn''t be considered bad looks.

    It was as if they didn''t know how to feel about Durand.

    It was silent until the elves broke that silence.

    It wasn''t Moon''s elves that broke this silence, but rather the ones that we had captured.

    After seeing theirpanion being cut down by Durand, they had all been sitting there staring in shock at Durand.

    Finally, one of them said, "It''s the Cursed Sword! It''s one of the demon swords!"

    As soon as one of them spoke, all of them started speaking and crying out in shock.

    But the one that stood out the most was¡­

    "That''s why we need to kill him, he''s one of the holders of the Cursed Sword! He''s one of the demons that will plunge this world into chaos!"

    They had been so shocked that they didn''t even bother hiding the fact that they had been sent here to kill me.

    Of course, it wasn''t a surprise for us that they were sent here to kill me.

    Still, this was an opportunity.

    They were frazzled right now, so it was my chance to push them and get the information that I wanted.

    So ignoring how everyone else looked at me, I walked forward with the sword raised.

    I specifically pointed it forward so that the elves would be able to see it, even though it was heavy for me to lift it like this.

    As I came forward, I said, "Now, which one of you wants to be next?"

    When they heard this, all of them couldn''t help revealing shocked looks of panic.

    It was clear that there was fear that they felt towards this sword, even though it was strange that they felt afraid of this sword.

    There was a silence that came over the elves as all of them just stared at the sword in my hand. All of them had strange looks on their faces as if there was something that they knew about this sword that I didn''t.

    After this silencested for a bit, a few of them couldn''t help whispering.

    "This demon sword¡­I''ve heard that it takes your soul if it kills you."

    "I''ve heard that it severs your ties with the mortal ne, erasing all traces of you from this world."

    "I''ve heard that it turns you into an undead¡­cursed to wander thend under the owner of the sword."

    When I heard all of their whispering, it slowly made sense why they had acted this way.

    It was because they had heard all kinds of rumours of this sword and had a misconception of it.

    That was something that I could use to my advantage.

    Letting them go for a bit, I gave a cough and said, "Well, since no one is volunteering, how about I just pick someone?"

    All of the elves trembled when they heard this and they couldn''t help scooching back a bit.

    Seeing this reaction from them, I said in a slow voice, "That is unless¡­someone is willing to give me the information that I want."

 Chapter 478 The dukeâ€™s visit (19)

    <h4>Chapter 478 The duke¡¯s visit (19)</h4>

    All of the elves couldn''t help looking at each other before looking back with a firm look.

    Even if they were in a panic, that didn''t mean that they had lost all of their reasoning just yet.

    As soon as they heard this, they realized that they had some kind of leverage against me.

    I had information that I wanted from them and they had the ability to hold that information from me. As long as they had something that I wanted, then that meant that there was a chance to negotiate.

    It didn''t take long before the elves chose a representative amongst them to speak for all of them.

    This elf said, "That depends on whether you can¡­"

    Before he could finish, he found that there was a sword alreadying at him.

    With the rope bindings on him, he wasn''t able to dodge out of the way in time.

    It was a good thing that I stopped it at thest second, so it only made a cut on his arm instead of chopping the entire thing off.

    All of them trembled in fear when they saw how decisive I was.

    I just calmly looked at them and said, "I never said that this was a negotiation. I only said that it would only depend on if someone was willing to give me the information that I wanted."

    My eyes turned cold as I said, "That doesn''t mean that I need every single one of you."

    I turned back to look at the elf that had been cut in half on the ground and said, "Since there''s already one of you dead, then that means that there''s no taking it back. There''s no need for all of you to go back alive and I''ll do what I need to do to get the information that I want."

    All of the elves trembled when they heard this.

    This time, when they looked at each other, there was no longer the same camaraderie that had once been in their eyes.

    They realized now that as long as one person broke, it would mean that the rest would die¡­

    So it was a matter of who would break under the pressure first.

    But at the same time, it was a matter of who desired to live the most.

    After all, it would be a matter of who gave the information that Lin Fan wanted and survived this ordeal.

    There were signs of breaking in the eyes of the elves and there were some that couldn''t sit still anymore. It was clear that they were tempted by my words, so they were thinking about betraying the others.

    To sweeten the pot, I said, "If no one gives me the information that I want, I''ll start killing off one of you randomly every minute until someone talks."

    Though this wouldn''t put as much pressure as threatening just one person, it was more than effective enough since it put pressure on everyone. It wasted too much time threatening one person at a time.

    It was easier to threaten them all so that it could weigh down on them more.

    At the same time, it would help to turn them against each other since no one could be certain that someone wouldn''t betray the group to save themselves.

    It didn''t take long before the real cracks started to form and there were lines drawn between the elves.

    It wasn''t real lines per say, but separation of the elves as they formed smaller groups.

    It seemed that even in this group, there were smaller group divisions.

    Now it was time to keep that promise.

    "Alright, a minute has passed, so let''s get started." I raised the sword and started moving towards them.

    When the elves saw this, all of them revealed looks of fear.

    Before I came forward, the feeling of this situation was surreal since they didn''t believe that I would actually kill them.

    But now that I was keeping my word, they were starting to feel the fear that came with this, they were really starting to crumble.

    I didn''t stop moving just because the elves remained silent.

    I walked up so that I was between two of the smaller groups that had formed and I revealed a smile.

    But when they saw this smile, all they felt were chills that ran down their spines.

    They knew that this wasn''t a good smile and they were right.

    I looked at the two groups in front of me and said with that smile on my face, "Let''s have some fun with this."

    As soon as they heard this, they felt a chill run down their spines.

    Seeing this, the smile on my face grew wider as I said, "I''ll let you pick who lives and who dies. As long as you cane to a consensus, I''ll kill the person that you choose. Otherwise, I''ll kill the person that has the least votes."

    Then as if I was remembering something, I added, "Of course, that is only assuming that none of you have the information that I want."

    All of the elves felt chills run down their spines as they looked at me with eyes filled with fear.

    As expected of a person who owned a demon sword¡­he was a demon himself.

    At this point, they were all suspecting that I was a demon in disguise that was just acting as a human because there was no way that humans would be able toe up with such a diabolic idea.

    Then after a while, they started wondering if I would actually go through with it.

    When I saw this look in their eyes, I went forward and brought the sword up in front of one of the elves. Holding this sword to their neck, I asked, "Tell me, who do you think I should kill?"

    Now they realized that I wasn''t kidding¡­

    That was when they finally cracked and gave up.

    The one that I held the sword up to said, "Spare me and I''ll tell you what you want to know."

 Chapter 479 The dukeâ€™s visit (20)

    <h4>Chapter 479 The duke¡¯s visit (20)</h4>

    As soon as this one elf said this, all of the other elves immediately red at him.

    Then as if there was a domino effect, they all started to crumble.

    After all, once one person gave the information that they had, then the rest of them would lose this chance.

    In the end, it was arge mess as they all tried to be the one that offered the information.

    Though, not a single one of them actually said anything.

    To settle them, I had no choice but to m Durand down into the ground so that they would be quiet.

    Once they fell silent, I said, "I will choose one of you to give me the information that I want. If I don''t get the information that I want, I''ll move on to the next person."

    All of them looked at each other before looking like they wanted to volunteer.

    But I already knew that this would happen, so I raised my sword again and said in a threatening voice, "I will be the one that picks who speaks first."

    All of them fell silent after they heard this, but they still had looks in their eyes like they didn''t want to give up.

    It was their lives after all¡­no one was willing to just die without doing anything.

    After they calmed down, I put Durand down and said, "Those that have information will say ''yes''. I will pick from the ones that speak up and that person will tell me what they know."

    The elves revealed unhappy looks when they heard this.

    This didn''t give them any chance of increasing their chance of survival. It was leaving everything in this human''s hands, which wasn''t something that they could be happy about.

    But there was nothing that they could do.

    After all, they werepletely tied up.

    Once I was finished, I waited to see how they would react.

    However, the elves didn''t say anything as if they were waiting for something.

    It was only after a minute of silence that they finally realized something and one of them said, "Yes."

    As soon as they said this, I pointed at that elf and said, "Alright, it''s you then."

    The other elves revealed looks of shock and regret when they heard this.

    There were some that wanted to say something, but I put my hand on Durand''s hilt once more and they closed their mouths.

    In the face of Durand, there was nothing that they could say.

    The knights helped that elf up before bringing him forward with me.

    This was the elf that had been chosen as the representative of the other elves, so I was surprised that he would choose to betray the rest of them like this.

    But in the end, it seemed that his own life was more important than anything else as he gave me all the information that I needed.

    As we had expected, they were a group that followed the two elves from the capital.

    They had been left outside of the vige just in case they needed to take care of the vige.

    Moon deeply knitted her brows when she heard this.

    The goal of their trip was¡­to scout out the elven vige and see if they could find anything rted to Apollo. But the way that they had arranged this¡­it was clear that they suspected the vige to have something to do with this.

    No, put it more simply¡­they suspected that Moon had something to do with this.

    Anyone that knew Apollo would have known about their engagement, so the fact that Apollo disappeared put suspicion on her as his fiancee¡­or former fiancee.

    So they were here to take care of the vige if there was a need for it.

    But no one at the vige really knew what happened to Apollo.

    They just knew that he left and never came back. They had assumed that he had gone to the capital to meet his father, or gone on an adventure somewhere else, they never thought that he had disappeared like this.

    By the end of it, the elf admitted that they were nning on turning me into a scapegoat for all of this.

    They were here to kill me so that I could be med for this.

    After all, dead men tell no tales.

    Once he was done telling me everything, the elf said with a sigh, "I''ve already told you everything. Can you let me go now?"

    I didn''t look at this elf as I turned to look back at the other elves.

    I left this elf to the knights while heading back towards that group of elves who had depressed looks on their faces.

    When they saw meing over, all of them braced themselves.

    After all, they thought that I wasing over to kill them all.

    But to their surprise, I said, "Is there anyone else who wants to give me information?"

    There was a few seconds of silence as they were shocked by what I said before all of them started fighting to be the one chosen.

    I picked a few of the elves randomly and brought them away to talk to them.

    When it was all over, we confirmed that what the first elf had said was true and that there was nothing else that they had for us.

    At that, I had the elves all gathered in one ce again.

    The elves were all confused when this happened and many of them wondered what would happen to them.

    Once they were all gathered, I looked at the knights and simply said, "You can take care of them now."

    The elves were all shocked when they heard this, but the ones that had given us information quickly said, "You said that you would let us go! You''re breaking your promise!"

    I just calmly looked at them and said, "I said that it depended on the information that you gave me." My eyes turned cold as I said, "And the information that you gave me wasn''t worth your lives."

    The elves just stared at me in shock when they heard this.

 Chapter 480 The dukeâ€™s visit (21)

    <h4>Chapter 480 The duke¡¯s visit (21)</h4>

    There were many insults andints that came at me once they recovered from their shock, but they fell onto deaf ears.

    I didn''t care at all about what they said and just gave a nod to the knights for them to do their jobs.

    The elves were brought out into a line and forced to lean forward.

    Behind each of the elves was a knight that held a sharp mithril sword.

    As they leaned forward, the elves kept cursing and begging for their lives, but not a single person was moved by their words.

    The knights just looked down at the elves in front of them before turning to look at me, as if they were waiting for some signal from me.

    I just gave a simple nod for them and then the swords that they had been holding up came down.

    Even in the moment of their death, the elves never believed that they would really die.

    After all, it really was too hard for them to believe that they would be killed like this.

    The looks of disbelief on their faces as their heads rolled to the ground really was something else.

    Once these elves had been executed, I said to the knights, "Just bury them somewhere. Even if they were enemies, we aren''t brutes."

    They nodded in agreement before picking up the corpses of the elves to take into the forest nearby.

    But before they could leave, Moon came forward to stop them.

    They all looked at her with confused looks as she said, "Let me take a look at them first. I want to see if there''s anything that we can use as evidence."

    The knights looked at me and I just gave a nod in agreement.

    Though I didn''t feel like she would be able to find anything, it definitely didn''t hurt to let her try.

    So Moon went over to the side with the knights holding the corpses.

    It was also at this time that the remaining knights came up from the valley and joined us.

    While we had been fighting the elves, these knights had been down there cleaning up the rest of the goblins.

    Once the goblins had lost the Goblin General, they had been a mess and it had been easy for the knights to clean them up. Still, there had been quite a few goblins, so it took them a while to clean them all up.

    It seemed like they really had a hard time cleaning up those goblins judging by the state of their weapons and armour, as well as the amount of blood that they were covered in.

    All of us avoided them since they really stunk with the blood on them.

    So all they could do was reveal bitter smiles.

    Still, they cheered up when I promised to give them a special reward when we went back.

    The only thing was¡­I had no idea what to give them as a special reward.

    It was worth noting that we didn''t suffer a single casualty this fight.

    Because of Cecilia''s n and everyone''s increased strength, we had been able to fight the goblins without problem.

    If this was before, we definitely would have struggled with the goblins.

    But this was a testament of everyone''s training and hard work during this time.

    I really couldn''t help feeling grateful for everyone working this hard while I had been away.

    Thest thing to take care of was¡­the duke''s family.

    They had been watching from the side with some knights guarding them.

    They had been patiently waiting, but in the end¡­they were guests and I had to apologize for everything that happened.

    So as soon as I came over, I prepared to bow my head.

    However, before I could, the duke came forward to stop me. He took me by the arms and lifted my upper half back up as he said, "There''s no need for you to say anything. I know that you were nothing more than a victim in this matter."

    After a pause, he added with a bitter smile, "In fact, if it wasn''t for me, we might not have even gotten in this situation."

    Perhaps he was right since if we didn''te here, we wouldn''t have met the elves from the capital.

    If we didn''t meet them, then they wouldn''t havee up with the n to use me as a scapegoat and we wouldn''t have had to fight all of these elves and goblins.

    However, I knew that it ran much deeper than this.

    In the end, it was the consequences of my own action since I was the one that had decided to kill Apollo back then.

    It was only because he had been killed that these elves hade from the capital to investigate this matter.

    So it could even be said that I was the root cause of all of this.

    But I would never admit that even if I was beaten to death.

    Still, I had to say something since I couldn''t let the duke take the me.

    I shook my head and said, "No, even if you didn''t want toe, this still would have happened. It just came faster because we were unlucky enough to bump into this group."

    The duke looked at me with aplicated look.

    But in the end, he just gave a sigh and patted me on the shoulder.

    There was nothing that I could say in response to this even though I knew what he was implying.

    I just gave a nod and said, "I hope that this doesn''t ruin your visit."

    The duke revealed a faint smile and said, "It certainly has been an interesting and exciting trip, but it can''t be considered ruined."

    The two of us were about to keep chatting, but before we could¡­

    "Come over here, there''s something you need to see."

    Moon suddenly called out to me from where the knights were burying the corpses.

    I looked over with a surprised and confused look, but I still walked over in the end.

 Chapter 481 The dukeâ€™s visit (22)

    <h4>Chapter 481 The duke¡¯s visit (22)</h4>

    When I came over, I found that it was Moon who had called out for us.

    She was standing over the corpses of one of the elves, the one that had been chosen as the representative by the others.

    In her hand, there was this strange thing that looked like some kind of seal.

    As for the expression on her face, she had a very deep frown.

    Seeing that I came over, she raised the thing in her hand for me to see and had a look on her face as if she expected me to know what this was.

    However, I really didn''t know what it was, which was strange.

    After all, I did have intensive knowledge about this world because of how much I had yed the game that this world was based on. If there was anyone that should have recognized these things, it would have been me.

    Seeing the look on my face, Moon exined, "This is a mind control seal."

    I looked at her with a shocked look when I heard this before looking at her with a look of disbelief. The way that I looked at her, it was almost as if I was trying to tell if she was being serious or not.

    But Moon''s expression didn''t change at all after saying this.

    It seemed that she wasn''t kidding about this, but I still didn''t really understand what this thing was.

    Based on the name, it should be something that was used to control the mind of whoever it was used on. However, that didn''t really exin how much control they had and to what extent they would be able to control them.

    Moon once again saw the look on my face and said, "It was used to control the Goblin General, that was why those monsters came right at us."

    This time, I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this.

    I had already figured that the monsters charging at us was part of their n, but I never expected the elves to be able to do something like this.

    Mind control, this was something that wasn''t as explored in the game as one might think.

    Even though it was a H-game, it was too difficult to implement mind control because of how much freedom there was in the game. Mind control would affect too many different variables, so thepany had decided to avoid adding it to the game.

    Though that didn''t mean that mind control didn''t exist.

    In the vour text of the game, there were mentions of mind control items that could be used.

    Though there had never been a mind control item that was made avable to the yer.

    The elves with their importance on freedom used something like this that would take away the freedom of others, it really seemed contradictory.

    But the more important thing was that if they had this, didn''t that mean that they would also have things that would be able to control the minds of others?

    If this was the case, then wasn''t the vige and elves back in the vige in trouble?

    As soon as I realized this, I looked at Moon who was looking at me, as if she was waiting for my opinion.

    I looked at her for a moment and then with a deep breath, I said, "Go if you feel you need to go."

    Moon bit her lip when she heard this, but in the end, she said, "I''ll leave a few of them with you to guide you back to town."

    I gave a nod before walking over to take her hand and pat the back of it.

    I didn''t know what to say to make it better and I knew that there wasn''t much that I could even say in the first ce that would make her feel better.

    So all I could do was show that I supported her no matter what.

    After a moment of silence, Moon looked up at me and said, "Thank you."

    Then without any hesitation, she gathered the elves together and they split into two groups.

    One that would head back to the vige with her and the other that would lead us back to town.

    As they walked off, I couldn''t help staring in the direction that Moon''s group headed off in.

    I didn''t know when we would be able to meet again, but I knew that this definitely wasn''t over yet.

    With a sigh, I went back to the carriage with the duke and his family before heading back to town.

    As we were sitting in the carriage, there was a silence that hung in the air.

    It was clear that all of us had different thoughts and no one was saying a thing, so we just remained silent until we reached the town.

    When we arrived back, it didn''t take long before Rose and Haley came to meet us.

    I had people call them over as soon as possible.

    When they saw the state that we were in, they quickly arranged everything and we met in a secret room in the manor.

    The only ones that were in this room were me, Rose, Haley, Cecilia, and Shaka.

    Though Shaka could be considered part outsider, he had be a part of the town that we couldn''t do without and had no choice but to involve him in this meeting.

    Once we sat down, I looked at Rose and Haley and told them about what happened.

    After they heard the story, they both had worried looks on their faces.

    After all, they could understand what this story meant for us.

    Cooperation with the elves was one of the things that we relied on since we had many parts of our town that relied on elven magic. It wasn''t like this before, but living with elves for some time had changed our town like this.

    I didn''t even know about it since I had left everything to Rose and Haley.

    When it was over, Rose asked me, "What do we do now?"

    I shook my head and said, "There''s nothing that we can do other than wait."

    We just had to wait and see what Moon had for us.

 Chapter 482 The dukeâ€™s visit (23)

    <h4>Chapter 482 The duke¡¯s visit (23)</h4>

    Moon came back the very next day to everyone''s surprise.

    When she came back, we once again gathered in the secret room to hear her report.

    But we were surprised by the report that she made.

    "They left?" I couldn''t help asking in a shocked voice.

    Moon just gave a simple nod in response to this.

    But that just shocked us even more.

    After all, no one would have expected them to leave just like this.

    We had all been certain that the elves from the capital would do something after theirrades had been wiped out like this. However, they didn''t do a single thing as they just left the elven vige as if they didn''t even know about theirrades being wiped out like this.

    I looked at her with a confused look and asked, "Why?"

    But all that I received in return was a confused look just like mine as Moon shook her head to show that she didn''t know either.

    After they had left, Moon had told the green haired elder about everything and she had sent people to watch over them as they left.

    They found that the elves from the capital didn''t create any fuss at all and just left their forest. Then after following them for a bit, it seemed like they were heading back to the capital without doing anything.

    Even now, the green haired elder was still receiving reports from the scouts that she sent after them that they were leaving this kingdom.

    This didn''t seem like something that those arrogant elves would have done.

    After her answer, a silence fell over the room.

    None of us knew what was happening, so it wasn''t as if we would be able to force out an answer even if we wanted to.

    I thought about asking Shaka to move Shadow Garden forces for this matter, but then I thought better of it.

    The moment that the Shadow Garden was involved, this would no longer be a matter between us and those elves, but a matter between a human kingdom and the elven kingdom.

    If that were to start a war, that would be the worst case scenario.

    So I couldn''t bring Shadow Garden in no matter what.

    After a long period of silence, I finally said with a sigh, "Then let''s drop this matter."

    Everyone looked at me with strange looks and there was a bit of hesitation in their eyes, but they agreed with me in the end.

    They knew that there was indeed nothing else that we would be able to do without causing too much of a mess, so we had no choice but to give up on this matter.

    Once that was decided, the meeting was over.

    Moon still looked anxious, like she wanted to do something, but she didn''t know what she could do.

    However, what she seemed like the most was regretful that elves like her had caused this mess. It made her feel that she was rted to this in some indirect way¡­though it could be considered that since she was the one that was rted to Apollo.

    I wanted to say something to Moon, but Rose cut me off and said, "Let me handle it. You can handle the other problem."

    I revealed a bitter smile when I heard this, but she was already gone.

    The other problem that she mentioned was the duke¡­

    After all, we had gotten him caught up in this dangerous situation, so we had to give an exnation to him.

    So I went to go meet with the duke.

    When I arrived at their residence, I found that they were already packing up and I couldn''t help panicking.

    If the duke was leaving in a hurry like this¡­did that mean that he was offended because we had gotten him caught up in all of this?

    If the duke was offended and we lost his backing¡­it would be bad for us.

    So I quickly asked one of the servants where the duke was and went to find him.

    When I found the duke, I saw that he was in the parlour just having some tea with Veronica and the duchess.

    The duke waved his hand at me with a smile on his face, as if he was telling me toe over.

    When I came into the room, the first thing that I did was bow my head and say, "I''m sorry about everything that happened."

    There was a silence that hung in the air which made me feel awkward.

    So I slowly and tentatively looked up at the duke.

    I found that he along with Veronica and the duchess were looking at me with strange expressions on their faces.

    After a while, the duke finally said, "What are you doing?"

    I quickly said, "I got you involved in that dangerous matter, it was all my fault. I hope that you''ll¡­"

    Before I could apologize again, the duke suddenly gave a sigh and said, "Oh, it''s that. It''s not a problem at all."

    I was caught off guard when I heard this before quickly saying, "But you''re already packing up to leave. If I offended you in some way¡­"

    Once again, the duke cut me off by saying, "It''s not that at all. We know that you didn''t mean for that to happen and you''re the victim in this matter. So we''re just getting out of your hair so you can properly deal with this situation. You don''t have to worry, we''re not offended at all."''

    I couldn''t help being taken aback again when I heard this.

    I slowly raised my head and looked at the duke''s expression. I could tell that he wasn''t lying about this, it seemed that he really did understand this and he wasn''t angry about this.

    But that didn''t make any sense at all.

    I was about to apologize again, but the duke saw this and cut me off once more, "I know that things like this happen, ites with working with anyrge group. The elves aren''t represented by only the ones that we met in this town, so there must be others with differing opinions among the elves. It''s inevitable that something like this happens."

    This time, it was my turn to look at the duke with a strange look.

    Perhaps it was because I had gotten used to seeing how he acted around Veronica that I had the wrong perception of him. But the duke was one of the most important people in this kingdom, so it wasn''t strange that he had this grand mentality.

    Perhaps it was only someone like him that could understand something like this so easily.

    Being too persistent was also annoying¡­so I just said, "Thank you for understanding."

    The duke gave a nod with a smile on his face before saying, "Don''t worry about it. I''m still expecting great things from our cooperation."

    I also revealed a relieved smile when I heard this as I said, "Yes, I''m looking forward to working with you."

    It seemed that the duke wasn''t nning on terminating our rtionship which was the best thing for me.

    But the duke then added, "I''ll also count on you to look after Veronica for me."

    I couldn''t help revealing a secret bitter smile when I heard this.

    It seemed like I still couldn''t get rid of this willful young miss¡­

 Chapter 483 Returning to the church

    <h4>Chapter 483 Returning to the church</h4>

    After the duke left, it was business as usual.

    This time, I didn''t n on going anywhere since I had been away for a long time already.

    I wanted to actually help Rose in managing my territory, but¡­she didn''t have anything for me to do.

    In fact, the way that she said it almost made it seem like she thought I was a nuisance instead of being helpful¡­

    It really stung, but I couldn''t argue with her.

    There weren''t many things that I could do to help when it came to managing the territory.

    All I could do was some of the menial stuff and there were plenty of people that were avable for that.

    So other than showing my face for important events, there really wasn''t much for me to do.

    So I was allowed to do what I wanted even though I wanted to help, as long as I didn''t get in the way. But whenever I tried doing anything, I would be in the way and they would let me know.

    Rose had really trained her subordinates well that they didn''t even fear me as their lord. They just gave me their brutal and honest opinions.

    That was what I wanted to see since it was much more effective, but that didn''t mean that it didn''t hurt.

    The next ce that I tried was Haley''s ce and¡­it was the same.

    Perhaps if I didn''t go anywhere and learned how to help with her business, I might have been able to help her. However, they were just far too busy with the new businesses that I brought that they didn''t have the time to teach me.

    Just like with Rose''s subordinates, Haley''s subordinates had also been well trained and didn''t hesitate to tell me the brutal truth, sending me on my way.

    So in the end, there wasn''t anything for me to do to help even though I wanted to help.

    With the free time on my hands, I decided to do something that I wanted to do.

    There was something that had been bugging me since the capital, so I went to a ce where I thought that I would be able to get an answer for the questions in my heart.

    I came to the church.

    This church was the one that had been in the town all along and it was run by the priest who had helped us during the beast wave.

    But after that incident, he had been keeping to himself in the church.

    We never bothered him and he never bothered us, both of our sides just did what we wanted to do.

    Though I did hear from Rose that the priest had wanted to meet me.

    After all, I had something that he was very interested in.

    When I arrived at the church, I found that there were quite a few people that were here.

    It seemed that the people of my territory were quite religious and came to pray when they had the time.

    When they saw me, there were many of them that waved and greeted me.

    These were old residents of my territory who had been with us since the beginning.

    They were already used to the casual manner that I had and greeted me whenever they saw me. They knew that I wasn''t like the other nobles, who couldn''t be approached that easily.

    With themotion that we were creating, it didn''t take long before the priest''s attention was drawn.

    When he saw that it was me, he immediately came over with a wide smile and said, "My lord, is there anything that I can help you with today?"

    I told the others that I had some business with the priest and once we were alone, I said, "I have something that I wanted to talk to you about, alone."

    The priest was surprised to hear this, but he didn''t mind as he said with a nod, "Alright, let''s go talk in my office."

    I gave a nod and followed the priest into the back of the church.

    Once we entered his office, I couldn''t help looking at the cross inside.

    I was waiting to see if there was anything that was going to happen with it.

    However, not a single thing happened.

    We sat down at the coffee table and he made some tea before sitting down to ask me, "My lord, what is it that you wanted to talk about?"

    I brought my hand up and ced it on the table before saying, "It''s this."

    The priest''s eyes immediately lit up when he heard this since this was what he had been hoping would happen.

    He had wanted to examine this Mark of God the entire time, but since I had been gone, he never got the chance.

    And of course, it wasn''t as if he could just summon me toe to the church to let him examine it.

    So he had no choice but to send letters with requests and wait for me toe.

    Now that he had this chance, he naturally wouldn''t let it go.

    With that wide smile on his face, the priest leaned over the table and brought his face right up towards the Mark of God.

    The look on his face really made me want to pull my hand away, but I kept it there in the end as I let him examine it.

    After looking at it for a while, the priest finally said, "Is there something particr you want to discuss about this Mark of God?"

    I gave a nod before using my other hand to pull out something from my Spatial Ring.

    As soon as this thing was pulled out, the priest deeply knitted his brows as he pulled his eyes away from the Mark of God on my hand and turned to look at the thing in my other hand.

    I just brought this thing onto the table and said, "It''s this that I want to discuss."

    The priest knitted his brows even more as he said, "My lord, what is the meaning of this? How could you bring this item into a sacred ce like this?"

 Chapter 484 Purification

    <h4>Chapter 484 Purification</h4>

    The thing that I had pulled out was Durand.

    The moment that it was pulled out, the priest immediately realized what it was since he could feel the evil energy that wasing from it.

    But I didn''t put it away as I said, "There''s something strange that happened with this cursed sword and I need your help to figure out what happened."

    The priest looked at me with a strange look when he heard this, but after a moment to gather his thoughts, he calmed down and said, "Alright, tell me what happened."

    I gave a nod before telling him the story of how I obtained Durand and what happened when I grabbed hold of it.

    "So in the end, the light disappeared and I have no idea what happened. However, when I used the sword, it didn''t seem to curse me at all, so I can tell that something must have changed with the sword."

    The priest knitted his brows when he heard this before standing up and saying, "Move back and let me take a look."

    I stood up as well and gave the priest space to look at Durand on the table.

    Before he started looking over Durand, the priest pulled out a cross from inside of his chest pocket and raised it up with one hand. He pointed this cross at Durand and started muttering something, as if he was trying to purify it.

    There was a faint white light that appeared around the cross, but it quickly disappeared.

    When it did, the priest couldn''t help revealing a strange look.

    Taking another moment to gather himself, the priest moved closer to Durand and started walking around the coffee table it was on. The way that he circled it made it seem like he was investigating it from every angle.

    It was as if he was trying to find something about this sword.

    But in the end, he gave a sigh like he wasn''t able to see anything and sat back down.

    When he sat down, I couldn''t help asking, "Is something wrong?"

    The priest didn''t say anything at first as he kept looking at Durand on the table, but then he slowly said, "It isn''t as if there''s something wrong, it''s just that¡­it''s a very strange reaction."

    I was even more confused when I heard the priest say this.

    The priest knew that what he had said was confusing, so he added, "The feeling of this sword ispletely different. There is still dark energy contained within this cursed sword, but it feels like there''s something¡­that''s suppressing it. This thing suppressing it almost feels holy."

    Slowly the expression on my face changed as I realized something.

    "Then you''re saying that this sword is¡­"

    The priest didn''t say anything, but he did give a slow nod as if confirming what I was thinking.

    I looked back down at Durand with a strange look.

    After a long period of silence, I finally asked, "But how does something like this happen?"

    The priest finally looked up after hearing this question, but he didn''t look at me. Instead, his eyes went to the Mark of God that was on my hand.

    I looked down at the Mark of God as well when I saw him looking at it.

    After a bit of silence, the priest said, "It can only be considered the work of god."

    This didn''t really exin anything, but at the same time¡­this could be considered an answer.

    After all, it was the power of the Mark of God that had changed Durand like this.

    It seemed that somehow the Mark of God had purified the dark energy of Durand, suppressing the curse that came with it. That was why I didn''t feel the pain of using Durand when I cut down that elf.

    But would the Mark of God have this kind of power?

    And what other powers would it have?

    I couldn''t help looking at the priest with a strange look, but he just shook his head.

    After all, this was the first time that he was seeing it in real life.

    Even if he had heard about the Mark of God before, it had rarely ever appeared in this world and was something that was considered a myth.

    So seeing it for the first time really was something else.

    The priest really didn''t know how to react to this other than with awe and excitement.

    Seeing this look on the priest''s face, I could guess most of this¡­but I did want to know more about this thing.

    Since it could do this, I was very curious about what else I could do with this Mark of God in the future.

    After all, the more that I could do with it, the better it was for me.

    The more trump cards that I had, the safer I would be.

    So I said, "Is there any way to figure out what kind of powers this Mark of God has?"

    The priest''s eyes suddenly lit up as if he was already expecting this.

    It even seemed like he had been waiting for me to say this.

    He immediately stood up and leaned over the table to grab my shoulders before saying, "My lord, if you wish to learn more about this, then I will do all that I can to support you."

    I revealed a bitter smile as I could guess what he wanted to do, but I also had some conditions.

    "I want to learn a bit more about your religion, so can you teach me?"

    The priest''s eyes lit up even more when he heard this.

    He had only been nning on examining the Mark of God with the count, but he never thought that he would also be asked to teach.

    The privilege of being able to teach one that had the Mark of God, that was something that no one else had ever been given.

    So of course he immediately nodded in agreement.

    Seeing this, I also nodded before saying, "Then let''s do our best."

 Chapter 485 Visiting nobles (1)

    <h4>Chapter 485 Visiting nobles (1)</h4>

    Over the next two weeks, I spent most of my time in the church.

    I still did a few things for Rose and Haley, such as showing my face for important asions.

    But most of my time was spent in the church learning about the religion and gods of this world.

    To understand the power of the Mark of God, I should learn about the ones that gave me this Mark of God.

    So I started learning about the religion, the gods, and what kind of power they had.

    The priest was happy to teach me all of this, but¡­he was quite the hard teacher. He went on for hours and hours giving me lectures about the gods and their roles in this world.

    He was one of those that thought that giving as much information as possible was best.

    He didn''t even bother giving me time to process this as he kept on with his lecture.

    So it was hard having to keep up with this.

    However, I did slowly learn what I wanted to learn and had a good understanding of religion in this world.

    This was one of the things that I didn''t have as much knowledge on from just ying the game. After all, religion was a very boring thing and it was hard to incorporate into the plot, other than for a few certain scenes involving gods.

    So there wasn''t much lore about religion in the game in the first ce.

    I would have continued my lesson with the priest, but there was something that called me away.

    It was a request from Rose.

    This was the first time that she was asking me to do something and it turned out that it was something that only I could do.

    It wasn''t because I was the only one that possessed the skills for this task, but rather¡­because I was the count and nothing else. It was all because I had my title that I was required to go with her.

    As for where we were going¡­

    It was the territory of one of the neighbouring nobles.

    It was to the territory of Viscount Teomold that I met in the capital.

    Back then, I had promised to visit him and discuss cooperating with him in terms of selling him ore.

    Now that Haley and Rose had finished setting things up in our town to receive the ore, it was time for us to start finding customers to sell this ore to.

    So the first one that we chose was Viscount Teomold that I had already established contact with.

    But when we set off, it seemed more like a happy trip that we were taking instead of going to meet another noble.

    Rose rarely got the opportunity to head out since she was so busy managing the territory, but she had to go this time as my wife since this was a formal visit to one of the neighbouring nobles.

    She had been working hard these past two weeks to set up everything so that they could run the territory while we were both gone¡­though it mattered more that Rose was gone than it did that I was gone.

    The one that took over for her was Nicole who had gone with me to Bright Water City before.

    She was taken under Rose''s wings aftering up and she had be a skilled aide to Rose that was able to run things in her ce.

    Though if we were gone for too long, it wouldn''t take much for her to crumble.

    No one would be able to rece Rose after all.

    So as we left, Nicole had a tearful look on her face as she said, "Have fun on your trip ande back soon."

    The part that she emphasized was the second part, but Rose just ignored it as she happily took my arm and sat beside me in the carriage.

    Like this, we headed off to Viscount Teomold''s territory.

    Since it was a neighbouring territory, it should have only taken us two days of traveling to teach it. But it actually took us double that time, a total of four days to arrive in his territory.

    That was because along the way, Rose kept finding new ces to stop in.

    Shepletely ignored Nicole''s request and just went at her own pace.

    We stopped in many different towns and took our time enjoying ourselves.

    As for me¡­I really couldn''t go against her.

    First, there wasn''t even the need to mention if I was able to go against her since that was a definitive no.

    Second, I didn''t want to go against her since I didn''t want to deny her this chance to cut loose.

    I had left all my problems in managing the town to her, so I could only make it up to her like this.

    If Rose wanted to enjoy herself, then I would do my best to amodate.

    I could only apologize to Nicole and the rest of her subordinates who were stuck with this in my heart.

    I would think of a way to make it up to them once we got back.

    When we arrived in Viscount Teomold''s territory, we were greeted with a warm wee.

    But the look on Rose and Haley''s faces hadpletely changed.

    While we had been on the road enjoying ourselves, they had rxed smiles on their faces.

    But now, they had calm and serious smiles on their faces that were befitting of a noble.

    It would be a lie to say that there wasn''t a part of me that wasn''t turned on when I saw them like this¡­

    Still, I gathered myself and revealed a look that I felt was simr to their looks on my face.

    When we arrived in the town, the gates were opened for us and we saw that there was a crowd that all cheered as we arrived.

    At the center of the crowd, as if he was waiting for us, was Viscount Teomold with his family and a few of his subordinates around him.

 Chapter 486 Visiting nobles (2)

    <h4>Chapter 486 Visiting nobles (2)</h4>

    As we entered this town, I could see that there were a few things off about the citizens.

    It was clear that unlike our town, these citizens were not here on their own will.

    They had most likely been gathered by the soldiers of the viscount and were forced to take part in this wee.

    In fact, most of them even looked fearful¡­

    However, that wasn''t strange since offending a noble was an easy way to get the death sentence. That was just how it was in this world where nobles ruled overmoners.

    It was our town that was strange where themoners were able to talk to a count like me without having to care about proper courtesy.

    It was just that I wasn''t used to this.

    So it could be considered a personal trait of our town.

    But when the duke hade, they had made sure to be polite to him since they knew that he wouldn''t act the same way as me.

    In the end, it was just that I didn''t have the demeanor of a noble that I couldn''t act that way.

    I had been amoner in my past life and I had never been raised as a noble, so it wasn''t as if I could just suddenly act as a noble.

    But it was a good thing that I had someone to teach me that and to help me follow up.

    Or else I might have embarrassed myself in front of other nobles.

    Rose had been raised in a count''s family, so she had been taught everything that a noble needed to know.

    It really helped me when I met Viscount Teomold again.

    Back in the capital, it had been a short encounter and we had only discussed business, so I was able to fool him.

    But now that we were here to pay a social visit, I definitely wouldn''t be able to fool him with the quick teachings that Rose gave me.

    So I needed Rose to follow up for me.

    Viscount Teomold came forward with his wife and children, giving a slight bow to me before introducing himself and them to me.

    When he came to his children, he had the two of theme forward to present themselves to me.

    With the way that he did this, it was clear what he was trying to do.

    Unfortunately, his children¡­couldn''t be considered beautiful.

    Viscount Teomold wasn''t the most handsome man and his wife was just average.

    The children that came from the two of them¡­were also considered average.

    They couldn''t be considered ugly, but they definitely weren''t considered beauties.

    So it wasn''t as if I felt anything when I saw the two of them.

    I just calmly said, "Viscount Teomold, our party has been traveling for a while now. How about we go and rest somewhere?"

    Viscount Teomold was surprised to hear this, but he quickly nodded in agreement.

    He had actually prepared a few more things for themoners to do to appease me, but he couldn''t say no if I didn''t want to go along with it. So we quickly went back in our carriages and headed to his manor.

    When we left, I peeked back and saw that there were relieved looks on the faces of themoners who had been dragged out to wee us.

    I was sure that this was a stressful situation for them, so it was only natural that they were relieved when we left.

    All of this gave me a bad impression of Viscount Teomold.

    It didn''t take much thought to realize that he was nothing more than the typical noble who only cared about his own self gains and didn''t care about his people.

    As long as they were able to pay their taxes, he didn''t care what happened to them.

    Even the ore trade was most likely just to arm his own forces for his own gains.

    This kind of person was without a doubt a bad person to work with, but it was already toote to change.

    It was just a good thing that I never nned on giving him anything important.

    The only n that I had for him was as a puppet to control the others in the area.

    So I would still work with him.

    Once we arrived at the manor, Viscount Teomold didn''t let us rest up and instead brought us to the living room.

    He clearly hadn''t given up on his idea of trying to use his daughters to appeal to me.

    After all, they were sitting on both my sides so that they could reach me at any moment.

    They definitely weren''t shy about this, but Rose''s re was enough to scare them off.

    I was very d that I had brought Rose with me or else it might have been much worse.

    After we had settled, I looked at Viscount Teomold and said, "Let''s talk business."

    Viscount Teomold was once again surprised to hear this, but he revealed a serious look and gave a nod.

    I looked at Haley and she stood up to bring out a piece of paper that she ced on the table in front of us. She then slid it forward towards Viscount Teomold sitting on the other side.

    Viscount Teomold looked down at this piece of paper with one brow raised before picking it up to read.

    As he looked at this piece of paper, his expression couldn''t help changing.

    The further down he went, the more that his brows knit.

    Finally, when he had finished reading it, he ced the piece of paper back down on the table. However, this time it was on the side with writing on it so that his wife and daughter could also see it.

    It seemed to be some kind of list.

    Viscount Teomold ignored Haley who had brought out the list and looked right at me with narrowed eyes before saying, "Count Zwein, are you serious? Is this really the only thing that you have for me?"

 Chapter 487 Visiting nobles (3)

    <h4>Chapter 487 Visiting nobles (3)</h4>

    I didn''t say anything as I gave a simple nod in return.

    He might have been able to say something if I had said something, but being silent like this put pressure on Viscount Teomold.

    He just sat there with a displeased look on his face, but he found it hard to say anything.

    After all, the truth of the matter was that he didn''t have any cards in his hand in the first ce.

    He was the one that wanted ores from Count Zwein, so it wasn''t as if he had anything that he could threaten him with.

    The other side had a higher title and he had already heard the reports of how powerful his soldiers were, so if there was ever a territory struggle, it wasn''t as if he could win against him.

    Especially now that Count Zwein had those minerals from the Dwarven Kingdom in his hand.

    So Viscount Teomold didn''t know what to do.

    After a long and hard silence, Viscount Teomold revealed a friendly smile and said, "Your lordship, are you sure that there''s nothing that you can do? We''re all friends here, I''m sure that you can give me a discount, right?"

    I looked at Viscount Teomold in silence, which made him awkwardly look to the side.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile.

    But Viscount Teomold mistook that as a good sign and was about to say something.

    I just simply cut him off by saying, "You said that you were going to introduce me to a few other buyers in the area. How has that been going?"

    Viscount Teomold''s mouth froze when he heard this as he looked at me with a surprised and confused look.

    It was clear that he didn''t expect me to suddenly ask this.

    After looking at me with this same look for a bit, he revealed a cautious look as he said, "I''ve already contacted a few people that I know. It seems that they are interested and they are looking forward to meeting you to discuss this."

    I gave a simple nod before saying, "Then let''s wait until we''re all gathered together to discuss this."

    Viscount Teomold revealed an even more surprised look before his expression turned ugly.

    Still, he was able to keep himselfposed as that ugly expression disappeared from his face and he said with a friendly smile, "Count Zwein, is there really a need to wait to discuss this? I''m sure that someone as great as your lordship can settle this matter easily."

    I looked right into his eyes with a smile of my own and calmly said, "Didn''t you want a discount? Then if you wait until we discuss this with everyone, I''ll be sure to give you all a group discount for introducing me to everyone."

    Viscount Teomold knitted his brows when he heard this.

    A discount was indeed what he was looking for, but the cost of this was just too great.

    The one issue that he had with this, which was a big issue for him, was that he didn''t want to wait until everyone gathered.

    Sure he was nning on bringing his own people in, so that wouldn''t be a problem¡­but if he cut a deal with everyone else, then that would be shooting himself in the foot. After all, he had put in the effort of building this rtionship with Count Zwein.

    If he were to make a deal when everyone else did, it would put him at the same level as them.

    In the future, he would just be at the same level as everyone else when it came to their rtionship with Count Zwein.

    It would be hard to imagine just how much he would be losing out if this were to actually happen¡­

    So Viscount Teomold couldn''t let that happen.

    After another long silence, Viscount Teomold gave a gulp and said, "Count Zwein, I''m sure that we can work out a deal today. This is a simple matter, I''m willing to back down a bit since we''re such close friends."

    I looked at him with a smile on my face and said, "Oh, didn''t you say that you wanted a discount? There''s no better discount than a group discount, it''s the bulk discount thates with buying a lot together."

    Viscount Teomold revealed an ugly look once more.

    He was no fool since he was someone that was able to be a viscount and keep that title.

    He knew exactly what I was doing.

    So with a sigh, Viscount Teomold said, "How much is your bottom line?"

    I didn''t beat around the bush either since he had already given up.

    I gave a nod to Haley who brought out another piece of paper for Viscount Teomold.

    He didn''t let her put it on the table and directly reached out for the piece of paper.

    Haley didn''t mind and handed it over for Viscount Teomold to take.

    He looked down at the piece of paper and slightly knitted his brows.

    Viscount Teomold just continued staring at this piece of paper as if he was debating something, but in the end¡­he gave a sigh and put it down on the table. He looked back at me and said, "Is there really nothing lower?"

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before suddenly standing up.

    Viscount Teomold began to panic when he saw this and quickly said, "Wait, wait, your lordship. I ept, I ept."

    I looked back at him and said, "The original price."

    Viscount Teomold revealed a shocked look when he heard this before he couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    If he hadn''t tried to push his luck, he might have gotten away with this bottom line that had been presented.

    The bottom line¡­was actually quite reasonable and affordable for him.

    But he was a greedy noble and wanted more.

    Still, he knew when to pull back since he could see the look in Count Zwein''s eyes.

    If he were to say anything other than yes¡­this deal might be over.

    So all Viscount Teomold could do was give a nod while giving a sigh.

    I gave a nod as well and reached my hand out to him with a smile as I said, "To a happy cooperation."

    Viscount Teomold revealed a bitter smile as he took my hand and said, "To a happy cooperation."

 Chapter 488 Visiting nobles (4)

    <h4>Chapter 488 Visiting nobles (4)</h4>

    With that set, there was nothing else to discuss.

    Even if there was, Viscount Teomold didn''t seem like he was in any mood to discuss it.

    It looked like he had aged by several years just over the course of this meeting and it very much seemed like he needed to rest.

    There was still the contract that needed to be signed, but that wasn''t something that needed to be rushed.

    After all, even if it was signed, there was nothing that we could do right now.

    We still hadn''t moved enough ore from the Dwarven Kingdom for this trade yet.

    The ore that had been brought back in the first batch was only used for our personal use and to pay the share that we owed the king and the duke. So there wasn''t any extra that we could sell right now even if we wanted to.

    We would need to wait at least another week for the next batch of ores to arrive.

    Surprisingly, there had been no problems with transferring the ore.

    It seemed like the other countries still hadn''t figured out that we were making this trade with the Dwarven Kingdom, so they didn''t know to intercept it yet. It would be different in the future, so we should get as much out of it while we still could.

    Since Viscount Teomold wanted to rest, we were allowed to go back to our rooms and rest up as well.

    However, that wasn''t what I wanted to do.

    I wanted to go around this town and see what Viscount Teomold was like.

    I wanted to get a good grasp of his personality and style of work, so the best way to do that was to look at his territory.

    The servants that were assigned to watch over us couldn''t stop us at all.

    After all, Viscount Teomold wasn''t in any mood to stop us since he was exhausted after that meeting with me. Not to mention, I had a title of count which was even greater than that of their lord.

    So they were actually afraid of even talking back to me, let alone trying to stop me.

    I was able to easily make my way out of the room with Rose and Haley.

    Of course, we didn''t go in our normal clothes.

    Since we were nobles, we naturally dressed as nobles or others would look down on us.

    But if we were to go to the town dressed as nobles, that would have the opposite effect of what we were trying to achieve.

    We were trying to sneak into town to observe, but that would be hard if we drew attention in our noble clothes.

    So we quickly changed into themoner clothes that the servants had prepared for us.

    At the same time, we made sure to put on some makeup to make ourselves seem more normal.

    The two things that attracted attention the most were fancy clothes and beautiful people, so we had to make sure that we didn''t have either of those.

    Once we were in our disguises, we left the manor in a discrete carriage and headed into town.

    That carriage went to one of the alleys and I helped Rose and Haley down before heading into the town.

    The three of us acted like we were just here on a date having fun, but the ones that were secretly following us were tense.

    These were the guards that Viscount Teomold had sent to watch over us.

    But what they didn''t know was that there was someone else that was watching over them as well.

    Someone that was much better at hiding herself than they were.

    So they had no idea that this person was hiding in the shadows.

    As we walked around the town, we could see that the standard of living wasn''t that good.

    There was a market, but the amount of goods being sold wascking.

    Not only that, the prices that they were being sold at were much higher than the normal¡­or at least that was what Haley told me.

    I didn''t know what the normal prices were other than for a few of themon items.

    Only someone with as much skill and talent as Haley would be able to remember the average price for all of these items. Especially some of the more obscure items that most people wouldn''t know about.

    Just based on this, it was clear that Viscount Teomold was not a good ruler.

    He was one of those normal nobles that taxed his citizens heavily without caring about making their lives better.

    The only life that he cared about bettering was his own¡­

    This was clearly not a good sign for someone to cooperate with to have.

    So it was clear that we shouldn''t work with Viscount Teomold since it was clear that something bad was going to happen working with him.

    Both Haley and Rose showed concern after seeing the state that themoners of Viscount Teomold''s territory.

    But I just shook my head and gave them a look as if I was saying, "Don''t worry."

    Both of them still had the same concerned looks, but they didn''t say anything in the end as they chose to trust me.

    What they didn''t know was that I was relying on Viscount Teomold to be someone like this.

    I wanted him to run his territory into the ground and lose everything.

    That would be easier for me in the long run.

    In a sense, destruction was needed to rebuild.

    So before I did anything with this territory, I would destroy the current system in ce and turn it into a nk te before I made my mark on this ce.

    After observing for a bit, it seemed like we had seen all that we could see.

    So we were nning on heading back before Viscount Teomoldpletely freaked out over our disappearance.

    But before we could¡­

    "This pretty littledy, how about having some fun with me?"

 Chapter 489 Visiting nobles (5)

    <h4>Chapter 489 Visiting nobles (5)</h4>

    At first we thought that it was about us, but it turned out that this wasn''t the case.

    When we looked in the direction of that voice, we found that it was a group of men who had surrounded one of the town''s girls.

    She wasn''t considered beautifulpared to beauties like Rose or Haley, she was just prettier than the other girls.

    But for amoner, she was considered more beautiful than the rest.

    It wasn''t strange to see her being hit on like this.

    It was just too bad that she wasn''t currently being hit on.

    It was better to say that she was surrounded rather than being hit on.

    Still, we decided to watch instead of intervening for now.

    But what surprised us was that most of the other people were doing the same. This was a crowded street, but most of the other people seemed like they recognized these three men and were afraid of them.

    The three of them were dressed up like rogues from any RPG, but not the kind that hung around in town in a gang. They were more like the adventurer kind of rogue.

    The three of them surrounded this pretty woman and the leader of the group said, "How abouting with us for a drink?"

    The woman clearly didn''t want to, but when she was surrounded like this, it wasn''t as if she had a choice.

    She could only look around for people that would help her. However, it didn''t seem like the people around her even saw her with the way they walked by with turned heads.

    She was being surrounded in the middle of the road and they were just walking right by her.

    This really seemed like ack of public security for this town.

    Was Viscount Teomold''s territory that bad?

    Or was there something else going on behind the scene?

    Instead, it almost seemed like the people were afraid of looking at the three rogues more than anything else.

    The three of them saw that she wasn''t willing, but they didn''t care at all.

    The leader of this group came forward to grab the woman''s hand as if he was about to pull her away.

    But it was at this time that a group of guards suddenly came over as if they were on patrol.

    I let out a secret sigh of relief when I saw these guards, but¡­

    The guards also just walked right past them and didn''t try to intervene at all.

    When the woman saw them, she also didn''t even try to ask for their help. It was as if she already recognized that it would be useless to ask for help from them.

    The guards were supposed to represent the safety of a town, but the citizens didn''t even look to them for protection¡­

    That meant that there was something fundamentally wrong with this ce.

    I couldn''t keep watching this anymore and was turning to leave.

    However, I saw the looks on the faces of the two women with me.

    They looked at that woman with concern and sympathy.

    That was because they had once been in a simr situation as this woman before.

    So they could understand how she was feeling right now.

    Seeing this, I gave a sigh before walking forward towards them.

    The two of them were surprised by this, but they didn''t try to stop me.

    I walked right over to the three rogues and said, "Excuse me, I have some business with her, so can you move out of the way?"

    As soon as I said this, everyone around us revealed shocked looks.

    Even the guards that had almost walked past couldn''t help turning to look at me with surprised looks.

    This just went to show just how bad this ce was.

    The three rogues were also surprised, but they looked at me with narrowed eyes before the leader said, "And if we don''t?"

    I just casually raised my hand and pulled out Durand.

    When this cursed sword came out, the three rogues immediately took a step back.

    Even if they couldn''t sense the magic energying from Durand, it was a naturally terrifying looking sword. So anyone that saw Durand wouldn''t be able to stop themselves from taking a step back.

    But even then, the guards still didn''t act.

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I saw this.

    By guards, I meant the secret guards that Viscount Teomold had sent to watch over me.

    It seemed like they were hesitating over something.

    The rogue leader could see that the situation was bad, so he said, "We''re not looking for trouble here. Just¡­"

    Before he could finish, I had already raised Durand above me, as if I was going to swing it down.

    At this, the rogues had no choice but to pull out their weapons as well.

    Once things escted this far, the guards had no choice but to act.

    Before anyone could do anything, there were guards that suddenly appeared around the rogue with swords pointed at them.

    The rogues werepletely caught off guard and didn''t understand what was happening.

    But when the guard patrol saw this, they immediately rushed over as well with their weapons drawn.

    Other people might not recognize these guards that appeared, but it was impossible for them not to recognize them.

    They all worked for Viscount Teomold, so they immediately recognized each other.

    They knew that these were the elite guards under Viscount Teomold, the strongest guards that this town had. Yet for them to act in a ce like this, it was clear that something big was happening.

    When the rogues were surrounded by the guards like this, they didn''t seem to panic.

    The rogue leader looked at the leader of the guard squad as if he was asking what was happening and the leader of the guard squad just gave him a look like he was saying that he didn''t know.

    I just ignored them since I knew that it was impossible for me to do anything about this.

    I put away Durand and walked over to the woman before saying, "Go, before anyone can react to what''s happening."

    I didn''t try to take her away, I just let her run off on her own since I knew that taking her away would just cause even more trouble for her.

    She looked at me with a grateful look and then ran off into the crowd before disappearing.

    Then I looked back at the guards that surrounded the rogues and said, "Well? Take them away."

    The guards were surprised to hear this.

    The leader of the guard squad looked at the one that he recognized as the leader of these elite guards.

    After a moment of hesitation, the leader of these elite guards gave a nod and said, "Take them away."

    The leader of the guard squad was surprised, but since the order had been given, he had no other choice.

    The rogues looked like they were displeased with this, but they still followed the guards.

    But as they walked off, the leader of these rogues turned to look at me with a re.

    Since he red at me, it seemed like I couldn''t let him off or I would just be causing trouble for myself.

 Chapter 490 Visiting nobles (6)

    <h4>Chapter 490 Visiting nobles (6)</h4>

    Since we had been exposed, there was no walking around secretly anymore.

    We went back to the carriage and drove back to Viscount Teomold''s manor.

    After arriving, it took no time at all for Viscount Teomold toe find us and we gathered in the same living room as before.

    Before we even sat down, Viscount Teomold quickly bowed his head and said, "Count Zwein, I must apologize for what happened in my territory."

    I was surprised to see that he would apologize so easily, but then again, this was someone who was shameless and spineless¡­It shouldn''t be strange that he would apologize as soon as he saw me.

    In fact, it would be strange if he didn''t.

    I just gave a nod before asking, "What happened afterwards."

    Viscount Teomold couldn''t help jolting when he heard this.

    He knew that I wasn''t epting his apology yet.

    The fact that I was asking about this made it clear that I wanted to see how he would handle this. Only after seeing what he said would there be a chance that I would ept this.

    So he took a deep breath and said, "We have already captured the ones that threatened your lordship and will ensure that this never happens again. As for the woman that was bothered, we have already made the proper arrangements for her."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this.

    After all, not in a single word did I hear his intentions to punish the rogues that had caused this mess.

    It was clear that he was nning on letting this matter go, sweeping it under the rug in a manner of speaking.

    However, I didn''t have the same idea.

    I might have agreed if the leader of the rogues hadn''t looked at me that way, but since he was hostile towards me, I would be a fool to let him go.

    Viscount Teomold saw that I wasn''t saying anything, so he slowly and cautiously looked at my face, as if he was trying to gauge my reaction.

    But I suddenly said, "What about their punishment?"

    He couldn''t help being taken aback when he heard this.

    It was clear that he never expected me to suddenly ask this.

    Slowly, Viscount Teomold said, "Is there a need for a punishment? This was nothing more than a minor incident and I feel like we can probably just drop¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly looked at him with a cold re that made Viscount Teomold''s words peter out.

    He just looked back at me with his mouth slightly agape as I said, "So threatening the life of a noble is only a small matter to you?"

    Viscount Teomold immediately revealed an ugly expression when he heard this.

    He opened and closed his mouth a few times as if he wanted to say something, but it didn''t seem like he was able to find the words he wanted to say. In the end, he slowly said, "Your lordship, I don''t think¡­that this was the case."

    I gave a snort before saying, "Then I guess that your eyes aren''t as good as it seems." Without even giving him time to say anything else, I said, "I expect them to be executed for this crime and nothing less."

    Viscount Teomold''s chin couldn''t help dropping when he heard this.

    He looked at me in disbelief, as if he couldn''t believe that I would be this forceful regarding this matter.

    After a long silence, Viscount Teomold said, "Your lordship, is there really a need for this? These three¡­are members of the Adventurer Guild. If I were to execute them¡­"

    He didn''t try to hide it or beat around the bush this time, he directly stated why he was unwilling to execute them.

    But this didn''t matter to me at all as I said, "And what does that have to do with me? They threatened my life, so they deserve death. That is that."

    Viscount Teomold''s expression turned even uglier when he heard this.

    After all, he really never expected me to be this forceful.

    Seeing that he was hesitating, I said, "If this is your sincerity, then I guess there''s no need for us to talk about cooperating."

    As soon as my voice fell, I made to stand up and leave.

    There had been a shocked look on Viscount Teomold''s face, but he didn''t have time to be shocked when he saw me leave.

    He quickly came forward and said, "Your lordship, there''s no need to act this way. I''ll make sure that they are punished for their crimes. I''ll make sure that they are executed."

    I stopped moving and looked right at Viscount Teomold.

    When he saw my gaze looking right at him, he couldn''t help shaking a bit and turning his gaze away slightly as if he was afraid to match my gaze.

    After looking at him like this for a bit, I suddenly said, "I expect them to be executed before I leave in two days. If they aren''t, then there''s no need to discuss our cooperation anymore."

    Viscount Teomold once again looked at me in shock and disbelief, as if he couldn''t believe that I would be this decisive with my words.

    He opened and closed his mouth several times like he wanted to say something, but he just couldn''t say what he wanted to say when he saw the look in my eyes.

    The look I gave him was firm and cold, as if I would broker no argument.

    The expression on his face changed several times during all of this before he finally said with a defeated look, "I will make sure that it happens."

    I suddenly revealed a smile when I heard this and said, "It seems that you do have your sincerity. Then I look forward to working with you."

    Viscount Teomold looked like he was exhausted, but he forced a smile out onto his face when he heard this.

    In a tired voice he said, "Of course, I look forward to working with you as well, Count Zwein."

 Chapter 491 Visiting nobles (7)

    <h4>Chapter 491 Visiting nobles (7)</h4>

    Once that matter was settled, we returned to our room.

    However, when we returned, I found that Viscount Teomold had left me a gift in the room.

    It was the woman that I had saved this afternoon.

    She had been forced into scanty clothing and was standing there in the center of the room as if she was waiting for me.

    When I walked in and saw her, I couldn''t help putting my hand on my head and shaking it.

    It was clear that this was an attempt to appease me, but it just made me angry.

    After all, I wasn''t into things like forcing a girl to have my way with her.

    I was someone that believed that consensuality was the best way to go. To force someone against their will would only cause troubles in the future, whether that was in the form of someone taking revenge or something else.

    Not to mention, since this world didn''t have a form of birth control, it was very easy for women to get pregnant.

    Now that I was a noble, if I was to suddenly have illegitimate children...that would be a problem.

    So I didn''t even want to touch anything that could cause that with a ten foot pole.

    I wanted to stay as far away from what the nobles considered normal behaviour as I could.

    Standing behind me were Rose and Haley who could see the scantily dressed woman standing there. When they saw her, they immediately knitted their brows.

    However, it wasn''t because they were angry at me.

    They were unhappy that Viscount Teomold would do something like this.

    If it was something that I asked for, then they would have no problem with it since that was how epting they were. But to try to do something like this in front of them, it would be strange if they weren''t angry.

    Seeing that three of us were all silent, the scantily dressed woman said, "Your lordship, if there''s anything that you wish for me to do, please tell me. I am here to serve you tonight."

    I knitted my brows even more when I heard this.

    It wasn''t because of what she said, but the tone that she said it in.

    I could clearly hear the tremble that was in her voice, showing that she was being forced into saying this.

    Whether it was a threat to her life or to the lives of her family, it was clear that she was being forced to do this by Viscount Teomold.

    Since she was nothing more than amoner, how could she dare resist a noble?

    In the end, I didn''t respond to what she said.

    Instead, I turned to Rose and Haley to say, "Can you take care of her and calm her down? I''ll be in the other room."

    Rose and Haley nodded in agreement before moving forward towards the scantily dressed woman.

    I went out the door and to one of the other rooms that had been prepared for us.

    I had been confused why there were so many rooms prepared when we only needed one room to stay in, but I finally understood. This was just a normal thing for nobles since they were used to infidelity like this.

    After all, even Rose''s husband had bought a sex ve for her¡­

    So these rooms were to be used for affairs if I ever wanted to bring a woman back.

    I couldn''t even feel angry at this since this was just how noble society was like in this world.

    This was a world where Prima Nocta was still in ce.

    So it wasn''t strange if a noble wanted a woman and it wasn''t hard for a noble to take a woman.

    I shouldn''t have been angered by this, but I just couldn''t help myself since this was not the way that I was used to.

    After a half an hour, Rose came to the room that I was sitting in to call me back.

    When she came over, she patted me on the back of my hand and said, "Are you alright?"

    I was caught off guard by this since I didn''t think I was showing anything off.

    In the end, I looked at her and gave a nod before saying, "I''m fine."

    She looked at me with a strange look that almost seemed like she didn''t believe me.

    But she still said, "Alright."

    I shook my head with a bitter smile and said, "I can''t hide anything from you, but now''s not the time for that."

    Rose gave a nod without saying anything.

    With that, we went back to the room where the woman was now properly dressed and sitting there with a cup of tea in hand.

    But when she saw mee in, she went to stand up as if she wanted to do something.

    However Haley didn''t let her do that and used her hand to press her down in the seat.

    The woman had a terrified look when she saw this, so I said, "It''s fine, you don''t need to do anything."

    She still looked scared, but she did remain sitting.

    I looked at her which caused her to look away, so I gave a sigh and turned away from her.

    Only then did she turn back and carefully look at me, as if she was trying to figure out what was happening.

    In a calm voice I asked, "Can you tell me what happened? I want to help you, but I need to know what happened so I can help."

    The woman looked scared and confused when she heard this.

    She looked at Haley and Rose as if she was asking them for confirmation.

    It was surprising to see this, but it seemed like they had made quite the impression on her while I was gone.

    Though, I couldn''t say that I was surprised since I knew howpetent the two of them were.

    After receiving nods from the two of them, the woman slowly told her story.

 Chapter 492 Visiting nobles (8)

    <h4>Chapter 492 Visiting nobles (8)</h4>

    As expected, the soldiers had shown up at her house after the incident and had captured her.

    They had threatened to imprison her family members if she didn''te with them.

    Her father and mother were both beaten by the guards, but they had told her not to go.

    In the end, she had no choice but to go or else they might have really killed her parents.

    The rest was all very obvious based on what the current situation was.

    Once she finished telling her story, the woman came forward and fell to her knees while we were all lost in thought. Then she bowed her head in front of me and said, "Please, if you send me away, they will kill my parents. I can''t do that to them after everything they''ve done to raise me¡­"

    She kept going, but I couldn''t help deeply knitting my brows when I heard this.

    When a woman was begging me to do her on the threat of her parents being killed¡­this was not something that I enjoyed.

    I couldn''t even think of a single person that would enjoy this kind of thing.

    With a sigh, I looked at Haley and asked, "Do you need more people?"

    Haley looked at the woman who was still on the ground and after a moment of hesitation, she gave a nod.

    She did need people, but to take inmoners like this who had never done any kind of business before was like taking in dead weight. There was no knowing if this woman would even be able to learn the things she needed to teach her or if she would even work hard.

    If she took on too many people like this¡­

    So Haley felt the need to add, "If we do this too often¡­"

    She let her voice trail off, but it was clear what she was implying.

    I just gave a nod and said, "I know, but this is a special circumstance, right?"

    She looked at the woman on the ground again before giving a nod.

    I gave a sigh beforeing forward, but I saw the woman tremble again when I moved forward.

    Even though she was telling me to have sex with her, it was clear that this was her first time and she wasn''t prepared for this.

    But then again, it would be strange if anyone was prepared for this kind of situation.

    So I turned to Rose and she gave a nod to show that she understood.

    Rose was the one that came forward to help the woman up before saying, "It''ll be alright. We''ll make sure that everything will work out."

    But the woman didn''t want to get up as she looked up at me and said just one word, "Please."

    I couldn''t help revealing a deep frown when I heard this.

    The fact that Viscount Teomold would drive a woman this far really angered me.

    While I knew that this was just part of thews for nobles in this world, it didn''t stop me from getting angry with this. I guess that''s just how it was for me, a person who was raised in a different world with different morals.

    I looked down at her and slowly said, "I know it''s hard for you to believe, but I really do want to help you. I won''t force you to give up your body and I promise that I will help your parents. I hope that you will find yourself able to trust me."

    The woman revealed a shocked look when she heard this.

    I didn''t bother staying in this room any longer since I knew that I would just be more angry if I stayed here.

    So taking a deep breath, I turned around to walk out.

    As I was walking out, I said to Rose and Haley without turning back, "Take care of her and help her calm down. When you''re done,e and see me in the other room."

    In the end, I waited another half an hour before they came to see me.

    After they came in, I looked at them and asked, "How is she?"

    Rose said, "I got her to calm down for now and she fell asleep, but she''s still worried about what will happen to her and her parents."

    I couldn''t help giving a sigh when I heard this.

    Both Haley and Rose looked at me with strange looks before Rose said, "It''s fine if you want to take her in as a concubine, we don''t mind."

    Haley gave a nod as if she supported this.

    But I shook my head and said, "I don''t want to force anyone to be my concubine, that just causes trouble in the future."

    The two of them looked at each other before looking at me with looks of doubt.

    It was as if they didn''t believe me when I said this.

    It seemed that I really couldn''t hide anything from them.

    "It just doesn''t feel right to me personally." I said with a sigh.

    The looks of doubt disappeared from their faces, but they looked at me with strange looks as if what I said was strange.

    There was no doubt that this was indeed strange in this world, but this was what I believed in and I would stand by it.

    So I just looked back at them with a calm look on my face.

    After a while, Rose said with a faint smile, "You really aren''t like other nobles, are you?"

    I said back with a smile, "I wasn''t a noble in the first ce."

    Haley then added, "You aren''t like other men either."

    This time, there was nothing that I could say in response.

    The two of them looked at each other before revealing smiles and saying, "But we like that about you."

    I just looked at them with a warm smile when I heard this.

    After taking a moment to enjoy this feeling, I said, "So, what is the situation?"

 Chapter 493 Visiting nobles (9)

    <h4>Chapter 493 Visiting nobles (9)</h4>

    The two of them looked at each other before Rose said, "It''s the Adventurer Guild."

    I looked at her with a brow raised when I heard this as I showed a confused look on my face.

    Just based on this, I didn''t understand what she meant.

    Rose naturally knew that as well, so she exined.

    "Viscount Teomold has been hiring adventurers from the Adventurer Guild as mercenaries. So they can do whatever they want in the town as a result of that. The three that caused themotion were adventurers from the Adventurer Guild."

    A look of understanding appeared on my face as I said, "So he doesn''t want to offend the Adventurer Guild by punishing those three."

    Rose gave a nod in response.

    The Adventurer Guild, naturally this staple also existed in this fantasy world.

    As the name suggested, it was a ce where adventurers who were those that did quests for money gathered.

    But it wasn''t as official as one would think.

    From what I could remember from the game, the Adventurer Guild was formed by a group of mercenaries and that was what they were at the core. They weren''t formed by someone important like any other fantasy world and represented freedom.

    Though the adventurers were quite free, that meant that they were free to offer their services to anyone that they wanted.

    There was no centralmand that restrained all of the branches, so they were free to do whatever they wanted.

    In this case, the adventurers hired themselves out as mercenaries for the local lord.

    But the Adventurer Guild¡­was not a small organization.

    There was a reason why the Adventurer Guild was able to spread all over the continent and build branches in different countries.

    Alone, the Adventurer Guild branches weren''t strong.

    But the name of the Adventurer Guild was very powerful.

    Viscount Teomold was nning to borrow that name to bolster his own forces.

    Still, in this part of the continent, it wasn''t as if the Adventurer Guild was powerful enough that one could ignore the local nobles. Not to mention, I was a count, I had a title that was even greater than Viscount Teomold''s.

    So the Adventurer Guild would not do anything to me as long as I didn''t threaten their existence.

    I was fully justified to demand the execution of those three since they threatened me.

    However, there was an underlying problem with this issue.

    It was that Viscount Teomold was hiring the adventurers from the Adventurer Guild.

    Unless he was nning something, he had no reason to do this.

    But I didn''t have the information that I needed to make a proper judgement of this, so I turned back to Rose with an inquisitive look.

    There was no need for me to say anything as she understood what I was asking.

    With a sigh, she said, "It''s not just him, even the other local nobles have been stockpiling their forces." After a pause, she looked at me with a strange look and said, "It seems that they''ve heard about the power struggle in the capital and are preparing for that."

    In the end, it seemed like it was still rted to me somehow.

    After all, the power struggle that they were referring to was the death of the second prince.

    It was impossible to hide such arge event from everyone, so it quickly spread that the second prince was dead.

    On the surface, it was said that he had passed because of an illness, but everyone knew that he must have been killed because of a struggle between the princes.

    So they knew that the session war was heating up if even a prince was killed.

    It wasn''t strange that they would start bolstering their forces for what was about toe.

    However¡­

    I just didn''t like the way that Viscount Teomold handled things.

    After a long silence, I looked at Rose and Haley and said, "He seems too unstable for our n¡­I want to rece him." Then after a pause, I added, "No, even before that, I just dislike this person and want him gone."

    I waited to see what kind of reaction Rose and Haley would have to this.

    To my surprise, both of them revealed smiles as if they were waiting for me to say this.

    Rose came forward to take my hand as she said, "No matter what decision you make, we will always support you."

    Haley took my other hand and nodded in agreement.

    I had been afraid that they would try to talk me out of this, but now I realized that I had been foolish. From the very beginning, I should have trusted them to fully support me since that was how it was between us.

    I fully supported them and they fully supported me, that was the rtionship we had.

    There were many things that I wanted to say, but I stopped myself from saying them in the end.

    After all, saying too much would make this rtionship impure.

    The only thing that I had to say was, "Thank you."

    Both of them looked at me with warm smiles.

    The three of us just stood there and enjoyed this moment.

    But it passed in the end as Rose''s eyes turned cold and she said, "Besides, if we take him out now, we can turn him into an example for the rest. When the timees, they won''t dare do anything."

    Haley nodded in agreement before saying, "Not to mention, we''ll be able to clear our way into the other territories as long as we take over this ce. It''ll make our trading efforts much easier in the future."

    It seemed that they had already nned on doing this, but they were just waiting for me to give the word.

    Still, since I decided to do this, I wouldn''t back down.

    I looked at the two of them and said, "Alright, what''s the n?"

    I didn''t even bothering up with a n since I was certain that Rose and Haley had alreadye up with one.

    Rose revealed a faint smile and said, "The n is¡­"

 Chapter 494 Visiting nobles (10)

    <h4>Chapter 494 Visiting nobles (10)</h4>

    The next morning, we were informed that the execution would be heldter in the day.

    It seemed that Viscount Teomold hade to a decision about what was more important to him.

    In the end, he chose to go through with our deal since it would benefit him the most.

    He invited us toe and witness the execution, but I rejected that proposal.

    While I wanted the death of these three, that didn''t mean that I wanted to watch it myself.

    So I just sent one of the people from my group to go and watch.

    We had naturallye with assistants and this was one of the times to use them.

    Though I did feel guilty about sending them to watch an execution like this, I had no choice since I had to make sure that it would happen.

    So all I could do was pay that assistant a bit more for this matter.

    It turned out that Viscount Teomold didn''t go to the execution either, so we once again gathered in the living room of the manor.

    When we sat down, Viscount Teomold looked at me with a smile and asked, "Count Zwein, did you enjoy the present that I left for you?"

    My lips couldn''t help twitching when I heard this.

    There was a part of me that had wanted to punch him in the face when he said this, but I forced myself to calm down since there was nothing to gain from doing something as rash as this.

    All I would be doing is making things worse for me.

    So I said in a calm voice, "I did. Thank you very much."

    Viscount Teomold''s smile became wider when he heard this, but the expressions of his two daughters on the side became ugly.

    They could guess what their father meant by this and they were very unhappy.

    After all, based on the way that they looked at Zwein, it was clear that they were already enamoured by him.

    It wasn''t their fault since that face¡­was too handsome.

    It was just how it was since he had been the main character of this world when it was still a game.

    But they couldn''t say anything since it was not their time to talk right now.

    After hearing what I said, Viscount Teomold said with the same wide smile, "I''m very d that you enjoyed this gift. I hope that we can be even closer in the future because of this."

    With the look on his face, it was clear that in his mind, he had done something very good.

    By catering to my needs, I would forget about this matter and work more closely with him in the future.

    With the look on his face, it was as if he could already see the bright future in front of him.

    It was just too bad that in my mind, his future was dark.

    Though I would never say that to his face.

    Instead, I calmly said, "Yes, I hope that we can work more closely in the future."

    There was a momentary pause before I said, "Actually, there''s something that I want to ask of you."

    Viscount Teomold was surprised when he heard this, but then he gave a nod and said, "Please, if there''s anything that I can do, you can just tell me."

    I gave a nod in response before saying, "The gift that you left mest night, I want to take it with me."

    Viscount Teomold revealed an even more surprised look when he heard this, but then he revealed another wide smile as he said, "Of course, of course, you can take the gift if you enjoyed it. A gift given is naturally something that should be taken with you when you leave."

    With the expression on his face, it was almost as if he wanted to burst intoughter when he heard this.

    He had never thought that this desperate attempt to appease Count Zwein would turn out like this.

    No, with how it turned out, it seemed like it even benefitted him even though he had to offend the Adventurer Guild.

    He could smooth out his rtionship with the Adventurer Guild, but building a rtionship with this Count Zwein was already hard enough.

    So in the long run, this was the better choice.

    Or at least that was what I thought he was thinking based on the look on his face.

    I really looked down on what a simple man this Viscount Teomold was, but that just worked in my favour.

    Seeing that he epted this, I then said, "But she doesn''t want to leave her family behind, so I have to ask that you give them to me as well."

    Viscount Teomold didn''t seem to care at all, he almost even seemed to expect this.

    So with a casual wave of the hand, he said, "No problem, no problem. I''ll get someone to escort them to your territory tomorrow. I''ll get the¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly said, "Thank you, but I''ll get my own people to escort them back. I don''t want to cause you any more trouble."

    Viscount Teomold was surprised a third time, but he didn''t remain that way for long.

    After all, in his mind, he had already aplished his goal.

    Even if it seemed a bit strange this was the one thing that Count Zwein insisted on, that didn''t mean that he would doubt it. Even if there was a part of him that told him that this seemed off, he ignored it.

    In his mind, this was nothing more than a small matter, so there was no need to act up and risk offending Count Zwein.

    With another wave of the hand, Viscount Teomold said, "No problem. I''ll have my people work with your people on this. As long as you''re happy with the gift that I''ve given you."

    As he said this, he made sure to stress the part ''I''ve given you'', as if he was trying to state something.

    I just gave a simple nod and said, "I am and I appreciate your help."

    The two of us just looked at each other with smiles on our faces, but the smile didn''t really reach my eyes.

 Chapter 495 Visiting nobles (11)

    <h4>Chapter 495 Visiting nobles (11)</h4>

    That night, I received the report of a proper execution from my assistant.

    It was a simple beheading with a proper executioner.

    In one swing, it was over for those three rogues.

    Apparently, they didn''t believe that they would be executed like this since they were certain that they would be freed as adventurers. So in their panic, they started revealing information that would be damning to Viscount Teomold.

    But before they could reveal anything too damning, their mouths were stuffed by the executioners and they were killed.

    There was no doubt that there would be conflict between the Adventurer Guild and Viscount Teomold from now on, but that wasn''t my problem.

    What I cared more about was the information that the assistant brought back about Viscount Teomold''s crimes.

    It wasn''t that incriminating, but it definitely could be used since it would give us a few leads to follow up on.

    The next morning, we were setting off.

    We weren''t heading back to our territory yet, but rather heading to the territory of another noble that Rose had contacted previously.

    This noble wasn''t a part of Viscount Teomold''s group, so I was interested to see what kind of noble Rose had contacted.

    At the very least, it wouldn''t be worse than Viscount Teomold.

    To my surprise, this noble''s territory wasn''t that far from Viscount Teomold''s.

    It was practically right next to it, but there was a small barony in between them. However, when it came to territory disputes, this small barony served as nothing more than a buffer zone for them.

    In truth, it could be said that this noble was considered Viscount Teomold''s rival.

    When I found this out, I couldn''t help looking at Rose with a strange look, but she just looked back at me with a smile on her face. It was as if she wasn''t disturbed at all by this and that she was proud of what she did.

    Was she that kind of person?

    After all, what she was doing was hedging.

    She was basically putting chips on both sides so that no matter who won, she would be able to manipte them.

    But then again¡­I had seen this part of her before.

    Could it be that she had been affected by another curse?

    No, if she did, I would have been able to purify her with the Mark of God. That was something that I had discovered in my studies with the priest, I was able to dispel most curses, regardless of their level.

    So the fact that the Mark of God didn''t activate was a clear sign that she wasn''t cursed.

    Then this was most likely¡­part of her real personality.

    If I thought about it, it kind of made sense.

    The curse was a curse that amplified what was already inside, so there was this part of Rose to begin with.

    After the curse was dispelled, she was made more aware of this side and she slipped into it from time to time.

    So it could be said that this was a side effect that had been left after the curse was dispelled.

    These thoughts had been on my mind when we left Viscount Teomold''s territory.

    Then when we were in the carriage, I couldn''t help looking at Rose with a strange look.

    So she asked me, "Is something wrong?"

    I shook my head, but I still looked at her with that strange look.

    In the end, after seeing her look at me with a raised brow, I asked, "Are you alright?"

    Rose was surprised to hear this and she looked around as if she was trying to figure out what I was talking about. But in the end, she looked at me with a confused look and slowly said, "I''m alright¡­"

    Still, I didn''t look away as I looked at her with the same strange look and said, "Do you feel anything different about yourself?"

    Even more confusion filled her face when she heard this as she didn''t understand what I was trying to imply with this.

    But slowly, she came to have some understanding.

    Slowly, her expression changed as she looked at me.

    Rose looked right into my eyes and slowly said, "I''m alright."

    This time, it was my turn to be surprised since I could see that she understood what I meant.

    After a long silence, she said, "This is a part of me and I ept that. It has been there inside of me the entire time, so I am just embracing what I am. You don''t have to worry about me, I''m fine with who I am."

    I just silently stared at her for a bit before slowly giving a nod.

    I had been worried that she would be affected by all of this since she had shown distress when she found that her former husband had cursed her.

    I was worried that it would have a negative impact on her knowing that there might be side effects to breaking this curse.

    But it seemed that I had been worried for nothing.

    In fact, it seemed that I had underestimated Rose.

    She was fully aware of the changes with herself, but she had chosen to ept them since she knew that this was a part of who she was.

    It seemed that she was much stronger than I gave her credit for.

    I should reflect on this in the future.

    Haley, who had been silent on the side, suddenly came forward and hugged Rose to say, "I like who you are too."

    Rose revealed a faint smile and hugged her back before saying, "I like you too."

    A warm smile appeared on my lips seeing the two of them like this.

    I was worried for nothing, she would be fine.

    So now it was time to focus on what woulde next¡­

    Unlike Viscount Teomold, the next noble that we were visiting was one that had earned his title instead of inheriting it.

    He was a knight that had earned his title after many years on the battlefield.

    I wondered how different he would bepared to Viscount Teomold.

 Chapter 496 Visiting nobles (12)

    <h4>Chapter 496 Visiting nobles (12)</h4>

    When we arrived, I immediately found out how different this noble was.

    Unlike before where there were many people gathered to wee us, there wasn''t a single person who was waiting to wee us this time.

    When we arrived at this town, all that happened was that we were led by the captain of the guards to the noble''s manor.

    There was no fuss and no muss, there was only efficiency as we were led down the road to the manor. They didn''t even bother doing anything such as closing off the road to let us pass, so we traveled with the people of the town.

    This was a good chance for us to observe the citizens in their natural state.

    Many of them didn''t even care about us as they went about their lives.

    But the one thing that was very eye catching was¡­

    They all had smiles on their faces as they walked around.

    It seemed that all of them lived quite fulfilling lives in this town.

    It waspletely different from Viscount Teomold''s territory.

    The people looked much more¡­alivepared to the people of Viscount Teomold''s territory.

    No matter how one looked at it, this was a testament to the governing of the noble in charge of this ce.

    I looked at Rose and she just revealed a faint smile.

    It didn''t take us long to reach the manor that was in the center of the town.

    But there was also something different about this manorpared to Viscount Teomold''s territory.

    It was that this ce was filled with people as well.

    Unlike in Viscount Teomold''s town wheremoners weren''t allowed anywhere near his manor, this ce had an entire square with a fountain and many different shops nearby.

    Though themoners only seemed to be visiting, they were still allowed to freely move in this area unlike with Viscount Teomold''s town.

    There were also some other manors in this area that seemed to belong to some important people, but they didn''t discriminate against themoners either. There weren''t any guards that were posted at the gates of these manors.

    It almost seemed like there was no division betweenmoners and nobles in this ce.

    When we arrived at the manor, we found that there was a handsome looking man with two beautiful girls beside him.

    This handsome man was a muscr middle aged man who looked like an aplished warrior.

    The two beautiful girls beside him looked like sisters, but if one looked closely, one could see that one of them was older than the other.

    When they saw our carriage arrive, the handsome middle aged man came forward to greet us.

    I looked at Rose and she gave a nod, so I went out to greet this handsome middle aged man.

    But as soon as I came out, he waved his hand to greet me as he said, "Count Zwein, I''ve heard a lot about you! It really is great finally being able to meet you like this!"

    Then without hesitation, he came up right in front of me and reached out around me.

    I was caught off guard, so I couldn''t react in time.

    But he didn''t have any intentions of harming me as he reached his arm out around me.

    With his arms around me, he pulled me in and gave me a strong hug.

    This was definitely the first time that I''ve received a greeting like this.

    It was like being held in a death grip with all of those muscles, but I didn''t resist since I knew that he didn''t have any ill intentions.

    It seemed that this was just the kind of man that he was.

    After a while, the beautiful woman behind him said, "Dear, you''re suffocating him. You should let go and let him breathe."

    The handsome middle aged man revealed a surprised look before looking down at me. Seeing the awkward look on my face, he let go of me and stepped back before saying with an awkward smile, "Sorry, I''ve been told often that I''m quite a passionate person and I don''t know how to hold back."

    I shook my head with that same smile, but it looked less awkward this time.

    Then I said, "It''s alright, I don''t mind. In fact, I prefer this kind of greetingpared to the regr stuffy kind that nobles give."

    This wasn''t a lie, it was the truth.

    After all, I wasn''t a noble by nature since I wasn''t raised for it.

    So an informal greeting was actually more natural for me.

    The handsome middle aged man revealed a wide smile when he heard this before patting me on the shoulder and saying, "I feel that we''ll get along quite well."

    I gave a nod with the same smile on my face.

    This man that had suddenly pulled me into a bear hug like this was Viscount Henry, the one that we came here to meet today.

    The two beautiful women behind him were his wife and daughter.

    Comparing Viscount Teomold and his family with Viscount Henry and his family, there really was noparison between the two.

    It was very clear which side was the winner.

    Rose and Haley both slowly came over and stood there behind me.

    Viscount Henry immediately noticed them when they came over, but instead of going forward to hug them like he did with me, he gave a proper bow.

    It seemed that even with his rough look, he was someone who had the manners of a gentleman.

    Both of them reached their hands out for him and he took them in a gentleman manner to ce a kiss on them.

    After that, he turned back to me and said, "Count Zwein, how about we go in and talk?"

    I gave a nod before following him with Rose and Haley.

    As we walked in, I couldn''t help feeling good about this.

    As far as I could tell, it seemed like this Viscount Henry was quite the good person.

    Though, I wouldn''t judge a book by its cover alone.

    So I made sure to keep my guard up just in case.

 Chapter 497 Visiting nobles (13)

    <h4>Chapter 497 Visiting nobles (13)</h4>

    When we entered the manor, I was even more surprised.

    After all, this didn''t seem like the manor of a noble at all.

    It was still a manor, but there weren''t any fancy decorations at all. It was a very minimalistic and simple design that focused more on function than style.

    At the same time, it didn''t seem like they hired many servants as we only passed a single maid when heading to the reception room.

    They even stopped when passing that maid to exchange a few words with her.

    The way that they talked to the maid seemed like they were talking to a friend rather than talking to a servant. The maid also treated them with friendliness that didn''t seem like they were addressing their master.

    After we arrived in the living room, the butler who had been waiting brought some tea for us as we sat down.

    The first thing that Viscount Henry asked was¡­

    "How was your trip?"

    He didn''t tter me or say anything else rted to business, he just asked how my trip was as if he genuinely cared about this.

    It was just like how a friend would talk to another friend, rather than a noble talking to another noble.

    So I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this.

    Rose covered for me by saying, "It wasn''t a bad trip. A few parts of it were a bit bumpy, but it was overall fun."

    I looked at her with a grateful look when I heard this before following up by saying, "It''s just how any trip would be, there wasn''t anything special about it like Rose said."

    This time, it was Viscount Henry''s turn to reveal a slightly surprised look.

    There was also a strange tone in that gaze as he looked between me and Rose.

    It was almost as if he didn''t believe that I would let her speak for me like this.

    But that look quickly disappeared as he said, "I''m d to hear that." With a sigh, he continued, "There have been reports of bandits roaming around the area, so I was worried that you would encounter some of them."

    "Bandits?" Rose asked with a raised brow.

    Viscount Henry was no longer surprised that Rose spoke for me, so he turned to look at her and said with a nod, "That''s right. There have been many bandits reported in the area, but they''ve always managed to escape before my troops arrive."

    After a momentary pause, he added, "From what I''ve heard, it seems that they''ve beening from the direction of a certain noble''s territory."

    He didn''t need to say which noble it was, we could already guess.

    But it seemed that he was still a noble in the end.

    When we got down to it, he still talked about business like a noble would.

    Still, it could be said that I was biased since I believed him when he said that it came from the direction of a certain noble''s territory.

    After all, we had juste from that noble''s territory and had seen what was happening there.

    I had seen the adventurers that he had been hiring as mercenaries and it made sense to use those adventurers for this kind of job.

    So it wouldn''t be strange if it actually was the case.

    Still, that wouldn''t be enough to move me. Before I saw what this Viscount Henry was all about, I wouldn''t make my stance clear.

    The topic went from bandits to some other casual things.

    We talked about territory management and some other things that nobles would chat about in their free time.

    Though¡­it was mainly Rose that talked with Viscount Henry while I chimed in from time to time.

    Even if I had wanted to join the conversation, it wasn''t as if there was much for me to say since I left territory management mostly up to Rose.

    Even Viscount Henry couldn''t help being impressed by how knowledgeable Rose was when conversing with him.

    But I had to admit that I was surprised that he could keep up with her.

    It seemed that this muscr man wasn''t just all about fighting, he also had quite the brain.

    During this time, I couldn''t help peeking at the two beautiful women sitting across from us.

    Both of them just had calm smiles on their faces as they listened to everything that was said.

    It didn''t seem like either of them were bored by this, it even seemed like they were focused on listening to everything that was being said. I could even see the sharp glow that was in their eyes.

    Both of them shouldn''t be empty vases, they should both be women of great intelligence just like Rose.

    They were just silently listening and absorbing any information that they could.

    During this, the daughter saw me looking at them, so she looked back at me with a bright smile on her face.

    I could only reveal an awkward smile at being caught before turning my gaze away.

    After talking for a bit, Rose and Viscount Henry finally ran out of things to talk about.

    Viscount Henry gave a powerfulugh as he said, "I never thought that I would enjoy our time together this much."

    He turned to me and said, "Count Zwein, you really have a good one on your hands."

    Hearing him praise Rose like this, I said with a smile, "It''s my blessing to have someone like her."

    Rose couldn''t help revealing a blush when she heard this, but she also revealed a faint smile.

    Viscount Henry gave a nod before saying, "You are quite thedies man, aren''t you?"

    I just revealed a smile without saying anything.

    There was a silence that filled the room, but it wasn''t awkward since we were sizing each other up during this time.

    Finally, I made a decision.

    "Viscount Henry, how about we talk about some business now?" I said in a calm voice.

    But Viscount Henry narrowed his eyes a bit after hearing this and gave a slow nod.

 Chapter 498 Visiting nobles (14)

    <h4>Chapter 498 Visiting nobles (14)</h4>

    Seeing him nod in agreement, I looked at Haley and she took out a piece of paper that she put on the table.

    Viscount Henry looked down at this piece of paper before looking at me with one brow raised.

    When he saw that I didn''t react at all to him staring at me like this, he reached his hand out to take that piece of paper. He brought that piece of paper up in front of him and took a close look at it.

    Behind him, his daughter and wife both leaned in to take a look at this piece of paper as well.

    There wasn''t much written on this piece of paper, but its contents made all three of them knit their brows slightly.

    The more that they read this, the more that they knitted their brows.

    When they finished reading this, they all looked at each other and used their eyes tomunicate with each other. It was almost as if they were discussing what they had just read without saying a single word.

    It could be seen how close this family was with how easily theymunicated with just gazes alone.

    Finally, Viscount Henry turned back to look at me.

    He didn''t say a word as he looked at me with those narrowed eyes.

    With the way that he was looking at me, it was almost as if he was gauging me. It almost seemed like he was waiting for some kind of reaction from me so he would know what to say.

    However, I just kept that straight look on my face.

    After a while, Viscount Henry said in a slow and careful voice, "What''s written on here, is it final?"

    I couldn''t help letting a bit of light appear in my eyes when I heard this.

    This Viscount Henry really was different from Viscount Teomold.

    Even the way that they talked was different.

    One talked in a selfish manner while the other talked in a respectful manner.

    Instead of asking if I was serious, he calmly asked if the prices were final.

    This was his way of showing respect to me, but still trying to get what he wanted.

    Just with this one move, I saw this Viscount Henry in a better light than that Viscount Teomold.

    With a smile on my face, I said, "Everything is negotiable¡­" Then my eyes turned sharp as I said, "But that depends on what you have to offer."

    Viscount Henry couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine as he looked at this Count Zwein in front of him.

    At first, he had thought that Count Zwein was one of those people that lets their wife do everything for them, but now he realized that wasn''t the case. He wasn''t someone that needed his wife to do everything, he was just waiting for the right opportunity to make his move.

    They both had their roles and they had executed it perfectly.

    The wife put him at ease and then Count Zwein came in for the kill.

    But instead of scaring him, this excited him since that meant that both of them were capable.

    Capable people were the kind of people that he loved the most since they were easier to negotiate with than unreasonable and ipetent people.

    After a long silence, Viscount Henry said with a smile, "I''m sure that we cane to some kind ofpromise."

    Seeing him like this, I gave a nod before saying with a smile, "Of course."

    The next half an hour was a slow discussion between our two sides.

    At first, the first thing that Viscount Henry asked was, "What is your bottom line?"

    I was surprised to see how forward he was, but it wasn''t something that I was averse to.

    People that were direct made things easier.

    However, this was not one of those times where I could just be direct with him.

    After all, even if I liked him, I had no idea just how far he was willing to cooperate with us. So before gauging that, I had to lead him on a bit and slowly find out how serious he was about this cooperation.

    It was a back and forth where we brought out different things, but by the end, I had a good idea of what he needed.

    At first, Viscount Henry didn''t give me the information that I needed.

    But then to my surprise, it was his wife that suddenly gave me this information.

    She directly told me what they were nning to use the ores that they were buying from us for.

    It seemed that they were nning to use most of it to improve the lives of their citizens. Of course, they wouldn''t be directly giving the citizens the ores, but rather providing goods made from these ores at low cost to improve the standard of living.

    She carefully exined how they would divide and use the ores without hiding anything.

    Viscount Henry even looked ufortable when he heard this, but he was silenced with a single look from his wife.

    When she finished exining everything, she looked at me and said with a smile, "Count Zwein, I hope that this has made our stance clear."

    Though she had a smile on her face, I could also see the sharp look in her eyes.

    But with that, I knew that she misunderstood something.

    She thought that I was worried about them using these ores to enhance their troops which would be dangerous for my territory. After all, their territory was close enough to invade my territory if they wanted to.

    No one would want to arm those that could harm them in the future.

    Since there was no alliance between us, it was normal for us to be vignt of each other even if we were acting friendly now.

    But in truth, I wanted to gauge their reaction on something else.

    They had been direct with me, so the least I could do was be direct with them.

    With a calm look on my face, I asked, "What do you think of Viscount Teomold?"

 Chapter 499 Visiting nobles (15)

    <h4>Chapter 499 Visiting nobles (15)</h4>

    This time, Viscount Henry and his wife were shocked when they heard this.

    Viscount Henry immediately knitted his brows and looked carefully at me, as if he was trying to gauge me.

    It was as if he was trying to figure out just what my intentions were when I asked this question. It was as if he wanted to see if I had any ill intentions asking him this.

    What he mainly cared about was if I was setting a trap for him by asking this.

    However, I just looked right back at Viscount Henry with a calm look on my face as if I wasn''t bothered by this at all.

    After a long silence, he finally said, "We are at odds sometimes, but that''s to be expected from nobles that border each other."

    This answer¡­was very safe, but it was not the answer that I was looking for.

    Viscount Henry also knew that since he could see the look on my face.

    However, it wasn''t as if he could say anything else.

    This was something that concerned the safety of both his family and his territory, so it wasn''t something that he could be rash about.

    He could only offer safe questions to keep him, his family, and his people safe.

    That was his duty as both the head of his family and the lord of this territory.

    But since I wasn''t satisfied, I wouldn''t let this matter go.

    "Is that so?" I said in a calm voice.

    Viscount Henry couldn''t help knitting his brows when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything.

    Almost as if teasing him, I slowly said, "Then what if I said that I wanted to get rid of him?"

    The moment that my voice fell, Viscount Henry and his wife immediately revealed shocked looks of disbelief. It was as if they couldn''t believe that I would be so direct with this matter.

    Even Rose and Haley were surprised to hear this.

    They weren''t surprised by the words I said since we had already agreed that this was something that was on the table, they were just surprised by how direct I was.

    Viscount Henry narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he was trying to gauge if I was being serious or not.

    After a long silence, he finally bit the bait and said, "Count Zwein, I don''t know what happened between you and Viscount Teomold, but it is dangerous to speak in this manner. You should¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly said, "I just want to know if you want in or not. It''s a very simple question."

    Viscount Henry waspletely taken aback when he heard this.

    There was a part of him that started to feel regret since he had taken this Count Zwein lightly.

    He had thought that he was just a simple straightforward person, but how could anyone that received the title of count possibly be a simple person?

    It should have been clear that he was a cunning person who had his own ns.

    Viscount Henry didn''t know what to say as he turned to look at his wife, but she just shook her head to show that she didn''t know either.

    Seeing that the two of them were like this, I decided to sweeten the pot.

    I looked at Haley and gave her a nod before saying, "Bring that out."

    She looked at me with a surprised look, but she still took out a piece of paper for Viscount Henry.

    Instead of putting it on the table, she just directly handed it to him this time.

    In his daze, Viscount Henry just looked at the piece of paper out of reflex.

    However, when he saw what was written on it, he snapped out of that daze and deeply knitted his brows.

    After looking at this piece of paper and sharing it with his wife for a bit, he looked up at me with a slow and hesitant gaze as he asked, "Count Zwein, this is?"

    I just said with a smile on my face, "A gift in a sort, but that depends on what you say next."

    Viscount Henry deeply knitted his brows when he heard this, but it didn''t seem like he was against what I had said.

    He looked up at me with those knitted brows and it was clear what he was thinking.

    Is this man a devil?

    That smile on his face was clearly not the smile of a man, but a devil that tempted people¡­

    After a long moment of hesitation, Viscount Henry asked, "What are you nning on doing?"

    The smile on my face became wider the moment that I heard this.

    After all, the fact that he said this meant that he was tempted and now all that was left was for me to reel the fish in.

    With that wide smile on my face, I said, "Well, there are certain things about Viscount Teomold that I do not like, so I am nning on getting rid of him. For that, I ask that you help me with certain things."

    Viscount Henry was once again taken aback when he heard this.

    No matter how he looked at this, it seemed like there was no downsides for him to take this deal.

    But the more that he thought about it, the more that it seemed like a trap.

    So he was debating on whether he should let himself fall for it or if he should back out now before it went too far.

    In the end, Viscount Henry couldn''t help being moved as he asked, "Let''s say that I was interested in this¡­what would I have to do?"

    With this, I said with the same smile, "Well, before we can talk about that, we need to sign something."

    I looked at Haley and she brought out another piece of paper.

    Viscount Henry directly took it and knitted his brows again when he saw it.

    After a moment of silence, he asked, "Do we really need to do this?"

    I gave a nod as I said, "This is to ensure that we can work together without having to worry about anything."

    He couldn''t help revealing an even more worried look.

    Without having to worry about anything?

    The moment that he signed this contract, there would be physical evidence of their coboration and he wouldn''t be able to step back anymore. The moment that he signed this, he would be forced to walk down this path no matter what happened.

    If anything, signing this would make him even more worried.

    But there was also a part of Viscount Henry that was more relieved because of this contract.

    Since Count Zwein was willing to bring out this contract, that meant that he was serious about this.

    This wasn''t a joke, he really was going to take down Viscount Teomold, the one that had been his rival the entire time.

    After a long silence, I was the one that broke it by saying, "I promise that I won''t do anything to harm you or your territory. I know that doesn''t ount for much, but¡­"

    Viscount Henry shook his head and said, "No, that''s more than enough."

    Without hesitation, he picked up some ink and a pen from the side and signed his name on the contract before handing it back to me.

    As he held this out, he said with a confident look, "I''m looking forward to working with you."

    I revealed a faint smile before reaching out to take that contract.

    As I took it, I said, "I''m looking forward to working with you as well."

 Chapter 500 Preparing a banquet

    <h4>Chapter 500 Preparing a banquet</h4>

    A few dayster, we left Viscount Henry''s territory.

    During this time, we had toured his territory quite a bit and found that it was even better than I thought.

    Unlike Viscount Teomold''s territory which was a mess, Viscount Henry''s territory was very well managed.

    He was someone that applied town nning quite well.

    Each part of the town served a particr purpose and he grouped buildings that had simr functions together.

    There was a residence area, a leisure area, an industrial area, and a business area.

    It was perfectly divided up so that all these areas had ces to grow and that theyplemented each other.

    He wasn''t just a warrior, but also someone that was skilled in taking care of his territory.

    No matter how I looked at it, he seemed like a S Rank character that I wanted to collect. If I could get Viscount Henry as my subordinate and have him help Rose manage my territories¡­

    I could see that Rose also wanted the same, but the one she was targeting was different.

    She was targeting Viscount Henry''s wife.

    During our stay in his territory, we had gone around with Viscount Henry and his family, touring his territory.

    But while we were touring and asking questions, half of the questions were answered by his wife.

    So it was clear that she was a very capable woman that fully supported her husband.

    Rose was very interested in taking her under her wing as well.

    When we left Viscount Henry''s territory, both of us could see what the other person was thinking.

    It was just too bad that the viscount and his wife didn''t know what would being for them.

    For our next destination¡­it was our own territory.

    After being away for close to three weeks, it was time to head back.

    If we stayed out any longer, it would be very likely that our territory would copse without Rose there to manage it.

    That was just howcking we were in terms of manpower right now.

    But it was also because of the extra territory that we received after I became a count.

    Right now, those territories were still in an adjustment state, so it would be a while before they would fall under uspletely.

    After arriving back at our territory, Rose separated from me with a sigh and said, "I''ll be heading back now. I''ll miss the time that we had together."

    The subordinates who hade out to greet us all revealed bitter smiles when they heard this.

    All of them looked at me pleadingly as if they wanted me to say something, but I just looked back at them with a smile on my face without saying a thing.

    After all, I knew that Rose was just teasing them.

    But it seemed like they had suffered quite a bit during the time that she had been gone.

    Nicole who should have been filling in for her looked like she had aged by several years.

    Still, this was a good learning experience for them.

    In the future, it was likely that they would need to run the territory on their own.

    After all, there was no telling what would happen, so Rose might be called away for extended periods of time.

    So it was better for them to get this experience now rather thanter.

    I just left Rose to tease her subordinates as I headed off to find someone.

    I left the town and went to an outpost that wasn''t that far away.

    This was the outpost that had been given to Shaka and his subordinates who had been acting as spies and scouts for our town.

    This time, Shaka hadn''te with me since it was official business for my territory and Shadow Garden shouldn''t be involved in this. Not to mention, he was assured that I would be safe with Shadow Five following me.

    But the main reason was because¡­he wanted a break after everything that had happened.

    When he saw me walk in, Shaka revealed a bitter smile and asked, "What is it this time?"

    I looked at him with a smile before saying, "Is it really that bad seeing me each time?"

    Shaka shook his head with that same bitter smile before saying, "You tell me."

    I tilted my head to think about it and I slowly gave a nod as if agreeing with him.

    Now that I had been taughtmon sense, I recognized how big every single incident that I had caused had been.

    But that wouldn''t stop me from doing what I wanted to do in the future.

    So I just shrugged and said, "It''s not as bad this time."

    Shaka revealed a bitter smile, but he still gave a nod as he said, "Alright, what is it this time?"

    "It''s very simple, I just want to host a banquet."

    Shaka immediately revealed a surprised and confused look when he heard this as he slowly repeated, "A banquet?"

    I gave a simple nod in response.

    Shaka looked at me with a brow raised, but he didn''t question it as he said, "Alright, then what do we need to do to help?"

    I revealed a smile.

    It was good when they caught on quickly.

    I gave the instructions that I had for Shaka and they quickly set off while I returned to the town.

    When I came back, I went to find Haley to get in touch with someone else.

    This would be the surprise that would be prepared for the banquet that I would be holding.

    After that, all that was left was to prepare the actual banquet.

    This would be a banquet for several nobles, so it wasn''t something that could be done casually.

    It would take a lot of preparation before we would be ready to wee all of these different nobles.

    But of course, that was mainly for Rose and her subordinates to take care of.

    All I could do was silently apologize to them.

 Chapter 501 Banquet for nobles (1)

    501 Banquet for nobles (1)

    Two weekster, it was time for the guests to arrive.

    During this time, we had been running around preparing many different things for this banquet all so that our noble guests would enjoy themselves.

    This was my first time hosting an event like this, so it was definitely hard.

    It was a good thing that I had Rose and Haley by my side, helping me prepare everything.

    Rose taught me everything that I needed to know about etiquette while Haley helped us prepare many of the things that we would be using for the banquet.

    If it wasn''t for the two of them preparing everything, I really didn''t know what I would have done.

    Now that the day came, the guests came in droves.

    After all, this was a banquet that was hosted by the new count, so everyone was naturally very curious about him.

    That was especially true for the barons and smaller lords that were in the area since they knew that they would have to be careful of me in the future. They wanted to use this banquet to gauge what kind of person I was so they knew how to deal with me in the future.

    But for me, there were two main guests today.

    It was Viscount Teomold and Viscount Henry who I had traveled to meet before.

    I had made sure to send personal invitations to both of them.

    Since they had received personal invitations, they naturally had no choice but toe to this banquet that I was hosting.

    But there was the grudge that was between them, so it wasn''t as if they would forget about this just because of me.

    Not to mention, both of them knew that the other would be trying to get a trade deal with me, so they would go out of their way to sabotage each other.

    Or at least that was what it would be on the surface.

    In truth, I had already signed a trade deal with Viscount Henry and he was just acting the part.

    The one that I was dealing with this time was Viscount Teomold.

    When Viscount Teomold arrived, the first thing that he did was get as close as he could to me and raise his voice as he said, "Count Zwein, thank you for your personal invitation. I am honoured that you would think of inviting me to your banquet."

    He had made sure that we were surrounded by other nobles as he said this.

    He wanted everyone to hear this so he could raise his own status among the other nobles.

    After all, a personal invitation was something that was seen as very valuable.

    It was only given to guests that the host cared very much about.

    So when the nobles around us heard this, they all looked at Viscount Teomold in a different light.

    I didn''t mind this since he was someone that I did want here no matter what.

    Not to mention, it would be hard to say if he could keep that smile on his face by the end of the day.

    So I said with a smile, "Of course, I couldn''t think of anyone else that I would want at this banquet other than you."

    It wasn''t just the nobles around else, even Viscount Teomold was caught off guard by this.

    After all, he never expected that I would be this friendly with him¡­

    He had thought that I would just lightly admonish him for this, but I had gone theplete opposite.

    After taking a moment to catch himself, Viscount Teomold opened his mouth to say something before closing it again.

    He didn''t know why, but there was a bad feeling that filled him.

    It was as if there was something wrong about this ce, but he just couldn''t put his finger on it.

    It was a feeling that made him want to leave this ce as soon as possible.

    But that was thest thing that he could do.

    Even if he wanted to leave, leaving now would be a p to Count Zwein''s face and something that he definitely couldn''t do.

    So he could only suppress that bad feeling and said, "Count Zwein, thank you for your kind words."

    I didn''t hold back at all as I came forward to take his hand and say, "Viscount Teomold, I can say for certain that there would be no party today if it wasn''t for you."

    The nobles all looked at Viscount Teomold with strange looks, as they wondered why Count Zwein was treating him so well.

    But Viscount Teomold couldn''t help feeling that there was something strange about these words.

    The way that Count Zwein had said them, it gave him another bad feeling.

    But before he could ask about this, there was another carriage that pulled up.

    "Announcing Viscount Henry!"

    The moment that Viscount Teomold heard this, the bad feeling that he had been feeling was blown away and he looked at the carriage pulling up with a dark look.

    Anyone that saw this gaze could tell that this rtionship with Viscount Henry who had just arrived wasn''t good.

    As the carriage was stopping, Viscount Teomold came closer to me to say, "Count Zwein, I advise that you don''t get too close to this Viscount Henry in the future. I''ve had some dealings with this man and I can say that he isn''t anything of value. He is definitely someone that a noble person like yourself would want to avoid."

    I gave a secret disdainfulugh, but I revealed a friendly smile on my face as I said, "I know, I know, I''ve heard the rumours about this man."

    Viscount Teomold was about to say something, but I cut him off by saying, "Unfortunately, he and my wife are rted through their family, so I had no choice but to invite him today."

    Viscount Teomold revealed an understanding look before saying with a nod, "I understand, but in the future, it would be best if you have less contact with this uncouth person."

    I gave a nod and wanted to say something, but it was at this time that Viscount Henry came over.

    I can''t do any damage unless I''m a burst mage...

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 Chapter 502 Banquet for nobles (2)

    502 Banquet for nobles (2)

    When Viscount Henry came over, he revealed a wide smile and said, "Count Zwein, thank you for your invitation. It is my honour toe to your banquet!"

    Viscount Teomold couldn''t help knitting his brows slightly when he heard this before turning to look at me.

    It was as if he was suspecting that I had lied to him.

    I just revealed a helpless look and gave a small shrug when he looked at me.

    He immediately understood what I meant.

    Since this Viscount Henry was a rtive of Count Zwein''s wife, he had no choice but to send an invitation to him as well.

    With this, Viscount Teomold revealed the same smile as before as he gave a nod to show that he understood.

    But when Viscount Henry saw this, he slightly knitted his brows.

    Still, those brows quickly rxed as he said, "Count Zwein, it seems that you have some badpany with you today. I advise you to chase away this badpany or you might get bitten by its dog mouth."

    "Huh?" Viscount Teomold said as soon as he heard this before moving in front of me and standing right in front of Viscount Henry with an ugly expression.

    He looked right at him and said, "Are you talking about yourself? Or is there something else that you want to say?"

    Viscount Henry didn''t back down as he took a step forward and said, "I think that I''ve made it quite clear what I wanted to say. Is there anything that you want to disagree with?"

    "You!" Viscount Teomold said before gritting his teeth.

    The two of them just red at each other without saying a thing.

    It was clear that the rtionship between them was bad, but it seemed like it was even worse than I had thought.

    I thought that they would only make subtle jabs at each other, but now it looked like they were about to fight in front of everyone like this.

    I also noticed that a few of the nobles came closer when they saw Viscount Henry and Viscount Teomold approaching each other like this.

    With the way that they were standing, it seemed that they were nobles that were either in Viscount Henry''s faction or Viscount Teomold''s faction.

    If this kept going, it was very likely to end in a fight.

    So I had no choice but to give a cough to remind them of where they were.

    Both of them immediately realized their mistakes and took a step back, but the disdainful looks towards each other were still on their faces.

    It was clear that they wouldn''t let things end here, but for now, they had no choice but to back down.

    After stepping away, that didn''t stop them from jabbing at each other with snidements, but I just let all of this slide.

    The nobles that had moved forward also scattered after seeing both Viscount Henry and Viscount Teomold back down.

    It seemed that they wouldn''t do anything, but they could still be considered a barrel of gunpowder that could explode at any moment.

    It was better to keep watch over them.

    Still, I never expected the effect that Viscount Henry would have to be this good.

    I had invited him here to distract Viscount Teomold so he wouldn''t notice anything, but for him to be this distracted¡­

    He was so angry that hepletely forgot about his suspicions and only focused on cursing Viscount Henry.

    It seemed like it wouldn''t be a problem for my n to seed.

    But I wouldn''t let my guard down still, so I pulled out my second card.

    "Everyone, please follow me. I have another special guest that I want to introduce to everyone." Everyone''s attention immediately came to me the moment that I said these words.

    They looked at me with confused and curious looks, as if they were trying to figure out who I was talking about.

    But I didn''t give them any clues as I turned around to bring them into the hall that had been prepared for this banquet.

    Once we were inside, they found that there was a group waiting for them inside.

    The moment that they saw this group, they couldn''t help revealing shocked looks.

    After all, even a fool would be able to recognize who this group was.

    It was two groups actually that made up this one group and the two groups had very different appearances.

    One was made up of beautiful men and women who all had pointed ears.

    The other was made up of short rough men and a single young girl.

    These were the elves and dwarves that were standing in front of all these nobles.

    As they all stared at these elves and dwarves in shock, I came forward to stand in front of them and turned to face the nobles to say, "I''ve invited some friends to this banquet today, I hope that all of you can get along with them."

    The moment that the nobles heard this, all of their eyes suddenly lit up.

    They never would have expected such arge benefit for them today.

    This was their chance to create a rtionship with both the elves and the dwarves.

    This was not a chance that could be looked down on.

    Just the rtionship that he had built with the elves and dwarves had allowed Count Zwein to reach his current status, so that was just how important this rtionship was.

    If they were able to build a rtionship as well¡­

    The nobles all looked at each other withpetitive looks.

    After all, they knew that the other nobles all thought the same thing as they did.

    So there were no allies for them to rely on in this fight.

    But, they wouldn''t let their grudges get between them and this chance.

    This was all about the elves and dwarves, so they wouldn''t bother with sabotaging each other.

    Seeing that they were ready, I said, "Then let''s begin this banquet. I hope that everyone enjoys socializing with each other."

    Time to cleanse league from my system...

 Chapter 503 Banquet for nobles (3)

    503 Banquet for nobles (3)

    As soon as I gave them permission, the nobles didn''t hold back at all as they went forward to talk to the elves and dwarves.

    But they also had their image to think about, so no one ran.

    Instead, all of them just walked as fast as they could.

    When I saw this, it really reminded me of a certain event that I had gone to back on Earth¡­

    It was an event where people sold doujinshis that they created, a ce for people to share their ideas and creativity with one another.

    It was also a ce where people''s desires gathered, so there were many people that came to buy these things.

    But there was a rule in that convention center where people were not allowed to run, so to make up for that, they all walked as fast as they could without running.

    This was just like that ce where the nobles were the ones that wanted to buy the goods and the elves and dwarves were the ones selling the goods¡­No, it was better to say that the elves and dwarves were the goods.

    The nobles surrounded them in an instant, but they didn''t push each other to get to the elves and dwarves.

    They knew that doing this would be a bad show of manners and would scare the elves off, so they naturally wouldn''t do something like this.

    They would act dignified as the nobles they were¡­

    It was just too bad that they didn''t know that this was what the elves and dwarves hated the most.

    They hated this kind of stuffy and stiff kind of talking that made them feel suppressed.

    So they didn''t respond well to this.

    The only reason that they even bothered to talk to these nobles was because of me.

    I had asked them to do this for me as a form of distraction for the nobles.

    Or rather, I wanted to use them to distract Viscount Teomold.

    Though it seemed that even Viscount Henry who was supposed to be my other distraction was also affected by this. I could see him also among the nobles, trying his best to talk to the dwarves and elves.

    Though with his personality, he seemed to be doing better than the other nobles as he hit it off with one of the dwarves.

    Still, for him to be distracted like this instead of going to distract Viscount Teomold, was this shooting myself in the foot?

    Well, it didn''t really matter as long as Viscount Teomold was distracted.

    He didn''t seem to care at all as he used his position to suppress the other nobles and make his way to the front of the crowd.

    His personality was the opposite of Viscount Henry''s, so he was the type that the elves and dwarves hated the most.

    At the same time, he didn''t hide the lewd look in his eyes as he looked at the elves.

    I never thought that he was that kind of person, but I guess that he didn''t dare have these thoughts in front of Rose and Haley since they were with me. But with these elves, he didn''t hold back his desires at all.

    But the strange thing was¡­if he cared about this so much, why did he take that normal looking woman as his wife?

    He even had two children with her¡­

    It had to be a status or a money thing, or else it just didn''t make sense at all.

    Still, the fact that he did this made the elves look at him in disdain.

    So he wasn''t able to get close to them at all.

    The only response he received to any of his words were very simple, as if they were perfunctory answers.

    But to this deluded man, he thought that he was building a good rtionship with the elves.

    If it wasn''t for me asking the elves for this favour, they wouldn''t have talked to this man at all.

    With these deluded thoughts of his, Viscount Teomold began imagining all the things that he would be able to do if he got close with the elves. There was even a part of him that thought about what it would be like to go to bed with an elf.

    There wasn''t a single part of him that suspected that this was a trap.

    While they were all busy with this, Rose and Haley came over to find me.

    When they came over, I asked, "Is everything prepared?"

    They both nodded in response before Rose said, "It''s all ready, we''re just waiting for you."

    I gave a nod back before turning to look at the nobles talking to the elves and dwarves.

    The way that I was looking at them, it was as if I was making sure that the ones that I wanted to see were all here.

    That was because other than Viscount Teomold, there were others that had colluded with him on this matter.

    If I wanted to take care of all of this, I wanted to make sure that I caught them all in a single so that none of them escaped.

    As I looked at them, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    That was because there was one of Viscount Teomold''s followers that was missing.

    I couldn''t help feeling worried when I saw this.

    Could it be that he was smarter than I gave him credit for and he had sent that follower to take care of some things?

    Could it be that he was also preparing just in case this was a trap?

    I turned to Rose and said, "Tell everyone to wait, we might need to¡­"

    Before I could finish, the doors opened and thatst follower came in.

    When he did, he came over to me with an awkward look and said, "Count Zwein, I''m sorry for beingte. My carriage''s wheel broke on the way here and it took a while to repair it."

    As I looked at this person, my lips couldn''t help twitching.

    Behind me, I could hear Rose and Haley holding back theirughter¡­ The Burger King is terrifying as a mask.

 Chapter 504 Banquet for nobles (4)

    <h4>Chapter 504 Banquet for nobles (4)</h4>

    After taking a moment to calm myself, I said to the noble that camete, "It''s fine, it''s just a good thing that you could make it."

    Then I gestured to the other nobles gathered around the elves and dwarves to say, "How about you go and mingle with the others?"

    When he saw everyone gathered around the elves and dwarves, his eyes immediately lit up.

    Seeing the attractive elves and dwarves, he wasted no time in saying, "Thank you very much for the invitation Count Zwein. I''ll be sure to properly mingle with everyone now."

    Without even waiting for a response from me, he ran¡­no, quickly walked off to where everyone was else, leaving me alone with Rose and Haley.

    As I stood there with my lips twitching, I could hear the sounds of snickering from behind me.

    Even if they tried their best to hold it back, it really was hard for them after seeing me like this. My lips twitched even more and there was a small vein that popped out on my forehead, but I was able to hold myself back in the end.

    Taking a deep breath, I turned around and said, "It seems that I''ve made a mistake. It seems that I was too tense and I was overthinking things. There''s no need to make any changes to the n and you can tell them to get ready."

    Though they gave a nod in response, it was clear that they still hadn''t recovered from seeing me like this.

    I could still see the trembling that came from them trying to hold back theirughter.

    In the end, I just chose to ignore it as I said, "Make sure that everything is ready, don''t miss a single thing."

    Both of them nodded before turning to leave.

    That was the moment that I chose to strike.

    I suddenly came forward and leaned in to say, "Be ready for your punishment tonight."

    Both of them suddenly stopped and turned to look at me with surprised looks.

    But seeing the calm look on my face, almost as if I didn''t say a thing, they couldn''t help revealing different expressions.

    Both of them¡­seemed to have traces of excitement appear in their eyes.

    I didn''t respond at all as I just let them leave like this, but I could see that from time to time, they kept looking back at me.

    It was as if they were expecting something.

    Though all I did was nothing to keep them in suspense.

    Once the two of them had gone, I checked with the other person that was here.

    "Shadow Five, is everything ready on your side?"

    There was a voice that seemed toe out of nowhere that said, "Everything has been prepared. All that is left is for the count to start the banquet."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Then be on standby and get ready for your turn."

    There was no response, but I didn''t need a response to know that she heard me.

    With everything prepared, all that was left was to close the around Viscount Teomold and his people.

    Of course, this was my first time doing something like this, so it would be a lie to say that I wasn''t nervous at all. But this was something that had to be done since I knew someone like this Viscount Teomold would never stop at just this.

    If I let him go now, he would bite me in the butt one day.

    So it was better to finish him off here and now.

    He could only me himself for choosing how he wanted to live his life.

    These were the consequences of his own actions.

    That was what I told myself as I walked over to where the nobles were gathered.

    After walking over, I said, "Everyone, let''s get this banquet started. I have prepared some fine delicacies today that I hope that all of you will enjoy."

    With a p of my hands, the servers suddenly came out with food on their serving trays.

    At the same time, there were some servers that pushed out a table that was filled with food ced buffet style.

    There was even a bar that was suddenly opened up at one side of the room.

    The moment that this bar was open, the dwarves immediately ran over to get drinks followed by the nobles that went with them.

    These drinks were the price that I had paid to bribe them intoing here.

    So they didn''t hold back indulging in these drinks.

    After all, they were also using this as a chance to get away from the humans that kept bothering them.

    With the food and drinksing out, the mood of the banquet became much less formal and everyone seemed like they were enjoying themselves.

    In short, they let themselves rx now that they were eating.

    That was the goal in bringing out the food and drinks at this time.

    Meals were one of the times that people were the most unguarded. It was when they let their natural selvese out without any filter.

    If one looked carefully, they could even see what kind of personality a person had just based on how they ate.

    But my main goal was to let my targets rx so I could trap them.

    A while after the food was brought out, I raised a ss and tinked it with a fork before saying, "Everyone, if I may have your attention. There''s something that I want to announce."

    Everyone immediately turned to look at me when they heard this.

    Seeing that I had their attention, I said, "I''m sure that all of you are aware that I have formed a trade rtionship with our dwarven friends here." At this, I gave a nod to the dwarves and Elsa gave a nod back to me.

    The nobles all revealed excited looks when they heard this.

    This was one of the reasons why they had all been excited toe to this banquet.

    They all wanted a piece of this pie.

    After that nod, I turned to Viscount Teomold and waved my hand at him for him toe over.

    Viscount Teomold was surprised, but he walked over to my side with his head held up high as if this was a natural matter.

    As he walked over, he even looked at Viscount Henry with a proud look as if he was taunting him.

    Viscount Henry naturally revealed an ugly expression when he saw Viscount Teomold looking at him like this, but he quickly made his face calm down and acted as if he didn''t react at all.

    But Viscount Teomold had already seen the change in his expression and that made his smile even wider.

    Seeing him walk over like this, I really couldn''t help giving a cold snort of disdain.

    He was like a fool that didn''t even know that he was nothing more than a pig to the ughter.

    Hmm, even his face did look a bit like a pig''s¡­

    After he came over, Viscount Teomold nodded at me with a wide smile on his face.

    I gave a nod back before turning to everyone to say, "I have already signed a trade agreement with Viscount Teomold to trade the ores that I will be receiving with him."

    As soon as I announced this, everyone took a cold breath and looked at me with shocked looks.

 Chapter 505 Banquet for nobles (5)

    <h4>Chapter 505 Banquet for nobles (5)</h4>

    Viscount Teomold was also surprised that I would announce this matter like this, but he quickly recovered.

    After recovering, the smile on his face became even wider as he looked at everyone with a proud look on his face.

    Almost as if he was looking down on them.

    I gave a secret sneer when I saw him like this, but I kept my face calm as I said, "This will be the first deal of many that I will be signing for the trade of ores, but I want everyone to know that I will be officially taking trade deals for these ores."

    As soon as they heard this, all of the nobles revealed sharp looks as they waited for their opportunity.

    But, this also made it clear that Viscount Teomold was the first one to create a rtionship with me, so there were some that went to him for help.

    The ones that were Viscount Teomold''s followers immediately gave him looks as if they were asking him to help them broker a deal as well

    When Viscount Teomold saw this, he made sure to give them a nod to show that he was already thinking of them.

    But that wasn''t where his attention was.

    He was looking at Viscount Henry with a look like he was saying that he was superior to him.

    Viscount Henry just ignored this and kept a calm look on his face which only served to anger Viscount Teomold even more.

    I had remained silent because I had been waiting for a signal and when I saw the servant on the side give a wave to me, I said, "Now, I''d like to invite a special guest that I''ve invited to meet you all." I turned to look at Viscount Teomold and said, "Especially the viscount here."

    Viscount Teomold stopped showing off to Viscount Henry and turned to look back at me with a confused look. But eventually, his expression rxed as if he trusted me, which he really shouldn''t have.

    He trusted me because he thought that I wouldn''t do anything to harm him.

    After all, I had already announced our cooperation like this which would give him many benefits in the future. So he was certain that whatever I would do next would be something beneficial to him as well.

    That was until he saw who was being brought in.

    This was a person that was being brought in with manacles on.

    Behind him were two knights in full armour that were ready to cut him down at any moment.

    Everyone couldn''t help being surprised to see this and they couldn''t help taking a few steps back when they saw the man in manacles. They could tell that this was some kind of criminal, so they were afraid of being attacked by this man.

    But this man didn''t do anything as he was led forward.

    That was because he knew that if he did anything, he would be cut down by the knights behind him.

    These knights were not ordinary knights, these were elite knights that should have only been in the capital.

    So what were these knights doing here?

    When Viscount Teomold saw this person, he immediately showed a look of recognition before forcing that expression away. Instead, he put on a look of shock and confusion as he asked, "Count Zwein, who is this?"

    I just calmly looked at him with a smile and said, "There''s no need to pretend, I know you know who this is."

    Viscount Teomold revealed a genuinely shocked look this time as he couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    But he could tell that the tone of my voice was aggressive.

    It was almost as if I was targeting him for some reason.

    Viscount Teomold slowly knitted his brows and said, "Count Zwein, I really do not understand what you mean. I have never seen this man before in my life. If there''s something that you want to say, perhaps we should discuss this in private?"

    Viscount Teomold didn''t know what was happening, but he did know that this was a dangerous situation for him.

    For now, it was better for him to get out of here whether it was with Count Zwein or without him.

    But I wouldn''t give him this chance.

    With a smile, I said, "Then how about I introduce this person to everyone?"

    Viscount Teomold deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    However, he didn''t have a chance to stop me as I suddenly raised my voice to say, "Everyone, I''d like to introduce our guest here. He is someone whoes from our dear Viscount Teomold''s territory."

    When they heard this, everyone couldn''t help turning to look at Viscount Teomold with strange looks.

    Though Viscount Teomold made sure to keep his face as calm as possible to not show a single thing.

    I didn''t care about this as I said, "This guest here is the guild master of the Adventurer''s Guild in Viscount Teomold''s territory."

    As soon as they heard this, everyone narrowed their eyes to look at Viscount Teomold.

    The followers of Viscount Teomold had already recognized this person, but they had been acting dumb since they didn''t know what was happening. However, now that this person''s identity had been revealed, they all slowly moved towards where Viscount Teomold was.

    Viscount Teomold deeply knitted his brows when this was revealed before looking at me with narrowed eyes, as if he was trying to figure out what I was doing.

    However, now that this fact had been revealed, it was a matter of pride and benefit for him. If he didn''t act now, he would destroy his rtionship with the Adventurer''s Guild and that would be arge blow to him.

    So he had no choice but to step forward and say, "Count Zwein, what is the meaning of this? Why are you capturing citizens from my territory?"

    I raised a hand and stuck one finger up to wag it before saying, "Tsk, tsk, you should let me finish before interrupting next time, Viscount Teomold."

    Viscount Teomold deeply knitted his brows again when he heard this, but he didn''t have a chance to say anything.

    "This person was just caught attacking one of my trade caravans containing the ores from the Dwarven Kingdom, so I think that I should be the one asking you what the meaning of this is." I said in a slow and deliberate voice.

    As soon as he heard this, Viscount Teomold''s face twisted in an ugly manner when he heard this before he turned to re at the guild master.

    But the guild master had his head down the entire time as if he was scared to look up.

    Viscount Teomold took a deep breath to calm himself, but once again, he didn''t get a chance to speak as I spoke before him.

    "Oh, I almost forgot to mention, the caravan that he attacked was filled with the ores that I had prepared to sell to his majesty." Though this was said in a casual and almost careless manner, it was like a bomb had been dropped.

    The chin of every noble fell to the ground when they heard this before they looked at Viscount Teomold with looks of pity.

    Viscount Teomold looked like he really wanted to smash his head into the ground and kill himself.

 Chapter 506 Banquet for nobles (6)

    506 Banquet for nobles (6)

    After this bomb was dropped, Viscount Teomold immediately red at the guild master who still had his head lowered.

    The look in his eyes was as if he was saying, "Why did you do something so crazy and stupid?"

    But the guild master kept his head down the entire time as if he was afraid to look up.

    Seeing this, Viscount Teomold had no choice but to think quickly on his feet.

    After a few seconds, he said, "Count Zwein, I had no idea that such a thing was happening in my territory. As long as you give me a chance, I promise that I will give you and his majesty a satisfactory exnation for this matter."

    In short, he was throwing the Adventurer Guild under the bus.

    At this point, he only cared about keeping his own head since attacking the business of the king was a death sentence.

    He would do anything to live, even if he had to throw away everything else.

    When I heard this, I couldn''t help revealing a disappointed look before shaking my head and saying with a sigh, "Is that really all that you have to say?"

    Viscount Teomold deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He thought that with the deal between them, Count Zwein would at least reconsider this matter.

    That was why there was almost a pleading tone in his voice when he said this, as if he was asking Count Zwein to show mercy.

    But based on what he said, it didn''t seem like he was nning on showing any mercy¡­

    Seeing that Viscount Teomold didn''t say anything, I just calmly said, "So you''re iming that you had nothing to do with this and it was all the Adventurer Guild that attacked the caravan, right?"

    Viscount Teomold was confused why he was being asked this, but he slowly gave a nod.

    If he admitted it, wouldn''t it be signing his own death warrant?

    So why would he ever admit this?

    I shook my head again and gave another sigh before saying, "But your men were found attacking the caravan as well. I know since I met them during the time that I was in your territory and they even admitted to this fact."

    Viscount Teomold''s chin dropped the moment that he heard this.

    The look on his face was almost as if he didn''t understand what I was saying, even if he understood the individual words.

    He just stared at me with this look of disbelief the entire time.

    Then after a few seconds of silence, he opened and closed his mouth as if he didn''t know what to say.

    Finally, he said, "There must be some kind of mistake!"

    I shook my head and said, "No, your men have already been captured and there is already a report that is being sent to the capital with a list of all the crimes that you''vemitted."

    "Crimes?" Viscount Teomold repeated in a very confused voice.

    I said with a nod, "That''s right. After they were captured, they already confessed to everything that you''ve done and we''ve already gotten all the evidence. In just a few days, a decree from his majesty shoulde that will strip you of your title and territory."

    Viscount Teomold''s jaw dropped once more when he heard this.

    This time, he couldn''t keep calm anymore as he shouted, "How could this happen?"

    Then without any hesitation, he ran forward at the guild master with his hands raised and he wanted to attack him, but the knights stepped forward to push him back.

    So Viscount Teomold could only shout at the man, "How could you be so stupid to do something like this? How could you be so stupid to even attack a caravan that belongs to the king?"

    The guild master finally couldn''t help looking up to say, "How was I supposed to know? It looked like a normal carriage, so we thought that it was just a normal merchant."

    "What?" Viscount Teomold said in a shocked voice.

    The guild master gave a nod before continuing, "Before we realized what happened, there were these knights that suddenly surrounded us. Half of us were cut down before we even had a chance to surrender. If only we didn''t listen to you and fall for your lies, we never would have been in this situation."

    Viscount Teomold couldn''t hear anything after the first part.

    He had fallen into deep though as if everything was clicking together inside of his head.

    No matter how he thought about it, there was only one possible answer to the questions that he had.

    He had been set up.

    There was no other possible answer.

    "You set me up." Viscount Teomold slowly said as he turned to look at me.

    I didn''t show any expressions as I calmly looked back at him.

    "That''s right! You set me up!" Viscount Teomold seemed like he had woken up from a deep sleep as he suddenly pointed at me and said, "How else would the royal caravan have looked like a normal caravan? There''s no other exnation!"

    Once again, I didn''t say anything as I looked back at him with a calm look.

    Viscount Teomold looked like he wanted to charge at me at this point, but before he could do anything, there were two guards that suddenly came forward to stand on his left and right sides respectively.

    They didn''t grab him, but it was clear that they could immobilize him at any moment.

    Viscount Teomold wasn''t a fighter, so he wouldn''t be able to do anything against these two.

    Seeing that he couldn''t do anything, Viscount Teomold could only look at me and say, "Why? Why would you do something like this when we''ve already reached an agreement? What do you have to benefit from this?"

    He was genuinely confused by all of this.

    After all, if he was stripped of his title and territory like this, wouldn''t Count Zwein suffer a loss?

    Not only that, it would be unlikely that he would find someone else to trade with him after what happened.

    So there was absolutely nothing for him to gain from this.

    Or at least that was what Viscount Teomold thought with his shallow thoughts.

    Should I y Honkai instead?

 Chapter 507 Banquet for nobles (7)

    507 Banquet for nobles (7)

    I didn''t bother answering this as I turned to look at Viscount Teomold''s followers.

    At first, they had been moving over as if they wanted to help him if anything went wrong.

    However, once they heard that it was the king''s caravan that he had attacked, they immediately blended back into the crowd. They tried their best to hide in the crowd so that they didn''t attract any attention at all.

    But what they didn''t notice was that there were guards that had blended into the crowd.

    They were ready to capture these nobles at any moment.

    It was time to take care of them as well so we didn''t leave any unsolved problems for the future.

    With a cough, I said, "There were others who had been discovered to have colluded with Viscount Teomold on this matter."

    Everyone immediately took a cold breath when they heard this and they started looking at each other.

    In no time at all, everyone started moving away from each other as if they didn''t trust each other.

    The expressions of Viscount Teomold''s followers turned ugly when they heard this.

    They wanted to move towards the door, but it was too conspicuous with everyone spreading out like this. So the only thing that they could do was hope that they hadn''t been discovered.

    But with everyone spread out like this, it was very easy to see the guards that were ced there.

    So it didn''t take long for them to realize what was happening.

    I just calmly looked at Viscount Teomold''s followers and said, "Is there anything that you want to say?"

    All of them looked at each other with uncertain looks as if they didn''t know what to do.

    But the expressions on their faces became more and more unstable as if they were already considering something.

    Finally, one of them spoke.

    It was the one who had arrivedte.

    "It wasn''t my fault! He was the one that forced me! He said that I would be next if I didn''t cooperate with him!" As he said this, he pointed at Viscount Teomold who was being restrained by the two guards.

    Viscount Teomold revealed an ugly look before ring at this noble who was framing him and saying, "You, you, you! You''re the one that offered your troops in the first ce, I didn''t even want to include a fence sitter like you!"

    "Please don''t listen to his nonsense! I was forced to participate by him or else he said that he would raid my territory as well!"

    Seeing the two of them fight like this, the other nobles started to join in.

    They gave many different reasons for why they did all of this, but there was one thing inmon between them.

    They all stated that everything was Viscount Teomold''s fault.

    It was him who forced them to join him.

    The more that Viscount Teomold heard this, the more his face turned red.

    It was as if he was able to burst from how much blood was gathering in his face.

    But I stopped them by saying, "We''ve already found records of your involvement, so there''s no excuses that you can make."

    As soon as I said this, all of them fell silent.

    They had thought that they would be able to me Viscount Teomold to avoid taking the fall, or even offering information about all of this as a plea deal.

    But it turned out that they had been yed.

    Count Zwein already had all the information that he needed, so he was just baiting them to see what else he could get from them.

    In short, they had been yed as the fool.

    After a long silence, the nobles starteding back to their senses and looked like they wanted to say something. But they didn''t get that chance as the guards that had been gathered already came forward to restrain them.

    There were some that wanted to fight against the guards, but they found that they werepletely outmatched.

    Some of these nobles were ones that had fought as knights on the frontline before receiving their titles for their achievements, so they couldn''t believe that they were being overpowered by guards like this.

    But they found that they weren''t able to do a single thing against these guards.

    They werepletely outssed.

    How could guards for a countryside noble be this strong?

    It would make sense if he was some kind of hidden royal, but he was nothing more than a noble that had been lucky enough to earn a title.

    This just didn''t make any sense at all.

    While the nobles had been restrained, Viscount Henry had been walking forward with a few of his followers as if they were prepared to help if anything happened.

    When they saw how easily Viscount Teomold''s followers were caught, they couldn''t help being surprised.

    After all, Viscount Henry was someone who had served as a knight as well, so he was someone with some military prowess.

    At the same time, the nobles that chose to follow him were also those that had served on the frontline, which was why they chose to follow him in the first ce.

    All of them had skills that allowed them to see how powerful these guards were.

    It was clear that they might not even be able to do anything to these guards if they were the ones being restrained.

    Viscount Henry couldn''t help looking at Count Zwein with a strange look, but he saw that he was also looking at him which caught him off guard.

    Seeing Viscount Henry look at me like this, I gave a secret bitterugh before waving my hand at him toe over.

    Viscount Henry hesitated for a second as he revealed a confused look, but he still came over in the end.

    After he came over, I looked at everyone and said, "The actions of these wicked nobles have harmed others, so now they will be givenpensation for this matter."

    Just one more day of AGDQ left.

 Chapter 508 Banquet for nobles (8)

    508 Banquet for nobles (8)

    This time, it was Viscount Henry and his followers that were surprised.

    They didn''t know what I had been nning to do, but they never expected to hear something likepensation.

    I looked over at Shaka who came over with a scroll.

    I took it and opened it in front of everyone to read it, "Though not everything has been investigated, the current situation has determined that the nobles led by Viscount Teomold have cooperated with the Adventurer Guild to rob other nobles. As such, they will receivepensation from these nobles."

    The guests that hadn''t been caught up in this were surprised to hear this, but they were more confused as to what the scroll I was reading from was.

    The way that I was reading this, it was almost as if I was reading some kind of message.

    But I ignored them and continued, "Thepensation will be given in either money ornd depending on what is avable. If the items stolen can be recovered, they will be returned to their original owners. If they cannot be recovered, the value of these items will be added to thepensation amount."

    Then once I finished reading this, I turned the scroll so everyone could see it.

    The moment that they did, they all let out a gasp.

    That was because they recognized the seal that was on this scroll.

    It was the seal of the royal family.

    No one could believe that the seal of the royal family was being used in this situation, but there it was in front of them.

    There were a few of them that wondered if this seal was faked, but they quickly threw away those thoughts since they knew that this was impossible.

    A fake royal seal¡­that was a crime worse than anything that Viscount Teomold and his followers had done.

    They didn''t believe that Count Zwein would try anything that crazy.

    So this seal was most likely real¡­

    They knew he had a connection with the royals since he had stated that he was trading with the royals.

    But it was amazing that the royal family would get involved in a small matter like this.

    After making sure that everyone had seen the seal, I turned the scroll back so that I was reading it again as I said, "At the same time, all contracts that the involved parties were in has been officially cancelled and they will be offeredpensation on this matter."

    Only when I finished this did I put the scroll down to look at Viscount Teomold.

    When Viscount Teomold saw me looking at him, he couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine. It was as if something bad was about to happen to him.

    I walked over to Viscount Teomold and said, "Viscount Teomold, I think that in our contract, we had written a use aboutpensation."

    Viscount Teomold couldn''t help revealing a confused look at first since he never remembered anything about this, but then he realized that it must have been in there since the beginning¡­

    That meant that from the beginning, this Count Zwein had been nning for his downfall!

    Just why did he do something like this?

    He had never met him before meeting him at the auction in the capital, so there shouldn''t be a reason for him to do all of this.

    Seeing that he wasn''t saying anything, I continued by saying, "As the contract has written, thepensation will be ten times the amount that would have been traded."

    Viscount Teomold was immediately pulled out of his thoughts and looked at me with a look of shock and disbelief.

    Then he suddenly said, "Where in the contract does it say that!?"

    I shook my head and said, "You really should have read the fine print of the contract. It was stated clearly that thepensation would be ten times that of the price that we agreed on. Not to mention, this was set both ways so that I would be the one paying if I broke the contract."

    Viscount Teomold''s expression couldn''t help changing as he looked at me.

    That was because¡­this was me cutting off any paths for him and his family.

    Even if he was executed, it didn''t mean that everyone in his family would be executed.

    Even if they lost their title, they would still have their wealth since it wasn''t involved in this.

    But now, I was also taking away their wealth and making it impossible for his family to survive.

    So of course he couldn''t ept this.

    Even if he died, he at least wanted to leave behind some descendants of his family which had been a great noble family that hadsted many generations.

    Now, even that didn''t seem possible.

    Taking a deep breath, he looked at me and said, "Please leave a path of life for my family. That is all that I can ask of you."

    I shook my head and simply said, "No."

    Viscount Teomold''s face twisted as he said, "Why? Why would you do all of this?"

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before saying, "Ask yourself that in your next life. You should really think about all the things that you''ve done in this life."

    Viscount Teomold revealed a confused look, as if he didn''t even know what he had done wrong.

    But that wasn''t his fault since this was the behaviour that many nobles had in this world.

    It could be said that it was just his bad luck to run into Count Zwein.

    Seeing that he didn''t understand, I nodded at the two guards by his side to take him away.

    I also nodded at the other guards restraining the nobles to take those other nobles away as well.

    Since they had already received their punishment, they were no longer needed.

    Instead, it was time for me to move onto the next part of my n.

    Though the main part of the n was to condemn Viscount Teomold and these nobles, there was follow up that was needed for this matter.

    I couldn''t just leave things as they were.

    I did like nothing today because I was watching AGDQ.

 Chapter 509 Banquet for nobles (9)

    <h4>Chapter 509 Banquet for nobles (9) </h4>

    After Viscount Teomold and his followers were taken away, I turned to the other guests that remained.

    Many of them had cautious looks on their faces as if they were afraid that I would do something else that would be bad for them.

    I knew that if I left the situation as it was, it would be hard for me to achieve my goal of uniting the nobles in the surrounding area.

    So I had to do something to turn the tide of the situation.

    As for what I would do, it was something that I had already prepared.

    Viscount Henry was still beside me and he would be the one that would turn the tides.

    "Everyone, I would like to apologize for that mess. It seems that some people just can''t be trusted."

    Everyone couldn''t help trembling when they heard this.

    Even an idiot would be able to hear that this was a warning for them.

    But then I changed my tone and said, "But let''s move on to some more positive news."

    I turned to Viscount Henry and said, "Earlier, I announced that I had signed a contract with Viscount Teomold to trade the ores that came from the Dwarven Kingdom. However, you all saw how that turned out already."

    Everyone gave a slow nod when they heard this.

    I didn''t mind this as I continued, "From the beginning, that deal was doomed to fail, so I had already prepared a back up n. I have already signed another contract to trade ores with Viscount Henry here and will be looking for other partners to trade with in the future."

    Viscount Henry wasn''t surprised, but his followers were surprised to hear this along with the rest of the nobles in this room.

    I was honestly a bit surprised to see that Viscount Henry''s followers were surprised.

    I had told him not to tell them, but I didn''t actually expect him to follow this. After all, things that were good should be shared with one''s people and this was definitely something that was good not just for him, but also his followers.

    But I wasn''t disappointed with the fact that Viscount Henry didn''t tell his followers.

    It just meant that he was every bit the person that I thought he was and that he would be someone good to work with in the future.

    After saying this, I waited for the reactions of these nobles.

    After all, it would depend on them to see what would happen next.

    There was a long silence that hung in the air until one of the nobles suddenly took a chance by asking, "Are there any conditions that we need to fulfill to trade with you?"

    As soon as he asked this, everyone immediately turned to look at me with serious looks as if they were waiting for my answer.

    I shook my head and said, "As long as you''re willing to trade and don''t have any ill intentions, I wee your business."

    All of the nobles immediately perked up when they heard this, but I quickly added something.

    "But if you do things that are harmful to our kingdom, then I have no choice but to take action. I hope that you will all understand that." My voice turned cold when I said this.

    All of the nobles felt a chill run down their spine when they heard this, but they remembered what had happened with Viscount Teomold and immediately revealed honest looks.

    They recognized that this Count Zwein was a dangerous person to offend, but he was also someone that brought them great benefits as long as they stayed on his good side.

    So they would do all that they could to remain on his good side.

    Seeing all of them reveal honest looks, I said with a smile, "If there''s anyone that is willing to trade with us, feel free to talk to the one that I''ve ced in charge of this matter, my third wife Haley."

    All of them looked at her with focused gazes as soon as they heard this.

    Of course, not a single one of them dared to look at her with any other kind of gaze after what I had said.

    Haley revealed a wide smile when she saw this.

    It was as if she could already smell the money that was about toe in.

    Since I had deflected all the attention onto Haley, there was no need for me to do anything else.

    There was still one more thing that I wanted to take care of before ending all of this.

    So I said, "I hope that everyone will enjoy the rest of this banquet and make the most of the opportunities that you have been given."

    Everyone had sparkling eyes when they heard this.

    With that, I let everyone get back to it.

    I went over to Rose and together, the two of us went to a separate room that had been prepared.

    We sat down and just waited without saying anything.

    Rose prepared a few things, but other than that, we just silently waited for our guests.

    A few minutester, there was a couple that suddenly opened the door and came in.

    It was Viscount Henry and his wife.

    Since this was a banquet, naturally Viscount Henry had also brought his wife and daughter with him.

    They had surprised looks when they came in, but they quickly sat down in front of us and waited to see what we would have to say.

    I looked at Rose and she said, "We have a proposal for you two."

    The two of them looked at each other with surprised and confused looks before turning back. Viscount Henry spoke for the two of them as he said, "Uh, what kind of proposal do you have? If it''s that kind of proposal, we are ttered, but¡­we don''t do that kind of stuff."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this, but I wasn''t surprised that he would say this.

    After all, it really did seem like we might be asking them that.

    However, I just exined by calmly saying, "I want you to work for me."

 Chapter 510 Banquet for nobles (10)

    <h4>Chapter 510 Banquet for nobles (10) </h4>

    Viscount Henry couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when he heard this.

    He turned to look at his wife and saw that she had the same surprised look before turning back to look at Count Zwein.

    In his mind, he really didn''t know what to make of this.

    After all, he never expected Count Zwein to suddenly say something like this.

    After a long period of hesitation, Viscount Henry suddenly asked, "Can I ask why you''re asking me this?"

    When I heard this, I revealed a faint smile as if I had already expected this.

    Though this wasn''t really that surprising since most people would ask this question if someone suddenly wanted them to work for them.

    I looked at Viscount Henry and said, "I like you and I think you''re capable, so I want you to work for me. Nothing more, nothing less."

    These words might have seemed very simple, but that was more than enough for someone like Viscount Henry.

    After all, he wasn''t someone that would be convinced with fancy words.

    He was someone that was more easily convinced with words that were simple and straightforward.

    Viscount Henry couldn''t help revealing an embarrassed look when he heard this, but then he quickly revealed a serious look and turned to his wife. When she saw him look over at her, she revealed a smile and a look that seemed to be saying, "Do what you think is right."

    It seemed that there was quite a bit of trust in their rtionship.

    Viscount Henry turned back to look at me and he said, "What kind of things are you looking to have me do?"

    Even if there was a part of him that wanted to take this deal, he still had to think about the people in his territory. This was not a decision that could be made that rashly.

    This time, I didn''t say anything and instead I passed the reign to Rose.

    This was what we had agreed on.

    For convincing Viscount Henry, I would take the lead.

    But when it came to exining the details of the n, it was Rose that would take the lead.

    She pulled out a piece of paper that she ced on the table.

    When it was spread out, the viscount couple found that it was a map of the surrounding area.

    On this map, all of their territories had been marked, but there was a different marker that was on each of their territories. There were some that had the same marker and there were also some that didn''t have a marker at all.

    They couldn''t see through what these markers meant at all, so they just waited for Rose to exin.

    "As you can see, this is a map of the surrounding area and the surrounding noble territory." Rose slowly started by saying this.

    The viscount couple nodded to show that they understood.

    Then Rose continued by saying, "The different markers represent the different goods that are traded by these different territories."

    This time, they looked more closely at these markers and they could understand a bit of what this was about. The marks that were on these markers seemed to represent the goods that each territory traded, or at least as far as they knew they traded.

    But they still couldn''t figure out why they would be shown this map.

    Rose then pointed at different territories and said, "You can see that these territories vary in goods even though they had simr resources, but why is that? It''s because these nobles are just trying to follow the trends of whatever will sell at the time and never specialize in one product, that is why they never truly be rich."

    Viscount Henry was a bit confused by this, but his wife nodded in agreement to this before pointing at one of the territories and saying, "It really is a waste of resources that they would nt cotton instead of food products here. If they were smart, they would be able to sell the food that they harvest to the frontlines and earn double the profits, just as much as the cotton that''s hard to sell right now."

    Rose revealed a look of praise when she heard this.

    She never thought that Viscount Henry''s wife would be so well informed about all of this.

    Viscount Henry just revealed an awkward look and moved back to let his wife take the lead.

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help revealing a smile like I was seeing an ally.

    It seemed that even if he did help with managing the territory, he was still only a bit better than me. It seemed that both of us relied heavily on our wives to manage our territories for us.

    The two of them went into a technical discussion about the specialty of the surrounding territories which became quite detailed.

    Both Viscount Henry and I just sat there with smiles on our faces as we could only understand bits of what they were discussing.

    After a long discussion, Rose finally said, "I knew that I wasn''t wrong about you. You really are just as I thought you were and now I want you working for me even more."

    Viscount Henry''s wife revealed a modest smile, but it was clear by the look in her eyes that she was also impressed by Rose.

    Since they were finished discussing this, I turned to Viscount Henry and said, "What I want to do is organize the surrounding nobles so that we canpliment each other with products produced on our territory. It''s simr to the nning of your town with its different districts."

    Viscount Henry knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "But nobles aren''t as easy to convince. It won''t be easy to get them to listen to you."

    I revealed a faint smile before saying, "Isn''t that why I put on that y today? As long as I control the ores, it will be easy."

    Viscount Henry slowly revealed a look of understanding on his face.

 Chapter 511 Banquet for nobles (11)

    <h4>Chapter 511 Banquet for nobles (11) </h4>

    But along with this understanding look, there was a look of difficulty that also appeared on Viscount Henry''s face.

    It was as if there was something that he was struggling with.

    And if I had to guess what that was, it was most likely that he was struggling because of the risk that came with this decision.

    There was no doubting the benefits that woulde with epting this post, but it would also make him a target. Once he became a target, he and his town would be exposed to danger from other people.

    If this n seeded, he would be one of the highest ranking people as Count Zwein''s aide, so there was no doubt that the other nobles would want to take him down to advance their own positions.

    After a long silence, Viscount Henry turned to look at his wife, but he saw that she just shook her head in response.

    It was as if she was saying, "Just do what you think is right."

    It was clear that there was arge amount of trust between the two of them.

    Viscount Henry looked down for a bit longer as if he was sorting out his thoughts before finally looking up and saying, "I ept your offer."

    I immediately revealed a wide smile and said, "Good."

    Then without hesitation, I stood up and walked over to Viscount Henry to pat him on the shoulder before saying, "I''m sure that things will be much easier with your help."

    Viscount Henry just gave a firm nod in response.

    But none of that really mattered since the two of us were only side characters in the first ce.

    As soon as they heard that we would be working together, our wives immediately started discussing even more things. There were so many technical terms that itpletely made me dizzy, so I didn''t even bother trying to understand what they were saying.

    Instead, I said to Viscount Henry, "Should we leave them be and go get a drink?"

    Seeing the two of them like this, Viscount Henry gave a nod with a bitter smile on his face.

    The two of us stood up and went back to the banquet while Rose and the viscount''s wife continued their discussion.

    With how focused they were, it seemed like they were about to do something serious.

    I couldn''t help feeling sorry for whoever they would involve in this n.

    The banquet outside was still the same as ever.

    But there was another person that became as popr as the elves and dwarves.

    That person was Haley.

    She was surrounded by the different nobles that all wanted to discuss a deal with her for the ores that we were trading.

    This was the job that I had thrown to her, but it didn''t seem like she was unhappy about this at all.

    Rather, it seemed like I should be feeling sorry for the nobles around her.

    It was clear by the looks on their faces that they werepletely being taken advantage of by her. But there wasn''t anything that they could do since they didn''t have any cards to y.

    If they tried to do anything, they would immediately be stopped by the guards that were standing beside her.

    Not to mention, they knew who was behind her and they didn''t dare do anything to offend me.

    So they could only do their best to negotiate for the best terms that they could get.

    Still, it didn''t seem like it was going well judging by the looks on their faces.

    I just ignored all of this and went over to the bar with Viscount Henry.

    The dwarves that were there waved their hands for us to join them, but I could see that they were really trying to use me as a shield against the nobles that had gathered around them.

    So I just shook my head and gave a look like I was saying, "Enjoy yourselves."

    They looked at me with grim looks on their faces, but they just sucked it up and went back to drinking, doing their best to ignore the humans around them.

    Though one of the dwarves came over to talk to Viscount Henry.

    This was the one that he had befriended earlier.

    Since it was Viscount Henry that he came to talk to and not me, I didn''t mind and let this dwarf join us.

    The other dwarves red at me like they were ming me for ying favourites, but I once again ignored them.

    In no time at all, the three of us were hitting our mugs together and enjoying the alcohol that was being poured for us.

    I didn''t need to worry about my image anymore since I had already yed the role that I was supposed to y. All that was

    left was for everyone else to do their jobs.

    My job as the figurehead was over, so I could sit back and rx.

    By the end of it, I had gottenpletely drunk with Viscount Henry and that dwarf.

    When Rose and Viscount Henry''s wife came out from their discussion, they saw the state that we were in and shook their heads with sighs.

    Rose helped me up and Viscount Henry''s wife helped him up before they took us away.

    Since it was alreadyte, most of the nobles had left.

    There were a few that would be staying in town to further discuss the deal that they had made and to see if they could talk to the dwarves and elves some more.

    Haley came over to help Rose with carrying me and we headed off to the manor.

    Along with them came Viscount Henry and his wife since it would be toote for them to return to their territory now.

    So we would be hosting them in our manor.

    This was the privilege that they received as close friends and now subordinates of ours.

    The other nobles would all have to get their own inns and take care of themselves.

    With this, the first banquet that I held in this world ended.

 Chapter 512 System factory (1)

    <h4>Chapter 512 System factory (1) </h4>

    A few more days passed before all of the nobles left my territory.

    During these past few days, I had been meeting with many of these nobles separately to discuss the finer details of our trade deal.

    These nobles wanted things that went beyond what Haley offered them, so they wanted to negotiate with me directly. Of course, though they were negotiating with me directly, it was still Haley that took care of most of these deals.

    I just showed my face to show support for these deals and make them official.

    In truth, I waspletely bored while sitting through these meetings.

    There was something that I had wanted to do, but I never got a chance to do since I had to sit through all of these meetings.

    But now that all of the other nobles left, I was finally able to take care of this matter.

    Sinceing back with the ores, I had been preparing something with the system.

    I gave the system ores and I had been waiting for the notification that the system had finished the task that I had given it.

    I received this notification right in the middle of the banquet, but I never got a chance with how many meetings I had to go to.

    But now that I was free, I was finally able to go see the results.

    This was a building that was on the edge of the town, in a ce that people rarely went to.

    I had made sure to request a building in an abandoned ce, which had confused Rose and Haley, but they still gave me this building in the end.

    Once I had received this building, I immediately let the system go to work with it.

    In no time at all, the system had transformed this ce into a factory for producing sex toys. This was what the system had been telling me to do the entire time and I had finally taken care of it.

    As soon as the factory was set up, I immediately put in an order and now it was time to pick up the items that I had the system make.

    When I entered the factory and saw all those modern machines inside, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    This really was a ce that couldn''t be shown to others or else I really wouldn''t be able to exin all of these modern machines that were inside of this building.

    I went to the end of the assembly line where I found a box filled with the items that I had the system create.

    The things inside of this box had a very strange shape, but it was one that I was familiar with since it was something that I already had. But unlike the one that the system had given me, these ones seemed a bit weaker.

    It was true, these things were indeed weaker than the one that the system gave me since this was only a level one assembly line.

    With the materials that I had on hand, I wasn''t able to upgrade the assembly line and get better items.

    That was something that I actually felt quite bitter about, but I couldn''t do anything about.

    After all, the material that had been used in the creation of this thing was mithril and other precious ores.

    Just what would I need to get to get a higher level assembly line?

    I couldn''t even begin to imagine what I would need to do¡­

    After being bitter about this for a bit, I turned my attention back to the things that were in the box.

    I picked up one of them and held it in both hands before giving it a swing.

    Feeling the weight of it as I swung down, I gave a satisfied nod.

    This thing seemed even lighter than the one that I had been given by the system, but it still had a good weight to it. It would certainly make a good weapon and I knew just the people to use them.

    Luckily, they were currently in town and practicing, so I could bring this over for them.

    With this, I put the thing in my hand back into the box and then went forward to lift the box up.

    But as I was doing this, I realized that I had made a mistake.

    One of these things wasn''t that heavy, but a box filled with them¡­was quite heavy.

    After all, this was a box of stuff that was made of mithril and other ores, so it was just as heavy as all those ores.

    It was not something that someone as weak as me could pick up that easily.

    It was a good thing that I had the people that I had called along to help me haul things waiting outside.

    The only problem was¡­how would I get it to them without letting them see the production line in this building?

    ¡­

    In a ce not far from the manor, I could hear the sounds of weapons nging and shouting.

    This wasn''t anything dangerous.

    This was just a bit of light sparring.

    Though it did sound a bit more than light sparring.

    But being in this ce again, I couldn''t help feeling a bit nostalgic.

    That was because this was the ce where I had met Cecilia for the first time and then¡­

    I shook my head to throw out that thought before heading towards those sounds.

    In the middle of the training ground, there were two separate groups that were attacking each other.

    It seemed like they were in the middle of a practice session involving groupbat.

    But when they saw me, Cecilia immediately raised her hand and said, "Stop!"

    The knights and guards that had been shing with one another separated from each other and stood on guard.

    With how they looked and how quickly they followed Cecilia''s orders, I could tell that all of them were well trained.

    All of her training had really paid off.

    After stopping them, Cecilia came over and asked, "What are you doing here? Didn''t you say that you had something to do today?"

 Chapter 513 System factory (2)

    <h4>Chapter 513 System factory (2) </h4>

    I pointed at the box that the people behind us were bringing over and said, "I brought a few new weapons that I made over. I want you guys to help me test them out."

    When the guards and knights heard this, their eyes immediately lit up.

    After all, thest weapons that I had brought were the mithril swords forged by dwarves.

    These were priceless treasures that they would never be able to buy on their own, but because of me, they were each able to get a mithril sword of their own.

    So they couldn''t help wondering just what kind of good thing I had brought this time.

    Cecilia also revealed an excited look when she heard this.

    She was just like the others, she was very excited to see what kind of good thing I had brought.

    The only one that had a surprised look was Viscount Henry.

    After he epted bing my subordinate, he had been training with Cecilia and the others every day.

    As expected, his wife was the one that took care of most of their businesses and he had been used as a cover just like me. Everything that he had talked to Rose about when we visited them had been things that his wife had taught him about.

    He wasn''t actually capable of doing any kind of town management, he was just a soldier through and through.

    That was how he had earned his title on the battlefield in the first ce.

    But that meant that he was very useful in training Cecilia and the others.

    Iter learned that even this groupbat exercise was something that Viscount Henry had organized.

    Viscount Henry didn''t know much about me like the others, so he couldn''t help feeling skeptical about the things that I brought.

    Well, he actually didn''t feel skeptical at first.

    It was only when he saw the shape of these things that he couldn''t help revealing a look of doubt.

    These were strange weapons that he had never seen before, so he couldn''t help wondering if they could even function as weapons.

    But the knights and guards didn''t think the same.

    That was because they recognized these things as soon as they saw them.

    They had seen Cecilia use the original before, so it only took a single nce for them to recognize these things and as soon as they recognized them, they couldn''t help revealing even more excited looks.

    They had seen the power that Cecilia had demonstrated after equipping the original. They had also heard Jessica tell them all about how powerful it was after she had the chance to wield it.

    So all of them were looking forward to using this thing.

    Cecilia had a surprised look for a bit before suddenly asking me, "Where did you get all of these? Didn''t you say that you only had one of them?"

    I revealed a mysterious smile as I said, "Well, I have my ways." Then after a pause, I added, "Though they aren''t as strong as the original."

    The box that I brought was filled with long bats, but all of these bats had strange appearances.

    They were very long and the tips of them were rounded, which was strange for a weapon to have.

    But none of the knights and guards look down on these things.

    These were a bunch of dildo bats, only these ones were a bit shorter than The Prator.

    I could see that the knights and guards couldn''t hold themselves back any longer, so I waved my hand at the ones holding the box for them to pass out the dildo bats.

    But before they could, the knights and guards had alreadye forward to take them on their own.

    It seemed that they couldn''t hold back their excitement at all as they swarmed the box and started taking dildo bats for themselves.

    However, with how many knights and guards there were, it didn''t seem like there would be enough for all of them.

    Once all of the dildo bats were taken from the box, the ones remaining that didn''t get one couldn''t help revealing disappointed looks. The ones that had been fast enough to snatch one all revealed sighs of relief at the fact that they had moved fast enough.

    I couldn''t help shaking my head when I saw this and waved my hand at the other group that had been waiting.

    Those people came over with another box filled with dildo bats.

    The moment that the ones that didn''t get one saw this box being brought over, they looked at each other before rushing over without any hesitation. They were afraid of missing out again if this box waspletely taken, so it even seemed like they were about to fight over these dildo bats.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile before waving my hand at another group in the back.

    A third box of dildo bats was brought over for everyone.

    Naturally I wouldn''t make the mistake of only bringing enough for just a few people.

    If I was going to bring these things, I would naturally bring enough for everyone to get one.

    The eyes of the knights and guards all lit up when they saw this, but that didn''t stop them from rushing over to im a dildo bat for themselves.

    When everyone finally got one, there were still plenty of dildo bats that were left in the third box, so there was no need to fight for them anymore.

    As soon as they got their dildo bats, there was no need to fight for them anymore, so they immediately headed off to test these bats.

    All of them had seen the power that Cecilia had when she used The Prator, so they had all wanted to use it for themselves.

    They went off to hit the practice dummies and there were many dummies that were destroyed as a result of this.

    Viscount Henry slowly came over and asked, "What is this strange weapon that you''ve brought?"

 Chapter 514 System factory (3)

    <h4>Chapter 514 System factory (3) </h4>

    I revealed a smile when I heard him ask this before picking up one of the dildo bats and throwing it to him.

    Viscount Henry had no problem catching this dildo bat with his athleticism, but he couldn''t help knitting his brows slightly when he caught it.

    He held it up in front of him, looking at it with a strange look before reaching his other hand up to grab the handle as well and swinging it a few times.

    After swinging it, he couldn''t help revealing an even stranger look as he looked at the dildo bat.

    Seeing him like this, I pointed at one of the dummies on the side and said, "Why don''t you test it for yourself. That should be the best way to see what kind of weapon this is."

    Viscount Henry revealed a surprised look, but then he gave a nod and walked over.

    He tightly gripped the handle with both hands and brought it up over his head.

    When I saw a muscr and serious man like Viscount Henry holding the dildo bat over his head like this, I really couldn''t help wanting tough. But I was able to hold it back by covering my mouth with my hand.

    However, even then, Viscount Henry heard me and turned back to ask, "Count Zwein, is something wrong?"

    I shook my head and said, "No, no, I just choked on my spit a bit."

    Viscount Henry raised a brow to look at me, almost as if he didn''t believe me when I said this. But in the end, he was still drawn by the allure of the dildo bat and turned back to raise it over his head again.

    Then in one quick swing, he brought it down on the dummy in front of him.

    That dummy wasn''t a weak one.

    These dummies that were around the practice field were special dummies that had been made by the dwarves. These were special dummies that were made with refined iron that was much stronger than the straw dummies that they used before.

    But even then, it wasn''t able to resist the swing of the dildo bat at all.

    As soon as the dildo bat made contact with the dummy, there was no resistance at all as the dummy started to cave under the dildo bat.

    The dummy continued to cave until itpletely copsed under this one blow.

    The dummy snapped in half and shattered apart in front of Viscount Henry.

    When Viscount Henry had reacted, he was shocked to see that the dummy had disappeared.

    Then when he looked down at the destroyed dummy at his feet, he couldn''t help being even more shocked.

    He looked down at the dildo bat in his hand before looking back at the dummy scraps left on the ground. Then after all of that, he turned to look at me as if he was asking for an exnation.

    But before I could give one, Jessica suddenly said, "This¡­isn''t it weaker than before?"

    When Viscount Henry heard this, he immediately turned to look at her in shock.

    Jessica was surprised to see Viscount Henry acting like this, but she still turned to me to ask, "My lord, this feels weaker than the time that I used it before."

    Cecilia knitted her brows slightly and came forward to take the dildo bat from her hand as she said, "Really?"

    There was a trace of disappointment and a trace of worry that appeared in her eyes as if she was afraid that Cecilia would take this dildo bat from her, but then Jessica said with a nod, "It definitely feels weaker than the one that I used before."

    Cecilia walked over to one of the free dummies and casually swung down at it.

    When the dildo bat made contact with the dummy, it immediately crumpled under the pressure of her attack and was smashed into the ground.

    But unlike when Viscount Henry did it, it ttenedpletely like it had been smashed by arge hammer and it became a metal pancake on the ground.

    Viscount Henry looked at Cecilia in shock, but she didn''t care as she stared at the dildo bat that she was holding.

    After staring at it for a bit, she looked up at me and said, "It is weaker than before and not just a bit weaker, it''s much weaker."

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I saw what she did to the dummy.

    After giving a silent apology to the dwarves that would have to remake these dummies, I said, "Un, these are the mass produced versions, so they are weaker. They can only double your power."

    Viscount Henry looked at me in shock this time as he repeated, "Double?" Then he said in a loud voice, "It doubles your power and you still consider this weak?"

    We looked at him like he was crazy before nodding in response.

    He looked like he couldn''t understand the world anymore as he looked at the dildo bat in his hand.

    When I said double, that was because these mass produced dildo bats only had a 50% pration effect unlike The Prator which had a 99.9% repeating effect. The Prator made one''s strike infinitely stronger while the mass produced dildo bats only doubled the force.

    After hearing what I said, Cecilia looked down at the dildo bat in her hand and said, "That''s fine, we can just switch these out with the mithril swords when we need to. I''m sure that we can find a way to use these things."

    I gave a nod before saying, "If you ever need more, just tell me."

    I had a factory now, so I could produce as many of these things as I wanted.

    Though there would be an issue with supplies, it wasn''t a real problem since I was trading for ores with the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Cecilia gave a nod before turning to the rest and saying, "Alright, let''s learn how to use these new weapons today."

    To her side, Jessica was still waiting for her to give her the dildo bat back.

    But Cecilia just imed it for herself.

    I shook my head with a faint smile before pulling out another one for Jessica.

    Though it was the same, she just felt that it was different since it wasn''t the one that she had been using before.

    I never would understand warriors and their preferences with weapons.

    To the side, Viscount Henry was still standing there in a daze looking at the dildo bat in his hand.

    I went over to him to pat him on the shoulder before asking, "Are you alright?"

    Viscount Henry snapped out of his daze and immediately turned to me to say, "Count Zwein, is it possible to get these weapons for my soldiers as well?"

    I thought about it before shaking my head and saying, "For now, I''m not nning on giving these weapons to anyone else."

    Viscount Henry revealed a disappointed look before suddenly realizing something, "You said that ''for now'', does that mean in the future¡­"

    He left his words hanging, but I understood what he was implying.

    I just gave a cryptic smile and said, "Who knows?"

 Chapter 515 Dungeon exploration

    <h4>Chapter 515 Dungeon exploration </h4>

    A few more days after bringing the weapons to the knights and guards, we finally had a real chance to test them.

    During this time, there had been many things that we had to take care of, but now things had finally settled once all of the deals had been made.

    The only thing left was to give the goods to everyone and receive the money for said goods.

    Rose would still need some time to prepare the development n for this area with Viscount Henry''s wife, so it would be some time before we started talking to the various nobles and trying to convince them to follow our development n.

    So I had some free time to take care of something that I had been nning to take care of for the longest time.

    In thend that I had received after bing a viscount, there was a dungeon.

    This was a small dungeon, but it was a dungeon regardless.

    It might not have the most monsters or treasures, but it still was a source of items and monster parts for us to farm.

    Plus, if we left it for too long, the monsters might gather in the dungeon for a while before suddenly breaking out and attacking human settlements.

    So it was something that needed to be cleared from time to time.

    Since we had the free time now, I was bringing Cecilia''s group and several mercenaries and adventurers that we hired to clear this dungeon.

    Cecilia and her troops would be the main forces for clearing the dungeon, the mercenaries and adventurers were just there for future prospects.

    After all, we could always build a town near the dungeon for the mercenaries and adventurers to stay in while they hunted in the dungeon.

    That would take care of the problem of clearing out the dungeon in the future.

    At the same time, we would be able to buy the goods from them for a cheap price before selling them to various parts of the kingdom through Haley''swork.

    That was something that Haley had proposed.

    I had felt wrong about taking advantage of them, but I also knew that this was how business worked.

    Buy low and sell high, it was all about supply and demand.

    But before any of that could happen, we would have to first explore the dungeon and see what was inside first before we could set up all of these things.

    That was the main point of this dungeon raid team.

    Though my being here¡­was an outlier.

    In truth, something like this didn''t require the lord toe personally.

    In fact, it was dangerous for the lord toe personally to this dungeon since there was no guarantee that there wouldn''t be anything that woulde out and attack them while they were here.

    The only reason that I was even allowed toe was because¡­I had thrown a fit.

    I had put my foot down and insisted oning.

    It was the first time that they had seen me insist on something like this, so they really didn''t know what to do.

    In the end, they had no choice but to let mee along since I was so insistent oning along.

    But of course, that meant that there were more guards that were sent to watch over me.

    Though judging by the look on their faces, it didn''t seem like they were here to protect me. Rather, it looked like they were very excited to test out the new weapons that they had received.

    But still, I didn''t mind since I wouldn''t miss this no matter what happened.

    This was the chance to explore a dungeon, something that I had always dreamed of doing.

    There were dungeons in the game, but it was nothing like exploring a dungeon with one''s own two feet.

    This was something that one could only experience in a fantasy world like this.

    So no matter how dangerous it was, I would still go.

    After arriving, the first thing that we did was set up the camp outside of the dungeon.

    This ce had already been explored by Shaka''s men, so we knew exactly where to go and where to set up camp.

    With how many people we had, it took no time at all to set up everything.

    Now it was time to decide who would go in first.

    This was the first real problem that we faced since everyone wanted to go in first.

    The mercenaries and adventurers wanted to go in first for the treasure.

    Part of the contract that we had used to hire them was that they would be allowed to keep any treasure that they found to sell privately. So they all wanted to go in first to get first dibs on the treasures.

    Cecilia''s group also wanted to go in first since they wanted to test out the new weapons that they had received.

    I also wanted to go in first, but I knew that it would be impossible because Cecilia would never allow me to do something like this.

    The only willful thing that I could do was be allowed toe along, there was no way that they would let me explore this unexplored dungeon first.

    So I didn''t have hopes of being allowed to go first.

    But I did have the authority to decide who did go first, so they all surrounded me and presented their cases.

    In the end, I decided that they would all go together which they weren''t happy about.

    Cecilia and her troops weren''t happy about going with adventurers and mercenaries since they didn''t trust them.

    The adventurers and mercenaries weren''t happy about going with Cecilia and her troops since they knew that they wouldn''t have the freedom that they would want.

    But this was the onlypromise that I gave them, so they had no choice but to ept it.

    With that, they headed into the dungeon.

    Before they went, I told Cecilia, "Be careful."

    She gave a nod before leading her troops into the dungeon.

 Chapter 516 Bigger than it seems

    <h4>Chapter 516 Bigger than it seems </h4>

    When they came back, they looked much worse than when they went into the dungeon.

    There were many adventurers and mercenaries that were injured, but at the very least they were all able toe back in one piece.

    Cecilia wasn''t injured, but a few of her troops were injured, though they were minor injuries.

    The rest of them were just covered in dirt and grime from what seemed like a messy fight.

    After they received medical attention, I went to find Cecilia to find out what happened.

    "It''s a big mess."

    That was the first thing that she said when I asked her what happened.

    I just revealed a confused look as I waited for her to exin.

    With a sigh, Cecilia said, "The information that we received was wrong. This ce isn''t a small dungeon at all, it''s giant once you get in there."

    I was surprised by this before trying to search my memories of the game for anything like this in the game. But as far as I could tell, there shouldn''t have been anything like this in this area.

    This was supposed to be a beginner area that didn''t have anything like this as far as I could remember.

    So why did this dungeon suddenly appear?

    It had to be that I was affecting the progression with the world since I was someone that shouldn''t have belonged in this world¡­

    This dungeon only appeared after I received my title as a viscount and received thisnd¡­

    Cecilia saw that I was lost in thought, so she waved her hand in front of me and asked, "Are you alright?"

    I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard this and said with a nod, "I''m fine. Tell me what happened in there."

    Cecilia gave a nod before giving a detailed report.

    When they entered the dungeon, everything seemed normal.

    It was a normal cave dungeon that had monsters in it.

    The beginning part was filled with weak monsters like slimes and wolves, but when they went a bit deeper, they found that there were also goblins that were camping in this dungeon.

    Still, these monsters wouldn''t pose a threat to Cecilia''s group.

    They had already be much stronger with their training and new equipment, so goblins were nothing in front of them. That was seen when we had fought that wave of goblins in that valley.

    So it shouldn''t have been these monsters that had caused this mess for them.

    "As we went deeper, I could tell that something was wrong since we had been going in for too long. This was supposed to be a small dungeon, but it felt like we had gone in for quite a while." Cecilia gave a sigh after saying this, as if she was regretting something.

    I went over and patted her on the shoulder, but I was still waiting for her to tell me the rest of what happened.

    After taking a moment to gather herself, Cecilia said, "There were rats that suddenly appeared before I could call for the retreat."

    "Rats?" I repeated in a confused voice.

    Cecilia gave a nod before saying, "It was a horde of rats, tens of thousands of them that suddenly swarmed from deep inside of the dungeon. We did our best with our torches to keep them away, but they just didn''t seem to be afraid of the fire as they charged at us. It was just a good thing that we had our strong shields or else we wouldn''t have been able to stop them."

    As she said this, I couldn''t help turning to look at the shields that the knights and guards had dropped as they went off to clean up.

    These shields had dents in them to my surprise.

    I was surprised to see these dents because these were mithril shields that had been forged by the dwarves, they were much stronger than normal iron and wood shields that they had used before.

    Yet there were dents that had appeared on these shields.

    It could be seen how strong these rats were.

    But Cecilia said, "No, it''s not the rats that made those dents."

    I turned back with a surprised look before saying, "What was it then?"

    With another sigh, Cecilia said, "There were these humanoid rat creatures that appeared that seemed to bemanding the rats. When they gave squeaks, the rats immediately turned in a different direction to attack."

    She also turned to look at the shields that had been ced on the ground and said with a sigh, "The attacks that they made with their fists, it was strong enough to even dent the shields¡­"

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look again.

    They had dented the shield with their fists alone¡­

    I had thought that they had used some kind of special weapon or technique to dent these shields, but it turned out that it was their fists alone that did it.

    That was terrifying.

    One could imagine what would happen to a human head if these fists were to hit one.

    These rat creatures were much more dangerous than they seemed.

    Not to mention, there was more in the dungeon that they didn''t see.

    In the end, Cecilia worked with Viscount Henry to push back these rat creatures.

    They were only able to wound one of them before running away.

    As they ran, they could see that the rat creatures had intelligence as they didn''t chase after them. The humanoid rat creatures had stared at them with wary looks, as if they understood that these humans were dangerous.

    But as they ran back, they ran into another strange mushroom creature that popped up right in the center of their formation.

    That was what had caused most of the injuries to the adventurers and mercenaries.

    Though that mushroom itself wasn''t that strong since Cecilia had been able to easily cut it down.

    When she was finished with her report, Cecilia looked at me and asked, "What do we do now?"

 Chapter 517 Adventurers and mercenaries

    <h4>Chapter 517 Adventurers and mercenaries </h4>

    I didn''t respond when Cecilia asked me this.

    Instead, after thinking for a bit, I said, "Can you gather the representatives from the adventurers and mercenaries? I want to discuss this with them."

    Cecilia was surprised to hear this, but she gave a nod before turning to gather the ones that I asked her to gather.

    During this time, I turned back to look at the dungeon. I didn''t even know what I was looking for, but I just couldn''t help staring at it for a bit.

    After a long silence, I turned around and walked back into the camp.

    I went to therge tent in the middle which was the centralmand tent.

    When I came in, I found that there were people that were already in this tent. The way that they were sitting, it was as if they had been here for a while.

    Though I could see that many of them were injured and covered in bandages. They should have just received treatment.

    They had been talking to each other, but they fell silent when they saw mee in.

    These people that were gathered were the representatives of the mercenaries and adventurers. Though there were far more adventurer representatives than mercenary representatives.

    That was just the difference between the two.

    Mercenaries worked inrge groups while adventurers worked in small groups.

    Adventurers partied up in small groups while mercenaries formedrgepanies.

    So the adventurers sent representatives for each party which was why theypletely outnumbered the mercenary representatives.

    The mercenaries only had three representatives, all of which were the leaders of their ownpany.

    Though one of them really looked like they shouldn''t be here.

    This was a bald headed muscr man who was wrapped up in bandages, showing that he had been seriously wounded. Someone like him should be resting in bed, but here he was sitting in on the meeting.

    There was even a cute red headed girl who was helping him, though it was clear by the look on her face that she wanted him to rest instead.

    But bringing a girl to a meeting like this¡­he really was something else.

    Though I can''t say anything since Cecilia also moved to my side when she saw mee in.

    I walked through all of these adventurers and mercenaries that were all looking at me, as if they were sizing me up.

    I didn''t pay any attention to the gazes from them as I went right to the front of the tent and stood there in front of everyone.

    I turned around, but I didn''t say a thing as I swept my eyes over them.

    At first, the adventurers and mercenaries looked like they looked down on me based on my appearance. However, they couldn''t help looking down when my eyes swept over them as they felt a pressuree over them.

    This was the pressure that I had built up over my time here as a noble.

    Without adapting, it would have been impossible to survive here and going through life and death situations had made me much stronger than before.

    So at the very least, I had enough pressure to threaten these adventurers and mercenaries.

    Seeing them all look down like this, I gave a nod and said, "We will continue exploring this dungeon, that is all that I have to say on this matter."

    All of the adventurers and mercenaries revealed shocked looks when they heard this.

    They had thought that the reason that they had been called like this was to discuss whether they would continue exploring this dungeon or not. They never thought that as soon as the count arrived, he would just say something like this.

    He didn''t even ask for their opinions, he just stated it like a fact.

    The adventurers and mercenaries all hadplicated looks on their faces after hearing this.

    After a while, one of the adventurers finally couldn''t take it and said, "Your lordship, this¡­"

    Before he could say another world, I was already looking at him with narrowed eyes and had put pressure on him.

    That adventurer immediately closed his mouth and lowered his head.

    Adventurers weremoners in the end and even if they were strong, that didn''t mean that they could go against an entire country. So the only thing that they could do was bow down in front of the prestige of a noble.

    After staring him down, I looked at the rest of them and said, "How much?"

    All of the adventurers and mercenaries looked up in shock after hearing this.

    They looked at me with confused looks like they couldn''t understand what I was trying to say.

    I just calmly said, "How much do you want?"

    All of them revealed shocked looks this time, but still not a single person spoke.

    They were hesitating, they didn''t know what the situation was, so they didn''t dare rashly charge in and make a mistake.

    I couldn''t help shaking my head when I saw them like this.

    Simply put, they were overthinking it.

    I was actually about to throw money at them since I knew that money would make this matter go away.

    I had the goddess of wealth Haley on my side, so it wasn''t as if Icked funds to do this.

    It was more important to clear out this dungeon to eliminate any dangers in the future.

    After a long period of silence, it was the adventurer who had spoken earlier who said, "Your lordship, can I ask if you''re serious?"

    I looked at him and gave a simple nod.

    Seeing this, the adventurer then said, "Twenty gold coins?"

    "Thirty it is for everyone." I said with a simple nod before saying, "Any objections?"

    The adventurers all shook their heads when they heard this.

    In the first ce, they were only being paid ten gold coins a group to explore this dungeon and now that had jumped to thirty with just a few words?

    How could theyin about anything?

    It was just too bad that they didn''t know that this was just the first offer that I was willing to make.

    I had been nning to go up to five times the price if they weren''t willing to ept this, but it seemed that I had overestimated these people.

    It seemed that they didn''t have as much ambition as I thought they did.

    Since they were fine with just this, then there was nothing for me to say.

    All of the adventurers and mercenaries revealed excited looks when they heard this, except for one.

    The bald man with the red haired girl.

    He had his brows knitted during all of this, as if there was something that he was displeased with.

    But he was the one that I was the most concerned about since he was the one that was in charge of thergest mercenary group.

    The other two were smaller mercenary groups that could be reced, but it was hard to find a recement for this mercenary group that had over a hundred members. They were basically a small army.

    So I had to do something about this leader of theirs that seemed like he was displeased.

 Chapter 518 Wild Boar Mercenaries (1)

    <h4>Chapter 518 Wild Boar Mercenaries (1) </h4>

    Since this issue had been settled for most of them, there was no need for me to say anything to the rest of them.

    Instead, I walked over to the bald man and said, "How about we have a private conversation?"

    The bald man was surprised to see mee up to him like this, but he slowly gave a nod of agreement.

    The red haired girl helped him up and we walked out of this central tent. We went over to another tent which was my private tent.

    After entering, I gestured for them to sit down before heading over to the stove.

    This stove was a magic item that Haley had given me and it was a very convenient item. Instead of having to light a fire every time to cook something, I could just use the magic stones that she gave me to use this magic stove to cook with.

    I put a pot of water on the stove and let it boil while taking out some cups and tea. I just silently prepared the tea without looking back at my two guests sitting there.

    Only after I finished making this tea did I bring it over and sit down in front of them.

    I could see that they were more anxious after seeing me just boil tea like this, but I didn''t care at all as I poured the tea for them and put the cups in front of them.

    This was all done on purpose.

    I had no idea what had displeased this bald man, but it was never a bad idea to make him unsettled in this situation. It would make it easier for him to let his guard down, giving me the upper hand in these negotiations.

    After I put the cup in front of them, I gestured for them to take a sip before taking my own cup to take a sip of the tea.

    Neither of them took the cup as they just looked at me with the same strange look.

    But I didn''t mind them as I slowly sipped my tea.

    Only after I had finished drinking the tea did I put the cup down and say in a calm voice, "What''s wrong?"

    The bald man was surprised to hear me ask him this directly, but he quickly revealed a serious expression and said, "Your lordship, there is something that I wish to discuss with you."

    This time, it was my turn to be surprised.

    I had never expected him to show this kind of respect.

    I could hear the respect in his voice and I could see that he had no ill intentions at all.

    I had thought that there was something wrong with the way that I had thrown money at the adventurers and mercenaries that had angered him, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    It seemed like it was somethingpletely different.

    I just simply gestured for him to tell me what it was.

    The bald man didn''t speak right away and instead took a deep breath.

    After taking that deep breath, he said, "Your lordship, I wish to bring our Wild Boar Mercenary Group under you."

    Not only me, even the red haired girl was surprised when she heard this.

    It seemed that he hadn''t even discussed this with her, so I doubt he had discussed this with the rest of his mercenary group.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at this bald man as I tried to remember something¡­

    This bald man was the leader of the Wild Boar Mercenaries and his name was¡­Gunther.

    Right, it was Gunther.

    And the red haired girl beside him was Cindy, but she wasn''t just a simple girl.

    She was the mage of their Wild Boar Mercenaries.

    A mercenary group that could even have a mage among them, they definitely weren''t a small group.

    So why would they suddenly want to join me?

    No, it wasn''t as if they wanted to join me, it was just the leader that wanted to join me.

    I didn''t know if he could speak for the rest yet.

    I didn''t answer Gunther''s question and turned to look at Cindy to say, "Does he speak for the rest of you?"

    Gunther was caught off guard by my question, but he didn''t say anything.

    He didn''t even turn to look at Cindy since he knew that this would just affect her decision.

    Cindy looked at me when I asked this question before looking back at Gunther and then back at me. Only after all of this did she slowly give a nod.

    She didn''t say anything, but that nod was more than enough to give an answer.

    At the very least, it seemed that the members of this Wild Boar Mercenary Group trusted their leader quite a bit.

    But there were still doubts that I had about this.

    After getting this confirmation from Cindy, I turned back to look at Gunther without saying a word.

    I narrowed my eyes as if I was sizing him up.

    Gunther couldn''t help flinching at first when he saw me look at him like this, but then he turned to face my gaze head on without any fear.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit of praise for him when I saw him face me like this.

    At the very least, this was a man that had the courage to stand by his decisions.

    Still, there was a part of me that couldn''t understand why he was doing this.

    Since I couldn''t understand, there was no reason trying to force out an understanding.

    I looked at Gunther and simply asked, "Why?"

    Gunther was surprised to hear this, but that didn''t mean that he didn''t understand what I was talking about.

    He looked at me with a cautious look before asking, "May I ask something before giving my answer?"

    I was caught off guard by this, but I gave a nod of agreement.

    "The weapons that your knights used, were they provided by your lordship?"

 Chapter 519 Wild Boar Mercenaries (2)

    <h4>Chapter 519 Wild Boar Mercenaries (2) </h4>

    I slightly narrowed my eyes when I heard this.

    I looked at Gunther with a cautious look, as if I was trying to see something from his expression.

    But no matter how I looked at him, it didn''t seem like he had any other intentions in asking this question.

    It seemed like he was indeed just asking this question just for himself and no one else.

    So after a long silence, I gave a nod and said, "That''s right, I''m the one that provided those weapons."

    When Gunther heard this, his eyes immediately lit up and he said, "I knew it, it could only be the famous count that could provide those amazing weapons."

    I raised a brow with a confused look when I heard this.

    Gunther saw this and exined, "In our world of mercenaries, we''ve long heard of the count who can bring out all kinds of strange weapons and items. We''ve heard of all the amazing things that you''ve done and¡­"

    He paused for a bit as if he was hesitating to say what he wanted to say, but her still said in the end¡­

    "I''m your fan."

    "Huh?" That was all that I could say when I heard him say this.

    It seemed that this wasn''t something that even his subordinate expected as Cindy looked at him with a shocked look.

    I just looked at him with a strange look for a bit as he looked at me with a look of admiration.

    Out of all the ways that this could have gone, this definitely was not how I had expected this to go.

    After a long silence, I gave a cough and said, "Ke, thank you for this, but I don''t think that this is enough for you toe under me, right? I''m sure that there''s another reason why you want to join me, right?"

    Gunther slowly gave a nod in response to this.

    After looking at me for a bit, he said, "I know that someone like you isn''t destined for small things. I know that being under you will bring merge benefits in the future. So I want to fall under you while you''re still small enough for someone like me."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at Gunther again as if I was trying to figure out if he was being serious or not.

    To be honest, I couldn''t tell if he was a gambler or just smart.

    In a sense, what his words were saying were correct.

    Though I didn''t have any ambition to raise my own position, it seemed like I really had no choice since the people around me had ideas for me. Even without trying, I kept raising up the ranks.

    I knew that it was impossible to stop this, so it was better to increase my strength as much as possible while I could.

    It wasn''t a bad thing to take Gunther and his Wild Boar Mercenaries under us, but I was just worried that he wasing under me for some bad reason.

    After staring at him for a bit, I said, "What are you looking for under me?"

    Gunther revealed a serious look as he said, "Being a mercenary is a dangerous job. I just hope that we will be able to obtain stability by falling under your lordship."

    I could tell that there were some heavier emotions that were in his voice as he said this.

    It resonated with Cindy as she also revealed aplicated look after hearing this.

    It was clear that being a mercenary wasn''t that easy.

    In fact, it seemed like it was something that was much harder than one thought and didn''t give them as much freedom as one would imagine.

    Stability was something that all humans looked for, so it wasn''t strange that they would want a stable life as well.

    Since that was the case, then should I help them and get their gratitude?

    After thinking for a long time, I said, "For now, let''s just do it on a trial basis."

    Gunther and Cindy were both confused when they heard this as Gunther said, "Trial basis? What does that mean?"

    I looked at him with serious eyes as I said, "You suddenly asked toe under me, does that not seem suspicious to you?"

    Gunther revealed an awkward look before slowly giving a nod.

    Even if he wanted to fall under Count Zwein, he wouldn''t just lie about this. This was a fact that couldn''t be denied, so he had to admit that it was true.

    Seeing this nod, I continued, "Since there is that suspicion, but I still want you under me, naturally we''ll do this on a trial basis. You will fall under Cecilia''s control, but you will still maintain your identities as mercenaries. In a sense, it will be as if you signed a personal contract with me as your employer."

    Gunther was surprised to hear this, but he quickly asked, "What are the terms of the contract? How much will be the rpense?"

    I wasn''t offended by this at all since I could tell that he was a leader that cared about his people.

    In a sense, it was his selfish request to join under me, so he couldn''t endanger the livelihoods of his people for this selfish request.

    Even if it was on a trial basis, he would make sure that he would get proper payment for his people.

    I waved my hand and said, "It''ll be done ording to the normal rate and if you have any requests, you can talk to Haley when we go back. If you aren''t satisfied with anything, you''re free to leave."

    Gunther bit his lip when he heard this, but he still gave a nod in the end.

    With that, I reached my hand out towards him and said, "Then will you ept my offer?"

    Gunther looked at Cindy onest time and seeing that she gave him a nod of affirmation, he reached his hand out to take mine.

    I said with a smile, "Then to a happy cooperation."

 Chapter 520 What are you doing here?

    <h4>Chapter 520 What are you doing here? </h4>

    A week passed after that.

    We could have gone back into the dungeon, but I didn''t take that risk.

    After what had happened, I wasn''t certain that it would be a good idea for us to go in without some extra supplies, so I sent someone back to town to pass on the message.

    With the time that it took to head back to the town and for the supplies toe, a week had passed.

    But when they came, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    That was because there were several faces that I didn''t expect that came with these supplies.

    "What are you doing here?"

    The ones that hade along were Haley, Moon, Veronica, and Elsa along with some elves and dwarves.

    Haley was the first one to answer this, "You said that you discovered an evenrger dungeon, so of course I would be here. I need to be here to appraise all of the items that you bring out so we can sell them properlyter."

    As she said this, there was an excited look that was in her eyes like she had discovered a treasure.

    I couldn''t help shaking my head when I saw this, but I knew that this would have happened if she heard this.

    So I was more surprised to see the others here.

    Moon just calmly said, "A bigger dungeon means more monsters and that means danger for us elves as well. So we''re here to see what the new dungeon is like."

    As for Veronica, I didn''t even bother asking her what she was here for since I could already guess.

    She was just here to watch the fun, so there was nothing to really ask her.

    After all, it wasn''t as if I would actually let her in the dungeon.

    Though she did pout her lips when she saw that I ignored her.

    I looked at Elsa and she said, "There might be new materials in the dungeon, so we''re here to see if there''s anything that we can use for our forging."

    It seemed that all of them hade with excuses prepared already and there was nothing that I could do in the face of these excuses.

    Or rather, I was d that they were here.

    Well, there were a few that I wasn''t d were here, but I was d that the elves and the dwarves were here.

    The elves and the dwarves were powerful in their own rights and they would definitely be helpful in exploring this dungeon. As long as they were willing to cooperate with us, it would help us while exploring this dungeon.

    So I looked at Moon and Elsa and said, "Are you alright with following a human''s orders while exploring the dungeon?"

    Both of them looked at each other and looked at the other elves and dwarves before turning back to give a nod.

    If they weren''t alright with this, they wouldn''t havee to my town in the first ce.

    Since they knew that this was a dungeon in my territory, they would need to cooperate with me to explore it. Cooperating with me meant working with the humans, but they already had experience with this because of their time spent in my town.

    Seeing that they were willing, I gave a nod and then had Cecilia guide them away.

    She would make sure that they would understand the formation that she had prepared and would be able to work with them properly.

    I didn''t need to get involved in this matter.

    I didn''t need to worry about Haley either since she was here for one reason and she was already getting down to it.

    She went over to the supplies tent and was going to evaluate the items that we had already gotten from the dungeon.

    With her eyes, I didn''t need to worry about her.

    The only thing that I needed to take care of now was Veronica.

    She had snuck off ande here with their group, but she was still the daughter of a duke.

    This ce was a dangerous ce that she shouldn''t havee to and she definitely wouldn''t be participating in the dungeon.

    So I simply said, "I''ll send two guards to watch over you. You will stay in the camp and not go into the dungeon."

    Veronica immediately wanted toin, but I wouldn''t listen this time.

    This was too important to y around, so I couldn''t let her mess things up here.

    Seeing the serious look on my face, it was as if she was crestfallen.

    But at the very least, she understood that I wasn''t joking.

    So I had the two guards take her to one of the tents and had another guard prepare a batter tent for her as a guest.

    As for me, I went over to where Cecilia was instructing Moon and Elsa.

    Once I came over, I asked, "What''s the n?"

    Cecilia was surprised to see me ask this, but she gave a simple exnation of the n.

    However, before she could finish, I said, "No, give me the real n. I''m going in with you."

    As soon as I said this, it was like a bolt of lightning had fallen down.

    Cecilia, Moon, and Elsa immediately all tried to talk me out of this, but I wouldn''t listen at all.

    I couldn''t help being surprised by Moon and Elsa trying to convince me otherwise.

    It was normal for Cecillia to try and talk me out of this as one of my wives, but Moon and Elsa didn''t have a reason to.

    However, I wouldn''t budge on this matter.

    I just simply said, "You''ve seen all the things that I have done, you should understand what I''m capable of. Since that''s the case, you should just let me go in with you all."

    Then as if to add the cherry on top, I said, "I do have some tricks that I''ve been saving."''

    Cecilia hesitated for a long time, but she agreed in the end.

    Just like that, I was heading into the dungeon.

 Chapter 521 Dungeon exploration (1)

    <h4>Chapter 521 Dungeon exploration (1) </h4>

    The team that went into the dungeon this time waspletely different from before.

    We were fully equipped and there were elves and dwarves that came with us.

    If this team were to show up anywhere else, one might even think that they were an invasion force with how well armed we were.

    But this was all to deal with this dungeon.

    Just like Cecilia had reported, there was nothing special when we entered the dungeon.

    After going forward for a bit, we met the slimes that they had encountered before.

    This was something that was easy to deal with, so we didn''t break formation as we just let the adventurers take care of them.

    The adventurers were happy to do so since easy to kill monsters were always wee. It helped that these slimes were also worth quite a bit.

    The slime that they released was a lubricant that the nobles enjoyed using.

    As for what they used them for¡­it was better not to say.

    Still, Haley would happily buy the slime from these slimes to sell, so she had already given a price to the adventurers that made them happily charge at the slimes.

    As the adventurers cleared out the slimes, we didn''t push any further as we remained in formation.

    My position in the formation was in the center, where it was the safest. But from this ce, I wouldn''t be able to see a single thing with everyone surrounding me like this.

    So I went forward to the edge of the formation.

    When Cecilia saw me moving, she quickly came forward to stop me and asked, "What are you doing?"

    I looked at her with a calm look and said, "I''m going to take a look at the walls. I want to see if I can find anything from them."

    Cecilia looked like she wanted to stop me, but then it was as if she realized something that stopped her from stopping me.

    She looked at me for a bit before slowly giving a nod.

    Seeing this, I started walking towards the wall.

    The guards and knights that were around me saw this and couldn''t help looking at Cecilia with strange looks. But in the end, she gave a nod to them that made them move aside for me.

    But they also made sure to follow close to me as I went over to the wall.

    They werepletely on guard, so they would react as long as anything happened.

    However, it was just a simple walk over to the wall, so there was nothing that could happen.

    When I came up to the wall, I reached out my hand to tap it before rapping it with my knuckle, as if I was trying to find something. After tapping it a few times, I couldn''t help knitting my brows and moving closer to the wall to take a closer look.

    Cecilia could tell that this wasn''t normal, so she came over to ask, "What''s wrong?"

    I didn''t answer as I leaned up against the wall, putting my face almost right up against it as I looked at the wall carefully.

    I even turned to move my ear closer as I rapped it again with my knuckle.

    Finally, after a long silence, I finally said, "Come here and take a listen."

    Cecilia had a confused look on her face, but she still came over to the wall where I was standing.

    I had her put her ear up to the wall and rapped it again with my knuckle.

    Cecilia revealed a confused look as she didn''t understand what I was doing.

    Seeing this, I finally said, "Can''t you hear that it''s hollow?"

    "Huh?" Cecilia couldn''t help saying before bringing her ear up to the wall again. This time, she rapped it with her hand as well and her expression quickly changed.

    It was clear that she heard what I was talking about.

    I didn''t mind it as I said, "It seems that there''s some kind of space behind these walls."

    Cecilia and the others who were standing around me all revealed shocked looks.

    Cecilia narrowed her eyes to look at the wall again before taking out her weapon and saying, "Should I try to break it then?"

    I stroked my chin thoughtfully before slowly giving a nod and taking a step back.

    Cecilia brought out the dildo bat and she swung hard against the wall, but she wasn''t able to make a single dent.

    This was with the dildo bat that had 50% pration to it, so it was easy to imagine just how hard this wall was.

    Cecilia revealed a surprised look before going in for another swing.

    But before she could, I stopped her by saying, "Alright, there''s no need for that. There''s no knowing what we might stir from hitting it randomly like this."

    Cecilia had an unhappy look, but she stopped in the end.

    She came back to me and asked, "What should we do about this?"

    I said with a shrug, "What can we do about this? Unless we can break through the wall, it isn''t as if we can reach whatever is behind it. So there''s no point in staying here and worrying about this. We should at least go in and see what the rest of this dungeon is like."

    Cecilia didn''t answer right away, but she did give a slow nod after a while.

    Though there was a clear unhappy look that was still on her face.

    In truth, there was something that I knew that could have worked.

    While the dildo bats only had a 50% pration effect, the original had a 99% pration effect.

    So if the original was used, it was very likely that the wall would have been broken.

    But I kept quiet about this since I didn''t want that to happen.

    It might seem contradictory, but I didn''t really want to break through the wall.

    This ce had clearly been made by someone, but I had no idea who that person was or what they wanted to do.

    All I knew was that this ce was dangerous, so it was best not to poke around too much.

 Chapter 522 Dungeon exploration (2)

    <h4>Chapter 522 Dungeon exploration (2) </h4>

    It didn''t take the adventurers long to clear out the slimes that were gathered in front of the entrance.

    These were slimes, they weren''t that powerful in the first ce.

    When they returned, they all had happy looks on their faces.

    But those happy looks quickly disappeared when they saw the sour look that was on Cecilia''s face.

    They couldn''t help feeling worried that they had done something wrong, so they quickly took their position in the formation.

    However, that worry didn''te true in the end.

    Cecilia didn''t even bother saying anything to them as she just simply said, "Keep moving forward."

    The adventurers couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief when they heard this, but they did look at Cecilia with a strange look after hearing this.

    It was as if they couldn''t believe what was happening.

    Cecilia had trained them quite harshly these past few days which had caused them to form a slight phobia towards her.

    Now that she had fallen silent like this, it really was strange for them.

    It was a feeling that they couldn''t get used to¡­

    The team continued forward without encountering much trouble.

    Most of the slimes had been taken out by the adventurers earlier and those that appeared were instantly taken out by the guards and knights. There was nothing that stood in their way as they advanced deeper into the dungeon.

    While we were heading deeper, Cecilia suddenly looked at me and said, "If there was a space behind the wall, does that mean that someone intentionally created this dungeon?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised by this question.

    It wasn''t the content of the question that I was surprised by, but rather that she was asking this question.

    I thought that I had made it clear enough that there was someone behind this dungeon, but it didn''t seem like Cecilia had understood that.

    If I had said it more clearly, would she have acted normally then?

    After all, she had a look on her face that seemed like she had figured out something very challenging after thinking deeply for a long time.

    I just gave a sigh and said, "That''s right."

    Cecilia revealed a look on her face almost as if she was proud of herself for figuring this out.

    Seeing this, I really didn''t know what to say.

    But at the very least, she went back to normal after figuring this out, so I guess that was good enough for now.

    As we continued deeper into the dungeon, Cecilia suddenly said to me, "This is where we were ambushed."

    When I heard this, I immediately focused on the surrounding area.

    But then I couldn''t help asking, "Are you sure that it was here?"

    Cecilia gave a nod in response.

    I looked around again and just couldn''t figure out how she knew that this was the area..

    After all, she said that there was something that came out of the ground, but there were no holes at all here.

    Was it because the dungeon had repaired itself?

    Or was it because this was simply the wrong ce?

    The fact that Cecilia had spent so long thinking about what I had said before to only figure out something that I had already stated did y a factor here.

    But in the end, I trusted what Cecilia said.

    I pulled out an orb and injected some of my mana into it.

    When this orb received the mana, there was a ball of light that came from it.

    This ball of light floated into the air before creating a beam of light that shined down.

    This was a special magic item that I had received from the treasures that the fourth prince gave me. This was a magic item that created a light when injected with mana.

    Though we had torches, that was far from enough.

    This was a cave that wasrge and covered in darkness.

    The torches just gave off a little light that was far from being enough to cut through the darkness.

    That was why I pulled out this magic item.

    When the elves saw me do this, they also started gathering their mana and chanting.

    When they finished, there were several balls of light that appeared around them as well that started shining beams of light in the surrounding area.

    They were using a spell that had the same effect as the magic item that I used.

    Thispletely lit up the surrounding area.

    I gave a grateful nod to the elves before looking around the area.

    There were no holes that showed that something hade from under the ground, but there were some chunks of dirt that were scattered around. This wasn''t a natural spread of dirt, but rather it looked like something had burst out of the ground and had scattered all of this.

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I saw this.

    But before I could do anything else, I suddenly felt something.

    This was a feeling that was faint at first, but then it became stronger and stronger until I felt iting from right beneath us.

    Or rather, it wasing from a certain area right beneath us.

    I could see that the elves also felt the same, but there was no time for us to tell everyone about this.

    The only thing that we could do was¡­

    I immediately controlled the light of the ball to create a spotlight.

    This spotlight shined down on an area that was right in between the mercenaries and the adventurers.

    The elves were confused by this at first, but then they quickly understood what I was doing.

    They controlled their magic lights to do the same as my magic light.

    With all of these lights, a very clear area was marked out where there were some adventurers and mercenaries standing there.

    Seeing this, I quickly shouted, "Move out of the range of the light right now!"

    The adventurers and mercenaries werepletely caught off guard when they heard this.

 Chapter 523 Dungeon exploration (3)

    <h4>Chapter 523 Dungeon exploration (3) </h4>

    But they still had their years of experience to rely on.

    They reacted quickly and didn''t stay in a daze for long.

    After hearing what I shouted, they all jumped out of the circle of light that was cast.

    Right after thest person jumped out, there was something that peeked out of the ground.

    It was the same thing that Cecilia had described to me before.

    There were these mushrooms that suddenly poked out of the ground, but they didn''t seem that dangerous to me.

    They seemed like normal orange mushrooms with white dots on their cap.

    These seemed like normal mushrooms no matter how I looked at them¡­that was until they started to change.

    These mushrooms sprouted out of the ground and then¡­they started to grow in size.

    They continued to growrger andrger until they were the same size as humans.

    Well, they were a bit shorter than humans, just reaching between around three to four feet.

    But that wasn''t the most shocking part.

    The most shocking part was that there were faces that appeared on these mushrooms. They appeared on the stipe of these mushrooms, right under their cap.

    And the weirdest thing was how cute the design of these faces were¡­

    For some reason, these mushrooms seemed familiar to me. It was almost as if I had seen them in some kind of game before¡­

    But now wasn''t the time to think about that since they wereing at us.

    The important thing now was thinking about how to deal with these mushrooms that had suddenly sprouted out of the ground.

    Cecilia was much calmer than me as she said, "Shields up and take formation. Use the arrows and magic spells to pelt them down while keeping them in ce with the shields."

    The guards and knights didn''t hesitate at all as they took their positions.

    They had been well trained by Cecilia, so they knew exactly what to do.

    They split up in two groups with the first group lifting their shields to form a wall in front of the second group, The second group pulled out spears and arrows to aim at the mushrooms that were in the center of the blockade of shields.

    The mushrooms tried breaking free, but they weren''t able to.

    Since what had happenedst time, I had made sure to strengthen the shields with some runes.

    I had nned on keeping these things forter, but it didn''t seem like the time.

    So before heading into the dungeon, I had worked with the dwarves that hade with Elsa to engrave all of the shields that they had brought.

    The shields were able to block the attacks of the mushrooms, but it was all about whether the people holding the shields would be able to resist the brunt of the attack.

    However, Cecilia had also thought about that and had trained them in this situation.

    They were using a two man formation with each shield.

    There was one that was holding the shield and there was one that was holding the one holding the shield. That second person would help bear the brunt of this attack, so they didn''t copse even if the shield could resist the attack.

    With this shield wall, the mushroom monsters werepletely trapped in this one area.

    The arrows rained down on them and the spears stabbed through the gaps of the shield wall.

    The mushroom monsters weren''t able to do a thing as more and more of them fell under these arrows and spears.

    It seemed that everything was about to go well, but then¡­

    The mushroom monsters seemed to realize that there was no way out for them, so they became desperate.

    There were some that started throwing their entire body at the shield wall.

    Based on how much the guards and knights were buckling under the tackle of these mushroom monsters, it was clear that they were quite heavy.

    But they were able to hold on in the end and didn''t buckle under these attacks.

    However, that wasn''t the only thing that the mushroom monsters did.

    There were some that stood in the center that didn''t follow the other mushroom monsters to throw themselves at the wall. It seemed that they were preparing something with the way that they were gathered.

    Cecilia naturally also recognized this, so she said, "Forget about suppressing the ones that are charging, aim for the ones in the center! Take them out before they get a chance to do anything!"

    The archers immediately raised their bows up when they heard this and aimed their arrows at the mushroom monsters in the center of the formation.

    After taking a second to adjust, they released their arrows into the air.

    The arrows flew over the heads of the shield wall and the mushroom monsters tackling said shield wall, perfectly aimed at the mushroom monsters that were in the center.

    But before they could hit them, there were some mushroom monsters that suddenly jumped up in the way of these arrows. They blocked them with their bodies so that not a single one of the arrows wouldnd on the ones in the middle.

    It seemed that they didn''t even care about their lives as they let the arrows pierce right into them.

    This was someone that no one had expected, so no one had prepared a back up to take care of the mushroom monsters in the center.

    This dy was all that they needed to do what they wanted to do.

    The mushroom monsters in the center suddenly bent down as if they werepressing themselves.

    As theypressed themselves like this, they started to shake and there seemed to be some kind of yellow dust that came from the caps on their heads.

    This dust grew more and more dense before they suddenly stood up again and shot that dust into the air.

    As the dust flew into the air, it instantly scattered apart and started to spread in all directions.

 Chapter 524 Dungeon exploration (4)

    <h4>Chapter 524 Dungeon exploration (4) </h4>

    This yellow dust that had been shot into the air, it was the spores of the mushrooms.

    No one knew just what effect these spores would have, but they must have been shot for a certain reason.

    The spores hung in the air for a bit before suddenly falling down towards the shield wall.

    But they couldn''t dodge out of the way since the mushroom monsters were still throwing themselves at the shield wall. They had to keep those shields up or else the entire formation would copse.

    It really seemed like this was headed towards disaster until¡­

    I suddenly shouted at the elves, "Fire spells! Use fire spells to burn away the spores!"

    The elves were caught off guard when I shouted this, but Moon quickly said, "Do it now!"

    As she shouted this, she had already raised her hand and mes had gathered in her palm.

    When they received this order from Moon, the elves no longer hesitated and gathered mes just like Moon had done.

    They quickly fired these mes out as a jet of mes at the spores that hung in the air.

    As the mes made contact with the spores, they immediately burned away the spores. They werepletely incinerated, not even a trace of the spores were left after the mes burned them away.

    But these spores floated everywhere, so it was hard for the me spells to get them all.

    They were able to get most of the spores that floated there in the air, but some of it made it past the shield wall and fell on the guards and knights that were there.

    As soon as they fell onto these guards and knights, they immediately took root.

    The ces where the spores fell, there were mushrooms that formed on their skin.

    It didn''t seem like these mushrooms were doing anything at first, but then the guards and knights that had these mushrooms growing out of them suddenly started to scream in pain.

    The mushrooms had taken root in their skin and seemed to be draining them of their nutrients with the way that the roots wriggled under their skin.

    It seemed that if they were left like this, they would bepletely drained of any life that they had.

    But this wasn''t the time to deal with this since the pain had caused the guards and knights who had been inflicted to be unable to do anything.

    It would have been fine if they were all part of the group that shot arrows, but there was one knight that had been a shieldbearer that had been touched by the spores.

    This single knight copsing created a gap in our shield wall.

    It seemed like the mushroom monsters were about to break through when Cecilia suddenly charged forward.

    She left themand up to me, that was the trust that she had in me. She charged forward to grab that shield and take the ce of the knight that had been infected.

    So the shield wall was able to keep going, but it didn''t seem like it was over yet.

    The mushroom monsters in the center seemed like they were getting ready to go again¡­

    My mind quickly turned when I saw all of this before suddenly shouting, "Send fire down on the mushroom monsters in front of the shield wall. It doesn''t matter if our men get burned a bit, just kill all of the mushrooms in front of the shield wall."

    The guards and knights forming the shield wall revealed bitter smiles when they heard this, but they didn''t let themselves get distracted.

    I looked at Moon and said, "Follow me."

    Moon gave a nod before raising her hand to gather the mes again.

    I also raised my hand and started chanting.

    "mes of this world, gather at mymand and follow my will¡­"

    As I chanted, there were mes that gathered in my hand.

    This was part of what I had learned with the priest.

    Since I had strained my mana using the Orb of the Dead, my mana pool had grown muchrger and I was now capable of using magic.

    I had learned some simple spells from the priest, but I never thought that I would be using them here.

    With Moon, we gathered mes above the mushroom monsters in the center and before they could run away, we let these mes fall down on them.

    The mushroom monsters clearly didn''t expect this as they didn''t dodge out of the way at all.

    The mes were very effective, not just against the spores, but also the mushroom monsters themselves.

    When the mushroom monsters were engulfed in the mes, they werepletely burnt to ashes.

    It was as if as soon as they touched the mes, the parts of them that touched the mes burst into mes as well.

    These mes didn''t discriminate as they quickly spread across the mushroom monsters.

    They even lit each other aze by standing too close.

    The mes jumped from one mushroom monster to another, quickly setting all of them aze.

    When it was over, there were only charred mushroom monsters that were left.

    With this charring, there was a smell that filled the air¡­

    It was the smell of grilled mushrooms¡­

    Though no one would actually dare eat these mushroom monsters.

    But it would be a lie to say that it wasn''t tempting.

    They strangely smelled delicious.

    However, that wasn''t what I was concerned with right now.

    There were still people that had mushrooms growing out of them after all.

    I quickly went over to those people with Moon and she tried to cast a healing spell on it, but it had no effect at all.

    Healing spells would heal injuries, but it wouldn''t remove a parasite like this¡­

    So they tried cutting the mushroom off, but it just grew back right away. And when it grew back, there was what seemed to be a strong suction that came from the roots embedded in the skin that made that person scream out in pain.

    It seemed that these mushrooms were very resilient¡­

 Chapter 525 Dungeon exploration (5)

    <h4>Chapter 525 Dungeon exploration (5) </h4>

    The one that they were operating on was the knight that had been a part of the shield wall.

    Seeing the mushrooms that were growing from his shoulder, this knight revealed a bitter smile and said, "It seems that my time hase. I thought that I was careful enough, but now it seems that I was just fooling myself."

    He turned to the others and said, "Give me some alcohol for the pain and put me out of my misery. I trust that you will all take care of my family after this."

    Everyone around him had conflicted looks when they heard this.

    On one hand, they didn''t want to see him suffering in pain like this, but on the other hand¡­they really couldn''t think of a way to cure this.

    As many of them seemed like they were going to give up hope, there was one that didn''t have the same look of despair as everyone else.

    I had been carefully looking at the mushrooms that were growing from the knight''s shoulder, as if I was trying to find something special about it.

    The way that the roots extended down into the knight, it seemed like it was more than just a parasite. It seemed that it was living and growing, as if the mushroom would be something much bigger if it was left alone.

    Since the mushroom was alive, then it meant that it was able to regrow its cells¡­

    But if that was cut off, would it still be able to regenerate?

    After thinking for a bit, I suddenly pulled out something terrifying.

    Everyone was shocked to see this thing appear.

    Cecilia even asked, "What are you doing pulling that out now? The battle is already over."

    The thing that I had pulled out was Durand.

    All of them were shocked to see this thing appear, but I didn''t care as I came right up against the knight lying on the ground.

    Seeing me bring that sword over, the knight couldn''t help being terrified as he said, "My lord, what are you doing? I know that I asked to be put down, but that sword¡­is just too terrifying!"

    I ignored him as I brought Durand over to his shoulder and with the way that I was holding it, it seemed like I was about to cut him with Durand.

    But before I could, Cecilia suddenly came forward to grab my hand.

    When she did, she couldn''t help wincing as she felt some kind of stinginging from her hand.

    She didn''t know what it was, but she could guess that it wasing from the evil looking sword that I was holding.

    But still, she held firm as she didn''t let me bring this sword down to the knight''s shoulder.

    As she held my hand, Cecilia asked in a calm voice, "What are you doing?"

    Though it was spoken in a calm voice, it was clear that she wouldn''t let me do what I wanted to do unless she approved of it.

    So unless I gave her a proper exnation, she would even go against me.

    I wasn''t surprised or angry, I understood why she was doing this.

    This knight was one of her men, so she had to take care of him.

    It was her duty as theirmander.

    I looked at her and calmly said, "I have a way to save him, but I need to see if it''ll work first."

    Everyone was surprised when they heard this before there were bits of hope that appeared in their eyes.

    Naturally they would want to save this knight if they could, but they had almost given up hope when they had failed with everything that they had tried.

    Now that I had brought back this hope, they naturally wanted to bet on me.

    But Cecilia wasn''t that easily convinced.

    She narrowed her eyes to look at Durand in my hand before looking at me.

    It was clear that she still had her doubts about all of this as she said, "How are you nning on doing that?"

    However, I didn''t bother exining what I was nning to do.

    I knew that it was better to show her what I was doing than to exin it since it would make a morepelling case.

    I looked at her and calmly said, "All I want to do is cut the mushroom with this sword. Once I do, you''ll see what effect it has."

    Cecilia knitted her brows when she heard this.

    When they had tried to cut the mushroom earlier, it had caused indescribable pain to the knight, so it wasn''t something that she wanted to do again¡­

    But there was no better solution right now, so she started to hesitate.

    The knight was the one that made the decision in the end.

    "I want to try it."

    Everyone was surprised to hear him suddenly say this.

    Cecilia looked down at the knight as if she was trying to make sure that he was certain of this, but the knight just gave a firm nod.

    With that, she released the hand that was holding the hilt of Durand, but she also didn''t move away. She made sure to stay right behind me just in case anything happened.

    Since I had been given the go ahead, I brought Durand up and put it right against the stalk of the mushroom.

    Then in one swift motion, I brought the sword forward to cut the top part of the mushroom off.

    When that happened, the knight immediately braced himself as he felt the roots inside of his skin start to move. It seemed like the same thing as before would happen where the roots would start draining him of his life essence to regrow the mushroom.

    When Cecilia saw this, she immediately narrowed her eyes to re at me.

    However, I just ignored this as I waited to see what happened next.

    In the end, the mushroom roots stopped shaking and settled again.

    The top of the mushroom didn''t grow back.

    It was as if there was something that was inhibiting it.

 Chapter 526 Dungeon exploration (6)

    <h4>Chapter 526 Dungeon exploration (6) </h4>

    I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief when I saw this happen.

    It had only been a theory that I had, but seeing that it actually panned out was definitely something to feel relieved about.

    After all, if I had killed this loyal knight under me because of a mistake, then I really wouldn''t be able to live it down.

    Luckily, my guesses had been correct.

    Durand really was able to inhibit the growth of the mushrooms that sprouted on their skin.

    This was because of the special effect of Durand.

    As a cursed sword, naturally Durand had special effects that it inflicted when it was used to cut things.

    One of those effects was its bleeding effect.

    When Durand cut things, it would inhibit the wound from closing, causing the person to keep bleeding unless they did something to dispel the curse.

    So this was the effect that I used against the mushroom.

    Since it prevented it from healing, the mushroom stopped trying to regrow the part that it had lost and went dormant instead of sucking more nutrients out of the knight.

    With this smaller mushroom to support, it should have sucked even less nutrients from the knight now.

    But to make sure, I asked, "How are you feeling now?"

    The knight looked up at me and gave a slow nod before saying, "It isn''t as painful as before and it feels like I''ve gained a bit of my strength back, but it still feels like it''s draining the energy out of me."

    I gave a nod as if I had already expected this.

    After all, I had only cut the top part of the mushroom and hadn''t dealt with the base of the mushroom that was still parasitizing him. Topletely solve this problem, I would have to pull out the roots of the mushroom as well.

    But right now, this was a good stopgap measure.

    At least they wouldn''t die before I had a chance to figure out how to treat them.

    I suddenly stood up and was about to head off, but the knight asked in a panic, "My lord, where are you going? Are you just going to leave these things inside of me?"

    I looked back at him and said, "You''re stable for now, but there are others who are in the same condition. I''m going to cut off their mushrooms as well and then I''lle back to you."

    When everyone heard this, they realized that I was right.

    He wasn''t the only one that was affected by this, there were others that were suffering as well.

    The knight slowly gave a nod when he heard this.

    I just looked at all of them and said, "Bring the ones affected over here so it''s easier for me to cut."

    In no time at all, everyone infected was brought over to where I was and they were ced on the ground in front of me with their mushrooms revealed.

    With a few quick strokes, I was able to cut off the mushrooms and stabilize their conditions.

    After letting out a deep sigh over the fact that no one would be dying soon, I turned my attention back to the knight.

    I came right up in front of the part of the knight that was infected and looked carefully at the mushroom parts that were left. Or rather, I was looking carefully at the skin of the knight, looking at the roots that were wriggling under his skin.

    The knight had an anxious look as he watched me look at him in silence.

    In the end, the knight couldn''t take it and said, "My lord, can you save me or not?"

    Though this was a bit rude, it was understandable since this was his life that was on the line.

    It was normal for him to be a bit agitated.

    I slowly stroked my chin and said, "I should be able to, but¡­"

    I left my words hanging as if I was hesitating to say the next part.

    The knight knitted his brows and asked, "But what?"

    I looked at him with a look of pity and said, "You''ll have to suffer a bit if you want to be saved."

    The knight was surprised to hear this, but then he gritted his teeth to say, "Pain is nothing. I''ll endure it all as long as I can live."

    I gave a nod as I said, "Alright, you''re the one that said it. I''ll do it then."

    I looked at two of the knights on the side and said, "Hold him down."

    The knights were surprised to hear this, but they quickly moved forward to hold the infected knight down.

    The infected knight was about to say that this wasn''t necessary, but he felt a chill run down his spine when he saw meing towards him with Durand held up.

    "What are you¡­AH!"

    In one swift motion, I used Durand to cut off the part of his skin that was infected by the roots of the mushroom.

    It was arge patch of skin that was cut off and there was a lot of blood that came out.

    It wouldn''t be surprising if he died of blood loss with how much blood was spurting out.

    But I wasn''t finished yet as I used Durand to cut even more of the knight''s skin off.

    Finally, when I was done, I reached out with one hand and ced it on the part of the knight that I had cut off.

    That part had still been bleeding this whole time, which was the effect of being cut by Durand.

    However, when I put my hand on it, the bleeding stopped.

    That was because there was a pair of wings on my hand that suddenly lit up when I ced that hand on the gaping wound.

    Slowly, the bleeding stopped, though one could still see the torn flesh of his body.

    But at the very least, there wasn''t a single root left inside of his body.

    It had all been cut out by me.

 Chapter 527 Dungeon exploration (7)

    <h4>Chapter 527 Dungeon exploration (7) </h4>

    After making sure that all of the roots had been cut out, I turned to one of the elves and said, "Can you cast healing magic on him? Make sure to close up the wounds."

    The elves looked at me with looks of terror when they saw me looking at them which made me feel very strange.

    I looked at the others and found that they were looking at me with the same look.

    Still, I ignored them in the end and wiped the sweat off my face with my free hand before patting the knight and saying, "You''re fine now. Just get patched up and you''ll be fine."

    The knight didn''t hear me since he had already passed out from the pain and shock.

    Even with how strong he was, he wasn''t able to endure all of this in the end.

    I didn''t care as I stood up and walked to the next patient.

    But before I could, Cecilia suddenly came forward to stop me.

    I thought that she was going to stop me since she was worried about me, but it turned out that this wasn''t the case. Instead of stopping me, she just simply raised a handkerchief for me.

    I was confused at first until I realized what it was for.

    It was simply because I was covered in blood.

    It wasn''t my own blood, but the blood of the knight.

    When I wiped my hand on my face earlier, the blood that had been on my hand had also been smeared on my face. With blood all over me like this, it really created a terrifying image that people couldn''t help giving strange looks towards.

    That was why everyone had looked at me like that earlier.

    So I took it with an awkward smile and then wiped my face and the other parts of my body smeared with this blood. Once the blood was off, Cecilia actually pulled me to the next patient.

    It seemed that she was even more anxious than me about all of this.

    But then again, that wasn''t strange since she was themander this time.

    She was responsible for all of their lives and if they died under hermand, she would feel responsible.

    As the goodmander that she was, Cecilia would naturally do all that she could to save them.

    As such, I would go all out to support her.

    So without any hesitation, I started operating on the next person.

    One by one, I cut through their skin and dug out the roots.

    I had to make sure not to cut too deep, but I was able to do it in the end.

    When it was all over, all of the people that had been infected by the mushroom spores had the mushrooms cut off and they were all healed up. The only problem was that their faces were a bit pale from all of the blood that they lost, but that was a problem that could only be healed with time.

    We just had to let them rest to recover.

    We also made sure to monitor them just in case there were more mushrooms that sprouted, but it seemed like there wouldn''t be any other mushrooms sprouting.

    It seemed that we had passed the danger zone and they were all fine now.

    I let out a long sigh of relief seeing that they were all fine now and that was when my leg crumpled under me.

    It wasn''t just the patients that had been suffering, I had also been doing all that I could to help cure them. This required arge amount of energy and focus, so I waspletely drained now that it was over.

    As I fell, Cecilia suddenly came forward and grabbed a hold of me to stop me from falling.

    As she held me up, she couldn''t help asking with a concerned look, "Are you alright?"

    I said with a nod, "I''m fine, just a bit tired."

    Cecilia still had a concerned look on her face as she asked, "What should we do now? Do we leave this ce?"

    I said with a shake of my head, "No, there''s no need to leave. We can just rest up in this area."

    Cecilia immediately wanted to say something, but I cut her off by saying, "Just gather the mushroom corpses and ce them in a boundary around us. It''ll stop the monsters froming over."

    It had taken a long time to cure all of them and during this time, it wasn''t as if monsters would stop attacking us. So there were monsters that charged at our line this whole time and the others had been pushing them back.

    During this, I had noticed that the monsters that approached us seemed to avoid the corpses of the mushroom monsters on the ground.

    It was as if they were afraid of them.

    Cecilia looked at me with a doubtful look, but as if to prove my point, there were several monsters that suddenly came over.

    It was the same slimes that we had fought before.

    It would be easy for the adventurers to deal with them, but I said, "Just bring the mushroom monster corpses over and you''ll see for yourself."

    Cecilia still looked at me with a look of doubt, but she chose to do it in the end.

    She had a few of the adventurers bring the mushroom monster corpses over to form a line in front of these slimes.

    The adventurers looked like they didn''t want to do it, but when Cecilia wanted something done, they only had a single choice.

    So the adventurers could only grumble a bit before picking up the mushroom monster corpses and bringing them forward. The way that they held the corpses made it clear that they were afraid of being infected by touching these corpses, but that couldn''t be med on them.

    In the end, they were able to bring the mushroom monster corpses forward to form a line in front of the slimes.

    When the slimes encountered this line, they¡­

 Chapter 528 Dungeon exploration (8)

    <h4>Chapter 528 Dungeon exploration (8) </h4>

    The slimes immediately stopped in ce and didn''t continue forward.

    They bounced up and down in front of the line of mushroom monster corpses as if they were hesitating about approaching, but in the end, they turned to leave.

    It seemed like they had decided that it wasn''t worth it.

    Seeing this, Cecilia''s eyes lit up and she immediately ordered the rest of the adventurers to bring the mushroom monster corpses to create a line.

    The adventurers had also seen what had happened, so they didn''t hesitate to follow her orders this time.

    Even the mercenaries and the knights helped them since they could all see the effect that the mushroom monster corpses had.

    While they prepared this, I sat down and took a deep breath as I tried to recover the energy that I had spent during all of this.

    Cecilia came over with some food and water in hand for me before sitting down beside me and looking at me with a worried look.

    During this, Elsa and Moon also came over with the same worried looks.

    I just waved my hand to show that I was fine, but in truth, I was so tired that I couldn''t even say words anymore.

    It helped to get some food and water in me, but I definitely needed some sleep before I could do anything.

    So Cecilia said, "I''ll keep guard. Just don''t worry about it and go to sleep."

    Seeing her filled with energy like this, I gave a nod and went to sleep.

    But before I could fall asleep, I felt something suddenly grab hold of my head.

    When I opened my eyes, I saw Cecilia''s face right above mine.

    She was lifting my head up and putting her thighs right under them before saying, "This is the best position to make sure that you''re safe."

    The way that she said this, it was almost as if she was making an excuse.

    However, I could see the blush that was on her face.

    It seemed a bit hard for her to do this, but she did it for my sake.

    I just gave a nod with a smile before closing my eyes again.

    I didn''t see that Elsa and Moon were both looking at Cecilia with envious looks.

    That sleep was actually much better than I thought it would be.

    Even though Cecilia''s legs were a bit hard, those soft thighs still cuddled my head and provided me withfort better than the best pillows.

    It was as if I was sleeping on clouds.

    When I woke up, I found that a small camp had been set up.

    The adventurers and mercenaries were the ones that did this since they were used to camping out like this.

    The line of mushroom monster corpses that had been ced there weren''t disturbed at all. It seemed that there hadn''t been any problems with the monsters with this line in ce.

    After I woke up and got some more food and water in me, I gathered the leaders of the various groups together.

    We had to discuss what we were going to do now.

    Once everyone gathered, I said, "We should keep going forward. If we leave now, we won''t have another chance like this."

    Everyone knitted their brows when they heard this, but it didn''t seem like there was anyone that disagreed with me.

    After all, everyone knew how dungeons worked.

    If we left this dungeon, it would take us a while to prepare for another raid.

    During this time, it would be very likely that these mushroom monsters would spawn again since this was a dungeon.

    If we let them spawn again, it would mean having to fight through them once more. At the same time, there was the chance that these mushroom monsters would suddenly mutate during their respawn.

    This wasn''t very likely, but it wasn''t something that could be ruled out.

    So even if we had injured people, the best solution was to keep going since they were still able to fight.

    Everyone remained silent after I gave this proposal and the one that broke the silence was Cecilia.

    "It''ll be harder since we have casualties. If we keep pushing forward like this, we might all get wiped out. There''s no knowing what is in front of us."

    Though she agreed with me, she had no choice but to present the opposition since she was the leader of this expedition. Everyone''s lives were in her hands, so she had to at least consider the other side.

    It wasn''t that she didn''t want to go forward, it was just that without something to change the tide, she didn''t think that they would be able to make it through those rat humanoid monsters.

    I gave a nod in response since I had already expected this, but I had alsoe up with a solution.

    Or it could be said that I had prepared a secret weapon.

    I knew that forcing everyone forward wouldn''t have any benefits, so the only way to convince them to go forward was to show them something that they could have faith in.

    So I pulled out a certain orb that I had stored away in the system''s inventory all this time.

    When this orb appeared, Elsa and Moon, who were more sensitive to magic, immediately frowned as they looked at the orb in my hand.

    The look on their faces seemed like they were disgusted with the orb that I was holding.

    Of course, I could understand why they felt that way.

    This orb that I was holding, it was the Orb of the Dead that I had looted from the demon back in Bright Water City.

    I had kept it hidden the entire time since I hadn''t been able to use it, but after my lessons with the priest, I was now able to use magic to a certain extent. With my skills, I would be able to pull out some of the powers of this Orb of the Dead.

    So with this orb in hand, I walked over towards the line of mushroom monster corpses.

 Chapter 529 Dungeon exploration (9)

    <h4>Chapter 529 Dungeon exploration (9) </h4>

    After reaching the line of mushroom monster corpses, I raised the Orb of the Dead in front of me.

    Everyone looked at me with confused looks, except for Elsa and Moon who had dark looks on their faces.

    It seemed like they could recognize the kind of magic that I was about to use.

    Holding the Orb of the Dead up in front of me, there was this ck energy that came from it that fell down into the mushroom monster corpse in front of me. This ck energy quickly seeped into the mushroom monster corpse and in no time, itpletely disappeared without a trace.

    If one hadn''t seen it, they wouldn''t have known that it had been there.

    But it didn''t seem to have an effect on the mushroom monster corpse as it justid there.

    That was until there was movement that came from the mushroom monster corpse.

    It was the stem of the mushroom that suddenly trembled.

    This stem moved a bit before helping the mushroom monster stand up.

    When they saw it stand up, everyone immediately raised their weapons as if they were prepared to attack. However, I just raised my hand for them to stop, though I didn''t look back to see if they actually stopped.

    The mushroom monster slowly stood up and turned around to face us, or rather it turned to face me.

    It looked at me for a bit before suddenly bouncing forward towards me.

    When Cecilia saw this, she immediately came forward to stand in front of me as if she was nning to risk her own body to stop the mushroom monster if it came to this.

    But I grabbed her shoulder to stop her.

    I looked at the mushroom monster and said, "Stop."

    As soon as I said this, the mushroom monster stopped moving and just waited there as?if it was waiting for my order.

    When this demonstration was given, everyone was shocked.

    They looked at me before looking at the mushroom monster and then looking back at me.

    There were only a few people that weren''t shocked since they had already expected this. This included Moon and Elsa who were sensitive to magic and knew what kind of spell I had cast.

    Cecilia looked at the mushroom monster just waiting there in front of us and turned back to look at me to ask, "What did you do?"

    I raised the Orb of the Dead and said, "I made a zombie."

    "Huh?" Cecilia revealed a dumbfounded look before looking at the Orb of the Dead that I held up for her.

    She wasn''t as sensitive to magic, but she could tell that there was something special about this Orb of the Dead.

    After looking at it for a bit, she looked at me with a concerned look and said, "But isn''t this going to be arge drain on you maintaining this zombie? If you want to use zombies to pad the number of troops that we have, it''ll use up your mana to maintain all of them."

    I couldn''t help revealing a look of praise when I heard this.

    Not because of what she said, but because she had instantly understood what my intentions were from the context clues.

    That''s right, my n going forward was to use this Orb of the Dead to create more and more zombies as we killed the monsters in this dungeon.

    The more zombies that we had, the more troops that we had. The more troops that we had, the stronger our group would be.

    Not to mention, the zombies werepletely disposable, so we could use them as meat shields and escape if need be.

    But there was one thing that she had been wrong about.

    The situation that she was describing would only apply if I was using regr necromancy, but this was special since I had the Orb of the Dead.

    The Orb of the Dead was a special item that came from the demon king himself, so it was anything but normal.

    I shook my head and said, "This orb contains a mass amount of mana and has the power to maintain the zombies on its own. All I have to do is supply the mana to activate it, I don''t have to supply the mana to these zombies to maintain them. The orb will maintain them for me."

    Cecilia looked at me with a shocked look before looking down at the orb in my hand.

    There wasn''t much that she could say about this since she had no idea how this thing worked, so she could only turn to look at Moon who she regarded as an expert on magic.

    Moon''s eyes had been on the Orb of the Dead the whole time, so she didn''t answer right away.

    But after a pause, she slowly gave a nod.

    However, before Cecilia could say anything else, there was amotion that came from the distance.

    We all turned to see that there were some slimes that were bouncing in our direction.

    Since the monsters had delivered themselves to our doorstep, then I wouldn''t say no.

    It would be a chance to demonstrate the power of the zombies.

    So I said to the mushroom zombie, "Go and take down those slimes."

    The mushroom zombie bounced up and down once as if it was nodding in agreement before bouncing forward towards the slimes.

    The slimes didn''t react at first to the mushroom zombie, but when it got closer, they suddenly stopped moving. After jiggling for a bit as if they were figuring out what was happening, the slimes suddenly turned and started bouncing off in the opposite direction.

    It was as if they were running away from the mushroom zombie.

    But they didn''t get to run far as the mushroom zombie suddenlypressed its body on the ground. Then with a single bounce, it closed the gap between it and the slimes,nding right in between the slimes without any fear.

    Even when the mushroom zombie appeared right beside them, the slimes didn''t have any intentions of attacking.

    They seemed like they were about to run off in different directions, as if they were going all out to avoid the mushroom zombie.

    But once again, they didn''t get that chance.

    When the mushroom zombiended, it suddenlypressed itself once more before upressing to release a cloud of spores around it.

    When we saw the spores, all of us couldn''t help taking a step back even though it was impossible for these spores to reach us all the way back here. That was just how much of asting impression those spores had left on us.

    The spores coated these slimes and in no time at all, there were mushrooms that started sprouting on these slimes.

    These mushrooms dug their roots deep into the slimes and we could see how they dug in with the transparent bodies of the slimes.

    It seemed that they only dug down under the surface and didn''t dig in deep into the body of the slime. That was most likely why I was able to scrape out all the roots without having to go too deep.

    Once the mushrooms sprouted, the slimes immediately slowed down before copsing on the ground.

    With just a single attack, the mushroom zombie had taken out this group of slimes like it was nothing.

 Chapter 530 Dungeon exploration (10)

    <h4>Chapter 530 Dungeon exploration (10) </h4>

    Everyone that saw the wrath of this mushroom zombie couldn''t help being shocked by the power of this mushroom zombie.

    This mushroom zombie was much stronger than any of them had expected.

    Not to mention, there were still a bunch of mushroom monster corpses that were still lying there on the ground.

    If they could all be zombies that were just as strong as this one¡­it was easy to imagine how helpful they would be.

    I also didn''t expect the mushroom zombie to be this powerful, but I was very happy to see that they still had this power.

    If I sent the mushroom zombies forward, wouldn''t it be the perfect way to deal with a wave of endless rats?

    I never thought that there would be such a good blessing in disguise like this.

    So without any hesitation, I started using the Orb of the Dead on the rest of the mushroom monster corpses.

    In no time at all, there were over fifty different mushroom zombies that were gathered there in front of me.

    There would have been more, but we had to use fire to deal with the mushroom monsters in the center of their formation. The fire hadpletely burnt those mushroom monsters to ashes, so there wasn''t even a corpse left for me to use as a zombie.

    Still, being able to get fifty of them was already good enough.

    It was fine just seeing one of them, but seeing this group of them standing there like this made the adventurers and mercenaries take a wary step back. Even the guards and knights couldn''t help revealing unstable looks on their faces seeing these mushroom zombies, but they were at least able to remain still thanks to their military discipline.

    Once it was done, I was surprised by how little mana that it actually took to animate all of these mushroom zombies.

    Just a single mana potion was enough for me to recover all of the mana that I had spent just now.

    So it wasn''t a problem for us to keep going right away.

    "Spread out and surround us."

    When the adventurers and mercenaries heard this, they couldn''t help looking at me in shock. But then they were terrified to see that the mushroom zombies had already started moving to surround their entire formation.

    They all looked at Cecilia as if they wereining about this, but Cecilia didn''t help them at all.

    That was because she could see the strategic value of this.

    This was clearly so that if anything happened, the mushroom zombies would be the first ones that would be hit. It didn''t matter which direction this happened in since the mushroom zombies would be spread out in every direction.

    The only difference in views was that she had full faith in these mushroom zombies unlike the adventurers who saw them as a dangerous element.

    The adventurers were scared that if something happened to Count Zwein, the mushroom zombies would lose control and attack them.

    But Cecilia hadplete faith in Count Zwein, so there was nothing that she was worried about.

    Seeing that no one would be speaking up for them, the adventurers and mercenaries had no choice but to ept this.

    Though most of them made sure to maintain some distance with these mushroom zombies just in case anything happened.

    With this formation, we started moving forward again after resting up.

    Of course, there were also a few more zombies that I had made along the way.

    The slimes that had been defeated by the first mushroom zombies could also be turned into zombies.

    The adventurers and mercenaries didn''t want these corpses since there were mushrooms that were growing out of them.

    It wasn''t just that they didn''t want them out of fear of the mushrooms, it was because the mushrooms were inserted in a strange way that they didn''t know how to butcher them anymore. They didn''t know if they would even be able to get anything good out of these corpses, so they didn''t bother with them.

    So now we had several slimes that had mushrooms growing out of them bouncing along with us.

    At the very least, it was a good way of telling them apart from the other slimes that attacked us.

    But one thing that I was cautious of was whether the mushroom zombies would run out of spores eventually.

    These undead mushroom monsters were still creating spores that sprouted mushrooms that were alive.

    So that meant that the spores should still be alive.

    Did that mean that they were just using spores that were left over from when they were still alive?

    Would they eventually run out of spores?

    This was not something that I could be certain about, so I made sure to hold back a bit when using these mushroom zombies. I wanted to make sure that we would have enough spores to deal with the rats in the end.

    But since most of the monsters were afraid of the mushroom zombies in the first ce, it really wasn''t much of a problem.

    It was easy for us to deal with the ones that came by pretending like the mushroom zombies were about to shoot their spores and then having someone else attack while they were caught off guard.

    The monsters weren''t as smart, so it was quite the effective tactic.

    But there were a few that were just too tough for this, so I had the mushroom zombies use their spores in the end.

    I wouldn''t make it harder for us just to be stingy since there were always other ways.

    The way that we moved through the dungeon was much easier than before.

    We didn''t even really need to fight the monsters since the zombies took care of most of them.

    But as we were walking along, Cecilia suddenly raised her hand for our formation to stop.

    When the formation stopped, the zombies also stopped since they had the order to move along with the formation.

    Cecilia revealed a serious look and said to me, "This was where the rats came fromst time."

    I gave a nod with a grim look on my face.

 Chapter 531 Dungeon exploration (11)

    <h4>Chapter 531 Dungeon exploration (11) </h4>

    Since we had arrived where the rats came fromst time, it was time to be careful.

    Instead of going forward on our own, we had the adventurers and mercenaries create a defensive line in front of us. But that was still far away from where the rats had appearedst time.

    I had the zombies that I had created go forward instead to explore.

    There were lights that were attached to them, so we could clearly see what was happening with them.

    However, even as they moved forward, it didn''t seem like anything was about to happen.

    They just continued forward to where they had met the ratsst time as if everything was normal.

    Cecilia deeply knitted her brows seeing this and turned to me to give a look, as if she was saying that she wasn''t lying about this.

    I just gave a nod and patted her arm before giving her a look that said, "Just be patient."

    I of course didn''t doubt the information that she had brought back, but things were different now since it was a monster zombie that was moving forward instead of a human.

    Would the rats attack another monster when they were all from the same dungeon?

    That was unknown.

    If need be, we might need to send someone down to provoke the rats into appearing.

    Though that was an idea that I wasn''t leaning towards.

    I didn''t want to sacrifice someone just to make the rats appear.

    The slime that we sent down continued moving forward, going further than Cecilia''s group had gonest time. However, there still wasn''t a single rat that appeared even though it had gone that far.

    I just patted her on the arm and said, "Don''t worry, it just means that they weren''t here. They were most likely wandering around and you ran into them by¡­"

    Before I could finish, there was a slight tremble that came from under me.

    I quickly turned back to look at the slime that was about to disappear out of view.

    With the light from the slime, I could make out¡­many ck wriggling forms that had appeared in front of the slime.

    These were the rats!

    Only when they slime hade deep into their territory did they finally appear.

    So they would appear right away if it was humans, but they didn''t appear right away if it was another monster.

    The monsters seemed to have established territories and were forgiving to a certain extent.

    It was only when the slime had gone too deep into their territory that the rats suddenly appeared to retaliate.

    Since they came out, the slime immediately turned and ran.

    That was the order that I had given it.

    As long as it encountered an enemy, it would immediately turn around and run to where they were.

    It would bring all those enemies over for them to deal with.

    As soon as the slime turned and ran, the rats came out in a swarm.

    With just the light from the slime, we were able to see thousands of these rats chasing after the slime. It was like a ck wave that came out of the crevices of the dungeon and it seemed like there were even more of theming out.

    However, the slime zombie knew no fear and didn''t hesitate at all.

    Once it had been given its orders, it only knew how to follow these orders and do nothing else.

    Since it had received orders to run, it would run.

    With the speed that it moved at, it was able to keep out of the range of the rats.

    Just before the rats could reach it, the slime zombie would bounce out of the way of their sharp fangs.

    The slime zombie led them closer and closer to the area where we were gathered.

    At the same time, it was leading them closer and closer to the trap that we had set.

    Seeing that they wereing, I looked at Cecilia and she looked at the ones that were holding our secret weapons.

    They had been in a daze at first, but seeing that Cecilia was looking at them, they nodded to show that they were ready.

    Cecilia gave a nod back before raising her hand.

    However, she didn''t let that hand drop as she watched the ratsing closer and closer.

    Finally, the slime zombie reached the zone which we had dictated and suddenly stopped running.

    It was as if it was looking for death with the way that it just stood there in the face of the impending wave of rats that wereing right at it.

    It seemed like this slime zombie was only a moment from death.

    That was until something suddenly rained down from above.

    There were mushroom zombies that rained down on the ck wave of rats.

    As soon as these mushroom zombiesnded, they exploded in a wave of spores that immediately covered the surrounding rats.

    There were some that stopped, there were some that kept going.

    The rats were inplete chaos once the mushroom zombies rained down on them as they didn''t know what to do.

    In the ensuing chaos, there were some rats that were even trampled by the wave that rushed forward. They were one mass, but that didn''t mean that there weren''t separate rats here.

    The ones that were in the front of the wave couldn''t resist the momentum that came from the ones in the back, so they were crushed under the weight of all of these rats that couldn''t stop in time.

    The ones that were covered in the spores were also quickly covered in mushrooms and dropped to the ground.

    These rats weren''t able to resist the spores of these mushroom zombies at all.

    In no time at all, there was arge patch of rats that were eliminated around the slime zombie.

    The rats that had managed to stop in time didn''t dare move forward again.

    It seemed that there was a stalemate that was drawn.

 Chapter 532 Dungeon exploration (12)

    <h4>Chapter 532 Dungeon exploration (12) </h4>

    The lines between the two sides were drawn.

    The mushroom zombies wouldn''t move forward without my orders and it seemed like the rat army was scared of the mushroom zombies.

    But of course, that wasn''t strange since just these few mushroom zombies had wiped out a quarter of their entire group.

    The spores of the mushroom zombies were as overpowered as I had imagined and they were the perfect tool to cut down the rats.

    Now I was just waiting to see what the rats would do.

    Reacting to the move of the rats would be less destructive than attacking them head on.

    After all, a cornered beast was the most dangerous.

    The stalemate seemed like it wouldst for a while, but then there was this strange high pitched roar that came from behind the rats.

    Though there were only a few lights around the mushroom zombies that had been thrown down, these were bright enough to see where this roar hade from. Or rather, it could be said that these creatures were big enough that they would be hard to miss.

    These were the humanoid rat monsters that Cecilia had mentioned before.

    As soon as these things came out, the rat army started to tremble as if they were afraid of them.

    It was clear who reigned over this group of rats.

    These humanoid rat creatures stood six feet tall, had jet ck fur like the other rats, and had the normal rat features. But the one shocking thing was that these creatures werepletely jacked.

    They were like masses of muscle with how much muscle they had on their bodies.

    It really was terrifying and strangely fascinating to look at.

    They were basically bodybuilders with rat masks on and fur all over their bodies.

    Once these humanoid rat monsters had appeared and gave the order, the rats no longer hesitated and began charging forward again.

    It was clear that they were unwilling, but they didn''t have a choice when the order was given.

    A few of the rats that had tried to sneak off were crushed instantly by the humanoid rat monsters. The rest of the rats knew that they would be next if they tried to flee as well.

    It seemed that to defeat this group of rats, we would need to take out the humanoid rat creatures.

    Once that happened, the rats should scatter on their own since we had the mushroom zombies.

    But neither Cecilia or I gave the order for our troops to attack.

    This was all going ording to n still.

    We had gathered all of our troops in specific locations just so we could deal with these humanoid rat creatures in the first ce.

    The mushroom zombies were disposable since the life of a zombie couldn''t bepared to the life of a human.

    Though I did make sure to keep one back.

    I wanted to examine it and the spore that it released.

    If I could find a way to turn that spore into a weapon, then it would be much easier to deal with dungeon monsters in the future.

    So I wanted to keep at least one sample.

    But the rest were all deployed to fight the rat army, though there were still some that were left in the hands of our troops.

    When the mushroom monsters saw that the rats were charging at them, they suddenly grouped together in one area and waited for the rats toe at them. They could have jumped up and bounced down on these rats to release the spores again, but instead they waited.

    That was because¡­there was another trap waiting for the rats.

    We had only thrown a third of all the mushroom zombies that we had after all.

    We were just waiting for the rats to charge again.

    Seeing that the rats were about to reach the mushroom monsters, Cecilia''s hand came down again and said, "Throw!"

    Once she gave this order, the soldiers holding the mushroom zombies threw them the same way as before.

    These mushroom zombiesnded right in the middle of the rat army again with arge burst of spores. As soon as these spores fell onto the rats, mushrooms immediately started sprouting from these rats and they all fell to the ground.

    It was the same thing as before where the rat army had been lured in before being taken out in a single AoE attack.

    That was just how effective the mushroom spores were.

    But this time, there was something that changed.

    One of the humanoid rat monsters suddenly charged forward.

    It moved at a speed that caught everyone off guard and when it stopped, it was already in front of one of the mushroom zombies. With a single swipe of its tail, that mushroom zombie was cut in half.

    But before it could do anything else, there were fire arrows that suddenly fell down on this humanoid rat creature.

    This humanoid rat creature was shocked to see this, but it quickly spun its tail again to block these me arrows. The tail was stronger than the steel arrowheads on these arrows and knocked them all to the ground without hurting the humanoid rat creature.

    But these too were a distraction.

    The other zombies suddenly charged forward and attacked the other humanoid rat creatures that were in the back.

    These were the zombies that we had gathered whileing here.

    There were many different zombies and they all charged at the humanoid rat creatures in the back.

    As for the one that charged out, it turned back as if it wanted to help the others.

    "Die!"

    The humanoid rat creature was barely able to react in time to turn around to raise its arms to block the attack that came at it.

    This attack caused the humanoid rat creature to fall to its knees before sliding back a bit.

    When it was over, one could see that there was a slight dent to the arms of the humanoid rat creature.

    It was clear that something was broken.

 Chapter 533 Dungeon exploration (13)

    <h4>Chapter 533 Dungeon exploration (13) </h4>

    Cecilia stood there in front of the humanoid rat creature with the dildo bat raised.

    From the very beginning, this was our n.

    It was to separate the humanoid rat creatures from the rest of the rats.

    The only reason why Cecilia''s group had been forced backst time was because of the wave of rats that came with the humanoid rat creatures.

    There were just too many rats for Cecilia and her troops to handle, which was why they had suffered a crushing defeat.

    But this time, we were able to separate the humanoid rat creature from the rest of the rats by baiting it out with the mushroom zombies.

    As long as it was separated from the rest, Cecilia wouldn''t have a problem taking care of this humanoid rat creature alone.

    All the while, the other humanoid rat creatures were being kept busy by the other zombies.

    There were a total of four of them that appeared, so now there were three of them being distracted by the zombies while Cecilia fought one of them.

    After this humanoid rat creature stabilized itself, it knew that it was in a bad position.

    As it tried to stand back up, its arms slumped down on its sides as if they couldn''t be used anymore.

    With the dent in them, it was surprising that they weren''t snapped in half.

    That was just how dense the muscles of the humanoid rat creature were.

    But the way that they hung down must mean that there was some kind of damage to the bones that made it unable to use its arms anymore.

    The humanoid rat creature just stared at Cecilia, as if it was about to counterattack.

    But then all of a sudden¡­it turned and ran.

    It didn''t hesitate at all to turn around and run away.

    It was as if it had no pride at all.

    But then again, this was a monster with subpar intelligence, so it would be strange if it had pride.

    Cecilia was caught off guard by this humanoid rat creature suddenly turning around to run away, but she didn''t let herself be caught off guard for long as she suddenly ran after it.

    She didn''t get too close as she waited to see what this humanoid rat creature would do first. Since it didn''t hesitate to run like this, there was no knowing what it would have done.

    But there wasn''t anywhere for this humanoid rat creature to go.

    It gave a screech, but the rats couldn''t reach it since they were blocked by the mushroom zombies. The ones that were close by were all stopped by the mushroom zombies that followed Cecilia.

    With a single spray of spores, they were all stopped from approaching Cecilia.

    The humanoid rat creature also wasn''t able to make its way over to the other humanoid rat creatures because of the line of zombies in front of it.

    So it could only turn around to face Cecilia again.

    As if it had been forced into a corner, it suddenly crouched down as if it was about to do something desperate.

    Cecilia knitted her brows seeing this, but she raised the dildo bat in front of her in preparation for this.

    The humanoid rat creature suddenly jumped forward before Cecilia could even react.

    It moved at a speed that was far faster than what her eyes could track, but she could already guess what it wasing for. So before it could even approach, she was already swinging down at the humanoid rat creature that was charging at her.

    But the humanoid rat creature wasn''t aimed at her.

    Rather, it twisted to the side and moved out of the way of the attack.

    It saw that it wasn''t able to escape to where the other humanoid rat creatures were, so it chose to run in the opposite direction.

    As far as it was aware, the space behind Cecilia was clear for it to run to.since there was nothing there.

    In a sense, it could be considered smart¡­or it could be said to have good instincts.

    That was if that space was open for it to run to.

    All of a sudden, arrows flew down from in front of the humanoid rat creature, creating a wall of arrows in front of it.

    Seeing this, the humanoid rat creature had no choice but to turn around and spin its tail to block these arrows just like before.

    But that didn''t matter since it created an opening for Cecilia.

    She came up right behind the humanoid rat creature with the dildo bat raised up and she swung down at it once more.

    The humanoid rat creature looked like it wanted to run, but it couldn''t since it was being pinned down by the arrows.

    So it had no choice but to attack with its ws in an attempt to block Cecilia''s attack.

    However, with the prating effect of the dildo bat, the ws couldn''t put up any resistance at all.

    They shattered under the pressure of the dildo bat and that dildo bat continued to m down, hitting the chest of the humanoid rat creature.

    That chest caved in as it copsed onto the ground and it spat out blood beforeying there without any signs of life at all.

    However, Cecilia didn''t trust it and beat it a few more times with the dildo bat.

    Half of it was to make sure that it was dead and half of it was to¡­vent her anger from before.

    Still, that didn''t matter since we had another goal in taking down this humanoid rat creature.

    When the waves of rats saw that one of the humanoid rat creatures were taken down, they couldn''t help being shaken. The powerful ones that had suppressed them and controlled them like ves were now being taken out.

    This was not something that they had expected, but here it was in front of them.

    Just like this, there were a few of the rats that started to waver.

    There were some rats that started to run away.

 Chapter 534 Dungeon exploration (14)

    <h4>Chapter 534 Dungeon exploration (14) </h4>

    The humanoid rat creatures that were left had wanted to stop them from running away, but they couldn''t since they were being stopped by the zombies.

    The zombies weren''t that strong that they could defeat the humanoid rat monsters without teaming up.

    In fact, it was even hard for them to stall the humanoid rat creatures since they were so strong. There were already a few of the zombies that had been ripped apart by the humanoid rat creatures during their confrontation.

    However, the terrifying thing about these zombies was that they showed no fear in attacking.

    They only existed to follow orders and once they received their orders, they wouldn''t back down no matter what.

    For now, the order that they received was to attack the humanoid rat creatures and stall them for as long as they could.

    So as long as their bodies didn''t break down, that was what they would do.

    As a result, the humanoid rat creatures didn''t have a single second to spare for the rats that were running away.

    There were only a few rats that ran away at first, but it was like a dam opening as soon as a few of the rats ran. Once those few rats were able to get away safely, the rest of them didn''t hesitate to run as well.

    They knew that if they didn''t take this chance now, they wouldn''t get another chance to escape.

    So they didn''t hesitate to run.

    The humanoid rat creatures looked like they wanted to stop this, but they couldn''t do a thing as the zombies charged at them relentlessly.

    Even if they wanted to rip apart one of the zombies, the others would charge forward to stop them.

    In short, they weren''t able to break free from being surrounded by the zombies.

    All they could do was try their best to survive against these zombies.

    But there was another surprise that wasing.

    While this was all happening, I had jumped down from the ledge that I was on andnded down beside Cecilia.

    She wasn''t surprised to see me, but there was a hesitant look on her face.

    I ignored this as I started heading towards the corpse of the humanoid rat creature on the ground.

    While I was heading over, Cecilia made sure toe with me as if she was prepared to protect me at any moment.

    When we came close, there was even a look in her eyes as if she wanted to grab me and pull me out of there. But I was able toe up to the corpse of the humanoid rat creature in the end.

    After reaching this humanoid rat creature, I raised an orb that I was holding in my hand and pointed it at the humanoid rat creature.

    The same thing as before happened where some energy came out of the orb and entered the humanoid rat creature.

    Nothing seemed to happen until it suddenly started moving.

    But the moment that it did, I couldn''t help feeling this paining from inside of me.

    It made me clutch my chest and lean forward a bit as if I was trying to negate the pain.

    While this was happening, Cecilia suddenly came forward and made to grab me. It was as if she wanted to lift me up and carry me out of there.

    But I stopped her in the end by raising one hand and saying, "I''m fine, I''m fine."

    Cecilia still had her arms around me as if she was prepared to carry me away at any moment, but she didn''t pick me up at the very least.

    That pain that I felt just now, it was from trying to turn this humanoid rat creature into a zombie.

    I had underestimated how much mana it would take to turn this thing into a zombie, which was why I had suffered a bit of bacsh just now.

    However, it had seeded in the end which was all that mattered.

    This humanoid rat creature was just standing there in front of me with zed eyes, as if it was waiting for my instructions.

    Seeing that it was waiting for me, I suddenly said, "Go and attack the others."

    The humanoid rat creature didn''t even have to ask who it was that I wanted it to attack.

    Without any hesitation, it started running at the other humanoid rat creatures that were being kept busy by the zombies.

    When the humanoid rat creatures saw the zombie humanoid rat creature running over, they had looks of hope as they thought that this zombie humanoid rat creature was here to help.

    But then they were disappointed as the zombie humanoid rat creature started attacking them.

    They of course knew how to best deal with these attacks since they were humanoid rat creatures as well.

    But that meant that the pressure was even stronger on them.

    With this zombie humanoid rat creature attacking the other humanoid rat creatures, the rat army started to panicpletely.

    They knew that there was nothing left for them, so they didn''t hesitate to run.

    There wasn''t a single rat that wasn''t running away at this point.

    When the humanoid rat creatures saw this, they started screeching at the rats, but not a single rat stopped for them.

    They couldn''t do anything to the rats that ran since they were still being trapped by the zombies.

    Seeing that they couldn''t threaten the rats, they changed their tactic.

    They started squeaking at the zombie humanoid rat creature, almost as if they were trying to snap it out of its daze ande back to their side.

    But that didn''t work at all as the zombie humanoid rat creature just kept attacking.

    That was until an arrow was lucky enough to pierce through the heart of another one of those humanoid rat creatures.

    That humanoid rat creature wasn''t able to remain standing as it suddenly copsed forward, driving the arrow deeper into its hearts.

    With this, the downfall of these humanoid rat creatures began.

    Especially when a second humanoid rat creature was formed.

    Just like this, the conclusion was drawn and the other two humanoid rat creatures also fell.

 Chapter 535 Dungeon exploration (15)

    <h4>Chapter 535 Dungeon exploration (15) </h4>

    After all of the humanoid rat creatures had been taken care of, the rest of the rats didn''t stick around.

    They knew that there was nothing to gain from staying here, so they turned and ran as quickly as possible.

    When it was all over, we quickly went to see what the damage was.

    Surprisingly, there weren''t as many zombies that were destroyed as I had thought there would be.

    Out of the over two hundred zombies that we had created along the way, there were only around fifty that were destroyed.

    Out of the original around fifty mushroom zombies, there were only three that were destroyed.

    One was ripped apart by the first humanoid rat creature and the other two were surprisingly torn apart by thest struggle of the rats. Some of the rats that had been affected by the spore actually didn''t give up and chose to struggle with thest of their strength.

    The mushroom zombies clearly didn''t expect this and were ripped apart by the rats before they could even react.

    So in the end, there were two more mushroom zombies that were destroyed.

    But the gains were hundreds of rat corpses and three more humanoid rat creature corpses.

    In the fight, I had seen just how powerful the humanoid rat creature zombie was.

    Since it didn''t have any fear, it was actually stronger than when it was alive.

    It had been able to hold back two of the other humanoid rat creatures by itself while Cecilia focused on taking down the other one with the help of the soldiers and the zombies.

    So three more of these powerful monsters would without a doubt be very useful.

    But I couldn''t turn them into zombies right now since I had seen how much mana it took.

    If it was done, it would have to be done when we left this dungeon.

    The rats¡­they were much easier.

    They were so easy that I could even do them in batches with the Orb of the Dead.

    There was no need to turn the rats into zombies one by one, which saved me quite a bit of time.

    With these rats, it was much easier for us to progress forward.

    It seemed that other than the mushrooms, the rats were also considered one of the taboos of this dungeon.

    When we progressed forward, the monsters that heard the skittering of the rat feet immediately turned to run. So there were no longer monsters that dared to attack us after all this.

    The rats that fledpletely abandoned their territory, so we didn''t have to deal with them either.

    Past the area where we met the rats, there was just arge empty space.

    It was clear that monsters lived here based on the tracks that were all around us, but they were hiding because of therge group of zombies that we had.

    After moving through thisrge empty space for a bit, we finally arrived at what seemed to be the end of the dungeon.

    Well, it seemed to be the end for us since there was no way forward, but that didn''t mean that this should be the end of the dungeon.

    That was because this was arge stone door.

    This was arge stone door that was embedded in the side of the wall and it didn''t seem like there was any way of opening this stone door.

    Once we reached this area, we immediately secured it and then turned our attention to the stone door.

    After a long period of silence, Moon and Elsa suddenly turned around and shook their heads.

    Moon said, "This doesn''t seem like anything that I''ve seen before. Even in our elven records, there''s no mention of this."

    Elsa gave a nod of agreement before saying, "I''ve never heard of anything like this before. None of us have ever seen this kind of stone before, so we have no idea what it''s made of."

    Both the magic inclined elves and the ore inclined dwarves couldn''t make head or tail of this thing.

    It seemed like this was indeed a dead end.

    But I knew that there were certain people that wouldn''t let things end there.

    So I gave a nod to Moon and Elsa before gesturing with my hand for them to step aside.

    It wasn''t just them who would be moving aside.

    That included the other elves and dwarves that were still investigating the door.

    It took a bit of effort for them to bring the rest of the elves and dwarves away, but they were able to do it in the end.

    Though it looked more like they were dragging them away then convincing them to move.

    After the space in front of the door was cleared, I turned to the adventurers and mercenaries and said, "Do what you want. If you can open this door, then I''ll give you a hundred gold coins and your choice of the treasures we hide behind it."

    All of the eyes of the adventurers and mercenaries lit up when they heard this.

    Without any hesitation, they immediately went forward towards the stone door to see if they could open it.

    Though I didn''t have any hopes when I said this.

    I had only said this because I didn''t want the adventurers and mercenaries messing with the door after this trip.

    Though it would be unlikely that they would even be able to reach this far without the help of my soldiers, I didn''t want to let that small risk remain.

    So it was better to discourage them from trying to get this door open now before something happened in the future.

    I didn''t think that they would do anything too bad, which was why I let them have their way with the door.

    After all, I didn''t think that anyone would be dumb enough to try something like hitting the door to open it¡­

    Or did I jinx myself by thinking that?

    "Tink! ng!"

 Chapter 536 Dungeon exploration (16)

    <h4>Chapter 536 Dungeon exploration (16) </h4>

    As soon as this sound rang out, I immediately turned to see what it was.

    It turned out that one of the adventurers was dumber than I thought and had actually thought to use brute force to open the door.

    He had taken a spear and stabbed it into the door, but that spear had cracked after hitting the door.

    But that wasn''t what I was worried about.

    I didn''t use brute force since I figured that this door was most likely protected by something. Whether it was magic or some kind of trap, it would most likely trigger once the door was attacked.

    So I was avoiding triggering this thing.

    But in the end, it was ruined by this adventurer¡­

    Without any hesitation, I said, "Move away from that door!"

    Then I jumped out of the way while covering my head.

    However, there wasn''t anything that followed.

    I slowly pulled my head out of my hands and turned to look at the door, but I found that nothing had changed.

    It didn''t seem like there were any traps at all that had been triggered because of the adventurer hitting the door.

    In fact, everyone was even looking at me with strange looks because of what I had done and what I had shouted. I couldn''t help feeling embarrassed because of the way that they all looked at me.

    However, I forced that down and carefully looked at the door, as if I was trying to find something off about it.

    Cecilia walked over and reached her hand out to help me off the ground.

    The adventurers and mercenaries had all stopped doing what they were doing and were looking at me, as if they were waiting for me to say something.

    But I just didn''t say anything as I kept staring at the door.

    Finally, when I saw that there was nothing that was going to happen, I turned to the adventurers and mercenaries to say, "You can keep doing what you were doing."

    They all looked at me with strange looks, which I chose to ignore. But in the end, they turned back to the stone door and continued doing what they were doing before.

    Now that I knew that there weren''t any traps or such that were attached to this door, I started thinking about some of the things that I had that I could use on this door.

    Even if the door was hard, would it be to withstand the prating effect of the dildo bat?

    Of The Prator?

    If they couldn''t break through, it would be hard to imagine just what could break through this door.

    But of course, I wouldn''t do that while the adventurers and mercenaries were still here.

    There was no knowing what was behind that door, but it definitely wasn''t simple for it to be in this dungeon.

    This was a ce that I would want to explore without these adventurers and mercenaries.

    So for now, I would try to avoid going in while I could.

    I could alwayse backter with the zombies.

    The adventurers and mercenaries tried many different things, but they weren''t able to open the door in the end.

    I wasn''t disappointed by this, but they seemed very disappointed.

    It was as if they could sense the precious treasure that was behind this door and they really wanted to get at it.

    However, they just couldn''t since they couldn''t open the stone door.

    After doing that dive and learning that there was nothing wrong with this stone door, I didn''t remain idle.

    I started walking around the area around the door.

    I didn''t really have anything that I was looking for, but I would take anything that I could get.

    Whether it was information about how to open the door or information about what this ce was, I would take it.

    It didn''t seem like I was going to find anything at first, but then I found a strange indentation in the wall.

    When I looked more closely, I found that this indentation wasn''t just an indentation in the wall. Rather, it seemed like it was because there was something that had been carved in the wall.

    This carving was very light which was why people might have missed it if they didn''t look closely enough.

    But I was able to make it out with the small magical light that I had.

    When I made it out, I couldn''t help being shocked.

    Cecilia also noticed the strange look on my face and she walked over to take a look at it.

    When she did, she looked at me with a strange look and asked, "What are you looking at?"

    I looked at her with a surprised look before pointing at that indentation and asking, "You don''t see that?"

    Cecilia looked at where I was pointing and asked, "See what? There''s nothing there other than some strange grooves."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this.

    But then I remembered something.

    Though I could understand the words that they had been saying and read the words they wrote, I did realize that this world had apletely differentnguage.

    There was some kind of magic that tranted for me, but that didn''t mean that it was the samenguage as before.

    What was carved on the wall was anguage from my past life, so that meant that Cecilia didn''t recognize it as anguage.

    It was anguage called English, anguage that was the most poprnguage on Earth.

    I shook my head and said, "It''s nothing."

    Cecilia looked at me with the same strange look, but she didn''t pursue this matter since I didn''t expand further on it.

    But I couldn''t help looking at the indentation with a strange look again.

    The message that was imprinted on this wall wasn''t anything special.

    In fact, it might even seem like gibberish.

    On the wall were carved the words "For the divine".

    I had no idea what this meant, but I knew that it wouldn''t be that simple.

 Chapter 537 Future of the dungeon (1)

    <h4>Chapter 537 Future of the dungeon (1) </h4>

    In the end, the adventurers and mercenaries weren''t able to open up this door.

    They had no choice but to give up on this since there was nothing else that they could do.

    I had given them the chance to try and open it, so they couldn''t keep insisting on staying here since it was still a dangerous ce.

    But I had already made a decision that I would being back here in the future after seeing that indentation.

    It was easy for us toe out of this dungeon this time with the help of zombies.

    Not a single monster approached us since they could see our zombies around us.

    At the same time, most of the monsters that were here had already been cleared with the help of the zombies, so there weren''t that many monsters to attack us in the first ce.

    Once we were out, the first thing that we did was rest up.

    Haley had been waiting for us and had already prepared everything as if she had predicted when we woulde out.

    I would find outter that she had someone watching over the entrance of the dungeon and had been prepared to wee us at any moment. It wasn''t that she had predicted it, it was just that she did it in a way that could be set up at any time.

    The adventurers and mercenaries were happy to ept this, but I knew what her real intentions were.

    After all, I was called to a private tent with her to celebrate.

    But there was no celebration at all for me.

    While she distracted the adventurers and mercenaries with this, she was grilling me for information about the dungeon.

    She wanted all the information that she could get to make a decision on what to do in the future.

    So she was keeping the adventurers and mercenaries, the ones that she would have to deal with busy while she got that information from me.

    I wasn''t able to get any food in me as I just had to tell Haley everything that happened.

    When it was over, she suddenly stood up and said, "Bring me to see the zombies."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I followed her out of the tent and led the way over to the zombies.

    All of the zombies that we brought out with us had been put in a special area with a fence around them.

    Though the fence really wouldn''t do much to keep them back, it gave the others a sense of safety seeing the zombies behind this fence.

    As she stood on the other side of the fence looking at the zombies, she couldn''t help saying in an amazed voice, "How did you do all of this?"

    I slowly took out the Orb of the Dead and exined to her what it did.

    Haley''s eyes were sparkling as she looked at the Orb of the Dead in my hand and listened to what I had to say.

    When I was finished exining, she suddenly raised her hand and pped my arm before saying, "Why didn''t you tell me about this thing sooner? If I knew that you had this thing, I could have gotten you to make a bunch of zombies for me to use asbour!"

    I really couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this.

    After all, I never would have thought that this would be her reaction to this.

    Raising the dead and controlling it, this was something that was considered taboo by most people.

    Yet the only thing that she could think of was how to use it in her business¡­

    I really didn''t know if I should be impressed by Haley or scared of her.

    She didn''t stay on this topic for long as she turned back to look at the zombies and asked, "What are you nning on doing with these ones? Are you just going to leave them here or are you going to use them for something else?"

    There was a very obvious implication that came with thetter half of her words.

    I shook my head and said, "I''ll just leave them here and use them to clear out the dungeon."

    Haley looked a bit disappointed when she heard this, but I quickly shot that down by saying, "For now, we''re still in a friendly rtionship with the country. I don''t want to do anything that could be seen as treason."

    Haley slowly gave a nod in response to this.

    What she had been implying was to take the zombies back and put them in my army.

    These zombies were the perfect soldiers as well since they had no fear and were very powerful.

    If I used them as soldiers for my territory, there was no doubt that the surrounding lords wouldn''t be able to do a single thing to me. At that point, it would be easy for me to do whatever I wanted in the area around my territory.

    But that would be dangerous as well.

    After all, too much military power could be seen as a threat. Especially when I had powerful weapons like these zombies.

    So if I made too many zombies, it might strain my rtionship with the royal family since they might see me as a threat to their rule.

    So for now, I couldn''t make too many zombies.

    But¡­there was an exception.

    "We''ll still take a few back with us. I hope that you can prepare them when we need to bring them back."

    Haley was surprised to hear this, but then she immediately understood what I meant.

    We would of course take the powerful zombies back with us and leave the weaker ones here.

    That included the humanoid rat creatures and the mushroom monsters.

    Those were the ones that I definitely wouldn''t leave in a ce like this.

    Seeing that she understood, I gave a satisfied nod before asking, "So what are your ns for this ce?"

 Chapter 538 Future of the dungeon (2)

    <h4>Chapter 538 Future of the dungeon (2) </h4>

    Haley heard this, but she didn''t answer right away.

    She revealed a look that almost seemed like she was conflicted over something, but that quickly cleared as she said with a sigh, "For now, let''s do what we were nning to do before."

    She turned to look back at the camp and said, "They''ve all gathered here in hopes of earning big money, we can''t take that away from them or else it will hurt our prestige. Not to mention, the materials that they brought back were all good quality, so I know that they will sell. I''m not willing to give up such good business when it''s offered to me."

    I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile when I heard this.

    I knew what kind of personality she had and she said this, I knew that she wasn''t just saying this because of the good money that it would earn.

    She was also considering the influence that this would bring us since there would be many nobles that would want to build a rtionship with us for the items that we collected from the dungeon.

    I didn''t say anything about this since I didn''t want to influence her decision.

    If she chose to do this, then it was fine since we had moved past that phase where I wouldn''t want her to do this.

    It was for the good of our family and she was willing to do it, so there was no reason for me to stop her.

    After a long moment of silence, Haley gave a nod and said, "Alright, that''s decided. Let''s go back then."

    But before she could head back, I suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her further away from the camp.

    If it was anyone else, Haley definitely would have resisted.

    But since it was me, she just silently followed me away from the camp.

    Once we were alone in the forest, she looked at me with a teasing look as if she was about to say something, but she quickly stopped.

    That was because she could see the serious look that was on my face.

    Unless it was something very serious, I wouldn''t look like this.

    So she asked in a worried voice, "What''s wrong?"

    I shook my head to show that there wasn''t anything wrong at first, but then I said, "I need to go back into the dungeon and I need to do it with a small group."

    Haley was caught off guard when she heard this, but out of all of the questions that she had, she chose one specific one, "When and how many people?"

    She could have asked why he needed to do this, but she decided to trust him.

    I gave a grateful nod before saying, "Just a few people that we can trust and a few zombies so that no one will notice that anything is wrong. Also, it needs to happen as soon as possible."

    Haley knitted her brows when she heard this, but then she didn''t hesitate to head back to the camp.

    I was even surprised to see how much of a rush she was in.

    But when she saw that I wasn''t following her, she turned around and looked at me before waving her hand to say, "What are you doing? Come on, we need to go now or we''ll lose this chance."

    I was even more surprised, but I followed her.

    It seemed like she already had some ideas.

    When we came back to the camp, there were some adventurers and mercenaries who wanted to invite us to drink with them. However, Haley just said in a teasing voice, "Are you really going to bother our alone time?"

    All of them couldn''t help revealing awkward looks when they heard this.

    There were also many single dogs that revealed bitter smiles when they heard this.

    Adventurers and mercenaries, there were many single men among them since they traveled far and didn''t have time to find meaningful rtionships while traveling.

    There were some that were able to find love, but even then, they usually left for months on end from their families to earn money for them. So it also hurt them seeing the two of us like this.

    But this excuse was very effective in driving the adventurers and mercenaries away.

    We were able to make our way through the crowd until we found Cecilia.

    She had alreadypletely lost herself in the mood of the party and was already a bit drunk, but she immediately snapped out of it when I told her that there was something important that we had to do.

    At the same time, it was lucky that she was with a few of her trusted subordinates.

    We had all of them follow us to a tent where Haley exined what was happening.

    Her n was simple, it was to use the cover of the party to sneak into the dungeon while everyone was distracted.

    But there was still a problem¡­

    We needed the zombies to make it through the dungeon safely.

    If we didn''t have the zombies, then it would be impossible.

    Haley revealed a smile when I asked this and she snuck something out from the dress that she was wearing.

    It was two of the mushroom zombies.

    She had put two of them under herrge dress and had snuck them back with her¡­

    I really didn''t know what to say when I saw this.

    I had thought that she was walking a bit strange, but I had thought that was just because she was rushing toe back.

    But now I found that she was doing it because she had these two mushroom zombies under her dress.

    I really didn''t know what to say when she pulled the two of them out.

    It definitely was not something that I was expecting¡­

    Still, with these two mushroom zombies, it should be possible to reach the stone door since the monsters shouldn''t have repopted the dungeon yet.

    So with this, we snuck back into the dungeon.

 Chapter 539 The stone door again

    <h4>Chapter 539 The stone door again </h4>

    To my surprise, it was easy to go through the dungeon.

    Or it should be said that it was to be expected with how many monsters we had killed.

    Even if a dungeon could spawn more, it would take time to gather the mana to summon more.

    So for now, we were able to make our way through the dungeon without much trouble.

    Though as we made our way through, there were still a few monsters that popped out.

    For Cecilia and her knights, it was no problem to deal with them.

    Then after they were taken down, I used the Orb of the Dead to turn them into zombies.

    In no time at all, we had built up a sizable group and were able to leave everything to the zombies.

    Once we made our way back to the stone door, everyone stopped and turned to look at me.

    After all, it was me who had wanted toe here in the first ce.

    So it was me that they were waiting for to do something.

    I walked up to the stone door, but then I suddenly moved to the side.

    I went back over to where the indentation in the wall was.

    Everyone just looked at me with a strange look as I stood there in front of the wall. There were some of them that looked at each other as if they were worried that I had gone crazy.

    At the same time, they shed a few looks at Cecilia as if they were asking if they should knock me out and take me out of this cave.

    They were worried that I might have been up for too long and was going crazy.

    But Cecilia shook her head to stop them.

    She knew just how he was and she remembered what he had said when they were here before.

    So she wanted to see what would happen.

    It was the same indentation as before and there was nothing different about it.

    But when I looked more carefully, I found that there were other indentations nearby.

    Only this time¡­it was in anguage that I didn''t understand.

    Though I did know what thisnguage was because of how simr it looked to anothernguage that I had seen back on Earth.

    Hindi, it was Hindi.

    When I looked further along the wall, I could see that there were many different carvings, but each of them were different.

    It was only when I found another one that I recognized that I finally realized that these were all differentnguages. At the same time, I realized that it was the same thing that was being written in all of these differentnguages.

    "For the Divine."

    That was what was written.

    I carefully counted all the different carvings that were on the wall, but I soon gave up when I saw that there were thousands of different carvings here.

    All of them were just one simple sentence it seemed and if I had to guess, they should all have the same meaning.

    But for the people of this world, they didn''t understand a single one of thesenguages.

    For them, it was as if there were just strange carvings that lined the wall.

    So when they saw that I was excited to see what they considered to be random carvings, it enforced the idea that I had gone crazy. They thought that the stress had gotten to me and I was seeing things that weren''t actually there.

    This time, even Cecilia couldn''t help revealing a worried look.

    Her subordinates once again looked at her with a worried and questioning look, as if they wanted to take action. But once again, Cecilia shook her head and stopped them.

    Instead, she took a step forward and asked in a soft voice, "Did you find anything?"

    I had been focused on the wall, so I hadn''t really noticed what was happening with the others. It was only when Cecilia suddenly said something that I turned around to look at her.

    With a nod, I said, "Can''t you see all the different things that are on the wall?"

    Cecilia looked at the wall when I said this before shaking her head to say, "No, all I see are strange indents. I don''t see anything."

    I just gave a slow nod before saying, "It''s differentnguages that are carved on the wall, they aren''t strange indents at all. I thought that you would be able to recognize at least one of them, but that doesn''t seem to be the case."

    When they heard this, the others couldn''t help looking carefully at the wall.

    Cecilia did the same before slowly asking, "Differentnguages?"

    But then she asked, "What does it say then?"

    "For the Divine." I said slowly.

    Cecilia had a very confused look when she heard this, but before she or anyone else could say anything¡­

    "Click."

    All of us suddenly raised our guard when we heard this sound.

    At the same time, we all moved backwards just in case something happened.

    After all, the sound came from the door.

    This kind of sound usually would mean that a trap was triggered or something like that.

    But there were no traps or things that were simr that were triggered.

    Instead, there was a grinding sound as the door suddenly started to move.

    The door slowly started lifting itself off the ground, as if there was some kind of mechanism doing this.

    Cecilia quickly put me behind her as she raised her sword and pointed it at the void behind the door.

    All of us were expecting something toe out of that door, but there wasn''t a single thing that came out. At the same time, it was too dark behind the door that we weren''t able to see a single thing in there.

    We just stood there for a while, waiting to see what woulde out from behind the door.

    Only there wasn''t a single thing that came out in the end.

    Since nothing wasing out¡­then I guess I should go in and see what was there.

 Chapter 540 Behind the door

    <h4>Chapter 540 Behind the door </h4>

    I took a step forward, but I was immediately stopped by Cecilia.

    She turned back to look at me with a gaze like she was asking, "What are you doing?"

    But I just said, "There''s no point waiting here when it''s clear that nothing is going to happen. We don''t have all night to stay here, so we should at least see what''s behind the door."

    Cecilia deeply knitted her brows when she heard this, but she eventually gave a nod of agreement.

    She too knew that it was toote to back down now that they hade this far.

    At the very least, they should see what was behind the door.

    But Cecilia made sure that she was in front of me as we moved forward.

    She had her sword raised and was fully on alert, not intending to let a single thing happen to me.

    The only reason that I was even allowed to go forward was because I had been the one that opened the door.

    So we slowly inched towards the door until we were standing right in front of it.

    It was pitch dark through the door frame, so I raised my magical light up in front of it to see if it could cast any light in.

    When it did, all we could see was a set of stairs that seemed to be leading downwards.

    Seeing this, Cecilia naturally didn''t allow me to go first.

    She looked at me and I could see what she was intending to do, so with a sigh, I stepped back.

    Her subordinates immediately came forward to surround me while two went to Cecilia''s side to be in the vanguard with her.

    The three of them had their weapons raised as they led the way down the stairs.

    However, it was pitch dark, so I summoned a few more magical lights to help light the way.

    But it really didn''t help cut through the darkness that was in front of us.

    This was a darkness that was like the deep dark of the night, a darkness that was so strong that even the brightest light might not cut through. So it was hard for my magical light to light up that far ahead of us.

    It only lit up a few steps down in front of Cecilia and the two with her, so they progressed very slowly.

    Eventually, we were able to reach an end.

    Eventually, there was some kind of light that appeared in front of us.

    These stairs had been heading down, but we hadn''t been able to see anything that was under us other than the stairs.

    That was until we saw a few blue mes under us.

    These blue mes had been faint at first, but they soon made themselves clear.

    So clear that it almost seemed like they were the only thing down there.

    So clear that¡­

    "Ghosts!" One of the knights couldn''t help screaming when he saw these lights.

    But he immediately calmed down when he felt the re from Cecilia on him.

    He closed his mouth and returned to his position, but the trembling that came from him made it clear that he was terrified.

    However, it seemed that he was terrified for no reason since these mes were not ghosts.

    We soon saw that these mes were torches.

    Though there was something for us to be cautious of.

    With the faint light of these blue mes, we were able to make out the shape of the things around them.

    Buildings, there were many buildings spread out over arge space.

    It was a city.

    There was aplete city that was underground, under the dungeon.

    Just where did this citye from?

    However, at that point, that wasn''t our main concern.

    This was a city that had blue me torches scattered all around it.

    There was no doubt that there would be people living in this ce if there were still torches burning here.

    So the first thing that we did was immediately rush down the stairs.

    This might seem dangerous, but the stairs were just too open for us to protect ourselves. We were basically an open target in the air just by standing on these stairs that looked over this underground city.

    Once we came off the stairs, the first thing that we did was find a building to take shelter in.

    This was a risk since there might be residents in this building, but we couldn''t just let ourselves stay outside.

    But to our surprise, we found that there wasn''t a single person in this building that we took shelter in.

    The building that we took shelter in seemed like a normal household, it was just that it was missing their residents.

    When we looked closer, we found that there was even food that was waiting on the table for someone to eat. It was still fresh since there was even steam that wasing from it.

    Whoever lived in this house had just finished cooking and had evacuated right before we came in.

    Cecilia knew that this was bad, so she didn''t hesitate to say, "Grab whatever you can and barricade the doors and windows. We can only assume that they know that we''re here, so be prepared to hold down in this ce."

    Her subordinates immediately sprang into action when they heard this.

    However, they found¡­that they couldn''t move anything in this house.

    When they tried to move the furniture, they found that these things were held in ce and wouldn''t budge an inch. No matter how much strength they used, it just wouldn''t move a single inch.

    It was as if they had been firmly nailed in ce.

    While that was happening, I was looking at the food that was on the table.

    I could feel a strange sensation that wasing from it, so I had been carefully looking at it.

    After staring for a bit, I said, "Alright, you can stop trying to barricade this ce. There''s no danger."

 Chapter 541 Strange city

    <h4>Chapter 541 Strange city </h4>

    All of them suddenly turned to look at me with strange looks, but there were still a few that kept trying to barricade the door.

    Cecilia came over and asked, "What did you find?"

    I pointed at the food on the table and said, "Don''t you see that the steam isn''t disappearing? It doesn''t seem to be cooling down even after all this time that you''ve spent trying to barricade the door."

    Cecilia was surprised at first, but then she and her subordinates came over to take a closer look at the food on the table that I had mentioned.

    When they looked closely, they found that I was right.

    No matter how long they stared at it, it didn''t seem like the steam from the food was disappearing.

    It seemed that it was still fresh no matter how long passed.

    One of them even tried to pick up a piece of bread from the table, but they found that it was stuck just like the furniture. They couldn''t move it no matter how they tried to budge it.

    After seeing this, they all looked at me with strange looks, as if they were asking me what''s going on.

    I just calmly exined, "There''s some kind of preservation spell that was cast on this ce. I can feel the traces of magic that are surrounding all the things in this ce, showing that there''s some kind of spell cast on it. So the only thing that should have this effect is a preservation spell."

    "Preservation spell?" They repeated with confused looks.

    I knew what they wanted to ask, so I just shook my head and said, "I have no idea either. I just know that there''s a preservation spell on these things or else it wouldn''t be this way."

    I didn''t stay there and started walking around the building, trying to find something that could give me a clue.

    Though it didn''t seem like there was anyone in this city, Cecilia didn''t let her guard down as she followed closely behind me. It seemed like she was prepared to protect me if anything happened.

    But there was nothing to protect me from.

    I just ignored her and went around the house looking for anything that I could get information from.

    However, I wasn''t able to budge a single thing either.

    There were books that were in this house, but I wasn''t able to lift them up, let alone lift the covers and see what was inside. It seemed that all of these books had the same preservation spell cast on them that stopped anyone from interfering with them.

    So if I wanted information, I would have to break the spell first.

    That had been something that I had considered earlier, but that was something for a powerful magician and not someone who had just started using magic like me. If it wasn''t for the Orb of the Dead, I wouldn''t have even qualified as a third rate magician.

    So of course I wasn''t able to break the preservation spell that was cast on this ce.

    All of this knowledge in front of me and not being able to read a single page, it was almost like a starving man not being able to eat the food that was in front of him.

    In the end, I had no choice but to give up with a sigh.

    There was nothing that I could do here, so I wanted to see if I could get anything from the other buildings around us.

    This ce was a city, so there were plenty of other ces to search before giving up.

    When I suggested this, Cecilia led the others in saying, "Going outside¡­"

    They all looked out the windows of this house at the dark city around us, as if they were looking for something.

    But no matter how they tried looking, they couldn''t find a single thing around them,

    It seemed that there really was no one in this dark city.

    Or else if there were, they would have already found a trace of them with how vignt they had been.

    In the end, Cecilia agreed, but she did have a condition.

    "Let us go out and check the surrounding area. We''ll secure the next building before we all move over."

    I gave a nod of agreement to this since this was a very reasonable request.

    But the way that we were going about this¡­it was almost like I was being treated as some kind of VIP that needed to be escorted from ce to ce.

    I had seen VIPs in my past life moving around like this, but now that I was being treated like this¡­there was a mix of emotions.

    It was certainly interesting being protected like a VIP like this.

    It gave a feeling of being very important to be protected like this.

    But at the same time, it was awkward being protected like this since I was being surrounded like I was some special exhibit and wasn''t allowed to take a single step out of line.

    Still, we were able to make it to the next building like this.

    This building was just the same as the other building that we came from.

    It wasn''t the exact same, but the generalyout of this house was the same.

    It was a residence just like the other house and there were many daily things scattered in this house. There was even a meal that was prepared and ced on the dining table that was steaming just like in the other house.

    It seemed that there was a preservation spell that was cast on this house as well.

    Since there was a preservation spell cast here, then it was no use trying to find any information from this ce.

    As expected, we weren''t able to move any of the items in the house, so I wasn''t able to get any information from the books and such that were in this ce.

    Going on like this wasn''t a way to proceed and time was running out.

    It might be time to try something drastic.

 Chapter 542 Come and get me!

    <h4>Chapter 542 Come and get me! </h4>

    "Let''s go out and explore the city itself."

    As soon as I suggested this, all of them looked at me like I was crazy.

    I wasn''t surprised since I had been expecting this reaction from them the moment that I suggested this.

    After all, it was a crazy idea.

    There was still no knowing what was outside, it was still possible that there was someone lurking around in this city. Yet I wanted to walk around outside which would turn us into targets.

    If it wasn''t me, they might have really beaten me to death for suggesting such a crazy thing.

    But since it was me, they couldn''t do that.

    In the end, it was Cecilia who came forward on behalf of everyone to say, "That''s too dangerous, we can''t take that risk."

    I gave a nod to show that I understood her concerns, but then I said, "Even so, we have to do this. There''s nothing else that we can gain from going house to house like this, especially with this preservation spell. Unless we take some risk, we won''t be able to find anything."

    Cecilia slightly knitted her brows when she heard this.

    The others also recognized that what I said was correct, so they had conflicted looks as well.

    It would be a lie to say that they weren''t curious about what this ce was.

    And that curiosity was slowly eating them up from the inside.

    So there was a part of them that was moved when I suggested that we go out and explore.

    Still, they were knights in the first ce, so their instincts kept them from following this suggestion.

    Cecilia was the same as she shook her head and said, "This is still too dangerous. I can''t allow this to happen."

    She looked at me with a firm look, as if nothing that I could say could change what she was thinking.

    I just gave a sigh and didn''t bother arguing.

    I knew that there was no use in arguing since it would be impossible to convince her when she was like this.

    So instead of trying to convince her¡­

    "Hey, can youe and take a look at something with me? I can''t seem to see through it all on my own, so I need your help looking at it." I suddenly said.

    Cecilia was surprised, but she gave a nod and followed me over to one of the tables.

    When we came over, I didn''t hesitate to suddenly trip her and make her fall over the table.

    Cecilia was a powerful knight with strong reactions, but she couldn''t react to something that she didn''t expect at all. Not to mention, I was someone that she trusted, so she didn''t think that she would have to be on guard when it came to anything with me.

    I was probably the only person in the world that could do this to Cecilia.

    The others were all shocked, so they weren''t able to do a single thing to stop me.

    As Cecilia fell over the table, I didn''t hesitate to run outside.

    Cecilia and none of the knights were able to stop me since they werepletely caught off guard.

    Cecilia was still trying to stand up from being tripped into the table while the knights were just staring on in shock as they couldn''t believe that I would do something like this.

    So I was able to run out without any of them stopping me.

    When Cecilia stood up and saw that I had run out, her first reaction was to run out after me while shouting at the knights, "What are you all standing in a daze for! Follow our lord!"

    The knights immediately realized what had happened after being yelled at by Cecilia and they all pulled out their weapons to run after me.

    It seemed like they wanted to stop me from doing what I wanted to do, but it was already toote for that.

    Before any of them could stop me, I cupped my hands in front of my mouth and shouted at the top of my voice, "Come and get me!"

    Cecilia and the knights were all in shock when they heard this, but then they quickly formed a circle around me to protect me.

    Cecilia looked at me with an angry and hurt look, but I didn''t look at her as I kept shouting out, "Come and get me, I''m right here!"

    I was shouting at the top of my voice, as if I wanted all the hidden creatures around us toe and attack us.

    But there was only the echo of my voice and no other sound.

    After a long silence, there was only more silence.

    There was nothing that came out to attack us.

    It didn''t seem like there was anything here.

    Seeing that nothing wasing to attack us, Cecilia grabbed me by the back of my cor and lifted me off the ground. Her hand came over my mouth to firmly cover it as she pulled me back into the house.

    The knights all quickly followed behind, but they also made sure that nothing was following us.

    When we were finally safe inside the house, Cecilia looked at me with an angry look and asked, "What was that? Not only did you put your own life in danger, you put all of our lives in danger! How could you do something like that?"

    I just calmly looked at her and said, "You gave me no choice. You were too afraid to go out, so I just had to do what I had to do."

    Cecilia responded in an angry voice, "And what you did almost killed us all!"

    I shook my head as I said, "No it didn''t since there''s nothing out there. If you listened to me, you would have known that already. There''s no danger out there, so we''re going out there to explore. I am the lord and my decision is final."

    Cecilia was taken aback when I suddenly stepped up like this.

    Her knights looked at her as if they were asking her what they should do, which put her in a very awkward position.

    But in the end, she backed down and said, "As you wish, my lord."

    Though I could tell from the look in her eyes, this wasn''t over yet.

 Chapter 543 Strange stele

    <h4>Chapter 543 Strange stele</h4>

    Since I had insisted, they followed me out of the house and we started walking around in the streets of this strange city.

    Though as we walked around, they firmly formed a circle around me so that I didn''t have a single moment of being alone.

    It was clear that they weren''t nning to leave me alone for a single second, but this was still better than the alternative. At the very least, we had left the house and were now searching this city.

    As we walked around, we saw that this city seemed to be a very normal city.

    There wasn''t much for us to see as many of the buildings were just normal buildings that one would find in a city.

    From time to time, we would see a building or two that was different and would explore them. However, all that we found were a bunch of stores that didn''t have anything important in them.

    Not to mention, these stores all had the same preservation spell cast on them.

    It seemed that this entire city had the preservation spell cast on it, so there wasn''t a single ce that we were able to interfere with.

    Eventually, we reached a ce that seemed different.

    This was a square that was in the center of the town.

    I had seen this ce from above when we came down, but mostly it was because we had followed the trail of torches that we had arrived at this ce.

    We had also stopped at one of the torches to see what was so special about it.

    As far as we could tell, it didn''t seem like there was anything special about it.

    Well, other than the fact that it was the only thing in this city that didn''t have a preservation spell cast on it. It was the only thing that we were able to interact with, but there wasn''t much that we could do with a giant blue me torch.

    The one thing that we could do was test the me and we were surprised to find¡­just how hot this me was.

    I had used one of the dildo bats that the knights had brought to poke at the fire.

    The moment that the dildo bat touched the mes, I found that it was already melting.

    Seeing this melting metal, I didn''t dare hold the dildo bat any longer and threw it into the fire.

    With the heat of the fire, it didn''t take long before the metal of the dildo bat waspletely melted.

    Since it was a torch, the molten metal dripped down the wooden part of the torch until it reached the ground. But the strange thing was that not a single bit of that liquid metal remained on the torch.

    All of it slid off before finally turning solid again.

    It seemed like there was something special about the torch itself, but¡­I didn''t want to risk the fire to test it. This fire was strong enough to melt even the dildo bat created by the system, who knows what would happen if we tried to investigate the torch.

    The knight whose dildo bat had been sacrificed looked like he wanted to break out in tears as he said, "My bat¡­"

    I just looked at him with a bitter smile and said, "Don''t worry, I''ll get you another er on."

    Only then did he feel a bit better, but it was clear that he still mourned the death of his bat.

    In this square, there was a fountain right in the center of it that had a torch at the very top.

    This ce seemed like it was the center of the town, with the various different buildings and stalls that were here. There was even one fancy building that looked like it was the town hall that was on one of the four sides of this square.

    But there wasn''t anything that we could do about this ce.

    It was the same as the rest of the city, there was a preservation spell that was cast on it, so we couldn''t do a single thing.

    Though one cool thing that we could do as a result of this was¡­

    walk on water.

    Since even the water in the fountain had the preservation spell cast on it, it didn''t even move when we walked on it.

    So we were able to walk on water and check out the fountain itself.

    This was a fountain that was carved in the shape of a beautiful woman and in her hand was the torch with the blue me.

    However, not a single one of us recognized this woman.

    In the end, it seemed like Cecilia and the knights wanted to give up.

    We had already searched the town like I wanted, so they had indulged me.

    They wanted to leave this ce before something bad happened and before we ran out of time. After all, we had already spent an hour here.

    Even if that wasn''t enough time for the others at the party to notice that we were missing, it was enough time for whoever lived in this city to realize that we were here. Even if they weren''t near the area where we had arrived, they should have had enough time toe over to attack us now.

    So they didn''t want to be here when that happened.

    They were urging me to leave as soon as possible.

    Unfortunately for them, my attention had been drawn by something else.

    There was one thing that was on another side of this square that attracted me.

    It was on the exact opposite side of the fancy building that should have been the town hall.

    This was arge stele that was just standing there right in front of a building which seemed to be a church.

    The church didn''t mean anything to me, but the stele did.

    Though Cecilia and the knights didn''t seem to find anything special about it.

    The reason why I found this stele so attractive was¡­because of the words that were right at the top.

    "Debug Log".

 Chapter 544 Debug room

    <h4>Chapter 544 Debug room</h4>

    Debug log.

    These were words that unless one knew about how this game used to be a game world, they wouldn''t understand.

    But the moment that I saw these words, I finally realized what this ce was and what it was used for.

    The debug room, that was a room that was rumoured to exist in the game.

    It was the room which the devs had used to test the aspects of the game and make the appropriate changes.

    To do that, this room had to be given a certain amount of privileges to do that.

    This room had one special function.

    It was able to create and delete any item in the game so that the devs could test anything new that they wanted to add into the game.

    But for even the debug room to carry over to this world after it was made a real world¡­

    This was a problem.

    If someone were to realize the power of this ce, it was unknown what they would do with it.

    However, as long as there was someone that knew about this ce, it was certain that there would be the temptation to use it. Unless they were someone like me that knew the dangers of a ce like this.

    So once I realized what this ce was, I no longer wanted to stay here any longer.

    I didn''t even want to figure out how this debug room worked.

    "Let''s go." I said before turning to leave.

    Cecilia and the knights were all shocked to see me acting this way, but they quickly reacted and followed me.

    But Cecilia couldn''t help moving forward to my side and asking, "What''s wrong? Why do you seem so spooked? Did you find something?"

    I just shook my head and said, "Nothing."

    It was one simple word, but the tone of my voice made it clear that this matter was settled. I made it very clear that this was final and that she should ask no more questions.

    Cecilia was once again taken aback, but she closed her mouth and just followed me.

    This was her first time seeing me act this way, so of course she was shocked.

    But she knew that I must have a good reason for acting this way.

    Our group quickly went back the same way that we came and found the stairs.

    Then we went up the stairs and out the door to return to the dungeon.

    We had left the zombies here and it didn''t seem like anything had happened as they were still standing there where we had left them.

    Though we came out of the door, it didn''t close behind us which bothered me.

    I had to figure out a way to close this door¡­

    "Open sesame."

    "Close."

    "Shut yourself."

    I said all kinds of different phrases for it to close, but it just wouldn''t close.

    When they saw me acting this way, Cecilia and the knights couldn''t help feeling that I was crazy.

    But they just watched me as I kept shouting at the door.

    The only problem was that no matter what I tried, this door wouldn''t close.

    Even as time passed, it didn''t seem like it would close automatically.

    If I didn''t get this door to close, then it was very likely that it would be found by someone else and there was the chance of the debug room being abused¡­

    So I had to figure out a way to close it or at least block it off.

    For now, it didn''t seem like I would be able to close it¡­

    So maybe I should try to find a way to block it off?

    Or at least that was what I thought before trying onest thing.

    "For the Divine."

    When I said this, the same sound as before suddenly rang out and the door started to move again.

    In no time at all, the door had closed once more.

    When I saw this, I let out a long sigh of relief.

    It seemed that the phrase to open it was also the phrase to close it.

    At the very least, that was one problem taken care of.

    Now for the next problem¡­

    I pulled out Durand without any hesitation and started shing at the walls around the door.

    I didn''t hesitate to cut through all of the different etchings on the wall, almost as if I was a madman.

    I even ignored all of the looks that Cecilia and the others gave me as I did this.

    I knew that I couldn''t allow these things to exist in this world anymore.

    Even if I was the only one that would be able to read them, I couldn''t take the risk that someone would be able to decode it one day. If that happened and they were to ess this ce¡­

    Once I was done, I turned to look at Cecilia and the others to say in a deep voice, "We did nothing here, understood?"

    Cecilia and the others all revealed slightly terrified looks when they heard this.

    I''m sure that I must have looked terrifying since I had never acted this way before.

    For them seeing it for the first time, it was something that they couldn''t help being scared by.

    But that was just how important this was.

    Slowly all of them gave nods of agreement to what I said.

    But I wouldn''t let it end there as I said, "Raise your hand and make a vow."

    All of them were taken aback that I would take it this far, but they still agreed and did it.

    Once we were done, we immediately left that ce and returned to the camp.

    The debug room¡­

    How could such a terrifying thing appear in this world?

    I knew that this world was based on the game, but why did even thise along with it?

    Doesn''t the person who built this world know how dangerous this room was?

    No matter what, no one could know about this ever.

    Or else¡­it might be the end of this world.

 Chapter 545 Grab him

    <h4>Chapter 545 Grab him</h4>

    We were able toe back before the party ended and were able to reintegrate ourselves in the celebration without any problems.

    When it was all over, I pulled Haley aside to tell her a few things.

    "Develop this ce, but don''t develop too deep. Make sure to nevere close to the door, or else it''ll be the end of the world."

    Haley was very confused when she heard this and she looked at Cecilia for an exnation, but Cecilia just shook her head to show that she didn''t understand.

    Even though she had been with him this entire time, she hadn''t understood a single thing about what he did.

    Still, since these were his orders, she chose to follow them to the end.

    Afterwards, we stayed for another two weeks to start building up the town.

    Since it was already decided that this ce would be developed as a dungeon town, it took no time at all to start building up a few things.

    There were several more people that were called here by Haley and it was resembling a town by the time that we left.

    There was an inn, a branch of Haley''s store, and even an Adventurer Guild that had been built.

    In time, there would be more people that immigrated to this ce, but for now, it would just be an outpost for exchanging items for the adventurers and mercenaries who would stay to explore the dungeon.

    Though if possible, I really wanted to seal this dungeon off forever¡­

    Still, I knew that this was impossible, so I just epted the current situation.

    For now, it didn''t seem like anyone would reach the door in the back of the dungeon.

    When I arrived back in my territory, the first thing that happened was¡­

    Rose suddenly greeted me with a bunch of butlers and maids as soon as I arrived at our manor.

    I couldn''t help being caught off guard by this, but then she pointed at me and said, "Grab him!"

    I didn''t struggle as the butlers came forward to grab me, but I looked at her with a confused look as I asked, "What''s happening?"

    Rose didn''t exin at all as she gave the butlers and maids instructions, "Make sure that he''spletely cleaned up in an hour. I''ll need him toe to the meeting with me and to look his best, so do all that you can."

    "Yes, madam!" The maids and butlers said before dragging me away.

    I just looked at Rose with a shocked look, but she didn''t look in my direction at all.

    She was surrounded by many different people that were asking her about different things.

    So I could only let myself be dragged off with a bitter smile on my face.

    Over the next hour, I was bathed and forced to wear different clothes until they finally picked out an outfit for me.

    It seemed like there was more, but luckily Rose had sent someone to call me over.

    So the butlers and maids had no choice but to do a rush job and finish off my dress up session.

    By the end of it, when I looked at myself in the mirror, it really was hard to recognize who was looking back. After all, it looked like apletely different person was looking back at me.

    I was dressed inpletely formal clothes, clothes that I had seen other nobles wear, but I would never wear myself. At the same time, my hair waspletely slicked back and gave me a refreshing look.

    Though I looked like I was just forced into a fancy outfit, it would be a lie to say that I looked bad.

    With the appearance that I had in this body, it really made anything look good.

    But I didn''t get long to admire my new appearance as I was dragged to a meeting.

    This was a meeting in the center of the town, where the town hall was.

    When I came in, I found that this room was filled with people.

    There wasn''t a single person that I recognized, or at least that was what I thought at first nce. When I looked closely, I found that there was someone that I recognized.

    It was Viscount Henry''s wife.

    She was standing behind Rose who stood at the very front of this meeting.

    It seemed that she had adapted well to her role as Rose''s assistant since the two of them were standing together like it was natural.

    When Rose saw me, she waved her hand for me toe over.

    As she did this, I could feel the various gazes that were turned in my direction.

    Sensing this, I raised my back to stand up straight and walked forward towards Rose.

    The gazes that were on me had different intentions, but it didn''t seem like any of them had ill intentions. There were many gazes that were filled with curiosity and respect.

    At the same time, it seemed like there were a few gazes that seemed to be sizing me up.

    I just hoped that I was making a good impression.

    After walking over to Rose, she just gestured to the podium at the front of the meeting for me.

    I was surprised, but with everyone staring at me like this, I had no choice but to go up.

    When I came over to the podium, I was surprised to find that there were already notes waiting for me on it. It seemed that Rose had already prepared everything for me and had just been waiting for me to arrive.

    I took a quick look over these notes and immediately figured out what was happening.

    This was a meeting about the n that we had put in ce for this area.

    This was a n that was about to unveil what kind of business we wanted the lords of each area to engage in.

    The ones that were at this meeting were the representatives who had been sent by these lords, so it was no wonder they were sizing me up.

    So now, I would have to address them and introduce everything to build prestige for myself.

    I couldn''t help giving a secret bitterugh.

    It seemed that Rose had prepared quite the role for me.

 Chapter 546 Economic zone

    <h4>Chapter 546 Economic zone</h4>

    After clearing my throat, I said, "Guests that havee from far and wide, I thank you foring and wee you to my territory."

    The way that I said this was filled with the majesty that a powerful noble should have, it really made me look like a proper count like this, even if I didn''t feel like one.

    After a dramatic pause, I said, "We are all gathered here to discuss the issue that I have sent to your various lords, but I''m sure that all of you have your questions about what the n is. I just ask that you hold all of these questions until you''ve heard everything that we have to say."

    The people that were sitting around me revealed surprised looks after hearing this, but they nodded in agreement since this was a fair request.

    After that, I turned to the board behind me and there was already someone that was putting up a map.

    It was one of Rose''s subordinates.

    It seemed that they really had been well trained that they could even act without me giving them the cue.

    Of course, I wouldn''t know since I had been away this whole time.

    After the map was ced, I took out the pointer that had been provided and started making areas on the map while reading off the script.

    The script gave information about these ces and the things that they had as their specialty.

    The details given were so precise that even those who represented those areas didn''t seem to know about them as seen by the surprised looks on the faces of the ones sitting around this room.

    They really seemed like they had no idea about anything that I was saying.

    Of course, I had no idea about any of this either since I never did any of this work.

    Once I finished reading the script, I went on to say, "I hope that all of you will consider what I have said today and will look favourably on the proposal that we have for you all."

    The people around the room had looks of deep thought on their faces.

    There were even some of them that were looking at me with wary looks, as if they were afraid of me.

    I could understand this since I had given them information about their territory that they didn''t even know about. If I had information like this, there was no knowing what other kind of information I would have.

    Take for example¡­information about the structures on their territory or information about their armies.

    If this information was known, it would be easy for them to invade and take their territory. It was even easier since they knew that I had a count title that would allow me to do whatever I wanted with these smaller nobles.

    So it wasn''t strange that they were wary of me.

    However, since I didn''t have any script left, that meant that my role was over.

    I was about to go sit down, but Rose came up beside me and held my arm to keep me there.

    I just revealed a faint bitter smile that the others didn''t see as I remained standing there by her side. But after that faint bitter smile disappeared, I tried to reveal as stern of a look as I could to help her.

    Rose couldn''t help revealing a faint smile seeing me with this stern look on my face.

    She turned back to the others and said, "The proposal that we are making is that we want you to work with us to create an economic zone as we are calling it."

    Everyone in the room looked at her with a confused look when they heard this.

    Economic zone?

    They had really never heard of this term before.

    Rose could see this, but she wasn''t in a rush to exin.

    Instead, after keeping them in suspense for a bit, she said, "The economic zone as we call it is an area where we all work together to improve the economy of each other''s territory. For this, we will want everyone to work together to produce the goods that we specify for them."

    Rose turned to the map and pointed at Viscount Henry''s territory to say, "For example, take this territory as an example. This ce is rich in fertilends and is ideal for nting various types of food nts and nts for materials. So we would designate this ce as a farming territory."

    She pointed at another territory and said, "This territory has a rich copper mine, so we are hoping that the lord there will focus on developing said copper mine and provide copper not just for the region, but also to sell to other regions."

    She went on to point out many different territories and their specialties before going into detail how they would help these territories distribute the products that they produced.

    With Haley''s distributionwork that now spread all over the country with the help of the royal family and the duke, they had no problems helping all of these territories distribute everything for a fee.

    Plus, she showed just how much they would make from all of this which was a major enticement to the representatives.

    But in the end, one of them couldn''t help asking, "So you''re saying that you want us to stop producing food all together and just rely on buying it to support our territory?"

    As soon as this was said, all of the representatives narrowed their eyes.

    This was something that was very concerning for them because¡­if they couldn''t secure the food supply of their territory, then it was impossible for them to be truly safe.

    If they relied on buying food, there was no knowing if that food would stop because of some kind of ident.

    Though it could also stop if some disaster happened, at least it would be safer to produce one''s own food.

    So this was a major problem in them epting this proposal.

 Chapter 547 Surprise visitor

    <h4>Chapter 547 Surprise visitor</h4>

    However, this was something that Rose had already considered.

    She didn''t hesitate at all as she pointed out some areas that were marked out on the map.

    "To relieve your worries about this, we have relegated a certain amount ofnd in each of your territories for this. As long as there''s no disaster that strikes, then there won''t be a problem in terms of food for all of your territories."

    The representatives all looked carefully at the map at the areas marked before slowly nodding in agreement.

    The areas that had been marked were more than enough for them to relieve their worries about food, but¡­that was only if they could grow food in those areas. If something unexpected happened or if they weren''t able to grow anything, then they would be screwed.

    So there were still some worries about food security.

    Luckily, Rose and Viscountess Henry had already considered all of this.

    Rose just continued by saying, "In addition to therge amounts of wealth that you will be gaining from participating in this economic zone n, we will also be sending technical support to all of you to help you learn how to grow food more efficiently."

    This time, it was Viscountess Henry''s turn to step forward to say, "My husband has already agreed to send our people out to teach you all how to grow proper crops when the timees."

    All of the representatives were shocked when they heard this.

    It was well known that Viscount Henry''s territory was a rich territory because of all the farms that they had. They had plenty of food and could even export that food to other ces because of their rich farms.

    If a territory with this kind of agricultural techniques were to provide support, then there was no doubt that they would be able to nt proper farms.

    But¡­humans were greedy in the end.

    They always wanted more.

    Rose was well aware of this, so she yed her final card, "In addition to all of this, we will be setting up multiple granaries in these locations." She pointed at several ces on the map that were at the center of multiple territories.

    With the spots that she had pointed out, it was enough to cover all of the territories of those who had been invited to this meeting.

    She then turned back to them and said, "All those that agree to this n of ours will be required to contribute to the granary closest to them. The amount that will be required is¡­"

    All of the representatives were shocked when they heard this.

    It wasn''t that they were shocked by how much the amount was, but rather they were shocked by how little it was.

    It was so little that it didn''t hurt them at all to contribute this little.

    But that didn''t make sense since this was far from being enough to fill the granary.

    Rose also knew this, but she wasn''t in a rush to say anything as she kept everyone in suspense.

    When she saw that they werepletely confused and filled with curiosity, she said, "The rest of the granary will be filled up by our Count Zwein. Everyone that contributes will have the right to receive supplies from the granary when they face troubles and they will receive a dividend from it each year."

    All of the representatives were shocked when they heard this.

    After all, not a single one of them was confused on what this meant¡­

    Basically, they were being paid in food to join this n and they would be getting free support from it. The fee that they were paying was nothing more than a formality.

    So this really was an enticing offer.

    It really didn''t seem like they would be losing anything from agreeing to this n.

    Rose''s trump card had pushed the rest of them over the line and now it seemed like they were very agreeable to these terms.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help shaking my head and thinking¡­

    "They''re all just dancing in Rose''s hands."

    She had already guessed all of their reactions and what they would think, so there was no way they would be able to outsmart her.

    After letting them talk amongst themselves in an excited manner, Rose said, "Since everyone has a favourable impression, shall we sign the agreement then?"

    That was when everyone hesitated.

    There were some that were hesitating to see what the others would do, there were some that were hesitating because those were the orders they had been given, and there were some that just didn''t want tomit to this right away.

    They all were all clearly hoping for even better terms after hearing all of this.

    Rose once again clearly expected this based on the look that she had on her face.

    I couldn''t help wondering what n she had this time.

    But even I wasn''t prepared for the move that she made next.

    "Well, it seems that some of you are still on the fence about this." Rose suddenly said in a casual voice. After a pause, she suddenly said, "Then how about we forget about this?"

    All of the representatives were shocked when they heard this.

    None of them knew how to react as they all just looked at Rose as if they were wondering if she was joking or not.

    But Rose had a calm look on her face after saying this.

    One of the representatives finally couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Countess Rose, let''s not joke around. We are very interested in this, but if you would just give us a bit of time¡­"

    Rose suddenly cut him off by saying, "Who said that I was joking?"

    All of them suddenly felt a chill run down their spine when they saw the sudden change with Rose.

    The way that she suddenly became very domineering like this hadpletely caught them off guard.

    But before any of them could even say a thing¡­there was a pping sound that rang out.

    "Very good, very good, I like this n very much."

    This voice came from the entrance of this room.

 Chapter 548 I want you for myself

    <h4>Chapter 548 I want you for myself</h4>

    When this voice rang out, everyone suddenly turned to look in the direction that it came from.

    The moment that they saw this person, they couldn''t help being shocked.

    That included me since I had no idea what this person was doing here.

    Standing at the entrance of this room was a beautiful girl with blonde hair wearing a gorgeous dress.

    This was a person that everyone recognized since she was famous in the kingdom.

    Ever since her father sent her portrait to every part of the kingdom for her sixteenth birthday.

    It was the princess, Ang.

    She just ignored everyone that was staring at her and moved into the room.

    As they watched here in, they couldn''t help standing up as if they were about to bow to her.

    The princess just calmly waved her hand before saying to Rose, "This n of yours, it really is something that I''ve never seen before. How did youe up with it?"

    Rose shook her head before saying, "I can''t take all the credit foring up with it. If it wasn''t for my husband giving me this idea, I wouldn''t have been able to even begining up with this n."

    The princess'' eyes seemed to twitch a bit when she heard this, but she still said with the same smile, "It seems like there are still quite a few unknown talented people in our kingdom."

    After saying that, she walked over to Rose and said, "How about youe and work for me?"

    When they heard this, all of the representatives couldn''t help panicking.

    While the princess was someone that they couldn''t mess with, the fact of the matter was that the princess was now stealing this opportunity from them.

    They had already been moved by Rose''s proposal, but they had wanted to stall for more benefits.

    But if Rose was actually moved by the princess'' offer and really cancelled this, then it would be terrible for them.

    So they were panicking as they were thinking of a way to try and seal this deal before that happened. But there was also one major problem that was standing in their way to do this.

    It was the princess.

    The princess had made an offer and if they were to try to cut in on that, there was no doubt that they would offend the princess.

    So they were trying to think of the best way for them to backtrack on what they had said before.

    Rose further lit a fire under their butts when she said, "Your highness, that is a very enticing offer. May I ask what other benefits you are offering?"

    The princess revealed a wide smile as she said, "Whatever benefits you can think of. That''s how much I want you for myself."

    All of the representatives once again trembled in fear, but also a bit of shock when they heard this. It was as if they could hear something strange in the way that the princess had said this.

    After all these years, the princess still hadn''t found anyone yet¡­

    Could it be that the princess was into¡­?

    But they quickly shook that disrespectful thought out of their minds and focused on what they needed to focus on. Right now, the most important thing was figuring out how to get Rose back on track.

    Finally, one of the representatives couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Countess Rose, may we talk to you for a bit in private?" He turned to the princess and said, "Your highness, if you would excuse us for a minute. We have something to discuss about our business prior to youing."

    The princess narrowed her eyes to look at the representative who looked afraid, but she gave a nod in the end and turned to leave.

    The representatives were all shocked to see how easily the princess was leaving, but then they felt the urgency of their situation again.

    The representative who had spoken turned to Rose to say, "Countess Rose, if possible, can we sign the agreement from before? I have thought about it and have decided that I wish to sign it now."

    With this one taking the lead, the other representatives quickly started saying that they wanted to sign as well.

    But Rose didn''t say a single thing while they were saying this.

    Only when they realized that something was off and stopped did she finally say, "Hmm, but it seems like the princess'' offer is more enticing. I wonder what I should do?"

    All of them started to tremble when they heard this.

    They looked at each other with worried looks before the first representative who had spoken before said, "Un, we''re willing to donate a bit more to the granary."

    Rose just put her finger on her chin and acted like she was thinking about it.

    The representatives couldn''t help gritting their teeth when they saw this.

    They could tell that now, they were the ones that were being pressured. They were the ones that held the cards before, but now it was them that were being pressured by Rose.

    After grinding their teeth over this situation for a bit, the representative then said, "We''re willing to increase the fees for selling our goods across the kingdom."

    The others gave slow nods of agreement, but the pained look on their faces made it clear that they weren''t happy about this.

    Rose just stood there in silence for a bit before turning to Viscountess Henry beside her.

    Viscountess Henry took out a piece of paper that she took and ced on the table in front of these representatives without saying a word.

    The smile on her face made it clear what this was.

    They all crowded forward to see what the terms were, but the moment that they did¡­

    "This is¡­"

    All of them had shocked looks on their faces when they saw this, but their expressions also looked ugly.

    The representative from before couldn''t help asking, "Is this serious?"

    Rose just looked at him and nodded with a smile on her face.

 Chapter 549 Why are you here?

    <h4>Chapter 549 Why are you here?</h4>

    The representative had a very ugly look on his face when he saw Rose nodding at him like this.

    The piece of paper that she had brought out was the contract that she wanted them to sign. It had all of the new terms that she was proposing.

    These terms were far less favourable than the one that she had given them earlier. And the fact that she already had this contract prepared meant that she had already expected all of this to happen.

    She had been nning to gouge them like this all along.

    That was why they felt a chill earlier¡­

    But what could they say?

    Even if these terms were worse for them, it was still quite good in terms of what they would receive from this.

    So could they reject this in hopes of getting better terms?

    No, it was toote¡­

    So with heavy looks on their faces, the representatives agreed to sign this contract.

    At this point, the only thing that they could do was think of a way to exin all of this to the lords they served. They wanted to think of a way to spin it so that it was believable that this was the best deal that they could make.

    Rose didn''t care about this, all she cared about was that they signed it in the end.

    Once everyone signed the contract, there was nothing else that she needed to do here, so she left this ce to Viscountess Henry.

    She knew exactly what to do with these representatives.

    Rose came over to grab my hand and then we left this room to head to another smaller room.

    Sitting in this room was the princess who had already been served tea and cake.

    No, judging by how it wasid out and the crumbs that were scattered, it seemed that she had been in here for a while.

    She should have been sitting here since before the meeting had even begun.

    When the princess saw the two of use in, she looked at Rose with a smile and asked, "Did it work?"

    Rose looked back at her with a smile and said with a nod, "It worked perfectly."

    I wasn''t surprised to see this since I had already figured that it was like this.

    The moment that I saw Rose take out the contract, I had already figured out that this had to be intentional.

    There was no way that this wasn''t intentional when she acted like this.

    So I figured that she already knew about the princess being here and even cooperated with her to put pressure on those representatives.

    But why was the princess here and why was she working with Rose?

    It raised even more questions that it answered.

    After waiting for them to finish talking, I came forward and gave a slight bow to say, "Your highness, it''s an honour to host you in my territory. But if you do not mind, may I ask you something?"

    The princess looked at me with a displeased look for some reason, but she still gave a nod of agreement.

    Seeing this, I asked, "Why are you here?"

    I didn''t hold back at all and just bluntly asked this.

    I know that this might seem rude, but at this point, it didn''t seem like there was any point in beating around the bush.

    The princess also didn''t seem to mind that I was so forward about this, though she did seem a bit unhappy that I was asking her this question.

    Still, she quickly revealed a smile and said, "Didn''t my brother tell you that I was to be sent here as my royal father''s representative for the ore trade? So here I am."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I did remember that the fourth prince had mentioned this before.

    Though I really never expected her toe this soon.

    I had only been away for two weeks and the princess had suddenly dropped in.

    During this, I also couldn''t help looking at Rose with an apologetic look.

    I''m sure that she had suffered quite a bit having to deal with this while I was gone.

    But to my surprise, I found that she didn''t seem bothered by it at all.

    She just looked at me with a smile as if she was happy to see the princess here.

    I couldn''t help feeling confused when I saw this, but I turned my attention back to the princess to say, "Then your highness, are you going to talk to Haley about the ore trade? Unfortunately, she''s currently busy with another project, so she most likely won''t have the free time to discuss this with you. So in her ce, I could help show you around first so you can get an idea of how trade goes."

    The princess shook her head before saying, "There''s no need for that. I don''t really need to do anything since everything has been going well. My visit is nothing more than a formality."''

    I was surprised to see that the king trusted me this much, but I still felt strange.

    After all, if she wasn''t here for this¡­then what was she here for?

    As if she could understand what I was thinking, the princess suddenly said, "What I''m actually here for has something to do with you, your lordship?"

    "Me?" I couldn''t help saying in a confused voice.

    The princess said with a nod, "There''s something that I want your help with, so I need you to do something for me."

    I raised a brow and said, "I''ll do what I can, but I''m sure that your highness can find someone better to help with this, right?"

    It wasn''t that I was chasing her away, but¡­

    It was never a good thing to get too close to the royals.

    But the princess just shook her head and said, "No, it''s something that only you can do. So I definitely need your help on this matter."

    I was even more confused when I heard this, but I slowly said with a nod, "Alright, I''ll do what I can to help your highness."

 Chapter 550 Marry me

    <h4>Chapter 550 Marry me</h4>

    The princess gave a happy nod when she heard this before saying, "It''s a very simple matter that I need your help with. All you have to do is say yes or no to the question I''m about to ask."

    I was very surprised to hear this and I couldn''t help looking at the princess with a strange look.

    But in the end, I gave a slow nod to show that I understood.

    After seeing this nod, the princess said, "I want you to marry me. Do you ept this?"

    "Huh?" That was the only thing that I could say when I heard this.

    I looked at the princess with a very strange look after I slowly came back to my senses.

    This princess waspletely different from before¡­she was no longer so shy that she wouldn''t even look at me anymore. Instead, she was directly asking me if I wanted to marry her.

    But I also couldn''t help looking at Rose with a cautious look.

    Someone was proposing to me right in front of her, who was my wife. It would be strange if I didn''t end up in the dog house tonight because of this.

    However, to my surprise, I found that Rose didn''t have an angry look on her face.

    She just had a calm look that almost seemed like there was a faint smile on her face.

    It seemed like she was epting this instead of being against it.

    But why?

    Seeing that I was still stunned and not saying anything, the princess couldn''t help saying, "Well, how about it? Will you marry me?"

    I slowly came back to my senses and asked, "Your highness, why are you asking this of me? I just don''t understand."

    The princess said with a smile, "Well, you''re the one that I''ve chosen and my royal father agrees to this. So there''s nothing else that needs to be said¡­Well, other than you agreeing to it."

    I was still very confused, but there was something shocking that had been said by the princess that caught me off guard again.

    She said that the king already agreed to this¡­

    Why would the king agree to this?

    There shouldn''t be anything to gain from this¡­unless there was something that I didn''t know about.

    I looked at her with narrowed eyes and then asked, "You''re saying that the king agreed to this? Why?"

    For the first time, the princess revealed an awkward look.

    It seemed like I had struck at the heart of the matter, there seemed to be something that she was hiding from me.

    After an awkward silence, the princess suddenly said, "There have been aggressive marriage offers from the surrounding countries for me. It''s hard for my royal father to keep rejecting them, so he wants to set another engagement for me during this time."

    As expected, there really was another reason for all of this.

    They wanted to turn me into a scapegoat to help them solve this problem.

    But there was something that also bugged me.

    Why would the surrounding countries suddenly send all of these aggressive offers of marriage?

    If they wanted to do this, why would they wait until now to do it?

    So I asked, "Why are they suddenly sending all of these offers now?"

    The princess revealed an awkward look at first, as if she didn''t want to tell me. But in the end, she said with a sigh, "It''s because of the ore trade with the Dwarven Kingdom. They want to build rtions with our country to get a piece of it."

    My chin dropped the moment that I heard this, but that expression on my face eventually turned into a bitter smile.

    That was because¡­I was rted to this in the end.

    It wasn''t that they were turning me into a scapegoat, they werebining our problems together.

    After all, there was no doubt that the surrounding countries would alsoe looking for me on this matter since I was the one that initiated the trade with the Dwarven Kingdom.

    By tying me with the princess now, it would be like saying that they stood with me and that if they wanted ores through us, they would have to go through the kingdom.

    This was indirectly a way to protect me as well.

    But I couldn''t just use a young girl''s future in exchange for this.

    Making the princess marry me¡­it didn''t sound like a good thing.

    So I looked at the princess who was just waiting for me to say something and I said, "Your highness, I understand the predicament that this puts you in, but¡­"

    Before I could finish, Rose suddenly said, "Before you say anything, let''s talk in private."

    I looked at her with a surprised look, but seeing the look that she was giving me, I slowly gave a nod.

    We excused ourselves from that room and went to a different room.

    Once we came into this room, Rose turned to me and said, "Why are you rejecting the princess?"

    I was caught off guard by her suddenly asking me this, but I still said, "It''s just a marriage of convenience, I don''t feel like there''s a need for this."

    Rose shook her head and said with a sigh, "Do you really think that it''s like this? I can tell you that it''s not, so is there any other reason that you can''t ept this?"

    I was even more surprised when I heard this.

    She was my wife and now she was asking me why I wouldn''t marry another woman¡­

    This was a very strange feeling for me, so I couldn''t help asking, "Why do you want me to marry her? Isn''t it good if I say no?"

    Rose just said with a smile, "I already told you that I don''t mind you having multiple wives. In fact, it just means that there are more women who recognize how excellent my husband is."

    A very strange look appeared on my face when I heard this.

    I really couldn''t understand what she was thinking when she said this and I don''t think that I would ever understand.

    But Rose just said all of this with a smile on her face like it was something natural.

    She then asked me, "What else is wrong?"

    I gave a sigh and slowly said, "This is nothing more than a marriage of convenience without any feelings. A good marriage requires both sides to have feelings for each other or else it will end up with one side leaving the other. I don''t want to force her into this kind of marriage."

    Rose gave a nod before saying, "That''s very easy to solve."

    A surprised and confused look appeared on my face when I heard her say this. Slowly, I asked, "How are you going to solve this?"

    Rose revealed a smile as she said, "It''s in and simple, we just have to ask her how she feels about this." Then without waiting for a response from me, she grabbed my hand again and left this room.

    In no time at all, we appeared back in the room that the princess was waiting in.

    Aftering in, Rose looked at the princess and asked, "How do you feel about my husband?"

 Chapter 551 I really love you

    <h4>Chapter 551 I really love you</h4>

    The princess was caught off guard when she heard this.

    There was a blush that quickly came over her face when she realized what was happening.

    At the same time, she couldn''t help peeking at me as if she was trying to see what kind of expression I had.

    This made her seem like the princess that I had met before.

    After a long silence, the princess asked, "Why are you asking me this?"

    Rose just calmly said, "My husband doesn''t believe that your feelings are sincere, so he wants to see how you truly feel."

    The princess revealed a shocked look before turning to look at me with a hurt look.

    The way that she looked at me really made it seem like I was the bad guy here. However, I didn''t feel that I was wrong to feel this way.

    After all, I had only met the princess a few times in this world. Even if I knew a lot about her because of my time ying the game, I didn''t really know the princess of this world.

    So I couldn''t say that we had a deep bond based on the short interaction that we had. Definitely not to the point where marriage was on the table.

    So I just couldn''t understand why she was looking at me like this.

    After a long silence, the princess finally said, "Alright, then I''ll tell you my real feelings."

    She looked right into my eyes and there was a blush that came over her face as she did, but she still said, "I really do love you."

    When she confessed to me like this, I really couldn''t help being shocked.

    My chin dropped and I looked like an idiot as I looked back at the princess, wondering if she was being serious.

    But she just looked at me with the same look on her face.

    It didn''t seem like she was joking at all¡­

    After a long and awkward silence, I finally couldn''t help asking, "Why?"

    It was just a single word, but it contained everything that I was feeling since I really was confused why she would feel this way.

    The princess looked down with a blush on her face as she said, "Are you really making me say all of that?"

    I really didn''t know what to say in this situation since it almost seemed like I was the bad person here.

    But I couldn''t just say yes since I didn''t know what was happening.

    With a nod, I said, "I really need to know."

    The princess'' eyes opened a bit wider when she heard this, but then she said, "Well, you helped me when we first met and I fell for you. That''s it."

    "Huh?" I couldn''t help saying.

    It was that simple?

    If I remember correctly, it took a long time in the game to even see the princess, let alone to have a chance to woo her. And now she was telling me that she fell for me just because I helped her?

    Was there such a thing in the game?

    No, no, I couldn''t keep thinking of this world as the game since this was a real world with real living people.

    I just found it hard to believe that someone like the princess would fall that easily.

    I looked at her with a strange look and asked, "Is it really that easy?"

    The princess gave a slight nod and said, "I have a weakness for handsome guys."

    It was the face!

    Of course, it had to be the handsome face that did it.

    I didn''t know it, but it seemed to be aplex for me¡­

    The moment that I heard her say that it was the face, there was a part of me that lost control and wanted to rant about how handsome people got everything. That was because in my past life, I was one of those people who only had an average face and didn''t receive any special attention like handsome people would.

    So that developed into aplex that I didn''t even know about.

    But in the end, I was able to hold myself back and not say anything that I might have regretted.

    After calming down, I just said, "But a handsome face isn''t everything. You don''t know enough about me for this. I might be a bad person, you know?"

    The princess couldn''t help giving a chuckle when she heard this before saying, "If you''re a bad person, then I''ll fall with you."

    I trembled when I heard this, but I quickly said, "No, no, if I''m a bad person, you should clearly avoid me. After all, being with a bad person isn''t good for you."

    The princess raised a brow to look at me as she said, "Would a bad person say something like this?"

    An awkward smile crept onto my face as I heard this.

    I really didn''t know what to say in response to this.

    But it seemed like the princess wasn''t done yet as she said, "Of course, it isn''t just your face."

    I was even more surprised as I listened to her.

    "I know all about you from the reports that I''ve received, so I know what kind of person you are and that just makes me love you more."

    "Reports?" I couldn''t help repeating when I heard this.

    The princess said with a nod, "I received reports from my fourth brother and my royal father that have told me all about you. I know all about you from the reports that I''ve read on the things that you''ve done, so I know what kind of person you are."

    I couldn''t help feeling very strange about this.

    It seemed that the fourth prince and even the king were involved in this matter¡­

    Though why would they be watching over me like this in the first ce?

    It really made me feel very strange about all of this, as well as a bit worried.

    But before I could say anything else, the princess looked up at me with sad eyes and asked, "Do you not like me?"

 Chapter 552 Reluctantly accepting

    <h4>Chapter 552 Reluctantly epting</h4>

    When she looked at me like this and asked this question, I couldn''t help being shocked.

    At the same time, I was able to look at her face properly and really appreciate her beauty.

    It was no wonder she was regarded as one of the goddesses of this game.

    Her beauty was beyond that of the normal beautiful girls in the game.

    With that fair blonde hair, those piercing and sparkling blue eyes, and those cherry red lips, this was a face that was priceless. One might never even get a chance to see this kind of beauty unless one was lucky enough in life.

    So this was also part of what distracted me.

    But in the end, I pulled myself together and seriously thought about this.

    The princess was my waifu, that was all I had to say.

    To say that I had no feelings for her was aplete lie, but that was only because those were my feelings for her as a game character. My feelings for her now that she had be a person werepletely different since I didn''t know this person as well.

    There was barely any interaction between us, so there was nothing that happened between us that would let me feel that there was something special between us.

    So if I were to ept this, it most likely wouldn''t be because of how I felt about her.

    It would most likely be because of the situation.

    There were other countries that were moving because of the trade with the Dwarven Kingdom. They knew that our country was currently trading with the Dwarven Kingdom and getting ores from them, so they would want a part of that as well.

    That was why they were making proposals to marry the princess.

    But if they found out that I was the one that brokered the deal and was in charge of handling it, there was no doubt that their attention would turn to me.

    When the time came, they would alle down on me.

    So this engagement to the princess would without a doubt help me in the future when that came.

    After all, it would mean that I would have the support of the country in this matter since I was married to the princess.

    This was a very enticing matter for me.

    Still, there was the part of me that rejected this because I felt that a loveless marriage would only end in failure.

    As all of these thoughts mixed inside of me, making me agonize over this decision, the princess began looking more and more sad. It was as if the longer that I dyed this, the more I would hurt her.

    So I looked deep into myself and said, "No, it isn''t that I don''t like you. It''s just that this is too sudden that I find it hard to ept."

    The princess'' expression rxed a bit, but she still looked a bit hurt.

    But after taking a moment to calm herself down, she said, "Then that means that there''s still a chance?"

    I slowly gave a nod when I heard this.

    The princess then said with a smile, "Tell me, what do you need from me to make you agree to this engagement?"

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile when I heard this.

    The way that she said this, it made me sound like a bad person that was only using her instead of actually wanting to get to know her better.

    I had already asked her why she liked me, so there really wasn''t much else that I could ask her.

    I was still agonizing over this decision when I suddenly saw the look that Rose gave me.

    That look of disappointment immediately changed what I was thinking¡­

    The way that she looked at me, it was clear what she was thinking.

    She was disappointed in me for hesitating so much.

    This was an opportunity no matter how one looked at it and if I didn''t ept it, it would without a doubt never appear in front of me again.

    So I just took one moment to look deep into my heart.

    Imagining the princess with someone else, I could feel the anger that was burning in my heart.

    In the end, I was a selfish person.

    Since this was my new life, then I would live it to the full and ept all the opportunities that came my way. Since she wanted to be with me, then I shouldn''t reject this and see where this went.

    Though it was hard topletely let go of the reluctance that was in my heart.

    Still, in the end, I said, "Alright, I ept."

    The princess was caught off guard when I suddenly said this.

    She looked at me with wide eyes filled with disbelief before slowly saying, "What did you just say?"

    "I said that I ept." I said in a calm voice.

    The princess blinked a few times before suddenly revealing a wide smile and letting out a sigh of relief. She then stepped forward and reached her arms around me to hug me, but that became quite awkward.

    That was where my height came into y.

    After all, while she wasn''t tall, I wasn''t that tall either.

    She was actually a bit taller than me, so my face went to her chest when she wrapped her arms around me.

    Feeling that soft feeling that hit me in the face, I immediately fell into a daze as I couldn''t believe what was happening.

    But the princess quickly realized what was happening as she felt my breath in her chest.

    There was a blush that appeared on her face as she stepped back and she lowered her head shyly.

    Seeing her like this, I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile.

    So I took the lead in the end and reached my hand out towards the princess.

    The princess was surprised, but she also reached her hand out to take mine.

    She thought that I was about to kiss her hand, but¡­I just gave her a handshake and said, "I''m looking forward to getting to know you."

    The princess revealed a bitter smile seeing this, but she still said with a nod, "Me too."

 Chapter 553 More proposals

    <h4>Chapter 553 More proposals</h4>

    I thought that it would be over once this matter was settled, but it turned out that this wasn''t the end just yet.

    After all, when one person obtained the thing that others wanted, they would be jealous.

    Once they became jealous, they would act irrationally.

    The news of my engagement with the princess was hidden from most people, but those with a certain amount of power were able to find out something as simple as this.

    Specifically, there were three that were very incited because of this.

    After my engagement with the princess was settled, we went to have a meal to celebrate both this and the deal that we had made with the various representatives. We had just united this area and there was no doubt that we would earn arge amount from this.

    So the celebration was naturally something that had to be held.

    But of course, we didn''t make too big of a fuss over this matter.

    Instead of holding arge celebration, it was just a small celebration between the people of my inner circle.

    Or at least that was what it was supposed to be¡­

    But there was someone that suddenly pped the table when she came in and said, "You''re getting engaged to the princess?"

    I was caught off guard when I heard this before looking at this person with a strange look.

    I couldn''t understand why they had such a strong reaction to me getting engaged to the princess.

    After looking at them for a bit, I slowly gave a nod and said, "That''s right, is something wrong?"

    That person gritted her teeth as she narrowed her eyes to look at me.

    I couldn''t help feeling very strange about this as she looked at me.

    After all, she was looking at me with an aggrieved look.

    It was almost as if I had done something to wrong her, though I couldn''t really think of anything that I had done to wrong her.

    After a long silence, Veronica suddenly said, "Marry me too."

    "Huh?" I couldn''t help saying with a shocked look on my face.

    I just looked at her with this shocked look on my face for a while before suddenly asking, "What did you say? I didn''t seem to hear it clearly."

    When I asked this, there was a blush that appeared on Veronica''s face. However, she still said, "I said marry me." Then she said in a softer voice, "Making me say it a second time, it seems like he really likes putting girls in tough situations."

    There was a bitter smile that crept on my face when I heard thetter part of her words, but I calmed myself down and asked, "Why are you suddenly asking me to marry you? Are you also in a difficult situation where you need me as a shield?"

    Veronica gave a sigh before saying, "Why would I ask you to marry me for that?"

    At the same time, I saw that Rose, Cecilia, Haley, and even the princess were shaking their heads with their hands on their faces. They also let out exasperated sighs, as if they couldn''t deal with me anymore.

    I just revealed an even more confused look seeing all of this.

    Veronica looked right at me and said, "I want to marry you because I like you. Why else would I ask you to marry me?"

    "Oh." That was all I could say.

    When two different girls confessed to me in a day, it really short circuited my brain.

    Especially since both of them were girls that had high statuses.

    One was the princess and the other was the daughter of a duke¡­

    These identities couldn''t be looked down on.

    But it still wasn''t done yet.

    "I also want to be included in that."

    "Me too."

    There were two voices that came from the entrance.

    When I turned to look in that direction, I was surprised by who was standing there.

    It was Moon and Elsa.

    I looked at the two of them with a very strange look as I asked, "Included in what?"

    "Marrying you." The two of them said with straight looks on their faces.

    It didn''t seem like they were joking, so I was even more shocked.

    After all, we were from different races.

    Would they really want to marry a human like me?

    But here they were saying that they did which I couldn''t help being shocked by.

    After a long period of silence, I slowly asked, "Are you serious?"

    Both of them had no hesitation at all as they nodded in agreement.

    The look of shock on my face deepened when I saw this.

    I didn''t know what to say, but there was a part of me that wanted to run after seeing all of this.

    I wasn''t a person that was very popr in my past life, so I thought that I was already very lucky with the three wives that I had.

    But now that my popr period hase, I really don''t know how to handle it¡­

    So all I could do was stand there with a stunned look on my face, looking like an idiot.

    Slowly, I turned to look at Rose as if I was asking her for help.

    But all she did was shake her head as if she was saying, "You''re on your own for this one."

    It was the same for Cecilia and Haley.

    I was surprised to find that not a single one of them were surprised by the proposals made by these three. It was as if they already knew about their feelings and just didn''t say anything to me.

    Though I''m sure that they would have had their own difficulties.

    It wasn''t as if they could just tell me about their feelings for them¡­

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything, Veronica came forward and said, "Well, what''s your answer?"

    When she pressured me like this, I turned to look at her with a dazed look.

    Seeing this, Veronica revealed a worried look and said, "Do you not like me?"

    At the same time, Moon and Elsa also came forward with the same worried looks.

 Chapter 554 Even more wives

    <h4>Chapter 554 Even more wives</h4>

    Seeing the way that the three of them looked at me, I waspletely speechless.

    To say that I didn''t have any feelings for them was a lie.

    We had spent all this time together, so it was impossible for me not to have any feelings towards them.

    But I had never thought about them like that before.

    I had just considered them as friends.

    However, they were suddenly proposing to me and saying that they wanted to be my wives.

    At this point, I really didn''t know what to say.

    Still, I could see the way that they were looking at me and the longer that I dyed my answer, the more they would be hurt.

    So I couldn''t just dy forever.

    Since I had already epted one¡­then first I would say¡­

    "I don''t hate you. Rather, I like you guys quite a bit."

    When they heard this, the sad expressions on their faces immediately turned into faint smiles.

    But Veronica still couldn''t help asking, "Then why won''t you marry us?"

    She turned to look at Rose and said, "Is it because¡­"

    She didn''t finish her words, but the implication behind her words were clear.

    Rose shook her head and said, "I''ve already told him that I was fine with him having multiple wives."

    I also spoke up to defend Rose by saying, "It''s not that Rose has stopped me, it''s more of a personal issue for me."

    "Personal issue?" The girls couldn''t help repeating.

    Even Rose couldn''t help repeating this and looking at me with a confused look.

    I gave a sigh and said, "I''ve never thought that I would have a wife, let alone three. For someone like me who has never even thought about these things before, it''s naturally hard for me to ept."

    They still looked at me with a strange look after hearing this.

    After all, in this world, it wasmonly epted that men were allowed to have multiple wives. It was something that was almost expected when one reached a certain level of power.

    That was the level of power that I was currently at.

    So when I said that I had never thought about this before, they couldn''t help being surprised.

    Seeing these looks, I said, "You should know that I was a ve before, right? Someone like me never would have imagined something like this."

    But even with this exnation, they still looked at me with strange looks.

    It seemed that this wasn''t enough for them since even those with low positions would be able to easily ept this.

    For once, I couldn''t help cursing the fact that the settings of the game world had been carried over to this world¡­

    It made it hard for someone like me who came from another world to rte to the ones from this world who just epted this logic so easily.

    In the end, I just said, "It''s just hard for me to ept it, alright?"They still looked at me with a strange look like they thought I was a strange person, but they also had epting looks in their eyes. They knew that there was something different about me from everyone else, that was what they had fallen for in the first ce.

    After a long silence, Veronica said, "Then are you saying that it isn''t possible?"

    As she said this, Elsa and Moon both revealed worried looks again.

    I shook my head and said, "It''s not that. It''s just that it''s hard for me to ept this, but that doesn''t mean that I can''t ept this. I''m just slowly working through it."

    All three of them looked at me with confused looks when they heard this, but they also had traces of understanding in their eyes. So they slowly waited for me to think this through and give them an answer.

    After a long time, I finally came to ept it.

    There was no need for me to think of an answer since I already had an answer in myheart.

    I had already epted one, so at this point, it didn''t matter if I epted one, two, or three more.

    After all, I had done the same test as with the princess.

    When I thought about the three of them with other men, I couldn''t ept it.

    So I chose to ept their proposals.

    I just had to take a moment to calm my thoughts first.

    Taking a deep breath, I said, "Alright, let''s get married."

    All three of them looked at me with dazed looks, as if they couldn''t believe what I had just said.

    Veronica even had to ask slowly, "Can you repeat what you just said?"

    I said with a nod, "Let''s get married. Isn''t that what you wanted?"

    All three of them revealed happy looks when they heard this and immediately came forward to hug me.

    Though with all three of theming at once and with the height difference, it became quite awkward.

    In the end, they looked at each other and came to a decision.

    One by one, they all hugged me.

    They didn''t even say anything as they decided who would be first.

    It seemed that they already had a connection with each other that I didn''t know about, but that was a good thing. After all, it wasn''t as if only my rtionship with them mattered, their rtionship with each other also mattered since they would be sharing a husband.

    If they couldn''t get along, then that wouldn''t work either.

    After they were finished, Rose came forward to hug them as well and wee them into their group.

    She looked at me with a look that seemed to say, "It took you long enough."

    When I saw this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    I knew from that look that it seemed that Rose already knew everything, but she choseto remain silent.

    Could it be that I was really that dense that I hadn''t noticed the way that the three of them felt for me?

    Thinking back, I couldn''t help thinking, "Un, maybe I was a bit dense¡­"

    But all''s well that ends well I guess.

 Chapter 555 Not allowed

    <h4>Chapter 555 Not allowed</h4>

    With all of this settled, the meaning of the celebration dinner changed.

    It went from just celebrating one engagement to celebrating multiple engagements.

    In the span of a single day, I had obtained four new fiancees.

    There would still be some other things to take care of, but from what I heard, it seemed that things were going to be smooth.

    Veronica had a letter from her father asking me to take care of her.

    I didn''t know when she got this, but it didn''t seem like something that had arrived recently.

    It was the same for Elsa as she had a letter from the Dwarven King.

    I really didn''t know what those two were thinking, sending these letters before anything wawa even finalized. Did they already expect me to agree to this? But if they did, how would they have predicted this?

    But the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that it was better that I didn''t know.

    I''m sure that I would have been angered to death if I knew just what they were thinking.

    The only one that didn''t have anything like that was Moon.

    It seemed like there was still a bit more to do when it came to Moon''s case, but that would be for the future.

    Tonight, it was time to celebrate.

    Rose had prepared everything and there was plenty of food for us, but¡­there was also a small war that happened because of this.

    It was a simple war that was between the girls, but they didn''t give in at all.

    It was a contest of who would feed me.

    It started with the princess who came over to me to put something in my mouth with her fork. But before she was able to do that, Veronica also quickly came over with some food on her fork as well.

    When both of them saw what the other was doing, they started fighting with their forks, trying to get their food in my mouth.

    It didn''t take long before Moon and Elsa also came over to do the same.

    Though it seemed more like a game for them than them actuallypeting with the two.

    I thought that this would be it, but I was wrong in the end.

    After all, I thought that Rose and the other two wouldn''t be interested in this since they already had the chance to do this before. But it seemed like they still wanted topete with these new fiancees of mine.

    They held themselves back at first, but their expressions soon changed when they saw me surrounded by women.

    It was as if they wanted to secure their spot as they also held up forks with food on them for me to eat from.

    I just revealed a bitter smile seeing them fight like this, but I still went along with them.

    From time to time, I would get a bite or two in, but there really wasn''t much food for me to eat.

    There was just too much fighting for them to bring any food to my mouth¡­

    I was still a bit hungry when it was all over, but there was nothing that I could do about it. They had given up on feeding me and had gone to feed themselves.

    One might think that I could eat alone at that time, but they red at me as I tried to eat.

    It was as if they were warning me that I couldn''t eat unless it was food from their forks.

    So I just had to ept that the meal was over for me.

    To my surprise, I found that all of them had hearty appetites. Or at least better appetites than when we ate together before.

    But there was a reason for that as well.

    They werepeting with each other.

    I really wondered how long this wouldst before they all went back to normal, but as long as they were happy, I didn''t really mind it.

    Thest problem of the night came when it was time to go to bed.

    There were two factions that formed.

    One that wanted to go to bed with me now that we were engaged and one that wanted us to sleep in separate beds until we were married.

    This time, Rose and my two current wives stayed out of this.

    After all, it didn''t matter for them if they slept with me or not since they weren''t going to sleep with me tonight. Tonight was a night where I would have slept alone in the first ce to give me some rest after every other night of business.

    The split between the factions was even, with two on each side.

    The two that were on the side of sleeping together were Elsa and Moon.

    The two that were on the side of not sleeping together were the princess and Veronica.

    "We''re engaged, so does it matter now?" Elsa said in a confused voice.

    Moon slowly gave a nod to show that she agreed with this.

    Both the faces of the princess and Veronica had blushes on them after hearing this.

    Veronica just simply said, "Of course not, you have to wait until you''re married to do things like that. Otherwise, people will think that all you care about is each other''s bodies."

    The princess nodded in agreement as she said, "You have to maintain your purity until you''re married."

    It seemed that this concept didn''t reallye into y with these girls from the other races.

    For them it seemed that just having love was enough and they were free to sleep with each other.

    For the two humans, they cared quite a bit about purity, though that was mostly because of how they were raised. Even if this world was based on a H-game, purity among noble daughters was still considered a very important thing.

    In the end, Veronica and the princess just simply said, "It''s not allowed."

    Elsa and Moon looked like they thought otherwise, but they still epted since they were currently in human society. Since they were in human society, they would follow the rules of the humans.

    Like this, I was able to get the bed all to myself that night.

 Chapter 556 Morning kiss

    <h4>Chapter 556 Morning kiss </h4>

    When morning came, I found that the girls were waiting downstairs for me.

    It almost seemed like there was something that they wanted to say, but they seemed like they were too shy to say it.

    Since they weren''t saying it, it wasn''t as if I could just say it for them since I had no idea what they wanted to say in the first ce.

    But at the very least, I saw that they had made breakfast for me.

    Or at the very least, they had attempted to make breakfast.

    It was better to call it the remains of their attempt at breakfast rather than breakfast itself.

    Still, I wouldn''t turn it down when they offered it to me.

    To rank them from who did the best to who did the worst¡­it was clearly Veronica who did the worst.

    Her food was barely edible as there wererge parts of it that were burnt. It was hard to find even a part of it that wasn''t burnt to eat.

    The one who did the best was Elsa whose food wasn''t actually bad. It was just clear that she wasn''t used to human ingredients yet.

    After all, she had been a wife for so long, so it isn''t strange that she would be able to cook a meal or two. It would have been strange if she actually wasn''t capable of that after being a wife for so long.

    It really was a hard time swallowing everything that they had made for me, but these were things that they had made with love. I would have swallowed them even if it killed me.

    But after swallowing these things, it really was hard for me to move right away.

    My stomach was fighting me hard¡­

    Rose came over with a ss of water and some medicine for stomach ache since she had expected this to happen.

    I made sure that they weren''t looking as I quickly swallowed all of this before giving Rose a grateful look.

    She just looked back at me with a smile before heading to the side.

    It didn''t seem like she was going to leave for work yet as she still hung around.

    I was confused why she was doing this, but it was solved very quickly.

    Veronica was the first one toe over and ask, "How was it?"

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this, but it was a good thing that Veronica had been looking down when I did this so she didn''t see it. I quickly made that bitter smile disappear before revealing an encouraging look and saying, "It was interesting. I can''t wait to see what you make next time."

    There was a blush that came onto Veronica''s face when I said this and she gently tapped my shoulder out of embarrassment.

    At least it seemed like she was happy even though that tap made me want to hurl.

    It wasn''t that Veronica was very strong, it was just that my stomach couldn''t handle even a single tap like this.

    I had to force my own stomach to settle just so I didn''t throw up the food that I ate.

    But then there was something else that Veronica requested.

    "Now that we''re engaged, there''s something that I want to ask of you." Veronica said in a shy voice.

    It really was strange for me seeing her act shy like this since I had only ever seen her acting willful and confident. But I gave a nod and said, "Just tell me whatever you want and I''ll do my best."

    Veronica shook her head and said, "It''s not something hard, it''s actually very easy for you to fulfill this request."

    I couldn''t help raising a brow when I heard this, but I still gave a simple nod.

    Veronica seemed to be hesitating, as if she was embarrassed to say what she wanted to say.

    So I said tofort her, "It''s alright. There''s nothing that you can''t tell me."

    Veronica looked up at me as if she was looking for some kind of confirmation.

    Seeing that I looked right at her without a single cloud in my eyes, she gave a nod and said, "I want you to kiss me."

    "Huh?" I couldn''t help saying in a surprised voice.

    When Veronica heard this, she immediately said, "Wait, no, I didn''t mean it. I, I¡­I was just joking, you don''t have to¡­"

    I stepped forward without any hesitation and took her by the waist before cing a firm kiss on her lips.

    Veronica''s eyes opened wide when she felt my lips on hers and they opened even wider when I stuck my tongue into her mouth.

    It was a very strange feeling, but she wasn''t against it as she even started sucking on my tongue. It was as if she couldn''t get enough of my tongue as it poked inside of her mouth.

    Finally, I let go when I was starting to lose my breath.

    When I let go, Veronica''s feet couldn''t hold her up anymore and she fell to the ground while panting. There was even a ze over her eyes as if they couldn''t focus anymore as she lost herself in the feeling of that kiss just now.

    It really seemed like she had lost control of her thoughts from this kiss.

    From the side, I could see the others looking at me with envious looks, so I said, "Do you all want some as well?"

    They were all caught off guard by this, but then they slowly nodded to show their agreement.

    So without hesitation, I walked over and took them in my arms as well to kiss them.

    One by one, they all experienced this deep kiss and fell to the ground in a daze just like Veronica.

    When it was all over, I couldn''t help feeling a bit proud of myself.

    I didn''t know anything about kissing in the past, but now I was so good at it that I could make girls swoon just from a single kiss.

    It seemed like I really had improved.

    Now there was one more to go.

    That was the reason why Rose hadn''t left earlier.

 Chapter 557 Conditions

    <h4>Chapter 557 Conditions</h4>

    We were currently walking through the forest.

    As for how this happened, it was because we were heading to the elven vige to see the green haired elder who was Moon''s grandmother.

    If I was to be marrying Moon, then I would have to at least report this matter to her first.

    But I also noticed that Moon seemed to be worried about something.

    It seemed like this trip wouldn''t go as smoothly as I thought it would.

    When we arrived in the elven vige, we were weed like normal.

    But when we met with the elders and Moon told the green haired elder about what happened, she immediately knitted her brows. At the same time, all of the elders revealed grim looks like something was wrong.

    It was clear that they weren''t as willing to ept this engagement between us.

    After a long silence, the green haired elder said, "It isn''t that we don''t ept this, it''s just that¡­"

    Her voice trailed off as she looked at the other elders, but it seemed like they were avoiding her gaze. It was as if they didn''t want anything to do with this matter as they tried their best to appear like they were busy with other things.

    So with a long sigh, the green haired elder said, "It''s just that you should know what status Moon has in our elven race. The one that marries her will without a doubt be under a certain amount of scrutiny. So for that to happen, there needs to be conditions set."

    I gave a nod of agreement to this.

    It wasn''t strange since she was the daughter of Aisha, one of the most famous high elves out there.

    So for her to get married, there must be strict conditions.

    I just simply gave a nod and waited to hear what the green haired elder had to say.

    The green haired elder gave a sigh when she saw me nod like this before saying, "First, you must show that you can provide for both yourself and her. But then again, it isn''t as if you wouldn''t pass this condition."

    Then her expression became serious as she said, "Second, you need the approval of the goddess¡­"

    Her voice slowly trailed off as she said this as she suddenly remembered something.

    Right, when she brought him to see the Tree of Life, he had received the Mark of Life. This was something that not a single elf had seen in many generations now and this human had received this mark.

    So if he didn''t have the approval of the goddess, there really wasn''t anyone who could be said to have the approval of the goddess¡­

    The elders all seemed to think the same as their expressions slowly changed.

    With another sigh, the green haired elder said, "The third is going to the capital to pass the marriage trial. This is a trial that has been left behind by the ancestors that all those who wish to get married must pass."

    Moon knitted her brows when she heard this.

    After all, this marriage trial was the one thing that she had been concerned about.

    It wasn''t the trial itself that she was concerned about, but where this trial was located.

    The green haired elder thought the same as she also revealed the same worried look as Moon.

    "The capital?" I couldn''t help repeating.

    That was indeed troublesome because of what had happened recently.

    Those elves that hade from the capital, it had ended in arge confrontation with them before they ran back off to the capital. So far, we were still waiting for them to retaliate, but nothing had happened.

    It was almost as if they weren''t going to do anything, but we didn''t believe that was possible.

    After all, there had been deaths that had happened in the end.

    It was impossible for them to just leave matters as they were.

    After another long silence, the green haired elder suddenly said, "For now, let''s just leave this matter be."

    Moon bit her lip and looked like she wanted to say something, but the green haired elder raised a hand to stop her before saying, "We''ll just say that the two of you are engaged for now. You can''t be married until we make a trip to the capital to take on that marriage trial, but you can at least say that you''re engaged until then."

    Moon stopped biting her lip when she heard this and she looked at the green haired elder with a grateful look.

    The other elders however looked at the green haired elder with worried looks when they heard this.

    There was no doubt that bending the rules like this would attract some dissatisfaction from the elven capital, but it seemed like the green haired elder was firm in her decision.

    So I gave a grateful bow to her along with Moon.

    The green haired elder stood up and came forward to help us up before saying, "As long as you''re happy, that''s all that matters."

    Then she moved closer to me and said in a low voice that Moon couldn''t hear, "But if you dare hurt her¡­"

    I just revealed a faint smile and said, "I definitely won''t."

    The green haired elder''s expression rxed a bit as she said, "I know."

    Once that was decided, the vige was suddenly thrown into a festive mood.

    It was clear by how everyone congratted Moon that she was a well loved member of the vige.

    At the same time, there were quite a few people that threatened me.

    It seemed that they were quite protective of her as well.

    Of course, I would never do anything to hurt her.

    But still, it was nice to see how everyone cared about her.

    This was one of the things that I liked about the elves.

    They were very caring and protective of the ones that they opened their hearts to.

    Once you gained the trust of an elf, they would be a steadfastpanion.

 Chapter 558 Another surprise visitor

    <h4>Chapter 558 Another surprise visitor </h4>

    Over the next week, it was quite peaceful.

    Now that we had settled our engagements, there was nothing left for us to do other than to flirt with each other and learn more about each other.

    I learned quite a few things about the girls that I didn''t know before, so I was quite happy since I felt much closer to them now that I learned these things.

    This morning, we had been enjoying a nice breakfast together when all of a sudden, there was someone that came in to interrupt it.

    "Count, Countess, there''s a guest here to see you!"

    This person rushed in as they said this in a very loud voice.

    It seemed that they were very agitated, so the identity of this guest was most likely not very normal.

    Not to mention, we were able to see who it was that suddenly came in.

    It was Nicole, the one who worked for me previously that Rose had taken under her wings.

    She was one of Rose''s trusted subordinates, so that meant that she was someone that wasn''t shaken that easily.

    If someone like her was even shaken, then this must be a very important guest.

    But the strange thing that I noticed was that aftering in, she looked at the princess with a very strange look.

    I couldn''t help asking, "What''s wrong?"

    Nicole didn''t answer this directly and just said, "I think that the princess will be able to recognize this guest right away."

    When the princess heard this, she couldn''t help revealing a confused look before asking, "What do you mean by that?"

    Nicole didn''t answer the question and just said, "The guest is currently waiting for you at the town hall. They are there since they said that this is an official visit."

    Rose gave a nod before looking at me.

    I nodded back at her and stood up to follow her and Nicole over.

    But before we could go, the princess suddenly stood up and said, "I want to go as well."

    I looked at her and slowly gave a nod.

    Since Nicole said that the princess would recognize the guest right away, then it was most likely a good idea for the princess toe with us. After all, Nicole wouldn''t say this for no reason.

    The only reason that she didn''t directly ask the princess toe was because of the difference in status.

    So she could only use this indirect method in the end.

    With the three of us following Nicole, we quickly made our way to the town hall.

    When we arrived, we noticed that there was a carriage that we didn''t recognize parked outside.

    This carriage seemed like some kind of incognito carriage used by an important person when they were traveling.

    So it seemed like this person was very important¡­

    But when the princess saw this, she couldn''t help knitting her brows.

    This time, I asked the princess, "Is something wrong?"

    The princess slowly turned to look at me before slowly shaking her head and saying, "It''s not that something''s wrong. It''s just that if it''s who I think it is¡­"

    She didn''t finish her sentence, but it was clear that she seemed to have some idea of who this carriage belonged to like Nicole said.

    Still, I wasn''t in a rush to find out who it was, so I didn''t pressure her for the answer.

    We followed Nicole in and we found the person that we were looking for right away.

    The moment that we saw him, I also recognized him.

    This was a face that I definitely wouldn''t be able to forget because of all the things that he had forced onto me.

    But I wasn''t the one that spoke first when we came into the room.

    "Old fourth, I knew that it was you."

    When the fourth prince heard this, he couldn''t help jolting before turning to look at the princess with an awkward smile on his face, "Big sister, what are you doing here?"

    The princess narrowed her eyes to look at him before saying, "You know exactly what I''m doing here. The question is, what are you doing here?"

    The fourth prince revealed an awkward look as he said, "Well, I had no choice but toe."

    The princess narrowed her eyes even more before saying, "I knew that you and royal father would regret this decision. I''ve already told you that I''ll be marrying him, you can''t convince me otherwise."

    The fourth prince shook his head and hands as he said, "No, no, that isn''t what this is about at all."

    The princess looked at him with a doubtful look as she said, "Really?"

    It was just a single word, but it was filled with all the doubt that the princess could muster.

    The awkward smile on the fourth prince''s face became even more awkward as he said, "Really, it isn''t about that at all."

    The princess still looked at him with doubt, but she didn''t say anything else.

    Instead, she just sat down and helped herself to some of the tea that had been prepared for the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince shook his head with a faint smile when he saw this.

    Seeing that they were finished with their thing, I gave a cough and said, "Your highness, you must be here for a reason, right?"

    The fourth prince looked at me with a displeased look and said, "You''re already marrying my sister and you''re still calling me your highness? Aren''t we already family?"

    This time, it was my turn to reveal an awkward smile, but I still said, "Then brother, is there a reason that you''re here?"

    The fourth prince gave a nod before suddenly revealing a serious look and saying, "There''s actually a very important reason why I''m here today. There''s something that I have to tell you."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look before asking, "What is it?"

    The fourth prince took a deep breath and said, "We''re officially at war."

 Chapter 559 War

    <h4>Chapter 559 War</h4>

    "Huh?"

    That was the only reaction that any of us could have when the fourth prince said this.

    Our eyes opened wide in shock as we looked at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious or not.

    But the serious look on the fourth prince''s face made it very clear that there wasn''t a single trace of a lie in his words.

    It seemed that we really were at war.

    After a long silence, I slowly asked, "Who are we at war with?"

    Instead of answering my question, the fourth prince asked me a question back, "I''m sure that my big sister has already told you the circumstances of her arrangement, right?"

    I raised a brow as I looked at the fourth prince, trying to figure out what his intentions were in mentioning this.

    But he just looked at me as if he was waiting for me to answer.

    So I gave a slow nod as I said, "Yes, she''s already told me about this."

    The fourth prince also gave a nod before saying with a sigh, "Then it''s easier to tell you what the situation is."

    He once again revealed a serious look as he said, "Those countries that made their proposals all wanted to build a rtionship with our country because of your trade with the Dwarven Kingdom. They mistakenly thought that we were the ones that had established the trade, so they wanted a piece of the cake."

    I gave a nod since this was something that the princess had already told me.

    The fourth prince continued after seeing this nod from me, "We thought that we would be able to deflect their proposals by having big sister marry you, but now it seems like they''re not willing to back down. Once we informed them of this, they immediately said that they would be dering war and then three dayster, we received an official deration of war."

    A bitter smile irresistibly crept onto my face when I heard this.

    They were dering war over a single woman?

    What was this, the Trojan War?

    But of course, I also knew that it wasn''t just because the proposals were rejected that they were dering war.

    The main thing was the threat the trade with the Dwarven Kingdom posed.

    Simply put, the human countries that were in this area were as powerful as each other.

    If they were to give our country time to build up power through this trade with the Dwarven Kingdom, then it would only be a matter of time before we reigned over the other countries.

    So they couldn''t let this happen.

    Now that diplomacy had failed, the only option left for them was to use force.

    After all, it wasn''t as if they could just wait for their deaths, right?

    As I realized this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit ufortable.

    The cause of this war was technically me and now that war had broken out, would the fourth princee here for no reason?

    There had to be a specific reason why the fourth prince was here, right?

    If I had to guess, it should most likely be to use me as a scapegoat once again.

    I was the one that had caused this mess, so it would only make sense that they would offer me up as tribute to appease the other kingdoms.

    But instead of saying anything, I just silently waited to see what the fourth prince would say.

    To my surprise, the fourth prince suddenly said with a yful smile, "What''s with that look on your face? It''s almost like you''re afraid that someone is here to execute you."

    With a surprised look, I asked, "Isn''t that the case?"

    The fourth prince raised a brow before slowly revealing a look of understanding.

    His expression became serious again as he said, "Do you think so little of us?"

    I was even more surprised when I heard this.

    The fourth prince gave a sigh when he saw the look on my face and said, "Well, I don''t me you since there were those nobles that did suggest offering you to the other kingdoms as a scapegoat."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face again when I heard this.

    I was expecting it already, but hearing the fourth prince actually say it was apletely different experience.

    But the fourth prince revealed a serious look and said, "Do you think that they would just stop at that? Do you really think that they would give up just because we handed you over?"

    I slowly shook my head.

    Since they had already gone this far, there was no need for them to stop.

    With several kingdoms grouping together to siege our kingdom, it was very likely that they would win this war. When the time came, the resources andnd that they would get would more than make up for this.

    The fourth prince gave a nod and said with another serious look, "So of course we''re not going to do something as dumb as weakening ourselves before the war begins. Not to mention, if we show weakness and just hand over our nobles because of a simple threat, where would our face go?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised again as I looked at the fourth prince.

    I had seen his actions in the game, but I had never seen him act this way before, so it really was surprising.

    The fourth prince was someone who was supposed to be viinous and sly, using all kinds of methods to achieve his goals. But this fourth prince waspletely different from the fourth prince that I had encountered in the game.

    Thoughparing the two¡­I would say that I preferred this fourth prince more.

    Still, I didn''t let my guard down just in case this was some kind of y from the fourth prince.

    After waiting for him to calm down, I asked, "Then is there anything that I can do to help?"

    I knew that the fourth prince wouldn''te to my ce for no reason.

    The fact that he came here right before the war started meant that he most likely wanted something from me.

    The fourth prince gave a nod with an appreciative look and said, "Actually, there is something that I wanted to discuss with you."

 Chapter 560 A new deal

    <h4>Chapter 560 A new deal </h4>

    I wasn''t surprised when I heard this.

    After all, there had to be a reason for him toe all this way when there was a war that was about to break out.

    I just gave a nod for him to continue.

    Seeing this, the fourth prince said, "As you know, the key to creating a good army is good equipment. You should also know that our kingdom has struggled with this during this time, so our equipment can''t be considered the best."

    I gave another nod since this was something that I had heard before from Scar and Shaka.

    The fourth prince let out a smile when he saw me nod again before saying, "Our chances in this war aren''t good since there are four different kingdoms that are targeting us this time. The armies of all four of these kingdoms have the same level of equipment as us, but they have far more troops than we do. So if we were to fight them head on, there is no doubt that we would lose eventually."

    I could already guess what he was implying, so I simply said, "You want me to provide you with equipment?"

    The fourth prince revealed a relieved look when he heard this.

    He had been beating around the bush for a reason since it was awkward for him to be direct about this.

    But since Zwein had said it for him, there was no reason for him to hold back anymore.

    "Yes." He turned to look out the window before saying, "You have all of these dwarves here and all the ores that you''ve been transporting, so this is the best ce to obtain equipment right now."

    I gave a nod since I knew that he was right, but it wasn''t as if I was about to offer the equipment that they needed to the kingdom for free.

    Even if I wanted to, the kingdom would never take it for free since it meant owing me a favour that they would find very awkward.

    So I turned to Nicole and said, "Can you call Haley here?"

    Nicole was surprised to hear this, but she quickly gave a nod and ran off.

    The fourth prince raised a brow when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything as he drank his tea and waited for the person that I called toe.

    In less than ten minutes, Haley came into the room.

    She was naturally surprised to see the fourth prince, but she came over to my side and sat down before asking, "What''s wrong?"

    I didn''t answer this question and instead turned to the fourth prince to say, "Brother, you can continue with what you were saying earlier. Just tell me how much you need and we''ll figure out a price."

    Haley quickly revealed a look of understanding when she heard this and then she turned to look at the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince couldn''t help looking at Haley with an appreciative look when he saw how quickly she changed. Then he gave a cough and told them how much equipment that they needed.

    Haley slightly knitted her brows when she heard this.

    Seeing this, I asked, "Is something wrong?"

    Haley shook her head before also giving a nod and saying, "Yes and no. It''s not as if we can''t produce these things, it''s just a matter of time. I need an urate time frame to see if it is possible to do it in time."

    I gave a nod to show that I understood before turning to look at the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince didn''t answer right away as he lowered his head to think.

    I could hear that he was muttering to himself as he said, "Taking into ount how long it will take the kingdoms to prepare, it should take¡­"

    "Four weeks. That''s as long as we can wait." The fourth prince suddenly looked up and said this.

    This time, it was Haley''s turn to look down and think about this.

    After a while, she looked up and shook her head to say, "It''s impossible."

    The fourth prince was surprised to hear this, but he also quickly knitted his brows and asked, "Why?"

    Haley looked at me and said, "We still have other orders that we have to fulfil, so we can''t focuspletely on this one order."

    The fourth prince revealed an incredulous look when he heard this.

    He looked at Haley almost as if he couldn''t believe what he was hearing, but then he couldn''t help breaking out inughter. Whileughing, he also wiped the tearsing from his eyes and said, "I can''t believe that this is the reason you''re rejecting this. This really is something else."

    I shook my head with a bitter smile and then turned back to look at Nicole.

    She was just standing there with an awkward look on her face.

    It was clear that while she had brought Haley here, she hadn''t exined to Haley what the situation was. That was the only reason why Haley would say something like this.

    I gave a sigh and turned back to Haley to exin the situation.

    She had a surprised look when she heard this, but then she still slowly shook her head and said, "It''s still impossible. Even if we did dy all the other orders, there just aren''t enough materials and workers to process this order in time."

    Both the fourth prince and I immediately knitted our brows when we heard this.

    I knew how Haley did things and if she said that it was impossible, then it would be impossible. She had most likely already considered everything that could be done before saying that it was impossible.

    The fourth prince slowly said, "This matter is very important though. If we don''t have that equipment¡­"

    He didn''t finish his sentence, but it was very clear what he was implying.

    We didn''t need him to tell us this since we knew how serious this was.

    After thinking for a bit, I suddenly thought of something.

    "I don''t know if this will work, but I think that I have an idea." I said in a hesitant voice.

    The fourth prince''s eyes lit up when he heard this and he immediately said, "Brother, what is it?"

    Before I could answer, there was someone that suddenly pushed through the door and said.

    "My lord, there''s trouble!"

 Chapter 561 Who do you think I am?

    <h4>Chapter 561 Who do you think I am?</h4>

    I narrowed my eyes to look at this person and found that it was one of Rose''s subordinates.

    When they came in, they immediately came over to where Rose and I were sitting and said, "There''s someone causing trouble in the square."

    Rose and I looked at each other before we both knitted our brows.

    With my title and our prestige in this area, there shouldn''t be anyone that would dare to do something like this.

    But then again, even if they did, it shouldn''t take much for the guards to take care of them since we had carefully trained our guards.

    So for Rose''s subordinate toe looking for us about this matter, it seemed that something serious must have happened.

    So both of us stood up in the end.

    I looked at the fourth prince and said, "Brother, I''m really sorry about this. I''ll take care of this matter quickly ande back right away."

    But to my surprise, I found that the fourth prince stood up along with us.

    He said with a smile, "It''s nothing. Since there''s trouble, let''s go see who it is that''s causing trouble for my brother."

    Though he was smiling, I could see that the smile didn''t reach his eyes.

    There was a part of me that was hesitating over letting the fourth princee with us, but I knew that it would give him the wrong idea if I were to not let hime along after this.

    So it was better to let hime along than to leave him out of this matter.

    With a small nod, I said, "Alright, let''s go together then."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before turning to Rose''s subordinate, as if he was waiting for him to lead the way.

    Rose''s subordinate turned to look at us and I just gave a slight nod to show that it was alright.

    It was only then that Rose''s subordinate started leading us out.

    Though he had said that it was in the square, so there really wasn''t a need for him to lead us out.

    After all, the town hall that we were currently in was on one of the sides of said square. All we had to do was walk out of the town hall and we would be able to see what themotion was.

    When we came out of the town hall, we saw that there was arge group that was gathered in the center of the square.

    In the center of this was a group of people who were on horses that stood above the rest.

    Judging by the quality of their horses and the nice weapons and armour that they had, it didn''t seem like they were of low status.

    But what were they doing here?

    Since we could see the source of themotion, we walked over to see what was happening.

    As we came closer, we could hear a few things being shouted out.

    "Where is your lord? Bring him to me right now!"

    When I heard this, I immediately knitted my brows.

    It was clear that whoever was saying this didn''t have any respect for the lord of this ce and that meant that they didn''t have any respect for me since I was said lord. The way that they were shouting this, it was as if they believed that they were better than me.

    This was not something that I took kindly too.

    But at the same time, I found that it wasn''t just me who was displeased with this.

    It was also the girls and even the fourth prince who had displeased looks on their faces.

    Since they were calling me out, I wouldn''t just back down.

    As I walked over, I found that Cecilia was also here with her troops.

    When she saw me, she immediately came over with her troops and backed me as I walked over.

    With hering over, we created quite a big group.

    With this big group, it didn''t take long before people started noticing us and moving out of the way.

    At the same time, the leader of the group on horses also turned to look at me.

    There was a strange look in his eyes as he looked at me, but there was no hiding the disdain that was also there.

    When I came over, I said, "I am the lord of this ce. You were looking for me?"

    That leader of this group gave a snort before saying, "You took long enough to get here. All of this really has been a waste of my time."

    I knitted my brows when I heard this before asking, "Who do you think you are to act this way on my territory?"

    That leader revealed a teasing smile as he said, "Who do you think I am?"

    After he said this, his men also started tough.

    It was clear that they weren''tughing with us, but rather they wereughing at us.

    I just gave a shrug as if I wasn''t bothered by this at all and said, "Who knows who you are? All I see is a fool trying to act tough."

    This provocation immediately had an effect as the leader''s smile disappeared and was reced with a furious look.

    I didn''t even expect this provocation to work this well since he looked like he was about to explode with rage.

    That leader then said in a voice filled with rage, "A lowly count dares to talk back to me? Don''t you know who I am?"

    I couldn''t help shaking my head when I heard this.

    I had already said that I had no idea who he was and he was still asking me if I knew who he was¡­

    I really couldn''t help wondering if there was a screw loose in his head.

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything, the leader said for himself, "I am the Marquis of the noble house of Marchchamp and you dare talk to me like this?"

    A marquis¡­

    That was a title that was a rank higher than count.

 Chapter 562 You, you, you are!

    <h4>Chapter 562 You, you, you are!</h4>

    "Oh, is that so? What do you want with me and my territory?" I said in a very calm voice.

    Though I was calm on the surface, there was a part of me that was a bit worried.

    After all, this marquis wouldn''te here for no reason.

    Seeing that I wasn''t impressed at all by his title, the marquis lost it again as he pointed at me and said, "You, you, you lowly count! You dare treat my title so lightly? Don''t you know how prestigious the Marchchamp family is?"

    His subordinates also went along with him as he said, "You lowly count, are you insulting our marquis? Do you want your entire territory trampled?"

    The way that they were acting, it was as if they were deliberately trying to suppress me.

    Of course, I didn''t have any fear since I knew that there was someone on my side that would back me up if anything went wrong.

    It was just that I was confused why a marquis had suddenly appeared in my territory like this.

    It wasn''t as if I had done anything that would attract this marquis to my territory, so why did he suddenly appear like this?

    I just calmly faced the marquis and his men and said, "Well, is there anything you want from me?"

    When the marquis heard this, his eyes finally lit up and the look of rage disappeared from his face. He gave a cough and said, "You should know how rude it is to keep someone of my status waiting for so long. For a lowly count like you, you should make yourself avable as soon as I summon you."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited to see what else he had to say.

    The marquis then said with a sly smile, "But this is a matter that can be solved easily. As long as you''re willing to offer somepensation, then I''m willing to drop this matter."

    As expected, he was here to exploit me for something.

    Though I had no idea what he really wanted.

    Seeing that I still didn''t say anything, the marquis revealed a displeased look as he said, "What are you doing? Bring out the dwarves and the ores. As long as you give me these things, I will forgive you for this matter."

    Hmm, it seemed that he was here for these, but was he doing this alone or was he sent by someone?

    The first thought that I had was that he wasn''t dumb enough to do something like this on his own. There was no doubt that he was working with someone to do this, there was even the possibility that he was working with the kingdoms that dered war on us.

    I could also see that the fourth prince had a look of thought on his face as he looked at this Marquis Marchchamp.

    Seeing that I still wasn''t saying anything, the marquis raised his sword and said, "What do you think you''re doing? Do you think that I won''t cut you down here and now?"

    I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this, but I raised a hand to stop Cecilia from charging at the marquis and his men.

    After that, I looked at the marquis and said, "Why would I do that?"

    The marquis was taken aback when he heard this.

    It was clear that he thought that he would be able to bully me into doing what he wanted me to do, but now I was acting differently.

    So he couldn''t help being taken aback.

    After taking a moment toe back to his senses, the marquis said with a sigh, "Don''t you know that this is for your own good? Don''t you know what is happening with this kingdom right now?"

    I slowly shook my head to show that I didn''t know what he was talking about.

    Seeing this, the marquis said, "We''re at war. Because the kingdom has signed a cooperation agreement with the Dwarven Kingdom, the surrounding kingdoms have dered war on us. In this situation, we all need to do our part."

    Then his eyes lit up and he said with an arrogant smile, "As long as you turn the dwarves and the ores over, I''ll be sure to mention your name when I present them to his majesty. When the timees, there won''t be ack of glory for you."

    An idiot, an actual idiot.

    That was my impression of this Marquis Marchchamp.

    It seemed like I wasn''t the only one that thought this as I could see this same look from the fourth prince.

    That was the only way to describe him.

    It was clear now that he wasn''t working with anyone, he was just a rash idiot that was trying to im glory for himself by taking the dwarves and the ore to present to the kingdom. He wanted to use his status to pressure me into giving the things that he wanted to him.

    He didn''t have a single idea of what the real situation was and just acted on his own.

    In the end, all I could do was shake my head and give a sigh.

    I could also hear a sighing from behind me.

    I didn''t need to turn around to look to know that it wasing from the fourth prince.

    Seeing that I was acting this way, the marquis suddenly pointed his finger at me and said, "What is the meaning of this?"

    He didn''t know what I was doing, but it was clear that he didn''t like it.

    I didn''t bother answering as I took a step back.

    When I did, the fourth prince suddenly stepped forward.

    Both of us knew that it was easier for him to take care of this matter.

    When the marquis saw the fourth princeing forward, he couldn''t help narrowing his eyes since he felt that this person was familiar.

    However, his men didn''t recognize the fourth prince and they started insulting him.

    "Who do you think you are to stand so boldly in front of the marquis!"

    "People with no status should bow in front of the marquis!"

    "How bold, let me teach you a lesson!"

    But the marquis'' expression suddenly changed into a look of shock as he said, "You, you, you are!"

 Chapter 563 You are a disgrace

    <h4>Chapter 563 You are a disgrace</h4>

    The subordinates of the marquis could feel that something was off, so they immediately shut their mouths and even fell back a bit.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at the marquis before saying, "You were saying that you were from the prestigious family of the Marchchamps and that you were the famous Marquis Marchchamp, right? Then does that mean that I should show my respect to the great Marquis Marchchamp?"

    When the marquis heard this, he couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine.

    Even if his men couldn''t recognize this person, there was no way that he would mistake this person.

    After all, he was a marquis who often went to the capital.

    With his high status, naturally he had been able toe in contact with some of the higher ups of this kingdom.

    That included royalty.

    For nobles like this, royalty were the ones that were far above them that they couldn''t reach no matter what.

    Any noble that could form a rtionship with royalty would without a doubt ascend to be a phoenix.

    He naturally also wanted that, so he had remembered all of the faces of the members of the royal family.

    That included the person in front of him.

    After a moment of being stunned, the marquis finally realized the mistake that he was currentlymitting, so he jumped off his horse. Or rather, it could be said that he fell off his horse in his haste to get off.

    But he didn''t care at all, he didn''t even try to pat off the dust that had gathered on his body after his fall to the ground.

    Instead, all he did was fall to one knee in front of the fourth prince and said, "Your highness, I never thought that you would be in a ce like this."

    The moment that he said this, it was clear to everyone who this person was.

    After all, there were only a handful of people that could be addressed as such by the marquis.

    "Your highness."

    That was a special address that could only be used for royals.

    So this person in front of them had to be a royal.

    He was most likely one of the princes of their kingdom.

    As soon as this realization hit them, the subordinates of the marquis didn''t hesitate to jump off their horses as well. However, instead of falling on one knee like the marquis did, they fell to both knees and deeply bowed their heads.

    When one looked closely, they could even see that they were trembling.

    There was an awkward silence that hung in the air as everyone looked at the fourth prince in shock.

    The members of my town that had gathered to see themotion now looked at the fourth prince in shock.

    Anyone who wasn''t a fool would be able to see who the marquis was bowing to and anyone would be able to figure out who the fourth prince was based on context clues.

    So they all wanted to see what the fourth prince would do next.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at the marquis who was on one knee in front of him and said, "So you think that youcan do whatever you want just because you have the title of marquis?"

    The marquis couldn''t help trembling when he heard this and immediately shook his head to say, "Your highness, of course not. I was only thinking of our kingdom. You should know that we are currently at war and any resource that we can obtain will help our kingdom."

    At this point, he was no longer acting arrogant.

    In front of the royal, he could only put down his arrogance and try to act as humble as he could to appease him.

    Seeing him act this way, the citizens of the town couldn''t help looking at him in disdain.

    This kind of man, it was clear what kind of personality he had.

    The fourth prince was of course not fooled by this as he gave a snort and asked the same thing that the marquis had asked before, but with a twist.

    He pointed at me and asked, "Who do you think he is?"

    The marquis couldn''t help revealing a confused and surprised look, but then he said, "This is Count Zwein, the newly titled count of thisnd."

    "Wrong." The fourth prince immediately said in response to this.

    The marquis had a confused look on his face as he repeated, "Wrong?"

    He just couldn''t understand what the fourth prince was saying.

    After all, as far as he knew, this Count Zwein didn''t have any special identities.

    In fact, this marquis only had a high title and didn''t really have any close connections to the important ministers. So while he was able to receive the news of the war from the other high ranking nobles, he didn''t actually know anything about this Count Zwein.

    He just knew that he was the one that had connected with the dwarves and brokered the cooperation agreement between their two kingdoms.

    Beyond that, he didn''t know anything about this Count Zwein.

    Such as the fact that he was in Shadow Garden.

    If he knew, he definitely wouldn''t have tried to do this.

    That was just how powerful Shadow Garden was.

    The fourth prince continued by saying, "Not only is he a newly titled count, he is also the new fiance of my big sister."

    "Big sister?" The marquis couldn''t help deeply knitting his brows before a look of realization slowly appeared on his face.

    "The princess!" The marquis suddenly shouted out.

    When he looked closely, he found that the princess was actually standing there with Count Zwein.

    His heart sank the moment that he saw this.

    After all, he knew that the princess wouldn''t be here for no reason.

    The fourth prince didn''t hold back at all as he said, "Trying to rob other nobles of their property with your title, you truly are a disgrace of a noble."

 Chapter 564 Take him away

    <h4>Chapter 564 Take him away</h4>

    The marquis had a shocked look on his face when he heard this, but he didn''t dare say anything to refute it.

    Instead, if one looked closely, they would be able to see his hands were tightly clenched.

    Then the marquis lowered his head and tightly gritted his teeth as if he was filled with rage over this situation.

    But after a long moment of silence, the marquis raised his head and said, "Yes, your highness. You are correct. I was too impulsive and made a rash decision that I shouldn''t have made."

    He had to take a deep breath before he turned to me to say, "Count Zwein, I apologize for any offense that I havemitted before. I hope that you can find it in your generous heart to forgive me for these offenses."

    If one listened carefully, they could hear the faint unwilling tone that was in his voice when he said this.

    But the look on his face would have fooled anyone.

    There was a look of true sincerity that was on his face when he said this, as if he deeply meant these words.

    Of course, I wasn''t fooled.

    This marquis was without a doubt shameless enough that he was able to change his face this quickly.

    One moment he was making an outrageous demand that we handed over the dwarves and ores that were in our territory, the next he was apologizing as if everything was nothing more than a misunderstanding.

    Even the way that he said this, it seemed as if it was only natural that I would forgive him for a simple mistake.

    Of course, the fourth prince also wasn''t fooled by this.

    Regardless of how shameless the marquis was, that didn''t have any effect on the fourth prince.

    He revealed a serious look as he said, "This kind of behaviour is not something that a noble shouldmit and is something that is serious enough to warrant an investigation. After all, what would you have a need for all those ores and dwarves for?"

    A trace of panic appeared in the eyes of the marquis.

    The way that the fourth prince said this, it was clear what he was trying to imply.

    If these usations were ced on him, then there was no path in the future for him.

    But there was something that he was confident in.

    He was confident in his title of marquis.

    He didn''t believe that if he offered some benefits, the fourth prince would choose to side with this count over him, the prestigious marquis.

    The marquis lowered his head once more as he turned back to look at the fourth prince.

    In a deeply remorseful voice, he said, "Your highness is correct. It was shameful for me to act in this manner, so I wish to make amends for this matter. I will offer half of the soldiers under me to fight on the frontlines and offer supplies to help the rest of the troops."

    The marquis had a confident look in his eyes after saying this since he didn''t believe that this was a small amount.

    There was no doubt that the war would be putting pressure on the royal family, so any form of support that they could get was like coal being sent in winter.

    Let alone support from a powerful noble like him.

    Just half the soldiers under him were already more than all of the soldiers that some barons and viscounts had.

    The subordinates of the marquis on the other hand had ugly looks on their faces.

    After all, they knew that the marquis was sacrificing them to save himself.

    Even though he wasn''t sacrificing all of them and just half of them, it was still a sacrifice that was hard for them to swallow.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at the marquis for a bit before saying, "You''re saying this like this is something to be proud of. All you''re doing is your minimum duty to the country and its people."

    The marquis suddenly looked up with a shocked look on his face when he heard this.

    He looked at the fourth prince in disbelief, as if he couldn''t believe what was happening.

    He was already making such arge concession and yet the fourth prince was treating it like it was nothing.

    Half of his troops were already much more than what most of the other nobles would send. Most of them wouldn''t even send a quarter of their troops.

    The only ones that would fully support the royal family were those loyalists, the rest of the fence sitters would only do the bare minimum to make it seem like they were doing something.

    Yet it was all being downyed by the fourth prince.

    The marquis finally had enough as he looked up and said, "Your highness, are you certain of this? Do you really want to let this y out this way?"

    The tone in his voice was a bit dangerous.

    There was no mistaking what he was implying.

    But the fourth prince just had a calm look on his face as he said, "I should ask the same of you. Are you sure that you want to do this?"

    The marquis couldn''t help revealing a confused and surprised look as he heard this, but then he said, "Don''t me me for not showing you courtesy. You forced my hand."

    He turned to his subordinates to say, "Men, we fight our way out!"

    The subordinates revealed surprised looks when they heard this before suddenly revealing determined looks. They all pulled out their weapons as if they were prepared to fight.

    Cecilia and her troops also pulled out their weapons as if they were prepared to resist.

    But the fourth prince suddenly raised his hand as if to stop them before saying, "You heard him. Men, take him away."

    As soon as he said this, arge group of the marquis'' subordinates suddenly fell as ten cloaked figures suddenly appeared.

 Chapter 565 A true idiot

    <h4>Chapter 565 A true idiot</h4>

    The remaining subordinates of the marquis that were still standing looked at these cloaked figures in shock.

    However, not a single one of them dared to fight against them.

    This was a group that had suddenly appeared without them noticing, so there was no doubt there was arge difference in power between the two sides. If they tried to fight, they would just end up like the ones on the ground.

    It was unknown if the ones on the ground were even still alive after what happened.

    They didn''t want to risk bing the next ones on the ground to find out if this was the case.

    So without any hesitation, they all tried to jump on their horses to run. There was no loyalty for the lord that they served, but then again¡­that lord had just tried to sacrifice half of them to save himself.

    It was just too bad that they didn''t stand a chance at all against these elite guards that the fourth prince had brought with him.

    Before any of them could even get on their horses, they found that they had been flipped. When they were able to react, they saw the sky above them as their consciousness started to fade.

    Just like this, the remaining few subordinates of the marquis who had been left were knocked out as well.

    The marquis had been silently watching all of this with a bit of hope in his eyes. If his men were able to take down the fourth prince''s elite guards, then there was a chance to negotiate.

    But that faint trace of hope quickly disappeared from his face.

    His men were handled like children as they were beaten up by the fourth prince''s elite guards. There was no trepidation at all as they were handled in a matter of seconds.

    So the marquis gave up this faint hope¡­but that didn''t mean that he would resign himself to his fate.

    In the eyes of the marquis, there was a look of thought. It was as if he was trying to figure out a way to get out of this still.

    Gritting his teeth and with an unwilling look, he said, "Your highness, I''m willing to offer half of my estate to solve this matter today!"

    Half, that was his bottom line.

    But this was a marquis family that had been in this kingdom for generations.

    Half was already an astronomical amount that normal people wouldn''t even dare think about.

    It was just that the fourth prince was not interested.

    He calmly looked at the marquis and said, "Do you think that will be enough to make up for your crimes?"

    The marquis'' expression turned ugly.

    He never thought that he would kick the steel te that was the fourth prince today.?At the same time, he never thought that the fourth prince would want to go this far.

    Though he wasn''t one of the loyalists of the royal family, he still thought that he did enough that they wouldn''t bother him. But now for this newly titled count, the fourth prince was going all out against him.

    The marquis once again gritted his teeth and pulled out his weapon.

    At this point, he was so desperate that he couldn''t think properly.

    The only thing that he wanted to do now was reach the fourth prince.

    That was because he wanted to grab the fourth prince and use him as a hostage.

    At this point, he gave up on trying to fight his way out or even threaten his way out. He was just going to use the fourth prince as a hostage so they would let him leave.

    As for what came after¡­well he hadn''t thought about it yet.

    When the elite guards saw the marquis moving towards the fourth prince, they immediately started to move.

    With their speed, it seemed like they would reach the fourth prince before the marquis would. However, they suddenly stopped while they were running towards the fourth prince.

    It was as if there was something that told them to stop heading towards the fourth prince.

    Though the marquis wasing at him with his weapon raised, the fourth prince didn''t seem worried at all.

    When the marquis approached and tried to get around the fourth prince, the fourth prince only took a single step forward.

    With this single step, he was able to get into the personal space of the marquis.

    The marquis waspletely caught off guard by this step from the fourth prince and wasn''t able to react in time. He wanted to go around, but he found that he wasn''t able to as the fourth prince raised a hand towards him.

    So the marquis wanted to take a step back to create some space with the fourth prince.

    But before he could do that, the fourth prince''s outstretched hand had grabbed the hilt of the marquis'' sword.

    The marquis was caught off guard and said, "What are you trying to do?"

    However, since the fourth prince didn''t say anything, the marquis just tried to pull the sword away from the fourth prince.

    He found that he wasn''t able to move a single inch.

    No matter how hard he tried pulling the sword, he found that it just wouldn''t leave the fourth prince''s grip. It was like there was an iron vice that was around the hand that was holding the sword.

    So the marquis had no choice but to try and point the sword at the fourth prince in an attempt to scare him.

    But he found that before he could do anything, there was a fist that was alreadying right at his face.

    The marquis was shocked by this fist that suddenly hit him in the face and knocked him down.

    The punch was even so strong that his eyes couldn''t help rolling back in their sockets as he lost consciousness.

    As the fourth prince stood over the unconscious marquis, he said, "What a true idiot."

 Chapter 566 Another surprise

    <h4>Chapter 566 Another surprise</h4>

    After the marquis was knocked out, the fourth prince gave a nod to the cloaked figures.

    The cloaked figures didn''t miss a beat as they came forward to grab the marquis, but then they came over to where Cecilia was.

    Cecilia couldn''t help revealing a wary look when she saw this.

    Though she knew that these cloaked figures listened to the fourth prince, she couldn''t help being nervous since she had seen that these cloaked figures¡­were actually stronger than her.

    It wasn''t just one or two of them that were stronger, but all of them that were stronger.

    The way that they had knocked out the subordinates of the marquis, even she was barely able to see their movements, though she was able to see their movements in the end.

    She knew that in terms of speed, she wouldn''t be able to match them if they wanted to do something.

    However, all the cloaked figures did was ask, "Where''s the dungeon? We need a ce to keep this traitor of the kingdom."

    Cecilia couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when she heard this.

    Then she slowly turned to look at me as if she was asking for my permission.

    It was only when I gave a simple nod that she finally led the way for the cloaked figures.

    Of course, not all of the cloaked figures went with Cecilia.

    Only two of them went with her since it only took two of them to bring the unconscious marquis to the dungeon. The rest of them all remained here with the knocked out subordinates of the marquis.

    There were also two of them who moved over to where the fourth prince was, standing near him as if they were protecting him.

    The fourth prince ignored all of this and waved his hand at me toe over.

    I was surprised to see this, but I slowly walked over to where the fourth prince was.

    When I did, the fourth prince looked at me and asked, "Brother, have you set up the knight order that you were allowed to set up yet?"

    I was even more caught off guard when I heard this, but I didn''t give an answer.

    After all, I didn''t really know about this.

    I turned to look at Rose and she gave a nod in response.

    I had left this matter to Rose to take care of, so she would know the situation much better than me.

    It seemed that she had been busy and had already finished setting up this knight order while I had been away.

    So I turned back to give a nod to the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince gave a nod as well before turning to look at the subordinates of the marquis.

    He gave a nod to the cloaked figures that were standing around these subordinates.

    When they received this nod, the cloaked figures didn''t hold back at all as they suddenly pped the unconscious subordinates on the ground.

    The moment that they were pped, they immediately awakened from their slumber.

    They immediately held their faces with looks of pain on their faces, but they also slowly remembered what had happened and raised their guards. Seeing the cloaked figures that were standing in front of them, they didn''t dare resist at all as they waited to see what would happen next.

    Only when all of them were awakened did the fourth prince suddenly say, "I will offer you two choices now, make your decision wisely."

    The subordinates were taken aback when they heard this.

    However, they could also see that the marquis was missing, so they could already guess what had happened.

    They just waited to see what the options the fourth prince gave them were.

    "Submit or death."

    It was three simple words, but it sent a chill down their spine.

    All of the subordinates looked at the fourth prince as if they were wondering if he was joking, but the fourth prince had a very serious look on his face. It was clear that he wasn''t joking with the serious look that he had.

    After a moment of silence, one of the subordinates couldn''t help asking, "Your highness, what do you mean by submit?"

    It wasn''t that they were against this, but they had to have more information.

    They wanted to know what the situation was, or else if they were forced into very by submitting, perhaps death would have been the better option.

    The fourth prince wasn''t offended when he heard this, he even had a look of praise in his eyes after this was asked of him.

    The fourth prince then gave a nod and said, "It''s very simple. From now on, you willmit yourself to the knight order of Count Zwein. You will serve him with pride as proud knights of his order."

    The subordinates were all shocked when they heard this.

    Knight order, that was not as simple as it seemed.

    A knight order was only established by those that received a coat of arms, something that could only be received when one had the recognition of the king and had performed great merit to the kingdom. Anyone that could receive a coat of arms definitely was not a normal person.

    As such, anyone that would be able to join a knight order would be someone that would be respected by all.

    And that was why they were shocked.

    After all, this seemed more like a reward than a punishment.

    Being a member of the knight order was far beyond just serving a marquis.

    So they couldn''t believe that they were given this opportunity.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help being taken aback when I heard this.

    There was a part of me that did want them, but at the same time, there was a part of me that didn''t want them.

    After all, at one point, they had served the idiot marquis.

    There was no knowing what kind of things that they had done under the marquis.

    It was just that with the fourth prince taking the reins here, it was hard for me to say anything against this.

 Chapter 567 Other solution (1)

    <h4>Chapter 567 Other solution (1)</h4>

    I couldn''t help turning to look at Rose and I saw that she was giving me a certain look.

    It was as if she was telling me to ept this¡­

    But I couldn''t just ept them since they were men of the marquis and there was an element of danger to them..

    So I turned to Haley.

    If Rose didn''t work, then I would try Haley.

    After all, if there wasn''t enough money to hire them, then there was no way that we would be able to keep them.

    However¡­it was the same with her.

    She also looked at me like she wanted me to ept them. She even gave a thumbs up to show that it wouldn''t be a problem at all when it came to money.

    These two, they really were something else.

    Since they already agreed and I couldn''t just deny the fourth prince, I gave up on thinking too much about it and said, "Alright, they can join my knight order."

    The fourth prince revealed a satisfied smile and gave a nod of agreement before turning to the marquis'' subordinates to say, "Well, you heard him. Go back and bring your families, as well as the rest of the marquis'' men. You''re all a part of the knight order under my brother now."

    The subordinates all revealed shocked looks when they heard this.

    It wasn''t because of what he said that they were shocked, but because of what the fourth prince had said in the end.

    He had called Count Zwein ''brother''.

    They just never would have imagined that the fourth prince would call someone ''brother''.

    It was very clear that the rtionship between them wasn''t normal¡­

    Since the fourth prince had already said all of this, I looked at Jessica and said, "Take care of this."

    She looked at me with a bitter smile before giving a nod.

    Jessica was the one that had been appointed as the leader of this knight order.

    One might think that it would be Cecilia, but she turned it down since she wanted to stay closer to me. So Cecilia was still the captain of the guards in our town instead of bing the prestigious leader of this knight order.

    She took Jessica under her wings and was now teaching her how to be a proper knight order leader.

    Jessica came over to the one that had spoken for the subordinates and said, "From now on, you are all a part of our Rose Knights. I hope that you will not disappoint me and make my lord and his highness regret giving you a second choice."

    The subordinates looked at her with dazed looks before suddenly revealing firm and determined looks.

    It was slowly sinking in that from now on, they would be members of a knight order.

    This was a status that was far above their status from before.

    After a long silence, the representative of these subordinates gave a nod and said in a strong voice, "We will not let you down."

    Jessica gave a casual nod before saying, "Alright, follow me. Let''s get everything set up."

    The fourth prince gave a nod to the cloaked figures who hesitated for a moment before four of them followed behind Jessica.

    It was as if they were going along to make sure that the subordinates of the marquis behaved properly.

    After that was taken care of, I said to the fourth prince, "Should we head back and finish discussing what we were talking about?"

    The fourth prince gave a simple nod before we headed back into the town hall.

    As we did, I could see the awkward look that was on Rose''s face.

    That was because of the name I had given the knight order.

    The Order of the Rose Knights, that was the official name of the knight order that we had established.

    Rose had wanted to go against this name, but I had made sure to keep this name since I wanted Rose''s name on this. In a way, it was my way of doing a big gesture to show my love.

    Though it was clear that Rose didn''t seem like she liked it that much.

    It was clear that she found this embarrassing.

    But unfortunately for her, I found it cute, so I didn''t change the name and insisted on it.

    When we came back into the room, the fourth prince was the first to speak.

    "We were talking about other ways of getting the supplies that we needed. What other ways were you thinking of?"

    It seemed that the fourth prince was more anxious to talk about this than I was.

    However, there was someone that we needed to call before we could discuss this.

    I had Nicole take care of this and it didn''t take long before the person that we called arrived.

    When Elsa came in, she asked in a confused voice, "What did you need me for?"

    I just gestured for her to sit down before exining the situation to her.

    When I finished, Elsa still had a confused look on her face, though there was a look of worry in her eyes as she asked, "It doesn''t seem like there''s anything I can do about this matter. So is there a reason why you called me here?"

    She was right, on the surface it didn''t seem like there was anything that she could do, but¡­there was something that I needed from the Dwarven Kingdom regarding this and she was the best person to ask as the Dwarven Kingdom''s ambassador.

    "Do you have trades with these kingdoms that are dering war on our kingdom?"

    Else knitted her brows when she heard this as she looked at me with a careful look.

    Slowly, she said, "There are no official trades, but there are unofficial trades."

    She didn''t deny this since it was an open secret.

    After all, it was impossible for the country to govern everything that citizens did and if they wanted to do some small trading, then the country couldn''t stop them.

    But why would he ask her this?

    I gave a nod before saying, "Is it possible for us to buy weapons from the dwarven kingdom in the same manner?"

 Chapter 568 Other solution (2)

    <h4>Chapter 568 Other solution (2) </h4>

    As soon as I said this, there was a silence that filled the room.

    Everyone had a serious look on their face after hearing this, but it was clear that everyone was just waiting for Elsa''s answer.

    However, Elsa had a very serious look of thought on her face after she heard this and didn''t say anything in response.

    After a long silence, she finally said with a sigh, "While we can''t officiallyment on this, it is possible for us to introduce you to a few private merchants. If they''re willing to sell to you, then that is their discretion and not the stance of the kingdom."

    The fourth prince''s eyes lit up the moment that he heard this.

    Though she had said it in a long winded fashion, Elsa was basically saying that she would do what she could.

    The private merchants that they would introduce to us would be affiliated to the Dwarven King, so it would be easy for him to convince them to sell to us.

    She just couldn''t officially dere that they would help since she was the official ambassador to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Though we were engaged now, that was a separate matter since what she said would determine the future of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    So she couldn''t bring personal matters into official matters.

    But there was something else that I wanted to add.

    "Um, also about the merchants that are privately selling to the other kingdoms, is it possible for them to be investigated?" I said in a calm voice, but the words that I said were like arge rock that fell into a pond, creatingrge ripples.

    Elsa immediately narrowed her eyes to look at me, as if she was trying to figure out if I was serious or not.

    Seeing the look in my face, Elsa gave a sigh and said, "It''s possible to do that, but you should know the consequences of doing something like this."

    I just said with a calm smile on my face, "For those that trade with humans in the first ce, there are always skeletons in the closet. I''m sure that you''ll be able to find something to use to investigate them."

    Elsa looked at me with a surprised look when she heard this.

    After a long time, she said with a sigh, "I never knew that you were such a bad person."

    With the same calm look, I said, "For people that don''t deserve it, there''s no need for me to treat them with kindness. The people that are important to me, I''ll treat them properly."

    Elsa looked at me a bit longer before slowly giving a nod of agreement.

    It wasn''t a logical decision to give this nod, but rather an emotional decision.

    After all, she had seen my kindness first hand when I had helped her against her ex husband.

    The fourth prince had been silently listening from the side, but he chose this time to say, "Is there anything else that we can do about this?"

    I looked at him with a strange look.

    Even all of this wasn''t something that he was satisfied with.

    At the very least, this was the part of him that was consistent with the fourth prince in the game. Both of them had a greed that was normal for him in his position as the fourth prince.

    But this time, the greed that he had was understandable.

    After all, this time, he was doing all that he could to help the people of this kingdom.

    We were about to be invaded and war was about to start, so of course we needed to do all that we could to tip the scales in our favour.

    After a long silence, I turned to Elsa and said, "Can you take control of the merchant groups after you investigate them?"

    Elsa was surprised by this question, but she slowly gave a nod before saying, "As long as we don''t do anything too drastic, it should be possible."

    I took a deep breath before speaking this time since what I was about to say was a bit hard for me. I knew that this was a big request, so I was hesitant in saying it.

    But if it wasn''t for the fact that my home, the people that I cared about, and this kingdom was in danger, then I wouldn''t have asked this.

    After taking that deep breath, I said, "Can you send them shoddy goods with those merchant groups after you take control of them?"

    Elsa knitted her brows right away.

    I didn''t me her since this was a big ask for her.

    This would without a doubt hurt the prestige of the Dwarven Kingdom, as well as hurting their pride as craftsmen.

    I could see the look of struggle that was in Elsa''s eyes, but in the end, she slowly said with a nod, "It''s doable. However, the price is too big for us to do this as a favour. For this, we need some form of properpensation."

    I gave a nod since what she said was reasonable, but I was scared of what she was going to ask for.

    This was basically asking them to interfere in the war of another country, even if they were doing it indirectly. This would without a doubt causesting consequences for the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Elsa looked at me and took a deep breath to say, "Five runes. That is the minimum that I''m willing to ept. If you can''t at least give us that, then it is too risky for us to do this."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look before suddenly smiling.

    I had thought that it would be much worse than it actually was, but it was just five runes.

    Even if it was ten runes, I would still be fine giving it to them as long as they were willing to do this.

    In fact, sometimes being generous was the best option.

    So I just simply said, "Ten runes, I won''t take a single rune less."

    Elsa looked at me with a shocked look before saying, "Deal, you can''t take back your word now!"

 Chapter 569 Exempt?

    <h4>Chapter 569 Exempt?</h4>

    Seeing her act this excited, I couldn''t help finding her a bit cute.

    Still, this was a serious discussion, so I wouldn''t let it show on my face.

    Instead, I turned to the fourth prince and asked, "Brother, what do you think of this?"

    The fourth prince didn''t hold back at all as he raised his hand and gave me a thumbs up as he said, "Brother, good job!"

    I didn''t know where he learned this from, but seeing the dreaded fourth prince acting like this really was a surreal feeling. It was as if I just couldn''t see the fourth prince from the game ovepping with this fourth prince in front of me.

    There must be some kind of traumatic event that happened in the progression of the game that I didn''t know about¡­

    Was it some kind of hidden event that no yer had found before or was it some kind of hidden lore item that no one paid attention to?

    I had no way of figuring this out since I was no longer in my old world.

    But I cast these thoughts out of my mind in the end.

    For now, the fourth prince was a friend of mine and had even be a rtive through marriage. For now, it seemed like he was treating me as a genuine friend, so there was no need to be on guard against him.

    It could even be said that it was at that moment that I truly trusted the fourth prince.

    Though it was only a bit of trust.

    Since this matter with Elsa was settled, all that was left was to wait.

    I didn''t have any other ideas, so there was nothing else for me to really do.

    But before this meeting ended, there was one more thing that the fourth prince had to say.

    "Brother, I''m sure that you are aware that in times of war, nobles have the obligation to gather their armies and fight in the war." The fourth prince slowly said this while carefully looking at me, as if he was trying to gauge my reaction.

    I gave a nod to show that I did know this, but I didn''t say anything as I wanted to see what the fourth prince had in mind when he mentioned this.

    Seeing this nod, the fourth prince said, "With the merit that you''ve performed and as long as you keep forging equipment for us, it''s possible for you to receive an exemption from this duty."

    When he said this, the eyes of all the girls lit up.

    They turned to look at me with excited looks, but they were surprised to find that I didn''t seem that excited about this.

    Rather, I had deeply knitted my brows when I heard the fourth prince say this.

    The fourth prince also revealed a confused look when he saw this, but he didn''t say anything as he waited to see what I would have to say.

    After a long silence, I said, "I wish to exchange that merit for something else."

    Everyone looked at me with shocked looks when they heard this.

    Then the one that reacted first was Rose.

    She stood up and came over to grab me by the shoulder as she said, "What do you think you''re doing? This isn''t the time to be ying around. Do you know just how precious of a chance this is?"

    After this outburst from Rose, the others also came over to try and persuade me out of this.

    However, I just had a calm look on my face as I looked at the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince had been looking at me with a look like he was judging me, but then he said with a sigh, "How about we let Brother Zwein say what he wants to say. I''m sure that he''s not a rash person who makes decisions like this without any thought."

    The others fell silent when they heard this, but they looked at me with aggrieved looks like I had wronged them.

    In a sense, I did wrong them since I was saying that to me, gaining glory on the battlefield or whatever I was choosing to do was more important to them.

    But this was something that I couldn''t yield on.

    "I wish to exchange this merit for a position ofmander in the army. As long as I''m in a position that is able to control arge number of forces, that will be enough for me."

    The fourth prince deeply knitted his brows this time as he looked at me.

    After a long silence, he simply asked, "Why?"

    I could feel the pressure that wasing from him when he asked this.

    This was the aura that the fourth prince should, the aura that I was familiar with.

    This was the aura that he had as a royal, one that sets him apart from the others.

    I just calmly looked at him and said, "I too feel the responsibility to defend my home."

    The fourth prince kept looking at me with narrowed eyes after I said this, as if he didn''t believe what I was saying.

    So with a sigh, I said, "I have a few cards that I can still y, but I need to be on the battlefield to y them. I need to be there in person to use them effectively."

    The fourth prince kept looking at me with narrowed eyes, but eventually he also gave a sigh and said, "Fine, I can ept that. However, I still have to say to take care of yourself, not just for my sister, but also for me since I care for you as a brother."

    I gave a touched nod as I said, "I know, I still have people that I want to protect ande back to. I won''t take any unnecessary risks."

    The girls all looked at me with strange looks, but they resigned themselves in the end.

    When men make a decision, their wives should just follow them without a word sometimes.

 Chapter 570 To the dungeon

    <h4>Chapter 570 To the dungeon</h4>

    The fourth prince took a while to calm himself before suddenly saying, "I can let you be a general in the army that Imand. However, I have to tell you that it will be hard for you to get them to follow you since you have no experience or fame in the military."

    I gave a nod since I already expected this, but I had to do this since there was knowledge that I had that would certainly help change the tide of the war.

    This was the knowledge that I had brought to this world from the game that this world was based on.

    The game that this world was based on was very detailed, with many different random events hidden all over the world. These random events would range from finding items to encountering enemies to even encountering traps in the middle of nowhere.

    As an avid gamer who had yed this game topletion countless times, I basically had an encyclopedia of these events in my head.

    I knew exactly where many of these events were and how to trigger them.

    There were many such events that were scattered all around the border between this kingdom and the surrounding kingdom.

    And that was my n.

    These events ranged from safe to very dangerous, so I was nning on leading the enemy armies into these dangerous events. I wanted them to trigger them so that they would kill themselves, saving our troops from bing casualties.

    So that was why I needed to be amander and have enough troops to affect the battlefield.

    Only then would I be able to lead the enemies into these traps that I had prepared for them.

    As for whether they would follow me or not, I didn''t need them to do much.

    I just needed them to act as bait, so I was certain that I would at least be able to get them to follow these simple orders.

    The fourth prince gave another sigh when he saw me respond with just a simple nod.

    He then shook his head and said, "Alright, if that''s what you really want."

    While the fourth prince didn''t know what this brother of his was up to, this brother of his had given him enough pleasant surprises that he would trust him even if there was no proof that he should trust him.

    Otherwise, since this brother of his was the one that his big sister loved, he would try his best to keep him safe.

    Since he was young, he had already promised that he would try his best to keep his big sister and the people that she loved safe.

    One might call that a sisterplex, but the fourth prince didn''t care.

    After this matter was settled, the fourth prince suddenly stood up and said, "Alright, let''s go and see the marquis."

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this before looking at the fourth prince with a strange look as if I was trying to figure out what he was doing.

    When the fourth prince came to the door, he turned to look at me.

    Seeing that I was still sitting there without moving, he said, "What are you doing? Let''s go and see the marquis. We still need to take care of him before ending this matter."

    The fourth prince said it like it was something natural, but I still looked at him with a strange look.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help wondering just what he meant when he said that we would be taking care of him.

    Just what was the fourth prince nning to do to the marquis?

    So I stood up and followed the fourth prince out to see what he was up to.

    The fourth prince followed Nicole who led us to the dungeon in the town hall where the marquis was being kept.

    As we went down, we passed by Cecilia and the cloaked figures that had gone with her to take the marquis away.

    The cloaked figures immediately moved over to the fourth prince''s side as if they were worried about him while Cecilia came to my side and asked, "What''s going on?"

    I didn''t get a chance to respond as the fourth prince said, "Follow me, we''re going to see the marquis."

    Cecilia raised a brow to look at me, but I just shook my head to show that I didn''t know what was happening either.

    As for the cloaked figures, they followed the fourth prince without any hesitation.

    It almost seemed as if there was a spring in their steps, as if they were happy that the fourth prince was allowing them to follow him.

    It seemed that the fourth prince''s people really were loyal to him. In fact, it almost seemed like they worshipped him¡­which probably wasn''t a healthy thing.

    This time, it changed to Cecilia leading the way since she was the one that put him in the dungeon in the first ce. She would know exactly where to find the marquis.

    Well, the cloaked figures that went with her would also know where to find the marquis, but they seemed more content following the fourth prince.

    It really didn''t seem healthy, that rtionship that they had.

    When we came into the dungeon, I was surprised by how few people there were in here.

    Cecilia saw this and said with a faint smile, "We have good security and people aren''t unhappy, so there isn''t as much crime."

    I turned to Rose with a look of pride.

    I knew that I couldn''t take responsibility for this since it was Rose who mainly took care of the town.

    Rose couldn''t help revealing a shy look when she saw me looking at her like this.

    The fourth prince didn''t wait as he walked forward, looking from cell to cell as he looked for the marquis.

    When he finally found him, he stood there in front of the cell.

    The marquis who had woken up sat there chained to the wall, looking up at the fourth prince.

 Chapter 571 Special privilege (1)

    <h4>Chapter 571 Special privilege (1)</h4>

    Neither of them said a thing as they just stared at each other.

    Finally, it was the marquis who broke the silence by saying, "Your highness, you can''t do this to me. My family has loyally served the kingdom for many generations, is this how the royal family treats their loyal vassals?"

    To the marquis'' surprise, the fourth prince actually gave a chuckle in response before saying, "Is that so?"

    The marquis deeply knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "Your highness, even if you insult me, I cannot allow you to insult my family. We are a proud line of nobles that helped build this kingdom when the empire copsed."

    The fourth prince just gave a shrug as he said, "But that was all in the past. Your ancestors might have been loyal vassals, but can you really say the same about yourself?"

    The marquis revealed an ugly expression when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything.

    It wasn''t that he didn''t want to defend himself, it was just that he had no idea what the fourth prince knew.

    If he said too much, it wouldn''t be good for himself.

    So he wanted to see just what the fourth prince would try to me him with.

    The fourth prince saw that the marquis wasn''t saying anything, but he wasn''t that surprised by this. Almost as if he was already expecting this, he reached his hand out towards one of the cloaked figures.

    That cloaked figure took out a bundle of papers from under their cloak and put it in the fourth prince''s hand.

    After taking that bundle of papers, the fourth prince raised it up in front of himself and read, "Three counts of suppressing themoners in viges in your territory, forty different counts of assaulting women, and¡­"

    The fourth prince continued to read out the things written on the paper in front of him and there were many different crimes of the marquis that were exposed.

    It seemed that the marquis was as much of a scumbag as we had expected him to be.

    The things that he did, it was hard to believe that he was even human.

    Though there were a few things that everyone else in the room didn''t really seem to react to. It was as if these things weren''t as serious as the other things, like they were normal for nobles to do.

    After reading out a list of crimes, the fourth prince said, "All of this was found in just a matter of hours. I really can''t even fathom how long the list of your crimes would actually be if we had a proper investigation."

    The marquis had a very ugly look on his face which made it clear that everything that the fourth prince had used him of were true.

    After a short silence, the marquis suddenly revealed a firm look and said, "nder! All of this is nder!"

    The fourth prince shook his head and gave a sigh as he said, "It seems that you really are throwing away all of the reputation that your ancestors have built up¡­"

    The marquis still shook his head and said, "Without any proof, you can''t use me of random crimes! I want to see proof!"

    It seemed like the marquis hadpletely given up being rational.

    Since the fourth prince had said all of this, there was no doubt that he should have gotten all of the proof that he needed.

    If one just thought about it a bit, they would have realized this.

    However, the marquis had gone too far off the end that he refused to look at any of this with reason.

    It seemed that he would just deny everything to the end, trying to stall things out as much as possible.

    But the fourth prince wasn''t interested in ying with the marquis.

    With a sigh, the fourth prince said, "There''s no need for a formal investigation, we''ll issue his punishment here and now."

    The marquis fell silent when he heard this before narrowing his eyes to look at the fourth prince.

    The way that he looked at the fourth prince, it was as if he was just waiting to see what the fourth prince would say just so he could deny it. It was as if he was nning on fighting to the end, even if there was no fight left.

    The fourth prince gave a nod as if he had decided something and said, "We''ll strip him of his title and take away his territory. That should be in and simple."

    "Huh?" The marquis clearly did not expect to hear this as he looked at the fourth prince in shock.

    With just a few simple words, the fourth prince wanted to decide on stripping his title away?

    How could someone do something like this?

    The marquis naturally wouldn''t ept this, so he pulled on his chains and said, "How can you do something like that? Do you think that you''re his majesty?"

    The fourth prince calmly looked at the marquis and pulled out something before saying, "I think that I can represent his majesty in this case."

    The marquis was about to say something until he noticed what was in the fourth prince''s hand.

    The moment that he saw the token that the fourth prince was holding, he couldn''t help saying in a stunned voice, "Mark of the Sun¡­"

    I looked at the thing that was in the fourth prince''s hand and I couldn''t help being surprised as well since I recognized this thing.

    The others were confused, but I knew what this was.

    This was a token that had appeared in the game before, it was a token that could only be granted by the ruler of this kingdom.

    That was because this token was a representation of the king.

    As long as one had this token, it was as if they were seeing the king themselves.

    This was a special privilege that would only be given to those that the king trusted.

    So why did the fourth prince have something like this?

 Chapter 572 Special privilege (2)

    <h4>Chapter 572 Special privilege (2)</h4>

    This token had only appeared in theter parts of the game, near the end of the noble quest line.

    It was a token that had been taken forcefully by the fourth prince to enforce his will on the people of the capital when he started his coup. So I had seen how powerful this token could be.

    But why did the fourth prince have it now?

    It should have been something that was forcefully taken from the kingter in the game¡­

    Could it be that the fourth prince had this all along?

    If so, then what was the point of the fourth prince''s coup in the game?

    The king should have already trusted the fourth prince at this time and should have made him his sessor, so why did things progress the way that they did in the game?

    When I learned all of this, I couldn''t help feeling even more confused about the plot of the game.

    It seemed like there was some kind ofrge hidden plot that no yer had been able to discover before this¡­

    It was just a good thing that I was used to revealing a calm look to disguise my emotions or else all of this would have been shown to everyone.

    The fourth prince just continued by saying, "Since I have this, I think that I''m more than qualified to represent his majesty in this matter, don''t you think so?"

    The marquis was still shocked when he heard this, but then he suddenly brought his head down and said, "In light of the service that my family has provided, I ask your highness for mercy."

    As soon as he said this, it was clear that he admitted his wrongdoings.

    He was no longer trying to act tough since he knew that there was nothing to gain from it.

    At this point, his only option was to show submission and try to soften the punishment as much as he could, or else he really might be executed¡­

    So the marquis was trying to negotiate with the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince wasn''t surprised to see this, but he didn''t seem like he cared.

    It seemed that he had already made his decision and he wouldn''t be showing any mercy to the marquis.

    However, he suddenly turned to me to ask, "Brother Zwein, what do you think about this?"

    I had been deeply lost in my thoughts when I heard this, but I was jolted out of them since it was the fourth prince who asked this.

    I looked at the fourth prince with a confused look and then looked at the marquis before slowly figuring out what was happening.

    But I was surprised to see that the fourth prince was actually asking my opinion on this matter since there was no real need for this. That was until I realized that he was using this as an opportunity to show just how close we were.

    So I said with a sigh, "I have no opinions on this matter. I''ll leave it up to brother."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before turning to the marquis to say, "Since my brother has said this, then we''ll just go with what I said before. Your territory and your title will be revoked and you will be banished from this kingdom without a single possession. If you try to enter our kingdom again, then know that it will not go well for you."

    The marquis looked up in shock when he heard this.

    He never thought that even when he submitted, he would have his title revoked and his territory taken from him.

    The one small constion that was there was that he would keep his life since he was only exiled from this country, but it was still hard for him to ept.

    But what could he do?

    The fourth prince had already spoken and there was nothing for him to say.

    His men had been taken from him and he was currently trapped in his dungeon.

    The fourth prince no longer cared about the marquis and turned to look at the cloaked figures behind him to say, "Send someone to capture his family and reim his wealth. Don''t let them take a single thing."

    The cloaked figures nodded before disappearing.

    When he was done with that, the fourth prince turned to me to say, "Then brother, shall we go?"

    He even took me by the shoulder and started pushing me out of this ce, as if to show just how close I was.

    Was this the reason why he had left the marquis alive?

    When the marquis left this country, would he spread the news that I was close to the fourth prince?

    I didn''t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but I was certain that it would have an effect on me in the future.

    As we were leaving, the marquis had fallen silent, but I could see that he was looking at me with a strange look.

    It was clear that he was trying to figure out just what kind of rtionship I had with the fourth prince.

    After that was all taken care of, the fourth prince actually didn''t stay in my territory any longer.

    As soon as we came up from the dungeons, he went outside and was getting ready to leave even though it was alreadyte in the afternoon.

    I wanted to convince him to stay, but he said, "I have to get back to the capital as soon as possible to report this matter to my royal father and make preparations. In a week, there should be someone that wille with your appointment as a general. When that timees, get your army ready to head to the battlefront."

    I was certainly surprised by this, but I gave a nod of confirmation after hearing this.

    The fourth prince gave a nod too before patting me on my shoulder and saying, "Good luck to you and stay safe."

    Without another word, the fourth prince left.

    He came and left just like a storm.

 Chapter 573 Orders from the church

    <h4>Chapter 573 Orders from the church</h4>

    Once the fourth prince left, there wasn''t much else for me to do.

    Of course, that didn''t mean that I could remain idle while leaving the work to everyone else.

    Or at least that was what I thought.

    But when I tried to volunteer to help, I found that I was given the cold shoulder by my wives and my fiancees.

    At first, Cecilia was still talking to me, but after she learned about what I had asked the fourth prince for, she also gave me the cold shoulder.

    Though they understood that women should stand by their husbands at times, that didn''t mean that they wouldn''t get angry because of my selfish actions.

    So before I could leave, the first thing that I had to do was appease them.

    But I didn''t go looking for them right away.

    It wasn''t because I was scared of my wives and fiancees, it was just that I was giving them some time to cool off. There was nothing to gain trying to appease them while they were still worked up.

    In fact, trying to force the issue might even cause them to get angrier.

    So sometimes a man should know when to back down.

    Un, that was it, I was just giving them time to cool off.

    But it wasn''t as if I could just remain there doing nothing.

    There was a waring, so I had to make preparations as well.

    In the end, I headed to the church since no one would talk to me and it would be awkward for me to hang around.

    When I arrived, I found that the priest was there waiting for me.

    Seeing mee into the church, he said with a faint smile, "It seems like quite a few things have happened during this time."

    I narrowed my eyes when I heard this.

    From the smile that was on his face, I could see that there was a deeper meaning to this.

    It seemed that this priest had received information before others did.

    I slowly gave a nod and said with a sigh, "That''s why I''m here."

    The smile disappeared from the face of the priest and to my surprise, he suddenly revealed a serious look.

    In my time knowing this priest, he had never revealed this kind of serious look before.

    After all, he was someone that was kind and forgiving, so he didn''t have the personality to be this serious.

    For him to actually be this serious, it was clear that the situation had changed.

    After a long silence, the priest said, "We cannot go with you."

    I was caught off guard by these sudden words from the priest, even to the point where for a second, I couldn''t understand what he was talking about. But then I reacted to his words and knew exactly what he was referring to.

    After this realization, I deeply knitted my brows as I tried to figure out why he was saying this.

    Seeing the look on my face, the priest didn''t beat around the bush as he said, "I received orders from the headquarters that we are not allowed to participate in this war."

    Hearing this, I knitted my brows even more.

    It wasn''t that I was surprised to learn that the church already knew about this since the church that the priest belonged to was a widespread religion. It was a religion that was practiced in many different countries, so it wouldn''t be strange for them to get this information with their connections.

    I also wasn''t surprised that the church would want to remain neutral in this matter since they were a neutral organization to begin with. They were a church that relied on their believers, so they wouldn''t do anything like choosing a side in a war since it would hurt them in the future.

    But that meant that we wouldn''t be able to get the healers that we wanted, as well as the powerful magicians that could help us.

    The priests and nuns of the church were all taught healing magic which would greatly help us in battle. At the same time, there were many powerful magicians such as this priest in front of me that could cast powerful spells.

    There was no doubt that they would have been very helpful to have in the war.

    In the end, I gave an understanding nod.

    Just like how we had our circumstances, I was sure that the priest had his own circumstances.

    The priest gave a sigh and said, "But those orders don''t apply to the apprentices. They are still not ordained members of the church, so they have the freedom to choose where they go."

    My eyes immediately lit up when I heard this.

    The apprentices, while they were still weak, they were still capable of healing magic and other simple spells. So at the very least, they would be able to help by casting their spells on the battlefield.

    Then the priest added something, "But of course, only those that are willing. Please don''t force anyone to go."

    I gave a nod of agreement before saying, "I''ll only take those who wish to protect their home. They will be able to freely choose whether they go or not."

    The priest gave a sigh in response to this as he revealed a down look.

    While like this, he also muttered, "Protect their home, huh?"

    It was clear that there was something else that he wanted to say, but he wasn''t able to say it because of the position that he was in.

    With another sigh, the priest said, "I will pray for your luck on the battlefield."

    I said with a nod, "Thank you."

    There was something that was left in the air that both of us were unsatisfied with, but this was how it was.

    There was nothing else that could be said or done since both of us had our own circumstances and we just had to ept that we had different circumstances¡­

 Chapter 574 Appeasing (1)

    <h4>Chapter 574 Appeasing (1) </h4>

    Once I was finished with my business at the church, it had already be dark.

    I had been able to convince a few of the apprentices toe with me, but the rest of them still seemed to be on the fence abouting.

    In the end, I would just let them decide over the next period of time since it was best to let them think it over. After all, those that were forced onto the battlefield would always have hesitation and hesitation would lead to death.

    Not to mention, I didn''t want to put any pressure on them toe since I agreed with the priest that we shouldn''t force anyone toe.

    I was their lord, so I could at least protect my territory and my people without having to rely on forced conscription.

    So that was where I had left things for the day.

    After all, there was an even harder battle that was waiting for me at home.

    When I arrived, the servants all looked at me with awkward looks before turning to ignore me.

    Seeing them act this way, I didn''t get angry at all.

    Rather, the moment that I saw them act this way, I knew what was happening here.

    It seemed that Rose was still angry, so she had given the order for the servants to ignore me when I arrived.

    This at least told me that she was still angry and I would have to do my best to appease her.

    So without caring about the servants, I went right up to Rose''s room.

    I knew that she would be there since there was no sign of dinner being prepared.

    It seemed that she had even been nning on letting me starve the entire time.

    I knew that she was in a very bad mood if she was even nning on withholding food.

    When I arrived in Rose''s room, I saw that all of the girls were gathered there in the room.

    The moment that I came in, they suddenly stopped talking and turned to look at me.

    With the tea and cookies in front of them, it seemed like they were having a leisurely chatting time. However, I knew that this was impossible since they would most certainly still be angry with me.

    So the first thing that I did after entering the room was fall to my knees and bring my head down.

    There was no hesitation in my body as I went into a sliding dogeza in front of them.

    I knew that the only way to show how sorry I was was to be as sincere as I could and there was no better way to do this than with a sliding dogeza.

    It was so sudden that all of the girls didn''t even know how to react at first.

    But then they looked at me with expressionless looks on their faces, as if they still hadn''t decided how they would react to this.

    The only thing that I could do was keep my head on the ground and wait.

    Finally, Rose spoke to me, "What are you doing?"

    I didn''t dare look up as I said, "I know I was being selfish and I apologize for that."

    There was only silence that followed and when I looked up sheepishly, I could see that they were still looking at me with expressionless looks on their faces.

    I had nothing to go on, so the only thing that I could do was keep my head down and wait.

    Finally, there was a voice that came from above me.

    It was Rose who said, "Then what do you n on doing to make up for it?"

    I was caught off guard when I heard her say this, but then I could see the special look in her eyes.

    There was a part of me that gave a bitterugh when I saw this, but there was also a part of me that couldn''t help feeling a bit excited.

    I made sure that the others all had simr looks before raising my head and said, "Can I show you what I''ll do to make it up?"

    Rose looked at me with narrowed eyes after hearing this, but she still gave a nod in the end.

    I walked over to where Rose was sitting and came up behind her.

    Seeing me do this, she looked at me with a confused look. However, I just turned her head back forward and said, "Just rx and leave everything to me."

    I brought my hands up to her shoulder and then I started to squeeze.

    The moment that she felt me squeezing her like this, Rose wasn''t able to control herself as she suddenly gave a yelp.

    The others all looked at me with gazes filled with suspicion, but Rose was the one that defended me as she said, "It''s fine, I was just surprised by it."

    I had stopped since they had red at me, but Rose said, "I didn''t say to stop."

    I revealed a faint smile before I continued massaging her shoulders for her again.

    This was the technique that I had learned from my parents.

    Whenever my mother had been angry about something, my father had always gone to massage her shoulders. It would never take long before they became lovey dovey again and did things that they shouldn''t have done in front of their child.

    This shoulder massage wasn''t the only technique that I had learned from my father.

    After the shoulder massage worked, he would always go with a different technique¡­one that was inappropriate to show children.

    That was how unafraid to show affection my parents had been, but that seemed to help me now.

    My hands came down from Rose''s shoulder and it went to her back.

    As they were ced on her back, I started giving her a back massage as well.

    It didn''t take long before she let out a moan of pleasure from this.

    Hearing this, I knew that it was time for the next step.

    My hands went from Rose''s back to her front and then in one swift move, I grabbed what was there.

 Chapter 575 Appeasing (2)

    <h4>Chapter 575 Appeasing (2)</h4>

    As soon as my hands grabbed her chest, I could feel the soft feelinging from them.

    No matter how many times I held her chest, I would never get tired of it.

    It was almost too big for my hands, but I was able to grab a hold of them still, one in each hand.

    The moment that my fingers made contact with her skin, they immediately sunk into that white flesh. This was like sinking into the fresh snow on a winter day as my fingers disappeared into her milky white flesh in an instant.

    "Ah..." Rose gave a soft moan before saying in a slightly angry voice, "What are you doing?"

    Though she sounded angry, I knew that she was just pretending.

    We had been together long enough that I was able to see through those eyes. I could see that this was just fake anger that she was showing to save face for herself.

    The moan that she gave first were her true feelings.

    So I just revealed an innocent smile and said, "I''m just giving you a massage. I know that when it''s big like this, it''s hard on your back and shoulders, so I just wanted to help you relieve some of that pain."

    Rose looked at me with narrowed eyes after hearing this.

    The look in her eyes made it clear that she knew exactly what I was doing, but she didn''t say anything about this.

    Instead, she just turned back around and said, "Alright, let''s see what you have."

    The smile on my face became even wider after hearing her say this, so my hands became much more bold.

    One hand remained on her chest and kept massaging it while the other hand slid down the side of her body. It went down from her waist and down the side of her leg before grabbing her thighs.

    As my hand slid down the side of her body, I could feel a trembleing from it.

    However, this wasn''t a tremble that meant that she was nervous. Rather, it was a tremble that showed that she was excited.

    The feeling of grabbing her thighs was something else.

    If her breasts were soft pillowy mounds, then her thighs were like stic balls.

    They were soft at first, but once your hand went in far enough, there was a kickback to it.

    The more that I grabbed at them, the more that I could feel that resistance. It was a feeling that just couldn''t be described with words.

    As I was groping...massaging Rose''s thighs, she couldn''t hold back anymore.

    She had managed to hold herself back at first, stifling the moans that she wanted to give. But as the groping...massaging became more and more intense, she wasn''t able to hold herself back.

    She even wanted to bring a hand to her mouth to stop herself, but she didn''t have the strength left to do so.

    The only thing that Rose could do was let that moane out of her mouth as she let her body fall into my hands.

    I had wanted to hold back and just tease her a bit, but seeing her like this, I really couldn''t hold myself back.

    I leaned my head in and started kissing her on the neck.

    As I did, her head reeled back and her moaning became even stronger.

    The more that I did this, the redder her face became.

    The other girls had been silently watching from the side.

    At first, it was still fine¡­but as time passed and Rose''s moans became stronger, they all started feeling awkward. It wasn''t a bad kind of awkward, it was just that there was this burning sensation that filled them from the inside.

    It was inevitable with Rose''s sensual moans and her red face.

    Even though on the surface, it didn''t seem like I was doing anything wrong, it was definitely not that simple.

    My hands continued teasing her, but also getting bolder.

    The hand that was on her chest started pinching and teasing the two little tips that had risen during the massage. The hand that was on her thigh also started moving further forward, heading towards that ce in between her legs.

    The more that I teased her, the more that her body reacted.

    It was trembling more and more, as if she was about to climax.

    However, that would be bad for me since I didn''t want to let it end so quickly.

    So all of a sudden, my hands stopped.

    Rose wasn''t able to react in time and by the time that she did react, I had already taken two steps back and had moved away from her.

    She was in a daze as she didn''t know what to do at first.

    I could see that her hands moved a bit before stopping,almost as if she had wanted to keep going on her own, but decided against it.

    She looked at me with a look that seemed like she was trying to y it cool, but there was no hiding the look of desire that was in her eyes as she said, "Why did you stop? I don''t think the massage is done yet."

    I shook my head as I said, "No, it''s done. You''re already feeling much more rxed, aren''t you?"

    Rose was surprised to hear my response, but she gritted her teeth and said, "I don''t think it''s done yet. I don''t feel that rxed."

    I just calmly said with a smile that almost seemed like I was teasing her, "Well, maybe we can circle backter. There are still others that need a massage too."

    The moment that my voice fell, the eyes of the others all lit up.

    They had been watchin the entire time with focused eyes, as if just watching us like this was turning them on as well.

    They also wanted to feel those hands on their bodies as well, but they had to defer since it was Rose''s turn.

    But now it seemed that they would also get their turn.

    Seeing them look over at us like this, Rose couldn''t really say anything.

    The only thing that she could do was grit her teeth and re at me.

 Chapter 576 Appeasing (3)

    <h4>Chapter 576 Appeasing (3)</h4>

    I didn''t show any fear on my face, but in my heart¡­

    It couldn''t help trembling a bit.

    I was sure that she would be even angrier after this, but it would be a different kind of anger.

    What I was hoping that this anger would develop into was¡­

    Still, since I had made my stance clear, it wasn''t as if I could back down now.

    So I walked out from behind the couch that Rose was sitting on and started moving towards the other girls.

    But before I could move past her, Rose suddenly leaned in and said in a soft voice, "Watch out for tonight. I''ll pay you back then."

    It was a soft and seductive voice that made my brain tingle when I heard it.

    I couldn''t help looking at her with a surprised look when I heard this, but she had already gone back to drinking her tea with a casual look on her face. It was almost as if she hadn''t even moved to get closer to me.

    I just looked at her in a daze for a bit before shaking my head with a faint smile on it.

    This was just how she was, or rather the Dark Rose as I called her.

    While she was gentle and kind most of the time, there was still that dark side of her that came out from time to time.

    I was the one that experienced it the most since it came out the most in our private times. Or more specifically, it came out when we were having our night time fun.

    She was someone who was quite aggressive when she needed to be aggressive.

    It wasn''t off putting at all, it was actually quite hot seeing her take control like that.

    Though I did have a few scars to show for it.

    I walked past both Cecilia and Haley who were also looking at me with looks of expectation.

    They revealed disappointed looks when they saw me walk past them, but they didn''t say anything.

    Instead, I walked right over to the couch that the princess and Veronica were sitting on.

    Both of them looked at each other and gave gulps, but they remained still as they sat there.

    However, it was impossible to hide the look of expectation and excitement that they had in their eyes.

    I went as slow as I could as I went behind their couch.

    Still, they sat there without moving a single muscle. They even had their heads down as if they were afraid to look at me, but that didn''t mean that they were running away.

    It seemed like they had prepared themselves and steeled their hearts for what I was about to give them.

    I went to Veronica first and she jolted a bit when she saw that I was right behind her, but I didn''t stay there. When I walked past her, Veronica looked at me with a disappointed look.

    I just ignored this as I went up behind the princess.

    That was when I reached my hands out in front of me to grab the shoulder of the princess.

    The moment that I grabbed her shoulders, I could feel the trembling that came from her.

    But I also knew that this wasn''t the trembling of someone who was scared, this was the trembling of someone who was excited.

    After putting my hand on her shoulders, I leaned in and said, "Then shall we start?"

    The princess once again trembled, but she also gave a slight nod.

    When I looked closely, I could see that there was a blush that was on her face which made me reveal an evil smile.

    That faint blush on that creamy white fair skin, it was like soft cherry blossomsying atop a bed of fresh snow.

    Along with the way that her cherry red lips were slightly pursed as she let out deep breaths, it really was enticing.

    I couldn''t hold myself back as I reached my head forward and ced a deep kiss on those lips that were letting this panting. As soon as I sealed those lips, the princess'' eyes opened wide in surprise before her tongue suddenly stuck through my lips.

    It seemed that she was even more aggressive than me as she tried to wrap her tongue around my tongue and sucked on my lips as we kissed.

    Finally, she would only let go when we were both running out of breath.

    I fell back and she fell forward, but both of us were panting as a result of this.

    However, I didn''t let things end there.

    Since she was being so aggressive, it was only right that I responded in turn.

    So I stood up again and reached my hands out in front of her.

    Without even disguising it, I grabbed her chest without any hesitation.

    Though it wasn''t as big as Rose or Cecilia''s, it was still quiterge. It perfectly fit inside my hand and my fingers sank in the moment that I grabbed her.

    "Ah!" The princess suddenly let out a cry when she felt my hands on her chest, but then she quickly closed her mouth and let herself enjoy this feeling.

    I didn''t stop as I grabbed them softly, kneading them and folding them in different directions.

    The more that I did this, the redder her face became until she couldn''t stop herself from letting out a moan as well.

    With that, I started moving my hand down.

    One hand remained on her chest just like with Rose as the other hand went in between her legs unlike with Rose.

    I had held back with Rose, but there was no need for me to hold back with her.

    But before I could reach the ce in between her legs¡­

    There was a little surprise that appeared under me.

    Veronica had been watching the whole time, but she couldn''t hold herself back anymore.

    So she had jumped over the couch and sat down in front of me on her knees, but her legs went to her side.

    Her head was right where there was a tent in my pants.

 Chapter 577 Appeasing (4)

    <h4>Chapter 577 Appeasing (4)</h4>

    When I looked down, I could see a dazed look that was on Veronica''s face.

    It was as if this was her first time seeing something that was this big.

    Though if one thought about it, this should have been her first time seeing a dick, period.

    Veronica was the young miss of the duke family, if anyone tried to show her something as filthy as this, the duke would have been the first one to castrate them. So of course she had never seen the real thing before, at best she would have only read about it.

    But having her stare at my dick like this was quite embarrassing...

    So I gave a cough to help her out of her stunned state.

    Hearing this cough, Veronica snapped out of her daze. However, she still didn''t know what to do at first.

    She raised her hands and then put them down, as if she was unsure of what to do with them.

    But in the end, she made up her mind.

    Veronica brought her hands up to the waistline of my pants and grabbed hold of them, though in her panic, she did grab it a bit too hard. With her strength, she pulled me a bit forward as she grabbed my pants, which made it a bit hard for me to stand.

    If I didn''t stop myself in time, I might have fallen forward right onto her.

    Though by pulling me forward a bit, she did bring the tent in my pants closer to her face.

    It came right up to her face and even poked her a bit before she pushed me back to get it away.

    I just had an awkward bitter smile on my face the entire time as this happened.

    When she finally calmed down, Veronica looked up at me and said, "I''m sorry."

    I shook my head with the same bitter smile, but I still said, "It''s fine, just take your time."

    As I said this, the princess looked up at me with a look as if she was asking, "Why did you stop?"

    Seeing this, my hands started moving again, though most of my attention was still on Veronica to see what she would do next.

    Luckily, she seemed like she knew what she was doing.

    As a young girl, Veronica had naturally been curious about this kind of thing and had done some reading on her own.

    So drawing on the research material that she had read before, she slowly pulled my pants down.

    When Veronica did this, she found that it was hard to pull it down after a certain point. After pulling it a bit, she found that there was something that the pants were stuck to that stopped her from pulling any further.

    But Veronica didn''t know just what it was that got caught, so she just chose to use brute force.

    As she did, I could feel her bending my thing downwards.

    It was painful, but what could I do?

    I just had to wait for it to be over.

    However, as she did this, there was tension that built up from it being pulled down like this by the pants. The more that she pulled, the more tension was built up until it was suddenly released.

    Before Veronica could react, there was something that snapped out of my pants.

    It came right up at her face since she had ced herself in front of me. At the same time, because it had been slightly bent to the side, it came at her at an angle.

    My dick flew out of my pants once it was freed of the tension of the waistline and pped Veronica across the face.

    There was only silence that followed after the resounding pping sound of my dick hitting Veronica in the face rang out.

    Her eyes were opened wide as she stared at the thing that was in front of her face in shock.

    This was her first time seeing a dick close up, not to mention getting pped in the face with one. This was just too much happening at once that she didn''t even know how to react.

    But eventually, there was a blush that came over her face, as well as a strange fascinated look as she kept looking at the dick in front of her.

    The way that she just stared at my dick like this, I really didn''t know what to do.

    I found that it wasn''t just Veronica alone who was staring at me like this.

    Since I had stopped massaging her, the princess had also turned around to see what was happening and she was stunned when she saw what was hanging out right behind her head.

    At the same time, Moon and Elsa were also staring in my direction.

    It was Moon''s first time, but it definitely wasn''t Elsa''s first time since she had already been married once.

    But after a moment of silence, they all said the same thing, "It''s so big¡­"

    Indeed, this was the one thing that they could agree on.

    They had all heard about or seen other dicks before, but they had never heard of a monster as big as this before.

    They couldn''t help wondering if it would even fit inside of them¡­

    But the most important thing was that they were wondering how it would feel to have this thing inside of them.

    When they all stared at me like this, I couldn''t help feeling very awkward.

    It was almost as if I was some kind of disy that was being put on show for them.

    This kind of feeling really felt strange.

    When Rose saw the way that the room became, she gave a sigh before standing up and walking over to where Veronica was currently sitting on the ground.

    She came down and sat beside Veronica to her surprise and then took Veronica''s head before pushing it forward. As she pushed Veronica''s head forward, she said, "Now, there''s no need to fear. This is how you do it."

 Chapter 578 Appeasing (5)

    <h4>Chapter 578 Appeasing (5)</h4>

    Veronica''s eyes opened wide as she looked back at Rose with a shocked look at first.

    But seeing the way that Rose looked at her, she gave a slight nod and let Rose guide her forward.

    On the other hand, I waspletely shocked and confused seeing Rose act this way.

    I never thought that Rose would do something like this¡­

    In the end, Rose brought Veronica''s face right up in front of my dick before saying with a faint smile, "You have to open your mouth if you want to do this."

    Veronica had been in a daze as her head was brought closer.

    The look in her eyes almost seemed like she was mesmerized by the thing that was right in front of her.

    However, when Rose said this, she just said "oh" before opening her mouth.

    It didn''t seem like she was going to do anything on her own and was just waiting for Rose to give her instructions.

    Rose shook her head again with a faint smile before pushing Veronica''s head forward once more.

    When she opened her mouth and came closer, I started to feel Veronica''s breath fall onto my dick.

    This was her first time doing something like this and it was clear that she was excited with how hard she was panting. Since she was panting like this, I could feel her hot breath falling on my dick with each breath she gave.

    This was a strange feeling, but I couldn''t say that it was a bad one¡­

    Finally, Rose pushed her open mouth right over my dick.

    The only problem was¡­it was too small.

    Veronica had tried to open her mouth as much as she could when she saw the size of the thing that would be entering it, but even then¡­it was still too small to fit the entire thing in.

    She was only able to get a bit of the tip in her mouth before she suddenly felt like she was being choked.

    There was a part of her that wanted to move away, but she found that Rose''s hand was holding her there firmly. She couldn''t break free even if she wanted to, so her mouth was just stuffed with this dick.

    It slowly became harder for Veronica to breathe and there was a part of her that started to panic.

    But there was also a part of her that enjoyed this feeling.

    She already enjoyed the smell of the dick that was in front of her, though she didn''t enjoy it at first. Still, she was able toe to enjoy it after experiencing it for a bit.

    So there was a struggle that was happening inside of her as she was trying to decide whether to move back or not.

    In the end though, survival came first.

    She was choking, so she had no choice but to move back or she would have died from choking on his dick.

    This time, Rose didn''t hold Veronica in ce since she knew that she was about to faint from ack of oxygen. So she let go of Veronica''s head and Veronica was able to move away.

    The moment that she did, there was a bunch of slobber that came out of her mouth and down her chin.

    Her mouth had beenpletely filled with this dick, so she hadn''t been able to do a single thing about her drool. The moment that she was released, it all dripped down her chin and onto her throat.

    At the same time, her tears were just too much for her that she had to close one of her eyes.

    When I saw her like this, I couldn''t help thinking of the research materials that I had watched back on Earth.

    The ones where they got deepthroated and then they turned into a mess after choking.

    This plus everything that she did was just too much for me that I couldn''t help saying, "Ah, I''m cumming."

    As soon as I said this, my dick trembled before squirting onto Veronica''s face.

    As I did this, Rose also said, "Quickly, stick out your hands."

    Veronica had no idea what was happening and didn''t know how to react, so the only thing that she could do was to stick out her hands like Rose had said.

    When she did, my cum fell from her face and gathered in her hands as a pool.

    Veronica looked down at the liquid that was in her hands.

    The first thing that hit her was the smell of this liquid.

    This was just like the smell of the dick that had been in her mouth a moment ago and it was a smell that she couldn''t helping to enjoy.

    So there was a part of her that wondered¡­what did it taste like?

    Rose was about to say something, but before she could, Veronica was already drinking the liquid in her hand.

    Rose was surprised since she never thought that Veronica would be this proactive, but she closed her mouth as she revealed a faint smile.

    When she finished drinking it, Veronica couldn''t help opening her mouth as if she wanted to show that she had finished drinking it. Then she asked in a soft voice, "Can I have more?"

    Seeing her like this really was something else.

    In a matter of seconds, my dick became hard again and I even thought about taking her then and there.

    But before that could happen, the princess suddenly said, "Don''t leave me out of this, I want a turn too!"

    After that, she jumped over the sofa and wanted to get down on her knees as well in front of me.

    However, before any of that could happen, Rose suddenly stood up and grabbed me to say, "No, it''s my turn to punish him now. You''re free to join us if you want, but I don''t think you will."

    After saying this, she pulled me towards our bedroom. At the same time, she waved for Cecilia and Haley to follow, which they did immediately.

    The other four just stood there staring at each other in nk dismay¡­

 Chapter 579 To war

    <h4>Chapter 579 To war</h4>

    Two weekster, we had gathered everything and were preparing to set off.

    The fourth prince''s message hade a week ago and it had told us where to go to gather with the army that he was leaving us.

    After a week of preparations, we were now heading out.

    The ones that came with me were Cecilia and Veronica.

    Cecilia was a natural choice since she was themander of our forces. Veronica was a surprise, but she came with the group of guards that the duke had given her.

    There were two others that had wanted toe, but circumstances kept them froming.

    Moon came from the elves and Elsa came from the dwarves. The moment that they appeared on the frontlines, a bigger problem would happen.

    When that time came, it would be much more disastrous than just a few kingdoms dering war on our kingdom.

    If the kingdoms thought that the dwarves and the elves were backing us, there was no doubt that they would bring in other kingdoms against us. The threat of the elves and dwarves working together with humans was just too great that they wouldn''t be able to ignore it.

    Other than that, there was also Shaka and his men who came with us as a scouting team.

    Shaka had been quiet this time, so I had forgotten about him, but it turned out that he had been on a secret mission to scout out the other kingdoms which was why he hadn''t been in my territory the entire time.

    Shadow Garden was an organization that was responsible for controlling intelligence in the kingdom. Now that a war was on our doorstep, it was naturally their responsibility to dig up all the necessary information.

    So Shaka had been infiltrating one of the kingdoms until he was called back by the fourth prince to follow me.

    I wanted to apologize to him for this, but he said, "It''s been a long time since I''ve been on the battlefield, but these old bones do ache for it sometimes. Digging up information is fine, but it just isn''t the same as being on the battlefield."

    Though I had interrupted his mission, he didn''t seem angry.

    In fact, it almost seemed like he was excited to be on the battlefield again.

    This was something that I couldn''t understand since I wasn''t a warrior like him.

    It also wasn''t something that Cecilia could understand either.

    Though Cecilia was a knight, she had never been to war like Shaka had.

    It had been a long time since our kingdom had been at war, so most of her service had been spent guarding territory instead of being on the frontlines. The few times that she had been on the frontlines was when she fought in a few skirmishes.

    Rose''s father, the count had territory that was near the border, so he often had to send his knights to intercept smaller attacks.

    That was Cecilia''s only experience with fighting the other kingdoms.

    So going to war for the first time, she was actually quite nervous.

    Shaka had tried to calm her down, but it didn''t work since she just didn''t know what to expect.

    The unknown was the most terrifying and there was nothing more terrifying than war where deathy waiting at every corner.

    I would have to think of something to calm her downter when we went into battle or else it would be bad for my troops if they went into battle with a nervousmander.

    A single moment of hesitation could be what decided life and death after all.

    When we left the town, Rose had prepared arge parade to send us off.

    I knew that this parade wasn''t just for me, but rather for all the men and women who would be following me to war.

    They needed to be reminded of what they were fighting for, so they would be able to be at their peak.

    People were at their strongest when there was something to protect after all.

    So showing them the people that they needed to protect before setting off was the best way of reminding them of this. After seeing their friends and family, they would be filled with morale to protect what they wanted to protect.

    I knew that, so I didn''t hesitate to go all out supporting Rose''s n.

    I let the men and women of the army go interact with the people that hade to see them off.

    I knew that doing this would allow them to understand even better about what they were to protect.

    Though a part of me was just happy to see them like this.

    I also made sure to say farewell to Rose and the others that were being left behind in the town.

    As we left, Rose gave me an extra long hug that inspired me to do even more than I was already preparing to do.

    I would do all that I could to keep what I currently have.

    After the parade was over, everyone had serious looks on their faces as we headed off from the town.

    Seeing this, I turned to Cecilia to say, "They''re ready. Are you?"

    Cecilia looked back at me with a firm look and just simply gave a nod.

    With that, we headed off to the rendezvous point.

    This ce wasn''t that far from my town, so we were able to reach it in just a few days.

    This was a ce that was actually quite far from the border, but this was where the army of the fourth prince had been stationed. They were waiting for us to arrive before heading to the battlefield.

    When we arrived, I was immediately brought to the main tent where the former general of this army was waiting.

    This former general had been turned into the vice general that would support me inmanding this army since I had no formal training for this.

    When I walked in the tent, I could feel the tension in the air.

    It was so thick that one could cut it with a knife.

 Chapter 580 An army of familiar faces

    <h4>Chapter 580 An army of familiar faces</h4>

    I walked into a tent that was filled with people who were waiting for me.

    Judging by their outfits, it was clear that they were high ranking officers of this army.

    The one that was standing in the middle of this group was wearing the uniform of a general. With the way that everyone stood around him, it was clear that this person was the former general of this army and my new vice general.

    He stared at me when I came in and the look in his eyes¡­was anything but kind.

    It even seemed hostile as he looked at me, as if he was trying to figure out just how I had been appointed in his position.

    But I didn''t mind this as I walked towards my new vice general.

    Aftering up in front of them, I pulled out a piece of paper and said, "As appointed by his fourth highness, I am the new general that will take overmand of this army."

    The vice general looked at me with narrowed eyes before taking the piece of paper from my hand.

    He looked at the piece of paper for a bit before slowly giving a nod and handing this piece of paper back to me. After handing it back, he said, "I understand and have received the orders of his fourth highness."

    Though he said this, it was very clear just how unwilling he was to ept this matter.

    In the end though he still backed down and offered the main seat in this tent to me.

    I didn''t hesitate to go over and sit down in that main seat.

    But as soon as I did, the scrutiny that I received from everyone became even stronger.

    Since I was sitting right there in the center, I was receiving attention from everyone who was in this tent.

    It was clear that they didn''t have a good impression of me.

    I could even hear some whispers¡­

    "Isn''t he just a kid? How did he be the general?"

    "How else? Isn''t it just because of connections?"

    "Right, I''ve never heard of amander like him before. Other than using connections, how could he have be the general of our army like this?"

    Age seemed to be the biggest issue for them.

    The second biggest issue was theck of fame on my part.

    I had never been a part of the military, so it wasn''t strange that they had never heard of me before.

    Since they had never heard of me before, it would be hard for them to trust their lives to me. There was nothing that would back them trusting me with their lives, so they wouldn''t do that.

    It seemed like there were many of them that were just waiting for me to say something so they couldin.

    But as I looked around, I was surprised to see that there were quite a few familiar faces around me.

    It was strange that I recognized these faces that should have been unfamiliar to me, or at least that was what someone who didn''t know about the real me would think.

    I had seen these faces in the game and that was because they were the army of the fourth prince.

    When the noble plot line reached its end, the fourth prince made his move with a coup.

    This army was one of the armies that had been moved by the fourth prince.

    So the officers of this army were faces that I recognized as special enemies in the game.

    I had fought these officers before, so I knew their strengths and weaknesses.

    If I even narrowed my eyes, it felt like their status screens would pop out at any moment, showing me all of their abilities.

    It almost made me want to smile, but I made sure to keep my face calm in front of them.

    With the information that I had about these officers, it made it even easier for me to use them.

    I looked at the vice general who was sitting beside me, looking at me with the same look of scrutiny.

    When he saw me look at him, the vice general didn''t even bother hiding the fact that he was looking at me with this look of scrutiny.

    It was clear that they all wanted to chase me away with this hostility, but they didn''t know that I knew something that they didn''t think anyone would know.

    The game didn''t just give one method of defeating enemies.

    The game that this world was based on was veryplex and gave many different ways to defeat an enemy.

    Such as learning their background and using it against them.

    In short, ckmail.

    This was information that was supposed to be found out using different subordinates or different methods, but I already had this information since I had yed the game countless times.

    With this information, it should be easy for me to get this army under my control.

    So I suddenly revealed a smile as I looked at the vice general.

    The vice general immediately revealed a strange look when he saw this smile.

    The confused look that he had made it clear that he didn''t understand why I was smiling, but he didn''t back down in the end.

    I didn''t bother with him anymore and turned to look at everyone to say, "I''m sure that all of you know by now that I''m the new general of this army. We have never met before and I have never served in the military before, so I hope that all of you will give me your guidance."

    As expected, there were looks of hostility that appeared the moment that I said this.

    If there were any allies that I had previously, they werepletely gone now.

    I had admitted that I had no experience and that I had be the general right away.

    That was the same as saying that I had gotten this position through connections.

    There was no way that they would trust me after that.

    But I wasn''t worried as I looked at them with a smile on my face.

 Chapter 581 A few casual comments

    <h4>Chapter 581 A few casualments</h4>

    When the officers saw me looking at them with a smile on my face, they couldn''t help feeling a chill run down their spine.

    But after that, they couldn''t help revealing strange looks.

    After all, they were proud officers of this elite army under the fourth prince, they shouldn''t be scared by someone like this Count Zwein.

    He was someone that had gotten the position through connections and not someone that had obtained this position through merit. So there was no reason for them to be scared of him in the first ce.

    But when they saw this smile on his face, it was this strange feeling that filled them.

    It was as if they were looking at the smile of a devil...

    Was it just his face or was it something else?

    Finally, the vice general took the lead by saying, "General, though it was the fourth prince''s order for you to take over as the general of this army, I don''t think that you have had the time to understand everything about our army yet. How about leaving the management of the army to me for now while you limate yourself?"

    The vice general''s words seemed like he was trying to help, but it was clear what he was implying.

    "You are unskilled, don''t try to takemand of this army from me."

    But one could understand why he was acting this way.

    I was someone who didn''t have any experience at all, so there was no way that they would be able to trust me tomand them. This was a matter that concerned their very lives, so naturally no one would risk their lives like this.

    I didn''t back down though as I said, "I want to talk to everyone first. When I point at you,e over so I can have a private chat with you."

    Everyone immediately looked at me with strange confused looks, as if they couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    However, I just calmly pointed at one of the officers that was sitting there.

    This officer revealed a surprised look when he saw that I was pointing at him, but he didn''te over right away.

    Instead, he looked at the vice general, as if he was asking for his opinion first.

    The vice general didn''t have any expressions on his face as he looked at me. All he did was narrow his eyes as if he was judging me.

    After a long moment of silence, he turned back to that officer and gave a nod as if he was saying that it was fine.

    It was only then that the officer came over to me.

    I waved my hand for him to lean in and when he did, I leaned over to whisper in his ears.

    No one was able to hear what we were saying, but the face of the officer quickly changed. It went from a surprised look to a shocked look before turningpletely dark.

    The way that he looked at me, it was almost as if he was saying, "How do you know this?"

    I didn''t say anything in response to this and just said, "You can go sit back down now."

    The officer looked like he really wanted to say something else, but he couldn''t say anything. In the end, he had no choice but to follow my orders and sit back down in his seat.

    However, this time he was looking at me with apletely different look.

    It still had hostility, but there was a trace of fear in his eyes.

    As well as a trace of uncertainty, as if he didn''t know what to make of me.

    I didn''t care as I pointed at another officer.

    This officer looked at me with a strange look.

    He had seen what had happened with the other officer, so there was a part of him that was hesitating toe over when I pointed at him.

    After a long pause, he still came over.

    He didn''t want to back down, it had be an issue of pride.

    He walked over to me and leaned in just like the other officer.

    I was surprised that he came over so quickly and obediently, but there was no reason for me to hold back because of this.

    Since he offered himself up to the mes it was the same thing that happened.

    From surprise to shock, from shock to a dark look on his face.

    When he was sent back to his seat, he too acted like the first officer.

    The other officers just couldn''t understand what was happening, but they knew that something must have happened. At the same time, the bad feeling that they had from earlier was even stronger than before.

    For the first time, they were scared that they would be chosen next.

    When the next officer was chosen, everyone looked at him with strange looks.

    He also hesitated a bit this time instead of going over right away like the other officers.

    But when he did¡­the same thing happened once more.

    Just like this, three of the officers were tamed and all of the officers were shown fear.

    They had no idea what Count Zwein had said to these officers, but they knew that it wasn''t normal.

    They didn''t want to be the next ones to be pointed at.

    The vice general had been watching silently since he wanted to see what was happening, but he finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    The vice general suddenly stood up and came over to my side as he said, "General, if there''s something you need to say, you can say it to me."

    I looked at him with one brow raised, but I waved at the vice general toe over as well.

    The vice general was surprised by this, but he did what I asked of him.

    When he came over, I whispered something in his ear as well that caused the general to reveal a dark look on his face.

    After a long silence, he looked at me and said, "How do you know this?"

 Chapter 582 Letâ€™s make a bet

    <h4>Chapter 582 Let¡¯s make a bet</h4>

    I looked at the vice general without saying a single thing, but there was the same smile on my face.

    The vice general looked at me with an uncertain look, almost as if he didn''t know how to feel about me.

    This vice general''s name was General Killock, he was one of the trusted generals under the fourth prince.

    He had been serving the fourth prince for over ten years now, so there was no need to doubt his loyalty. But there was a single time where he had been disloyal to the fourth prince.

    It was something that even the fourth prince hadn''t been aware of, but it could be considered a blemish on his otherwise perfect record.

    As for why he would do this, it was to save his men.

    They hadpleted the mission in the end, but it had resulted in other consequences that the fourth prince had to deal withter. But the fourth prince just thought that these consequences were because of something else and not because of General Killock.

    So this was a secret that he had been preparing to take to the grave.

    But now, this Count Zwein who had relied on his rtions to be the general had just revealed that he knew everything to his face.

    The way that Count Zwein recounted this, it was clear that he knew even the minute details and not just the general event.

    General Killock didn''t know how he knew this, all he cared about was the fact that he seemed to know everything. There was no doubt that if this was revealed, his reputation would be ruined and he would lose everything.

    If it was anyone else, General Killock might have already done all that he could to silence that person forever.

    But General Killock couldn''t do that to this Count Zwein.

    After all, the situation already told him that Count Zwein was close to the fourth prince, so if he did anything, it would be him that suffered.

    However, General Killock couldn''t just leave this problem be¡­

    General Killock took a deep breath and said, "Alright, let''s talk alone then."

    I gave a nod before turning to everyone else in the room and saying, "Can you please leave this room for a bit while I have a private conversation with my vice general? We''ll call you back once we''re done."

    The officers didn''t move when they heard this as they all looked at General Killock.

    The way that they looked at him, it was as if they were asking for his permission.

    In the end, it was only when General Killock gave a nod that they all vacated this room.

    As they were leaving the room, they all looked at me with a strange look as if they couldn''t figure out what to make of me.

    They had never seen their general act like this in all the years of fighting with him.

    It seemed like there was more to me than met the eye.

    I just looked back at them with a smile on my face as they left which unnerved them even more.

    Once everyone had left the room, General Killock looked at me with narrowed eyes, but he didn''t say anything.

    It was as if he was trying to put pressure on me so that he would be able to control the conversation. However, I had met plenty of people with strong auras before, so I wasn''t fazed by just this.

    When he saw that he couldn''t freak me out, General Killock gave a sigh and said, "What do you want?"

    The fact that he said this already meant that he had admitted his defeat.

    He had thought about many different ways to solve this problem, but there wasn''t a single one that worked. After all, he knew just too little about this Count Zwein that he didn''t know what he was capable of.

    As long as he didn''t know this, it would be too risky to sh with him.

    So he took the safer path and directly negotiated with him.

    I gave a nod of acknowledgement for this before saying, "It''s very simple, I just want to make a bet with you."

    "A bet?" General Killock couldn''t help repeating in a confused voice before asking, "What kind of bet?"

    I revealed another smile before saying, "It''s a very simple bet. I just want you to follow my orderspletely for a single battle. If it seeds, then I want you to follow me properly from now on. If it fails, I will personally talk to the fourth prince and leave this army."

    General Killock revealed a very strange look when he heard this.

    After a moment of silence, he said with a serious look, "Even if you have grabbed me by the handle, do you really think that I will risk the lives of my men just for a bet? I refuse."

    I wasn''t angry when I heard this, rather I had a look of admiration after he said this.

    This was a sign of a good general.

    He didn''t care what happened to him as long as he was able to protect his men.

    But I wouldn''t ept this.

    So I just calmly said, "It''s not risking the lives of your men. I just want youto follow my instructions on how to fight the enemy. I will consult you on all of the strategies and you can decide when we can retreat. I just want you to support me in this following battle without any hesitation."

    This time, General Killock couldn''t help wavering.

    He didn''t know what it was about the way that Count Zwein said this, but he couldn''t help being moved a bit by these words.

    After a moment of silence, General Killock said, "Why are you doing all of this?"

    The smile disappeared from my face at this as I looked right into his eyes and said, "I just want to protect the people that I care about."

    General Killock revealed a slightly surprised look, but he gave a nod in the end as he said, "Alright, just this one time."

    I said with a nod, "Thank you for understanding."

    General Killock just shook his head and said with a sigh, "I hope I don''t regret this."

 Chapter 583 Organizing the troops

    <h4>Chapter 583 Organizing the troops</h4>

    When it was all over, we called the officers back into the room.

    They looked at us with a strange look, but General Killock just maintained a calm expression on his face as he ignored all of this.

    The officers looked at me with an even stranger look when they saw their general acting this way, but I also ignored them.

    Once they were all seated, I calmly said, "I have already discussed this matter with the vice general and havee to an agreement. For the next engagement, I will be the one in charge of everything. You will just have to follow my orders and everything will turn out alright."

    The officers all revealed shocked looks when they heard this before turning to look at General Killock.

    But they found that General Killock was looking away as if he couldn''t match their gazes.

    It was as if he was guilty about something and wouldn''t look in their direction.

    Almost as if he was giving his silent approval for this.

    The moment that they realized this, they couldn''t help being shocked even more.

    Just what had happened in the time that they were alone that General Killock was acting this way now?

    They couldn''t understand at all¡­

    Or at least the ones that didn''t have the private talk with Count Zwein couldn''t understand.

    The ones that did were even more shocked since they knew what kind of tactics he used.

    He had exposed their secrets and had forced them into submission. The minor things that they had thought that they had hidden well enough had all beenid bare by this Count Zwein who shouldn''t have known these things.

    If he were to expose them, there was no doubt that they would have suffered from it.

    So they were shocked to find that General Killock was hiding something as well.

    Just what did their valiant and upright general have hidden?

    It must be something very shocking for him to even listen to Count Zwein¡­

    Seeing the looks that they gave me, I wasn''t surprised at all.

    I just calmly said, "Now that we''ve established this, it''s time to organize ourselves for our first engagement."

    All of the officers still looked at me with strange looks, but there was a seriousness that came over them when they heard this.

    Even if they were shocked by everything that happened, they were military personnel and recovered quickly.

    They all looked at me with serious looks, as if they were judging me.

    It seemed that within the next few minutes, what I said would determine their view of me.

    However, I wasn''t nervous at all.

    I had plenty of information and plenty of cards to y, I had only just begun. With all of this, there was no need for me to be worried about anything.

    Over the next hour, Iid out the n that I had for our first engagement.

    At first, they just listened to me silently with serious looks on their faces. All the while, it seemed like they were judging my n, seeing if it was feasible or not.

    But halfway through, the expression on the faces of officerspletely changed.

    It was as if they couldn''t believe what I was saying.

    When it was over, General Killock was the first to say, "Are you serious about this?"

    I just gave a simple nod in response.

    The officers all looked at General Killock as if they were expecting him to say something, but General Killock hesitated.

    After all, this n was a n at the very least¡­

    It wasn''t the best n, it wasn''t even considered a good n.

    If he had to describe it, he would have used one single word.

    Sloppy!

    That was the only thing that this n could be described with.

    It was clear that Count Zwein was an amateur when it came to the art of war based on the n that he had just proposed. This was a kind of n that had many holes that the enemies could take advantage of and would be easily dismantled when facing any normal strategist.

    However, the one thing that was special about this n was that it was low risk.

    Though they would lose territory if they lost this battle, it was territory that wasn''t important.

    At the same time, the n even seemed like it emphasized retreat.

    This kind of n couldn''t be considered a n of attack, but rather a n for retreat.

    Count Zwein''s informationwork was clearly nothing to scoff at with the things that he had said before, so would he really be this kind of fool?

    That was the only thing that General Killock was hesitating about.

    Still, for the sake of his bet, he was considering epting the n that Count Zwein had proposed.

    After all, it was clear that there was no chance of winning with this n, but there was a high chance of avoiding any casualties to his men.

    So this seemed like the perfect chance for him to win this bet.

    The only real downside was that they would lose prestige for losing this battle, but that could always be made upter in the war. As long as they still maintained their power, it would be easy to make up for this besmirching to their prestige with a single battle.

    In the end, General Killock took a deep breath and said, "Alright, let''s do as the general says."

    All of the officers looked at General Killock in shock as if they couldn''t believe what he said.

    But since General Killock had spoken, it wasn''t as if they could say anything.

    In the end, they just had to ept that they would be following their new general''s n.

    Seeing that General Killock agreed, I gave a satisfied nod before saying, "You will soon understand the true genius of my n."

    Hearing this, General Killock and the other officers all revealed bitter smiles.

    Instead of seeing the genius of his n, all they could see was his foolishness¡­

 Chapter 584 Strange formation (1)

    <h4>Chapter 584 Strange formation (1)</h4>

    Rising Land ins.

    This was where the army was deployed on my request.

    It was a strange request since this wasn''t a position that was very important, it was just a crossing into our kingdom that was hard to defend.

    From the very beginning, it had been regarded as a lost cause and was left to the enemies to freely use.

    But of course, they didn''t care about it either since there was nothing important in this area.

    This was a remote area that didn''t have any cities or towns, just a few viges in the surrounding areas that didn''t have anything important in them. As for why no one built in this ce, no one really knew.

    So there was no value in crossing from this ce since it would take too long to reach anything meaningful. When they reached that meaningful ce, it would already be toote since they would be found out by all the scouts along the way.

    There was nothing that was worth doing if they were caught like this.

    It was just one of those ces that had been glossed over by both kingdoms.

    But the moment that our army came, there was an enemy army that came to match us.

    There was no way that they could just ignore us as we came all the way out here.

    After all, leaving an army like ours unattended was without a doubt dangerous.

    So there was an army that came to face us.

    As we came this way, there were letters that came from militarymand that were asking us what we were nning. All I had them send back was that we had a n and to trust us.

    The fact that they didn''t order us to turn back was most likely the fourth prince exerting his influence, but I was sure that he would be worried about this as well.

    Still, it would only take a single battle for us to show them all.

    When we arrived, we found the enemy not far away from us.

    The reports from the scouts showed that they were camped out on the opposite side of these ins, waiting for us to arrive.

    But the worst part of this report was that¡­

    "They have twice our numbers?" General Killock asked with an ugly expression on his face.

    The scout revealed an ugly look too before slowly giving a nod.

    Since he was giving a report, there was nothing else that he could do.

    The information that he gave was rted to the lives of everyone here, so he had to be truthful.

    In fact¡­

    "It isn''t just double our numbers, it seems that they are close to two and a half times our numbers."

    This was the final nail in the coffin.

    With the n that we had, it was clear that we wouldn''t be able to do anything against them.

    After a long moment of silence, General Killock turned to me and said, "We need to retreat, now."

    Instead of folding like he had expected, I just calmly looked back at him and said, "No."

    General Killock and the officers all revealed ugly expressions when they heard this.

    The officers looked at General Killock with looks as if they were asking him to do something.

    General Killock didn''t ignore these looks as he said, "You said before that I had the right to call a retreat if things looked bad. If this situation isn''t bad, then I don''t know what is."

    I gave a nod to show that I agreed with this which made General Killock''s eyes light up, but then I said something that crushed his hopes.

    "I did say that, but there''s no need to retreat right now, right? Our n has plenty of room to amodate this and we would be able to run at any moment as long as the situation turned sour. Not to mention, it wouldn''t look good if we just ran right away, right?"

    General Killock revealed an ugly expression when he heard this, but there was nothing that he could refute this with.

    Everything that I had said was true, so there was nothing that he could say to refute it.

    Though it was clear by the look on his face that he didn''t want to do this.

    Still¡­he had already made the bet and it was true that it would look very bad if we ran without even attempting a fight¡­

    So General Killock said, "What do we do then?"

    I just calmly said, "Get in position like I''ve stated before. All we have to do is take our position and victory will be ours."

    There were looks of doubt on the faces of General Killock and the officers, but no one said a thing.

    After all, at best Count Zwein''s skills could be considered shabby and at worst, it could be considered a disaster.

    Still, there was nothing that they could do¡­

    ¡­

    On the other side.

    "It seems like they aren''t backing down." A person in a military uniform suddenly said.

    A second person in military uniform gave a disdainfulugh before saying, "It seems like they really have idiots on their side. This will be a simple battle with our numbers."

    The first person didn''tugh along with this second person, but he still said in a voice of disdain, "It''s clear that whoever''s in charge of this army is ipetent. They wanted to ambush us bying here and now that they''re outnumbered, they refuse to retreat. They clearly do not know the art of war."

    The second person didn''t deny this as he said, "Well, we''ve seen the banners that they have. It''s the dreaded army of the fourth prince, the one that everyone was afraid of, so do you really think that this is the case?"

    The first person just gave a firm nod as he said, "It''s clear that something has happened, but since they''vee, we''ll give them a proper burial."

    "I don''t think that''s the case." A voice suddenly rang out.

 Chapter 585 Strange formation (2)

    <h4>Chapter 585 Strange formation (2)</h4>

    When the two people in the room heard this, they immediately turned to look at the one that had suddenlye in.

    Seeing this person, the two of them immediately bowed their heads and said, "Your highness, what are you doing here?"

    The person that walked in that had been called your highness was the second prince of their Midra Kingdom. The two that had been talking in the room were the general and vice general of this army.

    So of course they bowed the moment that they saw the second prince.

    The second prince just waved his hand and said, "Technically, I''m not here, so don''t say anything like that."

    Both the general and the vice general revealed bitter smiles when they heard this.

    It was clear that they were familiar with the personality of the second prince, so they weren''t surprised to see him doing something like this.

    However, it wasn''t as if they could just indulge the second prince on his whims since this was a battlefield.

    So the general said, "Your highness, please return to the capital right away. This ce isn''t safe."

    The second prince didn''t care at all as he said, "Don''t worry, I''ll only be observing from afar. I was curious about the person who was appointed as the new general of the dreaded army of the fourth prince."

    The general and the vice general both gave disdainful snorts before the general said, "Your highness, it''s clear that you''ve made a wasted trip. Just one nce is enough to tell that the other side is an amateur who knows nothing of war. This will end instantly, so much so that it would be an embarrassment to us to show this battle to your highness."

    The vice general nodded in agreement, but the look on the second prince made it clear that he didn''t think the same.

    The second prince just shook his head and said with a sigh, "General, sometimes underestimating the enemy too much is detrimental. I hope that you will at least keep a flexible mind when facing the enemyter."

    The general and vice general looked at each other with disdainful looks in their eyes, but they still nodded in agreement since it was the second prince that said this.

    At the very least, they had to show some kind of respect to the second prince when he said all this.

    The general then said, "Your highness, we will make sure to..."

    Before he could finish what he was saying, the p to the tent they were in was thrown open and there was someone else in military uniform that came in.

    Aftering in, they immediately found the general and fell onto one knee in front of him as they said, "General, there''s an urgent situation!"

    The general red at the officer that came in before cautiously looking at the second prince.

    Seeing the second prince just casually waving his hand as if telling him to do what he needed to do, the general kicked that person and said, "I already told you to be less agitated! There''s no need to freak out over every little thing!"

    The officer revealed a bitter look, but he didn''tin as he let the general discipline him like this. It was almost as if he was already used to being treated this way by the general.

    When the general was done, he said, "What is it? What is the situation?"

    The officer fell to one knee again and said in a calm voice, "The enemy is moving into formation."

    The general revealed a surprised look before kicking this officer again and saying, "Why didn''t you say that earlier!"

    Without even waiting for the officer to say anything, the general and the vice general left the tent.

    The officer''s bitter look became even more bitter as he thought, "General, you''re the one who told me not to freak out over every little thing!"

    It was only the officer and the second prince who were left in this tent.

    The officer didn''t recognize the second prince, but he was certain that this person wasn''t a normal person since he was in the tent with the general.

    The second prince just ignored the officer as he had a look of thought on his face.

    After a while, he went out of the tent to follow after the general and vice general.

    The officer was just left there with an awkward look on his face before following behind them.

    After the general and vice general rushed out, they immediately went to the observation tower that had been set up in their tent.

    Aftering up, they took the binocrs that were there and started looking at the enemy formation.

    As they watched the enemy in the distance, they had veryplicated looks on their faces.

    Then after a long moment of silence, both of them couldn''t help saying, "That''s it? That''s all they have?"

    Theplicated look on their faces wasn''t because they had realized that they had underestimated the enemy, but rather that they had overestimated their enemy. The formation that they had taken could only be described as¡­

    Sloppy and disorganized!

    This was something even a student in the military academy could have arranged better, but here was the enemy taking this formation in front of them.

    As they were in a daze over the enemy formation, the second prince came up and looked at the enemy formation as well.

    After a while, he said, "That''s definitely interesting."

    "Interesting?" The general and vice general repeated before the general said, "It''s clear that we''re being looked down on. This is clearly the work of an amateur. Do they really think that they can win like this?"

    The vice general was even more incited as he said, "Right, we have to show them our power or they''ll keep looking down on us! Let''s set out right now and crush them!"

    The general nodded in agreement.

    The second prince looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn''t say it in the end. Instead, he said, "Alright, but please remember what I said earlier."

    The general had a serious look on his face as he said, "Your highness, don''t worry. We will make them regret this decision."

    The second prince just gave a slight nod in agreement, but the expression on his face didn''t change.

 Chapter 586 Retreat

    <h4>Chapter 586 Retreat</h4>

    "General, the enemy ising out to meet us."

    As soon as I heard this, I gave a nod and said, "Hold formation and wait for them toe."

    General Killock standing beside me had a very ugly and confused look when he heard this.

    He could see that our troops were all ced on the ins in front of us.

    The formation that we had taken was the most basic formation of all, the square formation.

    This was a basic formation that every army was trained in because it was the most simple and effective method that any army could use. However, that was only when facing those that didn''t have any strategy at all.

    When facing another army that was also trained, this square formation wasn''t as useful since there were many formations that could break it.

    So as long as the other side knew what they were doing, it was easy to break this formation.

    The worst part of it all was that their cavalry was kept far back, off the ins themselves where they would demonstrate the most power. Instead, they were so far back that the enemy would be able to easily react if anything happened, allowing them to escape if needed to.

    So General Killock just couldn''t help being confused as to what I was trying to achieve with this.

    In no time at all, we could see the cloud of dust that was being raised in the distance.

    This cloud of dust was being raised by the enemy army that was approaching us.

    When they came closer, we could see what formation they had taken.

    They were marching forward in a line, but they were in a much different formation from ours. This was a formation that seemed like it was very advanced, far beyond what our formation was.

    It was a formation that was certainly for dealing with this square formation of ours.

    The only thing that was missing from their formation were their cavalry that was ced in the back.

    When General Killock saw this formation, he had a very ugly look as he exined, "The cavalry is being kept in the back because they know that the square formation counters it. They will be using shields of their own and sending out archers to deal with us. However, since we''ve sent our archers away, there''s nothing that we can do to fight back."

    He was right about that, there weren''t any archers behind our shield wall, so there really wasn''t a way for us to fight back if they were to shoot arrows at us.

    But why weren''t there any archers?

    That was because I had ced them somewhere else for another matter.

    I could tell what he wanted from me, but I just calmly shook my head and said, "It''s not time yet. Just wait to see how they approach."

    General Killock had an ugly expression, but he remained silent as he observed the enemy.

    They slowly approached us with this formation and soon came closer and closer.

    Once they were in range, the archers that were behind their shields suddenly raised their bows and started to shoot upwards. They weren''t aiming for anything specific, they were just trying to send arrows at us.

    Since it was just a wild shot, there wasn''t much that they could do with these arrows.

    Most of them came short of us and there were a few thatnded on the shields that were raised.

    General Killock narrowed his eyes before saying, "Get ready to return fire."

    I raised a hand to stop him before saying, "There''s no need, we''re retreating."

    General Killock looked at me with a shocked look when he heard this.

    He took a moment to look at me as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not.

    Seeing that way that I just calmly looked at him, he figured that I was indeed being serious.

    Taking a deep breath, General Killock asked, "General, are you sure about this?"

    I gave a calm nod before saying, "We should retreat before it''s toote."

    General Killock''s eyes filled with disdain the moment that he heard this, but he gave a nod in the end.

    He seemed disappointed, but that wasn''t strange.

    After all, I was ordering a retreat before we even shed with the enemy.

    The way that I acted made it seem like I was a scared fool who was in way over his head and was running at the first sign of danger.

    But this was what General Killock wanted to see in the end.

    With a nod to one of the soldiers on the side, the g was raised for our army to retreat.

    The soldiers were all confused when they saw this, but they still followed orders since that was how they had been trained.

    They broke formation and quickly turned to run.

    It wasn''t a normal retreat, but a full out retreat since that was what I had discussed with General Killock again.

    The enemies were stunned when they saw us retreating, but then they started moving faster.

    It seemed like they wanted to catch us before we could escape.

    Seeing this, I said, "General Killock, get our archers ready."

    General Killock was surprised by this order for only a second before he gave a nod in response. But before he could give the order for the archers to fire to cover our escape, I said, "Tell them to wait for an opportunity to shoot the enemy. One will being soon."

    General Killock was even more confused when he heard this.

    There was a part of him that wanted to ignore this and just give the order to fire, but he still followed my orders in the end.

    As we ran, I was watching what was happening behind us with a calm look on my face.

    It was only when I saw the faint tremble of the stones on the ground that I revealed an excited look.

    It was finally happening.

 Chapter 587 Save me! (1)

    <h4>Chapter 587 Save me! (1)</h4>

    The troops of the Midra Kingdom sped across the ins when they saw their enemies retreating.

    At that moment, their confidence was maxed out and they only had a single thought on their minds.

    ughter the enemy.

    Since they were focused on this one goal, there were certain things that they missed.

    The stones on the ground trembled underneath them, but no one seemed to notice. Even if they did notice, they would have only thought that these stones shaking were just the result of their marching.

    With how many troops there were, it wasn''t strange if the ground trembled under them.

    But that wasn''t what this was.

    At this point, the Midra Kingdom army waspletely on the ins and they were about to catch up to the enemy.

    That was when the ground suddenly copsed under them.

    There were many holes that appeared on the ground and there were soldiers that fell into these holes.

    Not a single person was able to predict that these holes would suddenly open up in the ground, so they weren''t able to stop themselves from falling. Only those that were at the edge were barely able to react in time and jump out of the way so that they didn''t fall into the holes.

    But with how dense their formation was and how wide these holes were, there were quite a few soldiers that fell down.

    The holes were over ten to twenty meters in diameter, covering several hundred troops at once. With the hundreds of holes that appeared, in just a single moment, they lost over ten thousand troops.

    This was considered a devastating event for the Midra Kingdom army.

    In response to this, the soldiers all stopped marching forward and gathered around the holes. All of them had their weapons raised and they were all on guard just in case something happened, but it was clear that they were trying to save theirrades who had fallen in.

    There were some that called out to the ones that fell in while others tried to find ways down in the hole to help the ones that had fallen.

    But they couldn''t see a single thing when they looked into these dark holes.

    The darkness almost seemed like it consumed everything as they looked down, so they weren''t able to see that deep into the hole.

    "Just how deep are these holes?"

    "How would I know?"

    "But what are these holes? Where did theye from?"

    These were the questions that were being asked by the soldiers of the Midra Kingdom army.

    They all had confused looks on their faces as they looked down into these holes.

    After the initial shock disappeared, the officers started to give orders for the rescue of the troops that had fallen down. Though they didn''t know if they were still alive, they would still do their best to save them.

    It was a good thing that the enemy had already retreated, or else this would have been the perfect time to attack.

    But there was a sudden shaking that came from the ground.

    This time, they didn''t mistake this shaking for the shaking that came from their marching.

    This time, they could clearly tell that this shaking wasing from something that was under the ground.

    But just what was this something that was under the ground?

    They didn''t have any information on this, so they really had no idea what this ce was.

    After all, as far as they knew, this should have been a ce that was remote and abandoned. There shouldn''t have been anything here ording to the records they had that dated back several decades.

    Before any of the soldiers could react, there was something that suddenly popped out of the hole in the ground.

    It was just one thing that came out at first, but then there were multiple other things that came out as well.

    These were giant red tubes that soared into the sky aftering out of the ground.

    With the way that they stood, it seemed that they were over ten meters tall. At the same time, it also seemed like theypletely filled the holes that they came out of.

    All of the soldiers just stared in shock as these red things came out of the ground.

    There was a moment of silence as the red things remained still and the soldiers couldn''t move as they stood there in a daze.

    It was during this time that the soldiers recognized that these red things that were poking out of the ground were some kind of giant creature. If they looked at it closely, it seemed like some kind of giant red worm.

    "Is it docile?"

    There was one person that said this before he immediately received his answer.

    The worms suddenly looked down at the soldiers and then opened their mouths that were filled with razor sharp teeth.

    As they opened their mouths, there were some things that dropped down from their opened mouths onto the ground.

    When these thingsnded on the ground, they were able to see what these things were.

    Human parts.

    These were parts of the human body that had been severed!

    As well, they could recognize the armour that these human parts were wearing.

    It was the same armour that the soldiers of the Midra Kingdom were wearing.

    These were parts from the soldiers that had fallen into the hole!

    That answered the question of whether those who had fallen into the hole were still alive or not, but there was another problem.

    It was clear that these giant worms weren''t satisfied just yet.

    Before anyone could raise their weapons, the giant red worms suddenly started to attack.

    Since they didn''t have any weapons raised and weren''t in any formations, the giant red worms hit them like a truck and scattered them all.

    In an instant, the soldiers of the Midra Kingdom were thrown into chaos.

    What they didn''t notice was that there were sharp eyes that were watching from afar.

 Chapter 588 Save me! (2)

    <h4>Chapter 588 Save me! (2) </h4>

    "This..."

    That was all that could be said when they saw the giant red worms pop out.

    As for me, I was just watching with a faint smile on my lips.

    After all, this was my real n.

    When he slowly came back to his senses, General Killock turned to look at me with a strange look as he slowly said, "You knew about all of this?"

    I just gave a casual nod before saying, "Why else would I havee all this way? It isn''t as if we''re here to take in the scenery, right?"

    General Killock''s expression became even more strange when he heard this, but he didn''t ask anything else as he turned back to look at the scene in front of him.

    The Midra Kingdom army waspletely in disarray from the attacks of the giant red worms. Even when they recovered and could group up to face the giant red worms, it didn''t have any effect at all.

    These giant red worms had thick hides that blocked the weapons that they were stabbed with.

    In many cases, the weapons that hit these thick hides were snapped or even shattered apart. The arrows fired could pierce their skins a bit, but the arrows just weren''t strong enough to withstand the pressure that they snapped before they could do any real damage.

    It really seemed like there was nothing that they could do against these giant red worms.

    Slowly but surely, more and more casualties came about because of the giant red worms.

    In total, they had over one hundred and twenty thousand men.

    With the casualties that they had suffered earlier and the casualties that they were currently suffering, a fourth of their men had already been incapacitated. At the same time, there were only more and more casualties that were happening.

    It seemed at this rate, the Midra Kingdom army would bepletely wiped out.

    But before the situation could get much worse, there was a sudden change on the battlefield.

    The cavalry had arrived.

    Led by the general of the Midra Kingdom army, the cavalry were able to use their powerfulnces and quick mobility to kite around the giant red worms while damaging them.

    With these cavalry knights providing support, it seemed that they were able to carve out a small safe zone that they were able to gather in.

    Seeing this, I turned to General Killock and said, "It''s time. Prepare the archers and have them rain their arrows down on that group."

    General Killock looked at me with a very strange look when he heard this before slowly saying, "Do we really need to do that? They''ll be destroyed by the giant red worms at this rate, there''s no need for us to go that far, is there?"

    I looked at General Killock with a sharp gaze as I said, "Are you showing mercy to the enemies? They''re the ones that invaded our kingdom and now you want to show them mercy?"

    General Killock couldn''t help trembling when he heard this, but he slowly came back to his senses.

    He had felt pity for the Midra Kingdom army when he saw the sorry state that they were in. As a soldier, he could imagine what kind of suffering they were going through because of the giant red worms.

    So he could sympathize with them and wanted to just let them be destroyed by the giant red worms.

    But when he heard Count Zwein''s words, he realized that he was being too naive.

    Though he pitied them because of the ughter that was happening, that didn''t mean that he should show them mercy.

    In the end, the soldiers of the Midra Kingdom army were here to invade their kingdom.

    These were enemies that had to be taken care of, so they couldn''t show them any mercy.

    After all, it was unlikely that they would have shown them any mercy if the situation was reversed.

    So he knew what he had to do.

    Taking a deep breath, General Killock brought his hand up and pped himself across the face.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look.

    Then after pping himself, General Killock said, "I apologize for my unsightly behaviour. I will go organize the archers right now."

    I gave a nod of acknowledgement, but I also had to say, "Be careful, don''t get too close to them. Also, if you feel like it''s dangerous, make sure to retreat. We want to keep our casualties as low as possible since the Blood Worms will do all the work for us."

    "Blood Worms?" General Killock couldn''t help repeating.

    I gave a nod before pointing in front of me at the giant red worms that had popped out of the ground and saying, "That''s what those things are called."

    General Killock once again looked at me with a strange look when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything.

    He just bowed to me and then headed off to take care of the archers.

    Without knowing it, General Killock had already started changing the tone that he spoke to me with. It was as if the final knot in his heart had been released and he finally epted that I was the leader.

    That was what I had been hoping would happen.

    After he left, I just watched the Midra Kingdom army being ughtered by the Blood Worms.

    It was truly a terrifying sight.

    Even though they were able to fight back with their cavalry, most of the infantry were still facing the Blood Worms without a way to fight back.

    There were limbs and blood that scattered in the air, creating the smell of blood in the air.

    It really was a gruesome scene that was hard to watch, but I watched it without even blinking.

    That was because I had already epted all of this.

    They had crossed my bottom line, threatening the people that I cared about, so they should expect no mercy from me.

    I just silently watched and prayed for the souls of the ones that had been forced intoing here.

    That had been forced into this ughter.

 Chapter 589 Save me! (3)

    <h4>Chapter 589 Save me! (3)</h4>

    "How did ite to this?" The Midra Kingdom general whispered under his breath.

    As he led his men through this carnage, he couldn''t help remembering the words of the second prince.

    Were these the consequences of underestimating the enemy?

    But how could he have possibly expected something like this to happen?

    How could anyone have known about this?

    No, there was someone that had known about this. The enemy had known about this, which was why they had done all that they had done.

    They should have known that this was a trap the moment that the enemy retreated. The retreat came so suddenly that it didn''t make sense at all.

    They had just assumed that this was due to the ipetence of the enemymander when they saw their formation.

    No¡­the fundamental reason was because of the arrogance of the general.

    The general didn''t want to believe that the enemy was his match. He wanted to believe that the enemy was inferior to him, so he epted the conclusion that the enemy was a fool so easily.

    But just what kind of god was the enemymander that would know that there were these giant red worms here?

    As the general was slightly distracted by this thought, one of his men shouted, "General, look out!"

    The general looked up to find that there were sharp glowing arrowheads falling down on him.

    Though he was distracted, he was a soldier that had served for many years. He had an instinct that was developed over the long years of service.

    So the general was able to twist on his horse at the veryst moment to dodge out of the way.

    The only problem was that he twisted so suddenly that he wasn''t able to stop himself from falling out of the saddle.

    He dodged out of the way of the arrows, but he had lost his mobility¡­and he was surrounded by the giant red worms.

    This was without a doubt a very dangerous situation.

    But that wasn''t the general''s only concern.

    The biggest problem that he was facing now was the rain of arrows that fell down on his troops.

    When he looked in the distance, he saw that it was the enemy who were firing arrows down on them. These enemy archers had been hiding in the forest on the side the entire time and they had only started shooting now that their formation was inplete disarray.

    When the general saw this, he was certain of one thing.

    This had all been nned, they had fallen into the enemy''s trap¡­

    There was no way around it, the enemy''smander was far greater than him¡­

    So there was only one thing that the general could do.

    He looked around and found the corpse of one of his subordinates. Then without care for the dangers around him, he ran over to the corpse of that subordinate and started digging around in his things.

    When he finally found the thing that he was looking for, he lifted it up and waved it back and forth.

    In the wind, this white g danced as the general said, "We surrender! We surrender!"

    But even though this white g was raised, the arrows never stopped.

    The only thing that the general could do was wave the white g back and forth and shout, "We surrender! We surrender!"

    During all of this, he could hear the screams that came from around him.

    "Please help me! Save me!"

    "No, no, no! I don''t want to die! I don''t want to die!"

    "Mom, dad, please save me!"

    These were cries of desperation from his soldiers, all of them pleading for help in some form.

    But there was no help that came.

    It was like hell on Earth as they suffered through the attacks of the giant red worms, the rain of arrows falling on them, and from time to time, explosions that fell from spells being cast on them.

    There was no escape, there was no hope¡­

    There was only despair as they realized that they had made a mistakeing here.

    The general could onlyugh like a madman as he waved the white g back and forth.

    His mind had beenpletely broken from this scene.

    ¡­

    On the other side¡­

    "This is¡­"

    That was the general consensus of the soldiers under Count Zwein.

    As they watched the Midra Kingdom army being ughtered like this, they couldn''t help taking a cold breath and revealing looks of terror.

    Not a single one of them had expected this to happen.

    From time to time, they also turned back to look at Count Zwein who had a calm look on his face the entire time. They knew that this had to be his n, but they never thought that he would be so cruel that he would watch this with such a calm look on his face.

    It seemed that all of them had been wrong about him and there was a deep fear towards Count Zwein that formed in their hearts.

    They now knew¡­that he was not someone to be messed with.

    There were some of them that even wanted to ask him to save the Midra Kingdom army, but they couldn''t because of that fear.

    They wanted to save them since they were all humans and in the face of this ughter, they couldn''t watch this anymore.

    They could see the white gs that were being raised, but they didn''t go help them or ept this surrender since Count Zwein didn''t say anything.

    There were many in the archer unit that had wanted to stop shooting, but they had no choice but to continue since General Killock had personallye to supervise. Once they saw him, they were afraid for their own lives if they stopped firing¡­

    After all, Count Zwein wouldn''t send General Killock here unless he knew what they were thinking¡­

    So they were scared that they might be the next ones to die if they stopped.

    Just like this, this battle became known as the ughter of the Rising Land ins.

 Chapter 590 The end of the slaughter

    <h4>Chapter 590 The end of the ughter</h4>

    On a hill on the other side of the ins.

    "Hu¡­" There was only a long sigh that rang out, there were no words that were said.

    The second prince''s group watched the ughter that was in front of them without a single word.

    The looks on their faces were more than enough.

    They looked on with terror as they watched all of this happening in front of them.

    After a long silence, the second prince said, "It seems that there''s someone else terrifying in this kingdom that we can''t look down on¡­First there was the fourth prince and now there''s this person¡­"

    One of his followers couldn''t help saying, "Could it be that this was just luck?"

    The second prince immediately red at that person that had spoken and said, "Do you think that it''s just luck?"

    When that person heard this, they immediately lowered their head in shame.

    After all, the ones that followed the second prince were anything but useless.

    The second prince was not an empty vase, so the ones that followed him were naturally not empty vases either.

    These people were elites that had been chosen from all over their Midra Kingdom, so of course they could see through the situation in front of them.

    If he wasn''t an idiot, why would he ask this kind of dumb question?

    Well it was because he was just too shocked¡­

    How was he supposed to react to this ughter that he was presented with?

    The second prince knew that this was the case, so he didn''t hold it against this follower of his for too long. He knew that this scene was just too shocking for normal people to react to, so it wasn''t strange for them to act this way.

    After a long silence, the second prince said, "Alright, forget it. Let''s go back, we need to make our preparations."

    He turned to leave, but his followers didn''t leave right away.

    They took one more look at the ughter that they were leaving behind them and revealed worried expressions, but they still followed the second prince in the end.

    ¡­

    On the other side.

    I suddenly went over to where General Killock was and said, "You can stop them from firing arrows now. There''s no point in wasting more arrows."

    General Killock almost seemed like he was going to let out a sigh of relief when he heard this, but he stopped himself in the end.

    He just gave a simple nod before giving the order.

    When he turned back, he asked in a hesitant voice, "What do we do about the rest of them? Do we ept their surrender or¡­?"

    His voice trailed off as he said this, but it was very clear what he was implying with the tone of his voice and the way that he looked at me.

    I didn''t answer right away as I looked at the carnage that was in front of us.

    After a long silence, I said with a nod, "You can capture anyone that wants to surrender and as for the corpses, just leave them for the Blood Worms."

    General Killock revealed a strange look when he heard this, but then he said, "How are we supposed to capture them? If we go out, we''ll be attacked by the Blood Worms as well, right?"

    I shook my head as I said, "No, that''s not the case. After the first attack, the Blood Worms will go into hibernation since they have enough food now. At the same time, it''s noise that will wake them up, so just make sure to send small groups to capture the enemy soldiers."

    The way that General Killock looked at me became even more strange.

    I could see this, so I said with a smile, "Is it strange that I know so much about these Blood Worms?"

    General Killock just kept looking at me with the same look on his face for a bit before slowly shaking his head and saying, "No, if you didn''t know about these things, you wouldn''t have been able to set this trap in the first ce."

    I just said with a simple nod, "There''s no need for you to worry so much about this. This is my secret after all. Just go and capture the surviving enemies."

    General Killock just looked at me with aplicated look for a bit before nodding in agreement.

    Our soldiers were surprisingly very sympathetic to the enemies and did what they could to rescue the ones that were alive. However, the ughter had been very thorough and they weren''t able to escape in time, so there were many casualties.

    In total, we rescued only around twenty thousand people.

    There were a total of one hundred and twenty thousand troops that came to invade in the first ce.

    That meant that there were a hundred thousand people that had either been killed or gone missing.

    As for our side, there were only a few hundred casualties and that was because they had misjudged the trajectory of the arrows. They had suffered minor injuries because of these arrows, so they couldn''t really be considered casualties in the first ce.

    We had been outnumbered fifty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand and yet this was the result¡­

    When it was all over, General Killock looked at me like I was a monster.

    Well, it wasn''t just him that looked at me like this, the other officers all looked at me the same way.

    There was no one that doubted my abilities anymore, so even the tone that they spoke to me had changed.

    I didn''t care about any of this since this was what I had already expected.

    Instead, I asked, "Did you manage to capture any of the enemy''smanders?"

    General Killock was still dazed when I asked this, but he eventually said with a nod, "We managed to capture the general and vice general¡­" He had to pause for a bit as he revealed a strange look before saying, "Though I don''t think we''ll be able to get any useful information from them."

    I raised a brow in doubt, but I still had General Killock take me to meet them.

    When I did meet them, I understood what he meant by this.

 Chapter 591 Interrogating the captives (1)

    <h4>Chapter 591 Interrogating the captives (1)</h4>

    "Ha, ha, ha, the lord of hell ising for all of our souls! There is no escape, there is only death!"

    "This is all a dream, this is all a dream! When I wake up, it will all be over and I will be in my bed!"

    That was what the general and vice general were saying.

    The look on their faces made it clear that they weren''t right of mind.

    It seemed that the ughter had affected them quite deeply that they had gone off the deep end.

    I looked at General Killock and he shook his head to show that he was helpless as well before saying, "We''ve had our doctors look at them, but it seemed that the stress was just too much for them and they couldn''t keep their minds together. Even if we want to help them, it isn''t as if there''s anything that we can actually do for them¡­"

    I looked at the general and vice general with aplicated look.

    I never thought that I would shock them enough that they would lose their minds like this.

    Though I was prepared to kill them, I wasn''t prepared for this.

    I even felt a bit guilty because of it.

    However, that feeling onlysted for a few seconds as I remembered who they were.

    They were the general and vice general of the army that hade to invade our kingdom. They were the ones that wanted to invade our home and take what we had.

    Remembering this, I no longer felt anything towards them and just wanted to get the information that I wanted.

    I looked at General Killock and said, "Bring them to the interrogation room, I want to talk to them privately."

    General Killock revealed an awkward look when he heard this, but he still gave a nod and gave a signal to the soldiers on the side to release the general and vice general.

    It didn''t take long for me to understand why General Killock had revealed that expression just now.

    The moment that the soldiers went forward to grab them, the general and vice general immediately lost control. They iled their arms, they kicked their legs, they did everything that they could to stop the soldiers from grabbing them.

    The way that they did this while lying on the floor was just like a child that was throwing a tantrum.

    It really was strange seeing grown men on the ground throwing a tantrum like this¡­

    But eventually, they were able to grab the general and vice general, bringing them to their feet.

    They had to get a bit rough, so there were a few bruises, but this was better than the alternative.

    The general and vice general were brought to the interrogation room, but they were still doing the same thing as in their cells. It didn''t seem like they cared at all about where they were or anything around them.

    It was as if all they cared about was what they were muttering about.

    Giving a deep sigh, I walked into the room and said, "Tell me what your kingdoms are nning and we can consider letting you go."

    Neither the general or the vice general responded.

    It didn''t even seem like they reacted to the words that I had just said.

    General Killock was here with me, so he mmed his fist down on the table and said, "The general is asking you a question!"

    Still, neither of them reacted to this and just looked like they were in their own little world.

    I just calmly looked at them, not letting myself lose control.

    The way that they acted, it was clear that they had lost their minds, so I was trying to think about the psychology books that I had read in my past life.

    After thinking about it for a bit, I slowly came to a conclusion.

    Though this conclusion was a bit dangerous.

    I waved my hand at General Killock and he followed me to the corner of the room.

    When he heard my suggestion, he said with a shocked look, "General, are you crazy? That''s just too dangerous!"

    I gave a nod of agreement since I also thought that it was dangerous, but I also said, "This is the only way. They won''t react unless we do this."

    General Killock had a hesitant look on his face when he heard this, but he still gave a nod in the end since he knew that I was right.

    Nothing we had tried so far had worked, so it wasn''t as if there was anything else that we could do.

    The only thing that we could rely on was this n of mine.

    General Killock gave a sigh before leaving the interrogation room.

    When he came back, there were several soldiers that came in with him.

    Seeing them alle in like this, I nodded at the soldiers that had stayed in the room with me.

    These soldiers moved over to the general and vice general, but they didn''ty a single finger on them. They just stood there as if they were prepared to grab them at any moment, as if they were preparing for when the two of them went crazy.

    Once these soldiers took their position, I sat back down in front of the general and vice general.

    Though I was sitting right there in front of them, the two of them didn''t seem to pay any attention to me.

    It was the same as before where they kept muttering to themselves without a single care in the world. It was as if what they were saying was the only thing that mattered in this world.

    They just didn''t care about anyone or anything else around them.

    That was until I suddenly pped the table and said, "I was the one that ughtered your entire army and the one who trapped you with those Blood Worms."

    As soon as I said this, the two of them slowly looked up at me with dazed looks that didn''t seem to have any emotions in them.

 Chapter 592 Interrogating the captives (2)

    <h4>Chapter 592 Interrogating the captives (2)</h4>

    Then they suddenly broke out inughter as they started mocking me.

    "You? You''re saying that you''re the one?"

    "What a joke! If you want to im something like this, at least bring someone believable."

    "Right? Do you really think that we would believe that a pretty boy like you coulde up with anything like this?"

    The two of them suddenly became sane for a moment before suddenly going back to what they had been doing.

    Was it because they were pretending, or could it be that I had actually reached them?

    Either way, it was a good sign.

    As long as I keep provoking them, there will be a reaction thates.

    That was what I had learned from those psychology books that I had read.

    Sometimes, it was necessary to dive deeper since the mental breaks that they suffered from were a projection of the thing that had caused that mental break. By diving deeper, one might be able to find what had caused that mental break in the first ce, as well as helping that persone to terms with it.

    So I didn''t hesitate to push further.

    "So these two great generals were defeated by a young pretty boy like me, how does that feel?"

    The two generals once again snapped out of their crazy ramblings to look at me in a daze before suddenly reacting.

    "What did you say?"

    "You want to say that you''re better than us? Come back in a thousand years!"

    The two generals once again insulted me as much as they could, but I just ignored all of it as I calmly looked at them.

    Even if they didn''t want to ept it, they had no choice but to face this since they were being insulted right now.

    But then General Killock said, "He is indeed the current general of this army, the one that was appointed by the fourth prince himself. He was the one that led us here and nned out that entire battle."

    Even in their crazed state, the general and vice general recognized General Killock since he was the famed general of the fourth prince''s army.

    The moment that he said this, both of them looked at me with very strange looks before suddenly saying in slow voices, "You''re the one that nned everything?"

    I just gave a very calm nod in response without saying anything.

    There was a moment of silence before both the general and the vice general jumped onto the table. They reached their hands out as if they wanted to grab me and rip me apart.

    But there was a reason why I had called all of these soldiers in.

    They had been standing behind the general and the vice general the entire time, as if they had been waiting for something. The moment that the general and vice general tried to grab me, the soldiers grabbed them and restrained them.

    They wouldn''t allow them evene close to me as they held them back.

    The general and vice general tried as hard as they could, but both of them were exhausted and injured. It wasn''t as if they could overpower these soldiers that were well rested and in perfect condition.

    So they could only let themselves be restrained in their seats.

    Since they couldn''t take action, they decided to use their words.

    "You, you, you monster! You ughtered all those people of our Midra Kingdom!"

    "You''re the devil! How could you watch all of our men be ughtered like that?!"

    They cursed me with all their might, but I wasn''t offended at all since I knew that this was normal. I just calmly faced them and waited for them to finish, but it seemed like the soldiers and even General Killock couldn''t help being disturbed by what they said.

    General Killock suddenly pped the table and said, "So you''re the only ones that can kill people, we can''t? This is war, people dying is normal."

    Both the general and the vice general hesitated for a moment since they knew that General Killock was right.

    They were the ones that had invaded, so they couldn''t me anyone but themselves for this.

    But the general still said, "We surrendered. Why didn''t youe and save us? Why did you let the ughter continue excessively?"

    At this, I said with a shrug, "Do you think that we can control those Blood Worms? You should be happy that they left when they did and we were able to save the few remaining survivors. Otherwise, you might have all been buried in the ground today."

    The general revealed a very strange look that had a trace of fear when he heard this.

    He just looked at me for a bit before suddenly saying, "How can you say something like that? Do you not have any care for your fellow men at all?"

    I said with a cold look, "You''re the ones that invaded us and you''re asking for mercy? I think you should know what the answer to that question is."

    The general and vice general really didn''t know what to say after hearing this.

    They couldn''t refute it since this person was correct, but they had never met a person like this before.

    A person who didn''t even see his fellow men as humans and just let them be ughtered in the name of war. This was a dangerous person to their Midra Kingdom¡­No, this was a dangerous person to the entire world!

    They needed to think of a way to send word back to the Midra Kingdom or to the other allied kingdoms.

    They needed to make sure that they knew about the danger of this person, so that they could¡­send assassins as soon as possible.

    The only way that the world could be saved was if this demon king was killed¡­

    "The second prince was right, we really underestimated the enemy and suffered the consequences." The general muttered under his breath.

    I immediately knitted my brows and repeated, "Second prince?"

 Chapter 593 Interrogating the captives (3)

    <h4>Chapter 593 Interrogating the captives (3)</h4>

    As soon as I heard this, there was a person that I thought of.

    At the same time, I could tell that General Killock was thinking the same thing as he suddenly knitted his brows.

    As for the general and vice general, they realized the mistake that they made and covered their mouths, but it was already toote for that.

    General Killock suddenly turned to me to say, "General, we should send out men to capture the Midra Kingdom''s second prince."

    The tone in his voice was as if he was strongly urging me to send someone after them.

    But I shook my head as I said, "No, it''s toote."

    General Killock gritted his teeth when he heard this, but he still said in a voice that was strongly urging me on, "General, even if the chances are slim, we should send some people after them. It is the second prince of the Midra Kingdom."

    The second prince of the Midra Kingdom, this was someone who was as infamous as the fourth prince was in our kingdom.

    As for why he was infamous, it was the same reason as the fourth prince.

    He was someone that had just as much power as the fourth prince did in our kingdom in his own kingdom.

    He was someone that could even rival the king if he wanted to and was the clear choice for the next king, but it didn''t seem like the second prince wanted to take this throne.

    That was where I knew him from.

    In the game, there was a quest line that was all about the sessor to the throne in the Midra Kingdom.

    The yer would have to choose one of the princes to back and in the end, the prince that they chose would take the throne. WIth the power of the second prince, there was no doubt that he was an important character in this quest line.

    However, one was able to find the real reason why he didn''t take the throne.

    Simply put, it was because of his lover¡­or rather his ex lover.

    He had fallen in love with amoner and had wanted to leave the royal family to be with her.

    However, his father had found out about this and then had thatmoner girl killed.

    The second prince was enraged at his father for doing something like this, but as the benevolent person he was, he didn''t retaliate. It wasn''t that he didn''t want to kill his father for this, it was because he knew that the moment that he did, the entire Midra Kingdom would fall into chaos.

    His personality wouldn''t allow this to happen, so he had endured until the session race.

    During the quest line, the second prince had suddenly shown up and killed the king. Then after killing the king, he allowed the prince that the yer backed to kill him to establish themselves as the one that had killed the traitor.

    The second prince got his revenge and was able to save the kingdom from copse.

    He could be considered the true hero of the Midra Kingdom, but¡­he had to bear the infamy of being a traitor that had killed the king.

    It was a story that had been praised by many of the yers of this game, one that had even moved me.

    So there was a small part of me that wanted to meet the second prince and be friends with this person.

    But for now, he was an enemy¡­

    I still shook my head and said, "Do you really think that the second prince wouldn''t have prepared an escape route already? Not to mention, there''s the chance that he might have already expected this and set up a trap for us. It is too risky for us to do this, it''s better for us to fortify this position just in case the second prince has any other ns."

    General Killock didn''t respond right away as he looked at me with narrowed eyes.

    But in the end, he slowly gave a nod.

    He had wanted to refute this, but there wasn''t anything that he could refute this with since he knew that I was right.

    That was just how infamous the second prince was.

    I turned back to the general and vice general to say, "Is there anything else that you want to tell us?"

    The general and vice general looked at each other before the general turned to General Killock to say, "Why would you choose to follow this devil? It''s clear that he''s a blight on humanity."

    I shook my head with a sigh when I heard this before saying, "What do you mean by that?"

    The general looked at me with narrowed eyes to say, "You don''t care about human lives at all and you want to say that you''re not a devil."

    I gave a shrug before saying, "So you''re saying that the people of the Midra Kingdom have never killed people of our kingdom before?"

    The general said with a look of rage, "We surrendered and you watched as our people died."

    I nodded in agreement to this to the surprise of the general. Then I said, "You''re saying that your people wouldn''t have done the same thing? We couldn''t stop those Blood Worms even if we wanted to."

    The general opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but he found that he couldn''t say anything in the end since he couldn''t refute this. So he just said, "Our Midra Kingdom is the kingdom blessed by the gods, do you know how much each life is worthpared to your small kingdom?"

    The soldiers all knitted their brows to reveal frowns when they heard this.

    I shook my head with a sigh before saying, "As expected, when pressured enough, your true personalityes out."

    I didn''t bother saying anything else to the general and vice general since I knew that there was nothing else that I would get from them.

    I just stood up and looked at General Killock to say, "Go and put them back in the dungeons." Then in a lower voice, I said, "But make sure to give them a proper wee. As long as they don''t die, you''re free to do whatever you want with them."

    General Killock revealed a surprised look at first, but then he revealed a smile with sparkling eyes as he nodded in agreement.

    He knew what I meant by a ''proper wee'', so he turned to the soldiers and said a few words.

    After he said these words, the soldiers all looked at the general and the vice general with smiles on their faces.

    They had already been angered when they heard what the general and vice general had said about their kingdom earlier. Now that they were given a chance, they would naturally vent that anger on them.

    The general and vice general could also see this, so they said, "Wait, what do you think you''re doing? Stay away from us, we''re valued prisoners of war!"

    But the soldiers didn''t care about this at all.

    I also didn''t look back once as I walked out of the interrogation room.

    When the door closed, I could hear the screams of paining from behind it.

 Chapter 594 Reporting (1)

    <h4>Chapter 594 Reporting (1)</h4>

    We remained in this ce for a while as we fortified the area just in case there was another attack.

    But I knew that it was impossible for there to be another attack since they now knew about the Blood Worms.

    Inversely, it meant that we weren''t able to attack from this ce either since it would mean having to cross the territory of the Blood Worms.

    So neither kingdoms were really concerned about this ce.

    Though if I really wanted to, I could think of a way to cross the nest of the Blood Worms without a problem.

    This was information from the game and I had plenty of that information, so I knew how to handle this if there really was a need.

    But I chose not to attack the Midra Kingdom.

    There were two reasons for that.

    The first was that after wiping out an army of one hundred and twenty thousand, there was no doubt that the Midra Kingdom was already hurting. It would be unlikely that they would be able to continue aggression for a while since they would be trying to make up for thisck of forces.

    They were surrounded by other countries as well after all.

    For a country that only had around twenty million citizens to begin with, a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers should be close to a third of their entire forces.

    They wouldn''t do anything foolish while they were weakened like this.

    So I would be able to use them as a buffer for anyone else that wanted to attack us.

    Second, it was because of my personal feelings.

    They were invading us, so I would show no mercy to the invaders.

    But if we became the invaders, then I would start showing hesitation. After all, it would be on my mind how the people of the Midra Kingdom would be suffering like we were.

    So I didn''t want that on my conscience.

    After a week of fortifying this ce, I was trying to figure out where to go next.

    During this time, the fourth prince had arranged for me to receive reports on the situations of the other battlefields. So I had a good idea of the direction that this war was currently heading because of all these reports.

    At the same time, I also received reports from Shaka from Shadow Garden that gave me a good look of the situation behind the scenes. I had a good idea of what the people behind the armies were thinking as well.

    There were some ces that I was considering going since these were ces that had special things just like this nest of Blood Worms.

    As long as I took advantage of those ces, it would be easy to wipe out the enemy just like with the army of the Midra Kingdom.

    But while I was deciding on where to go next¡­

    "General, there''s a special guest here to see you."

    To my surprise, I found that it was General Killock who hade to get me.

    I had been locked up in the strategy room these days trying to figure out my next move. Because of the status that I now had with this army, they knew better than to distract me.

    That included General Killock.

    For him toe get me personally like this, it seemed like the guest that hade was an important one.

    So I said with a nod, "Alright, let''s go see them."

    As I stood up, I saw that General Killock was looking at me with a strange look.

    With one brow raised, I asked, "What''s wrong?"

    General Killock didn''t say anything at first, but he slowly shook his head and said, "No, nothing''s wrong. We should go, we shouldn''t keep this guest waiting."

    I had an even more confused look on my face after hearing this, but I still nodded in agreement and followed General Killock out.

    Since this was a military camp, there weren''t many ces that were considered nice.

    But the tent that I was brought to was the special tent that was used as a reward for soldiers that had achieved great merits. It was a special tent that had a fully furnished room and everything.

    In short, it was the nicest ce in this military camp.

    When we came in, I was surprised to see the person sitting at the table sipping tea.

    After taking a moment to recover, I said with a bow, "Your highness, what are you doing here?"

    It was the fourth prince who had suddenly appeared here.

    But the fourth prince didn''t say anything rted to this. Instead, he said, "You''re calling me your highness again?"

    I revealed an awkward look before looking around at the soldiers around me.

    General Killock and the officers who had been allowed toe as guards all had very strange looks on their faces after hearing this.

    With a sigh, I said, "Brother, what are you doing here?"

    As soon as I said this, all of them looked at me in shock. But they didn''t look at me for long as they quickly turned to look at the fourth prince, waiting for his reaction.

    When they saw him reveal a smile, there was a chill that ran down their backs as they were afraid that this was it for them.

    But to their surprise, the fourth prince actually wasn''t angry as he said, "There we go." Then he waved his hand at me and said, "Come, let''s sit and talk. I made sure to bring some special tea and treats that my sister prepared for you."

    The awkward look on my face became even more awkward when I heard this¡­

    However, that wasn''t the worst part.

    The worst part was the way that General Killock and the officers were looking at me.

    It was clear what they were thinking based on the looks on their faces.

    After I sat down, the fourth prince said, "Alright, I came here today for two things."

 Chapter 595 Reporting (2)

    <h4>Chapter 595 Reporting (2)</h4>

    I slightly knitted my brows the moment that I heard this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for the fourth prince to speak.

    The fourth prince didn''t seem to be in a hurry as he suddenly poured himself a cup of tea instead of continuing what he was about to say.

    After pouring this tea, he just casually sipped it without a care in the world.

    During all of this, all of us just sat and stood there with awkward looks on our faces.

    The saying really was true, the subordinates really worried while the superiors rxed.

    After he finished sipping his tea, the fourth prince put the cup down and casually said, "The first was to deliver the goods that my dear sister sent to you, her fiance."

    Once again, there were shocked and strange looks that were aimed in our direction. Or rather, it was to say that they were all pointed at me.

    It was clear that not a single one of the others in this room knew this fact.

    But of course, it would be strange if they knew this.

    This was something that was a secret even among nobles. Only the top of the top knew about this matter and it wasn''t something that was easily spread.

    Though in the case of the nobles, it was more that they wanted to keep this information to themselves so they could get the jump on the others. They wanted to build rtionships with the soon to be husband of the princess before anyone else could.

    But the war got in the way of that.

    On the other hand, I looked at the fourth prince with a strange look on my face, as if I was saying, "Should you have said that?"

    The fourth prince just looked at me with a smile that made me want to punch him in the face. It was the smile of someone who didn''t seem to care that they had made a mistake.

    It was the smile of someone who would just say, "Don''t mind."

    It was the annoying kind of smile that really made one want to get angry.

    Still, I could guess that the fourth prince had a reason for saying this out loud.

    If I had to guess...it was most likely to make sure that the general and the officers knew so they would treat me properly.

    But this kind of help was unnecessary since I had already solved that problem.

    As I expected, a minuteter, the fourth prince said, "Of course, that''s supposed to be a secret right now." He turned to look at General Killock and the officers to say, "I''m sure you don''t need me to tell you that loose lips sink ships, right?"

    General Killock and the officers all trembled when they heard this before quickly nodding in agreement.

    They might not be as scared if it was someone else, but the fourth prince¡­

    Well, there was a reason why he was so infamous in this kingdom in the first ce.

    Those that knew the power that he had wouldn''t dare cross him.

    After the fourth prince finished talking to General Killock and the officers, he turned back to me to say, "Then there''s the other matter that I came here for."

    The way that he spoke, it was as if he was keeping people in suspense on purpose.

    However, there was a reason for this.

    I quickly found out what that reason was.

    The fourth prince had been casually leaning in the chair that he was sitting in until he sat up all of a sudden. After sitting up, he looked at me with a serious look and said, "When I read the report, I didn''t believe it at first. However, after seeing it with my own eyes, I really had no choice but to believe it."

    I didn''t need him to say what it was he was referring to, I could already guess what he was talking about.

    The ughter on the Rising Land ins, that was the only thing that he could be referring to.

    But I still couldn''t see through him at all.

    I didn''t know whether he was impressed or if he was angry, so I waited to see what the fourth prince''s reaction was.

    The fourth prince continued by saying, "You have really performed a great merit for our kingdom by ughtering the army of the Midra Kingdom and you even managed to capture their general and vice general. This kind of merit ispletely unheard of in our kingdom since there has never been anyone who has done the same thing. Though, the one mistake that you made was letting the second prince of the Midra Kingdom escape."

    A faint smile appeared on my lips when I heard this as I slowly figured out what the fourth prince was here for.

    But still, I didn''t say anything as I waited for the fourth prince to make his slow reveal.

    In times like this, it was better to let them finish their soliloquy and then slowly give them the answer they wanted. Only then would one be able to avoid any misunderstandings that might arise.

    The fourth prince saw the look on my face and his eyes looked like he knew that I had already had an idea in my mind, but since we were in front of everyone like this, he had to continue his soliloquy.

    "So the one question that this raises is¡­how did you know about the existence of the Blood Worms? This was something that even we at the kingdom didn''t know about and yet you were able to use them so easily. It really makes one wonder what other kinds of secrets you''re hiding." The fourth prince looked at me with a serious look as he said this.

    Though he didn''t say it out loud, it was also implied, "Will you use these secrets for the kingdom or use them against the kingdom?"

    in and simple, this was just a test to see what my intentions were.

    I wasn''t worried at all, rather I just revealed a smile since I already had an answer in my heart.

 Chapter 596 Reporting (3)

    <h4>Chapter 596 Reporting (3)</h4>

    Looking at the fourth prince, I calmly said, "It really isn''t a secret that these Blood Worms were here. As long as one looked at the surrounding area carefully, they would have known that they were here."

    The fourth prince slightly knitted his brows before saying, "Exin."

    I gave a nod before waving at General Killock toe over.

    When he did, I said, "Bring me a map of the surrounding area."

    General Killock slowly looked at the fourth prince and only when he saw the fourth prince give a nod did he head off to grab that map.

    It took him no time at all toe back with the map that he quickly spread on the table in front of us.

    When this map was ced, the fourth prince looked at me as if he was waiting for me to exin.

    I just casually brought my hand forward and tapped it a few times on the map in front of us.

    The ces that I tapped were all of the viges that were marked on the map, as well as ces that viges had been before. The viges that were gone now had been destroyed for various reasons, but not a single one had been attacked by these Blood Worms.

    The fourth prince just raised a brow as he looked at me.

    Taking a small breath, I exined, "There''s a reason why all of these viges are built like this. Even the viges that were destroyed before all have an area that they are avoiding."

    The fourth prince looked down at the map and he realized that this was indeed the case.

    It didn''t seem like it at first, but when he followed the line that the viges and past viges created, it seemed like it was circling a certain area. This was the area where the Blood Worm nest was.

    But this was something that no one from the kingdom had noticed before.

    Was it because they didn''t do their jobs properly or was it because of something else?

    No matter how the fourth prince looked at it, this kind of oversight shouldn''t have been possible...

    After all, it only took him a single nce to figure this out.

    "How did they not notice this before? What are we paying those people for?" The fourth prince said in a cold voice.

    General Killock and the other officers immediately looked away, out of fear of the fourth prince.

    They were an army that was under the fourth prince, so they naturally knew things about the fourth prince that others wouldn''t. That included what happened when the fourth prince lost his temper.

    So they wanted to stay out of the way as much as possible.

    But the fourth prince didn''t lose his temper in the end as he looked up at me and asked, "How did you know about this?"

    I just gave a shrug and said, "Like you said, it just takes a single nce to figure out. Not to mention, I have ess to reports from all over the kingdom because of my connection with Shadow Garden."

    As soon as they heard this, General Killock and the officers immediately looked at me in shock.

    Since they were high level military officials, naturally they knew about Shadow Garden as well.

    They just never thought that I would be connected to Shadow Garden.

    The fourth prince gave a nod in response to this and when I saw that, I continued by saying, "The reports stated that there was a legend that was spread in the viges around here."

    "A legend?" The fourth prince repeated in a confused voice.

    I said with a nod, "The legend says that the God of the Earth''s holynd is in this area and any who dares trespass will face the wrath of the God of the Earth."

    "God of the Earth¡­" The fourth prince repeated with a look of thought on his face.

    Then all of a sudden, the fourth prince pped the table and said, "So that''s it! The shaking of the ground caused by the Blood Worms attacking was misconstrued as the wrath of the God of the Earth."

    However, he then looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "How did you know about the Blood Worms though?"

    I gave him a faint mysterious smile without saying anything.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes even more as he looked at me before finally saying, "Alright, I understand that you have your secrets."

    I let out a secret sigh of relief when I heard this.

    After all, my secret was that I had knowledge from the game. Without that knowledge, I wouldn''t have known about these Blood Worms either.

    But it was also because of the game that the location of this Blood Worm nest wasn''t known until now.

    This was a special event in the game, but it was also a hidden danger for this kingdom and the Midra Kingdom. It was not something that the governments would have ignored if they knew about this.

    Since it was a game before, it was easy to set it so that neither kingdom knew about this matter.

    However, once this game became a real world, the only exnation for neither kingdom knowing about this was ipetence. That was the only way to exin why no one had known about this before it was exposed.

    So that was why the fourth prince was so angry.

    But this wasn''t something that I could exin¡­

    At the same time though, it didn''t seem like the fourth prince was finished.

    The fourth prince once again revealed a serious look as he looked at me and said, "You can have your secrets, but I want to know¡­what do you intend to do with them? Do you mean any harm to this kingdom?"

    This time, he didn''t use the indirect method.

    This time, he directly asked me whether I was loyal to the kingdom or not.

    But in response to this, I already had an answer.

 Chapter 597 Reporting (4)

    <h4>Chapter 597 Reporting (4)</h4>

    I said in a calm voice, "This kingdom is where my territory and my family is. As long as they are here, then I have no reason to betray the kingdom."

    General Killock and the officers immediately knitted their brows when they heard this.

    The looks in their eyes weren''t as calm and collected as before.

    There even seemed to be some kind of hostility in their eyes as they looked at me.

    But I just ignored them all as I looked at the fourth prince, waiting for his reaction.

    The fourth prince had only narrowed his eyes slightly to look at me when he heard this.

    The way that he looked at me, it didn''t seem like he was judging me.

    The way that he looked at me, it almost seemed like he understood what I was talking about and epted it. But there was also something strange about the way that he looked at me that I didn''t understand.

    After a long silence, during which the soldiers all moved a step forward towards me as if they were preparing to do something just in case the situation broke down, the fourth prince finally spoke.

    "Alright, that''s fine. As long as you don''t have any intentions of betraying our kingdom for now, it doesn''t matter what your thoughts are. After all, I know that there''s no way to force someone to be loyal to a kingdom, all we can do is align their interests with our kingdom with benefits such as territory and such." The fourth prince said in a very casual tone, as if he wasn''t bothered by this at all.

    But General Killock and the officers clearly seemed bothered by this.

    They looked like they wanted to say something, but since the fourth prince had already spoken, it wasn''t as if they could say anything.

    If they were to say something now, it would seem like they didn''t trust the fourth prince''s judgement and that would offend the fourth prince.

    Regardless of what their feelings were for this situation, they would never do something as dumb as that.

    The fourth prince poured some more tea, but this time he also poured a cup for me.

    It seemed that he had finally epted the answer that I gave him, so he started treating me like he did before.

    So I let out a secret sigh of relief before taking the cup to have a sip of the tea.

    The two of us just sat in silence sipping our tea for a bit before the fourth prince suddenly asked, "So what are you nning to do now? I''m sure that you''ve alreadye up with some ns for this army, right?"

    I was surprised to hear the fourth prince suddenly ask this, but there was no need for me to hide anything from him.

    I just gave a simple nod and said, "I have some ideas."

    When General Killock and the officers heard that, they couldn''t stop the faint glimmer that appeared in their eyes. After all, they had already seen how much destruction one of my ideas had, so they were looking forward to seeing what other ideas I had.

    Though that didn''t stop them from looking at me with looks of suspicion.

    It seemed like they still couldn''t let go of what I had said earlier.

    As for the fourth prince, he just gave a simple nod before turning to say to General Killock, "Can you go and get a map of the western border for me?"

    General Killock was surprised to hear this, but he quickly nodded and ran off.

    As he ran off, I couldn''t help looking at the fourth prince with a strange look.

    I was trying to figure out what he was nning, but the fourth prince just looked back at me with a mysterious smile.

    It almost seemed like payback for how I had acted earlier.

    When General Killock came back with the map, he took the map that was already there and spread the new map across the table.

    Once the map was spread, the fourth prince suddenly came forward and pointed at a spot on the map before saying, "How about here? Do you think that you have anything that will work here?"

    I looked at where the fourth prince was pointing and revealed a bit of a surprised look.

    After all, that ce that he was pointing at was actually one of the ces that I had thought about.

    There was indeed an event there that I could use to torment the enemies with, but¡­there had to be a reason why the fourth prince had pointed that ce out.

    So instead of answering the question, I looked at him with one raised brow as if I was questioning him.

    The fourth prince put on a calm look as he saw this, but in the end, he said with a sigh, "The situation over there is bad. I''m sure that you''ve received the reports, but they are much worse than the reports make it seem. The ones in charge over Directly support the authors on WebNovel!

    there just don''t want to admit how bad it is, so they''re downying the situation."

    After a pause, the fourth prince added with another sigh, "It''s those kinds of people that make things worse. The worst part is that they are old generals that we can''t do anything about since they have prestige and experience under their belts. They control quite a few soldiers and have mentored quite a few officers, so it''s hard for us to force them in any way."

    I slowly gave a nod of agreement.

    I also had my fair share of this, but that was more in my past life than in this life.

    Still, I was able to understand the pain that the fourth prince was suffering from.

    So I said, "Alright, I have something that will work in that area. As long as I can move freely, then I should be able to do something."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before saying, "I''ll make sure that you get the clearance that you need, so you don''t need to worry about that." Then he revealed a smile and asked, "However, what kind of n are you going to use this time? Can you give me a sneak peek?"

    Then General Killock and the officers heard this, they couldn''t help piquing their ears and leaning in as if they wanted to hear this as well.

    But I didn''t say anything in response.

    All I did was reveal a mysterious smile like I did before.

    The fourth prince pouted his lips seeing this before throwing a tantrum that really wasn''t like him, "Fine, keep your secrets then." After this little tantrum, he said with a smile, "I''m looking forward to your good news."

    I could tell that he was dismissing me, but I didn''t mind since I had things to prepare with General Killock.

    The two of us quickly left this tent, leaving the fourth prince alone with his bodyguards.

    But the fourth prince just waved his hand and sent them away.

    When the fourth prince was alone in that tent, he stroked his chin and said to himself, "So he''ll remain as long as he is attached to it. It seems like we need to move up that n as soon as possible."

 Chapter 598 Situation in the west

    <h4>Chapter 598 Situation in the west</h4>

    Two weekster, we arrived at the western border of the kingdom.

    Before we even arrived, we could see that the situation in this ce wasn''t going well.

    There had been many refugees making their way out of the western part of the kingdom, showing that the fighting wasn''t going our way here.

    When I had General Killock bring some of the refugees to see me, I learned even more things about the situation here in the west.

    Though it was a bit hard for me to get them to calm down at first.

    They thought that we were the enemies that had invaded that captured them, so they had been filled with terror. It took a long time before we were able to convince them that we were an army of the kingdom that was here as reinforcements.

    It seemed that the enemies had been pushing hard and the nobles here had been hiding inside of their own territories. The only safe ces were the cities and towns that the nobles protected with their armies.

    For these refugees who came from the surrounding viges, they had no choice but to flee.

    The enemy armies ravaged thend while they waited for the nobles toe out of their turtle shells.

    That meant that it was verymon for the enemies to raid the viges that were in the surrounding area.

    The refugees that we had taken in for information were from those viges.

    The enemy army didn''t hold back at all. They burnt crops, stole their valuables, and even kidnapped their women.

    It was no different from what bandits would do...

    When General Killock heard this, he seemed like he wanted to bash some heads in, but I raised my head for him to calm down.

    When he realized what he did, he quickly apologized, but I told him, "Don''t worry, I feel the same."

    General Killock looked at me with a look that seemed different from the ones that he had given me before.

    It seemed that this time, he had finally epted me.

    After finding out the situation of this western region, I had General Killock prepare some supplies for these people and send them off. I had wanted to send some soldiers with them to guard them on their way out, but I knew that this was too much.

    Sometimes, people would be suspicious of excessive kindness.

    When they left, I couldn''t help thinking about the situation in the west.

    The location that we were supposed to be heading to was Vayne City, the city that was under the control of a duke.

    This duke was Duke Yuletide, the duke that basically ruled over the western region and controlled most of the nobles here.

    ording to the refugees that we had talked to, it seemed that he had also been the one to convince the nobles of this western region to turtle themselves like this. It was clear that he was someone who cared only about his own benefits.

    But it wasn''t just that, I also knew this because he had yed a role in the game.

    Duke Yuletide had his own quest line in the game and it was one where he turned out to be the viin.

    in and simple, the duke and the Yuletide Family only had a single target all these years of being in the kingdom.

    Starting from the first generation, they had wanted to be the new royal family.

    When they supported the royal family to the throne, they had unwillingly allowed them to take the throne. In truth, they had thought that they would be the new royal family of this kingdom when they took over this region.

    But in the end, the current royal family took the throne and they were given titles as dukes.

    That was something that had been going on for many generations now.

    The current Duke Yuletide also wanted to usurp the throne from the current royal family.

    However, the Yuletide Family had been a cautious one.

    Though they were treasonous, they had never shown their tails even once.

    They had been slowly building up power in this western region and had never made a single mistake that anyone could use to catch them.

    The one thing that they never expected was this war, but of course, they also wouldn''t show their power. Which was why they were currently turtling in their territory, without sending any troops to the surrounding viges.

    I was fully aware of what the Yuletide Family wanted, it was just too bad that I didn''t have any proof of this.

    The proof that I did have was based on a time that was further in the future, so I wasn''t able to use this proof yet.

    The only thing that I could do was watch over the Yuletide Family since I knew what they were nning.

    But the problem was, I had no choice but to go to Vayne City.

    As a reward for the ughter that I had created in the Rising Land ins, I was given ten thousand more troops to use. However, the fourth prince didn''t have any more troops to give me since he had a limited number of troops in the first ce.

    Since this was a reward that came from the top, that meant that I was able to recruit these troops from the local garrisons.

    And since I was heading to the western region, that meant that the local garrison was the one in Vayne City.

    That was the only garrison that could even spare ten thousand troops.

    So I had no choice but to go to Vayne City to get these troops.

    The problem was¡­would Duke Yuletide give up these troops in the first ce?

    No, it was very unlikely that he would.

    Plus with the news that he and the surrounding nobles were abandoning the viges, it might even be possible that he was nning some kind of coup d''etat.

    I couldn''t helpining to the fourth prince in my heart since he was the one that wanted me toe here in the first ce¡­

 Chapter 599 Vayne City

    <h4>Chapter 599 Vayne City</h4>

    When we arrived in Vayne City, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    It wasn''t because the situation around Vayne City was bad¡­but rather because the situation around Vayne City looked very good.

    There were few signs of fighting in the area around Vayne City, almost as if there were nothing more than skirmishes.

    At the same time, it didn''t seem like there were any traces of the enemy around Vayne City.

    But when I looked at the city from a distance, I could see the gates firmly closed and the walls filled with guards.

    It seemed that they really had no intention ofing out to fight the enemies¡­

    I could see that General Killock beside me had an ugly look on his face and he was clenching his fists, as if he wanted to charge into the city after seeing this. But of course, I couldn''t let him do anything like that.

    So I just raised my hand to stop him before saying, "We''re here on the orders of the king and the fourth prince, do not do anything to bring shame to the two of them."

    General Killock gritted his teeth when he heard this, but he still gave a nod of understanding in the end.

    After all, he knew what I was implying.

    We had the upper hand in terms of position since we had our orders, so we shouldn''t resort to the same tactics as these petty nobles.

    But I could also see that there were many soldiers that were angered by the scene in front of us.

    It seemed that those that followed the fourth prince were all simr minded.

    I had seen how much the fourth prince cared about this kingdom with how he kept asking me where my loyalties were. It seemed that the soldiers of the army under the fourth prince were the same, they all cared about this kingdom.

    So when they saw someone that was supposed to be in a high ranking position in the kingdom acting this way, they were naturally angered by this.

    With a sigh, I gave the order for Cecilia to lead some officers to calm them down.

    Cecilia had been following me the entire time, but she had been ying a more passive role since she was an outsider in this army. It was only after I had established my fame among the soldiers with the ughter of the Rising Land ins that they started to ept her.

    She was given amander position among the army and could be considered well respected.

    Of course it helped that she was a beautiful woman, but the army already knew that she was mine, so they didn''t dare do anything.

    As we approached the city, I had the soldiers set up camp while I gathered a few people with me.

    These were the ones that would be heading into the city with me.

    Since we had an army of fifty thousand, it wasn''t as if we could bring everyone in.

    The only thing that I could do was bring the high ranking officers with me, as well as some strong fighters. After all, there was no knowing what would happen in the city¡­

    Among those that came were General Killock, Cecilia, and Shaka. The rest were officers that General Killock had chosen for me.

    As well, there seemed to be someone that was hiding in the shadows.

    Before we approached the city, I stopped everyone and said, "When we go inter, let''s divide our roles properly."

    I slowlyid out my n for everyone, but there were a few that opposed this.

    Still, I was able to calm them down and make them ept the n in the end.

    Though it was clear that they weren''t happy about this.

    When we came up to the gate, I shouted at the soldiers that were above, "I am Count Zwein, the general of the fourth prince''s army. I havee with orders from the capital for Duke Yuletide and request entry to the city."

    "Skreech."

    The gate in front of me suddenly started to move upwards, as if it was about to open.

    When we saw this, we couldn''t help being surprised.

    After all, I had already figured that it would be impossible for us to enter Vayne City right away.

    I had expected them to stall for a bit by saying that they needed to report to the duke and then keep stalling to buy time to discuss what to do with us. But that didn''t seem to be the case as they immediately opened the gates for us.

    What was happening?

    After the gates were opened, there was a group of soldiers that came forward.

    The one that wore the different set of armour that looked to be their leader came forward to me to give a bow before saying, "Count Zwein, we have already received the letter from the capital and have been waiting for you. Pleasee with me, the duke is already waiting for you."

    All of us couldn''t help looking at this guard with a surprised look.

    To be honest, not a single one of us had expected Duke Yuletide to act in this manner.

    There was even a part of us that felt like this was some kind of trap¡­

    But it didn''t seem to be the case since all of the soldiers were looking at us with respectful looks.

    It was possible to send one group of people to try and fool us, but for everyone to act this way¡­it was clear that all of them knew about this.

    It was impossible to set all of this up in the short period of time that they had.

    So it seemed like they were telling the truth.

    But if they were telling the truth, what was the duke nning?

    Seeing that we didn''t move, the leader of the soldiers asked, "Count Zwein, is something the matter?"

    I snapped out of my daze when I heard this and quickly shook my head to say, "No, it''s nothing. Lead the way."

    The leader of the soldiers just simply said with a nod, "Alright, please follow me."

 Chapter 600 Here are the troops

    <h4>Chapter 600 Here are the troops</h4>

    Our group went through the gates and made our way through Vayne City.

    Though we were being led by these guards that seemed respectful, it didn''t seem like they wanted to talk to us.

    So I took the initiative to ask, "It''s our first time in Vayne City, can you tell us about a few of the specialties here?"

    But the leader of these soldiers just shook his head and said, "Count Zwein, I''m sure that you don''t want to waste any time with the current situation of the war. The duke is already waiting for you, so let''s hurry over as soon as possible."

    My entire group was taken aback when we heard this.

    We looked at the leader with strange looks as if we were trying to figure out if he was being serious or not, but it seemed that he was indeed being serious.

    So the only thing that I could do was nod in agreement and silently follow behind these soldiers.

    At the same time, it seemed that they picked up the pace.

    They really wanted to get us there as soon as possible.

    Why?

    It didn''t seem to make any sense at all.

    After all, we had been fully expecting the duke to y tricks to stall us since he wouldn''t want to give us these troops. At the same time, we had been expecting the duke to even try and harm us to make the situation look worse.

    Though of course, if he were to harm us, he would do it in a manner that wouldn''t implicate himself.

    So the only real worry was that we would be assassinated.

    As we walked through the city, there were some things that caught our eyes.

    It was the disparity in wealth as we made our way through the city.

    The ones that were near the gate were the poorest and the ones that were closer to the center of the city seemed to be richer.

    It seemed that the nobles of the city only cared about their own wellbeing.

    There were even some people that were fighting over gutter water in some of the poorer parts of the city. It was clear just how much they had suffered after closing themselves off to defend against the enemies.

    Or it should be said that they hadpletely cut off their own supply lines, making it hard for them to receive supplies from the outside.

    This kind of n was clearly self destructive, but the nobles that sat above the rest didn''t seem to care.

    The only thing that they cared about was their own wellbeing.

    I could sense the tension that came from my group, but I calmed them down with a look and a shake of my head.

    For now, we should y along to see what the duke was up to.

    When we arrived at the duke''s manor, I was surprised to see the duke waiting there for us.

    I recognized him as soon as I saw him because he looked the same as in the game.

    He was a kind looking old man with a full white beard. If he were to put on red, one might think that he was a jolly old man who handed out gifts¡­

    Though in reality, he was anything but that¡­

    When the duke saw us, he took the initiative toe forward to me with a friendly smile on his face.

    Regardless of how I felt about him and what I knew about him, the appearance that he had really was that of a friendly old man¡­

    Aftering over, the duke said, "Count Zwein, it is truly an honour to host you in our Vayne City." Then he gave a sigh before saying, "Unfortunately, we had to meet under such circumstances."

    I gave a nod before saying. "Duke Yuletide, you''ll have to excuse my curtness, but I''m sure that you''ve received the orders from the capital?"

    Duke Yuletide revealed a serious look before saying, "Yes, I''ve received the orders just recently, but for the sake of our kingdom, I have been preparing everything. The troops that will follow you have already been prepared and are just waiting to set off."

    Though I had a calm look on my face, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    I could feel the surprise that came from behind me, but I secretly gave a signal behind my back for them to calm down.

    We couldn''t let ourselves fall into the duke''s pace after all.

    So in the end, I gave a nod as I said, "Then shall we go?"

    Duke Yuletide didn''t hesitate at all as he gave a nod of agreement before leading the way.

    All of us were even more confused when we saw this, but we still followed behind him.

    During this, I did all that I could to figure out just what Duke Yuletide was nning.

    It was only when I saw the troops that he had prepared for us that I finally realized what was happening.

    He didn''t n on cooperating at all.

    That we already knew, but we never expected him to use this kind of trick.

    The troops that were standing in front of us, it would be kind to even call them troops since they were clearly not trained soldiers.

    These were scrawny looking people that had equipment that seemed like they should be thrown out.

    They looked like they were refugees that had been quickly picked up and then had some equipment pped onto them to make them seem like they were soldiers. There was no way that these troops would be actual trained soldiers with howx their formation was.

    It was clear that they had never received any form of proper training.

    General Killock had his brows knit even more than me since he was a proper soldier and knew more than me.

    After we arrived at this ce, Duke Yuletide turned back to me and said in a voice that sounded like he found this all natural, "These are the troops that we have prepared for you."

 Chapter 601 Sly duke

    <h4>Chapter 601 Sly duke</h4>

    It would be fine if he didn''t say anything, but the moment that he did...

    It was like he was rubbing it in, which made us even angrier.

    But this made it clear what he was nning on doing.

    He was giving us these ten thousand ''troops'', even though it was clear that this was a ragtag army that he had gathered in haste.

    So technically, he wasn''t disobeying his orders, he was just using a loophole to get out of sending any of his actual troops.

    I could sense the rageing from General Killock and the officers behind me after Duke Yuletide said this. In fact, the rage that wasing from behind me didn''t juste from General Killock and the officers, I could feel iting from Shaka and Cecilia too.

    They were people that had sacrificed their lives to protect the kingdom that they lived in and the people that they loved.

    Seeing Duke Yuletide spit on it like this by giving them these pretend soldiers, it was like a p to the face.

    They naturally couldn''t ept this.

    But this was the enemy''s territory, so I couldn''t just let them do what they wanted.

    I raised my hand behind me for them to stop before giving a signal for them to calm down.

    The looks on their faces made it seem like they were about to blow, but they were able to hold back in the end.

    If they really lost their temper here, it would have been a good excuse for Duke Yuletide to get rid of us.

    Naturally I couldn''t allow that to happen.

    In the end, I looked at the duke with a smile on my face and said, "Duke Yuletide, thank you for preparing everything so quickly. I''ll be sure to report your willingness to cooperate to his majesty when I return."

    This time, Duke Yuletide no longer had the same calm andposed look on his face.

    There was a momentary surprised look that appeared on his face before that calm andposed look returned again.

    With a smile, he asked, "Count Zwein, if possible, may I ask where you''re nning on going with these troops?"

    I just shook my head and said, "This is confidential military information, so I can''t disclose this to you. I''m sure that you understand that while I can trust you, there''s no knowing if there are any spies around."

    Duke Yuletide slightly narrowed his eyes before saying, "Count Zwein, are you saying that you don''t trust me?"

    I said with a shrug, "Please don''t misunderstand your lordship, I said no such thing." Then with a serious look, I said, "This is an important matter that concerns the future of the kingdom, I''m sure that your lordship will not mind if I take some extra precautions, right?"

    Duke Yuletide continued to look at me with those same narrowed eyes for a bit, but then he gave a nod and said with a smile, "As expected of the famous general who orchestrated the ughter of the Rising Land ins. Everything that you do has many different meanings, it is hard for a simple man like myself to keep up with you."

    I shook my head before saying with a humble look, "I am but a simple man, there are no other meanings in my words. I just want to do the best for my kingdom and my people."

    There was a bit of a sharp jab to these words, but Duke Yuletide didn''t seem to care at all as he calmly said, "Of course, it is all for the greater good of the kingdom."

    At the very least, there was no doubt that his shamelessness was world ss.

    He was giving us soldiers like this and he was still saying that it was all for the good of the kingdom.

    Even I felt the urge to punch this man in the face at this moment, but I held myself back in the end.

    However, I couldn''t just let this matter end here.

    I had to at least get a jab in at Duke Yuletide before leaving with these troops.

    With a cough, I said, "Your lordship, it is embarrassing to mention this, but I was hoping that you would be able to spare some supplies as well. We had to rush here, so we weren''t able to bring as many supplies as we wanted. With the extra troops that we will be taking here, we won''t be able to support ourselves for long. So if possible, could you spare some supplies for these troops?"

    Duke Yuletide knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "Count Zwein, it isn''t that I don''t want to help, but I really cannot help. You should have seen the situation when you walked through the city, we really aren''t able to help."

    I gave a nod before saying, "But on the way, I saw that a few of the nobles of your fair city seemed to be squandering some resources. If those resources could be more properly allocated¡­"

    I didn''t finish my words, but it was clear what I was implying.

    When Duke Yuletide heard this, he immediately red at the soldiers who had led us the entire way. However, those soldiers didn''t dare look at Duke Yuletide when he was ring at them.

    It was clear that they were scared of his gaze.

    After giving a cough to calm himself down, Duke Yuletide said, "Un, it seems that I might have missed a few things. Let me take care of this matter and prepare the supplies for you."

    It seemed that those nobles weren''t supposed to be there.

    At the very least, it seemed that Duke Yuletide didn''t have full control of the nobles in his city. Or at least he didn''t want full control over them.

    His words proved that he had the ability to wipe out these nobles when he wanted, but he kept them in his city for a certain reason.

    Was it to pretend to be weak or was it something else?

    Regardless, at least I was able to make him bleed a bit.

    So I said with a nod and a smile, "Then I''ll be counting on your lordship."

 Chapter 602 Gathering evidence

    <h4>Chapter 602 Gathering evidence</h4>

    After that matter was settled, we were shown to rooms in the duke''s manor since it would take some time for the duke to prepare everything.

    When we were shown to our rooms, the first thing that happened was¡­

    Everyone exploded.

    That was to be expected since they had been holding back the entire time.

    Even now, it was very likely that we were being watched by the duke''s people, so we should have been holding back and watching what we said. However, it was hard to hold back with these soldiers who wore their emotions on their sleeves more.

    General Killock was the one that led them as he smashed a chair once the servants had all left.

    "That duke! I knew from the very beginning that we shouldn''t trust him, but to think that he would insult us like this!"

    The officers all agreed with him and it even seemed like Cecilia agreed, though she held herself back as she stood beside me.

    After he finished venting, General Killock came over to me to say, "General, we must find some way to remove that duke and take back control of this city. It''s clear that leaving this city in the hands of that man is¡­"

    Before he could finish, I immediately raised a hand to stop him before saying, "Are you speaking of treason right now?"

    General Killock was surprised when he heard this before quickly saying, "General, it''s that duke that hasmitted treason against the kingdom with the way that he has acted."

    I just narrowed my eyes to look at him before saying, "Do you have evidence of this?"

    General Killock gritted his teeth as he said, "Isn''t everything that he''s done enough evidence of this? It''s clear that this man does not care for the kingdom and only cares about himself."

    Shaking my head, I gave a shrug and said with a sigh, "Then you have no evidence. What do you think will happen if you try to use force?"

    General Killock gritted his teeth even more when he heard this before saying, "It is the honour of every soldier in the kingdom to die for the sake of the kingdom. If that is what happens, then I have no regrets."

    I just shook my head and gave another sigh before saying, "You might want to die, but that doesn''t mean that I want to die here with all of you."

    General Killock looked like he was about to say something else, but I cut him off by saying, "There are better ways of handling this. You need to stop looking at what''s in front of us and start looking at what''s behind the curtain."

    General Killock revealed a surprised look, but I didn''t care at all as I said, "How is it, did you find anything yet?"

    As soon as I said this, there was a cloaked figure that appeared.

    The officers were surprised by this cloaked figure and moved forward with their weapons raised. However, it was General Killock who raised his hand to stop them since he recognized this person.

    It was one of the Shadows, one of the secret guards of the fourth prince.

    Those that knew of the Shadows knew just how capable they were.

    For the fourth prince to give one of the Shadows to Count Zwein¡­it was clear how close Count Zwein was to him and how much he trusted Count Zwein.

    At the same time, it was clear how much the fourth prince valued Count Zwein.

    After Shadow Five appeared, she bowed her head and said, "I''m sorry, I wasn''t able to find anything."

    I wasn''t surprised when I heard this since if it was that easy to find, then the duke would have been exposed a long time ago. Duke Yuletide and the Yuletide Family had been preparing for a long time to betray the kingdom and the royal family, so of course their preparations wouldn''t be that easy to discover.

    After a long silence, Shadow Five said, "I did find some evidence of some minor offences. If we use those, we might be able to¡­"

    Her voice trailed off, but it was clear what she was implying.

    She wanted me to use these things to ckmail Duke Yuletide into giving us more troops.

    General Killock''s eyes lit up and he looked at me as if he was urging me to do this, but I just ignored him.

    I calmly said to Shadow Five, "Contact the fourth prince and tell him what we''ve found, as well as tell him what my suspicions are. I want to ask him to send a special team here to investigate this matter."

    Shadow Five was clearly surprised even if her face couldn''t be seen.

    But in the end, she didn''t disobey these orders.

    The fourth prince had told her to follow all of Count Zwein''s orders, so she had no other choice.

    Though she knew that if it was Count Zwein who asked for this, the fourth prince would likely even send a group of Shadows to investigate this matter.

    Each of the Shadows took arge amount of resources to train and each of them were precious, so they shouldn''t be used that easily¡­

    But there was no other choice.

    I turned back to General Killock and said, "In the first ce, I hadn''t been nning on using the troops that the duke gave me in the first ce. I have my own ns."

    General Killock looked like he wanted to say something, but then he remembered what happened thest time that he had doubted this man in front of him.

    So after a moment of silence, General Killock just gave a nod of agreement.

    It was the same for the officers who were in the room.

    Seeing this, I gave a nod as well before saying, "For now, we''ll go out and take care of the enemies. When wee back, we''ll deal with this Duke Yuletide. I promise you that he will not get off lightly for this."

 Chapter 603 Luring in the enemy (1)

    <h4>Chapter 603 Luring in the enemy (1)</h4>

    The next morning, we set off from Vayne City.

    As if to show his support, Duke Yuletide even came to the city gates himself to see us off.

    From the head of the army, I could see him above the gates when I turned back to look at the city. Seeing me look back, Duke Yuletide even gave me a nod as if he was showing his support.

    I just gave a nod back in response, but¡­

    Neither of us were sincere in our nods.

    Both of us clearly didn''t want to see the other side seed, so we were only doing this to put on a show.

    Once we left Vayne City, we headed further west to the border.

    Even though the enemy sent people into our kingdom''s territory to raid, those were nothing more than small groups. The main forces would still be on the border since they wouldn''t risk being wrapped around.

    After all, if they didn''t take care of the forces of the nobles that hid in their territory, then they wouldn''t be able to ensure that there were no enemy forces behind them.

    Once they went deep into the enemy territory, it would be likely that they would get surrounded by the enemy if they left enemies behind them. So there wasn''t a single sane general who would do something like this.

    The main forces were the ones that we had to deal with.

    Before we reached the border though, we suddenly stopped and set up camp.

    After setting up camp, the first thing that we did was check the supplies that the duke gave us.

    "As expected."

    That was the only thing that I could say when we stopped and took a closer look at the supplies that were given to us.

    The supplies seemed like they were normal on the outside, they even seemed like they were very fresh supplies that had been provided to us. But when one took off the fresh coating and looked underneath, they would find¡­

    There were items that were close to breaking and goods that were close to rotting.

    There was only a fresh coat on this and the insides were rotten.

    After searching for a bit, General Killock threw the close to rotting fruit in his hand on the ground and said, "Damn! I knew that traitor wouldn''t be up to anything good."

    I just calmly raised my hand to stop him from going any further and said, "We already expected this. I have already arranged for more supplies to be sent to uster, so you don''t need to worry."

    General Killock revealed a look of rage as he said, "That isn''t the problem. Even if we have supplies, we can''t just let him get away with this."

    This time, I nodded in agreement as I said, "I know, but it isn''t the time yet. For now, we have to endure until it''s time to make our move."

    General Killock and the other officers looked like they were unhappy about this, but they didn''t say anything in the end.

    To change the topic, I suddenly said, "Alright, let''s talk about our strategy instead."

    When they heard this, General Killock and the other officers revealed serious looks before looking around us, as if they were afraid that there would be people listening.

    I shook my head with a smile when I saw this before saying, "Why did you think that we came all the way out here to check the supplies when we already knew that they would be like this?"

    General Killock and the officers looked around us again, but this time the looks in their eyes werepletely different.

    After a while, they just looked at me as if they were waiting to hear what I had to say.

    So I waved for them toe closer before telling them my n.

    "General, this is too dangerous."

    That was the general consensus that they came to after they heard what my n was.

    It was clear that there wasn''t a single person who supported my n.

    In fact, even Cecilia and Shaka looked like they disapproved even if they had supported me previously.

    I just calmly shook my head and said, "It''s only dangerous if something unexpected happens. Otherwise, this is a foolproof n, there is no way that something will go wrong."

    They all looked like they clearly didn''t believe me, but I refused to exin any further.

    This was all because I couldn''t tell them what the surprise was.

    Even if I did, it was unlikely that they would have believed me, which was why I couldn''t say a thing.

    They looked at the determined look on my face for a while before finally giving up.

    That was the prestige that I had built over the course of my time with this army.

    They knew that I must have some kind of secret n that I wasn''t telling them and they were looking forward to seeing what my secret n was. After all, thest secret n had caused a ughter that killed over a hundred thousand people.

    After a long time, General Killock finally said, "Alright, what are our orders?"

    I gave a nod and said with a smile, "It''s very simple¡­"

    ¡­

    The next day.

    A small group set off from the camp.

    This group was a group that was led by me while General Killock watched over the main camp of our army.

    This group was supposed to be a scouting group that was to determine the location of the enemy.

    I was going because I needed to personally see how the enemies were spread out, so I could make sure that there were no mistakes in my n.

    But as we left, there were certain people that noticed us leaving.

    When we were a bit away from the camp, Shadow Five suddenly told me in a whisper, "There are people following you."

    I gave a simple nod, but I didn''t stop as I kept moving forward with this group.

 Chapter 604 Luring in the enemy (2)

    <h4>Chapter 604 Luring in the enemy (2)</h4>

    As we continued moving forward, I received even more reports from Shadow Five that there were people following us.

    But at this point, it wasn''t just Shadow Five alone who was reporting that they were being followed.

    At this point, everyone could sense that they were being followed.

    After all, the people that were following them didn''t seem like they were trying to hide that they were following them at all. It was almost as if they wanted them to know so that they would panic and try to run.

    Even with all of this, I just ignored all of them as I kept moving my group forward.

    Eventually, we were surrounded.

    There was no way around it.

    Since the enemy had been moving around us, it was clear that they were trying to force us into a trap of their own. With the way that they were trying to force us to panic and run, it was clear that they wanted to make us go in a certain direction so they could surround us.

    But I made sure that we only went in one direction.

    Until we finally reached this cave where we were surrounded by the enemies.

    They didn''t charge us right away as we stood there in front of the cave.

    There was an important looking person that came forward and he looked down on us from his horse as he said, "Ha, I never thought that I would encounter the famous Rising Lands Butcher. I had thought that you would be a bit hard to handle, but I never thought that you would be such a fool that you would fall into a simple trap like this."

    I didn''t say anything as I looked at this person and asked, "Are you the general of the Vikal Kingdom army?"

    This person was surprised to hear me ask this question, but then he raised his head up high and said, "That''s right, this one is the famous General Risen from the Vikal Kingdom. I''m sure that you''ve heard of me before!"

    I just calmly shook my head before saying, "I''ve never heard of you before, that''s why I asked if you were the general in the first ce."

    There was an awkward silence that filled the air after this was said.

    The soldiers of the Vikal Kingdom all revealed awkward and scared looks as they looked at their general.

    They knew that their general had a fierce temper and what this person had just done would without a doubt provoke their general. They just hope that they wouldn''t suffer the wrath of their general because of this.

    At the same time, they couldn''t help ming this enemy general in front of them.

    Didn''t he know how to at least y properly so that he wouldn''t get them in the crossfire?

    There was a vein that started throbbing on the forehead of General Risen, but it seemed like he was able to keep himself calm in the end.

    Or at least that was what it seemed until the subordinates behind Count Zwein suddenly burst out inughter.

    They pointed at General Risen and said, "Did you see the look on his face?"

    "Right? He proudly said his name and everything! He was acting like everyone should know him!"

    "Our general just pped him in the face without a single care, look at how embarrassed he is."

    It was fine if they didn''t say anything, General Risen would have been able to ignore this and move on since this was his moment in the spotlight. But now that they were poking at his wounds, he naturally wouldn''t be able to let this go that easily.

    With a dark look on his face, he said, "Kill them all, don''t even leave a corpse!"

    Then he turned to look at me before saying with a fierce voice, "I will cut your head off and turn it into my trophy. Everyone will know that your title of butcher is baseless and you are nothing more than trash."

    As soon as he gave the order, all of the Vikal Kingdom soldiers started moving forward without any hesitation.

    The look on their face seemed like they wanted to avoid the wrath of their general.

    They wanted to take care of the enemies as soon as possible to eliminate the risk of their general being enraged again.

    When they were bearing down on us like this, my subordinates couldn''t help revealing a panicked look.

    The only reason that they had done what they had done before was because I had told them to do this. This was the only instruction that I had given them and they had followed it to a tee.

    But now, we had to do something to get out of this situation.

    So they looked at me and asked, "General, what do we do?"

    I had been watching the soldiers approach at first, but once they reached a certain point, I suddenly turned around and started heading into the cave.

    As I went, I said to them, "Follow me." But then I also added in a serious voice, "Be sure to follow all of my steps or else¡­

    don''t me me for what happens."

    All of my subordinates couldn''t help revealing surprised and confused looks, but they didn''t have time to think about it. So all they could do was nod in agreement to this.

    So without hesitation, I went into the cave.

    The moment that I went into the cave, General Risen suddenly shouted, "Stop!"

    As soon as they heard this, all of the Vikal Kingdom soldiers stopped.

    It seemed that they were well trained at the very least.

    General Risen just watched as his enemies entered the cave.

    Even if he was enraged by what had happened, he was still a general and he cared about the lives of his soldiers. Since he didn''t know what was happening, he couldn''t just send his soldiers into the cave that the enemy was fleeing into without a care.

    But after a minute of seeing nothing happen, he said, "It''s just a fake, huh? They really have nothing left."

    There was a pause before he gave the order again, "Kill!"

 Chapter 605 Chimera Ants (1)

    <h4>Chapter 605 Chimera Ants (1)</h4>

    Once we were in the cave, I suddenly revealed a smile as I saw theyout of the cave.

    For a moment, I just remained there with that smile on my face as I looked at this cave.

    It was the exact same as the caveyout that I had seen in the game.

    I was just standing there in a daze, as if I was lost in my thoughts as I stared at this cave.

    For a moment, it was as if I had been sent back to my old world and I was just staring at this game world through a screen.

    But there wasn''t the time to think about all of this.

    "General, what do we do now?"

    As soon as I heard this, I snapped out of my daze and said, "Follow me and make sure to walk in the exact same spots that I''m walking. If one of you is off, then we''ll all be in danger."

    All of them gave a gulp when they heard this, but they nodded in agreement to this.

    As I stepped forward, I suddenly closed my eyes.

    "General? What are you doing closing your eyes?!"

    They said as soon as I did this, but I just ignored them as I stepped forward.

    This was a dungeon that I had done many times before since this was a dungeon that one could farm. Especially since the monsters that were in this dungeon bred very quickly, which refilled the dungeon very quickly.

    So I could find the safe path for this ce with my eyes closed.

    Or rather, it was easier for me to take the safe path with my eyes closed since that would allow my memories toe easier. It was better to rely on muscle memory than to rely on trying to figure it out with my sight.

    Taking a deep breath, I took a step forward.

    Then I took two more steps forward before suddenly stopping.

    Turning to the left, I took two steps and stopped.

    Turning to the right, I took three steps and stopped.

    Turning to the right again, I took another three steps and stopped.

    Just like this, I progressed deeper into the cave with this strange method of movement.

    While I was doing this, my subordinates just looked at me with very strange looks.

    They had been too stunned by this that they almost forgot to follow me.

    If it wasn''t for Cecilia who blindly trusted me getting them to move, then I might have actually left them behind.

    It was only because of her following me and telling the others to follow that they remembered to follow my exact path.

    After heading a bit deeper into the cave, I heard some noiseing from behind us.

    At the same time, I heard Cecilia say, "They''re here."

    I just gave a simple nod before continuing forward since we were already on the edge of this maze. As long as we made it to the other side, there was nothing for us to worry about.

    So I just focused on getting us to the other side.

    "Stop and surrender! As long as you surrender, we will go easy on you!"

    I heard thating from behind us, but I justpletely ignored it as I continued forward.

    Finally, I opened my eyes after reaching the end and waving my hand for my group toe over.

    They saw that I was waving at them, but they made sure to remain right behind me until I said, "It''s fine now, you don''t have to follow me anymore. Just stand behind me and don''t go back or else something might happen."

    They all nodded to acknowledge this before even taking a step back.

    However, on the other side, there were some people that misunderstood what I meant by this wave of the hand.

    General Risen didn''t charge in with his troops, so the one that was currently inmand was one of themanders that he trusted. However, what kind of general determined what kind ofmanders were under him.

    When thismander saw Count Zwein waving his hand, he thought that it meant¡­

    "Come and get me."

    This would be considered a very simple provocation that most people would have ignored, but themander didn''t.

    It was for two simple reasons.

    One, he believed that he was better than Count Zwein, so he could easily take him down.

    Two, it was because he didn''t believe that there would be anything dangerous in this cave.

    He could even see the back of this cave, so he knew that there was nowhere for this group to go.

    Yet they still wanted to run?

    He wouldn''t let them.

    Themander raised his hand and said, "Fire the arrows and turn them into pincushions."

    The general had already said that there was no need to take them alive, so he wouldn''t hesitate.

    After all, there was nothing to lose from using arrows to take care of them.

    The archers all aimed at the group that was on the other side of the cave and fired their arrows.

    But the moment that the arrows made it halfway, there was something that suddenly caused the arrows to fly upwards. These arrows were pushed up by some kind of strange force and all of them stuck to the roof.

    The Vikal Kingdom soldiers were all caught off guard when they saw this, but themander didn''t remain stunned for long.

    He knew that there must be something strange about this cave that the enemies had chosen to run into this ce.

    But other than a few tricks, themander didn''t believe that this enemy was capable of anything else. Especially since they werepletely outnumbered at this point.

    So themander said, "Go and get them. Surround them and take them down."

    Once they received this order, the soldiers took a formation with spears and shields, moving towards the enemy group.

    But as they did, they passed over the area that the enemies had just passed¡­

 Chapter 606 Chimera Ants (2)

    <h4>Chapter 606 Chimera Ants (2)</h4>

    There was a reason why I had carefully made my way through this cave.

    It was because this was the only safe path through this cave that was filled with hidden traps.

    Unless one took that path, it would wake the things that were hidden under the ground here.

    Under the floor that seemed normal, there were¡­

    As soon as the soldiers stepped into the area that I had carefully moved through, they found that the ground copsed from underneath them.

    It wasn''t just the area that we had moved through that copsed, it was even the floor that was under them that copsed. But of course, it wasn''t as if every single part of the floor copsed.

    There were just some holes that appeared in the ground under the Vikal Kingdom soldiers.

    The ones that were caught off guard by the sudden appearance of these holes were swallowed by those holes. They tried to grab at anything that they could to stop themselves from falling, but all that did was drag theirrades down in the holes with them.

    It was aplete mess as these soldiers were caught off guard by the appearance of these holes.

    Even if they were elite soldiers that were well trained, that didn''t mean that they were able to stop themselves from being caught off guard. Once they were caught off guard, their panic took over and even their finely trained minds couldn''t keep up.

    The only instinct that they had was to stop themselves from falling down into the holes that had formed.

    But¡­they were just too slow for that.

    Themander was among the few that was able to escape falling into these holes.

    Once he calmed down, he was able to analyze the situation.

    The one thing that he noticed was that there were no holes where we were currently standing.

    As soon as he realized this, themander knew that this was the only solution.

    "Forward! Charge forward and get them! The area where they''re standing is safe!" Themander shouted at his soldiers, but it was too bad that they weren''t in a state to follow these orders.

    All of them were still trying to find their footing after the copse of the floor under them.

    It was just too bad that they wouldn''t get the chance toe back to their senses.

    After all, there was still something that was under the ground¡­

    It was something that had been crawling around without a care for the humans above it, but once it was disturbed¡­

    There were these skittering sounds that suddenly started filling the cave.

    These sounds were just too loud that it was impossible to ignore them.

    At the same time, it was clear that there were many things that were making this sound.

    After a while, there were things that peeked out of the holes that had formed in the ground of this cave. These were¡­mandibles with sharp pincers or these were legs that seemed very thin, but covered in ayer of exoskeleton.

    The things that crawled out of the caves were¡­giant ants.

    As soon as they came out, they looked around as if they were trying to see what was there.

    Though as they looked around, what really moved were the antennas on their heads.

    Ants had blurry vision, so what they really used to find things was chemosense which they did with the antennas on their heads.

    It was during this time that they were able to get a closer look at these ants that had suddenly appeared.

    These were giant ants that seemed to be the same size asrge dogs.

    There wasn''t much that was different about these ants, other than the fact that they were giantpared to normal ants. Other than that, they had the same features as normal ants.

    But there was one thing that caught the eye very quickly about these ants.

    It was that there were some of the ants that were covered in red.

    As for what that red was¡­it was blood.

    It was the blood of the ones that had fallen down into the holes.

    In fact, there was even an ant that had what seemed to be a human arm in between the pincers of its mouth. This arm had a sleeve on it that had the symbol of the Vikal Kingdom army.

    When the Vikal Kingdom soldiers saw this, they began panicking even more.

    The only one that was still calm was themander of these soldiers.

    He knew that there was nothing to gain from losing one''s cool. In fact, losing his cool here would mean the death of not just himself, but his men as well.

    So he had to think of a way out of this.

    After a moment of thought, themander said, "Forward! Charge forward and take down the enemies if you want to live!"

    That was right, he saw that there was nothing happening around us.

    There wasn''t a single hole or any that had appeared around us. It was as if the ants werepletely ignoring us.

    It was just too bad that his orders were drowned out by¡­

    "Screech!"

    There was the sudden screeching that came from the ants before they charged forward at the Vikal Kingdom soldiers.

    The moment that they saw this, all of the soldiers wanted to run away, but they found that this wasn''t possible.

    While they had been in a daze, the ants had appeared behind them as well.

    They werepletely surrounded.

    The only way out was to fight their way out.

    "General, what is this?" One of my subordinates couldn''t help asking.

    I just watched the ants charge forward at the Vikal Kingdom army before saying, "This is the n that I was talking about. This is my way of dealing with these enemies."

    Another one of my subordinates couldn''t help asking, "What are these things?"

    I looked at the ants surging forward and said, "These things are Chimera Ants."

 Chapter 607 Chimera Ants (3)

    <h4>Chapter 607 Chimera Ants (3)</h4>

    The look on their faces made it clear that they wanted to ask more about this, but that was cut off by the screams that came from in front of us.

    We turned back to see the scene of carnage that was happening in front of us.

    There had been a moment of calm before it started, but the moment that the ants found the Vikal Kingdom soldiers, they attacked.

    It wasn''t a simple attack, it was a vicious attack.

    There was no mercy at all as they used their razor sharp pincers to cut into the soft bodies of the humans. The Vikal Kingdom soldiers weren''t able to react at all as they were ripped apart by these sharp pincers.

    The ones that were ripped apart could be considered the lucky ones since they didn''t have to suffer.

    In fact, they almost didn''t feel anything since they died almost instantly.

    The ones that didn''t were the ones that suffered.

    After the first group died, the rest of the soldiers reacted.

    "Ah! What are these monsters?!"

    "Don''te over here! Go away!"

    "Take this! Die!"

    There were many different reactions to the ants that were flooding them, but there was no coordinated action from the soldiers. It was as if they hadpletely forgotten that they were soldiers in the first ce.

    That was until a voice said, "Form your ranks and push them back!"

    It was themander who was now missing an arm.

    His face was pale and his body was covered in blood while he was being supported by two people, but he didn''t back down as he shouted, "We need to form ranks or else we''ll all die here!"

    As soon as he said this, the soldiers slowly came back to their senses and military discipline sank in.

    Without any further hesitation, the soldiers formed shield walls with other soldiers standing behind them with their spears at the ready.

    There were a few failures at first when they found that the sharp pincers of these ants were able to cut right through their strong steel shields. Even if they tried to push the ants back, their lines were being broken by the sharp pincers.

    But then they figured it out.

    It was only the pincers that were sharp, the other parts of the ants weren''t strong enough to break through these shields. They were being pushed back by the shields when they used the shields to push the other parts of the ants.

    At the same time, they also figured out how to hurt the ants.

    The ants had strong exoskeletons that could protect them, but there were gaps in those exoskeletons. It wasn''t as if the exoskeletons could cover the antspletely without any gaps since that wouldpletely stop them from moving.

    There were gaps where the joints were that allowed the ants to move.

    So once they figured that out with a few spears breaking from attacking the exoskeletons, they started aiming for the joints of the ants.

    These joints were the weak points as spears that were stabbed into them went in with ease. As soon as the spear was stabbed in, the limb that the joint held fell off, being separated from the ant''s body.

    After that, the soldiers figured out that the back of the head for the ants were their weak points.

    The exoskeleton at the back of the head was thinner than the exoskeleton around the ants, so they were able to stab through this with ease.

    Once the ants had their heads stabbed, they immediately stopped moving.

    Just like this, they had found a way of dealing with the ants that wereing at them.

    But the problem was that more and more of these ants wereing out of the holes in the ground and it was only a matter of time before they werepletely swarmed by them.

    Themander gritted his teeth when he saw all of this and he didn''t know what to do at first.

    However, he then remembered something and looked in the direction that we were standing in.

    When I saw him looking this way, I just waved my hand at him with a smile on my face.

    Seeing me like this, themander looked at me with a re that would have killed me if looks could kill. It seemed like he wanted nothing more than to rip me to pieces with his bare hands.

    It was just too bad that he wasn''t able to reach me.

    Well, too bad for him.

    It wasn''t as if I wanted to be ripped apart.

    I could see that there was a moment where themander was thinking about charging in our direction, but it seemed that he gave up on this idea in the end. He could see that there were just too many ants in between his group and us, so they wouldn''t be able to get far before they were swarmed by the ants.

    The only upside to this was that¡­we wouldn''t be able to leave.

    I could see in his eyes that he was cursing me to a gruesome death, hoping that I would be eaten by the ants.

    Once he made his decision, themander said, "Retreat! We''re leaving this ce and letting them get swarmed by the ants. We''ll wait outside for the ants to return beforeing back to get their corpses."

    The other soldier also looked in our direction with eyes that were filled with hatred.

    But they followed this order and started leaving the cave.

    Seeing them leave, I just revealed a faint smile.

    However, my subordinates couldn''t calm down as they all revealed worried looks.

    That was because they could see therge number of ants that were in front of us.

    One of them suddenly asked, "How do we get out of here? Is there even a way for us to leave?"

    I shook my head and said, "There''s no need for that."

    When they heard this, they all looked at me with shocked and confused looks.

    But there was also a look in their eyes that seemed to be saying, "Did we just get sacrificed?"

 Chapter 608 Chimera Ants (4)

    <h4>Chapter 608 Chimera Ants (4)</h4>

    ?They didn''t know it, but we were actually perfectly safe in this space.

    There was a reason why I had gone to all that trouble toe to this specific area in the cave.

    That was because in the game, this area was a safe zone from the monsters of this dungeon.

    Of course, that wasn''t my only reason for believing that we were safe.

    I knew that things that were in the game couldn''t be relied on other than information about where certain things were. Things like safe zones were things that were created in the game to help the yers and they wouldn''t transfer over to the real world.

    Or at least that would have been the case for other safe zones.

    This safe zone was an exception since there was an exnation behind this.

    The designer for this dungeon seemed quite meticulous, so they had even written lore for why this area was a safe ce.

    The Chimera Ants made their nests in random caves that they found, so they had no idea what was in the cave that they settled in unless they explored it. Most of the time, the Chimera Ants didn''t do this since they only cared about having enough space to build a nest.

    That meant that they didn''t know about this one safe zone that was in this cave.

    This was a safe zone because there was a perimeter created by a special ore that was in this safe zone.

    This safe zone had a special ore that had only one special effect.

    It was good at repelling bugs because of its scent, which included the Chimera Ants.

    Humans weren''t able to smell this scent, but insects could smell this scent right away as long as they got close.

    It was like the scent of rotting garbage, so the insects would want to stay as far as possible from the source of this scent.

    That meant that as long as they stayed in this area, it would be impossible for them to be attacked by the Chimera Ants.

    But I didn''t want to exin this since I was certain that it would go over their heads.

    At the same time, they wouldn''t believe me in terms of the ore.

    It was not something that could be proven easily without a demonstration first and this was clearly not the time for that.

    So I just shut them down without exining a thing.

    As the Vikal Kingdom soldiers retreated, there were many casualties that urred.

    But since they had figured out how to fight the Chimera Ants, it wasn''t just casualties on their side that was happening. There were casualties on both the side of the soldiers and the side of the Chimera Ants.

    The only thing was that there were far more Chimera Ants than there were soldiers.

    As long as this kept going, it would only be a matter of time before the soldiers werepletely wiped out.

    The only upside was that the soldiers were well trained and they had been steadily making their way to the exit. So even if they did suffer casualties, it seemed like they would be able to escape in the end.

    Only I knew that they werepletely underestimating the Chimera Ants.

    I took out a pocket watch and checked the time before turning back to look at the Chimera Ants and saying, "It''s time."

    After saying that, I said to the others behind me, "You''re about to learn why these ants are called Chimera Ants."

    All of the subordinates revealed confused looks when they heard this.

    After all, they had never been told the name of these ants.

    They were surprised that I knew this and looked at me with strange looks because of it, but I just ignored them as I focused on the fight between the soldiers and Chimera Ants.

    These Chimera Ants gained their name because of what happened when they ate and right now, thetest thing that they ate were the human soldiers of the Vikal Kingdom.

    Something very disturbing was about to happen.

    ¡­

    "Save me! Please save me!"

    When they heard this, the group of soldiers couldn''t help stopping.

    "Captain, that was the rookie''s voice."

    One of the soldiers suddenly said to the captain of this group.

    The captain knitted his brows in deep thought while they were still moving forward, but he knew that as long as they kept moving forward like this, it was only a matter of time before they missed this chance.

    If they wanted to do this, they had to do this now¡­

    So the captain took a deep breath and said, "Break off from the main group and go save the rookie."

    He was allowed to do this because of the structure of militarymand for the Vikal Kingdom troops.

    The various troops were divided into small groups with captainsmanding them.

    They would follow the orders of the general to the best that they could, but they were allowed to move freely as long as it was within the confines of the general''s order.

    This gave the Vikal Kingdom troops a flexibility that other kingdoms didn''t have.

    As they came closer to the source of the voice, they found that this voice wasing from the center of a group of ants. It seemed that whoever this belonged to was about to be food for the ants.

    "Save me! Please save me!"

    The voice that came from the inside at least showed that the rookie was still alive.

    However, the captain knew that they couldn''t wait much longer or else they wouldn''t be able to save the rookie.

    So the captain said, "Rookie, hang in there! We''ll get you out of there soon, just keep your head on your shoulders!"

    Without waiting for a response, the captain said, "Let''s go, shield formation to break through and grab the kid."

    The others all nodded in agreement before following his n.

    By working together, they were able to push aside the ants that were around the source of this voice.

 Chapter 609 Chimera Ants (5)

    <h4>Chapter 609 Chimera Ants (5)</h4>

    After the ants were pushed away, they all looked for the source of this voice.

    They found that there was a human that was lying there with an ant beside it.

    Neither of them seemed to be moving.

    So they quickly formed a defensive line around this area before gathering around the two bodies on the ground.

    Using a spear to push away the ant''s body, they went over to the human body and turned it over.

    While turning it over, the captain said, "Rookie, get up. Stopzing around, we need to run."

    But when they turned the human body around, they found¡­it was a corpse.

    The body had already turnedpletely cold and even the organs had been pulled out of the body, falling to the ground. Their rookie couldn''t be any more dead like this.

    The captain and the soldiers all revealed grim looks when they heard this, but they didn''t waste any time in lifting up the rookie''s corpse and bringing it with them. Since they hade all this way, they would at least bring this back with them.

    Or at least they would have left if it wasn''t for a voice that suddenly said, "Save me! Please save me!"

    As soon as they heard this, all of them looked at the rookie that was being lifted up, but they quickly turned away. That was because they knew that this voice didn''te from the rookie.

    They quickly turned in the direction that this voice came from and they found that it was the ant that they had pushed away.

    While they were all dazed, the ant suddenly turned around and got on its feet before charging at the captain. The captain wasn''t able to react in time and he took the brunt of the ant''s attack right in the chest.

    As he felt the pain fill him, he looked down at the ant to hear, "Save me! Please save me!"

    It was clearly the voice of the rookie, but this voice wasing out of the pincers of the ant.

    Just how was it able to do this?

    It was too bad that the captain wasn''t able to figure this out as the ant suddenly widened its pincers.

    As those pincers spread apart, the chest of the captain was ripped open and his eyes dimmed as he took his final breath.

    After ripping the captain''s chest open, the ant''s pincers came back to bite down on the organs inside of his chest. It quickly bit into the heart and then swallowed it in just two bites.

    It was only at this time that the other soldiers reacted.

    They all quickly raised their weapons and prepared to attack the ant that had just killed their captain.

    But before they could¡­

    That ant suddenly opened its mouth and said, "Rookie,e with me!"

    The weapons in the hands of the soldiers suddenly stopped in midair as they looked at this ant in shock.

    That was because the voice that the ant had just spoken in was¡­the voice of the captain that it just ate.

    All of them felt a chill run down their spines as they realized something.

    The rookie''s corpse had shown signs that it had been eaten by the ants¡­

    And the ant had spoken in the rookie''s voice.

    Then the ant ate the captain''s heart and spoke in the captain''s voice¡­

    Did that mean that these ants had the ability to eat them and steal their voices?

    There was only silence that hung in the air until one person finally said, "What is this monster?"

    As soon as this was said, all of the soldiers let their fear take over and they wanted to destroy this ant as soon as possible. They were about to surround this ant and stab it with their weapons as much as possible, but they found that the situation changed.

    The ants that had been pushed back by their defensive line regrouped and came inrger numbers.

    No, it was better to say that they had suddenly attacked more fiercely than just that they came inrger numbers since in the first ce, there were already a lot of them.

    It was already surprising that they had been able to push back these ants in the first ce with the number of soldiers that they had.

    Since they were soldiers, they quickly figured out what had happened.

    "They led us into a trap and we fell right into it."

    There were bitterughs of despair that rang out as they realized this.

    But then there were determined looks that appeared on the faces of the soldiers.

    It was as if they had suddenlye to a conclusion when they realized that it was impossible for them to escape.

    One senior member of this group raised his spear and said, "Kill! Take as many of them with you as you can! We must rid this world of these evil creatures!"

    The soldiers all roared out in agreement after hearing this before charging out at the ants.

    They put up a much better fight than before because this time, they didn''t care if they lived or died. They knew that they were already dead since they were trapped by the ants, so they were just trying to take as many of the enemies with them as they could.

    Without caring for their lives, they were able to take out quite a few ants since the ants were only strong against those that were afraid of them. They only had a single hard shell and pincers to attack with.

    Quite a few of the ants were taken down as the soldiers mounted a suicidal offense.

    But there were just too many ants in the end that they couldn''t take them all down.

    Once the soldiers were killed¡­

    The ants ate them and started talking in their voices as well, using them to lure even more soldiers in.

    All over the battlefield, the same situation was happening.

 Chapter 610 Chimera Ants (6)

    <h4>Chapter 610 Chimera Ants (6) </h4>

    Chimera Ants, there was a reason why they received this name.

    A chimera was an ancient mythological beast that was formed from thebination of a lion''s head, a goat''s body, and a dragon''s behind. This was a creature that personified a mishmash of random parts to create a terrifying monster.

    As such, the chimeras that were normally found in games were described as monsters that were artificially created when different parts were brought together.

    So for the Chimera Ants to receive this name, there was a reason.

    It was simply because they were able to take in the attributes of the things that they ate that they were given the name chimera.

    That was how that one ant had been able to mimic the voice of the rookie and the captain after eating parts from them.

    In the game, the Chimera Ants had been ssified as a weak monster, but that was only because the yers knew how to deal with them. As long as they weren''t given much to eat, then they wouldn''t be able to pose a threat by integrating attributes from their food into themselves.

    However, those that yed the game also knew how dangerous these Chimera Ants could be.

    There was a reason why they had survived this long even though they had this attribute that made people wary of them. It was simply because there was a powerful individual among the Chimera Ants that had evolved far beyond what normal Chimera Ants were capable of.

    It was just a rumour, but it was said that this Chimera Ant even surpassed the demon king.

    Of course, something like that would break the bnce of the game and had never been included in the game. There were only rumours that were present about this creature in the game and nothing else.

    But now that game world had be reality...it was very likely that this powerful Chimera Ant had be reality.

    I just hoped that I would never run into this thing in the future.

    As my subordinates watched the Chimera Ants swallow the enemy soldiers and gain their voices, they couldn''t help revealing terrified looks. They had never known that such a terrifying creature existed in the world.

    Though they were enemies, they couldn''t help feeling sympathy for the Vikal Kingdom soldiers as they were being ughtered by these Chimera Ants.

    It was simr to how they had watched the Midra Kingdom troops being ughtered on the Rising Land ins by the Blood Worms.

    As fellow humans, they could only feel sympathy for the Vikal Kingdom soldiers that were suffering from this ughter.

    There were parts of them that wanted to shout for them to run, but they held their silence in the end since these were the enemies.

    After a while, the screams finally came to a stop.

    When the screams came to a stop, they no longer had looks of sympathy for the Vikal Kingdom soldiers. Rather, they had looks of worry for themselves since they could see that the Chimera Ants were now wandering around in front of them.

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows too since this wasn''t what I had wanted to see.

    I had expected someone from the Vikal Kingdom army to escape from this ce and lead the Chimera Ants outside.

    But I never thought that they would be so weak that they wouldn''t be able to break through in the end. If they couldn''t break through and lead the Chimera Ants outside where the rest of the Vikal Kingdom army was waiting, that would be a problem for us¡­

    However, as I was debating this, there was noise that came from in front of us.

    As I looked up, I found that there was a group that was still fighting.

    This group had been able to break through the lines of Chimera Ants and reach the exit of this cave.

    This was the group that themander led.

    It seemed that they hadn''t been distracted at all by the mimicked voices of the Chimera Ants, which had allowed them to reach the exit in the end.

    Was it because they were coldhearted or was it because of something else?

    Still, it was a good thing that they were able to make it to the exit in the end.

    After they reached the exit, I saw themander turning back onest time to re at me before they left this cave. The way that he looked at me, it was almost as if he was d that I would be stuck in this cave with the Chimera Ants.

    It was as if he thought that I would be attacked by these Chimera Ants once he left.

    But I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile seeing this.

    If the Chimera Ants had never attacked me before this, why would they attack our group now?

    It was clear that this wouldn''t be what happened if he ran.

    As soon as themander and his group reached the exit, what I expected to happen happened.

    The ones that had been wandering around seemed like they had been summoned by something before gathering at the exit of the cave.

    There were a few that had chased after themander and his troops, but many of them were still inside of this cave. It seemed like they were waiting for something as they gathered in rows.

    It was only when there were enough of them gathered that they suddenly ran out of the cave and chased after themander and his troops that had escaped.

    Seeing the Chimera Ants leave this cave, my subordinates couldn''t help feeling much more relieved. But at the same time, there were looks of sympathy that appeared on their faces as they felt sorry for the Vikal Kingdom army.

    Once the Chimera Ants were all gone, I waved my hand at them and said, "Alright, let''s go. It''s time to earn your keep and do a bit of work."

    They were all confused when they heard this, but they still followed me in the end.

    Though many of them couldn''t help feeling a chill run down their spine.

 Chapter 611 Chimera Ants (7)

    <h4>Chapter 611 Chimera Ants (7)</h4>

    General Risen had been silently waiting for his troops toe back with the good news.

    There wasn''t a single moment where he had doubts that his troops would fail against those fools of an enemy from the Kite Kingdom.

    Theypletely outnumbered them and they were clearly superior to the enemy soldiers, so it was impossible for them to lose even if they tried to lose.

    In the end, he never expected to see his soldiers leaving the cavepletely covered in wounds.

    Even themander that he had sent to watch over them was missing an arm.

    When he saw the way that they were running out, General Risen immediately said, "Battle formation! Protect our allies and rout the enemies!"

    This was just his military professionalism.

    Even though he had no idea what the situation was, he didn''t let his guard down for a minute and gave orders in an instant.

    The soldiers that were gathered quickly formed ranks and went forward to support themander''s group.

    But before they could reach themander''s group, there were these creatures that came out of the cave.

    When they looked closely at these creatures, they saw that they were...giant ants.

    Though they were soldiers with military discipline drilled into them, they still weren''t able to react to this situation. After all, no normal person would have been able to expect all of these giant ants to run out all of a sudden.

    But it was a good thing that there was a fair bit of distance between them and the ants.

    With this distance, they were able to react to the ants and form defensive lines to save themander''s group.

    It was just that they didn''t know what to expect with the ants, so there were a few holes that were created in their lines. Their shields were cut through by the sharp fangs of the ants.

    Then the ants started pulling soldiers out of the line to bring them into their lines.

    Before the soldiers could do anything, there were a few of them that were abducted.

    Once they were behind their allies, themander ignored his injuries and turned around to say, "Don''t attack them head on, they only have sharp fangs! If you attack them from the side, they won''t be able to break through the shields! Target their joints, it''s their weakness!"

    The soldiers were caught off guard by the sudden advice from themander, but they quickly reacted and followed his orders.

    When they did, they found that it was much easier for them to take down the ants.

    Though there was still the problem that there were just too many ants. The ants were able to use their numbers to push them back since they were quite strong for ants.

    At the same time, it was worrying how there were more and more ants that were pouring out of the cave.

    At this rate, it really seemed like they would be swallowed by the ants.

    General Risen came down from his vantage point to where themander was and said, "What happened? Where did all of these giant antse from?"

    Themander revealed a bitter look on his face that also had a trace of hatred as he told the general everything that happened in the cave.

    As General Risen listened to his story, his expression became uglier and he clenched his fists.

    When it was over, he said through gritted teeth, "Damn! It was a trap!"

    Themander didn''t say anything, but the look on his face made it clear what he was thinking.

    General Risen didn''t care about this and turned to look at the ants before saying, "Is there really no way to confirm that he is dead? I want to tear his body apart for what he''s done."

    Themander said with a look of hatred, "I do too, but now is not the time. We must retreat as soon as possible and hold a perimeter around this cave until the ants are gone. Or else we will have to deal with these ants when we take this territory." After a pause, themander said, "I suggest we gather tinder afterwards and burn down this cave."

    General Risen gave a nod of agreement, but he didn''t have time to give the order to retreat as voices came from the ant lines.

    "Save me! Please save me!"

    "I don''t want to die! I don''t want to die!"

    These were the voices of the soldiers that had just been taken by the ants.

    As soon as these voices rang out, there were groups of soldiers that decided to attempt a rescue mission. After all, these voices weren''t that far away and they would have the backup of the shield line if anything went wrong.

    They didn''t think that there would be anything that went wrong if they went to save them.

    But themander said, "Don''t! It''s a trap! The ants can steal our voices if they eat us!"

    It was already toote for that as many groups were suddenly surrounded by ants when he said this. The ants suddenly surged forward and cut those groups off from the rest of the Vikal Kingdom army.

    In no time at all, the soldiers that had gone out disappeared without a trace before their voices also came from the ants.

    The soldiers that had heard what themander said immediately felt a chill run down their spine.

    After all, not a single one of them had ever met a monster like this that could steal their voices from eating them.

    They all wanted to run, but in the end, it wasn''t military discipline that stopped them from running.

    Rather, it was the fact that they would have been killed by the ants if they broke their lines and ran, so that was what motivated them to stay.

    General Risen had a very ugly expression on his face as he was about to give the order to retreat.

    But once again, something else happened.

    Arrows suddenly rained down from the sky from behind them.

 Chapter 612 Chimera Ants (8)

    <h4>Chapter 612 Chimera Ants (8)</h4>

    On the other side, General Killock had been silently watching the Vikal Kingdom army the entire time.

    That was because before Count Zwein left, he had given instructions to General Killock.

    General Killock had been leading the army to follow behind the Vikal Kingdom army the entire time. They had been so focused on chasing down Count Zwein''s group that they never noticed General Killock''s group.

    But even when they reached this cave and General Killock had already surrounded the Vikal Kingdom army, they had never made a move.

    That was because Count Zwein had given him the order to remain in ce until he saw movement from inside of the cave.

    So it was only when the ants started pouring out that General Killock started moving his men. However, he didn''t let his men attack the Vikal Kingdom army right as the ants came out.

    After following Count Zwein for some time now, he knew that none of his moves were simple.

    Since the ants were facing the Vikal Kingdom army, then it was very likely that something simr to the Rising Land ins would happen again here. So he knew that it was better to wait for the right chance to strike instead of attacking right away.

    That was why the arrows only fell down when the ants had shown what they were capable of.

    General Killock knew what General Risen would be thinking at this time as a fellow general, so of course he wouldn''t be giving him that chance. The moment that General Risen wanted to retreat, there were arrows that rained down on the Vikal Kingdom army.

    At the same time, General Killock gave the order, "Everyone, stand and fire!"

    There were more archers that appeared all of a sudden and fired a second volley.

    General Killock knew that in situations like this, it was best to have multiple lines firing continuously to create pressure on the enemy.

    But he didn''t attack them right after the first volley since he had wanted to throw them into chaos before that.

    This n worked perfectly as the Vikal Kingdom soldiers werepletely thrown into a panic at this.

    There were many soldiers that didn''t know which way to turn as they were being attacked from two different directions. So there were many soldiers that were just spinning their shields around.

    These soldiers were stabbed in the back either by arrows or by the pincers of the ants attacking them.

    In an instant, there were many Vikal Kingdom soldiers that fell.

    General Killock knew that there was no need for him to give any more orders since his men knew what to do, so he picked up a bow and arrow as well.

    As a general, he naturally knew how to use bows as well as fight with swords and spears.

    His target was...General Risen.

    As a general who had served in the military for many years, he had naturally faced the various generals of the surrounding kingdom.

    This General Risen was one of the ones that he actually had a rivalry with because of something that happened in the past.

    General Risen had been the cause of one of his most embarrassing defeats, so it was impossible for him to forget this General Risen.

    Today, he would take his revenge.

    He could even thank Count Zwein for giving him this chance to take this revenge.

    Taking a deep breath, General Killock fired an arrow that went straight and true for General Risen.

    However, General Risen was not a pushover.

    There was a reason why he had defeated General Killock on the battlefield before.

    At the veryst second, General Risen turned and shed the arrow out of the air with a single swing of his sword.

    That arrow was cut in half and fell to the ground beside him, but General Risen didn''t stop as his eyes turned to look at General Killock standing above him.

    Just like how General Killock recognized General Risen, it was the same for General Risen.

    After all, he had met this General Killock for many years on the battlefield.

    After a long silence, General Risen said, "Work with us to take care of these ants! I''m sure that you wouldn''t want this in your kingdom, right?!"

    General Killock just gave a coldugh before saying, "You think that we can''t deal with them?"

    General Risen slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but then he said, "Your general is still inside of the cave, do you not care about what happens to him? If you help us, we will help you get him."

    General Killock didn''t waver at all as he said, "You can say what you want, but you won''t be able to escape this ce today. You will fall under our arrows or under the jaws of these ants."

    General Risen''s expression became very ugly after hearing this before he said, "You will regret this! You cannot control these ants, you will all die under their pincers at this rate!"

    The only response that General Killock gave was to raise his bow again to point at General Risen.

    General Risen''s expression became uglier, but there was nothing that he could do about this.

    After all, it was clear who had the advantage here.

    General Killock fired his arrow as he said, "Keep up the waves of arrows and don''t give them even a second of respite."

    In response to this, the archers just kept firing in sequence.

    General Risen cut down the arrow that came his way again before saying, "Group up and break out! Don''t worry about the ants, we''re just focusing on retreating!"

    The two sides did what they could, but it was very clear what the results would be.

    As time passed, more and more of the Vikal Kingdom soldiers started to fall under the arrows and the pincers of the ants.

    But as this happened, there was something that General Killock was worried about.

    There were still many ants that were left¡­

 Chapter 613 Chimera Ants (9)

    <h4>Chapter 613 Chimera Ants (9)</h4>

    Inside of the cave.

    After the Chimera Ants chased the Vikal Kingdom soldiers away, I led my group over to the closest hole in the ground in front of us.

    They all had worried looks as we stood there in front of the whole, as if they were afraid that we would be ambushed by more Chimera Ants.

    But I just calmly poked my head out and looked down into the hole.

    As I looked down, I saw that it wasn''t that deep like I had expected and that it would be easy to jump down.

    So without any hesitation, I went forward to jump into the hole.

    Or at least that was what I had been nning on doing, but there were two people that stepped forward that suddenly grabbed me.

    It was Shaka and Cecilia.

    Naturally they had alsoe with me on this mission, but they had been silently watching since they trusted me.

    Still that was apletely different matter from me jumping down the hole.

    The two of them held my arms and just lifted me off the ground, not letting me go any further forward.

    While holding me like this, Cecilia asked, "What are you doing?"

    Though Shaka didn''t say anything, it was clear by the way that he looked at me that he was thinking of asking the same thing.

    I just looked at them and said with a calm look, "I''m going down to find the queen of the Chimera Ants."

    It wasn''t just the two of them, almost all of my subordinates suddenly looked at me like I was a crazy person.

    Though if I was in their shoes and someone said the same thing to me, I would have thought the same. They had just witnessed the scene of the Chimera Ants ughtering the entire Vikal Kingdom army troop, so it wouldn''t be strange if they were terrified of these Chimera Ants.

    I just shook my head with a faint smile before saying, "We can''t leave anyway and if we just leave them here, the Chimera Ants will eventually hurt the innocent. We should at least take care of this before leaving, right?"

    Though I said this, my real goal was to get the treasure that came from clearing this dungeon.

    The Vikal Kingdom army had already cleared out most of this ce, so of course I would reap the benefits that they left behind.

    They all looked at me with strange looks, but it didn''t seem like they disagreed with what I said.

    It was only Cecilia and Shaka who looked at me with gazes like they were questioning me before Cecilia asked, "Is it dangerous?"

    I thought about it before saying, "It''s a little dangerous, but as long as I''m here, it should be fine."

    There was a moment of silence before they slowly let me down.

    I let out a sigh of relief seeing this before turning back to the hole to gauge the jump down. However, what I didn''t expect was that Cecilia and Shaka jumped down before I could even do anything.

    Both of them didn''t seem to have any fear as they jumped right down, which made me reveal an awkward look.

    I never thought that the two of them would trust me this much.

    They didn''t fall that far down andnded without any problems. They were still close enough that I was able to see them without any problems.

    However, the two of them didn''t continue further down the tunnel that they hadnded in as they turned around to look up at me. Then the two of them raised their arms as if they were waiting to catch something.

    It took me a few seconds to understand what was happening.

    They had turned around to wait for me to jump down so they could catch me.

    I couldn''t help revealing an even more awkward look, but I still jumped down on the end into their waiting arms.

    Afternding, I ignored the rest of them as they struggled on whether toe down or not and started looking on the ground. I was looking for the tracks that had been left behind by the Chimera Ants.

    These were their tunnels, so of course there would be tracks left behind.

    As for the other subordinates, they eventually jumped down after arge amount of internal struggle. Though they didn''t get the same treatment as me, so many of them misjudged their jump because of how dark it was and theynded on their butts or faces.

    After a while, I suddenly stood up and turned in a direction before saying, "This way."

    There were two ways for us to go since this was a tunnel, but I figured out which way to go from the tracks of the ants.

    It was to go in the reverse direction since that would be where their nest was.

    The others looked at me with a strange look, but they still followed me. This time, they followed with much less resistance than before.

    After all, we were already down here, so there was nowhere else for them to go. Their only choice was to follow me since I was the only one that seemed to know what I was doing.

    We eventually came to a crossroad where there were several different paths for us to take.

    However, I just looked carefully on the ground for tracks before choosing one of the paths.

    This was the path that had the most ant tracks, so this was the one that they all took to reach their nest.

    After passing several crossroads, I finally raised my hand for the rest of our group to stop.

    All of them had serious looks on their faces since they could hear the same thing as me.

    There were the sounds of ant feet skittering that wereing from in front of us.

    It was clear that we had arrived at the nest of these Chimera Ants.

 Chapter 614 Chimera Ants (10)

    <h4>Chapter 614 Chimera Ants (10)</h4>

    As soon as we arrived at this nest, I had the others put out a few torches.

    Though I knew that it wouldn''t really help since the ants would be using chemosense in the first ce, it would at least make the others a bit more relieved since they didn''t know that.

    As we reached the end of this tunnel, I had them stay back while I peeked my head into the room in front of us.

    This was a room that was quiterge and filled with strange columns, but what caught my attention was therge nest that was right in the center of the room. On top of that nest was an ant that was clearly different from the rest.

    First was the size of this ant.

    It was more than three timesrger than the other ants.

    Second was the strange thing that was on the head of this ant.

    There was this thing that seemed like a crown that was on the head of this ant, but it didn''t seem like it was an essory that was made of something else. It seemed like this was some kind of growth that wasing out of the head of this ant.

    This was clearly the queen ant since I could even see that she was stillying more eggs.

    After identifying the queen ant, I quickly looked around the room to see just how many ants were in here.

    As expected, there were only a few ants that were wandering around this ce.

    With the people that I had brought, it was enough to take care of these ants.

    So after scouting out the room, I turned back to the others toy out my n.

    When I was done, they all looked at me as if they thought that I was crazy.

    All I did was give a nod as if I was confirming that this was indeed the n that we were going to use.

    They really didn''t know what to say, but Cecilia asked, "Are you certain that you''ll be able to take care of the queen ant on your own?"

    I gave a strong nod as I said, "I have a secret way of handling the queen ant as long as I can get to her. Once I take care of that, it will be easy for us to take care of the remaining ants."

    There were many looks of doubt that were aimed in my direction, so I added, "If we don''t do this, what do you think will happen once the ants finish off the Vikal Kingdom army?"

    The looks of doubt on their faces turned ugly when they heard this.

    Right, once those ants finished taking care of the enemy, wouldn''t theye back here?

    There was no way out for us unless we did something about the ants that were outside. Once they finished off the Vikal Kingdom army, then they woulde back to where the queen ant was.

    They woulde back here and finish us off.

    So the only path forward was to follow my lead.

    But there were some looks of me that were aimed in my direction because of this.

    After all, if it wasn''t for me, would that ants have even been stirred in the first ce?

    No, I was the one that had led the Vikal Kingdom army here for them to be ughtered by these ants.

    Still¡­

    "If you have time to me me, then you have time to think about your survival. Think of how you will defeat these ants here and make your way out of here."

    I just said in a calm voice, without a single care for the looks that they gave me.

    Their expressions slowly changed before settling on determined looks that were much better than the looks that they had before. At the very least, they were determined to make it out of this ce alive.

    With that, we were ready.

    Cecilia and Shaka were the ones that took the lead, forming two different groups.

    As soon as they entered the room, they split off in two different directions.

    They didn''t head straight forward, but rather slightly to the side. It was as if they were cutting the diagonal to reach the sides of the room. But even then, they didn''t go all the way as they stopped in the middle.

    Once they stopped, they formed two different lines on either side of the center of this cave.

    With the way that they were positioned, it seemed like they were creating a path.

    Well, it was a path.

    They were creating a path for me to reach the queen ant.

    Since we had appeared in the room so suddenly, the ants weren''t able to react in time to stop us.

    It was only after we had formed this line that the ants finally reacted.

    It was also during this time that I made a mad dash at the queen ant that was sitting atop the hive.

    The queen ant looked like it was panicking as it turned its head back and forth, almost as if it was trying tomand the ants around it to protect it. However, the line did its job and prevented the ants from reaching the queen.

    The main line that was around the ant queen was led by Shaka and even without the help of others, Shaka was able to push back most of the ants alone.

    However, it was clear that this wouldn''tst long since I could see the green glow that was around him.

    Shaka did not hold back at all as he used all of his power to block the ants.

    He was doing this because he believed in me and that I would have a solution to get us out of this.

    So I ran even faster at the queen ant.

    The queen ant could see that there were no soldier ants that could help it, so it started to move as if it wanted to run.

    It was just too bad that the queen ant was too heavy to move properly.

    In the end, I was able to reach the queen ant and stand right in front of her.

 Chapter 615 Chimera Ants (11)

    <h4>Chapter 615 Chimera Ants (11)</h4>

    When the queen ant saw me standing there, she started to squirm as if she was trying to do something to fight back.

    But her physique didn''t let her.

    She was three times as big as a normal Chimera Ant, but she was also three times as fat. No, it was more like five times and that was still being generous.

    However, one couldn''t me her since she was clearly still carrying more eggs in her.

    That was what I was aiming for in the first ce.

    There was something that no one knew about the queen ant that only I knew.

    It was that the queen ant carried a special fetus inside of her.

    Unlike the rest of the soldier and worker ants that were born from eggs, there was one special ant that wasn''t born from eggs like the rest. This was a child that she would only give birth to at the end of her life cycle.

    It was the fetus for a new queen ant, the one that would take over once the queen ant died.

    That was also my goal for this entire trip.

    After all, I had a special method of controlling that queen ant fetus.

    As long as I could control that queen ant fetus, then it would be possible for me to make sure of the Chimera Ants in the future.

    I just calmly pulled out a sword as I faced this queen ant.

    For once, I didn''t use Durand since it would be dangerous to use Durand against this queen ant. There was no knowing what kind of effects Durand would have on the queen ant if I used it on the queen ant.

    I couldn''t take that risk.

    There was another thing about this queen ant that I knew that others didn''t know.

    It didn''t have any fighting capabilities.

    Though it was trying to act tough right now by pretending to put up resistance, I knew from my experience in the game that this queen ant wasn''t really capable of anything. Chimera Ants had their own roles and this queen ant''s role was to give birth to new members of the colony.

    Only the soldier ants which were the ones that were fighting my group actually had the ability to fight.

    Even the worker ants couldn''t do anything as I could see them cowering from the corner of my eyes.

    I came right up in front of the queen ant and she raised one of her feet to attack me, but it was too easy for me to dodge. With how fat she was, she could barely even move it 45 degrees, so it was no problem for me to dodge out of the way.

    Once I stepped out of the way, I just simply stabbed my sword right under the jaw of the queen ant.

    This was more knowledge from the game.

    I knew that unlike the other ants, the queen was so fat that her exoskeleton actually cut off the rest of her joints. There was no ce to attack other than this one spot under her jaw that had to remain open for her mouth.

    So it was easy to stab right up into the head of the queen and stab her brain.

    The light in the eyes of the queen ant dimmed after its head was stabbed like this.

    In her final moments, she looked at me as if she was saying, "Why?"

    However, there wasn''t an answer that I could give her.

    This was just how nature was, it was survival of the fittest and in this case, we were the ones that were more fit.

    After the ant queen died, the ants suddenly stalled for a second.

    However, I knew that this was just a fake, so I said, "Don''t let your guards down! Hold them back a bit longer!"

    Everyone was surprised to hear this, but they quickly understood why I said this.

    That was because the ants¡­suddenly went crazy.

    Theypletely lost their mind and just started attacking without a single care about their own safety. But all that did was make it easier for our soldiers to take them down since it was easy for them to bait these ants while they were in a frenzy.

    At the same time, this gave me a chance to interact with the queen ant corpse without anyone seeing anything since they were too focused on taking care of the surrounding ants.

    I ignored the head of the queen ant and went lower, heading to its gaster.

    Once I was there, I reached my sword down to where its butt was and then quickly inserted my sword in.

    From the very beginning, I had no ns of bringing this sword back, so I didn''t hesitate to stab it into the queen ant.

    As for why I was doing this, it wasn''t some kind of strange fetish.

    Rather, it was because I couldn''t cut through the queen ant unless I did this.

    Her body was hard on the outside and soft on the inside, so I was only able to cut her open by doing this.

    I made sure to cut the gaster of the queen ant open and there were a bunch of eggs that fell out. However, these eggs were not the things that I was interested in.

    I dug through the eggs until I found a single ant fetus that was lying among the eggs.

    This ant fetus didn''t seem to be moving, but I knew that it was still alive, so I pulled out a potion that I poured over the ant fetus. When the potion fell onto the ant fetus, there was movement that came from it.

    Seeing this, I pulled out another potion that I poured over the ant fetus.

    This time, the potion was quickly absorbed by the ant fetus and it started to change.

    In no time at all, the ant fetus started to grow until it was around a quarter of the size of the normal ants.

    Seeing this, I gave a satisfied nod as I put the small ant down.

    After that, I took out a leaf that I held in front of the ant.

 Chapter 616 Chimera Ants (12)

    <h4>Chapter 616 Chimera Ants (12)</h4>

    There was no movement at first from the ant, but then it suddenly opened its mouth and swallowed the leaf that I was holding up in front of it.

    As soon as it swallowed this leaf, it suddenly opened its eyes.

    I made sure that I had been right in front of it when it opened its eyes, so the first thing that this ant saw was me.

    After seeing me, the ant paused for a second before suddenlying forward to nuzzle up against me.

    This leaf was a rare leaf that had a special effect on insect monsters. As long as this leaf was fed to an insect monster, then it would create an imprinting effect where they would follow the first living creature that they saw.

    It was only because I had this that I felt confident enough to take care of these Chimera Ants.

    I really had to thank the second prince and the fourth prince for giving this thing to me.

    This was in the treasures of the second prince that the fourth prince gave me.

    After getting this ant to imprint on me, I immediately cut off a small part of my flesh for it to eat. It was only a small part of my arm that was only the top part of the skin, so it didn''t bleed that much.

    Though to say that it didn''t hurt would have been aplete lie.

    The little ant looked worried about me at first, but I just offered it my flesh as I said, "I''m fine."

    The little ant still looked at me with that worried look for a bit, but in the end, it still ate the flesh that I offered it.

    I waited for it to finish eating my flesh before asking, "Do you understand me now?"

    The little ant slowly gave a nod, though there was a bit of a confused look on its face.

    That wasn''t strange since one moment, it didn''t really understand what I was saying and then the next, it started understanding the words that wereing out of my mouth.

    This was a queen ant that was just born a few minutes ago, so it wasn''t as if it knew about its abilities just yet.

    Even if the Chimera Ants could grow faster than other species, this was still a queen ant that had the mentality of a child while being forced to grow up by me.

    But there was no time for this queen ant to slowly grow.

    Though I did have to think of a way to address it.

    "Queeny, I want you to..."

    The queen ant listened to what I had to say, but it had a confused look during this.

    It was as if it couldn''t understand what I was saying at first.

    But it seemed like eventually it was able to figure it out.

    With the way that it looked down at its feet, it was like it was slowly figuring out just what it was capable of.

    When it was done, it just gave a nod and turned to face the other ants that were in this room.

    ¡­

    "Hold!"

    Cecilia called out as she faced these ants that were charging at them without any care for their own lives.

    Once the queen ant had been taken down, the ants had gone crazy and started attacking without a single care for their own lives.

    Though this did make it easier for them since the ants could easily be baited into bad positions, it didn''t mean that it waspletely easy. It took a lot more concentration to deal with the ants now that they were fighting without a single moment of hesitation.

    They didn''t care if they lost their lives, so they had to make sure not to fall into the clutches of the ants.

    That meant that they had to pay more attention to dodge out of the way.

    But this extra attention meant that it was a strain on their mental capacity.

    At this rate, they would be exhausted just from focusing on the ants and keeping up with them.

    However, Cecilia believed in her man.

    He was the one that had killed the queen ant and he was the one that said that he would be able to take care of these ants as long as he was given some time.

    This was a man that had surprised her again and again, so the only thing that was left in her heart was trust for this man.

    But¡­

    There was a soldier that had slipped and was about to be stabbed by the pincers of the ant that he was facing.

    With how sharp those pincers were, there was no doubt that he would be pierced through by them.

    Without hesitation, Cecilia ran forward with her sword raised as if she was nning to block it herself. But at thest second, she was able to find an opening on this ant and she was able to stab it in the abdomen, cutting it in half.

    For a second, she let her guard down and that was all that it took.

    "Watch out!"

    When she heard this, she turned to see another anting right at her with its pincers opened as if it was about to snap them onto her body.

    Cecilia knew that it was already toote, so all she could do was raise her sword to block it and brace herself for the pain. She hoped that she would be able to take it with her well trained body and her armour.

    But before it could reach her, there was a seam that appeared in the center of the ant.

    Then that seam split and the ant was cut in half, falling to the sides in front of her.

    She then felt a strong arm take her into its embrace and when she looked up, she saw a familiar face.

    I looked down at her and said with a smile, "Who told you to be so reckless? You almost gave me a heart attack."

 Chapter 617 Chimera Ants (13)

    <h4>Chapter 617 Chimera Ants (13)</h4>

    I really did almost have a heart attack when I saw Cecilia acting this way.

    I had thought that I would be able to trust her with this, but it seemed like I had been too negligent.

    At the very least, I should have given her something that would have kept her safe even if the others were hurt.

    No, that was the wrong way to think...

    I was only thinking that way since I was scared of the fact that I had almost lost her. It was making me think in ways that I shouldn''t be thinking.

    But when I saw that ant almost pierce her with its pincers, my heart almost jumped out of my chest.

    Cecilia had been in a daze the whole time as I held her before she lowered her head to say, "I''m sorry, I was being reckless."

    However, she didn''t stay like that for long as she remembered that they were still surrounded by the ants. She didn''t have time to remain idle as the ants could attack at any moment.

    So Cecilia pushed her way out of his embrace and prepared to fight.

    It was just that there were no more enemies for her to fight.

    The ants were no longer attacking them, but rather they were attacking each other.

    It was as if they had gonepletely crazy as the ants were attacking each other with their pincers, ripping each other apart. But when one looked closely, they could see the hesitation that was in the ants.

    It was clear that they didn''t want to do this, but it was as if there was something forcing them to do this.

    Though as for what could force these powerful Chimera Ants into doing this, they had no idea. They couldn''t even begin to imagine just what wouldpel them into doing this.

    I just ignored the ants as they killed each other and gathered everyone around.

    It seemed that most of us had only suffered minor injuries in this fight, though our group really was exhausted because of the intense fighting.

    Shaka was the one that had it the worst since he was the one that had used all of his trump cards to push back the ants as much as he could. It seemed like he was barely able to move, but he was still pushing himself forward.

    Once I made sure that they were still able to move, I said, "Let''s go outside, we still have more enemies to take care of."

    All of them except Cecilia and Shaka looked at me with bitter looks when they heard this before one of them asked, "How? There are still a bunch of ants and enemy soldiers outside."

    "I''m the one that caused the ants to act that way. They won''t attack us as long as they are like that and they will only focus on attacking the enemies." I said in a calm voice.

    They all looked at me with shocked looks, including Cecilia and Shaka.

    Even if they had already expected this, hearing me say it out loud waspletely different.

    But they were able to quickly ept it.

    Simply put, it was because they were slowly adapting to all of the things that I had been doing. I had shown that anything that I did was far beyondmon sense, so they had to ept it or else they would go crazy.

    If anything, humans were adaptable.

    So we didn''t care about the rest of the ants and followed the marks that we had made back to the same hole as before.

    Since this hole wasn''t thatrge, it was easy for us to climb back up through it ande out to the same room as before. Then following the same path as before, we made our way out of the cave.

    It was just that when we came out of the cave, we found that the fight was already basically over.

    General Killock had followed my instructions and brought the army with him to take care of the remnants of the Vikal Kingdom army, so there was nothing left for us to do.

    The only concern was what the remaining Chimera Ants would do after the Vikal Kingdom army was finished, which was why General Killock had been keeping his men back still.

    They seemed like they were ready to fight the Chimera Ants when it came down to it.

    But with me here, there was no need for that.

    Since the Vikal Kingdom army wasn''t able to do anything anymore, I just confidently strode out of the cave.

    The others were too focused on the fight that they hadn''t been able to stop me.

    So in the end, they had no choice but to follow me out.

    The moment that we came out, we were noticed by both sides.

    General Risen had managed to gather the few troops that he had left with him to form a defensive line, but it didn''t seem like it wouldst long. However, the moment that he saw my grouping out of the cave, he no longer cared about that.

    At this point, he knew that he would be dead, so there was only one thing that he needed to do.

    Leading the charge, General Risen shouted, "Charge with me and kill him!"

    The soldiers had been surprised, but they also started charging with looks of rage on their faces.

    It seemed like they also couldn''t hold back their anger towards me since I was the one that had forced them into this situation.

    With the way that they were charging, it seemed like they were going to do a suicidal charge and with the way that the ants cut them down from the sides, it seemed like this was the case.

    General Killock looked at me and wanted to lead his men to help, but I just raised my hand for him to stay back.

    Seeing General Risen charging at me like this, I just revealed a confident smile.

 Chapter 618 Chimera Ants (14)

    <h4>Chapter 618 Chimera Ants (14)</h4>

    The ones that were behind me revealed anxious looks and Cecilia even wanted toe in front of me.

    Shaka would have done the same if he had been able to move, but he was just too exhausted from the fight in the cave.

    However, I just raised my hand for Cecilia to stop.

    She looked at me with a confused look, but I shook my head with a confident smile and said, "It''ll be fine."

    Though there was still a trace of doubt in her eyes, she trusted me in the end and moved back.

    As General Risen led his troops, he personally cut down all of the ants that were in his way. With each Chimera Ant that he cut down, the morale of his troops surged as they followed him forward.

    With how fast they were going, it didn''t seem like there was anything that would be able to slow them down.

    It seemed like a matter of time before they would reach us and cut us down.

    After all, there were more people in General Risen''s group than there were in my group.

    We were only a small group of around a hundred that had baited them. General Risen had brought an entire army and even after the ughter with the Chimera Ants, he still had up to two thousand troops with him.

    As long as they could reach us, it would surely be a one sided ughter.

    So naturally my move was to stop them from reaching us.

    Though it seemed like that was unlikely to happen.

    That was until I suddenly raised my hand and the ants started to move.

    No one noticed this at first since the ants only reacted slightly. There wasn''t much movement from the ants that would attract much attention from anyone.

    But then all of a sudden, the ants suddenly started charging at General Risen''s group. This was much more than just a few ants charging at them, it was aplete frenzy as all of the ants charged at them at once.

    Even if the fight had been going on for a while, there were still over five thousand ants that were here.

    With these numbers, General Risen''s group had no choice but to slow down in the end. Even if they wanted to keep pushing, they were stopped by the waves of ants that came at them.

    As soon as General Risen cut down one ant, there were three more that took this ant''s ce. So even if he could cut them down, he wasn''t able to move forward anymore.

    In no time at all, they werepletely surrounded by these ants.

    There was a look of despair that appeared on General Risen''s face, but he wasn''t a fool.

    He knew that there had to be a sudden reason for the change in the behaviour of the ants.

    Before this, the ants had only attacked in scattered groups and didn''t seem to work together. But now, it was clear that the ants were following the orders of amander and were working together to surround them.

    With the numbers disadvantage and the natural physical advantages of the ants, it was clear that they wouldn''t be able to face them like this.

    So in short, they werepletely trapped.

    The ants had only started acting this way when Count Zwein came out of the cave.

    So General Risen looked right at Count Zwein and asked, "What did you do?"

    His voice wasn''t too loud or soft, but it could be heard clearly.

    When I heard this, I didn''t hide it at all as I said, "What do you think I did?"

    The taunting tone of my voice made everything clear.

    There were very ugly and hostile looks that appeared on the faces of the Vikal Kingdom soldiers.

    If looks could kill, I would have been ughtered by all the dirty looks that I was receiving.

    They wanted nothing more than to tear me to pieces with their bare hands.

    It was just too bad that they would never get that chance.

    After a moment of silence, General Risen asked, "Is it possible to surrender still? I do not wish to waste any more lives."

    The way that he said this, it was clear that he cared deeply for his men. They seemed very touched when they heard him say this.

    However, I could see from his eyes that his real goal was¡­to save his own life.

    No matter how great a general was, it was impossible for him not to care about his own life.

    But it was too bad that I wasn''t nning on taking prisoners in the first ce.

    First, it was because my army wasn''t equipped to take prisoners in the first ce. We could take them, but we would have to eventually drop them off in a garrison to be held.

    The closest garrison was Vayne City.

    That was the second reason why I didn''t want to take prisoners.

    There was no knowing what Duke Yuletide would do with these prisoners once he received them.

    He was still a duke of the kingdom regardless of what he had done previously. So if he wanted to do something with these prisoners, he had his full rights to do so as the duke andmander of this city.

    It was only when a royal decree came that he would be forced to hand over the prisoners to the capital.

    But before the decree came, there were many things that the duke could do.

    So if the prisoners of war were to suddenly die¡­no one would be able to prove anything if they suddenly went missing.

    As long as Duke Yuletide was in charge of Vayne City, then there was no way that I could allow this to happen.

    It really was true that sometimes bad allies were more terrifying than powerful enemies.

    So I just shook my head and said, "Unfortunately, we don''t have the capacity to take prisoners right now."

    As I said this, there was a bit of a hostile tone in my voice.

    That was rted to the third reason.

    They were invaders of our kingdom, of our home.

    I didn''t want to let them off easy in the first ce.

 Chapter 619 Chimera Ants (15)

    <h4>Chapter 619 Chimera Ants (15)</h4>

    General Risen didn''t seem surprised at all when he heard this.

    The look on his face made it clear that he was already expecting this answer, but he still had to ask for his men.

    "Then we''ll fight to the end." General Risen said in a calm voice before suddenly raising his voice to shout, "It was an honour serving with you all! Now we fight to the death!"

    The soldiers behind him had no hesitation at all as they shouted, "Yes, general!"

    It was a simple response, but it was all that was needed.

    Once their voices fell, they went all out in trying to push away the Chimera Ants. They weren''t trying to kill the Chimera Ants, they were just trying to push them back so they could create a path for themselves.

    It seemed that they had given up on fighting the Chimera Ants.

    It wasn''t that they couldn''t defeat the Chimera Ants.

    They knew how to fight the Chimera Ants and had already ughtered quite a few of these Chimera Ants.

    Instead, they were targeting something else.

    They were targeting me.

    General Risen wasn''t a fool, he had been able to figure out from the performance that I was the one that was controlling the Chimera Ants. But that also meant that as long as I was taken care of, there would be no one left to hold the Chimera Ants.

    Before this, the Chimera Ants had rampaged freely, attacking whatever they wanted to attack.

    That was why General Killock had kept his forces back in the first ce and had only fired arrows down at the Vikal Kingdom army to deter them. He didn''t want to risk his men approaching the Chimera Ants and being injured by them.

    That meant that as long as I was killed as the one controlling them, the Chimera Ant would revert back to their previous ways.

    They would be free to attack whatever they wanted to attack without a single care.

    That would mean that General Killock and his army would have to deal with them before they started hurting the people in the surrounding viges.

    As such, they would at least be able to hurt General Killock and his men with the Chimera Ants.

    At the same time, they would be able to take revenge on the person who had put them in this dire situation in the first ce.

    This was theirst attempt at doing something meaningful with their lives.

    That all depended on being able to reach me and taking me out.

    But the ants were just too strong for them.

    If they were scattered like before, the Vikal Kingdom soldiers might have been able to do something. But since they were working together, that meant that they could also do things like bait them.

    It seemed like the Vikal Kingdom soldiers would be able to break free of the encirclement of the ants at first, but then it turned out that they were just being lured in.

    The ants had allowed them to move forward so that they could trap them.

    Once they had put most of their forces in the front, the ants had wrapped around the back to attack them from behind.

    Since they were doing a suicidal attack, it was inevitable that those that were injured and weakened would fall behind the others that were charging at full force. Those were the ones that the ants targeted.

    But they thought that they would be able to make it through the ants, so they used them as a sacrifice.

    It was just that this turned out to be useless in the end.

    The ants that had been pushed back suddenly turned around and formed aplete line in front of them.

    This line waspletely different from the mess that they were in before.

    This line was a proper line that utilized their individual strength as a total, which made them much stronger than before. So no matter how the Vikal Kingdom soldiers pushed, they couldn''t move forward a single inch.

    It was like facing a steel wall.

    When General Risen realized this, he knew that he had beenpletely seen through.

    But what shocked him even more was the fact that the ants could work together like this in the first ce.

    Even if the ants could be controlled, he never thought that the control would be so precise to pull off intricate strategies like this.

    When the facts were in front of him, he had no choice but to ept this.

    "Monster." General Risen said as he looked at Count Zwein.

    The voice that he had said it in wasn''t that loud or soft, but I had been able to hear it across this noisy battlefield.

    It was as if it had rung out through the battlefield and had reached me.

    I just looked down at General Risen who was surrounded by the Chimera Ants and he stared up at me.

    Perhaps I was considered a monster since I had information about this world that no one else had.

    Perhaps I could be considered a freak since I had the ability to do things that no one else in this world could do, but I wasn''t afraid of that anymore.

    I had things that were important to me in this world, so I would do what I needed to do to protect them. So regardless of what happens because of it, I was already prepared.

    That was why I was using all of these events that I knew about around this world to take care of my enemies.

    In no time at all, the Vikal Kingdom soldiers werepletely swallowed by the Chimera Ants.

    They tried to fight back as much as they could, but there was nothing that they could do against the sheer number of ants that were around them. Especially since they were already injured from fighting the ants before.

    When it was over, there were only ants left.

    But that also made General Killock and his men uneasy.

 Chapter 620 Cleaning up

    <h4>Chapter 620 Cleaning up</h4>

    ?However, regardless of how uneasy they felt, the ants didn''t do anything.

    Once they had taken care of the Vikal Kingdom army, they just stood there as if they were in a daze.

    They didn''t seem like they were about to do anything with the way that they just stood there.

    But just them standing there made General Killock and the rest of his men nervous.

    In the end, General Killock went over to Count Zwein and asked, "General, is it true that you can control these ants?"

    When I saw hime over, I finally snapped out of my thoughts. Before this, I had been staring at the Vikal Kingdom troops as if I was deeply lost in thought.

    After snapping out of my thoughts, I turned to look at General Killock and said with a nod, "That''s right. I can control them."

    As soon as he heard this, General Killock looked at me with a strange look.

    This was clearly the look that one gave someone that they couldn''t understand. This was the look that one gave someone that was aplete monster.

    Just like how General Risen had looked at me earlier.

    But I wasn''t bothered by this at all.

    Rather, I felt that it even seemed like this would be the norm for now on.

    After a long silence, General Killock asked, "What should we do with them now? Are we going to take them back with us?"

    He had already seen the terrifying power that these Chimera Ants had, so that was thest thing that he wanted to do. In fact, there was a part of him that wanted to massacre these ants so that they would never appear in this world again.

    But he couldn''t do that since these ants belonged to Count Zwein.

    While General Killock didn''t know what method Count Zwein had used to make these ants obey hismand, he could see how easily Count Zwein controlled them. It was almost as if he was controlling them like they were his puppets.

    With how powerful these ants were, General Killock didn''t think that Count Zwein would be willing to destroy them.

    These ants would surely be a powerful force controlled by Count Zwein in the future.

    This would not be something that he would want to destroy.

    Or at least that was what General Killock thought.

    However, the truth waspletely different from what he thought the truth was.

    I just looked at the ants with a calm look on my face and said, "These things are too dangerous to leave here. I think that we should destroy them before they can do any harm to anyone."

    General Killock looked at me with a surprised look when he heard this before slowly asking, "General, are you sure about this?"

    There were of course other things that he wanted to say, but it seemed that he held himself back when it came to this.

    I just simply gave a nod before saying, "There''s no need to keep them alive anymore if they are just going to hurt the people of our kingdom if left unchecked. It is better to dig out the roots than to leave them be for the future generation to suffer."

    General Killock looked at me with an even more surprised look before revealing a firm look.

    It was clear that he agreed with what I said.

    I could even see the trace of admiration that was in his eyes, as if he was in awe of my decision.

    But what he didn''t know was that I actually wanted these ants to die as well.

    I could control them with the queen ant, but that didn''t mean that they were loyal to me or her. These ants were the ants that had been born to the queen ant that I had killed, so they would still follow her.

    Instead of leaving them to be betrayed by them in the future, it was better to take care of them all now.

    My queen ant would be able to give me much more loyal and stronger ants for the future.

    Once that decision was made, General Killlock said, "I''ll go and get the men to take care of it. As long as you can restrain the ants for us, we''ll be able to take care of them."

    But before he could leave, I raised a hand and said, "No, there''s no need for that. They''ll take care of themselves."

    General Killock revealed a confused look when he heard this, but he didn''t get a chance to ask anything.

    That was because the ants gave him his answer.

    All of a sudden, there was an ant that attacked another ant.

    This was the catalyst for the full scale chaos that followed.

    After that first ant attacked another ant, the other ants also started attacking each other.

    There were more and more ants that joined in until all of the ants were killing each other. They didn''t seem to hold anything back as they attacked each other, only aiming to kill..

    But if one looked closely, they would be able to see the unwilling look in the eyes of these ants. It was clear that they didn''t want to do this, but it was as if they had no other choice.

    Seeing this, I gave a simple nod before turning to leave.

    Though before leaving, I turned back to say to General Killock, "Feel free to watch over them to ensure that they all kill each other."

    General Killock felt a chill run down his spine when he heard this.

    There was a part of him that already knew this, but seeing the cold side of Count Zwein from time to time really was something else.

    He already knew that Count Zwein was a coldhearted individual since he could mastermind the ughter of the Rising Land ins.

    But now he couldn''t help feeling even more afraid of him after seeing this.

    I just walked off without knowing what was happening in General Killock''s mind.

 Chapter 621 Reporting intelligence

    <h4>Chapter 621 Reporting intelligence</h4>

    ?When I came back to the camp, I noticed something and then went to my tent alone.

    Once I was in the tent, I found that Shadow Five was already waiting for me inside the tent. The way that she stood there, it was as if she had been waiting for a long time for me.

    It was a good thing that I had made sure to keep everyone else out or else it would have caused arge stir.

    After all, most people didn''t know Shadow Five and would have thought that she was an intruder here to hurt me.

    When she saw mee in, she suddenly fell to one knee in front of me and gave a respectful bow.

    Shadow Five had never acted this way in front of me before, but now she was showing respect to me that she had never shown me before. Of course, I knew that this was all because of the demonstration that I had given.

    It was all because of the things that I had aplished as part of this army.

    That was the only reason that she would show this kind of respect to me.

    I just casually waved my hand and said, "There''s no need to act this way. Just get up and tell me what you''re here to say."

    Shadow Five gave a nod before standing up.

    She reached into her cloak to take out a packet of papers that she handed to me.

    I casually took it and looked it over, but I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows as I read this.

    After a moment of silence, I pointed at a spot on the paper in front of me and asked, "This part here, exin it more clearly for me."

    Shadow Five gave a nod before saying, "It''s like this..."

    Once she was done exining, that frown on my face had disappeared and was reced with a smile.

    As soon as I had noticed this, I knew that this would be my way in.

    This would be my way of taking down Duke Yuletide.

    This one piece of information made everything that happened here worth it.

    After a moment of silence, I gave a nod to Shadow Five and said, "You can go now. Make sure to keep an eye on the duke and his family to make sure that they don''t do anything else."

    Shadow Five gave a slight nod, but she didn''t leave right away.

    With the way that she stood there, it was almost as if there was something that she was agonizing over. It was like there was something that she wanted to say, but she didn''t know how to say it.

    So she was standing there in an awkward manner.

    Though she had put her cloak back on after I had told her that it was fine to do so, I could still see the awkwardness that was there in her figure.

    To my surprise, I couldn''t help feeling that this was a bit interesting to see since I had never seen this side of her before. I had only ever seen her confident side, so it was strangely refreshing to see her like this.

    But it wouldn''t do for her to remain in my tent like this, so I asked, "You seem like you have something you want to ask me. What is it?"

    Shadow Five jolted when she heard this before slowly giving a nod.

    Though she gave this nod, she didn''t say anything in the end as she just looked at me, so once again there was an awkward silence that filled the air. But in the end, she took a deep breath and asked, "How did you know that this was there?"

    The things that Shadow Five had investigated, they were all because of the advice that Count Zwein had given her.

    Otherwise, there was no way that she would have found all of this information on her own.

    It was only in the ces that he had told her to check that she had found these things in the first ce.

    So she was curious how he knew about all of this in the first ce.

    There were many things that he seemed to know that no one else knew¡­

    As someone who worked in gathering intelligence, she naturally couldn''t help being curious about this.

    But all I did was shake my head and said, "That''s my secret."

    After all, it wasn''t as if I could tell her that all of my knowledge was from the game that this world was based on, right?

    If I told her this, then there was no doubt that she would think that I waspletely crazy.

    Shadow Five didn''t say anything and didn''t even move as she just looked at me for a bit, but in the end, she slowly gave a nod and turned to leave.

    But before she could leave, I suddenly thought of something, so I called out to stop her.

    Shadow Five turned around and asked, "What is it?"

    I looked at her with narrowed eyes for a bit, as if I was the one that was hesitating this time. But in the end, I still said, "Help me contact his fourth highness and ask him if he could deploy the wolves for this matter."

    As soon as Shadow Five heard this, she immediately said in a cold voice, "How do you know about this?"

    I shook my head and said, "Once again, this is my secret. I hope that you will understand."

    Shadow Five looked at me for a bit before slowly giving a nod.

    It seemed that she had already received orders from the fourth prince to trust me and go along with what I wanted. It seemed that showing him that my loyalty wasn''t easy to sway was a good move.

    Seeing the way that she looked at me, I just said, "Personally, I don''t think that it''s necessary, but it''s better to be safe than sorry."

    In the end, Shadow Five just responded with a nod before turning to leave.

 Chapter 622 Back in Vayne City

    <h4>Chapter 622 Back in Vayne City</h4>

    ?Since the enemies had been taken care of, the only thing left was to return to the city.

    As we returned, General Killock had asked me many times about what we would do with Duke Yuletide.

    Judging by the way that he asked me about this, it was clear that he wanted to take care of this Duke Yuletide. It was almost as if he was suggesting that we use the army that had been given to us to remove Duke Yuletide from his position.

    But every time, I just shook my head and denied all of this.

    After all, I had no intention of taking down Duke Yuletide right now.

    The investigations that I had made were for after the war was over. Until then, I would let him remain in this ce and prevent the Vikal Kingdom from pushing too deep into our territory.

    Though in truth, it should be impossible for them to push too deep right now.

    After all, we had just ughtered their army and left no survivors.

    They should be feeling hard pressed when it came to the number of soldiers that they had.

    It should be very hard for them to organize another army any time soon.

    General Killock had seemed very disappointed about all of this, but he didn''t say anything else on this matter.

    It seemed that the prestige that I had gained during this time was more than enough to convince them of these things.

    When we arrived back in Vayne City, the treatment waspletely different.

    Even before we arrived at the city, we were greeted by soldiers.

    They weren''t here to detain us, but to escort us to the city.

    The way that they did it almost seemed like a wee for heroes.

    Then when we arrived at the city, there was an entire gate that was closed just for us to enter. There were many citizens of the city gathered that were cheering for us, almost like a parade.

    As we came closer to the gate, we could see that there were even more people gathered inside of the city that were waiting for us to enter. All of these people seemed like they were here to wee us as heroes into the city.

    It was like they were about to throw a parade for us as we passed.

    Then the most surprising thing was that the duke himself hade to wee us.

    The duke had been standing at the gate, waiting for us.

    The way that he did this, it almost seemed like he was in a lower position. It was almost as if he was humbling himself so that he could appear more friendly.

    Though I knew that this was all a trick.

    The fact that he was doing this meant that there must be something that he wanted from me or he had read the reports on what had happened, so he was afraid that the Chimera Ants were still a problem.

    When we came over, the duke came up to the carriage that we were sitting in and came in to sit down with us.

    Though when he did, General Killock shot him a dirty look.

    The duke just ignored this as his attention was mainly on me.

    After sitting down, Duke Yuletide said with a smile on his face, "Count Zwein, it is an honour to meet you again. I have heard about your valour on the battlefield and I must say that I am in awe of what you have done."

    I gave a simple nod before saying, "It seems that we have done your job for you."

    General Killock immediately looked at Duke Yuletide with a look as if he was waiting for me to say something else, but it didn''te in the end.

    Duke Yuletide didn''t seem to mind as he said, "Yes, it shames me to say this, but we were unable to take care of the enemies."

    He said it like he was admitting his shame, but it was clear that he didn''t feel any shame at all.

    This was just how shameless this noble was.

    He didn''t care about the usations that I was making of him and he just took it in stride that he couldn''t win.

    I didn''t bother poking any further at him since this wasn''t what we were here for.

    We were just here to report back and see if we could get anything out of Duke Yuletide for taking care of those enemies for him. He wouldn''t be so shameless that he would avoid giving some kind of reward after this.

    But I also felt that he would still have some kind of trick up his sleeve.

    For now, it was better not to push him too far and see what he was nning.

    So I raised my hand at General Killock for him to calm down.

    He looked at me as if he was just itching to go, but I shook my head to stop him.

    Duke Yuletide just ignored all of this as he looked out the window of the carriage. After he had sat down, we had gone through the gate and were now moving along the street.

    As we headed down this street, heading towards the duke''s manor, we could hear all the people cheering around us.

    When this happened the duke suddenly came closer and said, "How about we give the people something to enjoy?"

    I was a bit confused when he said this, but he quickly made it clear what he meant as the duke came forward to wrap his arms around my shoulder.

    The others in the carriage looked like they were about to attack him, but I cated them by gesturing with my hands. In the end, they just watched as the duke brought me over to the window.

    The two of us poked our heads out and waved to the crowd, which caused the cheering to be even louder.

    But the more important thing was that the duke whispered in my ears during this time.

    "I heard that in the fight against the Vikal Kingdom army, there was something interesting that happened. Something that involved some ants."

 Chapter 623 I heard thatâ€¦

    <h4>Chapter 623 I heard that¡­</h4>

    ?I waved at the citizens with a smile on my face, but I also said, "I have no idea what you''re talking about."

    The duke wasn''t offended when he heard this and just calmly said, "I''m sure that there''s something that we can talk about when we have a chance to talk alone. I hope that you will not reject me."

    I didn''t look at the duke, but I could tell from the tone of his voice what he wanted.

    Still, this was also what I had wanted to see since this would give me the chance to get more information about the duke.

    So I just gave a simple nod in the end.

    The duke didn''t say anything, but the pat that he gave on my shoulder was more than enough for me.

    After waving at the citizens for a bit longer, we went back inside the carriage and sat back down.

    I couldn''t help looking at the duke for a bit before turning to look out the window.

    The duke had matched my gaze with a smile on his face the entire time, as if he wasn''t afraid to look at me head on. It seemed that this man really did have nerves of steel, or rather a face that was as thick as a city wall with how shameless he was.

    Either way, it didn''t seem like he would make a mistake unless I guided him into it and even then, it would take a while.

    But there was something outside the window that made me a bit annoyed.

    It was the amount of guards that were standing in the crowd.

    These were guards that were wearing ordinary clothes and had their weapons hidden that were standing in the crowd. It was clear that they were doing all that they could to blend into the background.

    But there was a reason why they were there in the first ce.

    They were there because¡­they were forcing the crowd to act this way.

    It seemed that this was all set up by the duke as a show of goodwill, but the people of the city naturally weren''t happy about this. Even if the enemies were defeated, that didn''t mean that all of their problems were solved.

    There were still many things that had to be done and a parade was thest thing they cared about.

    This was more than enough to show me what kind of noble the duke was, even though I already knew.

    Still, I was angry because of it.

    When we arrived at the manor, the duke invited us all in for the meal that he had prepared for us. But this meal wasn''t just one with the duke, it was an entire banquet that included all of the nobles in the city.

    The dishes that were being served¡­were very luxurious.

    It was clear that this wasn''t something that should have been avable in a city like Vayne City that had been surrounded by the enemies. Or at least that would have been the case if the nobles even cared about the citizens.

    But it was clear that the nobles of this city didn''t care about their people.

    The only thing that they cared about was their own wellbeing and their ownfort, so the people below suffered.

    While they were stuffing their faces with these delicacies, I could just imagine the people who I saw outside in the streets starving. They had been forced to hold that parade instead of doing what little work they could to scrounge up some food.

    As for the hope that the duke would actually pay them something for participating in the parade, that was not a hope that I had.

    I would have liked to remove this duke and these nobles as soon as possible, but it just simply wasn''t the time.

    So I had no choice but to apologize in secret to the people of Vayne City for not being able to help them. I just hoped that they would be able to hold on a bit longer until this war was over and we came back to take care of Duke Yuletide.

    As soon as we arrived, there were many nobles that came to surround me.

    It wasn''t that they had any ill intentions, but rather they had the same idea as the duke.

    All of them seemed to have heard about what had happened in the battle against the Vikal Kingdom army, so the first thing that they asked me was¡­

    "So I heard that there were ants that attacked the Vikal Kingdom army¡­"

    "I heard that the ants surrounded the Vikal Kingdom troops¡­"

    "I heard that the general was even ripped apart by these ants¡­"

    Everything that they said to me was rted in some way to the Chimera Ants.

    Though I had no idea where they had heard these things, it was clear that they had information about the battle that normal people shouldn''t have.

    If I had to guess where their information came from, my guess would be that it came from the spies that they had ced among the ten thousand troops that had been given to us.

    Not all of them were refugees, there were also spies from the duke and the nobles that were among these ten thousand troops. That was why I had never had them fight on the frontlines, I just had to do support tasks.

    But it was impossible to hide the matter of the ants with how big the matter became.

    In the end, it was the duke who saved me from them by asking me to talk in secret.

    There were some that wanted to follow me to keep me safe, but I stopped them since I knew that it was impossible for the duke to do anything to me here. If he tried, then he would be the one that would suffer in the end.

    When we sat down in that private room, the duke looked at me and said, "So, it seems like you have quite a few secrets. Do you want to work with me?"

 Chapter 624 Simple offer

    <h4>Chapter 624 Simple offer </h4>

    I wasn''t surprised to hear this.

    Even though I knew quite a bit about the duke and the Yuletide Family, that didn''t mean that he knew a lot about me.

    I''m sure that during this time, the duke must have investigated me ande to the conclusion that I was useful.

    I was close to the fourth prince and it seemed like I had many useful secrets, so there was no doubt that I was someone useful to him. If he could convince me to work with him, there would be countless paths opened up to the duke.

    That was if he could convince me to work for him.

    I didn''t answer right away as I just calmly looked at the duke.

    Then crossing my arms, I leaned back in my chair and asked, "What do you have to propose?"

    The duke revealed a smile as he said, "Well, it''s very simple. Just give me the thing that you used to control the ants and I''ll keep them safe for you. Otherwise, I''m sure that you''ll find it troublesome to keep it from the other nobles when this war is over. There''s no doubt that they will want this for themselves and you won''t be able to keep it, even if you are close to the fourth prince."

    As expected, he wanted the source of the ants, but¡­

    I had nothing to give him.

    With a snort, I said, "Is that it? Are you saying that this is the only thing that you have to offer?"

    The duke couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when he heard this.

    After all, this wasn''t a small offer.

    There was no doubt that there would be a lot of scrutiny that woulde after this war was over because of all the things that he had done.

    What he was really offering was his backing as a duke that would make things much easier for him in the future and he was asking if this was it?

    If anyone else was in his shoes, there was no doubt that they would have been very moved by this offer.

    He was a duke, someone that was only second to the royal family in this kingdom.

    Even if he had the support of the fourth prince, one should know that the support of the royal family couldn''t be counted on other than from the king. There were power struggles that existed in the royal family, so there was no knowing when a prince would fall.

    Unlike the fourth prince, his dukedom had been established for many generations and was something that could be relied on since there was no way that they would fall that easily.

    Yet he didn''t seem to appreciate this offer¡­

    The duke took a deep breath and calmly said, "I think that you must have misheard something. Let me say it again¡­"

    I just cut him off by saying, "I have said that I am not interested."

    The duke couldn''t help narrowing his eyes to look at me with a gaze that was filled with scrutiny when he heard this. There was even a look in his eyes that almost seemed like he couldn''t believe what he was hearing.

    He was clearly still talking and this count had dared to cut him off?

    Where did this count even put him in his eyes?

    After a long silence, the duke said in a colder voice, "It seems like you''ve already made up your mind, haven''t you?"

    I just gave a simple nod before saying, "It''s very simple, there''s nothing to give you since there are no ants that are left."

    The duke was taken aback when he heard this before asking in a deep voice, "What do you mean by that?"

    I calmly said, "After the Chimera Ants took down the Vikal Kingdom army, we couldn''t just leave them to hurt the people of our kingdom. So with a heavy heart, we had no choice but to put them down."

    The duke looked at me with disbelief when he heard this.

    But after a while, he couldn''t help reaching into the drawer on the side to pull out a few sheets of paper.

    He didn''t even bother hiding the things that were written on these sheets of paper.

    From what I could see at a nce, it seemed to be reports on what had happened during the fight with the Vikal Kingdom army.

    After reading for a bit, he stopped on one part in particr and looked at it several times before suddenly revealing a smile. With that smile on his face, the duke looked at me and said, "Even though all of the ants are currently dead, that doesn''t mean that there can''t be more ants, right? I''m sure that you must have picked up something that allows you to breed more ants."

    I shook my head with a serious look on my face before saying, "No, I have no idea what you''re talking about."

    The duke looked at me in doubt, so I calmly said, "The ants were trouble for the kingdom, so naturally I couldn''t leave them be. That is all I have to say on that matter."

    The duke still had his doubts, but he could tell what my stance was based on my words.

    After a moment of silence, he said in a cold voice, "I hope that you understand where your decision will lead you. This is not a decision that you should make lightly, so I''ll give you onest chance."

    I just calmly looked back at him without saying a word.

    The silence was my answer.

    The duke gave a snort and said, "Good, it seems that this was a waste of time. You can show yourself out then."

    I gave a nod and stood up to leave.

    But before leaving, I turned back to ask, "Have you ever thought about what is under you that supports you?"

    The duke revealed a confused look when he heard this, but he didn''t deem to give me an answer.

    That was all the answer that I needed, so I didn''t bother saying anything else and left.

    This man was as I had thought he was.

 Chapter 625 The fourth prince again

    <h4>Chapter 625 The fourth prince again</h4>

    Once that meeting with the duke was over, we left Vayne City.

    For now, that foolish duke and his men served a purpose, so we would leave them be.

    The next time that wee back here, it would be to orchestrate the fall of this duke.

    But there really wasn''t a destination for us to go since there was nothing urgent for us to handle.

    Or rather, there was nothing really urgent where there was something that I could exploit. If I were to randomly go onto a battlefield, there was no chance of victory for me since I had to admit that I was inferior to every other general that was out there.

    I just didn''t have a good mind for strategy, especially when it was in the real world.

    I might be able to do it if I could see everything on a screen and control them with a few clicks, but in the real world?

    That just wasn''t possible for me.

    So for now, I decided that we should head back to my territory for some rest.

    To my surprise, I found that General Killock didn''t resist this at all.

    I had thought that he would be the biggest opposition to this, but it turned out that he was perfectly fine with this.

    I really couldn''t help feeling a bit suspicious when I saw him acting this way, but I didn''t think too much about it.

    As for the ten thousand troops that we had received from the duke, we took five thousand of them with us.

    I had made Shadow Five and her group check them to make sure that these five thousand were actual refugees. Since they were actual refugees, it didn''t matter if they came with our army since it would be a better life than wandering around, looking for a ce to stay.

    If they were with our army, then they would at least receive proper pay and pensions for their families, so they were actually happy to join us.

    The other five thousand were tricky, so I didn''t dare take them.

    While five thousand troops weren''t really a lot whenpared to the whole army, it was still better than nothing.

    When we arrived back in my territory, I was surprised to find that the fourth prince was there waiting for me.

    The first one that I looked at was General Killock who awkwardly turned his head away.

    As expected, he was a part of this.

    It was no surprise that General Killock would help the fourth prince with this since in the first ce, he was the fourth prince''s man. But I was certain that General Killock wouldn''t have been able to do this alone.

    There had to be someone else who actually sent the message to the fourth prince...

    It was someone who always hid herself and only came out when she needed to.

    Well, it wasn''t as if I could do anything about this since I had already fallen into their trap. So at the very least, I should go and see what the fourth prince wanted.

    There wasn''t a single time where the fourth prince just came as a courtesy call, it was always for something.

    After sitting down, the fourth prince said, "Brother Zwein, I''ve heard about what happened with the Vikal Kingdom army. I never expected you to not only take down the Midra Kingdom army, but also the Vikal Kingdom army. This has greatly helped our war efforts."

    In the first ce, there were four kingdoms that had dered war on this kingdom.

    With the armies of the Vikal Kingdom and the Midra Kingdom destroyed, which were the two stronger countries, it would be easy for them to repel the rest. Though as time dragged on, it would be a war of attritions and one country couldn''tpare to the supplies of four countries.

    Especially since they were surrounded by these four countries.

    So this war would be hard for them unless they took care of thest two countries.

    When I heard the fourth prince bring this up, I couldn''t help thinking¡­

    "Does he want me to go to another battlefield? Is that why he''s here?"

    If he really did want me to go to another battlefield, that would be bad since I had no other ces to exploit right now¡­

    Even if I wanted to go, all that would happen is that I would be defeated.

    But to my surprise, the fourth prince actually said, "After all of that, you deserve a rest. You should take some time to rest up in your territory before heading out to the battlefield again."

    I couldn''t help looking at the fourth prince with one brow raised in surprise.

    Thest thing that I expected was for him to actually give me a break.

    In fact, I just couldn''t believe that he would be here to give me a break.

    The fourth prince was a busy person, would he run here just to tell me to rest?

    There must be something off for him to do this¡­

    So I narrowed my eyes to look at the fourth prince and asked, "Is that really all that you have to say? Are you sure that there''s nothing else?"

    The fourth prince actually jolted when he heard this before revealing a smile to say, "What else could there be? Brother Zwein, you shouldn''t doubt your brother like this."

    I shook my head and said with a sigh, "It''s too bad that I do doubt you. If you have something that you need, you should just tell me."

    The smile on the fourth prince''s face twitched a bit before he said with a sigh, "Truth be told, there is something that I want your help with. It isn''t rted to the war, but there''s a situation in the kingdom that needs to be dealt with."

    As expected, there was some kind of trouble.

    It was always like this.

    The fourth prince continued by saying, "It''s a situation that involves wyverns."

 Chapter 626 Wyvern

    <h4>Chapter 626 Wyvern</h4>

    ?I raised a brow when I heard this, but I waited for the fourth prince to exin further.

    Seeing the look on my face, the fourth prince reached into his chest and pulled out a map that he spread on the table in front of us. After spreading this map, I saw that it was a map of our kingdom.

    He pointed at one spot on the map and said, "There''s a group of wyverns gathering in this location. We don''t know what they are nning to do, but it doesn''t seem like it''s a good thing."

    After that, he pointed at another spot on the map that was closer to the border and said, "This is close to where the battlefield is, so we''re worried that the wyverns will affect our army there."

    I gave a nod in agreement when I saw this, but I just looked carefully at the map.

    It wasn''t that I had never seen a map of the kingdom before, but it was just that this ce seemed familiar for some reason...

    That mountain that the wyverns were gathering, it seemed to have a special name...

    Bald Mountain?

    Wait, wasn''t Bald Mountain the name of the ce where that special event happened?

    The one that only happened once every few years in the game and once missed would take a long time to happen again?

    "Ha, ha, ha. So it was that ce." I couldn''t help saying out loud all of a sudden.

    The fourth prince had been waiting for my reaction, but seeing this was definitely a surprise for him. After all, out of all the ways that he thought I would have reacted, this definitely was not one of them.

    But based on what I had said, it didn''t seem like it was a bad thing.

    The fourth prince revealed a smile, "Brother Zwein, you have a way of taking care of this?"

    I looked back up at the fourth prince and instead of answering his question, I asked, "Brother, why did you think of me for this matter?"

    The fourth prince was surprised, but he said in a slow voice, "Well...you used worms and ants to attack the enemies, so I figured that you would be able to do something about the wyverns as well."

    After a pause, he asked as if something was wrong, "What? Are you saying that you can''t?"

    With a shrug, I said, "I''m not some kind of miracle worker, it isn''t as if I can do everything."

    The fourth prince knitted his brow slightly, but he quickly rxed them as he realized something. With a smile, the fourth prince said, "But you''re not saying that you can''t take care of the wyverns, right?"

    A smile slowly crept onto my face as I said, "That''s correct. If it was normal wyverns, I wouldn''t be able to do anything, but if it''s these wyverns...then I should be able to solve your problem."

    The fourth prince looked back at the map once he heard this before asking, "What''s so special about these wyverns?" Though after a pause, he suddenly changed the question, "No, what''s so special about this ce? You said earlier that this was ''that ce'', so what is special about it?"

    Once again, I didn''t answer that question as I just said, "I can take care of this problem for you, but there are some things that I need."

    The fourth prince raised a brow again, but he slowly gave a nod as he said, "Alright, what do you need?"

    I went over to the side to pick up a piece of paper and a pen beforeing back to sit down and write a list. After that list was done, I slid it over to the fourth prince who picked it up to take a look.

    As he read through the list, his expression changed several times until he finally looked up with a bitter smile and said, "How do you know about all of this? I don''t think that I''ve ever told anyone about these things."

    I just raised a brow as I looked at the fourth prince before saying, "What do you mean? These are just the things that I need."

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying with a sigh, "Alright, then let''s consider it lucky that I have all of these things in my private treasury. I can get them for you, but it''ll take some time for it to be transported here. Are you fine with waiting a few days for them?"

    I stroked my chin to think about it before asking, "How long ago did the wyverns show up at this mountain? I need to know when they arrived and how long they''ve been staying there. As well, I want to know how many of them are there."

    The fourth prince revealed a surprised look, but then he snapped his finger and a cloaked figure appeared.

    This cloaked figure was just like Shadow Five that followed me.

    After summoning this person, the fourth prince asked, "You heard Brother Zwein, what is the situation?"

    The cloaked figure gave a bow before saying, "The wyverns arrived a week ago and there are currently twenty wyverns that have gathered. Though reports from different ces have stated that there are different sightings of wyverns all over the country."

    The fourth prince didn''t care about this cloaked figure and instead turned to look at me, as if he was waiting for my response.

    Only twenty so far¡­.that meant that I should have some time before it happened.

    After all, twenty wyverns should only be a single pack.

    It would be a while before the rest all gathered.

    So I said with a nod, "That should give us enough time to deal with it even if the items take several days to arrive."

    However, I still pointed at the map and said, "For now, I should head to this ce so we can cut down on the travel time. Can you arrange for your men to deliver the goods there?"

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at where I was pointing before slowly giving a nod.

    If it was anyone else, he wouldn''t have agreed to this.

    But since it was me, he could make an exception.

    After a moment of silence, he looked up at me and said, "Are you certain that you''ll be able to deal with these wyverns?"

    I just gave a simple nod as I said, "It''s not a problem. If they are what I think they are, it should be easy for me to deal with them."

    The fourth prince once again narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he was sizing me up.

    But in the end, he just reached out to pat me on the shoulder to say, "I trust you."

    This was indeed his trust in me.

    No matter who it was, the fourth prince never would have trusted them like he did me, even if I didn''t understand where this trust of his came from.

    Still, I wouldn''t betray the trust of a person that put this kind of trust in me.

    Since he was willing to trust me, I would handle this for him.

    Not to mention, this was something that was very beneficial to me.

    It would be even more beneficial than taming this Queen Chimera Ant.

 Chapter 627 Detour

    <h4>Chapter 627 Detour</h4>

    There were some people that were unhappy that I was heading out so soon, but there was nothing that I could do about it.

    This wyvern issue was a pressing matter, so I had to head out as soon as possible.

    The ones that wereing with me were Cecilia, Shaka, and some of the knights from my territory.

    Instead of bringing the entire army, we were only bringing a small group since that was all that was needed. Bringing an army would actually impede me in achieving this task of dealing with the wyvern.

    So I was handing back control of this army back to General Killock and the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince said that he would take care of them and General Killock promised that he would do his best to follow in my footsteps. Though I was very doubtful that he would be able to do the same things as me as I had used my knowledge from another world.

    Still, I wished the best to General Killock and this army.

    We had been through many battles together, so you could say that I had be attached to them during this time.

    When I asked the fourth prince what their assignment would be, he told me that they would be moving from battlefield to battlefield to assist the various armies deployed around the kingdom.

    That was what they were supposed to be doing in the first ce, so they were just going back to their original mission before being assigned to me.

    Since it was the fourth prince, I was certain that he would take care of them.

    As for our group, we set off two days after the fourth prince left with General Killock''s army.

    I had spent some time talking to my wives and fiancees.

    I had to say that Rose and the others were not shy about nighttime activities during this time since it was the only time that they had for these things.

    Even Cecilia who wasing with me wouldn''t have time for this since we were heading out for a proper mission.

    After leaving, we headed to the town where we were supposed to meet the fourth prince''s people.

    It would take us several days of travel to get there, so we weren''t in a rush to get there.

    Especially since before that¡­

    "We need to take a detour."

    When they heard this, everyone looked at me with a surprised look.

    Cecilia was the one that asked the question for everyone, "What do you mean by that? Don''t we need to meet up with the fourth prince''s people as soon as possible to take care of the wyvern problem?"

    After she asked this, I just shook my head and said, "Before that, there''s something else that I need to take care of. It''s something that we need to do if we want to take care of the wyvern, so we have no choice but to go there."

    The rest of the group looked at me with looks of doubt, but I wasn''t lying about this.

    There really was something that I had to do first or else I wouldn''t be able to take care of it.

    In the end, they had no choice but to follow the detour that I set.

    It was a detour to a mountain that was in the middle of nowhere.

    They had no idea why I would bring them to a ce like this, but they still followed me to this ce.

    After arriving, I just had us camp out nearby as if we were waiting for something.

    At first, they didn''t ask me what was happening.

    However, after half an hour, they finally couldn''t take it anymore and Cecilia asked, "What are we supposed to be doing here? Why are we just waiting in the middle of nowhere?"

    But as if to answer that question, there was something that suddenly passed by overhead.

    When Cecilia and the others looked up, they found thisrge thing that was flying overhead.

    This thingnded right on the side of the mountain and then entered a cave that was there.

    As soon as they saw this thing, they immediately knew what it was.

    A wyvern.

    This was a wyvern, one of the creatures that they should have been handling for the fourth prince.

    Seeing this wyvern, I revealed a faint smile and said, "Alright, our prey is here. Let''s go and get it."

    But before I could leave the spot we were camping, they immediately reached out to stop me.

    Cecilia looked at me like I was crazy before saying, "What are you doing? Why didn''t you tell us that this was the nest of a wyvern?"

    With a faint smile on my face, I said, "If I did, would you havee with me?"

    Bitter smiles appeared on the faces of everyone when they heard this.

    Perhaps if they had a fully armed group armed to deal with a wyvern, they would have followed him. However, there weren''t any of them that were prepared for a wyvern right now.

    In the state that they were in, there was no doubt that they would be crushed by this wyvern.

    So Cecilia immediately said, "We''re leaving, now. There''s no point if we''re all going to be crushed by the wyvern."

    But I shook my head and refused to move as I said, "We need this wyvern."

    When they heard this, everyone couldn''t help knitting their brows.

    Cecilia looked at me with a look that I knew very well and she said, "If you''re thinking about risking everyone''s life just for some game, I can''t ept it even if I do trust you."

    I shook my head as I said, "No, we really do need this wyvern. We need to tame this wyvern to deal with the other wyverns."

    "Tame?" She couldn''t help repeating before suddenly saying, "How are you nning on taming this wyvern? It''s impossible to tame these things!"

    I just calmly said, "I have my ways."

 Chapter 628 Wyvern tamer (1)

    <h4>Chapter 628 Wyvern tamer (1)</h4>

    It seemed that no one wanted to believe me when I said that I had my ways of taming the wyvern, but that didn''t stop me from insisting on going to the cave that the wyvernnded in.

    After being in this position for a long time, I had slowly developed the prestige that I was supposed to have in this position.

    As such, I was able to give orders that they weren''t able to resist.

    Though there were still plenty ofints that were made.

    Even when we were standing outside of the wyvern''s cave, they were still makingints.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that I already knew how this would go, I would have told them to be quiet.

    But for now, it didn''t matter since this was supposed to be a set event.

    This was the trigger event that had to be done to trigger therger event. So it was a set event that had no chance of failure¡­but then again, this was a real world now.

    This game world had be a real world, so there was the chance that things didn''t go the same way as the script¡­

    But as I was starting to feel doubt, it was already toote.

    I could hear the soundsing from the inside of the cave which were familiar to me.

    This was the same sound that I had heard when I had been preparing to do this quest in the game.

    So taking a deep breath, I slowly walked into the cave.

    The others looked at each other with hesitant looks, but they still followed me into the cave in the end. Thoughpared to me, they definitely looked much more scared.

    That was because I forbid them from bringing out any weapons.

    This was a mission to tame the wyvern, so the moment that weapons were brought out, the wrong message would be sent. When that time came, it didn''t matter what I did since it would be impossible to convince the wyvern to trust us again.

    So that was why they looked even more anxious than before.

    As we came closer, I could smell the scent of the wyvern as well.

    It was a strong scent, but it was still bearable, or at least for me.

    For the others, it almost seemed like they wanted to throw up.

    I shook my head with a faint smile before signaling for them to leave if they couldn''t handle the scent. However, I was surprised to find that they wouldn''t leave even when given permission to do so.

    It seemed that they wanted to stick with me to the very end.

    I could see the look of loyalty that was in their eyes, showing that they were doing this because they didn''t want to leave me alone here.

    It seemed that I had underestimated these people who served me¡­

    I gave a nod to them and then turned back to face forward, but I wouldn''t forget this. Those that were loyal to me would receive the best care from me, that was my motto.

    Finally, we came close enough to see the wyvern that was currently fast asleep.

    Seeing this wyvern close up was terrifying since it was basically the same as a dragon. Though there were some minor differences such as the wyvern only having two legs instead of four.

    But this was a terrifying creature nheless.

    When we were close up, the rest of my group looked at me with looks that seemed to be urging me to leave this ce as soon as possible. But I just ignored them as I stepped forward, while raising my hand to keep them back.

    If we all moved forward at once, it would scare the wyvern and make it attack.

    They knew that as well, so they had no choice but to stand there to wait and see what happened.

    After stepping into the wyvern''s nest, I raised my hand and there was a small carcass that appeared in it.

    The moment that this small carcass appeared, the wyvern suddenly stirred.

    It was only a bit at first, but then it raised its head and looked around itself, sniffing the air while doing so. After a while, it turned in my direction and looked at the small carcass in my hand before licking its lips.

    Seeing this, the rest of my group looked like they wanted to charge out since they misunderstood this action, but they stayed back when I raised my hand to get the wyvern''s attention.

    As I raised my hand, the wyvern suddenly looked at me to realize that I was the one that was holding this tasty treat. As soon as it noticed me, it suddenly took a more defensive stance, as if it was preparing for an ambush, but it didn''t attack.

    Seeing this, I knew that this was just like the quest.

    So without any panic, I raised the squirrel carcass in my hand.

    No one really knew why, but wyverns really loved squirrel meat, so it was prerequisite for the quest. I had gotten this one before leaving our town, so it was still pretty fresh.

    As I waved the squirrel carcass around, the wyvern''s eyes slowly followed it back and forth.

    Then I suddenly tossed it forward for the wyvern.

    It didn''t catch it and just let it drop to the ground, but once it was on the ground, it went forward to eat it without any hesitation.

    Seeing this, my group waved at me toe back while the wyvern was distracted, but I justpletely ignored them.

    While the wyvern was eating the squirrel, I slowly made my way over to the wyvern''s side. This time, the wyvern didn''t seem to react at all as it just munched on the squirrel carcass that was in front of it.

    It was only when I was right beside it and had raised a hand towards it that the wyvern suddenly turned to look at me.

    I didn''t move as I waited to see what the wyvern''s next move was.

 Chapter 629 Wyvern tamer (2)

    Chapter 629 Wyvern tamer (2)

    ??The wyvern didn''t do a thing as it just looked at me for a bit, but then¡­

    It suddenly moved its head forward towards the hand that I was holding out.

    I could hear the gasps that wereing from behind me, but I just ignored them as I focused on the wyvern that was in front of me.

    After another slight pause, the wyvern suddenly lowered its head and then pressed its nose up against the palm of my hand.

    I let out an internal sigh of relief when I saw the wyvern acting this way.

    After all, it had been a gamble on whether this wyvern would act the same way as in the game and it seemed that this gamble had paid off.

    This wyvern was different from the other wyverns out there. It was a wyvern that was considered an outcast because of how different its personality was from the other wyverns.

    The other wyverns were very aggressive towards anything that they regarded as weaker than them. Naturally that included the humans that they regarded as weaker than them.

    But this wyvern was different because it was a moderate kind of wyvern that didn''t think the same way as the other wyverns.

    Instead of acting aggressive, it wanted to befriend those that were weaker than it.

    As such, it had been driven away from the pack that it came from and was now living alone in the wild.

    After seeing the wyvern act this way, my hand started to move along the neck of the wyvern.

    There was a moment of surprise from the wyvern, but then it started wagging its tail as my hand started to scratch its neck. This was a secret technique that I had learned from the game and while it was hard to replicate it in real life, it seemed that I had been sessful with how the wyvern was acting.

    I just kept scratching different parts of the wyvern and soon it was even sticking its tongue out in pleasure from all the scratches that it was receiving.

    Once it was like this, I turned back to the others and said, "It''s alright, it''s friendly."

    But there wasn''t a single response to this.

    Rather, all of them looked at me with very strange looks as if they couldn''tprehend what was happening right now.

    They could see it with their eyes, but believing it was a bit hard.

    After all, there was this giant wyvern, a terrifying beast that was acting like a dog while it was being scratched.

    No matter how they thought about it, it didn''t seem to make sense at all.

    Seeing them like this, I just shook my head with a bitter smile before turning my attention back to the wyvern.

    It wasn''t over yet, there was still something that I had to do before that.

    Since its mouth was open, then it was a good chance for me to move forward to take a closer look at it.

    I could see what I was looking for, so I started reaching towards its mouth without a single trace of hesitation. However, the ones that were behind me were terrified when they saw what I was doing.

    But they didn''t dare make any noise out of fear of scaring the wyvern into closing its mouth.

    So I could feel their gazes on my back, putting pressure on me.

    Once again, I ignored them as I reached for one of its teeth and slowly dug out a bone that was stuck in between them. It wasn''t that hard to dislodge, but this was a bone that seemed a bit rotten.

    It must have been inside of the wyvern''s mouth for some time now.

    As soon as the bone was pulled out, the wyvern revealed a surprised look.

    It didn''t close its mouth right away and waited for me to pull myself out before suddenly closing it. It opened and closed its mouth several times before revealing a relieved look.

    It was as if something had been bothering it for a long time and now it was feeling the relief that came from that thing being removed.

    After a while, the wyvern suddenly lowered its head and nuzzled up against me, as if it was showing its gratitude for what I had.

    I just threw away the bone in my hand with a smile before saying, "Do you want toe with me?"

    When the wyvern heard this, it stopped nuzzling against me and stood up to look at me with a strange look.

    It was clear that the wyvern had understood what I had said, but that wasn''t strange since wyverns were high ranked monsters to begin with. These were monsters with high levels of intelligence in the first ce, so it was only natural that they understood what I was saying.

    But I could see that there was a trace of hesitation in the eyes of the wyvern.

    That wasn''t strange either since this was our first time meeting and I was asking it toe with me. It would have been strange if it actually trusted me right away to follow me without a word.

    I knew what I had to do.

    Raising my hand, I pulled out another squirrel carcass and said, "If you follow me, I can get you more treats. I''ll make sure that you get a treat every day and you''ll never have to care about your food ever again."

    The wyvern''s eyes lit up when it saw the squirrel carcass and those eyes followed it as I swayed it back and forth in front of me.

    After a while, the wyvern gave a slow nod to show that it agreed with this and I tossed the squirrel carcass to it.

    With that, I had tamed the wyvern.

    Though I seemed calm on the surface, I was actually letting out a sigh of relief deep down.

    This wyvern being so easy to tame was a part of the game design since it was necessary to tame a wyvern to start the following quest. It was supposed to be a scripted event, so it was impossible to fail this.

    But this game world had be a real world, so anything was possible.

    Luckily, the wyvern itself hadn''t changed and it was still easy to tame.

    Or else¡­

 Chapter 630 Wyvern tamer (3)

    <h4>Chapter 630 Wyvern tamer (3)</h4>

    After getting the wyvern to agree toe with me, I waved my hand at the others toe over.

    The look on their faces made it clear that they didn''t want to, but I wouldn''t take no for an answer.

    In the end, it was only Cecilia and Shaka who were able toe over.

    The two of them came right up in front of me and stood there as if they were trying to protect me, but that just made me shake my head with a bitter smile before saying, "It''s alright, I''ve already tamed it. As long as I feed it properly, it won''t hurt us."

    Then to the wyvern, I said, "Isn''t that right?"

    The wyvern gave a nod as if affirming this.

    But even then, Cecilia and Shaka couldn''t help looking at it with wary looks.

    There was what seemed to be a bitter smile that appeared on the face of the wyvern as well.

    Shaking my head and giving a sigh, I stepped forward to take both of their hands and pulled them closer to the wyvern.

    There was some resistance, but they still allowed me to pull them. Otherwise, no matter how hard I tried to pull them, they definitely wouldn''t have moved a single inch.

    With the difference in strength, it was only when they allowed me to pull them that I would be able to move them.

    I pulled them right up in front of the wyvern and then moved their hand towards it.

    The wyvern knew what I was doing, so it moved its head forward to allow me to ce the two hands on its head.

    Once the hands were on its head, it started moving as if it was rubbing up against their hands.

    Both Cecilia and Shaka revealed strange expressions when they saw this, but at least they didn''t immediately pull their hands away when they felt the leather of the wyvern''s skin against their palms.

    After a while, Cecilia and Shaka lost a bit of their nervousness and moved forward to look at the wyvern.

    After all, this was their first time seeing a wyvern up close like this.

    Even a dead wyvern would be hard to see since it was hard to take a wyvern down in the first ce. It required arge group of elite knights with specialized gear just to have a chance to take down a wyvern, so wyvern hunts weren''t normal.

    It was only when wyverns attacked human settlements that they had no choice.

    Once Cecilia and Shaka approached the wyvern, the rest of the knights couldn''t help feeling a bit less wary as well. After waiting for a bit to confirm that nothing happened, they came out and moved towards the wyvern as well.

    The wyvern did all that it could to show that it meant no harm, but it also shot me a look as if it was saying, "You owe me a treat for this."

    Wyverns were intelligent creatures that were on par with human intelligence, so it was able to figure out things very quickly which I was grateful for. Since it was so willing to go along with this and make friends with the humans, I had no reason to deny this treat.

    I had made sure to stock up on squirrels before leaving my territory and had put them in my Storage Ring.

    Though the looks that I had received when I stocked up on them...

    It was better for me not to think about that for now.

    Once all of the knights were around the wyvern, I said, "Alright, let''s go outside and have some fun."

    Everyone looked at me with strange confused looks when they heard this.

    That included the wyvern who also looked at me with its equivalent of this.

    But they still followed me out of the cave.

    The funny thing was that as the wyvern walked, it was so heavy that it actually made the ground tremble under us.

    So it was actually hard for us to walk straight with the wyvern following us.

    A bunch of people that didn''t seem to know how to walk, it really created a funny scene.

    When we came out of the cave, all of them looked at me who was just standing there with a smile on my face, as if they were waiting to see what I was nning to do.

    I turned to look at the wyvern and waved my hand at it.

    It had a confused look on its face, but it still came over to where I was.

    But that wasn''t what I wanted the wyvern to do.

    So I shook my head and waved my hand again to say, "No, bring your head down for me."

    The wyvern still had a confused look, but it lowered its head for me.

    Without any hesitation, I got on the wyvern''s head and then moved down to where its body was so that I was sitting at the base of its neck.

    The wyvern turned its head to look at me with a confused look, but I just said, "Go, into the sky!"

    Since I had tamed the wyvern, naturally the first thing that I had to do was ride it into the sky!

    The wyverns that were tamed in the game were used as transportation until the airship was unlocked, so this was a very important matter to me.

    The wyvern was still confused at first, but then it quickly understood and started to p its wings.

    The others also reacted and wanted to say something, but there was nothing that they could say as we suddenly flew into the sky. The wind generated from the pping of the wyvern wings actually pushed them back away from me.

    The only thing that was in my mind was¡­

    Windy!

    There was just too much wind from the wyvern flying into the sky that I wasn''t even able to enjoy myself.

    The only thing that I could do was grab the wyvern''s neck and hold on for dear life.

    It was only after a while that the wyvern finally stopped ascending and evened itself out to fly at a single altitude. It even made sure to fly at a slower speed so that I wasn''t blown off since it had felt me holding on for dear life just now.

    This was the scene that I had wanted to see.

    From up in the sky, the group that I had just left behind looked like ants when I looked down.

    I could feel the breeze running through my hair and I could see far off into the distance.

    This was a view that only a bird would be able to have, but now I could enjoy the same view because of this wyvern.

    Though when I thought about it, there were things like pegasi in this world that could do the same for humans. There were also countries that tamed pegasi to have pegasus knights.

    So what if I did the same thing with wyverns?

    But of course, that would depend on what happened next with the gathering wyverns.

    I hoped that I could clear this event safely.

 Chapter 631 Feeding

    Chapter 631 Feeding

    ??Two dayster, we arrived at our destination.

    This ce was a town called Tide Town, which was the closest town to the Bald Mountain that the wyverns were gathering in.

    When we arrived at the town, we could see that there weren''t that many people here.

    That was because they already knew about the wyverns and there were many people who had evacuated.

    Even when we came in through the gates, the guards that were there warned us about this ce.

    Though they didn''t say it directly, they were clearly hinting for us to leave this ce as soon as possible.

    But we didn''t since we were meeting people here.

    When we came to the ce that the message told us toe to, we met a group of cloaked figures that waved for us toe in. This group had the same cloaks as Shadow Five and she even appeared in person to confirm that this was indeed the group that we were supposed to meet.

    This house that they had brought us into was a fancy one that clearly belonged to a rich person, but here they were using it without a single care.

    It once again made it clear just how rich the fourth prince was.

    I already knew this since I had information from the game, but seeing it in real life was something else.

    After we came in, these people went to another room to bring out several chests.

    After putting these chests down, the one that seemed to be the leader came forward to say, "Count Zwein, these are the items that you have requested. Other than this, his highness has instructed us to stay here and assist you in this matter."

    The others all nodded before giving slight bows to me.

    It seemed that for them, this was already considered a great amount of respect for a person.

    After this, they just waited there as if they were waiting for orders from me.

    With an awkward smile on my face, I said, "I''ll need some help carrying these things out of town. What I''m going to use these things with won''t be able toe into the town, so we''ll need to bring these things out of the town."

    I could see that they were looking at me as if they were confused even though I couldn''t see their faces under the cloaks.

    As for my group, they had bitter smiles on their faces.

    Though they had no idea what was in these chests or what I would do with them, they knew what I was referring to which made them reveal a bitter smile.

    Then there was Shadow Five who had disappeared after I had said this.

    It seemed like she couldn''t face herpanions after I had mentioned this.

    She didn''t know how to face them without giving away the truth, but even then¡­it would be hard for them to believe.

    So she took the easy way out by running away.

    Though they were confused as to what I was referring to, they still brought the chests to a carriage that was behind this house. It seemed that they had already prepared everything for me.

    With this carriage, we were able to easily leave the town since it had the mark of one of the local nobles on it. With that mark, the guards let us out without a single question.

    Once we were out of the town, I had them drive the carriage away from the town before stopping at the side of the road.

    I waved my hand and pulled out a whistle that I suddenly blew into that didn''t seem to make any noise at all.

    But it didn''t take long before powerful winds started blowing across us.

    When the cloaked figures looked up, they were shocked to find the wyvern that was flying there above us.

    These were elite personal guards that the fourth prince had sent, so they didn''t hesitate at all to surround me as the leader gave orders, "Take the count away and ensure that he remains safe. The rest of us will stay here to cover for him."

    It seemed like they were about to attack the wyvern, so I quickly stopped them and said, "Wait, it''s not an enemy."

    They all looked at me like they were wondering what I was talking about, but I just confirmed that it indeed wasn''t an enemy. Once the wyvernnded, I slowly let them approach the wyvern and pet it just like the others had done.

    Of course, the wyvern had also demanded another squirrel carcass out of me that I quickly handed over to it.

    When they were finally certain that the wyvern wouldn''t do anything to it, they turned to look at me.

    Even without seeing the faces of these cloaked figures, I could already guess how they were looking at me.

    I just ignored them as I had Cecilia and the others bring the chest over.

    Once they brought them over, I opened up one of the chests to reveal a piece of wood.

    This was a normal looking piece of wood that didn''t seem like there was anything special about it, but I picked it up and brought it over to the wyvern.

    The wyvern looked at me with a look of confusion, as if it was asking, "What are you doing?"

    I ignored this look and just brought the piece of wood right up in front of the wyvern''s mouth before saying, "Eat it."

    The wyvern''s look of confusion turned into a look of shock before it took a step back.

    It was clear that the wyvern didn''t want to eat this piece of wood that I was holding, but I wouldn''t let it get away.

    I immediately moved forward after it took a step back and raised the piece of wood up to the wyvern''s mouth as I said, "Open up, that''s an order."

    The wyvern looked at me with a very unwilling look, but I wouldn''t back down.

    So all it could do was open its mouth in the end for me to toss the piece of wood inside.

    It chewed it a bit and there was a disgusted look on its face, but then¡­

 Chapter 632 Supplements

    <h4>Chapter 632 Supplements</h4>

    The look of disgust that was on the wyvern''s face suddenly turned to a surprised look.

    It chewed the piece of wood in its mouth a few times before suddenly taking a deep breath and releasing a breath of mes up into the sky.

    Everyone else couldn''t help taking a step back and their hands moved to their weapons when they saw the wyvern do this.

    The only one that wasn''t surprised by all of this was me.

    I just watched the wyvern release this me breath into the sky with a smile on my face.

    The look on my face was as if I was already expecting this to happen.

    Once it had finished releasing the breath of mes into the sky, the wyvern looked up with a shocked expression on its face. It was as if it couldn''t believe that it had released that breath of mes, even though it had been the one to do it.

    After being shocked, the wyvern looked down at me with a questioning look like it was asking me what this was about.

    However, I didn''t answer that question at all as I went over to another one of the chests to open it and take out something else.

    This was arge crystal that seemed to be glowing.

    I just turned around to raise this up for the wyvern before saying, "Eat this as well."

    The wyvern looked at me with a strange look when it saw me holding this crystal up for it, but when it thought about what had happened before...The wyvern slowly opened its mouth and brought its head down to take the crystal.

    After putting the crystal in its mouth, it started to chew.

    However, there was the same look of disgust that appeared on the wyvern''s face.

    It was clear that none of the things that I had fed it tasted any good, but there was a reason why I was feeding these things to the wyvern.

    It wasn''t as if I was just feeding these things to the wyvern because I was bored.

    After chewing the crystal for a bit, the wyvern suddenly felt something changing with its body.

    This time, it didn''t do the same thing as before where it released a breath of mes into the air. This time, the wyvern suddenly spread its wings before its body seemed to bulk up.

    It was like it had increased in size as its muscles suddenly became much bigger than before.

    After its muscles swelled for a bit, it finally stopped growing in size.

    The wyvern didn''t double in size, but it was at least one and a half times bigger than before.

    The wyvern just looked at its own body for a bit before suddenly pping its wings.

    When it did, there was arge gust of air that was generated that pushed me all the way back. It threw me down onto the ground and pushed me back quite a bit.

    Because I was pushed against the ground, I could feel the pain that came from my back from being scratched up by the rocks on the ground.

    When the wyvern saw what it did, it immediately stopped pping and raised its arms before looking at me with a concerned and apologetic look. It seemed that it really was sorry about what it had done.

    Cecilia ran over and helped me up, but I just waved my hand while saying, "I''m fine, I''m fine. Just a couple of scratches."

    She turned me around and seeing the state that my back was in, she said with a stern look, "Just a couple of scratches?" After saying that, she turned to look at the wyvern who suddenly raised its ws to cover its head in an apologetic manner.

    She must be the first one to scare a wyvern into submission like this¡­

    I just took her hand and said, "It was just an ident, there''s no need to be this way."

    Cecilia took a deep breath and said, "Turn around, I''ll dress your wounds for you."

    I gave a nod, but there was no chance for that as one of the fourth prince''s men came over and raised their hand to point at my back. There was a white glow that appeared around that hand and on my back before I felt a warm sensation fill my back.

    In no time at all, the wounds had closed.

    It seemed that the fourth prince''s people weren''t simple.

    They even had a healer of this level amongst them.

    I didn''t get a chance to thank them as they suddenly moved away. Instead, it was the leader of that group that came over to ask, "Count Zwein, the items that you requested from his highness¡­are you nning to use them to¡­?"

    He didn''t finish his words, but it was very clear what he was implying since he had turned to look at the wyvern.

    I just gave a simple nod as I said, "That''s right, I''m using them as supplements to boost the strength of the wyvern."

    In an awkward voice, the leader of the group said, "You''re really using these precious treasures to strengthen a wyvern? What if it breaks free of your control and starts to hurt people?"

    I just calmly said, "You don''t need to worry about that. The fourth prince trusts me, so you should as well."

    When the fourth prince was mentioned, the leader had no choice but to fall silent.

    To say anything now was to go against the fourth prince¡­but it was clear by his figure that he wasn''t satisfied with just this.

    Still, I didn''t care since I knew what I was doing.

    I went to the other chests and started opening them to take the items inside out.

    One by one, I took these items and tossed them up to the wyvern''s mouth.

    The wyvern didn''t hesitate this time and ate these things one by one.

    It had felt the effect of the first two, so it knew that these things wouldn''t harm it.

    I just watched as the wyvern became more and more powerful after devouring these things.

    After this, it should be the most powerful wyvern in history.

    That was how I would be able toplete this quest.

 Chapter 633 Bald Mountain

    Chapter 633 Bald Mountain

    ??A dayter, we arrived at our destination.

    As for where our destination was, it was naturally the Bald Mountain where the wyverns gathered.

    The reason why this ce was called Bald Mountain was because there was arge t area that was at the top of the mountain. The way that it was ced atop the mountain almost made it seem like it was balding.

    However, this was also the reason why the wyverns hade here in the first ce.

    They were using this ce for a ceremony of theirs.

    In the game, this event had been called "Rise of Wyvern King".

    That''s right, it was the Wyvern King.

    This was the ce where the wyverns gathered every so often to decide their new king.

    Even if they mostly lived in packs, there was still a Wyvern King that ruled over all of the others. This Wyvern King would be able tomand other wyverns into doing what it wanted them to do.

    As for why it was allowed to do that¡­it was because the Wyvern King was the strongest wyvern out of them all.

    Even if the others wanted to resist, it wasn''t as if they could do anything to resist.

    This Wyvern King was decided every so often, depending on when the previous Wyvern King passed away.

    In the rough society of the wyverns, this was an event that happened more often than one thought. After all, there were various ways for the Wyvern King to pass, which would require a new Wyvern King.

    The method that happened the most was the betrayal of the Wyvern King by one of its trusted allies.

    Wyverns didn''t stick together because of loyalty, but rather they did it out of safety.

    So the only reason that wyverns came together in packs was just because they were looking out for themselves. More wyverns together meant there was more safety since they could look out for each other.

    But that didn''t mean that they were loyal to each other.

    So wyverns that wanted to be the Wyvern King would often take care of the Wyvern King in less reputable manners.

    The other mostmon way for a Wyvern King to die was¡­death by humans.

    The Wyvern King was powerful, but there was a limit to how much power an individual would have.

    Since the Wyvern King was usually the most powerful wyvern, there were times where this was also the most aggressive individual.

    As such, they would often do things like attacking human settlements.

    Once they attacked enough human settlements, they would provoke something that they couldn''t fight.

    The human kingdoms used all of their powers to hunt down the Wyvern King and that would be enough to kill it.

    Regardless of how they died, it wasn''t important.

    What was important was this Rise of the Wyvern King event.

    This was where a new Wyvern King was crowned and that was what I had tamed this wyvern for.

    I would make it the new Wyvern King and then use it to control the wyverns.

    That was why I had given it all those supplements in the first ce.

    When we arrived at the Bald Mountain, I suddenly stopped our group and turned to the others to say, "From now on, I''ll be proceeding alone with the wyvern."

    When they heard this, they all looked at me with shocked looks before saying, "No."

    I shook my head and said, "This isn''t a suggestion, this is an order."

    But even then, they still shook their heads and said, "No."

    I gave a sigh before saying, "This is the only way that this will work. There''s no way for you to follow since it will mean that we will have to fight all of the wyverns. If I go with the wyvern alone, there''s still a way that they will ept this. But arge group of humans will be disregarded as dangerous."

    They all looked at me withplicated looks, but in the end¡­

    they decided to trust me and go along with my n.

    Though the fourth prince''s men seemed like they were just going along because they had been ordered to.

    But before we could head up Bald Mountain, there was something else that we had to do.

    I looked at the wyvern and it gave a nod before moving over to the rest of our group.

    They were no longer as scared of the wyvern since they had spent some time with it now, but they couldn''t help looking up at it with a strange look. They couldn''t understand just what it was nning to do.

    Once the wyvern was standing over them, I gave a nod to it.

    The wyvern looked down at the others of the group with an apologetic look before opening its mouth.

    After opening its mouth, there was a liquid that came out.

    This was the saliva of the wyvern that it seemed to be dripping down on the others.

    When Cecilia and the others saw this, they immediately tried to move out of the way.

    But I said, "Don''t move and let it soak you."

    They were caught off guard by this and that moment of hesitation was all that was needed for the wyvern to drench them in saliva.

    After they were drenched, they quickly turned to look at me with res as if they were ming me for this. Though that was true since I was the one that had the wyvern do this and had told them to stay still.

    I just calmly exined, "Wyvern saliva gives off the same scent as wyverns. As long as we have this on, they won''t be able to find us."

    After saying that, I turned to the wyvern and it came over to drip some saliva on me.

    But unlike them, I was only moderately dripped on and could wipe it off with ease.

    They all looked at me with resentful looks, but I just ignored them as I said, "Alright, it''s time to go."

 Chapter 634 Old pack

    Chapter 634 Old pack

    ??When we came up Bald Mountain, it was just me and the wyvern.

    I was on the wyvern''s back as we came up to the peak of the mountain.

    But once we arrived, we were immediately surrounded by other wyverns.

    The way that they were postured around us, it was clear that they did not wee us.

    Of course, that wasn''t strange since the wyvern that I had tamed was an outcast in the first ce. At the same time, it had arrived in this sacred gathering of wyverns with a human on its back.

    So naturally, they wouldn''t ept this.

    But we had been prepared for this.

    Or rather, I had been prepared for this since I knew that this would happen.

    This was actually the same thing that had happened in the game.

    It was almost identical which made me feel a bit strange, but I just patted the wyvern on the back.

    The wyvern had looked a bit scared when it was surrounded by the other wyverns. That was most likely because it remembered what the other wyverns had done to it in the past.

    However, when it felt me patting it on the back, the wyvern suddenly stopped looking as scared.

    We had already discussed what it was supposed to do, so all it had to do was find the courage to do it.

    That was where I came in.

    After taking a deep breath, my wyvern suddenly moved forward towards these wyverns that surrounded it. These wyverns suddenly roared at my wyvern as if they were trying to scare it off.

    But my wyvern just roared back at the other wyverns, as if it was defying them.

    When the other wyverns saw this, they couldn''t help being taken aback.

    Especially since they could feel the power that came from that roar.

    The wyverns that had surrounded us were the ones that hade from the same pack as my wyvern, so they did know my wyvern. They knew that my wyvern wasn''t supposed to be this strong.

    It was supposed to be a wyvern that they could bully easily into submission since that was how it was before.

    But now that my wyvern had stood up for itself, they had no choice but to look at it properly.

    When they did...they found that my wyvern was much bigger than they remembered. It had be just as big as them...no, it was actually bigger than them now.

    They had no idea how this had happened, but here it was standing over them.

    There were a few of these wyverns that couldn''t help feeling a bit scared because of this.

    But in the end, one of the wyverns from this group came out.

    This was the biggest wyvern of this group. It was clearly the one that led their group.

    When it came out, I could feel a trembleing from my wyvern again.

    With the way that my wyvern looked at it, it seemed that this wyvern had bullied my wyvern quite a bit. It was very likely that this leader of this wyvern pack was the one that led the bullying against my wyvern.

    I patted my wyvern again, but it looked back at me and shook its head as if it was saying, "I''m fine."

    Once it did that, it turned back to face the pack leader with a strong look on its face.

    The pack leader couldn''t help being surprised by this, but it also wouldn''t allow its leadership to be challenged like this. Especially when it was from the runt of the pack that they had kicked out before.

    So the pack leader came up and reached its neck out to bite my wyvern.

    My wyvern reacted a bit slow since it didn''t expect the pack leader to do this, so it couldn''t stop it from biting it.

    However¡­when the pack leader bit it, it revealed a surprised look.

    The pack leader''s jaw was locked around my wyvern''s wing, a part that should be considered weak. However, my wyvern just looked at the pack leader biting it with a look like it didn''t feel a single thing.

    The pack leader saw the way that my wyvern looked at it and it revealed a surprised look as well.

    But it felt its pride being challenged, so it started biting harder on my wyvern''s wing.

    Even so, my wyvern didn''t seem to feel a single thing.

    After letting the pack leader bite its wing for a bit, my wyvern suddenly raised its wing and flicked it. As soon as it did, the pack leader was lifted off the ground and held in the air.

    Both the pack leader and my wyvern looked at each other in shock, as neither of them had expected this to happen.

    I was the only one that had a look on my face as if I had already expected this.

    I just patted my wyvern on the back again and said, "Go on, take your revenge."

    As if it had been enlightened by these words, my wyvern''s eyes suddenly lit up as it looked at the pack leader.

    The pack leader could sense that something bad was about to happen, but it didn''t have time to react. It didn''t even have time to open its jaws that were still biting into my wyvern''s wing.

    My wyvern suddenly swung its wing down and mmed the pack leader into the ground.

    When it did, the pack leader had no choice but to open its mouth.

    It wasn''t because it had been forced open, but rather because it had the breath knocked out of it and it had no choice but to open its mouth to catch another breath.

    It was just too bad that my wyvern didn''t let it go.

    My wyvern raised its wings and started raining down blows on the pack leader.

    The pack leader couldn''t resist at all as it rained blows down on it.

    When it was over, the pack leaderid there on the ground in a sorry form.

 Chapter 635 Gathering of wyverns

    Chapter 635 Gathering of wyverns

    ??After the pack leader was defeated, the other wyverns just stood there looking at my wyvern with a look of shock.

    But at the same time, there was a clear look of fear that was also in their eyes.

    It was as if they were afraid what my wyvern would do next¡­

    After a moment of silently looking down at the pack leader that was on the ground, my wyvern turned to look at the other wyverns.

    All of them didn''t know what to do at first, but one of them took the lead before the others followed. That first wyvern lowered its head and gave a pose of submission to my wyvern before the rest of them all started to submit.

    When it was over, all of them had their heads bowed to my wyvern.

    My wyvern looked surprised by this, but I patted it on the back and said, "ept them."

    It looked at me with a surprised look, but eventually it turned back around and gave a roar at these wyverns.

    These wyverns were surprised by the roar that it gave and looked at each other with nk looks for a bit before bowing their heads once more. After bowing their heads, the wyverns all started to move over to where my wyvern was.

    However, not a single one of them did anything disrespectful and they just went behind my wyvern to line up there.

    They hadpletely submitted to my wyvern and were now following it as its pack.

    There was only the matter of the former pack leader on the ground.

    Though it was covered in bruises and injuries, it was still conscious.

    Seeing all of the wyverns that had followed it suddenly change sides like this, it could only reveal a bitter look. It didn''t reveal a vengeful look since it knew that this was just how it was when it came to the wyvern world.

    What woulde next is¡­its death.

    There couldn''t be two leaders of the pack.

    So when a new pack leader took over, they would kill the previous pack leader.

    But that didn''t happen in the end.

    I had other ns for these wyverns, so I didn''t care about the wyvern pack rules.

    Not to mention in the first ce, my wyvern was different from the other wyverns.

    Even if it wanted a bit of revenge because of the way that it had been treated previously, it didn''t want to kill any of the wyverns.

    So I just patted it on the back and said, "ept it into your pack. Let it be your follower."

    My wyvern looked up at me with a surprised look, but it quickly gave a nod in response since this was what it had wanted to do in the first ce.

    Though there was still one more thing to worry about.

    Pride.

    There could be the pride that this wyvern once had as the leader of this pack that would prevent it from epting the position of my wyvern''s follower. It might just choose death instead of following my wyvern.

    But it turned out that this was an unnecessary worry.

    When my wyvern gave a roar to the former pack leader on the ground, it looked up with a surprised and confused look.

    The way that it looked at my wyvern was as if it was trying to figure out if it was being serious.

    But after a while, the former pack leader suddenly lowered its head and bowed to my wyvern as well.

    It seemed that for this former pack leader, its life was more important than its pride.

    However, if I thought about it, this did seem like the case with wyverns.

    They were a race that only cared about their own survival, so things like pride came after that.

    That was why they all grouped up like this in the first ce.

    Once the former pack leader fell under my wyvern, there was nothing left for us to do here except head forward to where the other wyverns were gathering. These other wyverns had ignored what had been happening over here, as if they didn''t care at all.

    It seemed that they really only cared about their own survival, they didn''t care about what happened with other packs.

    But there was something that happened when my wyvern tried to go over to where the other wyverns were with its new pack.

    There were a few wyverns that suddenly came forward to point at me who was on my wyvern''s back.

    The stance that they had as they pointed this out made it clear that they didn''t ept this.

    It was clear that they didn''t want to allow me to stay and even wanted to attack me.

    But my wyvern just roared at them which caught them off guard.

    The other wyverns looked at me one more time before slowly moving away.

    It seemed that the roar had been enough to scare them and there didn''t seem to be any others that came forward to cause trouble.

    Seeing this, I started looking around at the other wyverns that were here.

    I hadn''t been worried at all since this was exactly the same as what had happened in the game. Even encountering my wyvern''s previous tribe and subduing them was the same.

    It seemed at the very least, this part of the quest remained the same.

    Though it was strange how identical it was¡­

    After all, the scene of the former pack leader biting the wyvern of the yer and then being mmed down had also been in the game.

    The only difference was that in the game, the former pack leader had been killed.

    I didn''t know how this would change the quest, but I didn''t care since I needed this former pack leader.

    I needed as many wyverns as I could for what I was nning on doing.

    Once our group of wyverns came over, there was an old wyvern that suddenly walked out in front of everyone and gave a roar.

 Chapter 636 Fighting for the title of Wyvern King (1)

    <h4>Chapter 636 Fighting for the title of Wyvern King (1) </h4>

    After the old wyvern gave a roar, the other wyverns all turned in that old wyvern''s direction.

    This was clearly a wyvern that was much older than the rest based on its small stature.

    Wyverns shrank after reaching a certain age just like humans did.

    And not only that, it was clear that this was an elderly wyvern based on the way that it was slouching.

    It didn''t seem like this old wyvern wouldst much longer.

    However, because it was an old wyvern, it was clear that this old wyvern held some kind of position among the wyverns.

    After all, most wyverns would never live long enough to reach this age in the first ce.

    They were either killed by humans or they were killed by each other.

    For a wyvern to live to this age, it either had to have a certain amount of power or it would need to have a special position among the wyverns.

    Thetter was what this old wyvern had.

    It even seemed to have some kind of stick in its hand that seemed to show that it was of a special position.

    This wyvern was actually a shaman of the wyverns which was a strange thing if one thought about wyverns as a whole. But I wasn''t that surprised by it because I knew why it was ced here.

    This was another thing that had been passed down from when this world was still a game.

    Simply put, wyverns weren''t supposed to have a thing like shamans in the first ce since they didn''t have anything like religion. The only reason why this shaman even existed was to guide the wyverns on bing the Wyvern King.

    So it was something that was only added because of the event that humans had designed for the wyverns.

    In a sense, this wyvern shaman was something that was out of ce.

    However, right now, the wyvern shaman was the one thing that all of the wyverns paid attention to.

    Once it saw that all of the wyverns were looking in its direction, the wyvern shaman suddenly pointed at the sky and gave a roar.

    I didn''t understand what the wyvern shaman meant by this roar, but I already knew what the structure of this would be. After all, I had yed through this quest so many times that I was already bored of it.

    Though the title of Wyvern King had been a very powerful one in the game and had given quite a few good items for clearing this quest.

    So that was why I had never been able to ignore this quest.

    After the wyvern shaman gave this roar and pointed at the sky, the wyverns all around suddenly opened their wings and flew up into the sky.

    The only ones that didn''t were the wyverns of our group.

    It looked like they wanted to go up as well, but they were just waiting for my wyvern to move. However, my wyvern seemed to be waiting for my instruction.

    Seeing that we didn''t go up into the sky with the others, the wyvern shaman turned to look in our direction. Or more specifically, it seemed to be looking right at me who was on my wyvern''s back.

    After looking at me for a bit, the wyvern shaman suddenly said, "Human, what are you doing here?"

    This wyvern shaman had actually spoken in words unlike the other wyverns, but still, I wasn''t surprised since I already knew that it was capable of this because of my game knowledge. This wyvern shaman was a special NPC that was able to trante words for wyverns, so it was a necessary NPC to recruit.

    I looked at the wyvern shaman and said, "I''m here as this wyvern''s rider to participate in the race for the Wyvern King."

    The wyvern shaman revealed a surprised look when it heard this, but then it said, "Then you should know what the consequences of losing are, right?"

    I gave a nod since this was also in the game.

    It wasn''t as if something like a wyvern rider hadn''t happened before in the past.

    As such, there had been a rule added that wyverns could allow human or other race riders to help them during the race for the Wyvern King.

    But since this was a sacred ceremony for the wyverns, it wasn''t something that could be participated in that easily. If a human or other race rider wanted to participate in the race for the Wyvern King, they would have toy down their lives.

    That meant that if they lost, they would have to give up their lives to the new Wyvern King.

    In short, this meant that they would have to let the Wyvern King eat them once their wyvern lost.

    In the game, this had been a simple game over¡­but now that the game had be real life¡­

    It would mean actual death.

    But I wasn''t worried about this since I had already prepared everything.

    Seeing that I was aware of the consequences, the wyvern shaman didn''t ask anything else and said, "Then go up with your wyvern. The first round is about to begin."

    I gave another nod before patting my wyvern on the back.

    This time, my wyvern opened its wings and flew up into the sky with the other wyverns.

    Following behind us was the pack that we had tamed.

    But that pack didn''t follow us all the way up into the sky.

    After reaching a certain altitude, they suddenly stopped like the other wyverns did.

    There were only a few wyverns that went past this altitude and just flew there in the sky above the rest.

    These were the wyverns that were participating in the race for the Wyvern King.

    These were the leaders of the various packs that would bepeting with my wyvern for the title.

    When they saw use up with them, it was clear that there were looks of disdain in their eyes as they looked at me on the back of my wyvern.

 Chapter 637 Fighting for the title of Wyvern King (2)

    <h4>Chapter 637 Fighting for the title of Wyvern King (2)</h4>

    However, not a single one of them did a thing yet as they remained there flying in ce.

    It almost seemed as if they were waiting for something.

    Then all of a sudden, there was a roar that came from below.

    When I looked down, I found that this was a roar that came from the wyvern shaman down below.

    But I didn''t have time to look for long as I just didn''t have time to keep looking.

    That was because the different wyvern pack leaders around us had started moving.

    It seemed like once they received the signal from the wyvern shaman, they were unleashed and allowed to do what they wanted to do.

    That meant that they started attacking each other.

    But not all of these wyvern pack leaders attacked each other. There were a few that suddenly turned in our direction and flew right at us.

    My wyvern was surprised to see all of these wyverns flying at us, so it wasn''t able to react in time.

    When it did react, we had been surrounded by these other wyverns.

    My wyvern suddenly pped its wings as if it wanted to get out of here, but it quickly realized that there was nowhere for us to go. The other pack leaders hadpletely surrounded us so that no matter which way we went, we would be stopped by one of them.

    It seemed that they werepletely prepared to deal with us.

    Though this was supposed to be a fight where it was every wyvern for themselves, it didn''t seem like these wyverns were following that rule. It seemed that they had most likely formed an alliance before this fight had begun and were now targeting what they considered the weakest one.

    My wyvern had been kicked out of wyvern society, so most wyvern pack leaders didn''t know it. At the same time, my wyvern was the only one that was carrying a human, so they looked down on my wyvern.

    After surrounding us, these wyverns all came at us at the same time with their jaws open.

    It seemed that they wanted to attack us from every different angle so we wouldn''t have a chance to escape.

    My wyvern recognized this, so it suddenly grabbed me off its back and then covered me with one wing while still pping with the other to keep itself in the air.

    As I was being grabbed, there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face.

    That was because I didn''t think that this was necessary at all.

    But...since it wanted to protect me, I would let it.

    There was no harm in letting my wyvern take these bites since it would show it just how much power it had.

    "Chomp!"

    All of the wyvern pack leaders that surrounded us suddenly bit down on my wyvern.

    However, they found that they weren''t able to draw blood at all. In fact, they were barely able to even sink their teeth into my wyvern''s skin.

    It was almost like they were biting into metal with how hard it was.

    When the former pack leader of my wyvern''s pack saw this, it couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    After all, it had done the same thing as these pack leaders.

    In the end, it had been beaten up without any mercy and had been forced into bing my wyvern''s follower.

    My wyvern slowly looked up at the other wyverns around it.

    The look on its face was as if it couldn''t understand what was happening, but there was a trace of confidence that slowly filled its eyes. That was because there was no pain at all that came from the bites of these wyvern pack leaders.

    It was as if¡­they couldn''t hurt it at all.

    Rather, it was like being stung by a mosquito with how little it hurt.

    My wyvern just looked at them for a bit in a daze as if it was trying to figure out what to do next.

    But I took care of that by patting it on the wing and saying, "You know what to do."

    My wyvern looked down at me and then gave a nod before putting me on its back again.

    As soon as I was on its back, I immediately hung on tight as I knew what was about to happen.

    The wyvern pack leaders were still in a daze as if they couldn''t understand what was happening. When they reacted to this, it was already toote for them to do anything.

    My wyvern was already swinging its wings and throwing the wyvern pack leaders that were biting into it around. Though they could have easily broken free just by letting go of my wyvern, they didn''t seem to be able to do it in time, so they were being carried by their own mouths as they were being thrown around.

    After throwing them for a bit, my wyvern suddenly gave a strong flick of its body that sent them all flying.

    I really had to grab on for dear life or else I would have been thrown off as well.

    It was a good thing that I had been working out, or I might really not have had enough strength for this.

    After throwing them off, my wyvern didn''t hold back at all as it started charging the other wyverns.

    This time, they no longer acted as aggressively as before.

    This time, they flew off in different directions as they tried their best to avoid my wyvern chasing after them, but they found that it was no use.

    They were just too slow to avoid my wyvern in the first ce.

    It didn''t take much effort for my wyvern to catch up to a group of them.

    With its mouth, my wyvern grabbed one of the other pack leaders in between its teeth.

    With its two ws, it grabbed the heads of two other pack leaders and started swinging them around like toys.

    It was like a child going on a rampage after learning about their own power.

 Chapter 638 Fighting for the title of Wyvern King (3)

    Chapter 638 Fighting for the title of Wyvern King (3)

    ??Once it was done ying with these three, my wyvern just threw them down as if it didn''t care about them anymore.

    It had been careful to not injure them seriously, so they were able to regain their ability to fly...but they knew that it was no use fighting anymore. The strength that my wyvern had demonstrated was more than enough to put them in their ce, so they floated down on their own.

    The ones that were defeated either fell to the ground or floated down to where the other wyverns were waiting.

    There were few wyverns that actually killed other wyverns since killing them now meant losing a good subordinate.

    This was different from fighting for the position of pack leader.

    This was to be the supreme leader of all the wyverns, so it didn''t matter if the others were left alive.

    In fact, it was useful to keep them all alive since they would be busy fighting each for power instead of fighting the Wyvern King to steal their position.

    In a matter of minutes, there were only a few wyverns that were left flying high up in the sky.

    The others had either gone down to where the other wyverns were or they had been dropped to the ground dead.

    My wyvern was among those that was still flying high up.

    But when one looked at it, it was clear who was on top here.

    The other wyverns were all injured from fighting each other.

    It was only my wyvern who was still uninjured even after fighting all those different wyverns that had tried to gang up on it earlier.

    If this continued, it was clear who would have won.

    But luckily for the other wyverns, the wyvern shaman suddenly gave a roar.

    I wasn''t surprised by this since this was something that was supposed to happen.

    The first trial was a trial of aerialbat, showing off the might that the Wyvern King had in the air.

    The second trial was the more important one since it showed the divine right to rule.

    After the wyvern shaman gave this roar, all of the wyverns suddenlynded on the ground.

    The wyverns that had been flying lowernded and formed a circle while the ones that were still in the race for the title of Wyvern Kingnded right in the center of the circle.

    This included my wyvern and me who were being red at with wary looks by all of the other wyverns.

    It was clear that they were no longer looking down on us.

    It was clear that they took us as a real threat now.

    So in this trial¡­they would most likely also try to team up against us.

    But I had prepared for this as well since I knew what this second trial was.

    After we allnded, the wyvern shaman came forward and raised its staff to point at the sun before giving a roar.

    Then after looking at me, the wyvern shaman said in the humannguage, "The wyverns have always beenpared to the dragons, but it was said that the wyverns came from the sun itself. As such, the wyverns should always have the me of the sun inside of them, giving them the divine right to rule. This will be a trial of mes. The one with the strongest me will be deemed the Wyvern King."

    Simply put, this would be a trial of whose me breath was the strongest.

    Whoever was able to release the strongest me breath would be considered the winner of this round.

    e the wyvern shaman had finished exining this, it turned back to look at the other wyverns that were in the circle with us.

    It was very clear what was going to happen once this round started, but the wyvern shaman didn''t seem to take a side. After looking at them for a bit and turning to look at us, it gave a roar.

    As soon as the wyvern shaman gave a roar, the other wyverns in the circle with us immediately released their me breaths at us.

    These me breaths gathered together to form an evenrger wall of mes that seemed like it was about to burn everything in its path.

    I could feel a tremble from my wyvern under me, so I gave it a pat and said, "It''s fine, you got this."

    My wyvern didn''t look back this time as it suddenly reared back its head.

    There were traces of mes that came out of its mouth as it did this, showing that it was gathering mes in its mouth.

    Then as the wall of mes was about to hit us, my wyvern suddenly pointed its head forward again and released all of the mes that it had been gathering in front of it.

    These mes suddenly mmed into the wall of mes and they didn''t stop at all as they scattered these weaker me breaths from the other wyverns.

    All of the wyverns that had released this me breath were shocked to see this before putting even more mes into their breaths. But they found that they weren''t able to stop the me breath of my wyvern at all.

    So in their panic, there were some that stopped shooting these mes and started running away.

    The ones that couldn''t react in time were the ones that were in the center.

    They were hit with the brunt of the mes and sent flying since they were fireproof to begin with.

    The ones that were able to make it out found that there were more mes waiting for them.

    My wyvern had stopped shooting its mes after seeing them run and the breath that it had released before was already enough to push away the mes of the other wyverns.

    After being hit by these new mes, they were thrown out of the ring as well.

    With just two breaths, my wyvern had pushed all of the other wyverns away and stood alone in the ring.

 Chapter 639 New Wyvern King

    Chapter 639 New Wyvern King

    ??When it was all over, my wyvern and I were the only ones that were left in the center of the circle.

    There was only silence as all of the other wyverns looked at us with shocked looks.

    But there was one that was slowly moving over to where we were.

    This was the wyvern shaman who was slowly walking over.

    When the wyvern shaman came over, it looked at my wyvern and gave a soft roar.

    My wyvern revealed a surprised look when it heard this, but it quickly shook its head and gave a roar back. After that roar, it looked at the wyvern shaman with a threatening look, as if it was telling it to try whatever it wanted to try.

    The wyvern shaman just gave a sigh and shook its head before giving a soft roar.

    It turned back to the other wyverns and gave another roar.

    When it did, the other wyverns didn''t seem to react at first. They just remained there looking at my wyvern with a confused look, as if they didn''t know what to do.

    But in the end, they suddenly bowed to my wyvern.

    It was one wyvern that bowed at first, but the others quickly followed until all of them were bowing to my wyvern.

    All of them were showing their respect to my wyvern.

    The wyvern shaman gave a nod before turning to me to say in the humannguage, "They are bowing in worship of the new Wyvern King."

    I gave a nod before saying, "I know."

    The wyvern shaman revealed a surprised look as if it didn''t expect me to say this with such a calm voice, but it didn''t say anything else to me and just turned back to look at the other wyverns before giving a roar.

    Once it gave this roar, the wyverns all stood up and then turned to look at each other.

    They split off into different groups before suddenly attacking each other.

    I would have been surprised if I didn''t know what this was.

    They were choosing those that would be the greatest helpers of the Wyvern King.

    The Wyvern King would have the right to chooseter on, but for now, the strongest would remain by the Wyvern King''s side to consolidate the new Wyvern King''s rule.

    We just watched as these wyverns fought with each other.

    But there was something that I needed to do, so I jumped off my wyvern''s back and went over to where the wyvern shaman was.

    The wyvern shaman had tried to ignore me at first, but I was the one that talked to it by saying, "Do you want to bring a new era to the wyverns? One where you no longer need to hide in the wilds and can live civilized lives?"

    The wyvern shaman slowly turned to me after hearing this.

    It just looked at me for a bit as if it was trying to figure out just what I was doing, but in the end, it slowly said, "What do you mean by this?"

    I didn''t exin right away as I just casually said, "You should know that it is inevitable that humans will take over thend. With the current trend, it is only a matter of time before youpletely run out ofnd to call your own."

    The wyvern shaman didn''t fall for my ruse as it just calmly said, "Get to your point."

    I gave a nod of praise before saying, "Why do you need to fear humans when you can just live with them?"

    The wyvern shaman was genuinely surprised when I gave it my suggestion before slowly shaking its head and saying, "Humans only have one thing in mind, they won''t ept something like this."

    I just calmly said with a smile, "What if I said that I can change that? Especially since we have the power of the Wyvern King on our side." After saying that, I pointed at my wyvern who was just calmly waiting on the side.

    The wyvern shaman just looked at me like I was crazy, but slowly it seemed like it was being convinced by what I had said.

    After staring at me for a bit, the wyvern shaman said, "What do you n on doing?"

    I slowly gave the wyvern shaman my n and it listened to me silently.

    When it was done, it looked at me like I was even more crazy as it said, "Do you really think that will work? It doesn''t seem like you understand just how wyverns are."

    I shook my head and said, "I think that you''re underestimating them too much."

    The wyvern shaman looked at me with a look like it thought that I was still crazy, but then it said with a sigh, "So why are you telling me all of this?"

    At this, I revealed a smile and said, "Naturally it''s because I want your help with this. In fact, you''re a key part of my n."

    The wyvern shaman didn''t seem to believe me, but there was a trace of hope that appeared in its eyes as it looked at me. It was as if it was hoping that what I had told it was possible.

    This wyvern shaman recognized that eventually, the wyverns would be pushed to the brink because of the rising human poption.

    What I had talked about was just a matter of time and the wyverns didn''t seem like they were capable of doing anything.

    So it seemed like there was no future for the wyverns which concerned the wyvern shaman.

    Now that there was an opportunity to change this, should it take that risk?

    I could see that this was what the wyvern shaman was thinking after I told it all these things.

    So I just said, "What I need you to do is be the gap between wyverns and humans since you''re the only one that can speak bothnguages. As long as we have that bridge, we should be able to achieve this."

    The wyvern shaman looked at me with a look of doubt, but it gave a nod in the end.

 Chapter 640 Choose the ones that you like

    Chapter 640 Choose the ones that you like

    ??Once the fighting was over, the ones that had won came over to introduce themselves to my wyvern.

    Though they did it in the wyvernnguage, so it wasn''t as if I could understand them.

    At the same time, I could see all of the wyverns that came over would look up at me from time to time, almost as if they were questioning me.

    To each of these wyverns that looked up at me, my wyvern gave a nip and a roar to silence them.

    I patted my wyvern on the neck and it looked at me with a smile.

    Once this was all done, all of the wyverns gathered once more in front of my wyvern.

    The wyvern shaman said to me, "They are preparing to leave. Though the Wyvern King has been decided, they are all nning to return to their own territories to live out their lives."

    But I shook my head and turned to my wyvern to say, "No, make them stay."

    It gave a nod before giving a roar to the other wyverns.

    When the wyverns heard this, they all looked at my wyvern with a confused look before turning to look at the wyvern shaman. They didn''t look at me since they knew that there was no use looking at me, so they looked at the wyvern shaman to try and convince me.

    The wyvern shaman gave a nod to them before saying, "If you ever need the wyverns, you can gather them again through the secret call of the Wyvern King that I will teach the new Wyvern King. There''s no need for them to remain here."

    But once again, I shook my head and said, "No, I need them here."

    The wyvern shaman looked at me with a confused look as it simply asked, "Why?"

    I looked at it with a smile and said, "We''ll start putting my n into action right away."

    "Huh?" The wyvern shaman said with a confused look, but I ignored it once again and went over to the forest on the side.

    Once I was there, I shouted, "Alright, you can alle out now."

    There was no sound at first, but slowly there were a few figures that came out of the forest. Though they were clearly wary of the wyverns that were in front of them and many of them had their hands on their weapons, as if they were prepared to fight at any moment.

    When the wyverns saw this, all of them suddenly revealed wary stances as well as they faced these figures that appeared.

    My wyvern gave a roar to them that immediately made them calm down.

    However, that just made them look at my wyvern with bitter looks as if they felt like they had been betrayed by my wyvern.

    My wyvern didn''t care as it looked at me, as if it was waiting for my next move.

    I gave a nod to my wyvern before moving over to the human figures and saying, "Alright, take your hands off your weapons. There''s no need to be wary, I have the situation under control."

    The ones that hade out were naturally Cecilia and the others who had been hiding nearby watching everything the entire time.

    They looked at me with strange looks when they heard me say this before slowly looking at the wyverns that were there in front of them.

    It was clear by the looks on their faces that they didn''t seem to believe me.

    Still, Cecilia and Shaka took their hands off their weapons in the end.

    Once they did that, the others also followed suit and took their hands off their weapons.

    But the stance that they had made it seem like they were prepared to run at any moment.

    At least they seemed like they were open to hear what I said, so I waved my hand at them before saying, "Alright, follow me. Let''s go and meet your new partners."

    They all looked at me with shocked and confused looks, but I just ignored this.

    Once I led them over to the wyverns, there was a tense silence that filled the air.

    The humans looked at the wyverns and the wyverns looked at the humans, both sides seemed to have wariness in their eyes.

    In the end, it was the wyvern shaman who broke the silence by asking, "What are you nning to do with these humans? You should know how wyverns feel towards humans and yet you''re bringing armed humans to a ce like this?"

    When they heard this, Cecilia and the others couldn''t help feeling wary again as they looked at the wyverns with distrust.

    But I raised my hand to stop them,

    I just looked at the wyvern shaman and calmly said with a smile, "It''s time to put the n into action."

    The wyvern shaman looked at me with a confused look at first before a sudden look of understanding appeared. It looked at me with a shocked look before looking at the others that were with me while its expression turned strange.

    When it turned to look at me, I was already looking at Cecilia and the others as I said with a smile on my face, "Go on, choose the ones that you like."

    They all looked at me with very strange looks before they slowly started to understand what I was saying. When they started to understand this, the strange looks on their faces turned into looks ofplete shock as they turned to look at the wyverns.

    I didn''t care as I patted my wyvern and said, "You know what to do."

    My wyvern gave a nod before giving a roar at the other wyverns.

    These other wyverns all revealed shocked looks before looking at Cecilia''s group.

    The two sides just looked at each other with shocked looks, as if neither side knew what was even happening at this moment.

    I turned to the wyvern shaman and said, "I''ll leave it to you to trante."

 Chapter 641 More in common than one thought

    <h4>Chapter 641 More inmon than one thought</h4>

    Though I left it to them, it was hard for the two sides tomunicate with each other.

    The only one that could trante for them was the wyvern shaman, so it was hard for them to understand each other in the first ce.

    At the same time, there was the deep distrust between humans and wyverns to begin with, which made conversation hard in the first ce.

    If it wasn''t for my order and my wyvern''s order as the Wyvern King, then they really wouldn''t have said a single thing to each other.

    It was Cecilia who took the lead in the end as she started walking past the different wyverns. She looked at them as if she was sizing them up, but eventually she stopped when she met a wyvern that seemed to have a scar on its neck.

    Seeing this scar, she couldn''t help being drawn to it, so she had the wyvern shaman ask the wyvern where it hade from.

    The wyvern shaman said, "This is a wound that it received when it protected one of the children of its pack."

    When Cecilia heard this, she couldn''t help looking at the wyvern with a strange look.

    With the way that she looked at the wyvern, it was almost as if there was some kind of connection that was forming between the two of them.

    After a moment of silence, Cecilia finally asked the wyvern shaman, "What does it think about protecting those that need to be protected? Will it only protect those that it is close to or will it protect all that need its protection?"

    The wyvern shaman looked at Cecilia with a strange look when it heard this, but seeing the firm look that was on Cecilia''s face, it asked this to the wyvern with the scar. The wyvern with the scar looked at Cecilia with what seemed to be a strange look in silence for a bit.

    But in the end, it gave a roar that the wyvern shaman tranted.

    "Those that are weak and need its protection, it will protect. It doesn''t matter who needs to be protected, as long as I can protect them, I will do it."

    Though it said this, there was a part that the wyvern shaman didn''t trante.

    "Of course, that doesn''t mean that I''ll protect humans when they''ve done nothing but hunt us."

    That was the part that the wyvern shaman left out.

    Because of that, Cecilia looked at the wyvern with a scar with a look that was different from before.

    It was almost as if she was looking at it with admiration.

    It was almost as if she could sense some kind of connection with this wyvern with a scar.

    So she moved closer to the wyvern shaman and waved her hand at it toe down.

    The wyvern shaman was confused why Cecilia was doing this, but it still came down to see what she wanted.

    Cecilia stood up a bit to whisper something in the wyvern shaman''s ear.

    The wyvern shaman looked down at Cecilia with a surprised look that soon turned into a confused look.

    The way that it was looking at Cecilia was almost as if it was trying to confirm if she really wanted to say this.

    But Cecilia just looked at the wyvern shaman with a firm look on her face.

    In the end, the wyvern shaman had no choice but to turn back to the wyvern with the scar and give a roar.

    The wyvern with the scar had a surprised look on its face for a bit before looking down at Cecilia. It just looked at her for a bit as if it was sizing her up before suddenlying forward to lower its head.

    The wyvern with the scar brought its head right in front of Cecilia''s face and then¡­

    It suddenly gave a snort, releasing a st of hot air into Cecilia''s face.

    While it was doing this, it looked right at her as if it was seeing if she would flinch at this.

    But Cecilia just looked right at the wyvern with the scar in the face.

    The two of them were silent for a bit before Cecilia raised her hand slowly in front of her.

    The wyvern with the scar moved back a few inches before suddenly stopping.

    After looking at Cecilia for a bit, it moved forward again so that its head was right in front of her hand. Slowly, the two of them came closer and closer to each other until Cecilia''s palm was ced on the snout of the wyvern with the scar.

    There was another moment of silence before Cecilia suddenly pulled back her hand and moved towards the wyvern with the scar.

    The wyvern with the scar stayed still for a few seconds before reaching its wing down for her.

    Cecilia climbed onto the wing and onto the back of the wyvern.

    Once she sat down on the back of the wyvern with the scar, it suddenly pped its wings and flew into the sky.

    Cecilia firmly grasped the back of the wyvern and didn''t let herself be thrown off.

    Just like this, the two of them seemed topete.

    One tried to throw the one on its back and the other firmly held on so they wouldn''t be thrown off.

    It seemed that they had more inmon than one thought.

    After watching Cecilia go at it with this wyvern with the scar for a bit, the others slowly started to open up to the wyverns.

    Though not every case was like the one with Cecilia and the wyvern with the scar.

    There were some that weren''t able to find a wyvern that they could connect with right away, so they had to go to several wyverns before they were able to find one that they could connect with.

    Though there was one person that didn''t seem to connect with any of the wyverns.

    It was as if the wyverns were even scared of him.

 Chapter 642 A name

    Chapter 642 A name

    ??The one that was being avoided by the wyverns was Shaka.

    Though he tried to approach a few, it was as if there was something about him that instinctively scared them. In the end, there weren''t any of them that allowed him to approach them.

    When Shaka saw this, he revealed a smile almost as if he knew what it was that caused this.

    Simply put...it was because of his past.

    In the past, he had simply killed too many wyverns that there was this instinctively fear that he generated towards the wyverns after this.

    It was almost like some kind of instinctive suppression.

    When I saw this, I thought about giving him a hand, but...

    Shaka shook his head at me as if he was saying that he didn''t need it.

    Not only that, there was a look in his eyes that seemed to be telling me something.

    It was as if he was saying, "If you do this, I won''t ever be able to bond with the wyvern that I choose. When the timees, it will be a failure of your n."

    I knew that he was right since forcing a wyvern to be with him would go against the n, but...it didn''t seem like there was a single wyvern that was willing to let Shaka approach it.

    Even if it was forced, there was a chance that feelings would develop between them.

    That was the case with arranged marriages, so this might also be the case here...

    However, before I could do that, Shaka finally found one that wasn''t as afraid of him.

    This wyvern was much smaller than the other wyverns and it was clear that there was something that seemed off with it. However, this wyvern didn''t seem to react at all when Shaka came close.

    This wyvern almost seemed...gloomypared to the other wyverns.

    With the way that it acted, it was almost as if it had given up on life.

    But another special thing about this smaller wyvern was that it blended in very well to the background. Until Shaka had pointed it out and approached it, I didn''t even notice this wyvern.

    Seeing the way that this wyvern looked, Shaka called the wyvern shaman over and whispered a few things to him.

    The wyvern shaman looked at him with a strange look before saying, "Are you sure this is what you want to say? My humannguageprehension isn''t perfect, so there''s a chance that I might have misunderstood what you just said."

    But Shaka just gave a nod and said, "This is what I want to tell it."

    The wyvern shaman still looked at Shaka with a strange look, but it gave a nod in the end.

    It gave a roar to the smaller wyvern who immediately reacted.

    That smaller wyvern raised its head and looked at Shaka with an incredulous look.

    Shaka just gave a nod to the small wyvern and waved his hand for it toe over.

    That small wyvern hesitated a bit before going over to Shaka''s side.

    It seemed that this would be the one that Shaka chose.

    When it was all over, all of my people had chosen a wyvern for themselves.

    With the way that they acted, it was clear that there were already bonds forming between them even with the hostility between wyvern and humans.

    It was a good thing that I had the wyvern shaman trante.

    While wyverns were smart and could understand what humans were saying, that was only the general gist since they didn''t fully understand thenguage. Having this wyvern shaman that understood bothnguages trante their words certainly made things much easier.

    When it was done, Cecilia was the one that asked the wyvern shaman, "Is it alright if we name them?"

    The wyvern shaman thought about it for a bit and gave a roar to the wyverns before saying with a nod, "We wyverns don''t have names in the first ce since we never needed them. However, if you want to give them a name, that would be fine."

    Though it said it like this, I could hear that there was a bit of an excited tone in its voice.

    But I also realized that I made a mistake¡­

    I didn''t have a name for my wyvern either.

    Not to mention, I didn''t even know what gender it was¡­

    So I quickly talked to the wyvern shaman to fix this mistake.

    "It''s female?" I said in a surprised voice.

    The wyvern shaman gave a nod before saying, "That''s right, is something wrong?"

    I slowly shook my head as I said, "No, it''s not like there''s anything wrong¡­" I turned to look at my wyvern before saying, "Then does that mean that it''s a Wyvern Queen instead of a Wyvern King?"

    To my surprise, the wyvern shaman shook its head and said, "No, the title is Wyvern King regardless of gender."

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile when I heard this.

    I had only asked it as a joke, but this wyvern shaman had taken it seriously¡­

    Turning back to my wyvern, I started thinking about a name for it.

    After a while, I said, "How about the name Joan?"

    My wyvern tilted her head as if she was asking me where this name was from.

    I leaned in closer and said, "Well, it''s the name of a powerful girl who once defended her nation from invaders. I hoped that you would like this kind of powerful name."

    Though she couldn''t understand everything, she did understand the general gist.

    She understood that the name that I chose for her was a powerful name, so that was enough for her.

    Joan gave a nod before giving a happy roar.

    I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile when I heard this.

    However, there was no time to enjoy all of this since there was still a ce that we had to be.

    Before we left, I had the fourth prince''s people send a private message for me.

 Chapter 643 Rain of fire (1)

    Chapter 643 Rain of fire (1)

    ??General Killock looked at the enemy that was in front of them with a grim look on his face.

    With the order of the fourth prince, he had been sent to this battlefield to support the army that was already here.

    However, the situation of the battlefield didn''t change much even if they had arrived.

    Before this, they had been outnumbered three to one.

    Now that his army was here, that had only changed to being outnumbered two to one.

    It wasn''t as if they would be able to do much being outnumbered two to one like this.

    General Killock couldn''t help suddenly missing Count Zwein.

    If it was Count Zwein, then this wouldn''t be a problem since he had all those different surprises that he had given them. No one expected the things that he did, but he definitely did things that no one else could.

    If Count Zwein was here, then this would be apletely different situation.

    The problem was¡­he wasn''t here.

    So General Killock could only work with the army that had been deployed here to hold back the enemy.

    The problem was¡­

    The current general of this army was not someone that he respected.

    This was someone who was under the first prince and was someone who only cared about his own position, so he wasn''t someone who was skilled enough to be a general. He had only obtained his position because of his political skills and his identity as a noble.

    This was theplete opposite of General Killock who had be a general with his own skills and had worked hard to achieve his current position.

    Still, he had to work with this general right now.

    "General Gardner, please rethink this." General Killock said in this meeting of top officers.

    General Gardner looked like theplete opposite of a general as he sat thereid back in his chair. He almost seemed like he was just here to listen in on the meeting because he was bored, rather than being the headmander of this army.

    After he heard this, General Gardner just raised his hand and casually waved it before saying, "There''s no need to do such a thing."

    General Killock deeply knitted his brows and revealed a very displeased look when he heard this.

    What he had just suggested was to send out scouts to infiltrate the enemy camp and see if they could obtain any information.

    For any general, this was something that couldn''t be more basic, but¡­this General Gardner hadpletely ignored this. He had kept all of his troops in this makeshift fortress that they had made and had only sent out the bare minimum to watch over the enemy camp.

    General Killock wouldn''t give up as he said, "If we remain passive like this, there''s no knowing what the enemy will do. When the timees, we won''t be the only one that suffers, all of the people of our country will also suffer."

    General Gardner just gave a shrug and said, "General Killock, do you know what our mission is here? We are here to defend the border so that the enemies don''t flood into our country and right now, we are doing that perfectly. If we were to send out scouts and they were caught, wouldn''t that just incite the enemy to attack us? The system that I have in ce is working and they have no way of breaking into our fortress right now. Why would we poke at the enemy when they aren''t doing anything?"

    General Killock deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    This General Gardner only cared about one thing, keeping his position.

    He didn''t care about the people or what the enemies were doing.

    While he had been maintaining his position, the enemies had been sending raiding parties to attack the viges in the surrounding area.

    He had gone out several times with his men since he was still in charge of them, but it was clear that the enemies were getting more active.

    It was clear that they were nning something.

    However, General Gardner didn''t do a single thing to stop them.

    Before General Killock could say anything, there was a soldier that suddenly ran in and said, "The enemies are attacking!"

    As soon as they heard this, everyone headed out of the tent and went to the walls of the makeshift fortress.

    Even General Gardner came out with them to observe the enemies from the walls.

    But the moment that he saw how they were positioned, he revealed a faint smile and said to General Killock beside him, "Do you see? They don''t know how to break through this fortress, so they are getting desperate. It''s clear that there''s nothing for us to worry about."

    General Killock knitted his brows as he looked at the enemies lined up in front of the makeshift fortress.

    That was because they were taking a formation that didn''t seem like a normal formation.

    They were in a formation that seemed like they had already won, so they were preparing to march into this makeshift fortress. The most suspicious part was how the cavalry were ced in the center, as if they were prepared to charge the gates at any moment.

    His instincts that had been developed over his long career as a general was telling him that there was something deeply wrong here. He couldn''t put his finger on what it was, but he knew that this wasn''t as simple as it seemed.

    "Fire the arrows and show them what we have!" General Gardner suddenly gave this order.

    The soldiers under him were just like him, so they assumed the same thing when they saw the enemies like this.

    They thought that all of them were easy targets for them to shoot.

    This caused fewer soldiers to be ced at the gate¡­

    It was then that the gate suddenly started to open.

    "What''s happening?" General Gardner shouted at the soldiers at the gates, but they didn''t respond at all.

 Chapter 644 Rain of fire (2)

    Chapter 644 Rain of fire (2)

    ??The gate just continued to rise, so General Gardner had no choice but to say, "Go and check on what''s happening with the gate! Stop it from rising any further!"

    His men quickly went down to see what was happening, but the sounds of fighting quickly rang out from down there.

    It seemed that the soldiers that had been at the gate were fighting those that hade down to stop it from opening. They wouldn''t let General Gardner''s men near the controls for the gate at all.

    "What do you think you''re doing?!" General Gardner roared out when he saw this fighting down below.

    However, not a single one of the soldiers who had been protecting the gate said a single thing in response.

    It was as if they werepletely ignoring him as they focused purely on keeping the gate from closing.

    General Gardnerpletely lost his temper when he saw this as hemanded, "Shoot down the traitors! It doesn''t matter what you have to do, just close that gate!"

    The archers hesitated for a second, but they knew that they had no choice.

    They didn''t know why theirrades had done this, but this couldn''t be allowed to keep happening.

    If the gate remained open, then the enemies would flood into their makeshift fortress and all of them would be killed by the enemies.

    So before that could happen, they had to close the gates.

    However, before the arrows of the archers could reach the soldiers that were there, there was a loud sound that seemed to be getting louder. Before the arrows could hit their marks, there were horses that charged out and knights with shields that came forward to block these arrows.

    Everyone was shocked to see these cavalry units suddenly appearing like this, but then they realized that it was the enemy cavalry.

    This was the unit that had been ced in the center of the enemy formation that had seemed out of ce. But now¡­they understood why the enemy had put this cavalry unit in the center of their formation.

    They had been aiming for this all along!

    But how did they know that this was going to happen!

    It didn''t take long before that mystery was revealed.

    The soldiers that opened the gate took off their helmets, revealing their true appearances.

    When they did¡­no one was able to recognize them.

    Not a single person was able to recognize any of these soldiers.

    They were clearly not their soldiers, but the enemy soldiers.

    The problem was¡­how did they sneak in here in the first ce?

    This makeshift fortress was something that had been meticulously designed, General Gardner had made sure that there wasn''t a single hole in this fortress since it was what he had been depending on to keep his position.

    So there shouldn''t have been a single way for them to sneak in.

    The enemies seemed like they wanted to brag, so one of the soldiers who had opened the gate said, "Look at how dumb they look right now. They didn''t even notice that we had spent all this time digging under their walls."

    "Huh?" General Gardner revealed a shocked look when he heard this.

    He never thought that they would have done something that took this long in the first ce.

    It seemed that he had really underestimated the enemies since this wasn''t something that could be done in a day or two. They must have been doing this the entire time that they had been camped here.

    It seemed that he was the fool for not listening to General Killock''s advice.

    But General Killock suddenly said, "Seize the gates and push them back! They are just stalling for time!"

    He had only realized it when the soldier had exined how they hade in.

    There was no reason for them to expose their ns, but they had done so.

    Why?

    They wanted to shock General Gardner and distract him while the rest of their troops approached the fortress. They were trying to keep them busy so that their allies could approach without any danger.

    When the soldiers heard this, they couldn''t react right away.

    When the enemies realized that their intentions had been exposed, the cavalry knights suddenly pulled out bows and started shooting at the archers.

    They weren''t able to react in time and quite a few of them sustained injuries.

    After that, they formed a defensive line in front of the gate so that it couldn''t be reimed.

    It seemed that they had already nned out everything.

    The enemies outside were getting closer and closer while they couldn''t even approach the gates¡­

    No matter how General Killock looked at this, it seemed like this was over.

    It seemed like there was nothing that they could do to turn this situation around.

    Since that was the case¡­would it be better to go out fighting?

    But as he had this thought, there was a loud sound that came from above.

    This was the roar of some kind of creature that rang out.

    It didn''t take long for everyone to realize just what kind of creature it was since they could see itsrge body flying through the air.

    It was a wyvern.

    No one made a move when they saw this wyvern since they didn''t think that this wyvern was here to bother them. Not to mention, they didn''t want to get this wyvern involved in this war in the first ce.

    Wyverns were wild creatures that only knew how to rampage, it was bad for both sides if this wyvern became involved.

    But as the wyvern came closer and closer, they saw that it was heading right towards this battlefield.

    It even seemed to be diving right towards the fortress.

    Seeing ite closer and closer like this, there was a bad feeling that filled the hearts of all those inside and outside of the fortress.

    When it finally came close enough, they saw the wyvern suddenly stop and rear its head to gather mes in its mouth before suddenly releasing it down onto the battlefield.

 Chapter 645 Rain of fire (3)

    <h4>Chapter 645 Rain of fire (3)</h4>

    When they saw these mes raining down, everyone on the battlefield started to panic.

    After all, there was no doubt that these mes falling down on them would cause a lot of damage to them.

    So they were all trying to find a way to get out of the way.

    But everyone soon realized just who these mes were aimed at.

    These mes were falling outside of the makeshift fortress, they were falling on the armies of the Beirut Kingdom.

    The soldiers did what they could to avoid the mes that were falling down on them, but they were just too grouped up to avoid itpletely. The mes rained down on their formation and hit quite a few of them.

    But it didn''t do too much damage in the end since there were those with shields in every formation that had blocked these mes. The me breath had been too scattered as it fell down that it wasn''t as strong as it could have been.

    After the wyvern released its me breath on them, it suddenly started flying back up into the sky.

    When it did, there were many archers that raised their bows to aim at the wyvern.

    Since it had already attacked them, there was no point in thinking that this would end peacefully.

    Since they had been attacked, they needed to take revenge on this wyvern.

    So they were going to shoot it down.

    An eye for an eye in a sense.

    The archers had aimed their arrows at the wyvern, but they didn''t get a chance to shoot in the end.

    That was because there was another deafening roar that rang out before they could release their bowstrings.

    After this deafening roar, there were morerge figures that suddenly came out of the clouds. However, that wasn''t the most important thing about these figures that had broken through the clouds.

    The most important thing was the glowing mes that were gathering in their mouths.

    These wyverns that had just broken through the clouds had been reeling back their heads and gathering a me breath just like the first wyvern.

    Once they came down far enough, these wyverns suddenly released these breaths down on them.

    Even if they hadunched their arrows, they wouldn''t have been able to break through this rain of mes that was falling down on them. The mes justpletely incinerated the arrows that hit them.

    There was no resistance at all as the mes turned the arrows into ashes.

    Then the mes rained down on them.

    This time, they weren''t able to block the mes with the shields that they had since there were just too many mes.

    The only thing that they could do was run as fast as they could to avoid the mes that were falling down on them.

    It was just too bad that there was no way that they would be able to dodge all of the mes that were falling down. There were too many mes and there were too many of them to run fast enough.

    So in the end, it became a scene of hell on earth as the mes started burning the ground that they were on and burning them along with it.

    In no time at all, around half of the Beirut Kingdom soldiers had suffered injuries of varying degrees. At least 20% of all the soldiers were no longer in a condition to fight.

    This was just from a single attack from the wyverns¡­and the wyverns were still flying there in the air.

    After this one attack, they were finally able to see just how many wyverns there were.

    There were several hundred wyverns that were flying there in the sky and with how big these wyverns were, they seemed to block out the sun above them.

    This was a terrifying scene no matter how one looked at it, but it was most terrifying for the Beirut Kingdom army since they were the ones that were facing these wyverns in battle.

    None of them knew why these wyverns were so intent on attacking them, but there was nothing that they could do about it. After all, the wyverns were here and they were attacking them.

    They couldn''t just let themselves be killed by the wyverns, so they could only do what they could to fight back.

    But¡­the wyverns weren''t fighting like how wyverns normally fought.

    "How? How is it possible that they know how to fight like this?"

    That was all the Beirut Kingdom general could say when he saw how the wyverns were acting.

    Instead of diving down at them like normal, the wyverns were using diversion tactics where they would send small groups of wyverns to draw out toons from the army. Once these toons were drawn out, other groups of wyverns would suddenly attack them.

    It was slowly whittling away at the Beirut Kingdom army.

    Eventually, they couldn''t take it anymore and there were deserters that ran off.

    But instead of chasing the deserters like they normally would, they continued to attack the main group. It was almost as if they were protecting the deserters so they couldn''t be caught and punished.

    The wyverns knew the weak points of their formation, so they would attack them to make sure that they wouldn''t be able mount any form of counterattack.

    The wyverns were slowly torturing them to death, there was nothing that the Beirut Kingdom army could do at all¡­

    The Beirut Kingdom general watched all of this with a grim look on his face, but there was nothing that he could do except give the order, "Retreat! Retreat!"

    They couldn''t do a single thing against the wyverns, so they could only run like rats.

    But before they could run¡­

    "Charge!"

    General Killock was leading a group of cavalry to charge into the Beirut Kingdom army.

    Their lines had beenpletely ravaged by the wyverns, so they weren''t able to stop General Killocks group of cavalry at all.

    It was like wheat being collected by the scythe as they cut right into the Beirut Kingdom army.

 Chapter 646 Rain of fire (4)

    Chapter 646 Rain of fire (4)

    ??Going back a few minutes...

    Everyone who had been in the makeshift fortress was shocked to see these wyverns that had suddenly appeared.

    The fighting hadpletely stopped in the makeshift fortress after these wyverns appeared.

    They all watched as the wyverns descended on the Beirut Kingdom army, sending down their mes breaths to destroy their ranks.

    After taking a while to react, the Beirut Kingdom infantry and cavalry finally turned around and went to help their allies. After all, while it was important to take this fortress, it was more important to save their allies.

    They could see that at this rate, it was only a matter of time before their allies were all ughtered.

    But it wasn''t just them that reacted in this manner.

    There was someone else who reacted to the appearance of the wyverns by gathering his troops.

    It was General Killock who had left General Gardner on the wall all on his own.

    He had gone to his men and quickly gathered over a thousand cavalry to charge after the enemy.

    Without even asking General Gardner for permission, he led his men forward. Though in reality, he didn''t actually need to ask General Gardner for permission since these cavalry units were from his army in the first ce.

    They were under hismand and not General Gardner''smand, so he could use them however he wanted in the first ce.

    As they charged out, General Killock couldn''t help looking up at the wyverns flying in the sky with a strange look.

    That was because he had finally remembered the letter that he had received from the fourth prince just a day ago. He had forgotten about this letter since it had seemed like nonsense at the time, but now he realized that the letter had been referring to this the entire time.

    That letter had mentioned that when the wyverns came, he should support them however he could.

    But he never thought that it would actually happen.

    Still, since the fourth prince had even sent him a letter about this, General Killock chose to believe in the fourth prince.

    What he didn''t realize was that he had been slowly affected by Count Zwein.

    He had gotten so used to shocks like this that he was able to react even with the sudden shocking appearance of the wyverns.

    As they charged into the enemy lines, they progressed swiftly at first since these enemy lines were inplete disarray from the attack of the wyverns. It didn''t seem like they had the mental capacity to stop them under the attacks of the wyverns, let alone the physical capacity as they were being pelted with me breaths.

    But that was only on the edge of the enemy formation.

    As they went deeper and deeper into enemy lines, they found that these enemies were still in proper formation to a certain extent. They were using their shields to block the mes, so it was easy for them to shift the shields to block General Killock''s cavalry.

    Or at least that was what should have happened.

    General Killock and his men had even braced for the impact when they saw the shield wall in front of them.

    But before they could crash into that shield wall, there was a roar that came from above.

    Everyone looked up to see that there were three wyverns that were above them that were gathering mes in their mouths. Once they came down close enough, they suddenly released this me breath at the shield wall that had been in front of General Killock and his men.

    The shield wall was able to block some of these mes, but it was different since the wyverns hade down close enough that the me breaths were even stronger. So in the end, the shields melted right in their hands.

    The wyverns though had to block a few arrows because they hade down this far.

    The reason why the wyverns had nevere down this far before was because there were still arrows being shot at them. They had remained just out of range of the arrows as they had been releasing their fire breaths down at the Beirut Kingdom army.

    But now, they hade down just to breathe their me breaths on this shield wall in front of General Killock and his men.

    There was a moment of hesitation from General Killock and his men, but he quickly recovered from this and charged at where the shield wall had been.

    With the shields that had been melted, they weren''t able to stop General Killock and his men from rushing right into their formation.

    Plus with their shields being melted, they didn''t have a way to block the spears of General Killock and his men.

    So they were able to easily sweep through these enemy soldiers with their long range and their quick speed. In no time at all, they had made it through this formation and were charging deeper into the formation of the Beirut Kingdom army.

    Once they were through, one of General Killock''s closest subordinates who was riding beside him couldn''t help asking, "General, did the wyverns just help us?"

    General Killock knitted his brows when he heard this as he didn''t answer right away.

    Even if he wanted to answer, it wasn''t as if he had an answer for this subordinate of his since he didn''t know what had happened either.

    So in the end, all he could say was, "That doesn''t matter right now. Right now, we only need to be focused on our mission."

    That subordinate had a strange expression on his face, but in the end, he gave a nod to show that he understood.

    With that, General Killock and his men dove even deeper into the enemy formation.

    What they didn''t know was that there was someone watching them from above on the back of a wyvern, taking note of them as they charged deeper into the Beirut Kingdom army.

 Chapter 647 Rain of fire (5)

    Chapter 647 Rain of fire (5)

    ??General Killock''s goal was the general of the Beirut Kingdom''s army

    That was why he was charging deep into the formation of the Beirut Kingdom''s army.

    That was where the general was hiding with his most elite troops, as well as magicians that were able to block the fire breath of the wyverns. That was how they had been able to sustain the least injuries out of the entire Beirut Kingdom army.

    Most of the injuries and deaths were at the outer edges where theirmoner infantry were.

    The ones in the center all had better armour and weapons, showing that they were in a different ss.

    Whether that was because they were the soldiers of a knight or the soldiers of a noble, they were soldiers that had a backer.

    However, none of them were able to stop General Killock even with this better equipment. General Killock and his men were able to charge deep into the formation of the Beirut Kingdom army without being stopped.

    Was it because they were simply stronger?

    No, it wasn''t that simple.

    It was because of the support that came from above.

    Whenever it seemed like General Killock and his men would encounter an enemy that would be hard to face, there were wyverns that dived down from the sky. These wyverns that dived down shot their me breaths on the enemies block General Killock''s way, destroying their formations.

    Once their formations were destroyed, it was easy for General Killock and his men to push even deeper.

    Perhaps if this only happened once or twice, one might think that it was a coincidence.

    However, it happened more than just once or twice. It happened every time that General Killock''s group faced an enemy that was hard to deal with.

    Every time, there would be wyverns diving down and breathing fire on their enemies to break their formation.

    If one didn''t know better, they might have even thought that the wyverns were working with General Killock.

    After all, this was all just too much of a coincidence that the wyverns would keep helping General Killock and his men.

    But General Killock didn''t understand what was happening either.

    As far as he knew, he didn''t have any connections to the wyverns, so it wasn''t as if there was a reason for them to help him. Yet they wereing down and clearing the way for him the entire time¡­

    As he thought about it, General Killock suddenly remembered something.

    "Wasn''t Count Zwein supposed to be dealing with some wyverns for his highness?"

    There was a conclusion that slowly started to form in the back of his mind, but it almost seemed too crazy that he couldn''t bring himself to ept it.

    Or at least that would have been the case if it wasn''t for who the person he was thinking of was.

    Count Zwein had shown him many crazy things already, so it might actually be possible¡­that he had done this.

    But General Killock kept this thought in the back of his mind as he focused on what was in front of him.

    Right now, the most important thing was taking down the Beirut Kingdom''s general.

    As long as that general was taken down, then they would be able to scatter the Beirut Kingdom army and send them packing. After all, they were still far outnumbered by the enemy, so it wasn''t as if they could clean them up.

    But there was a small part of him that wanted them to escape.

    After seeing the two massacres back to back, he didn''t want to see another massacre.

    That was just what he thought as a fellow human.

    It didn''t take long for them to reach the center of the Beirut Kingdom army formation.

    Right in the center, there was arge group that was gathered together, seemingly protecting something. All of them were wieldingrge shields and had heavy armour, as well as having the support of magicians.

    It was clear that whatever was here was important to the Beirut Kingdom army.

    Even if the wyverns came down to support General Killock''s group with their fire breath, the magicians were able to stop them.

    So this time, it was a head on fight for General Killock and his men.

    But it was still an easy fight since the other side was exhausted from blocking the rain of fire from the wyverns. They had been using those heavy shields and thick armour to guard themselves the entire time, which must have been very hard for them.

    At the same time, with the heavy armour and shields they were wielding, it was hard for them to move quickly.

    So they couldn''t keep up with the speed that General Killock and his men had.

    They were able to easily go around the Beirut Kingdom soldiers and push right through them.

    It was just that¡­they found that this was a trap.

    Right behind these heavy shield lines, there was an empty space.

    Then further in, there seemed to be ballistas that were set up pointing at the sky.

    However, the moment that General Killock and his men pushed through, this ballistas were pointed down at them.

    It seemed like there was nowhere for them to escape¡­

    General Ivan, the general from the Beirut Kingdom was surprised to see General Killock and his men, but he looked at him with a bitter smile as he said, "So it seems that we meet again."

    General Killock gave a nod before saying, "It''s been a while since that battle."

    The two of them just stared at each other for a bit before General Ivan raised his hand and gave the order, "Fire!"

    General Killock on the other hand said, "Scatter out, don''t give them a target!"

    But the ballistas never got a chance to fire in the end.

    There was a powerful roar that came from the sky before wyverns suddenly appeared.

    This time, there were over a hundred wyverns that gathered and all of them were gathering their me breath.

 Chapter 648 Rain of fire (6)

    <h4>Chapter 648 Rain of fire (6)</h4>

    General Ivan wanted to give an order for the ballistas to change their target, but there was no use.

    He was nowhere near fast enough to give this order before the wyverns released their fire breaths.

    These mes fell down on the ballistas and quickly melted the steel and burnt the wood to ashes. There was no resistance at all as the powerful mespletely incinerated all of the ballistas that were there.

    In no time at all, all of the ballistas had been turned into ashes and metal g.

    Once the ballistas were out of the picture...there was no threat to the wyverns at all.

    There were arrows and spells that were shot out, but the strong hide of the wyverns were able to block these attacks. They weren''t able to do any real damage to the wyverns with just these attacks alone.

    So the wyverns were able to fly above the enemies and rain down mes on them, forcing them further and further back.

    The magicians did their best to use their magic barriers to block these mes, but it was clear that they were running out of magic power at this rate.

    They had been using their magic to block the fire breaths earlier and now they were still blocking the fire breaths. These fire breaths weren''t that easy to block in the first ce.

    General Killock saw this and waved his men forward as he said, "Now is our chance! Break through the enemy formation and take down their general!"

    His men had been standing there in a daze, but seeing General Killock charge forward, they all followed him.

    If there was one thing that they believed in, it was their general.

    If their general was charging in, then they would charge in as well.

    General Killock''s group of cavalry made their way through the scattered Beirut Kingdom forces and were able to reach the center of the formation.

    General Ivan was there with his most loyal subordinates, putting up ast struggle.

    But they were currently surrounded in mes with a wyvern flying above them.

    This wyvern was different from all the other wyverns.

    First, it was much bigger than all of the other wyverns.

    Second, it was much more muscr than the other wyverns.

    Third and most importantly...there was someone who was riding on the back of the wyvern.

    They hadn''t seen this before since the wyverns were too high to notice these small things, but now that the wyverns hade down more, they were able to see the person riding on the back of the wyvern.

    This wyvern didn''t seem like it was struggling at all as it blew away all of the resistance that General Ivan and his men put up with what they had left. All of the arrows and spears that were shot out were sent flying away by the powerful wind generated by the wing ps of this wyvern.

    Though it looked like it was only a matter of time before this wyvern took down General Ivan and his men, General Killock still came forward with his men. They came up right in front of General Ivan''s group and prepared to attack.

    But before they could, there was a familiar voice that rang out, "So you''re finally here."

    When General Killock heard this, he couldn''t help being shocked.

    However, it wasn''t just General Killock who was shocked to hear this.

    All of his men were also shocked to hear this since they also recognized this voice.

    These men were loyal followers of General Killock, ones that had been in his army for many years.

    Naturally they had been there when they had gone to those two ughters.

    They had been there when a certain someone had taken over the army temporarily.

    General Killock looked up at the wyvern that hade down even more now and saw a face that he recognized. When he saw this face, he couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    It was a lie to say that there wasn''t a small part of him that had expected this when he heard about the wyverns.

    Sitting on that wyvern was Count Zwein.

    After looking up at him with that bitter smile for a bit, General Killock finally asked, "What are you doing here?"

    Hearing this, I just said, "I''ve been waiting for you toe this entire time."

    General Killock said with a confused look, "Why were you waiting for me?"

    I turned to look at General Ivan as I said with a smile, "Well, I saw what you said with him earlier, so I could guess that you had some kind of grudge with him. I wanted to give you the chance to settle this matter with him."

    General Killock revealed a bitter smile before saying, "There was no need to do that. The battle is more important, so you should have taken care of him yourself."

    I raised a hand and wagged a finger before saying, "Ze, ze, ze, you were the one that helped us by taking care of those ballistas. So I figured that I should give you some kind of reward."

    Then in a more serious voice, I said, "If you didn''t get them to change the aim of those ballistas, I don''t know how many wyvern lives it would have taken to bring them down. What you did was truly important and I want you to know that."

    General Killock was surprised to hear this, but he said with a nod in the end, "Alright, then I''ll take you up on your offer."

    With a smile, I said, "I''ll take care of the rest, you can just take care of the general."

    With that, I patted the back of Joan and said, "Go and take care of the surrounding ones. Leave the one in the center for him."

    Joan gave a roar before flying forward to p her wings at General Ivan''s formation.

    This strong gust of wind pushed back everyone except General Ivan who was standing in the middle.

 Chapter 649 Rain of fire (7)

    <h4>Chapter 649 Rain of fire (7)</h4>

    With a single breath of mes from Joan, the ones that had been blocking General Killock from reaching General Ivan moved out of the way.

    With this, the stage was set for the two of them to fight.

    I didn''t care anymore as I said to the others on their wyverns, "Go and clear out the rest of the enemies. There''s no need to care about this ce anymore."

    The ones that I was talking to were naturally Cecilia and the others who were also riding on wyverns.

    They nodded in response before taking their wyverns to attack the enemy.

    There were a few that remained where I was and they went to clear out the rest of the Beirut Kingdom soldiers in the area.

    Without a word to General Killock, I had Joan go and attack the enemies as well.

    When General Killock saw Count Zwein flying off on the wyvern, he couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought that he would be in this situation, but there was no denying the facts that were in front of him. The wyverns sending out their me breaths at their enemies was more than enough to show him that this was the case.

    So General Killock chose not to question it.

    He had followed Count Zwein long enough that he already knew that if he questioned it too much, it would just hurt his brain. So instead of questioning this, he chose to go with it.

    Not to mention, going with this would allow him to end a grudge that had followed him for a long time.

    So it could be considered a bonus.

    General Killock turned to face General Ivan.

    The two of them just stared at each other, but it was clear by the looks on their faces that they were feelingpletely different emotions.

    General Killock had a rxed look on his face while General Ivan had a grim look on his face.

    A fair fight, this was not that.

    Though General Killock had to push through all of those enemies to reach where General Ivan was, it wasn''t that hard for him. The enemies that he had to face were those that werepletely exhausted from having to deal with the mes raining down on them.

    So all it took was a single sh for him to push through them.

    It was so easy that it could have been considered taking a walk.

    As for General Ivan, he had been struggling to deal with the mes raining down on him, which had exhausted him both physically and mentally.

    So he was in no shape to fight at all.

    But what choice did he have when the enemy was right there in front of him?

    As General Killock came over, General Ivan said, "Is there no chance of us surrendering?"

    Now that he knew that the wyverns were being controlled by people, General Ivan knew that there was no chance that they would be able to escape.

    Not to mention if they could push away the wyverns to escape, just the difference in speed would be enough to make sure that they would be trapped. After all, they could only run onnd while the wyverns could fly through the sky.

    It was hard for them to escape an enemy that could chase them through the air.

    General Killock hesitated a bit when he heard this, but he shook his head in the end as he said, "No, there''s no chance."

    He might have said that there was a chance before, but he knew that there wasn''t with how Count Zwein had acted.

    He had doubted why Count Zwein had insisted on killing the enemies before, but he realized why after thinking about it.

    It was because there were just too many prisoners.

    Their kingdom was facing four different kingdoms, so that meant that there were prisoners from four different kingdoms.

    This was not an amount that their kingdom could take easily since it would cost arge amount just to capture all of them.

    As such, he realized that Count Zwein was doing what was best for the kingdom, even if he wasbeled as a mass murderer. He was doing what needed to be done, even if his reputation was destroyed.

    So he couldn''t go against it and could only support Count Zwein in this matter.

    That meant that he couldn''t allow his personal feelings to get in the way of this.

    General Ivan took a deep breath and said, "Alright, let''s end this."

    Though he could put his pride down to ask for a surrender to save his men, it wasn''t as if he couldpletely put his pride down. If the enemy wasn''t willing to ept their surrender, there was nothing that they could do except go down fighting.

    So that was what General Ivan was prepared to do.

    It was not a fair fight, it onlysted a few seconds.

    Even though I had flown away with Joan, I had been watching the fight between the two generals since it was Joan who was doing all the work. Once I gave the order, I just hung onto her back and watched as she ughtered the enemies below.

    I watched as General Killock parried General Ivan''s sword and then cut off his head with a single sh of his sword.

    After he cut off General Ivan''s head, he shouted, "Your general is dead! Surrender now!"

    It didn''t take long for his voice to spread out across the battlefield, causing the soldiers to all fall into a daze as they looked in his direction. At the same time, many of them had lost looks in their eyes when they saw General Killock raising General Ivan''s head up.

    Other than a few loyal subordinates of General Ivan who wanted to take revenge, but were quickly dispatched of, the rest all dropped their weapons at the sight of this.

    But even then, I didn''t give the order for the wyverns to stop.

    Once they stopped resisting, the ughter went even faster.

    After a while, General Killock also started attacking the enemy even though they looked like they were surrendering.

    The enemy cursed at us as they said that they were surrendering, but it was aplete massacre in the end.

 Chapter 650 Save me from these beasts!

    Chapter 650 Save me from these beasts!

    ??When it was all said and done, the battlefield was covered in blood.

    General Killock stood over it, looking at the corpses that wereying all around him.

    There might have been a few that escaped through the gaps, but most of the Beirut Kingdom army had been ughtered by the wyverns and his soldiers.

    As he stood there looking over the battlefield, there was arge gust of wind that came from above him. When he looked up, he found that there was a wyvern that wasnding beside him.

    Though this was a powerful and terrifying looking wyvern, General Killock didn''t feel any fear at all.

    No, he still felt a trace of fear, but he was able to control it.

    That was because he could see the familiar figure that was sitting on the back of the wyvern.

    That familiar figure jumped off the wyvern and asked him, "How are you feeling?"

    General Killock just gave a bitterugh before saying, "Do you want the honest answer?"

    When I heard this, I just gave a simple nod.

    "I really don''t know how I''m supposed to feel about this. The ones that were lying on the ground were living humans not that long ago, but now they are corpses that will rot and nourish the earth."

    I raised a brow when I heard this, but I quickly understood what he meant.

    Though General Killock was an experienced general so he had seen his fair share of ughter, that didn''t mean that he had experienced this kind of ughter. It was only after he met me that he started experiencing this kind of ughter.

    A general like him would follow the rules of war and would take prisoners when he could.

    So just ughtering everyone like this was actually a strange thing to do.

    Before, he hadn''t had to kill the enemy with his own hands.

    This time, he joined in the killing of the enemy.

    So it was understandable that he would be feeling this way.

    With a sigh, I said, "This was necessary. You know in your heart that it was necessary."

    General Killock gave a sigh as well before saying, "I know that it is necessary, but¡­it''s just a bit hard to ept as a human."

    I gave a nod to show my understanding before turning back to say, "Then shall we head back? I''m sure that you will want to report this to the one in charge of the fort, right?"

    When he heard this, the expression on General Killock''s face changed.

    One moment, he had a sad look on his face.

    The next, he had a bitter smile on his face.

    It was almost as if he didn''t want to deal with themander of the fort.

    Seeing this, I asked, "Is it really that bad?"

    General Killock started by shaking his head at first, but he eventually gave a nod as he said, "It is that bad."

    I gave a sigh before saying, "But we still have to report to him since he''s the one in charge of this battlefield."

    General Killock gave a nod without saying anything.

    I waved my hand at him and General Killock followed me with a confused look on his face at first. But that expression quickly changed when he saw what I was leading him to.

    As we stood there in front of Joan, he looked at her with a shocked look before turning to look at me as if he was asking me, "Are you serious?"

    My response was to climb up on Joan''s back as she leaned down for me before reaching my hand down for General Killock.

    He looked at that hand like it was a deal with the devil, but he still took it in the end.

    Though I did have to say to him, "We don''t have all day."

    Once we were on the back of Joan, I patted her once before saying, "Go back to the fort."

    As soon as my voice fell, she suddenly stood up and pped her wings to fly into the air.

    Though General Killock was a general with experience, he couldn''t help giving a yelp as we flew into the air. At the same time, I could feel his hands gripping onto my body as we took off.

    It seemed that even the great general wasn''t able to control his fear as we flew into the sky.

    But I just gave a chuckle without saying a thing.

    After a while, he slowly opened his eyes and started looking around us with an amazed look.

    This was the look that most people would have when they were in this situation.

    After all, flying was something that was impossible for humans to do.

    So when they were able to fly in the sky, they would look around themselves in amazement since this was an experience that they couldn''t experience normally.

    It didn''t take long for us to reach the fortress since the enemies hadn''t gotten that far away.

    When we arrived, I could see the trace of disappointment in General Killock''s eyes which made me reveal a faint smile.

    But I didn''t have time to enjoy this as I heard somethinging from below.

    I looked down to see that there was a panic in the makeshift fort.

    The soldiers were running around in a panic, with many archers aiming their bows up at us.

    It looked like they were prepared to attack us at any moment.

    When I saw this, I revealed a bitter smile and asked General Killock, "Did you not tell them about his highness'' message?"

    General Killock revealed an awkward look since he had indeed kept this a secret.

    After all, how could he have told them about the strange letter that he had received from the fourth prince?

    Before we could say anything else, there was a panicked voice that came from below that said, "Ah! Shoot it down! Shoot it down! Save me from these beasts!"

    Looking down, I saw a person who was in aplete panic as he looked up.

    I really couldn''t help feeling disappointed and disdainful seeing this person.

    But General Killock said, "That is General Gardner, the one in charge of this ce."

 Chapter 651 The credit is mine

    <h4>Chapter 651 The credit is mine</h4>

    I turned to look at him with a look of disbelief, but General Killock just gave me a nod as if he was confirming this.

    I looked at him once more with a more serious look and he gave the same nod as before.

    With a sigh, I turned back to look at General Gardner who was shouting at his men to save him.

    Slowly, they were bringing their bows up as if they were about to attack.

    Seeing this, General Killock shouted, "Don''t attack, we''re friendly!"

    When they heard this, the soldiers showed hesitation since they recognized that voice.

    General Gardner also stopped yelling for his men to save him as he looked up at us.

    It took him a while before he was able to calm down, but the way that he looked up made it clear that he still didn''t trust us.

    However, at the very least, they didn''t start firing their arrows at us and allowed us tond in front of the fort.

    I could feel the trepidation that wasing from Joan under me when she saw the way that the soldiers were pointing the arrows at her, but I patted her on the back and said, "It''s fine. I''ll go and talk to them."

    She looked up at me and slowly gave a nod before calming down.

    But I could tell that she was still prepared to escape at any moment.

    Once wended, General Killock jumped off Joan''s back and moved over to the fort to say, "It''s fine, we''ve already destroyed the enemy army. There are no more enemies left to attack us."

    All of them looked at General Killock in shock as if they couldn''t believe what he was saying.

    After a long silence, General Gardner looked up at Joan and said, "Then this is¡­?"

    His voice trailed off at the end, but it was clear what he was implying.

    General Killock looked back at me and then said to General Gardner, "These are the special reinforcements sent by the fourth prince."

    "Special reinforcements¡­" General Gardner repeated, but it was clear by the look on his face that he didn''t seem to believe this.

    But General Killock reached into his armour to pull out a piece of paper that he went over to present to General Gardner.

    General Gardner took it with a doubtful look, but he recognized the mark that was on it.

    This was the seal of the fourth prince and there was no one who was crazy enough to fake this seal.

    That meant that this was indeed a real letter from the fourth prince.

    As soon as he confirmed this, General Gardner no longer hesitated as he read the content of the message.

    He had the same reaction as General Killock at first as he didn''t understand what the message meant. But then when he looked up at the wyvern that was in front of him, he understood.

    It seemed that the wyverns that had appeared on the battlefield were indeed reinforcements.

    After looking at the wyvern in front of him for a bit, his expression slowly started to change.

    Seeing the look on his face change like this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit strange about the way that he looked at us. However, on the surface, I had a calm look on my face as if I wasn''t worried at all.

    After a long silence, General Gardner said to me, "Then you''re saying that these wyverns listen to everything that you tell them?"

    I shook my head while saying, "They won''t listen to everything that I tell them, but they will listen to my orders when ites to fighting."

    There was a trace of disappointment that appeared on General Gardner''s face when he heard this.

    I knew immediately what this person was thinking as soon as I saw this expression on his face and there was a strong dislike for this person that filled me. If I could, I would have punched him in the face at that moment, but I held myself back in the end.

    After all, I knew that I still needed him.

    As for what he was thinking¡­

    A noble like him was without a doubt thinking about how he could have shown off if he were to have a wyvern as a pet.

    If he really tried anything, I wouldn''t let him do it, but it was a good thing that he didn''t try anything in the end.

    After looking disappointed for a bit, General Gardner said, "Well, since these wyverns are under you and you came here as our reinforcements, then I''m still the one in charge of this ce. As such, the credit of taking down the enemy goes to me, isn''t that right."

    General Killock looked like he wanted to say something, but I quickly stopped him by coughing.

    Then looking down at General Gardner who was looking up at me with greedy eyes, I revealed a faint smile as I said with a nod, "That''s right. Since you are themander here and we are just your reinforcements, it was all perpetrated by you and you deserve all the credit."

    General Gardner revealed a wide greedy smile when he heard this before saying, "Good, I''m d that you understand. You can leave with your wyverns now, we''ll take care of the rest."

    General Killock looked like he really wanted to say something again, but I shook my head at him.

    General Gardner had naturally seen this as well and he even looked at General Killock as if he was daring him to do something. From the very beginning, he already disliked General Killock who kept trying to boss him around, but he hadn''t been able to do anything since General Killock belonged to the fourth prince.

    Now¡­he wanted him to say something so he could take care of him at the same time.

    But General Killock held himself back in the end.

    General Gardner looked a bit disappointed, but he didn''t say anything else to him.

    Instead, he looked at me and waved his hand as if he was dismissing me while saying, "You can go now."

    I just gave a simple nod and patted Joan on the back before leaving.

    As I left, there was a faint smile that appeared on my lips.

 Chapter 652 Future of the wyverns (1)

    Chapter 652  Future of the wyverns (1)

    ?652  Future of the wyverns (1)

    After returning to where the other wyverns were waiting, I saw Cecilia looking at me with a look like she was questioning me about what happened.

    I shook my head with a faint smile before waving my hand at them as if I was saying, "Let''s go back."

    Cecilia gave a nod in response, but there was also a worried look that appeared in her eyes.

    That was because she knew what I was referring to when I said ''back''.

    I was naturally referring to my own territory.

    She didn''t know how Rose would feel about me bringing all of these dangerous wyverns to their home.

    But before we could leave, there was someone that rushed over to catch up to us.

    "Wait!"

    When I looked down, I saw that it was General Killock who had rushed to catch up to me.

    Seeing him, I stopped Joan from taking off and waited for him toe over to say what he wanted to say. It was clear by the look on his face that there was something that he wanted to ask me.

    When he stopped in front of me, the first thing that he asked was, "Why?"

    He didn''t exin anything as he just directly asked me this, but I knew what he was referring to.

    "You''re asking why I let him take all of the credit?" I asked back with a smile on my face.

    General Killock just gave a simple nod before looking right at me with a look that made it seemed like he was displeased with what had happened.

    I just gave a casual shrug before saying, "There''s no need for me to take the credit for this matter, it''s better to give it to him. You''ll see what I mean when the war is over."

    General Killock was surprised to hear this.

    However, even if he was still confused, he didn''t say anything else about this.

    Instead, he turned to look at all the wyverns that were behind me and asked, "What are you going to do with them?"

    I turned back to look at the wyverns as well before turning back to say, "Well, that''s up to his highness. I have a n, but I won''t be able to put it into action without the help of his highness."

    General Killock revealed another confused look, but he didn''t ask anything.

    Instead, it was me who said, "In the future, you might be able to get one yourself."

    There was a shocked look that appeared on General Killock''s face as he wanted to ask something else, but I had already waved my hand and we were setting off.

    ¡­

    To my surprise, Rose didn''t seem as shocked as I thought she would be when she saw all of the wyverns flying to our town.

    Instead, it was the guards that were left behind that were more shocked.

    During the time that Cecilia had left with me, Moon had been taking over her duties guarding the town.

    Moon had been in charge of the guards when they were back in the vige, so it wasn''t hard for her to fit into this role. Not to mention, she had been in the town for some time, so it was easy for her to get along with the guards.

    But the most important thing was¡­she was a beautiful elf.

    The men of the guards were naturally happy to follow a beautifulmander, which was why they had followed Cecilia in the first ce.

    Of course, not a single one of them dared to cross the line since they already knew that Moon was my fiancee.

    When we arrived back in the town, the guards were all on the walls and Moon was even using her magic as a deterrence.

    It seemed like they had been prepared to fight to death to protect the town from the wyverns.

    So at the very least, it seemed that my guards were quite loyal that they wouldn''t flinch in front of all these wyverns.

    But before the fight could begin, they were able to spot me on the back of Joan. Then they saw that there were other people sitting on the backs of the wyverns, so they didn''t open fire in the end.

    When wended, Rose was standing there with a bitter smile on her face.

    As I came down, she just shook her head and asked with a sigh, "What are you nning to do with these things?"

    Seeing how exasperated my wife was, I immediately went forward to massage her shoulders as I said, "I have some ideas of what to do with them, you don''t need to worry about them at all." But after a pause, I did say awkwardly, "Though, there is the problem of feeding them¡­"

    Rose gave another sigh before saying, "Leave that to Haley, she''ll think of something."

    I gave a nod in response, but I couldn''t help looking awkwardly at Haley who was standing not far away.

    She had heard everything, but she still gave me a smile to show that she could do it.

    Rose pulled my attention back with a cough before saying, "So? You still haven''t told me what you''re nning to do with them."

    With a faint smile, I said, "Well, I''ll leave a hundred to the town and they can learn to ride them into battle."

    Rose had a skeptical look when she heard this, but then when she looked over at Cecilia and the others still on the backs of the wyverns, that look of doubt disappeared a bit.

    Still, she asked, "What about the rest? Are you just going to leave them here to eat us out of house and home?"

    I shook my head quickly as I said, "No, no, that will depend on when the fourth prince gets here."

    She raised a brow, but she didn''t say anything.

    But just like I said, the fourth prince arrived in our town two dayster.

 Chapter 653 Future of the wyverns (2)

    Chapter 653 Future of the wyverns (2)

    ?653  Future of the wyverns (2)

    When the fourth prince arrived, the first thing that he said was, "How?"

    He didn''t even exin anything, he just asked for an exnation without even indicating what he was asking about.

    However, I knew exactly what he was asking about.

    In fact, there was only one thing that he could be asking about in this situation.

    It was those over a thousand wyverns that were gathered outside of our town.

    We had designated arge clearing in the forest near the town for the wyverns and had set up facilities for them.

    During these past two days, Haley had been running all over trying to find food for these wyverns. Even the elves had been called on for help since there was plenty of food to gather from their forest.

    The wyverns were like bottomless pits when it came to food.

    It was just a good thing that Haley was a true goddess of wealth that we were able to have enough money to feed them.

    I just looked at the fourth prince with a smile and said, "You asked me to deal with them, so I dealt with them. Is there anything wrong with that?"

    The fourth prince looked at me as if he was questioning if I was serious or not.

    But after a while, he said with a bitter smile, "You know that this isn''t what I meant."

    I just looked at him with the same smile on my face without saying a single thing.

    The fourth prince gave a sigh before saying, "What are you nning on doing with them now?"

    This was what I had been waiting for, but I didn''t rush to tell him.

    Instead, I said to the fourth prince, "How about we take a walk first and have a look at the wyverns?"

    The fourth prince was surprised to hear this, but he gave a nod of agreement in the end.

    The two of us left the town with quite arge group in the end.

    It was all of the subordinates of the fourth prince who hade back to the town with us. They had been waiting here the entire time for the arrival of the fourth prince and now that he was here, they apanied him as if they were there to protect him.

    But at the same time, there was something that they had to report to the fourth prince once they were there.

    When we arrived at the clearing where the wyverns were, there was a loud sound that came from in front of us.

    It was the sounds of wyverns roaring and the sounds of something hard hitting each other.

    I wasn''t surprised to hear this, but the fourth prince looked at me with one brow raised.

    I just gestured for him to go forward and see for himself what these sounds were.

    When we walked through the trees and into the clearing, we saw what was making all that noise.

    It was two wyverns fighting with each other.

    But the strange thing about these wyverns was that there were two people sitting on their backs that seemed to be directing them. As they gave orders, the wyverns followed them to sh with each other.

    It seemed like this was a fight between two wyvern riders.

    After watching this for a bit, the fourth prince looked at me with a look like he was asking me to exin what was happening.

    With a smile, I just said, "It is as you can see. They are controlling the wyverns and fighting with them as riders. This is their training for the future when they ride onto the battlefield as wyvern riders."

    The fourth prince had a shocked look on his face at first, but slowly it changed into a look of thought.

    I had no doubt that the fourth prince understood what I was implying with this, it was just waiting to see how he would react.

    After a long silence, the fourth prince asked, "How many have you trained so far?"

    "One hundred." I replied in a calm voice.

    The fourth prince narrowed his brows slightly as he said, "But the report says that you have over a thousand wyverns?"

    I gave a nod without saying a single thing.

    The fourth prince looked at me with the same knitted brows for a bit before a smile slowly crept onto his face to show that he understood what I meant. With that smile on his face, he asked, "How many are you nning on giving me?"

    "Five hundred."

    The fourth prince slightly knitted his brows again when he heard this before saying, "Only five hundred? I can take more than that."

    With a bitter smile, I said, "You should see just how much they eat before you say that."

    The fourth prince just said with a chuckle, "Is it really that much that I can''t afford to feed them?"

    With a more serious look, I said, "Well, there are other ces that I want to send these wyverns, so I hope that you will not mind."

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he was doubting my allegiance again, but I just calmly looked right into his eyes.

    It was only after he stared into my eyes for a bit that he finally gave a nod and said, "Alright, we''ll follow your ns."

    He seemed satisfied with what he saw and that was all that was necessary.

    I gave a nod in response before looking at the guards that were behind the fourth prince.

    Though I couldn''t see their faces, I could see how awkward they were standing. It was as if they wanted to say something, but they didn''t know how to say it.

    So I said with a cough, "I think that your men have something to say."

    The fourth prince turned around to look at them before asking, "What is it?"

    The cloaked figures were surprised to hear this, but the leader of that group still stepped forward and said, "We have already chosen wyverns as well."

 Chapter 654 Future of the wyverns (3)

    <h4>Chapter 654 Future of the wyverns (3)</h4>

    The fourth prince just looked at them for a bit before saying, "Alright."

    It was as if he didn''t care about their confession at all.

    The cloaked figures couldn''t help revealing surprised stances when they heard this.

    The ones behind the leader all looked at each other as if they were confused about this before the leader said, "If you have any punishment for us, we will ept it willingly."

    The others all nodded before bowing their heads, as if they were waiting for their punishment.

    That was because they knew what the fourth prince was really like.

    If someone did something behind the fourth prince''s back, he would definitely take action. Especially if it was someone who was close to the fourth prince.

    They wanted to ask for punishment now so that he would be more lenient about them not reporting this matter to him.

    The fourth prince just looked at them with a calm look on his face before shaking his head and saying, "It''s not your fault, so why would I punish you?" He turned back to look at me to say, "I''m sure that you were just caught up in whatever he was doing and you had no choice but to go along with it."

    As the fourth prince looked at me, I just revealed a faint smile.

    But it was apletely different reaction from the cloaked figures that were standing behind the fourth prince.

    Though their expressions couldn''t be seen, it was very clear by the way that they were standing just how they felt about this matter. The surprised stance that they had couldn''t be mistaken for anything else.

    It was clear that they didn''t understand what was happening.

    It was almost as if they were looking at the fourth prince like they were looking at apletely different person.

    But the fourth prince just ignored them as he kept looking at me.

    After waiting for some time, the wyverns that had been fighting stopped fighting with each other as a winner had been dered.

    When they happened, the fourth prince said, "Can I go and take a look at them?"

    I gave a nod in response and led the fourth prince into the clearing where the wyverns were.

    The cloaked figures that had been behind him had been in a daze the entire time, but seeing the fourth prince moving, they snapped out of that daze. Though it was clear by how they were moving a bit slow that they were still surprised by the actions of the fourth prince, they still followed him without hesitation.

    That just went to show just how well trained they were and how loyal they were.

    When we came over, the ones that had been training immediately came over to salute us.

    Even the wyverns acted a bit more respectful seeing me.

    That was because there was a single wyvern that was ring at them to make them respectful.

    After that wyvern suppressed these other wyverns, she came over to my side in a happy manner like she was happy to see me.

    The fourth prince wasn''t surprised at all to see Joane over to my side and he just stood there with an intrigued look on his face as he looked at her while she rubbed her face against mine.

    After a while, he said, "Can I ride her?"

    I was surprised to hear this from the fourth prince since I never thought that someone like him would ask something like this.

    But seeing the look on his face, it was hard to say no.

    So with a nod, I got on Joan''s back and then reached my hand down for him toe up as well.

    The cloaked figures behind the fourth prince looked like they were panicking, but they didn''t stop him. Instead, they went to their own wyverns that had been staying in this clearing and quickly mounted them.

    It was as if they were prepared to take off at any moment.

    It seemed that they were already used to the fourth prince''s willfulness and knew that instead of trying to stop him, it was better for them to try and figure out a way to keep him safe.

    The fourth prince took my hand during all of this and got on Joan''s back with me.

    Once he was on, I had Joan take off.

    As we flew into the sky, I could feel the fourth prince''s hand gripping me from behind.

    It seemed that no matter how bold the fourth prince was, he still wasn''t able to remain calm when being shot up into the sky like this. Though to be fair, this was an experience that most people couldn''t stay calm in.

    The feeling of wind rushing past you really was one that was just too thrilling and shocking that one couldn''t help feeling fearful.

    But once we were in the sky, the fourth prince suddenly let go of me and looked around us.

    "Ha, ha, ha, so this is the feeling of flying." The fourth prince said in an excited voice before doing something that even shocked me.

    He had let go of me, but he didn''t stop there.

    The fourth prince suddenly got up on Joan''s back and started walking around.

    Even someone like me who had gotten used to riding on Joan''s back couldn''t do something like this. However, the fourth prince had done it without any hesitation.

    The good thing was that he didn''t fall right away even though there was a strong wind blowing past us.

    However, I couldn''t help looking at him with a worried look as he just walked on her back and turned his head around like a child in a candy store.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Brother, please sit down. Doing something like this is dangerous."

    "Ha, ha, ha, what''s dangerous about¡­"

    Before he could finish, there was a powerful gust of wind that suddenly swept the fourth prince off his feet.

    Not only that¡­it swept him off Joan''s back.

 Chapter 655 Future of the wyverns (4)

    Chapter 655 Future of the wyverns (4)

    ??For a second it almost seemed like the fourth prince was about to fall off.

    At this height, he definitely would have turned into a pile of meat on the ground if he fell.

    When they saw the fourth prince get swept off Joan''s back, his subordinates who had alsoe up with their wyverns started moving into position to catch him.

    With the way that they moved, it was as if they had already expected this to happen and was just waiting for it to happen. It seemed that they had been following the fourth prince for quite some time now that they were able to predict his moves.

    It seemed that they had suffered under the fourth prince quite a bit.

    But there was nothing for them to do since Joan suddenly twisted.

    With one quick scoop, Joan grabbed the fourth prince falling from her back with her w and put him right back before flying as normal.

    I had made sure to hold on tight as soon as I felt her turning.

    When I saw the fourth prince safely on Joan''s back again, I couldn''t help letting out a sigh of relief.

    After all, I never would have imagined that the fourth prince would do something as risky as this.

    However, the fourth prince didn''t seem to mind at all.

    Instead of being dazed or terrified like a normal person would be, he wasughing as he said, "That really was exhrating, let''s do it again."

    I really felt the urge to p him on the head when I heard this, but I held myself back in the end.

    Striking the fourth prince¡­even if I was close enough to him that he called me brother, I didn''t think that I would be able to get away with it unscathed.

    I patted Joan on the back to show my gratitude for catching the fourth prince in time and she just gave a happy soft roar as if she was saying, "It''s no problem."

    I could also see the fourth prince''s men looking at their wyverns as if they were asking them if they could do the same. However, the wyverns seemed to look away when they were asked this question.

    It seemed like this wasn''t possible for them to do the same thing as Joan.

    But then again, it wasn''t as if they had the same physical capabilities as Joan.

    There was a reason why I had gotten all those treasures from the fourth prince, it was all to raise Joan to be the Wyvern King¡­Queen.

    After patting Joan, I said, "Let''s go down."

    She gave a nod before she started to descend.

    The look on the fourth prince''s face made it clear that he wasn''t happy about this, but I just ignored it as I had Joan maintain her course.

    If we remained in the air, who knew what else the fourth prince would do.

    For my sanity and the sanity of the fourth prince''s men flying around, it was better if wended as soon as possible.

    Once wended the fourth prince''s people quickly came forward to surround him.

    Though they didn''t do anything, I could see something familiar from them.

    It seemed that they were looking carefully at him, as if making sure that there was nothing wrong with him.

    This was simr to how Rose and others would always check me after I came back from one of my trips¡­

    It seems that they really did care about the fourth prince.

    When they were finished, the fourth prince came forward to ask, "Can I have a wyvern as well?"

    I waspletely caught off guard by this sudden request from the fourth prince.

    I just stared at him as if I was trying to figure out if he was being serious or not, but the excited look in the eyes of the fourth prince didn''t change.

    It seemed like he really meant what he said.

    But that surprised me even more.

    Why did the fourth prince suddenly ask for a wyvern like this?

    No¡­it wasn''t sudden.

    The signs had all been there since the beginning, I should have already expected this based on the way that he had been looking at the wyverns the entire time.

    From the very beginning, the fourth prince should have wanted a wyvern of his own.

    In that case¡­

    "Alright, you can get one as well." I said in a calm voice.

    Though I was calm, the subordinates of the fourth prince were anything but that.

    The way that they waved their arms at me from behind the fourth prince made it clear that they wanted to change my mind. The way that they almost seemed like they were dancing around, it was clear that they wanted me to reject the fourth prince.

    But I had other ns.

    The fourth prince was an important part of my n now, so I had to make sure that he was safe.

    What was safer than having a wyvern by his side to protect him?

    These were giant powerful creatures that almost no one would be able to fight against.

    If there was a wyvern that was protecting the fourth prince, would anyone be able to do anything to him?

    Though there would be the danger of the fourth prince falling off, I was certain that it wouldn''t be a real danger. The fourth prince was someone important, there was no doubt that he would have magic items that would save him if something like that were to happen.

    So in the end, I called the wyvern shaman over to help the fourth prince pick a wyvern of his own.

    The fourth prince was immediately intrigued by the wyvern shaman and had wanted to take the wyvern shaman, but the wyvern shaman just ignored him.

    So the fourth prince had no choice but to choose another one.

    The one that he chose¡­was a child.

    Well, it wasn''t exactly a child, but it was a teenager wyvern that hadn''t fully grown yet.

 Chapter 656 A familiar guest

    Chapter 656 A familiar guest

    ??But there was a reason why the fourth prince had chosen this young wyvern instead of choosing a fully grown wyvern.

    He said that it was because it was easier to teach one that was younger, so he could shape it into how he wanted it to grow.

    However, those that observed them closely would have noticed something.

    The young wyvern...was just like the fourth prince, which was why they had bonded in the first ce.

    It wasn''t that the young wyvern was just as smart as the fourth prince, but rather...it was just as good at hiding its true face like the fourth prince. When the wyvern met the fourth prince, the two of them looked at each other as if there was some kind of resonance between them.

    Perhaps that was just how kindred spirits acted when they found each other.

    The parents of this young wyvern didn''t even try to stop it from going with the fourth prince, though it did look like they were sorry about sending their son to the fourth prince to take care of.

    If only they knew about the fourth prince''s true personality as well¡­

    Like that, the fourth prince was able to choose his wyvern partner.

    I didn''t know if I shouldugh or cry seeing the two of them together.

    But the one thing that I did know was that I should feel sorry for his subordinates since it was almost as if the fourth prince had doubled. In the future, they would surely suffer because this wyvern chose to go with the fourth prince.

    ¡­

    A weekter, there was a group of guests that arrived in my town.

    The one who led this group was someone that I was familiar with.

    It was Viscount Henry who brought this group of nobles to my town.

    These were the nobles of the surrounding area, the same ones that I had gotten to sign the economic zone development agreement. So it could be said that these were nobles that were on the same side as me.

    But the ones that Viscount Henry chose were the nobles that he was close to.

    There was a reason for that.

    After greeting them, I got right into the main topic by bringing them to see the wyverns.

    Other than Viscount Henry who already knew about the wyverns, the rest of them all revealed shocked looks.

    But even if Viscount Henry already knew about the wyverns, it was hard for him not to be surprised.

    These were wyverns after all, they were very shocking to begin with.

    After taking some time to calm down, one of the nobles asked, "Count Zwein, why are you showing us all of these?"

    The other nobles all looked at me with focused looks, as if they were waiting to hear what I had to say.

    I just calmly said, "Because I want you to take some of these wyverns with you."

    They all had shocked looks when they heard me say this. There were even looks of doubt as if they were trying to figure out if what I was saying was real.

    I didn''t say anything as I just waited for them to respond.

    Finally, one of the nobles asked, "You want us to take these terrifying beasts with us?"

    With a faint smile, I shook my head and said, "They''re not terrifying beasts, they''re quite tame if you know how to treat them."

    After saying that, I pointed at one of the wyvern riders that was about to take off.

    They all followed my finger to look at this wyvern rider fly off into the sky and do drills as they were flying.

    None of the nobles could believe that a human could ride a wyvern like this, but there was no denying the facts that were in front of their eyes. Even if they wanted to deny it, they couldn''t since it was right there.

    Still, they couldn''t help feeling worried about this.

    Once the demonstration was over, I calmly said, "The reason why I want to give you these wyverns is because I want you to use them to protect our special economic zone. You will train them and take care of them to patrol the area of this special economic zone."

    All of the nobles were once again surprised to hear this, but they quickly revealed serious looks.

    When their own benefits were involved, they naturally became serious.

    A wyvern was a powerful asset and having just one would mean that their forces would be much stronger.

    And the fact that this was linked to the special economic zone meant that they could expect support from Count Zwein on how to train these wyverns. After all, this special economic zone was something that he proposed, so there was no doubt that he would provide help to make sure that it seeds.

    So even if they looked serious, there were excited glows that were in their eyes.

    It didn''t take me long to work out the details of this, the only thing left was for the nobles to figure out who they would send to take these wyverns.

    There were fifteen nobles here, which meant that each of them would be taking three wyverns each since I was nning on only giving them fifty wyverns in the first ce. Thest five would go to Viscount Henry since he was my direct subordinate.

    Three wyvern riders under them¡­it meant that no one would dare attack their territory in the future.

    If it was my previous world, it would be like suddenly gaining three tanks.

    No one was crazy enough to send soldiers to fight tanks head on.

    With this, it would guarantee the safety of their territories in the future.

    But at the same time, it meant that they were forced into the same boat as me since I was the one that gave them the wyverns.

    They had seen the Wyvern Queen''s ability to control the wyverns, so they knew that it would be impossible to rebel against me with these wyverns.

    Now¡­it was all about who could get closer to me.

 Chapter 657 Visiting in-laws (1)

    Chapter 657 Visiting inws (1)

    ??Another week passed before we were able to settle the matter of the wyverns for these nobles.

    Most of the time was actually spent just bringing the ones that would be wyvern riders here and preparing them for the training. The actual training would be carried out in my town and they would only be allowed to leave when they were proper wyvern riders.

    But this was the part that I didn''t need to participate in.

    The only part that I needed to participate in was the part where they had to choose their wyverns.

    I had to be there with Joan and the wyvern shaman to let them choose.

    Once they finished choosing, I was free to do whatever I wanted.

    That meant that I was free to leave the town.

    There was a ce that I had been meaning to go to, but I never had a chance to go with the situation of the war.

    It was a ce that I should go because of what had happened before the war.

    Because of my engagement with Veronica, I was visiting Bright Water City to meet with the duke and the duchess. It was a visit to my inws now that I had gotten engaged with Veronica.

    But of course, it wasn''t just to visit my inws that I was heading to Bright Water City.

    There was something that I also had to discuss with the duke, something that would be very important in the future.

    Still, I couldn''t help feeling nervous as we headed to Bright Water City.

    Sinceing to this world, this was my first time meeting inws. Even beforeing to this world, I had never met any inws because I had never gotten married before. The only girlfriend that I had¡­well it didn''t turn out well in the end¡­

    So it wasn''t as if I had experience with meeting inws.

    I had never met Rose''s parents since she had never taken me to see them and Cecilia''s parents were in the same territory as Rose''s parents, so I couldn''t see them and not Rose''s parents.

    Oh, right, I did meet Haley''s father when I saved them, but that really couldn''t be considered meeting an inw¡­

    So this was my first time if I thought about it properly.

    Veronica could see that I was panicking because of this, so she said, "It''s fine, you''ve already met my parents. It isn''t as if they will start treating you any different now that we''re engaged."

    I revealed a faint bitter smile when I heard this, but the look on my face made it clear that I was still worried.

    After all, there was no telling what would happen¡­

    Would her father go, "You must defeat me for my daughter''s hand in marriage."?

    Would her mother test me on different things to see if I was good enough?

    It really was nerve wracking thinking about all of this.

    But it wasn''t as bad as it was for the people of Bright Water City when they saw the wyverns approach.

    It was a total of ten wyverns that we brought with us since I had brought some things as gifts for her parents. However, in the eyes of the people of Bright Water City, all they saw were attackers of Bright Water City.

    They didn''t see us as visitors, they saw us as wyverns that were about to destroy the city.

    I could even see the guards that were lining the walls, looking like they were prepared to fight to the death.

    When I saw all of this, I couldn''t help asking Veronica, "Did you send the letter like I told you to?"

    Veronica didn''t answer as she slowly turned away, as if she was scared to look at me.

    As soon as I saw her acting this way, I got my answer.

    It was no wonder they were acting this way.

    If they had no idea that we wereing, it wasn''t strange that they would think that we were a group of invading wyverns that were here to attack the city. They would think that we were here to destroy their homes, so of course they would go all out against us.

    I immediately had our group stop descending and turn around.

    With the situation being like this, it wasn''t as if we could justnd without any issues, so we had to do something before entering the city.

    So I had our groupnd in a clearing near Bright Water City.

    After ring at Veronica for a bit who just pretended like she didn''t see anything, I had Shadow Five deliver something to me.

    Only when Shadow Five came back with a response did I have everyone head back to the city.

    This time, there wasn''t the same reaction as before.

    Though there were still guards that were on the walls, they didn''t look like they were about to attack us. Instead, they just carefully watched as if they were still wary of us.

    We were allowed tond outside of the city and identify ourselves.

    But the main thing was that the duke and the duchess were on the walls with the guards.

    The duke was the one that I had sent Shadow Five to contact to tell him about this situation.

    I knew that only with the duke''s help would we be able to bring the wyverns into the city to achieve our goal.

    When we came up to the gate, Veronica waved as she saw her parents, but both of them had bitter smiles on their faces.

    Though I could see that these bitter smiles weren''t just directed at her, they were also directed at me.

    It seemed that I had somehow been caught up in this because of Veronica and had been deemed an irresponsible person with her since I didn''t send a letter ahead of time.

    I could only regret my decision of leaving this to Veronica.

    I had thought that she would be happy to talk to her parents, but it seemed that she didn''t think about them at all.

    In the end, it was my mistake¡­

 Chapter 658 Visiting in-laws (2)

    <h4>Chapter 658 Visiting inws (2)</h4>

    Once we were right up in front of the gate, there was amotion that came from within.

    Though we couldn''t see what was happening, we could hear the sounds that came out.

    It was the sounds of people rushing to get out of the way.

    Once they calmed down, the captain of the guard looked at us and waved for us toe over.

    The wyverns were just too big to fit through the gates, so the only way to get into the city was to fly over them. But there was a crowd that was gathered behind the gate, so they had to be evacuated first before we did this.

    Once the captain of the guards gave the signal, I had Joan take the lead in flying over the gates.

    The pping of the wyvern wings generated arge amount of wind that seemed to blow some of the guards down since they weren''t prepared for the sudden gust of wind.

    But the wyverns quickly flew over the wall andnded in the area behind the gate.

    With arge ''thud'' sound, they found themselves surrounded by people that had gathered to observe the wyverns. There were quite a few people that had gathered since wyverns were a rare thing in the first ce.

    The only time that one would normally see wyverns was if they were being attacked by them.

    There were rarely any chances to see wyverns like this.

    I just ignored them all as I climbed off Joan with Veronica.

    When we came down, we saw a group walking over.

    When Veronica saw them, she happily ran over with a smile on her face before jumping at one of the people that were there. The one that caught her shook her head with a bitter smile before saying, "You''re in front of others, you should act like a properdy."

    Veronica just stuck her tongue out at her mother, but she didn''t mind it as she kept hugging her.

    It seemed that the two of them were very happy to see each other again.

    The duke just shook his head with a smile as he watched them for a bit, but he turned to look at me eventually.

    With the same smile on his face, he said, "It''s good to see you again."

    There was no extra courtesy in his voice, he just spoke to me as if I was a part of his family.

    I had to admit that I was a bit surprised to hear him speak to me like this since I thought that there would be more resistance from Veronica''s family. After all, I was just a count while she was the daughter of a duke.

    The difference in status should have been clear.

    But it didn''t seem like they were discriminating against me at all.

    Since they didn''t discriminate against me, I had no reason to not greet them properly.

    With a smile on my face, I said, "Your lordship, it''s good to see you again."

    The duke shook his head with the same smile before saying, "What are you saying, you should be calling me father inw."

    Once again, I was surprised at how easily he epted me, but it wasn''t as if I disliked this.

    So with a nod, I said, "Yes, father inw."

    The duke gave a satisfied nod before turning to look at the wyverns.

    As he looked at the wyverns, the smile that was on his face slowly turned bitter as he said, "You really gave us a surprise with these things."

    I couldn''t help revealing an awkward look when I heard this, but I didn''t say anything to exin. After all, I wouldn''t just throw my future wife under the bus because of this matter.

    But to my surprise, the duke suddenly said, "It''s because she forgot to send a letter that this happened, right?"

    I looked at him with a surprised look, not knowing whether I should confirm this or not, but the duke just continued by saying, "I''m sorry about her. We tried to raise her well, but you should know how much of a free spirit she is, so there was nothing that we could do. I hope that you''ll help us take care of her in the future."

    This time, I was the one that revealed a bitter smile.

    That was because this just confirmed that the look that I saw from them earlier wasn''t what I thought it was.

    I thought it was a look that meant that they med me for this, but now¡­

    It seemed that the reason that they had looked at me like that was because they were sorry for Veronica.

    It seemed that they had already guessed who was the one that had forgotten to inform them about this.

    All I could think when I realized this was¡­

    "As expected of her parents. They already knew everything about her."

    But that wasn''t strange since they had raised her since she was young, so they knew exactly what kind of personality Veronica had. They were the ones that knew her better than I did since I had spent far less time with her.

    Still, it wasn''t as if I could just remain silent.

    With a sigh, I said, "Even if she''s like this, she does have her good sides. She''s always showing me different things that I never would have thought of before."

    The duke revealed a faint smile before saying, "Please keep taking care of her in the future."

    I said with a nod, "Of course, she will be my wife, so I will naturally take care of her."

    The duke''s smile became wider when he heard this, but instead of saying something, he just patted me on the shoulder to show his satisfaction.

    After this, the wyverns were left there for the people to admire while the rest of us headed to the duke''s manor.

    As we left, Joan looked at me with a look asking for help, but there was nothing that I could do for her.

    So all I could do was give her a look that said.

    "Just stick it out for now."

 Chapter 659 Visiting in-laws (3)

    <h4>Chapter 659 Visiting inws (3)</h4>

    After leaving the wyverns by the gate, we headed to the duke''s manor together.

    The trip itself was quite silent for me and the duke as we just watched Veronica talking with her mother.

    From time to time, I would chime in since she called on me for some things, but it was mainly Veronica who spoke.

    I was worried that the ducal couple would be angry because some of the stories that she told were considered quite dangerous for her, but it didn''t seem like that. It seemed like they were already used to her acting up like this, so they just listened with smiles on their faces.

    When we arrived at the manor, the four of us moved at a casual pace to the living room.

    There was already tea and desserts set up for us.

    So the four of us sat down on the couches that were in the center of the living room.

    On one couch was the duke and duchess, on the other couch was me and Veronica.

    Veronica didn''t seem like she had any worries at all as she immediately started drinking the tea and having the snacks. There was certainly no problem with her appetite even though there was a somewhat tense atmosphere in the air.

    She seemed like she wasn''t bothered at all.

    The duke and duchess on the other hand were much more calm and reserved as they had some tea and desserts, but they were also looking at me the whole time.

    It was awkward for me to reach out for the tea and desserts like this, so I just awkwardly sat there.

    This persisted for a bit before Veronica looked up at me and said, "What are you doing? Come and have some of this with me. There''s no need to hold back, we''re all family here."

    To my surprise, the duke and duchess both nodded in agreement with Veronica.

    With how they were acting, I had thought that they had brought me here to judge me.

    Even if the duke had given encouraging words to me on the way here, I knew that it wouldn''t be that simple since the duchess had never said a thing. But now, even the duchess seemed like she had epted me.

    I couldn''t help feeling confused by how this situation developed, but I couldn''t just make it more awkward.

    So I just poured myself a cup of tea and took a sip to calm my nerves before waiting to see what the duke and duchess would do next.

    After another long silence, the duke finally said, "I know that this is a bitte, but we really do have to thank you for epting our daughter."

    The duchess nodded in agreement after the duke said this.

    But for me, there was a shocked look that appeared on my face.

    After all, I had never expected the duke to open with something like this and for the duchess to agree with him.

    Veronica pouted her lips when she heard this before saying, "How could you say that about your precious daughter? Shouldn''t you be more sad that she''s being taken away from you?"

    The duke and duchess both revealed wide smiles when they heard this before the duke said, "I''ve always been worried about your marriage. You''re too wild to just settle with anyone, so I''ve always been worried about what to do with you, especially since you''re so old now. I''m just d that this matter was taken care of before it became toote."

    The duchess nodded in agreement as she said, "Right, I''ve always tried my best to teach you to be ady, but¡­" She gave a sigh before continuing, "This girl, I really don''t know who you got this personality of yours from."

    The duke couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything.

    However, that bitter smile of his was more than enough to tell me what he was thinking.

    It seemed that Veronica''s personality was inherited from her mother¡­

    But right now, the duchess seemed like a very calm person.

    Was it because she was in front of me or was it because she had mellowed out with time?

    If that was the case, did that mean that Veronica would eventually settle down?

    No, if the duke had this kind of bitter smile on his face, it must mean that there was more to this story that I didn''t know.

    It seemed that I had quite the future ahead of me¡­

    Still, I had chosen to be with her, so it wasn''t as if I could back down now.

    After listening to her parentsin about her for a bit, Veronica finally said, "Are you still my parents or not? Shouldn''t you be describing the good things about me instead ofining about me?"

    I said with a faint smile, "They''re only saying these things because they care about you. You should be happy that they care so much about you that they areining like this."

    Veronica looked back at me with pouted lips like a child as she said, "But I don''t want them telling you all the bad things about me."

    I patted her on the head as I said, "I already said that I would ept all the good and bad things about you. You don''t need to worry about a thing."

    She looked at me with a touched look for a bit before suddenlying forward to hug me.

    I just hugged her too and patted her on the back.

    The duke and duchess looked at each other with smiles on their faces before the duke said, "It seems that now that she has someone she loves, our daughter doesn''t need us anymore."

    The duchess said with a nod of agreement, "Right, once she has that special person in her life, she forgets about her parents."

    Veronica quickly left my embrace with a blush on her face before turning to say, "Of course I still need you."

    The two of them just looked at her with doting smiles on their faces.

    But then, the duke suddenly turned to me and bowed his head as he said, "I ask that you take care of her from now on."

    To my surprise, I found that the duchess had also bowed her head to me.

 Chapter 660 Visiting in-laws (4)

    <h4>Chapter 660 Visiting inws (4)</h4>

    After being in a daze for a second from being caught off guard by this, I quickly stood up and went over to help them up as I said, "Father inw, mother inw, there''s no need for this."

    Both of them looked up with smiles on their faces when they heard this before the duke said, "Hearing you call us this so readily really does make us happy. I hope that we can maintain this rtionship in the future."

    The duchess nodded in agreement to this.

    "Mom, dad..." Veronica said in a touched voice.

    I said with a nod, "Of course. I hope that we can have a good rtionship in the future as well."

    It seemed that I had beenpletely mistaken about the duke and duchess.

    I had thought that they would look down on me since I was considered lower status than their daughter and would make it hard for me. I thought that I would have to pass some kind of test to get their approval to marry their daughter.

    But it seemed that they had already nned on epting me from the very beginning.

    This was partly because of how difficult their daughter was to marry off in the beginning, but of course that wouldn''t be the only thing. After all, the two of them clearly cared about their daughter very much.

    Part of it was because of the happiness that their daughter showed which proved that she was happy with the person that she chose.

    And the other part¡­was the look of approval that the duke had when he looked at me.

    As a duke, I''m certain that he would have an extensive informationwork in this country. So he should be aware of the aplishments that I had made during this time.

    This was most likely where that look of approval came from.

    It seemed that I had done enough to im the approval of these inws of mine.

    It seemed that this would wrap up quite nicely.

    Or it would have if there wasn''t something else that I had to discuss with them.

    The duke was the one that actually brought it up as he suddenly said, "You have something else that you want to discuss with us, right?"

    I was surprised to hear the duke say this, but I gave a nod since this was true.

    After all, there was something that I wanted to talk to them about.

    It was just that after receiving their affirmation, it was a bit hard to bring up with the nice atmosphere that had formed.

    Once again, the duke brought up the topic for me by saying, "It has something to do with the wyvern, right? That''s the only reason you woulde in such a manner."

    I was surprised at first, but then I calmed down.

    It wasn''t strange that the duke would be able to see through me like this, there was a reason why he had been able to remain a duke and rule over thisrge city for so long.

    He definitely wasn''t not a person without any skills at all.

    Since he had already seen through me, then there was no need for me to hold back.

    With a nod, I said, "That''s right, I have something that I have to discuss with you rted to the wyverns."

    When he finished hearing what I had to say, the duke looked at me with a shocked look.

    It wasn''t just the duke, even the duchess couldn''t believe what I had just said.

    After a long silence, the duke said, "Could you repeat that again, I don''t think I heard you clearly."

    With a nod, I said, "I want to give you some wyverns so you can train some wyvern riders."

    The duke still had the same shocked look on his face when he heard this before suddenly knitting his brows and asking, "How will this work? How many are you nning on giving us? Does the royal family know about this?"

    There was a flurry of questions that came at me, but that wasn''t strange either.

    So I just calmly replied to all of the questions.

    At first, I had been nning on giving fifty wyverns to the duke, but I changed my mind afterwards. After seeing how epting they were of me, my trust in the duke had grown and I decided to give them a hundred wyverns.

    It would be a good thing if the duke had a hundred wyvern riders so he would be able to stay safe.

    After all, Veronica would surely be sad if anything happened to her parents.

    As for telling the royal family, I had already informed the fourth prince that I would be giving wyverns to people that I knew, so there was no need to worry about the royal family doing something about this.

    The royal family already knew that it was impossible to monopolize this, so the fourth prince trusted me in finding people that could be trusted to care for the wyverns.

    Once I answered all of his questions, the duke fell silent again.

    With the look on his face, it was clear that he was thinking about the pros and cons of this matter, so I didn''t say a thing as I waited for him to finish thinking this through.

    After a long silence, the duke finally gave a determined nod as he said, "Alright, I''ll, take these wyverns."

    I had already expected him to say this, but I could still admire his determination in this matter.

    It was clear that he wasn''t certain that this would be a safe matter for him, but he was willing to take this risk which was admirable.

    I said with a nod, "You won''t regret this. I promise that you''ll see just how useful these wyverns are."

    The duke looked at me with a faint smile as he said, "I''m not doing this because of that. I''m doing this because you are my son inw."

    I was caught off guard by this sudden statement from him, but I still said with a nod, "Thank you."

    It seemed that I would have a good rtionship with Veronica''s family from now on.

 Chapter 661 Visiting in-laws (5)

    Chapter 661 Visiting inws (5)

    ??As for what followed, it wouldn''t be something that could be done in just a few days.

    The duke would be sending the soldiers that he wanted to be trained as wyvern riders to my territory in the future.

    It was there that they would pick out their wyverns and train with them to be wyvern riders.

    So before that, there was nothing else that could be done.

    Since I was here to visit my inws, I spent a week with Veronica and her family.

    By the time that we left, the duke was holding me by the shoulder like I was his real son and the duchess was telling us to visit more. It seemed that we had made quite the impression on them.

    It seemed that we would have a good rtionship with the duke and duchess in the future.

    But all things had toe to an end and we returned to my territory.

    When we returned, there was something that I had to discuss with Rose.

    As we sat down alone in our room, Rose looked at me with a confused look as she said, "What is it? What did you need to talk to me about?"

    She had been surprised when I called her to talk alone right aftering back.

    At the same time though, there was a trace of worry that filled her when she saw the serious look that I had on my face.

    But I didn''t speak right away after we sat down.

    It wasn''t that I didn''t know what to say, it was just that I didn''t know the best way to put it.

    After all, this was a topic that Rose had been avoiding the entire time, so I didn''t know how to bring it up.

    The longer that I stayed silent, the more nervous Rose looked.

    Finally, she couldn''t take it anymore and said, "If you have something to say, just say it. Is there anything that we can''t talk about between us?"

    I was surprised by the tone that she had, so I didn''t speak right away.

    But after a moment of silence, I said, "After visiting the duke and duchess, I''ve realized something. That is what I wanted to talk about with you."

    When Rose heard this, there was a bitter smile that appeared on her face before she said, "You''ve realized that I''m not good enough to be your wife and you want to have someone else as your wife? I understand, but I hope that you will allow me to at least remain as your concubine."

    My chin dropped the moment that I heard this as I looked at Rose with shock.

    I never would have expected her to suddenly say something like this¡­

    But after that moment of being caught off guard, I quickly shook my head and said, "No, no, it''s nothing like that at all. I would never think something like that."

    Rose just said with a bitter smile, "There''s no need to beat around the bush. This is something that I''ve been aware of for a long time, so there''s no need for you to make excuses. I understand that in terms of status, someone like me shouldn''t be with someone like you. It was just my¡­"

    Before she could finish, I suddenly raised a hand to put a finger over her lips before saying, "I would never think something like that. I don''t care about rank or status, all I care about is you."

    There was a touched look that appeared in Rose''s eyes, but then she quickly shook her head to say, "No, someone with your status should be with someone better or else others will look down on you. I am nothing more than a disgraced wife of a baron, so¡­"

    Once again, I put my finger over her lips and said, "Is this what you''ve been worrying about? I''m sorry that I never talked to you about this before."

    I stood up and moved over so that I was right beside her before taking her hands and saying, "No matter what happens, I will never leave you. That is how I feel about you. So please don''t ever think about things like this."

    I never realized that Rose had such thoughts¡­

    She had been so focused on developing our territory that I had almost taken her for granted¡­

    She didn''t just do this because she cared about our territory, but rather she was working so hard to show what she was capable of. As I gained more and more prestige, the pressure must have be greater and greater on her to be someone that could match me.

    It was my fault for not noticing this and talking to her about this sooner.

    Though there was a very touched look on Rose''s face, there was still a trace of hesitation as she said, "But¡­you really should think about your own image¡­"

    I shook my head beforeing closer to say to her, "Since the beginning, I''ve been in love with you. No matter what, I will never let you go."

    After saying this, I went forward to hook her chin with one finger and moved closer to ce a soft kiss on her lips.

    For a moment, it was as if there was nothing but the two of us in this world.

    When we separated, Rose finally had the look of confidence restored on her face.

    At the same time, there was a very strong blush that appeared on that beautiful face of hers.

    Seeing this, I asked, "Do you finally believe me?"

    Rose just gave a slight nod before lowering her head in embarrassment.

    With a sigh, I said, "Why would you ever doubt me in the first ce?"

    Rose revealed an awkward look before saying, "You''re the one that started talking like that, so I thought¡­you had brought me here to talk about this."

    With a serious expression, I looked at Rose and said, "I would never do something like that."

    After a moment of being dazed, Rose gave a slight nod and said, "Then what did you want to talk about?"

 Chapter 662 Visiting in-laws (6)

    Chapter 662 Visiting inws (6)

    ??Hearing this, I decided to stop beating around the bush and said, "Your parents, I wanted to talk to you about your parents."

    The look of a girl in love that was on Rose''s face disappeared when she heard this.

    It was reced with an expression of unwillingness, like she really didn''t want to talk about this.

    But seeing the serious look that I had on my face, she said with a sigh, "What did you want to talk about in regards to them?"

    "Are you embarrassed of me, is that why you''ve never brought me to meet them?" I suddenly asked.

    This time, it was Rose''s turn to be shocked.

    She looked at me with a look of confusion and disbelief, as if she couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    But she quickly shook her head and said, "No, it isn''t that I''m embarrassed of you. I would never be embarrassed of you."

    I just looked at her with a calm look and asked, "Then why have you never brought me to see your parents after all this time?"

    Though there was a calm look on my face, there was a trace of being hurt that was in my eyes.

    To me, it was clear that she didn''t want to bring me back before because I was just a ve that her husband had bought for her. If I was her parents, I wouldn''t want my daughter to be with someone like that either.

    But after all this time, I had worked hard to slowly increase my status and be someone that she could be proud of.

    Even then, she didn''t bring me back to see her parents.

    After a long silence, Rose finally said, "It isn''t that I''m embarrassed of you, but rather I''m embarrassed of my parents."

    I couldn''t help being surprised when I heard this, but I calmed down and said, "They''re your parents, what is there to be embarrassed about?"

    Rose gave a sigh as she said, "You don''t understand what kind of people they are. They aren''t what you think they are and you won''t understand the reason why I''m embarrassed of them."

    I couldn''t help knitting my brows when I heard this, but I still said, "They are your parents, so regardless of how embarrassing they are, don''t you want to see them again? Besides, we''ve been married for so long and we''ve never gone to see them once¡­"

    I didn''t finish what I was saying, but the question left hanging was more than enough.

    Rose looked at me for a bit before shaking her head and giving another sigh while saying, "You don''t understand the reason why I''m embarrassed of them. My father¡­he is an opportunist. He is someone who does whatever will benefit him, so he doesn''t have any shame. Even marrying off his daughter to a baron in the middle of nowhere because of his own ns¡­that was why I wasn''t able to ask for their help back then."

    Once the flood gates had opened, Rose didn''t hold back at all as she poured everything out to me.

    All of the frustrations that came from her family, she released onto me.

    And it turned out that there was a lot of frustration towards her family that she was holding in her heart.

    After a long while, she finally calmed down and said, "I''m sorry, I don''t know what came over me."

    I just sat down beside her and took her in my arms as I said, "You don''t have to apologize for anything. I am your husband, you''re supposed to say these things to me."

    Rose looked up at me with a surprised look at first, but then she revealed a touched look as she gave a slight nod.

    I patted her on the back to show that I understood what she was feeling, but I still had to say something.

    "Regardless of how you feel about them, they are still your parents, right? I''m sure that you would want them to know about your marriage and how you''re doing. It isn''t as if you don''t care about them at all, right?"

    Rose was surprised again when she heard this, but slowly she gave a nod.

    No matter how she tried, she couldn''tpletely deny that they were her parents and that she did care for them.

    They were the ones that had raised her and she had lived with for the first part of her life, so it was impossible for her to forget about them.

    In the end, Rose said, "Just give me a bit of time and I''ll bring you back to see them. I just have to take care of a few more things first before I bring you back."

    I gave a nod with a faint smile on my face.

    At the very least, it was a step forward since she was willing to take me back to see her family.

    Before this, she wouldn''t even mention her family.

    So it was a step in the right direction.

    Sometimes, we really did forget to talk about these things since we wanted to avoid them. But it was important for us to talk about these things since it wasn''t as if they would go away.

    It wasn''t as if we could just ignore these matters.

    It was better to face them head on and to find a solution to them that we could both agree on.

    That way, it wouldn''t blow up from being ignored for too long.

    After we settled this, Rose suddenly said, "It''s been a long time since we''ve been together."

    I thought about it and realized that she was right.

    Even though I came back with the wyverns, I had been too busy with setting up the wyvern riders that I never had a chance to spend quality time with Rose.

    Then there was the trip to Bright Water City to see Veronica''s parents.

    "Then how about we fix that?" I said with a smile.

 Chapter 663 End of the war

    Chapter 663 End of the war

    ??In the end, I never got the chance to go and visit Rose''s parents.

    That was because we could set a n to go visit them, there was an announcement from the capital that cancelled any ns that I had.

    It was a decree that announced the end of the war.

    The four kingdoms that had invaded us had dered their surrender and this had ended the war. After some discussions on the terms of the surrender, our kingdom had epted the surrender of these kingdoms and had officially won the war.

    I was surprised to see the terms in the decree since it was quite generous for us.

    The other kingdoms had surrendered quite a bit ofnd and had even been forced to pay reparations.

    A surrender like this seemed like they hadpletely given up on the war and was begging for mercy from us.

    But the second messenger that the fourth prince sent exined to me what had happened.

    Simply put, there was one reason why they had surrendered.

    Wyverns.

    It was because wyverns had appeared on the battlefield.

    It wasn''t just the wyverns that I had brought to attack the Beirut Kingdom army, it was the wyverns that had appeared afterwards that had sealed the fate of this war. Of course, these wyverns were also rted to me.

    These wyverns were the ones that I had entrusted to the fourth prince.

    He had sent his men over right away and they had been trained strictly, so they could go onto the battlefield as soon as possible.

    Then with the guards that had already been trained, they headed off to the battlefield with the Darius Kingdom.

    This was thest kingdom that had dered war on our Kite Kingdom and thest army that was still invading ournd.

    When the wyvern riders appeared on the battlefield, they razed the lines of the enemies with mes.

    Working with the army of our kingdom that had been sent to face the Darius Kingdom army, they had been able to defeat them while barely suffering any casualties. The armies of the Darius Kingdom had been wiped out and barely any soldiers had survived, just like the rest of the invaders.

    Once the armies of the Darius Kingdom fell, there were no more armies in ournd.

    The four kingdoms could have sent more soldiers, but they had already sent so many of their troops into ournd that they were now barely able to manage their own territories.

    It was at this point that the fourth prince sent out the wyvern riders to attack thends of the four kingdoms.

    Since they were wyverns that could fly, they could strike at different parts of the four kingdoms without anything stopping them.

    And since they were working with humans, they were able to track the subjugation parties sent by the four kingdoms and leave before they could arrive.

    With the wyverns terrorizing their territory like this, the four kingdoms had no choice but to surrender. Especially since they had seen movement from our kingdom''s armies like we were about to invade them.

    Once that happened, it would only be a matter of time before they lost all of theirnds.

    So it was better to cut off a piece of meat than to lose everything.

    This was how peace was returned to our kingdom.

    As for why this messenger had been sent to tell me about this, it was rted to why I had to cancel my ns. I was called to the capital for the ceremony to dere the end of this war.

    It was also the ce where everyone would receive their rewards for their aplishments during the war.

    I certainly didn''t have ack of aplishments during the war, but there was something that I was worried about.

    The number of lives that I had buried during the war definitely wasn''t small¡­

    I was worried that I would be held ountable for this¡­

    "Can you not go?" Rose said in a worried voice as we were discussing this.

    I shook my head as I said, "I have to go, it''s a direct summon from the king."

    Ang looked at me with a worried look too before saying, "I can talk to my father, maybe that will help?"

    Again I shook my head before saying, "There''s a summon for you too, so we have no choice but to go to the capital together."

    Ang was surprised when she heard this, so I handed the message that I had received to her.

    She saw that there was the signature of both the king and the fourth prince on the message, showing how official this was. Even if she didn''t want to go, with her father and her fourth brother both signing this decree, she had no choice but to go.

    But this didn''t make sense at all.

    Why would they summon her to the capital after all this time?

    She didn''t have anything to do with the victory deration ceremony this time, so there was no need for her to go to the capital.

    Unless¡­they were nning something.

    The start of this war was rted to her engagement in the first ce, so if they were to call her back¡­could it be that they wanted to take back the engagement that they had made with Zwein?

    Ang couldn''t help looking even more worried as this thought crossed her mind.

    There was no one that said a thing as we all just sat there in deep thought.

    In the end, the only thing that I could do was saying, "For now, there''s no use worrying about all of this. I''m the one that controls the wyverns, so they won''t do anything to me right now. In the future, they might try to do something, but that won''t be before they take control of the wyverns from me."

    All of the girls nodded in agreement when they heard this, but they still had worried looks.

    With a sigh, I said with a worried look, "We can only wait and see."

 Chapter 664 Brother, itâ€™s been a long time

    <h4>Chapter 664 Brother, it¡¯s been a long time</h4>

    Since the summon was urgent, I set off with Ang, Cecilia, and Shaka the very next day.

    There were others that wanted toe, but they couldn''t since they were busy with their own things.

    Since we had the wyverns, we decided to take them to the capital this time since it would allow us to reach the capital much faster. But the more important reason was¡­to threaten them.

    Simply put, it was to make them realize that I had control over the wyverns so they wouldn''t do anything to me.

    With the wyverns, we were able to turn this multi day trip into just a two day trip.

    With the wyverns, the distance between ces had really been cut down and it made traveling much easier.

    Though there were still some downsides to this.

    To make sure that nomotion was caused, we had to take a special route that avoided marked settlements. Though there were certain viges that we couldn''t avoid since they weren''t marked on maps in the first ce.

    These were small settlements that were too small to mark on maps, so we didn''t know to avoid them.

    As we flew past them, we could see themotion that wasing from below.

    It was clear that the people of the viges were panicking when they saw these wyverns flying overhead.

    When we arrived at the capital, we made sure tond in a clearing outside of the capital.

    But even then, there was someone who was waiting there for us.

    That person was someone that we had contacted beforeing to the capital, so they knew to wait for us here. After all, this was the ce that they had directed us tond in.

    It was the fourth prince who was waiting in this clearing for us.

    Seeing usnd, the fourth prince waved his hand at us with a smile on his face.

    When we came down though¡­that smile soon disappeared from his face as someone jumped down at him.

    The fourth prince was able to move out of the way in time, but that didn''t mean that he was spared from being chased by that person.

    That person was Ang, the princess, his big sister.

    "So you''re working with dad now to summon me? Tell me, what are you nning?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised by this gap in Ang''s personality, but I quickly came to ept it as what it was. There were just different sides to her and this was one of her sides.

    This was her side from when she was with the family that she grew up with.

    The soft and gentle side of her was when she was with the person that she loved.

    Though I did wish that she would show me some of the other side as well since it would mean that she trusted me more.

    No, if I thought about it, she was slowly starting to show this side to me.

    As he was running around, the fourth prince turned to me and said, "Brother, it''s been a long time since we''ve met!"

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile when I heard this.

    A long time?

    If a week was considered a long time, then I guess it was.

    After all, he had been in my town while he was training his men as wyvern riders and even now, he came from time to time to pick up new wyverns.

    So it really wasn''t that long since we had met.

    I knew that he was calling out to me because he wanted me to rescue him, but I was content just watching for a bit. It was my petty way of taking a bit of revenge on the fourth prince for everything that he was putting us through.

    After all, his name was on the decree that had been sent to my town summoning me to the capital.

    This was not a fact that could be ignored.

    But after a while, I said, "Alright, let''s stop ying around."

    It was only because I said something that Ang stopped chasing the fourth prince, but the look on her face made it seem like she wasn''t satisfied with ending things like this. The look on her face made it clear that she still wanted to do more, but she stopped because I told her to stop.

    That was the effect that I had as a minimum on her as her fiance.

    When he saw this, the fourth prince looked at me with an impressed look, but I didn''t care about that.

    After all, instead of wanting the fourth prince to look impressed, I would have preferred if he told me what was going on here.

    So I just looked at the fourth prince and said, "Brother, can you tell me what''s going on here?"

    To my surprise, the fourth prince shook his head and said, "We''re gathered here to celebrate our victory in the war. There''s nothing going on here."

    The way that he said this made it clear that he wasn''t going to tell me anything.

    Or rather, he wasn''t going to tell me what I really wanted to know.

    It was almost as if he was asking me to not push this matter and just let it go, but I couldn''t do that.

    After all, this was an important matter that involved my future.

    So I said to Ang, "I think that it''s been a long time since you''ve seen your brother. How about you catch up with him?"

    Ang''s eyes lit up and the fourth prince''s eyes sank when they heard this.

    The fourth prince looked at me with an aggrieved look, but he didn''t say anything else on this matter in the end.

    Since he wouldn''t say anything, I didn''t hold Ang back anymore as I said, "Then let''s catch up on our way back. You can take the carriage with your brother while we bring the wyverns in."

    The fourth prince had a bitter smile on his lips, but he still led Ang back to the carriage that he hade in.

 Chapter 665 In the castle

    Chapter 665 In the castle

    ??We flew on the back of the wyverns all the way into the city.

    I had nned on finding a ce to keep the wyverns, but the fourth prince said that it was perfectly fine to bring the wyverns right up to the city gates.

    I found that he wasn''t lying about this.

    Even when wended with the wyverns, it didn''t seem like the people at the gate were worried at all. With the way that they looked at us, it was as if they were already used to seeing wyverns.

    Though there were some that were looking at Joan.

    After all, she was a wyvern that was different from all the other wyverns.

    With the fourth prince leading the way, we easily passed through the gates and arrived in the capital.

    It was then that I understood why they hadn''t been afraid of us.

    It was because they were already used to seeing wyverns and by that, I meant it literally.

    There were a bunch of wyverns that were behind the gate.

    It seemed that the fourth prince had been keeping the wyvern riders in the capital when they weren''t out and about, so the people of the capital had slowly adapted to the presence of wyverns.

    Though they would still run for their lives if they were attacked by wyverns, they wouldn''t judge a book by its cover and be afraid of wyverns right away.

    So that meant that there was a ce for us to leave our wyverns while we headed into the capital.

    This was a ce that the fourth prince had built to take care of wyverns while they were in the capital, so they would be receiving a five star treatment. As we were leaving, I could see that some of the wyverns were getting washed down by the people that were there with looks of enjoyment on their faces.

    For these wyverns, it must be like they were having a spa day.

    I could see that even Joan was rxing instead of missing me like she normally did.

    Sitting in the same carriage as the fourth prince, I looked at him with a faint smile on my face.

    That was because the fourth prince lookedpletely different from his usual well dressed appearance. His hair was messy and there were a few creases in his clothes, like he had just been tossed around.

    I wasn''t worried that anything inappropriate happened, I knew that this was just the way that siblingsmunicated with each other.

    It was a method ofmunication where the fist was used.

    But now that I was in the carriage, Ang calmed down and sat by my side.

    I looked at the fourth prince for a bit before asking, "Where are we going?"

    The fourth prince had been the one that summoned me and Ang to the capital, so we were leaving everything to him. He said that he would take care of everything in his second letter to me, so it wasn''t me just imposing on him.

    The fourth prince opened up the window of the carriage and pointed at arge building outside before saying, "We''re heading there."

    I was surprised because the building that he was pointing at was the castle in the center of the capital. There shouldn''t be a reason for us to go there since the ceremony wouldn''t be for a few days.

    The fourth prince saw the look on my face and he said with a smile, "There''s someone who wants to meet you. I''m just the one that brings you there."

    A person in the castle that wanted to meet us, there were only a few people that came to mind.

    But the worst part was that the few people that came to mind were all people that we didn''t want to meet.

    Especially the one that I thought was the most likely candidate.

    I red at the fourth prince as this thought passed through my mind, but he just looked back at me unfazed with a smile on his face. It was as if no matter what I did, he wouldn''t tell me what I wanted to know.

    Since that was the case, I just sat in silence while thinking about all the things that could happen.

    Ang also had knitted brows on her face this entire ride.

    After arriving at the castle, the fourth prince led the way in without any hesitation.

    The guards that were there saw us and just let us pass without a single fuss.

    In fact, they even bowed to us respectfully as we walked by.

    The fourth prince and Ang, who was the princess I could understand, but it seemed like they were bowing to me respectfully as well. Was there a reason for them to bow to me respectfully like this?

    The fourth prince didn''t exin a thing as he led us through the castle.

    I didn''t know my way around the castle, so I had no idea where we were.

    But when I looked over at Ang, I found that the frown on her face had be even deeper.

    I knew that there was something wrong.

    So I asked her, "What''s wrong?"

    Ang was silent for a bit before saying in a worried voice, "This is the way to my father''s room."

    As expected, the fourth prince had brought us into the castle to meet the king.

    For the king to meet us before the ceremony, it was very likely the thing that we had been worried about was about toe true.

    This was where he would cancel the engagement between me and Ang and then try to find a way to take control of the wyverns from me.

    I just couldn''t believe that the fourth prince would help him with this¡­

    No, it seemed right that the fourth prince would help him with this.

    This was just how the fourth prince from the game was¡­

    When the fourth prince stopped, we were standing in front of a pair ofrge doors that seemed like they were fancier than any other doors that we passed.

 Chapter 666 Can you repeat that again? (1)

    Chapter 666 Can you repeat that again? (1)

    ??As he stood there, the fourth prince turned back to look at us as he said, "Well, as you may have already guessed, we''re here to meet our royal father. Are you ready to go in?"

    Ang and I looked at each other before I turned back to the fourth prince to ask, "Can you tell me why we''re here before we go in?"

    But...the fourth prince just shook his head and said, "It''s better if I don''t. I think that you''ll understand soon why you''re here."

    Both Ang and I deeply knitted our brows when we heard this.

    No matter how we looked at it, it didn''t seem like this would be a good thing for us.

    It seemed very much like this was a trap.

    I couldn''t help looking at the fourth prince with a betrayed look as this thought passed through my mind.

    He could see the look on my face, so he said, "What''s wrong? It''s not like anyone is going to die, right? This is supposed to be a happy asion."

    Both of us gave bitterughs in response to this.

    The fourth prince looked even more confused, but he didn''t mind it as he reached out to the door in front of us. As he twisted the handle, he said, "Well, there''s no turning back now. So let''s just go in already."

    Once again, Ang and I gave bitterughs when we heard this.

    It was true, there was no way that we would be able to leave now that we were here.

    If we did try to leave and the king found out about this, he would surely punish us.

    With how many people saw us as we entered the pce, it was impossible for us to hide the fact that we hade here today.

    So there was only the path forward for us...

    We followed the fourth prince through the door and into the room.

    When we entered the room, we found that the king was waiting there on one of the sofas with a tea table in front of him. On that tea table was a fresh pot of tea and some desserts.

    Seeing use in, he waved his hand at us with a smile on his face and said, "Come,e, sit down. You came at just the right time, I just finished brewing the tea."

    I couldn''t help being a bit taken aback when I saw him acting like this.

    After all, the only times that I had seen the king was in the courtroom where he had the full prestige of a king behind him.

    Now...he just seemed like a normal middle aged man.

    No, it was impossible for someone of his status to be just a normal middle aged man.

    I could still see the royalnessing naturally from him, but he did seem much more rxedpared to before.

    The fourth prince didn''t hesitate as he walked over, but the king just pointed at the chair on the side before he could sit down on the sofa.

    The fourth prince looked at the king with a bitter smile on his face, but the king didn''t care as he pointed at the chair again.

    So in the end, the fourth prince had no choice but to sit down in the chair on the side.

    He didn''t even reach for the tea since he saw that there were only three cups in the first ce. It didn''t seem like there was a ce set for him since there wasn''t even a cup for him here.

    Once the fourth prince sat down, the king turned back to me and Ang and waved his hand at us as he said, "Come,e, sit down already." After waving his hand, he gestured to the couch that was in front of him on the opposite side of the table.

    I looked at Ang and she looked at me, but neither of us had an idea of what was going on.

    But the king had already called us over, so we had no choice but to sit down.

    After sitting down, neither of us did anything as we looked at the king. It was as if we were waiting to see just what he was nning to do.

    When he saw us staring at him like this, the king said with a smile, "I would offer you some tea and cakes, but it doesn''t seem like you''re interested. So instead, let''s talk about why I''ve called you here."

    Both of us were surprised that he would be so direct with this, but we didn''t let our guards down as we waited to see what he had to say.

    The king just took a sip of his tea before calmly saying, "Well, as you may have already guessed, I''ve called you here to discuss the terms of your engagement."

    Ang suddenly stood up and said, "I won''t let you break this engagement. You already agreed to it, so I won''t back down even if you strip me of my title as a princess and exile me from the royal family."

    I looked at Ang with a surprised look since I never thought she would be so passionate about this.

    But I was even more surprised to find that it wasn''t just me who was surprised.

    It was also the fourth prince and the king who were looking at Ang with surprised looks.

    It was as if they had never expected her to suddenly speak up like this.

    After a long silence, the king asked, "Who said anything about breaking the engagement?"

    This time, it was Ang''s turn to be surprised as she looked at the king with a surprised look along with me. Both of us tried to figure out what the king meant by this, but we just couldn''t figure it out.

    The king saw these looks and shook his head with a faint smile before saying, "I never called you here to break the engagement, I called you here to discuss how to proceed with it."

 Chapter 667 Can you repeat that again? (2)

    Chapter 667 Can you repeat that again? (2)

    ??Ang and I both looked at the king as if we couldn''t understand what he had just said.

    After all, neither of us had expected him to say this.

    After a long moment of silence, Ang slowly asked, "Royal father, could you please repeat that again? I don''t think that I heard you clearly."

    The king just revealed a smile as he calmly repeated, "We need to discuss how to proceed with your engagement. After all, an engagement is an engagement, there is still a wedding that follows."

    Ang''s eyes lit up when she heard this before she excitedly said, "You agree to this wedding?"

    The king said with the same smile, "Why would I not agree to it? I was the one that set the engagement in the first ce, so why would I go back on my own words? Do you really think so little of your own father?"

    Ang quickly shook her head when she heard this, but then she couldn''t help saying, "It''s not that I think little of you, royal father¡­It''s just that with the war over, it doesn''t seem like this engagement would really benefit you or the kingdom¡­"

    Her voice trailed off in the end, but it was clear what she was trying to say.

    However, the king didn''t seem offended at all as he still had a smile on his face.

    He just looked right at Ang and said, "Silly daughter, what is more important to me than your happiness?"

    There was a trace of being touched that appeared in Ang''s eyes, but she said, "Is that so?"

    There was a clear tone of doubt that was in her voice.

    The king held his heart this time and leaned forward as he said, "To be mistrusted by my own daughter like this, it seems like my daughter doesn''t have much respect for me."

    Ang didn''t really seem to care about what the king said as she just looked at him with narrowed eyes. After staring at him like this for a bit, she said, "Stop ying around and just tell me."

    The king sat back up again and looked at Ang with a serious look as he said, "My darling, your happiness really is the most important thing to me. I trust your eyes for men since you''re my daughter, there''s really no need to doubt your father like this."

    Ang''s expression slowly changed before she said in a soft voice, "I''m sorry."

    The king revealed a faint smile as he stood up and came over to pat her on the head as he said, "Your happiness really is the most important thing to me."

    The fourth prince on the side added, "Though it does help if the one that you chose controls over a thousand wyverns."

    Both the king and Ang red at the fourth prince when he said this.

    He just looked back at them with a teasing smile, as if he wasn''t afraid of what would happen.

    It seemed that even though they were from the royal family, the rtionship between them was quite good that they were able to joke with each other like this.

    But thinking about it¡­the first prince, the second prince, and the rest were all part of the royal family as well, but they didn''t get along the same. Just what was different about those other princes that they didn''t grow up the same way as the fourth prince?

    I really had no idea what the dynamic of the royal family was.

    After they finished with their moment, both of them sat down where they had been sitting before.

    The king was the one that spoke first as he said, "Since it is your wedding, we naturally have to make it as big as possible."

    Ang nodded in agreement at first, but then she couldn''t help saying, "Is it really necessary to make it big? Is it possible to just hold a small ceremony with some close acquaintances?"

    The way that she said this made it clear that she didn''t want to make this big.

    The look on her face also made it clear that she didn''t want to turn this into a show.

    This was her wedding after all, it wasn''t a show just for everyone to enjoy.

    She knew that she had her duty to the kingdom as the princess, but she really didn''t want to be turned into a show.

    But this time, the king shook his head and said, "We have to do it like this, that is our duty to the people as the royal family."

    Ang looked disappointed, but she nodded in agreement in the end.

    She knew that this was one of the few things that couldn''t be changed and she had already epted it since she was a child, so she could only ept it now.

    Though her disappointment wasn''t just from this.

    It was also because the king had said earlier that her happiness was the most important thing to him, only he was going against that now by going against her wishes.

    The king continued by saying, "After the wedding, we''ll announce that I will be stepping down from the throne and your new husband will be taking over."

    There was only silence that followed after he said this.

    Both Ang and I couldn''t help revealing strange looks that seemed like we hadn''t processed everything that he had said just yet.

    But that couldn''t be med on us since thetter half of his words really were just too shocking for us to process.

    We looked at each other and we could see that neither of us had an inkling of an idea of what the king just said. So we just looked at each other in a daze for a while.

    That was until Ang suddenly turned back and asked the king, "Royal father, what did you just say? Could you repeat that again?"

    The king gave a nod before saying, "I''ll be stepping down from the throne and giving it to your husband."

    Silence, pure silence.

 Chapter 668 Can you repeat that again? (3)

    <h4>Chapter 668 Can you repeat that again? (3)</h4>

    The king just sat there as if he hadn''t heard Ang ask this.

    Ang and I just kept staring at the king as we waited for an answer that never came.

    So Ang finally couldn''t take it anymore and asked, "Royal father, can you please repeat¡­"

    Before she could finish, the king said, "There''s no need for you to keep asking this. You didn''t hear it incorrectly. I said what I said."

    With this confirmation, we couldn''t help being even more shocked by this.

    After all, this meant that the king wasn''t joking when he said that he would step down from the throne and give it to Ang''s husband¡­which meant me!

    Why would he do something like this?

    If there was someone that should take the throne, it should be the fourth prince, right?

    After all, the fourth prince''s power was already much greater than all of the other princes. That was especially so after he obtained the wyverns that I had given him.

    This was one of the reasons why I had given him those wyverns in the first ce.

    I had wanted the fourth prince to consolidate his power so he could take the throne, so what happened in the game wouldn''t happen this time.

    I had to admit that the fourth prince had won me over with everything that he had done and I was sincerely supporting him to take the throne.

    Could this be the reason why the fourth prince had caused that coup in the game?

    Was it because the king had already nned on giving the throne to someone else all along?

    I slowly looked at the fourth prince and found that he was watching all of this with a calm look on his face.

    I would say that I had gotten quite good at reading the fourth prince after everything that we had been through. I could see that the look on his face wasn''t a fake calm expression, but a real calm expression.

    It was as if he had already expected the king to say this.

    But if he did, did that mean that he was really alright with giving up the throne?

    If he did, did that mean that he was in on this all along?

    Wait¡­the fourth prince had signed the decree that had called me and Ang to the capital, so he should have been in on this all along.

    Why?

    Just what did the fourth prince gain from all of this?

    I couldn''t help rubbing my temple as my head started to ache from thinking about all of this.

    I just couldn''t make sense of any of this¡­

    It seemed like Ang also couldn''t make any sense of this as she said, "Why? Why would you do something like this?"

    She turned to look at the fourth prince and said, "Isn''t fourth brother the best candidate for the throne? Royal father, shouldn''t you make fourth brother the crown prince instead?"

    The king and the fourth prince looked at each other before shaking their heads at the same time.

    Both of them gave sighs at the same time, but the king said, "Let me exin everything."

    The king took a deep breath before saying, "To put it simply, this has been our n this entire time. This is not something that we came up with on a whim, this was something that has been developing for over five years now."

    Both Ang and I couldn''t help revealing shocked looks when we heard this before confused looks appeared on our faces.

    The king gave a nod and said with a smile, "I''m sure that you''re very confused about all of this, so let me exin. To put it simply, it was because I had discovered that the princes had all started forming their own factions and hadpletely forgotten that they were brothers. It was because they were all fighting their family for the throne that I developed this n in the end."

    Once again, the king gave a sigh as he said, "It is all my fault for letting things get this far¡­If only I had been more strict with my children and prevented them from being seduced by others, then perhaps I could have saved the rtionship of our family."

    Ang couldn''t help revealing a sad look when she heard this.

    I already knew that the rtionship in the royal family wasn''t simple, but it seemed that there was even more than met the eye.

    It seemed that the rtionship was so bad that even the king had to step in and do something."

    The king took a deep breath again before saying, "I had no choice but to step in since our kingdom would have been ruined if I didn''t. If I had left things as they were, our kingdom would have fallen into a state of civil war after I stepped down from the throne, so I had to do something. I couldn''t let generations of hard work of our ancestors be ruined by these trouble children."

    He turned to look at the fourth prince and said, "So I asked for old fourth''s help. He is the only one that isn''t seduced by the allure of the throne and only cares about helping the people of our country. He is the only one that knows what is best for our country."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before saying, "Our n was to create a powerful rival for all of them and gather them together before taking them down in one fell swoop. I was to be the viin that all of them gathered against before taking them all down together. That is why I''ve been raising my power all this time."

    The king gave another sigh as he said, "I''ve wanted old fourth to take the throne after that, but he said that he couldn''t since his hands would be too stained with blood to do so."

    The fourth prince just shook his head with a bitter smile as he said, "I''ve done many things that can''t be spoken about to help our royal father. I don''t deserve the throne."

 Chapter 669 Can you repeat that again? (4)

    Chapter 669 Can you repeat that again? (4)

    ??The expression on the fourth prince''s face made it very clear that he was filled with regret over what he had done.

    But the look in his eyes made it clear that he knew that what he had done was for the best.

    If he hadn''t done this, it would be unknown what would have happened to their kingdom.

    So in the end, he knew that he had done what needed to be done and wouldn''t go back on what he had done in the end.

    But that didn''t mean that I didn''t think that he was still the better candidate for the throne. Rather, it made me even certain that he was the better candidate for the throne since he was the one that truly cared about the kingdom and knew what was the best for the kingdom.

    If someone like him was on the throne, then the kingdom would surely enter a new age of prosperity.

    It shouldn''t be someone like me who had nothing to his name that should be on the throne.

    I wanted to say something, but the fourth prince cut me off by saying, "This is the n that we''veid out all this time, it''s already toote for us to go back. We can only finish this n and do our best for the people of the kingdom."

    I looked at him with a look of pity when I heard this, but the fourth prince shook his head before saying with a smile, "Don''t feel sad for me, this is already the best ending for me. After all, the original n would have resulted in my death."

    It wasn''t just me who was shocked to hear this, Ang was also shocked when she heard this.

    After all, it seemed like she didn''t know anything about this n either.

    The fourth prince saw the looks that we gave him and he exined, "In the beginning, we were afraid that the person that big sister married wouldn''t have enough prestige to take the throne. So to counter that, I would have organized a coup and then tried to take the throne from our royal father. The one that would have stopped me in the end would be the one that big sister chose and then that would have given them the prestige to take the throne."

    As soon as he said this, I couldn''t help revealing a veryplicated look.

    That was because this was thest piece of the puzzle that I needed.

    The plot in the game, I realize now that it was only the tip of the iceberg¡­

    Why had the fourth prince started his coup to try and take the throne?

    It was all because of this n that he was currently talking about.

    So it turned out that behind the noble plotline in the game was another plotline like this that the yers never learned about.

    If they had done different things, would they have found this secret plotline involving the fourth prince?

    As this revtion hit me, I started to realize that perhaps¡­the knowledge that I had brought to this world on the game that this world was based on wasn''t as useful as I thought it was.

    I had thought that I had perfectly cleared the game and learned everything that I needed to know about the game, but it seemed that there were many secrets about the game that I didn''t know yet.

    It seemed that there were secrets that no yer had ever discovered about this game¡­

    Did the developers intentionally put these things in the game or was it a result of coincidence that these things were in the game in the first ce?

    I couldn''t help feeling smaller and smaller as these revtions hit me one by one.

    The fourth prince had been looking at me with a strange and confused look when he saw the daze that I was in, but he still gave a cough before saying, "Anyway, since Brother Zwein already has his prestige from the war, there is no need for me to put my life down to pave the way for Brother Zwein to take the throne. This really is the best ending for me."

    With a sigh, he said in a voice that almost seemed sad, "Perhaps now I can finally achieve my dream of living a normal life."

    I looked at him with aplicated expression when I heard this.

    The fourth prince saw this, so he said with a smile, "Of course, I knew that this isn''t possible since there are still many things that we have to do for our kingdom."

    With a bow to me, he said, "So if you are willing, I hope that you will allow me to serve as your prime minister for the time being."

    I was surprised to see the fourth prince acting like this, but I quickly shook my head as I said, "No, no, I haven''t even agreed to take the throne yet."

    The king and the fourth prince looked at each other with bitter smiles before turning back to look at me. The king just calmly said, "There''s no going back now, everything has been set into motion. If you do not cooperate with our n, then all that is left is chaos for our kingdom. Eventually, it will even lead to theplete copse of this kingdom that our ancestors built."

    I waspletely caught off guard by these words from the king.

    I just looked at him with narrowed eyes for a bit before suddenly saying, "That''s a threat, isn''t it?"

    The king gave a knowing smile without saying a thing.

    When I turned to the fourth prince, I found that he had the same smile on his face.

    These two knew exactly what they were doing and they felt no shame about it¡­

    Perhaps it was because this was the only option that they had¡­

    The straw that broke the camel''s back was Ang.

    She turned to look at me and put her hand on my arm with a pleading look.

    Even though it was clear that she wasn''t willing to ept all this, she knew that she had no choice. It was the duty that she had to the kingdom and her family thatpelled her to try and convince me to ept this.

    In the end, I had no choice but to say with a sigh, "Fine."

 Chapter 670 As a father

    <h4>Chapter 670 As a father</h4>

    The king and the fourth prince both revealed wide smiles after they heard this.

    I could only shake my head with a bitter smile on my face.

    After all, this was my first time encountering a situation like this. This was the first time that I heard of someone being threatened into bing a king.

    Taking the throne and bing a king was something that many people dreamed of, but here I was being forced into taking the throne because of their n. I really didn''t know how to feel about all of this.

    I could see that Ang was feeling the same about this based on the look on her face.

    But the king didn''t give us time to process this in the end.

    It seemed that there was something else that he wanted to discuss with us¡­or rather with me.

    Narrowing his eyes to look at me, the king suddenly asked, "What are your intentions towards my daughter?"

    The only thing that I could think of as he said this was¡­

    "Isn''t it toote to be asking me this!?"

    After all, we''re already engaged, so it wasn''t as if there were any other intentions that I could have for her. We were going to get married and there wasn''t anything else that would happen.

    Well, unless we were going to break the engagement¡­

    Was this what it was about?

    He wanted to break the engagement in the end?

    Ang seemed to think the same thing, but she was less reserved than me.

    This was her father, so she didn''t hold back at all as she narrowed her eyes to look at the king and asked, "What are you doing asking this now out of all time? Isn''t it toote for this? Or are you regretting your decision and want to cancel your ns?"

    The way that she looked at the king almost made it seem like she had lost all respect for him.

    But the king just said with a bitter smile, "I''m a father in the end, this is what I should be asking. Shouldn''t you at least let your father keep this little bit of dignity that he has?"

    There was aplicated expression that appeared on Ang''s face when she heard this.

    She just looked at the king with thisplicated look on her face for a bit before slowly giving a nod.

    I also understood how the king felt in this situation.

    He had no choice but to go along with this, but he would still want to act as a parent when his daughter was being married.

    So I looked back at the king with a serious look and said, "I''ve already decided to marry your daughter, so I promise that I will never do anything to hurt her and devote myself to her."

    Though I couldn''t help feeling a bit awkward since for someone like me who came from a world with monogamy, I was currently a scumbag who was seven timing. But in this world where polygamy was legal, I shouldn''t be feeling this way.

    I had already slowlye to terms with this and it was no more than a small matter in the back of my mind now.

    Seeing me look straight at him and say this, the king gave a nod of approval before saying, "As expected of the one that my daughter has chosen." Then with a smile, he said, "I''ve made sure to raise her well ever since she was young. I made sure to tell her all about what kind of men she should associate with and what kind of men she should avoid, so I do trust her eyes."

    Then with a sigh, he said, "But as a father, I really want to make sure that the best person is with my daughter. After all, she is my precious daughter."

    Ang had been nning on stopping him since she felt that he was embarrassing her, but when he said thetter half, she couldn''t help revealing a touched look.

    This was her father and he was saying his true feelings, so of course she would be touched by his words.

    But that was where it took a turn.

    After praising Ang for a bit, the king suddenly gave a sigh and said, "Though I can be proud of my daughter, I can''t say the same about my sons."

    He turned to the fourth prince to say, "Of course, I don''t mean Noah here. He is someone that I''m as proud of as Ang. He really is the best son that a man can ask for."

    The fourth prince couldn''t help touching the back of his head in an awkward fashion when he heard this.

    Then the king turned back and said with another sigh, "But the other sons¡­I really don''t know what to say as a father. No, the only thing that I can say is that I failed them as a father, which is why they turned out like that in the first ce. The only thing I can do now is walk this path to the end and take responsibility as their father."

    The king suddenly stood up and walked over to a cab that was in this room.

    He moved to the side of the cab and pressed a secret button in it, revealing a secretpartment.

    He pulled something out of that secretpartment, which turned out to be a bottle of wine and some sses.

    After sitting back down, the king didn''t hesitate in opening that bottle of wine and pouring out cups for all of us as he keptining about his other sons.

    It seemed that this wine was the king''s secret stash for when he wanted toin.

    But since he had already poured the wine for us, we had no choice but to drink with him and listen to himin. Though I did stop Ang from drinking too much since I found that this stuff was quite strong.

    Just like that, the night passed drinking with my future father inw and listening to hisints.

 Chapter 671 Award ceremony (1)

    Chapter 671 Award ceremony (1)

    ??I spent the night in the castle in the end since I had been kept here by the king, listening to all of hisints.

    When morning came, I didn''t have any time to rx since I had to get ready.

    The award ceremony for presenting the awards for the war was today.

    Actually, it could have been held much sooner, but I found that the king had postponed it this whole time. All of the nobles had been waiting in the capital for the award ceremony to happen, but the king hadn''t announced when it would be.

    I found outst night that it was because they had been waiting for me.

    The king had kept all of the nobles waiting just for me.

    I really didn''t know how to feel when I heard this, but I did know one thing.

    The nobles couldn''t learn of this or else¡­there would certainly be a riot.

    Though the ceremony time was only announced yesterday after my arrival, it seemed that everything had already been prepared. All of the nobles showed up without any problems and they were all dressed immactely.

    I was the one that stuck out like a sore thumb since my clothes weren''t as fancy as theirs.

    But there was a different reason why the nobles were all staring at me anyway.

    It was because¡­

    "It''s him¡­the Mad ughterer¡­"

    "I heard that he killed over a million people during the war¡­"

    "I''ve heard that he buried a hundred thousand prisoners of war alive in the ground."

    I could hear all of the gossip that they were talking about when I came into the ceremony hall.

    It was clear that they had heard rumours about me, but I was surprised to hear some of the things that they had heard. It was clear that someone had embellished these rumours about me.

    As I shook my head with a bitter smile, I saw the fourth prince looking at me.

    The fourth prince didn''te over since he was standing there with the other princes, but the look on his face¡­It seemed like he was proud about something.

    Like he had something to do with these rumours that were being spread about me.

    It couldn''t be that¡­

    No, that was the only exnation!

    I wanted to report the fourth prince or even sue him, but then again¡­who would I even report the fourth prince to in the first ce?

    He was part of the royal family that set thews of the kingdom, so it wasn''t as if I could get him with thews in the first ce.

    So the only thing that I could do was re at the fourth prince to show that I was angry at him.

    It was clear that the fourth prince misunderstood this as he gave me a look like he was saying, "Don''t worry about it! I was happy to do it!"

    I really felt like punching that look of his face, but I had to think about the time and ce.

    Since this was an award ceremony, we all took our ces and waited for the king to arrive. The ces that we would take were all rted to our contributions during the war.

    I had thought that I would be near the back since the generals whomanded the other armies would take more credit, but I was surprised to find that I was arranged near the front.

    I could see some familiar faces, but they were faces that I didn''t want to see.

    For example, Duke Yuletide and General Gardner.

    They had led the armies that had kept the enemies at bay and even if they didn''t do much, they would still take credit for this aplishment.

    They both looked at me with smiles on their faces as if they were being polite, so I had no choice but to smile back at them.

    But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the things that I would do to them once this was all over.

    After the nobles gathered, there was a servant of the king that came out and said, "The king has arrived, everyone bow to wee the king!"

    All of us bowed as the king walked in and it was only when he sat down and waved his hand that we stood up again.

    After sitting down on the throne, the king said, "Thank you for gathering today. We have all gathered here to award those brave men who have fought for our kingdom in this war that we suddenly faced. Those that have risked their lives to defend the people of our kingdom, we are grateful to you for your sacrifice."

    But then he revealed a sad look as he said, "But before that, I would like to have a moment of silence for all those souls that fell in the battle."

    The nobles didn''t really seem that concerned, but they at least pretended like they were sad.

    From the fourth prince, I had learned all the casualties that we had suffered in this war.

    The main casualties were¡­civilians.

    Because of how some of the nobles only cared about their own interests in the war, the invading armies had turned to the viges that were undefended to ravage them.

    They wanted to lure out the nobles that were hiding, but at the same time, they had piged for their own gains.

    This had resulted in the casualties of many civilians.

    These nobles didn''t care about thesemoners in the first ce, which was why they acted this way.

    It really sickened me seeing them like this, but there was nothing that I could do about it.

    Maybe in the future, but right now¡­

    After that moment of silence, the king looked back up and said, "Now, let''s give out the awards for those who have achieved merits in the war."

    All of the nobles revealed excited looks when they heard this, but who knew if they would be able to keep those excited looks in the end.

 Chapter 672 Award ceremony (2)

    <h4>Chapter 672 Award ceremony (2)</h4>

    The ceremony went as one would expect.

    The nobles that were in charge of armies received gold andnd, while the ones that had distinguished themselves in battle received titles and gold.

    It was rare for those that distinguished themselves in battle to receivend since¡­there wasn''t muchnd in the kingdom in the first ce.

    No, it wasn''t that there wasn''t muchnd, there just wasn''t as much usablend to give.

    Land could have been given, but it would have been a strain on the finances of these new nobles to develop. So instead, they were given titles and gold to freely develop however they wanted.

    If they really wanted these barrennds, the kingdom had a system where they could buy thesends.

    Though it would cost them more than if they received thesends as an award.

    The only thing that I was concerned about was the fact that I was being ignored.

    Though I was standing near the king at the front of this hall, everyone around me was called while I was made to wait.

    Even those that were close to the back of the hall were called before it.

    It was clear that the king was deliberately avoiding calling me up, but was that a good thing or a bad thing?

    To others it might be a good thing since it meant that I was most likely going to receive a special award. But for me, I felt that this was a bad thing since this would just draw even more attention to me¡­

    After thest person was called forward and received their reward, it was finally time for me.

    The king gave a nod to me and waved his hand for me toe forward.

    When I did, everyone''s eyes immediately fell onto me.

    It seemed that everyone knew who I was and they were all curious why the king had waited to the end to summon me.

    There were some that had jealous looks, there were some that had curious looks, and there were some that just looked at me with calm expressions.

    It was clear that all of them had different opinions about this matter, but I didn''t care so much about that.

    I just cared about what the king would say.

    After I came forward and kneeled down in front of him, the king suddenly said, "Rise. There''s no need for you to kneel in front of me."

    All of the nobles were shocked when they heard this.

    They looked at the king with these shocked looks, but he just ignored them as he maintained the same look on his face. It was as if the way that they looked at him didn''t affect him at all.

    But for the king to regard all etiquette and allow Count Zwein to greet him without kneeling¡­

    This was something that was very serious.

    The only ones that were allowed to do that were the dukes and the princes, but even then, they still had to bow slightly. But the king didn''t mention anything about bowing either¡­

    Did Count Zwein really have that high of a position in the king''s heart?

    I just calmly stood up and waited to see what the king would say, but there was a secret bitter smile forming inside of me.

    I already had an idea of what was going to happen, still it was hard to brace for it.

    The king gave a nod when he saw me looking at him with a calm look and said, "Count Zwein, I think that it''s no exaggeration to say that you have contributed the most to our war efforts."

    All of the nobles revealed awkward looks when they heard this, but not a single one of them refuted it.

    In fact, none of them could refute this.

    Could they have done all the things that Count Zwein had done?

    No, it would have been impossible for them to do the same things as him.

    If they had awakened any of the things that he had awakened, it would have been more likely that they would have been destroyed rather than the enemy.

    So they couldn''t refute it.

    But that didn''t mean that they couldn''t help feeling envious of everything he had aplished and everything that he would receive.

    They were nobles to their core and they were selfish like that.

    The king also ignored all the looks that the nobles gave Count Zwein and continued by saying, "The reward that we have prepared for you is the title of duke."

    Cold breaths rang out through the ceremony hall the moment that the nobles heard this.

    Duke, that was a title that no one had received since the founding of the kingdom.

    There were only four dukes that were in their kingdom and there hadn''t been a single new duke added in hundreds of years.

    But now the king wanted to grant someone the title of duke¡­

    This was not something that could be given lightly¡­

    There were many nobles that looked at the king with gazes as if they were telling him to reconsider this, but the king just ignored them all.

    So in the end, Duke Yuletide couldn''t take it anymore as he said, "Your majesty, this¡­"

    Before he could say anything else though, the king suddenly raised his hand and said in a cold voice, "I''m not finished yet."

    All of the nobles immediately fell silent when they heard this.

    There were some of the lower ranked nobles that even lowered their heads when they heard this.

    He was a king that had ruled over this kingdom for a long time, so the prestige that he had developed as a king definitely wasn''t weak.

    It could suppress these nobles easily.

    "Other than granting him the title of duke, there is something else I want to announce."

    The king gave a p and there was someone that came out of the back door.

    When I saw this person, I couldn''t help being surprised.

    It was Ang who had disappeared early in the morning.

 Chapter 673 Award ceremony (3)

    Chapter 673 Award ceremony (3)

    ??When Ang came out, she looked at me with a smile and waved her hand at me.

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I saw this, but I just waved back at her.

    After all, I knew that she would be unhappy if I didn''t wave back at her.

    The nobles around me all looked at me with a strange look after seeing me wave at Ang like this, but I ignored them all. There was nothing that I could say to them in the first ce that would allow them to understand the situation even if I wanted to.

    Not to mention, I didn''t want to exin it to them in the first ce.

    I was sure that they would find some way toin about this, so it was better to leave it all to the king.

    The king didn''t say anything until Ang walked over to his side.

    When she was beside him, he looked at her with a smile before turning to look at everyone.

    In a serious voice, he said, "I''m sure that all of you have already heard that there was an engagement set for my daughter."

    The nobles immediately knitted their brows when they heard this before looking back at me again.

    All of them knew that I was the one that had been engaged to Ang previously, so they were naturally focusing on me once this topic was brought up.

    The king just ignored all of this as he continued by saying, "I want to announce today that we will be holding my daughter''s wedding soon."

    The expressions on the faces of the nobles all filled with shock when they heard this.

    This was clearly thest thing that they had expected to hear from the king.

    But it didn''t take long before other expressions appeared on the faces of the nobles.

    It was clear that they didn''t approve of this since they didn''t think that they would benefit from it.

    There were many nobles that had been targeting the princess since she had been single, but now that she was getting married¡­

    They had thought that this engagement was nothing more than a sham to fool the other kingdoms. They had thought that once the war was over, the engagement would be broken and they would have their chance.

    They never thought that the king would actually marry the daughter that he doted on to someone.

    Even if it was someone like Count¡­No, it was Duke Zwein now, it shouldn''t have been like this.

    The nobles weren''t able to react in time, but they quickly came back to their senses and looked like they wanted toin.

    Before they could, the king suddenly said, "This is a matter that I''ve decided after asking for both the feelings of my daughter and Duke Zwein. I hope that all of you will respect this."

    The nobles that had been about to speak just stood there with their mouths wide open as looks of disbelief appeared on their faces.

    It didn''t take long for them to quickly turn to look at Ang, but she had looked away with a blush on her face.

    It was real!

    There really was something that had happened between the princess and Duke Zwein!

    So it seemed that even if they wanted toin, it didn''t seem possible for them toin about this matter. After all, this was a matter that didn''t concern them at all, so they didn''t have a right toin.

    They could try to put pressure on the king, but what could they really do other than dy the wedding?

    So there was nothing that they could gain from speaking up now.

    They had already set everything and were only telling them now¡­it was toote for them to do anything.

    As the nobles could only feel bitter about this, but there were some that had other thoughts on their mind.

    Even if the wedding was set, there were still other things that needed to be discussed.

    They had wanted to wait until after this award ceremony to discuss this, but with this news, it seemed that they couldn''t wait. They had to do this while everyone was here, especially Duke Zwein since this was a matter that concerned him.

    So one of the nobles suddenly stepped forward and said, "Your majesty, there is something that I want to ask!"

    Everyone immediately turned to look at this noble with a confused look, as they were wondering what he was doing.

    When I looked at him, I recognized him as one of the other dukes.

    This was Duke Soutnd.

    I only recognized him since he had been a part of the award ceremony.

    Apparently, he was the general of the army that had been holding back the Darius Kingdom army the entire time.

    Though he was a bit different from Duke Yuletide and General Gardner since he had actually been fighting the Darius Kingdom army. So my opinion of this noble wasn''t as bad as the other two.

    That was until he suddenly spoke up at this moment.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at Duke Soutnd before slowly saying, "Do you really have to ask your question at this time? This is a time to celebrate my daughter''s wedding and you want to ask a question?"

    Duke Soutnd lowered his head as he said, "Your majesty, I apologize for this, but this is a matter that I have to address. I had no choice but to speak up at this moment."

    The king kept staring at Duke Soutnd for a bit before saying in a more gentle voice, "What do you have to ask?"

    Duke Soutnd looked back up and turned to look at me to say, "It''s actually a question for Duke Zwein. May I ask you something?"

    I was surprised to hear this, but I slowly gave a nod since I was curious what he wanted.

    Duke Soutnd revealed a serious look as he said, "The wyverns, what are your ns for the wyverns?"

 Chapter 674 Award ceremony (4)

    <h4>Chapter 674 Award ceremony (4)</h4>

    As soon as the other nobles heard this, all of them revealed serious looks and turned to look in my direction as well.

    This was something that was very important since they had all seen the power of the wyverns.

    It wouldn''t be an exaggeration to say that it was only because of the wyverns that the war had ended in the first ce.

    So they cared very much about who the control of the wyverns fell under.

    Even if it was the fourth prince who had shown up with the wyverns near the end of the war, there was still plenty of information from before that gave them the identity of the one who really controlled the wyverns.

    They were nobles, so their informationwork couldn''t be looked down on.

    Not to mention, they were nobles that had contributed enough in this war to be in this award ceremony.

    So there was no way that there would be a single noble that would be simple in this ceremony hall.

    After Duke Soutnd asked this, he looked at me with narrowed eyes that had a serious look in them, almost as if he was trying to put pressure on me.

    But I didn''t buckle at all when faced with this re.

    I just calmly looked back at Duke Soutnd and said, "The duke is concerned about where the wyverns are going?"

    Duke Soutnd couldn''t help being surprised by how calm I looked, but he said with a nod, "The wyverns are a matter of national security, so naturally I am concerned where they went for the safety of our country."

    A faint smile appeared on my lips when I heard this.

    I thought that this Duke Soutnd was a rash fellow because of how he had asked about the wyverns like this, but now it seemed that I had been mistaken.

    The way that he had phrased this, it was as if he was putting himself on the side of righteousness by making this about the safety of the kingdom.

    There were many nobles that nodded in agreement after hearing him say this, but I just calmly said, "Well, as you already know, there are many wyverns that have already fallen under the control of the fourth prince. Does the duke think that this is a risk to the kingdom?"

    Duke Soutnd slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but he quickly responded, "Of course not, we are all loyal to the royal family, so there''s nothing to be worried about if the royal family is the one controlling them."

    But he still added, "However, that doesn''t tell us how many wyverns that you''ve kept for yourself."

    All of the nobles looked right at me after hearing this.

    I pretended like I didn''t really mind as I calmly said, "I gave half to the fourth prince and I''ve kept half for myself. Is that what the duke wanted to hear?"

    Duke Soutnd and all of the other nobles immediately knitted their brows when they heard this.

    After all, this was a much bigger number than they thought it would be.

    They thought that most of the wyverns would be turned over to the royal family and they wouldn''t be able to touch them. But if half of the wyverns were still with Duke Zwein, then...they might be able to pressure him enough to get him to hand them over.

    This was what it was all about.

    Everyone wanted wyverns for themselves.

    So Duke Soutnd was about to say something, but he didn''t get a chance.

    The king suddenly said, "Enough on this matter. The matter of the wyverns will not be discussed again, there is nothing for you."

    All of the nobles were once again shocked when they heard the king say this.

    After all, not a single one of them expected the king to suddenlye to the defense of Duke Zwein.

    They were certain that the king would leave this matter alone since he wouldn''t trust Duke Zwein with all of these wyverns either. But to their surprise, the king actually came to defend him¡­

    Could it be that there was some kind of deal between them already?

    After a long silence, it was Duke Yuletide who spoke up this time by saying, "Your majesty, I cannot stay silent any longer. This is a matter of national security, so we must discuss where these wyverns will go in the future. They are a valuable asset to our kingdom, not something that can be controlled by a single person."

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at Duke Yuletide before saying, "You think that you have a say in this matter? I won''t hear any more about this or else¡­"

    All of the nobles were once again shocked to hear this.

    After all, not a single one of them expected the king to act in such an overbearing manner.

    They had thought that the king would fold under the pressure of two different dukes, but even then, he still protected Duke Zwein.

    Duke Zwein might be marrying the princess, but that didn''t mean that he should be this important to the king. After all, the king still needed to care about the opinions of the dukes since he needed their help to govern the kingdom.

    There was a reason why there were four dukes in the first ce.

    It wasn''t that they were just founders of the kingdom, but they were also powerful enough that the royal family wouldn''t be able to take them on.

    So there was nothing to gain for the king to protect a new duke like this¡­

    Just what was his majesty thinking?

    There were many nobles that thought that the king was crazy for doing something like this, but they didn''t know the full story.

    If Zwein had control of these wyverns, it meant that all of the wyverns would be under the control of the royal family.

    After all, Zwein would be taking the throne soon.

    With the wyverns that he and the fourth prince controlled, they really didn''t need to fear the four dukes.

    Let alone a duke that would be losing his title soon.

 Chapter 675 The net has been cast

    <h4>Chapter 675 The has been cast</h4>

    The award ceremony was awkwardly dismissed since the nobles didn''t know what to make of the ending of that award ceremony.

    In the end, most of them avoided me since they didn''t want to associate with me after two dukes had stepped up.

    Even if the king backed me, it was two dukes who had tried to take the wyverns from me.

    They didn''t think that I would be able to do anything against two established ducal families as a new duke.

    So they were avoiding associating with me to avoid being pulled into this matter.

    But I didn''t care about any of them since there was something else that I needed to do.

    After the award ceremony, I was brought back to the private residences of the castle.

    This was where I had stayedst night and where I would be staying while I was in the capital, so it was only natural that I woulde back.

    Waiting for me was the king, the fourth prince, and Ang.

    Unlike me who had to take a wrap-around way to get here, they could juste directly to this ce from the back entrance of the ceremony hall. They were sitting there enjoying some tea and cake when I walked in.

    Seeing mee in, the fourth prince waved for me to join them while Ang was already pouring some tea and cutting some cake for me.

    The maid had wanted to do it, but she had the maid back down and did it herself.

    When I sat down, the fourth prince waved his hand for the servants to leave.

    In no time at all, the servants had disappeared from the room.

    It seemed that he had something serious to discuss with me.

    Once the servants were gone, the fourth prince said, "Let''s discuss what we will do next. We need to think about how to take care of the other princes."

    There was a disturbed look that appeared on my face when I heard the fourth prince say it.

    Especially with how calm he was when he said it¡­

    He was basically talking about how to kill his brothers and he was saying it with a calm look on his face.

    It was as if he had alreadye to terms with the death of his brothers a long time ago.

    I saw that the king had the same look on his face, but Ang couldn''t help looking a bit disturbed.

    Un, she didn''t know about this n in the first ce, so it wasn''t strange that she was disturbed by this. After all, these were her brothers as well.

    While I didn''t know how good the rtionship between her and her brothers was, it wasn''t as if she could deny all blood rtions with them. So it was only normal that she would feel disturbed by the fact that the fourth prince was nning to kill these brothers of hers.

    So I took her hand and patted it on the back.

    Ang looked up at me and there was only a moment of weakness before she revealed a firm look to show that she had epted this.

    But it wasn''t as if I could ept this that easily.

    So I turned to the fourth prince and asked, "Do we really have to kill them? Is there a way to strip them of their power and send them to remote parts of the kingdom?"

    Both the king and the fourth prince revealed bitter smiles when they heard this.

    However, neither of them said a thing as they looked at me with those bitter smiles on their faces.

    Finally, the fourth prince broke the silence by asking, "Do you really think that they would act peaceful and remain in exile? Those people that are already used to having all this power, will they really just listen and stay in exile?"

    I was caught off guard by this.

    If it was anyone else, they might not be able to answer this question, but¡­

    I was someone who had knowledge from the game, so I knew just what kind of personality they had.

    It was something that had been written about in detail in the game''s guide, so I knew that they wouldn''t be able to ept this.

    These were prideful princes who would rather die than give up their power.

    So even if they were left alive, they wouldn''t back down¡­

    In the end, I had no choice but to ept that death would be the only way.

    Though there was a small part of me that thought¡­

    If there were things that had turned out differently in this worldpared to the game of the world, perhaps there was a chance that the same could happen with the princes¡­

    But I also knew that it would take a lot of effort for something like this.

    It would require finding many things about the princes to be able to convince them to give up their power willingly.

    That was just too much work for this.

    After seeing that I had epted this, the fourth prince continued.

    The only reason he had been waiting in the first ce was because he was afraid that I would get cold feet midway. So he had been stalling during this to give me the time toe to terms with my emotions.

    Once I did, the fourth prince said, "The has already been cast, the only thing that is missing is bait."

    After he said this, he looked at me.

    A faint smile appeared on his face as he looked at me.

    I knew immediately that he meant that I was bait.

    But thinking about it, I really was the best bait for this n.

    Ang wanted to reject this, but I said, "Alright, tell me what I have to do."

    She looked at me with a look like she was trying to convince me otherwise, but I just said, "We should end this as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the more things can go wrong."

    She still looked at me with an unwilling look, but eventually she gave a nod.

    I turned back to the fourth prince and waited for him to exin his n.

    Seeing me looking at him, the fourth prince said, "The n is¡­"

 Chapter 676 Wyvern Rock

    Chapter 676 Wyvern Rock

    ??Over the next few days, there was a rumour that quickly spread across the entire capital.

    "Did you hear the rumours about Wyvern Rock?"

    "Wyvern Rock? What is that?"

    "You know how our kingdom was able to defeat the other kingdoms because of the sudden appearance of the wyverns? I''ve heard that this was because of something called Wyvern Rock."

    "Really? What does this Wyvern Rock do?"

    "I don''t really know since there are many rumours about it, but it seems like it''s some kind of special rock that allows the user to control the wyverns. I''ve heard that this was how the wyverns were tamed by Count¡­no, by Duke Zwein."

    "There''s actually such a magical thing? Then if we were to obtain this, wouldn''t we be able to do the same? Ha, ha, ha!"

    "In your dreams, ha, ha, ha! Do you think that you''re some kind of hero from a story that would be lucky enough to find something like this? People like us should just live normal lives."

    "You''re right about that, but you could at least let me dream."

    "I wouldn''t waste my time with that. Aren''t you still in the dog house after what happened at the bar the other night?"

    "Don''t remind me¡­I still have to think of a way to make it up to her¡­"

    Conversations like this were happening all over the capital as rumours about this Wyvern Stone spread.

    Then this came to a peak when rumours of Duke Zwein leaving the city on his wyvern came.

    No, it wasn''t a rumour since they had seen it happen.

    Wyverns leaving wasn''t something that could be hidden since wyverns were so big in the first ce. Even if he were to leave in the middle of the night, it would be impossible to hide it with how much noise a wyvern leaving the city made.

    So there were many people that had seen Duke Zwein leaving the capital on his wyvern.

    When this was confirmed, there were many people that started to move.

    They all sent people to watch the wyvern as it left the capital and try to follow it as best as they could.

    It was as best as they could since the wyvern was flying and they were following from the ground.

    This was a hard way to chase a wyvern no matter how one looked at it. It didn''t seem likely that they would be able to follow the wyvern and see where it was going.

    But to the surprise of the ones following Duke Zwein, they found that the wyvern was flying slowly.

    It went at a speed that they were able to follow quite easily.

    This raised the suspicions of the ones that were following Duke Zwein.

    They reported all of this back to the ones above them.

    After three days of traveling, they arrived at a mountain that Duke Zweinnded on.

    After Duke Zwein arrived, there were other wyverns that had alsonded on this mountain and even went into the same cave as Duke Zwein.

    When this was all reported back, there was a frenzy that was raised.

    After all, everyone had already heard the rumours about the Wyvern Stone.

    When all of these things came together, that was the first thing that they thought about.

    Once this was reported back, the people above the ones that were sent to follow Duke Zwein immediately started moving their people. Even if it was reported that Duke Zwein''s behaviour was strange, they didn''t care at all as they brought their people toe to this mountain.

    That included the princes that were desperate at this point.

    They had heard about the fourth prince and the wyverns that he had been given.

    They had also seen the reports of the fourth prince''s wyverns during the war.

    They knew that at this point, it seemed very likely that the fourth prince would be made the crown prince.

    At this point, they were desperate to do anything that would give them a fighting choice.

    That desperation made them irrational to the point where they even ignored the clear signs that were in front of them.

    Once they had all gathered at that mountain, the princes met with each other.

    There was some hostility that was shown between the princes at first, but it was quickly quelled by a person who stepped up.

    "Enough, this isn''t the time for this."

    It was the first prince who said this as he stepped up to stand in front of all of them.

    He swept his eyes across them before saying, "We don''t have the luxury to do something like this. You should all know what kind of situation we are in and how dangerous it is for us. We need to take care of Duke Zwein first and make him hand over the Wyvern Stone first. After that, we''ll discuss it among ourselves."

    The other princes hadplicated looks when they heard this, but they all slowly nodded in agreement to this.

    After all, they knew that the first prince was right.

    Right now, it wasn''t even guaranteed that they would be able to obtain the Wyvern Stone since wyverns weren''t weak in the first ce. That was why they had been able to put pressure on them and the other kingdoms.

    If they wanted to take the Wyvern Stone, there was no doubt that they would have to face the wyvern of Duke Zwein and the other wyverns that had arrived in this ce afterwards.

    So they didn''t have the time to be fighting amongst themselves.

    After a long silence, they agreed to work together and gathered their men to follow them into the cave.

    What they didn''t notice was that someone was watching them from a distance.

    As they watched over the princes, they suddenly pulled out something and said, "The targets are heading into the. Be prepared to kill them all."

    After they said this, they put that thing away and disappeared into the trees.

 Chapter 677 Boom

    <h4>Chapter 677 Boom</h4>

    When they came up to the cave, they were surprised to find¡­

    Narrow.

    This cave was very narrow.

    Though it was still big enough for a wyvern to fit, there was no doubt that it would be a very tight fit.

    So when the princes saw this, they all immediately questioned the ones that they had sent to follow Duke Zwein.

    "It''s this cave."

    That was what all of them said.

    They had all seen Duke Zwein enter this cave with the wyvern that he was riding, so they couldn''t be mistaken about this. Though they had also felt suspicious of this when they saw this for the first time.

    This was something that they tried to convey to the princes, but the princes just ignored them and insisted on continuing into the cave.

    Since the cave was so narrow, that meant that not everyone was able to go in at the same time. So they had to only allow their most elite followers to go in first.

    Even if they were desperate to find this Wyvern Stone, that didn''t mean that they would lose all sense of self preservation just yet. Until they could see it, they wouldn''t lose all of their rationality.

    With these elite soldiers leading the way, the princes made their way into the cave.

    This cave was very straight, so it wasn''t hard for them to make their way through it.

    After walking forward for a while, they finally arrived at what seemed to be an opening.

    Once they saw this, the subordinates of the princes immediately had them step back while they went forward to investigate.

    The princes didn''t seem like they were willing, but they still listened in the end and waited.

    "This is¡­"

    After the subordinates went through the opening, this was the first thing that was said.

    Once they heard this, the princes looked at each other and couldn''t hold back anymore as they all went forward.

    Their soldiers looked at each other with helpless looks before following the princes into the opening.

    When they went through, all of them were shocked by what they saw.

    This was arge open space that only had a single thing in it.

    In the center of thisrge open space, there was arge glowing stone that was ced on the ground. Thisrge glowing stone didn''t seem that special as it was just a glowing white stone.

    If one had to mention something special about it, it was how smooth this thing was.

    It was like this stone had been polished until it was so smooth that one might even be able to see their reflection if they looked at this stone carefully.

    As soon as they saw this stone, the princes all lost their rationality.

    They looked at each other with hostile looks, as if they were nning on attacking each other.

    That was because in their minds, they could only think, "This has to be it! This is the Wyvern Stone!"

    So in their desperation, all thoughts of rationality disappeared and they all wanted to take this stone for themselves.

    "Keep them back!"

    The princes gave the same order to their subordinates.

    Once the object that they were looking for appeared in front of them, they betrayed the people that they had been working with all this time. The moment that they saw what they thought was the Wyvern Stone, all they thought about was how to obtain it.

    The soldiers were caught off guard by this sudden change, but they quickly started attacking each other.

    In a matter of seconds, it became a battle royale where everyone was trying to push each other back.

    The princes also didn''t remain idle as they tried to push forward to the white stone in the center, but it seemed like none of them were able to reach it. There was always someone who blocked them from reaching it.

    This fight seemed like it wouldn''t end at this rate, until¡­

    One of the princes was about to make it through the blockade around the white stone.

    This prince was one of the minor ones that no one thought was a threat, so no one really bothered stopping them.

    Taking advantage of this, they were able to make it through the others and reach the white stone in the center.

    As soon as this prince did, the others finally took notice of this prince and orders were given.

    "Shoot him down!"

    "Stop him from taking it!"

    There were many orders given to target this prince, so the soldiers of various princes stopped fighting with each other and started to focus on this prince.

    The few followers of this prince did their best to stop the others from getting to the prince, but there were just too few of them in the end.

    Still, they were able to stall them long enough that the prince was able to grab the white stone.

    Before anyone could reach him, he was able to pull the white stone out of the ground.

    The only problem now was that he had nowhere to go.

    Even if he had obtained the white stone, it wasn''t as if he could use it to break through the lines of the soldiers around him. Even if he wanted to go anywhere, there was nowhere for him to go as he waspletely surrounded.

    Seeing all of them around him, the prince held the white stone tightly as he said, "Brothers, how about we talk this through?"

    The first prince was the one that stepped forward and said, "There''s nothing to talk about. Either hand over the Wyvern Stone or else."

    The prince revealed an ugly look when he heard this, but then¡­

    He yed his final card.

    Without any hesitation, he brought the white stone in his hand up and said, "If I can''t have it, I won''t let any of you take it!"

    All of the princes knitted their brows, but the first prince said, "Don''t do anything rash, we can talk about this."

    This waspletely different from his stance from before.

    But before anyone else could say anything, there was a strong glow that came from the white stone.

    And then¡­

    Boom!

 Chapter 678 Old fourth, is that you?

    <h4>Chapter 678 Old fourth, is that you?</h4>

    678 Old fourth, is that you?

    When they came to their senses and the white light faded, the first thing that hit the ones that survived was the smell of blood.

    When their vision cleared, they saw the red that was all around them.

    There was blood and pieces of humans that were scattered all around them,

    The ones that didn''t have stomachs that were as strong couldn''t take this and threw up when they saw this.

    The ones that had stronger stomachs just looked around them at the scene of carnage that was there.

    The explosion definitely wasn''t weak based on the scene in front of them.

    The first prince was the one that reacted first as he looked around and said, "What happened? Where''s the Wyvern Stone?"

    Even though he had almost lost his life as a result of this explosion, he was still thinking about the Wyvern Stone.

    The other princes looked around as well, but not a single one of them were able to find a thing.

    That pure white stone hadpletely disappeared.

    "Did you really think that there''s such a thing in this world?"

    A voice suddenly rang out which shocked all of the princes that were still alive.

    That was because this was a voice that they would recognize no matter what.

    This was the voice of the person who had been putting pressure on them the entire time.

    If it wasn''t for this person, they wouldn''t have had such a hard time in their path to the throne.

    But for some reason, they couldn''t seem to pinpoint where this voice wasing from.

    After a moment of silence, the first prince knitted his brows and said, "Old fourth, is that you?"

    All of the princes remained silent as they waited for the answer.

    There was a chuckle that seemed toe from all around them before the voice said, "Does it matter?"

    The first prince couldn''t help knitting his brows even more when he heard this, but he still said, "Old fourth, why are you doing this? Don''t you know how sad our royal father will be when he hears of this?"

    "Ha, ha, ha." Laughter rang out after he said this before the fourth prince''s voice suddenly turned cold as he said, "You''re talking about how sad our royal father will be? Have you ever thought of your own actions and how they hurt our royal father?"

    The first prince revealed a confused look when he heard this.

    Not only him, all of the other princes revealed confused looks.

    After all, in their minds, they thought that they had acted as perfect princes that gave their father no reason to hate them.

    Yet now, the fourth prince was saying that they had done things to shame their royal father?

    After a moment of silence, the first prince shouted, "Nonsense! We''ve done everything that we could to bring honour to our royal father''s name!"

    There was a sigh that answered the first prince after he said this.

    Along with that sigh, the fourth prince said, "You fools really believe what you''re saying, which just makes it worse."

    "Fools?" The princes muttered under their breaths before losing it.

    The fourth prince just ignored all of this as he said, "Get it all out of your system since none of you will be making it back alive after today."

    The princes suddenly fell silent when they heard this.

    They looked at each other with nk dismay before looking at the corpses around them. As they looked at these corpses, they could feel a chill running down their spines.

    The reality of their situation started to sink in and they started to feel the fear of the situation.

    They could tell that the fourth prince was serious about killing them.

    So they immediately cast down their pride and started begging for their lives.

    At the same time, they gave silent orders to their soldiers to find a way out for them.

    The first prince had the biggest change as he no longer acted as prideful as he did before. Instead, he said, "Fourth brother, is this for the throne? Just spare me, I promise I will never contend against you for the throne again."

    The other princes started promising the same thing, though not a single one of them really meant it.

    All they cared about was their own lives.

    The fourth prince didn''t say a thing as they begged for their lives.

    During this time, the soldiers found that the entrance that they came from had beenpletely blocked off. At the same time, it seemed that there wasn''t a single other exit to this room at all.

    They could try to unblock the entrance that they came from, but it was clear that it would take a long time to unblock it.

    The fourth prince wouldn''t give them this time to escape.

    Since the fourth prince didn''t say a single thing, the pressure on them became greater and greater.

    It was a feeling of helplessness that they couldn''t shake, a helplessness that they had never felt before.

    They were princes, so they had been privileged since they had been born.

    They had never felt this kind of helplessness where they couldn''t even control their own lives¡­

    So there were some that broke under the pressure.

    There were some princes that picked up their swords and started shing at the rocks that blocked the entrance, but they couldn''t do a single thing to them. They were spoiled princes, they weren''t warriors, so it wasn''t as if they could cut through the rocks.

    The first prince had been begging for his life the whole time, but he eventually also said, "Fourth prince, just what do you want?!"

    He no longer addressed him as ''brother'' and just called him out as ''prince''.

    It was only then that the fourth prince spoke, "Just giving you a taste of the pain that you''ve caused the people of this kingdom with your ipetence. But let''s end this now."

    As soon as his voice fell, there were slits that opened in the walls around them.

    Out of those slits were shiny arrowheads that poked out.

    "No¡­"

    The princes said, but there wasn''t a single thing they could do.

 Chapter 679 Where is this?

    <h4>Chapter 679 Where is this?</h4>

    When it was over, there were only corpses that were lying on the ground.

    The sharp arrows had filled the princes with holes and there was no way that they would survive with their bodies filled with holes like this.

    A door opened up in the stone wall and there was someone that walked through this opening.

    It was the fourth prince who was followed by two people holding staves in their hands.

    These were magicians employed by the fourth prince and the one that had manipted this cave. They were earth magicians that had sealed this ce off and had created those openings for the arrows toe through.

    As he stood over the corpses of his brothers, the fourth prince gave a sigh as he said, "If only you were willing to listen to our royal father instead of cozying up to those who tter you to go against your own family, it wouldn''t have ended like this."

    To the fourth prince''s surprise, there was a hand that suddenly reached out to grab at his foot.

    It was just that this hand could barely move, so it took no effort from the fourth prince to move out of the way.

    He looked down at the owner of the hand and slightly knitted his brows.

    That was because it was the first prince who was still alive.

    Even with four holes in his chest from the arrows that had stabbed into him, he was still somehow alive.

    The first prince looked up at the fourth prince and said while coughing out blood, "What choice did you give us? From the very beginning, we were never destined for the throne. You think that we didn''t see the way that our royal father looked at you? You''re the one that drove us to this."

    The two magicians who had been behind the fourth prince knitted their brows when they heard this, but the fourth prince raised his hand to stop them from doing anything.

    Looking down at the first prince who was lying there heavily injured, the fourth prince said, "It was your own fault for trying to be something more than you were meant to be. From the very beginning, it was clear that you didn''t have the talent for it. If you just epted that and lived a simple life, then you would have been able to live."

    "Who wants a simple life?" Those were the first prince''s final words.

    The fourth prince looked down at the first prince with a sad look before giving a sigh.

    Without a word, he kneeled down and put his hand over the first prince''s eyes before closing them.

    As he did, he said, "A simple life is best. As long as you and the people you care about are safe, nothing else matters."

    With that, the fourth prince stood up and turned around to leave.

    As he was leaving, he gave a nod to the men who had been waiting behind the stone door.

    When they received this now, they tossed the bucket of liquid beside them into the cave.

    After that, they tossed the torches that they had been holding to the liquid that had been sshed all over the cave.

    Before the torches touched the liquid, the magicians immediately closed the stone door.

    The moment that the mes of the torches touched the liquid, it instantly caught on fire and spread all over the cave. In a matter of seconds, the cave turned into a hellscape of mes.

    But there wasn''t any opening in the cave in the first ce, so it didn''t take long for the mes to die from ack of oxygen.

    When the mes were gone, there were only ashes left in the cave.

    However, the fourth prince had long departed from that ce.

    He wasn''t interested in seeing the results, he looked forward to the next things that he had to do.

    "I''ll show you the mistakes that you should have corrected in this life." The fourth prince muttered to himself as he walked out of the cave.

    ¡­

    "Where am I?"

    The moment that I woke up, I didn''t recognize the room that I was in.

    This was a room that was luxuriously decorated, so there was no mistake that this was the room of a noble.

    However, this was a room that I had never seen before.

    If I remembered correctly, I hade snuck back to the castle after luring the princes away and had been hiding in the castle for the fourth prince to return.

    There was no one guarding me since they were all participating in the operation to take down the princes, but then again, there should have been no reason for them to guard me since no one should have known that I was in the castle.

    So why did I wake up in this unfamiliar ce?

    After staring around me for a bit, I tried to sit up, but I found that I couldn''t.

    When I looked down, I found that there were bindings that were holding me to the bed.

    As soon as I saw this, I realized what had happened.

    I had been kidnapped!

    But who would want to kidnap me at a time like this?

    No, it was better to ask who wouldn''t want to kidnap me at a time like this¡­

    After all, there were plenty of people that wanted things from me during this time.

    Namely, they wanted me to hand over control of the wyverns that were under me.

    So it wasn''t strange that I had been kidnapped.

    I just couldn''t help wondering who was able to kidnap me when I was in the pce and bring me out like this. This didn''t seem likely at all since the pce should have been heavily guarded.

    No, once again, this wasn''t the case.

    Most of the personnel of the castle had been directed to the fourth prince''s n.

    It was the one time that the castle was lightly guarded, making it easier for people to sneak in.

    Not to mention that most of the guards had been sent to protect the king instead of me.

    This was just me letting my guard down¡­

    "Creak."

    While I was lost in thought, the door suddenly opened.

 Chapter 680 Sir, please be gentle

    <h4>Chapter 680 Sir, please be gentle</h4>

    My eyes immediately went to the door when it opened and I saw that there was a figure standing there.

    This room was just too dark and the light wasing from behind that person, so I wasn''t able to see their appearance.

    But judging by their figure, it seemed like it was a female.

    After opening that door and staring in for a bit, that figure went over to the side and picked up something.

    Judging by the outline of it, it seemed like some kind ofmp.

    I knew what was about toe next, so I immediately closed my eyes.

    Not long after I closed my eyes, there was a bit of light that appeared through my eyelids.

    I could tell that whoever this person was had lit themp that they had picked up.

    However, I couldn''t open my eyes now.

    I had no idea what they would do to me once they figured out that I was awake, so I just had to pretend that I was still asleep. Once they left, I would open my eyes again and try to figure out a way to escape.

    But that light that came through my eyelids didn''t disappear.

    Rather, it became even stronger.

    It was almost as if that person who hade into the room was getting closer to me.

    No, I was certain that they were doing that since I could even feel somethinging near me. This was the heat that came from a person, the presence of someone approaching me.

    This presence came close to me and then suddenly stopped, as if they were looking over me.

    No matter how long I waited, it didn''t seem like that presence was about to leave, but it wasn''t as if I could open my eyes at this moment.

    I had no choice but to suffer in agony and wait for this person to go away.

    However, that person took it even further in the end.

    I could feel it, they were right up in front of me. It was almost as if they had their face right in front of mine, looking down at me.

    When I felt them like this, I couldn''t help trembling.

    It was a strange fear that I had never felt before...

    And this trembling...wasn''t missed by the person who was above me.

    "Did he just move?"

    A soft voice rang out.

    This was clearly the voice of a woman, but it was a voice that I didn''t recognize at all.

    I tried my best to remain still, but it really was hard since I could even feel the breath of this person on my face. It was as if they were putting their face right up against mine, being only a few inches away.

    At this point, I was just waiting for the knife to stab into me...but it never came.

    Before I could understand what was happening, there was a soft feeling that came from my lips.

    This was a feeling simr to ones that I had received before, but it was definitely a different feeling from any other that I experienced.

    It was a kiss.

    The main difference for this kiss was that it was sloppy and clumsy. It was clear that the person pressing their lips up against mine was not used to doing something like this.

    Eventually, I had no choice but to open my eyes since it was getting hard for me to even breathe like this.

    When my eyes opened, I saw a face that I didn''t recognize.

    It was a beautiful face, there was no denying it, but she wasn''t as beautiful as my wives. She was just a pretty face that would enjoy the favour of some, but wouldn''t be able to bring down nations.

    Her eyes were closed as she pressed her face up against me, doing all she could to kiss me.

    I had no choice but to struggle to break free, even though I couldn''t actually move my arms.

    When she felt this, the girl suddenly opened her eyes and was surprised to see me looking right at her.

    There was a momentary daze where she froze before she quickly moved back, taking her lips away from mine.

    Though there was still a blush that came over her face after she moved away.

    The only thing that I did after she moved away was gasp for breath since I had been choking just now. Only when I caught my breath did I ask, "Who are you and where is this ce?"

    The girl had a look of panic on her face as she heard this, but then she slowly said, "Sir Zwein, this is my father''s manor. I brought you here because I knew that you were the one that I was destined to be with."

    Her eyes slowly changed when she said this.

    The look that she gave me¡­

    Dangerous.

    That was the only word that could be used to describe this look.

    I even felt a chill run down my spine when she looked at me like this.

    But I forced myself to stay calm as I said, "Release me and I won''t pursue this matter."

    To my surprise, the girl immediately gave a firm shake of the head before saying, "I can''t let you leave yet. Before you give me your seed, you can''t leave. I will take your seed and make you take responsibility for me, that is our destiny."

    Another chill ran down my spine when I heard this.

    This time, I could tell that she was very serious about this¡­

    I had to admit that I was a man that thought with my lower half sometimes, but this was one of those times where I couldn''t.

    A girl that kidnapped me and then tied me up¡­there was no way that I could get excited about that.

    But she didn''t give me a chance to say anything as she climbed onto the bed that I was bound to.

    She slowly started taking off her clothes as she said, "Sir, this is my first time. Please be gentle."

 Chapter 681 What do you think youâ€™re doing?

    Chapter 681 What do you think you¡¯re doing?

    ??A shocked look appeared in my eyes when I saw what she was doing, but I quickly calmed myself down and said, "Miss, please don''t do this. How about we talk this through?"

    But she didn''t say a single thing as she continued taking her clothes off.

    It seemed like she wouldn''t listen to a single word.

    The only thing that she cared about was putting my dick inside of her¡­

    Once she had taken off her clothes, she started making her way to my clothes.

    When her hand reached down towards my dick, she suddenly stopped moving.

    She looked at me with a shocked look as if she couldn''t believe what she was feeling.

    I had to admit that I wasn''t as strong of a man as I would have liked to be.

    When she took off her clothes like this and sat there naked atop of me, I couldn''t control the natural reaction of my body.

    Her figure was also quite beautiful, with nice supple breasts that would fit perfectly in one''s hand and an hourss figure. She was definitely a pretty sight toy one''s eyes on.

    After looking at me with a shocked look for a bit, she couldn''t help asking, "Is this really what I think it is?"

    I didn''t answer this question since I was just too embarrassed to answer it.

    I wished that I could have controlled myself better, but I really couldn''t.

    What appeared on the face of the girl after my silence was¡­a look of excitement.

    I could also feel that the part of me where her crotch was sitting was getting wet. I didn''t even have to look to understand what was happening.

    After rubbing it for a bit to make sure that it was real, the girl started moving herself back so that her lower half was ced off the bed. Her top half was ced right where my crotch was, with her head almost being right in my crotch.

    Her hands were pulling on the waist of my pants.

    It was as if she wasn''t familiar with what she was doing, which was why she was going so slow.

    But in the end, she was able to pull my pants down and there was something that popped out.

    This thing scared her as it bounced right on her face, hitting her with the force that it popped out beforending right on her. It was sorge that it even went over the top of her head toy there on her face.

    The girl was shocked to see this, as she crossed her eyes to look at the thing in between them.

    She just couldn''t believe how big it was.

    It was so big that it was even longer than her face.

    When I looked down and saw her like this, I couldn''t stop myself¡­

    After all, this was a scene that was often seen in adult films and games.

    This was the scene where the man''s dick was so big that it just flopped onto the woman''s face.

    After being shocked by my dick on her for a bit, the girl suddenly revealed an ecstatic look as she stretched out her tongue. The look on her face made it seem like she really wanted a taste of my dick¡­

    No matter how hard I tried to deny it, I just couldn''t stop myself from being turned on¡­

    But it never came as the door suddenly burst open.

    Both the girl and I were shocked to see this, as neither of us expected this to happen.

    While we were still dazed, there were several figures that suddenly came into this room.

    With the light of themp that she lit, it was hard to see the appearance of these people. But in the end, there was someone that came in with a torch, shining the light of the torch in the room and lighting it.

    It was Ang and several people in full armour that seemed like knights.

    Ang was panting as if she had just been running, but as soon as she caught her breath, she said, "What is going on in here?!"

    This was even before she had seen what was actually happening in this room.

    The knights quickly spread out with their weapons raised and secured the area before turning to look at me on the bed.

    When they saw the position that I was in with the girl, they all had shocked looks on their faces before slowly turning to look at Ang. As they turned to look at Ang, those shocked looks on their faces had turned to looks of sympathy.

    It was clear that they had misunderstood something.

    I could see that Ang had also seemed to have misunderstood something with the hurt look that was on her face.

    She covered her mouth with one hand and there seemed to be tears that were welling up in her eyes as she said in a softer voice, "What is going on here?"

    The girl was about to say something, but I cut her off by saying, "Can''t you see that I''m tied up here?! How could I be doing anything?!"

    Ang and the knights had been caught off guard when they heard this.

    The knights had looked away quickly because of what they thought they saw, so they hadn''t actually seen that I was bound to the bed. When they turned back and saw the bindings that were on me, they realized that they had made a mistake.

    An embarrassed look also appeared on Ang''s face when she saw this as she realized that she had made a mistake.

    But then came a different problem¡­

    As they looked at me, they couldn''t help staring at my dick that was out in the open.

    I could see this and an embarrassed look appeared on my face as they all stared at me like this.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore as I said, "Can someone cut me free already?!"

 Chapter 682 We were meant to be

    <h4>Chapter 682 We were meant to be</h4>

    There was no answer when I said this since it seemed like they were still staring at my dick that was out in the open.

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I saw this before I said again with a cough, "Can someone let me out of here now?"

    This time, I made sure to speak louder so that they would be certain to hear me.

    Once my voice fell, Ang was the first one toe back to her senses.

    She looked at me with a strange look, but she still told one of the knights to cut the bindings that were holding me. It seemed that the gaze that she cast in my direction seemed to be looking at a certain ce.

    It seemed that she was still looking at my dick.

    I didn''t know what to say, but my dick was no longer hard at the very least.

    Having it out in the open in front of everyone like this certainly wasn''t one of the fetishes that I had, so it was turning me off to be like this.

    After the knight cut me free, the first thing that I did was pull my pants up.

    I could see that the knights were slowly turning away after seeing me pull my pants up, but they were also peeking back at me with strange looks.

    At the same time, I could see that there was a slightly disappointed look that was on Ang''s face after I pulled my pants up. Seeing her reveal this expression caused a bitter smile to appear on my face.

    With a cough, I said, "Can someone exin to me what happened?"

    Even though I had been saved now, I was still very confused about this situation since I had no idea what was even going on right now. I had woken up after suddenly being kidnapped which was without a doubt disorientating.

    Then I had also been saved by Ang and the knights just as suddenly.

    So naturally I had no idea what was happening.

    Ang slowly recovered after hearing this and she gave a nod before saying, "You were kidnapped."

    Another bitter smile crept on my face when I heard this.

    I looked at her with a strange look before shaking my head with a sigh.

    Even I could figure out that I had been captured. What I was asking about was why I had been captured and what had happened during the time that I had been captured.

    Ang was still in a daze from the sight that she had beheld before, so she had answered in this slightly dumb manner.

    But she realized that she had said something dumb and quickly recovered from it to say, "It happened because security wasx at the castle during the n. The father of thisdy, who is a minor baron, was at the castle for some matters and saw you while you were heading to your room. He followed you to your room and took advantage of when the guards changed shifts to kidnap you."

    I was surprised to hear this since I had thought that the castle would have been safe. At the same time, I thought that no one had been able to see me in the castle, but it seemed that I had been wrong.

    It was both my fault and the fault of the castle guards.

    I looked at the girl who was just on the ground naked and asked, "Do you know why they kidnapped me in the first ce?"

    Ang shook her head before saying, "We''ve captured her father, the rest of their family, and their servants. However, we weren''t able to get any useful information out of them."

    I gave a nod before asking the girl, "Why did you kidnap me?"

    The girl saw that I was asking her this and said, "Because we were meant to be!"

    I was taken aback by the passion that she had said this with.

    The way that she had said this almost seemed like she firmly believed this to be true, but of course it couldn''t be since I had never met this girl before.

    I looked at Ang who was ring at me and said, "I''ve never met her, so how could that be true?"

    "It''s not true!" The girl suddenly said before continuing, "We met at one of the banquets that you attended. I couldn''t forget the way that our eyes met at that banquet. From that moment on, I knew that you were the one for me! That''s why I convinced my father to kidnap you!"

    We all looked at the girl with a strange look when she said this.

    The words that she said were an admission of her guilt.

    It seemed like she was the one that had masterminded everything, but was this really the reason why she had done all of this?

    She had really kidnapped me just because she felt that I was her soul mate?

    I didn''t really believe it.

    After all, there were far more likely reasons why someone would kidnap me at this time.

    However, when I saw the way that she looked at me, there was another chill that ran down my spine.

    At the same time, I realized that she wasn''t lying.

    This really was the reason why she had kidnapped me.

    This girl¡­was dangerous, that was what my instincts told me.

    I wanted to get her as far away from me as possible, but there was also a part of me that didn''t want to kill her.

    So I asked Ang, "What will be the punishment for this?"

    Ang thought about it for a bit before saying, "Well, it could be death or it could be imprisonment. I think it will all depend on you."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Then can you make it so that she is imprisoned for life? I don''t ever want to see her again."

    Ang said with a nod, "Alright. I''ll tell my royal father that is what you want."

 Chapter 683 Strange looks

    <h4>Chapter 683 Strange looks</h4>

    It waste when we returned to the castle.

    I knew that it waste already because of how dark it was outside, but I didn''t expect it to be thiste.

    It was already close to midnight ording to the clock in my room when I returned to the castle.

    I had thought that the king would summon me, but it seemed like he was letting me get some rest first before that.

    I was grateful since even though I had been sleeping before, it wasn''t the good kind of sleep. My head was still aching, which I assumed came from me being knocked out by the baron that kidnapped me.

    He had admitted that he hadn''t been subtle and had knocked me out with his subordinates before carrying me out of the castle.

    I just wished that they hadn''t hit as hard so I wouldn''t have the pounding headache that I currently had, but there was nothing that I could do about that. The doctor had already checked me and said that there were no signs of concussion, so the only thing that I could do to cure it was to sleep it off.

    So I had to sleep and see if it got better in the morning.

    But before I could go to sleep, there was a knock on the door.

    I was surprised to see someone visiting me thiste at night, but I found that it was a familiar face.

    It was the fourth prince.

    He had rushed back to the capital after taking care of the other princes, but I was surprised that he was meeting me instead of resting. After all, it certainly wouldn''t have been easy to kill those brothers of his, so I thought that he would need some time to recover after that.

    But here he was, standing outside my door.

    I naturally couldn''t keep him waiting outside, so I let hime in.

    After he came in, there was a person that suddenly appeared and fell to her knees.

    It was Shadow Five who had been the one that had been monitoring the princes from the forest. She had been the one that had reported that the group of princes had arrived at the cave to the fourth prince.

    She was on her knees in front of me right now because¡­she was apologizing for abandoning her post.

    I just helped her up and said, "It''s not your fault, we both agreed to this. We thought that no one woulde to mess with me during this time and that I would be safe in the castle, so I gave you permission to leave. It''s not your fault."

    Shadow Five shook her head as she said, "If I didn''t insist on going, none of this would have happened."

    I looked at the fourth prince for help when she refused to listen to me, but I found that he was looking at me with a strange look.

    As for where he was looking¡­it seemed like he was looking at the inner parts of my lower half.

    Seeing him look at me like this, I couldn''t help feeling strange, but I gave a cough in the end that pulled the fourth prince back to his senses.

    Coming over with a smile, he said, "I already told you that Brother Zwein wouldn''t mind this, so there''s no need to be this harsh on yourself."

    Shadow Five still had her head down when she heard this, as if she was still reflecting on what had happened.

    The fourth prince just spoke in a teasing voice when he saw this, "It seems like Brother Zwein''s charisma is something that I can''tpare to. In just a little while, it seems that your words are already carrying the same weight as mine to my subordinates."

    Shadow Five suddenly looked up and said, "It isn''t like that. Your highness will always be the number one in my heart."

    The fourth prince and I couldn''t help being taken aback when Shadow Five suddenly said this.

    With the serious look that was on her face as she said this, it seemed like she had been very sincere about this.

    It was to the point where it was a bit embarrassing.

    Neither the fourth prince nor I knew what to say in this awkward situation.

    So in the end, we made an excuse to leave things as they were and the fourth prince left with Shadow Five.

    But as he was leaving, I could see that he was giving me the same strange look as before.

    He wasn''t looking at my face, he was still looking at that ce in between my legs as if he was trying to see something.

    I just didn''t know how to feel about that¡­

    So I just ignored it for now and went to sleep.

    Only when the morning came¡­

    ¡­

    As expected, I was summoned by the king the next morning.

    The guards had all returned after heading out with the fourth prince, so there were no security issues with the castle anymore. I was able to move freely through the castle again, so I went to see the king as I was summoned.

    But there were strange looks that were cast in my direction as I moved through the castle.

    It was only minor at first since there were only a few people outside my room, but as I moved to the part of the castle that had more and more people, I could see that there were more people that were looking in my direction.

    The strangest part of the way that they looked at me was that they were all looking at my lower half.

    They weren''t looking at me directly, they were just looking at that ce in between my legs.

    It was almost as if they were looking at something specific.

    I could guess what they were looking at, but then I heard something that confirmed it.

    "I heard that it''s really, really big¡­It''s almost like a tree trunk."

 Chapter 684 Please be gentle with my daughter

    <h4>Chapter 684 Please be gentle with my daughter</h4>

    It seemed that the people fromst night had spread what they had seen as rumours and those rumours had already spread all over the castle.

    The men looked at me and looked back at themselves as if they wereparing something. After looking at me for a bit, most of them turned away as if they were embarrassed.

    There were only a few of them that still looked at me after seeminglyparing us in their heads.

    The women looked at me with intrigued looks, but a few of them also turned away with blushes on their faces.

    It was clear what all of them were thinking¡­

    I really didn''t know how to feel about this situation at first, but then I quickly sorted out my feelings.

    I really wanted to beat up those knights that had spread the rumours in the first ce!

    If it wasn''t for them, then I wouldn''t be treated by everyone like this!

    I really didn''t know why they had spread those rumours, but now that they did, it would be impossible for me to stop them. After all, this was without a doubt a spicy rumour and it was something that involved the future husband of the princess.

    So of course they would want to talk about this.

    I was certain that with how far it had already spread, it would only be a matter of time before it spread through the capital as well.

    This was definitely not what I wanted to be known by the world for¡­

    But what could I do?

    I was from the modern world, so I knew just what kind of power rumours had.

    It would be impossible for me to stop it.

    So I just started walking a bit faster to reach the king''s room as soon as possible.

    But if I wasn''t mistaken, it almost seemed like the maids and butlers were following me¡­

    It was as if I had been turned into an oddity by them for their everyday enjoyment.

    It was only when an important looking maid came that they were all sent away, though she also looked at my crotch with a strange look.

    I could only let out a sigh of relief when I reached the king''s study and went in to avoid the curious gazes that were cast in my direction. Or at least that was what I had thought would happen until I actually stepped into the king''s study.

    I found that the king, the fourth prince, and Ang were all already there waiting for me.

    As soon as I stepped in, their gazes all turned in my direction, but¡­

    They didn''t look at my face like one would expect and instead looked down at my lower half.

    They were all looking at the same ce as the others had done.

    Really?

    You too, your majesty?

    That was what I had wanted to say, but I held myself back in the end.

    But I really was surprised since I never thought that the king would be someone that followed rumours like this. I had thought that he would be someone that would be above things like that¡­

    After a moment of silence, the king gave a cough and waved at me toe over as he said, "Come,e, sit with us."

    I gave a nod before walking over and sitting down beside Ang.

    However, even after sitting down like this, they still looked at me with the same strange looks.

    I could only shake my head with a bitter smile on my face before saying, "Your majesty, did you need me for something today?"

    The king slowly looked up from my crotch and gave a nod before revealing an apologetic look, "I''m sorry about what happened yesterday, it was my negligence."

    I was caught off guard when I heard this since I never expected the king to apologize for that matter.

    I quickly shook my head and said, "Your majesty, there''s nothing for you to apologize for. I''m sure that no one expected that kind of incident to happen, so it wasn''t something that could be med on anyone. We can only treat this as an incident and shouldn''t think of this as something that would happen again."

    The king gave a nod, but he still said with a sigh, "In the end, this is my castle, so I have to take partial responsibility for it." After a pause, he said, "But I do want to tell you that I have taken your advice to heart and have settled for imprisonment for them. They will receive a life sentence for what they have done."

    This time, it was my turn to let out a sigh before I bowed my head to say, "Your majesty, thank you for your kindness."

    The king waved his hand as he said, "There''s no need for you to act like this towards me. You will be my future son inw and a part of our family, so you can just talk to me without formality when we''re alone like this."

    I was once again surprised to hear this, but seeing the look on the king''s face, I slowly gave a nod.

    I could understand how he was feeling after what had happened yesterday.

    In just a single day, he had lost all of those sons of his¡­I''m sure that it would be hard to fully understand how he felt as a father.

    The only thing that I could do was sympathize with him.

    But as I was thinking this, the king suddenly brought up another topic.

    He said in a slow and deliberate voice, "I''ve heard a certain rumour spreading through the castle recently about you."

    My lips twitched when I heard this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited to see where he would go with this.

    The king looked at Ang and then back to me with a look that almost seemed a bit awkward before saying, "If the rumours are true, I hope that after you get married, you will be gentle with my daughter."

    Blushes immediately appeared on both my face and Ang''s face when we heard this.

 Chapter 685 Setting the date

    <h4>Chapter 685 Setting the date</h4>

    After a moment of silence, Ang suddenly stood up and ran over to punch the king in the chest.

    Though she punched him, she didn''t actually use any force with that punch, so it was more of a yful punch than an actual punch.

    The king didn''t show any signs of being in pain after being punched by Ang and just looked at her with a smile.

    After punching the king in the chest, Ang said, "This is our business, this isn''t something that you need to concern yourself with. How could you even think of mentioning something like that?"

    The king looked at her with a worried look before saying, "Darling, you don''t know what it''s like, so I''m worried about you. You shouldn''t look down on things like this, it hurts much more than you¡­"

    Before the king could finish, Ang''s fist came forward once more.

    This time, she punched him right in the gut and she didn''t hold back. She used all of her strength to punch the king in the gut before saying, "We''ve never talked about this before and we don''t need to talk about it now. Even if you''re my father, I don''t want to talk about these things with you."

    The king had bent over when he received this body blow from Ang since this blow was actually quite powerful. It had knocked the wind out of him when he received this blow from her.

    Holding his stomach, he had to breathe hard a few times before he was able to catch his breath.

    Ang just stood over the king, as if she was waiting to see what he would say next.

    But it didn''t seem that sweet since she was standing over him with her hand raised in the form of a fist. It was as if she was ready to punch him if he said anything wrong.

    After catching his breath, the king said, "I''m really worried about you since you''ve never had any kind of experience like this before. When your mother and I¡­"

    There was the same punch that hit his stomach.

    The king really didn''t learn from his mistakes as he kept making the same mistakes again and again.

    Sometimes, it is better to keep one''s mouth shut¡­

    The two of them continued like this for a bit until Ang finally said, "If you talk about that one more time, then I won''t regard you as my father anymore."

    The king revealed a look of panic when he heard this before looking at both the fourth prince and me for help. However, both of us turned away since this was a hole that he dug for himself and we weren''t willing to jump into the hole with him.

    So in the end, the king had no choice but to bow his head and say, "I promise, I won''t say anything like that again."

    Ang gave a satisfied nod before sitting back down beside me.

    However, after sitting down beside me, she turned to look at me¡­though she was looking at my crotch rather than at me¡­

    The king gave another cough as if he was calming himself down before saying, "Let''s set that matter aside and discuss another matter. We still need to discuss when your wedding will be. Now that we''ve already taken care of everything else, all we have to do is set a date for your wedding."

    The two of us were caught off guard when he said this, but Ang''s eyes quickly lit up before she turned to look at me with an expectant look.

    It was clear by the look in her eyes that she wanted to set this wedding date as soon as possible.

    But for me¡­I had other thoughts.

    "How long can we dy this?" I said in a slow voice.

    There was no response as all three of them looked at me with different expressions.

    Ang looked at me with a hurt look, the king looked at me with an angry look as if I had betrayed his expectations, and it was only the fourth prince who looked at me as if he was trying to figure out the hidden meaning behind my words.

    Seeing them all look at me like this, I said, "There''s still other things that need to be done before this, right? We can''t just hold the wedding right away or else the nobles will want to try something. We have to take care of them first."

    The three of them still looked at me with different expressions, but they nodded in agreement in the end.

    Ang and the king looked disappointed while the fourth prince just looked at me with a faint smile.

    I knew that it would take a lot to convince them, but there was something that I had been holding back from them.

    Looking at them now, I realized that I had be much closer to then I had thought I would. This also made me feel like I could trust them since they would be able to trust me.

    So taking a deep breath, I said with a serious look, "I know that it''ll be hard, but I need you to believe in me. At the very least, we have to take care of Duke Yuletide and the Yuletide Family."

    All three of them revealed confused looks when they heard this and as they should since I hadn''t exined anything yet.

    "I know that it will be hard to believe without any evidence, but the Yuletide Family has been nning a rebellion for many generations now. As long as they see an opening, they will take it and try to take down the royal family. I do not want to leave them if I were to take the throne."

    Shock appeared on the faces of all three of them before they slowly revealed different expressions.

    In the end, the fourth prince said, "Just what are you nning to do with them? Let''s hear your n and decide."

 Chapter 686 It seems like I need to be careful

    Chapter 686 It seems like I need to be careful

    ?686  It seems like I need to be careful

    The meeting with the king actually took the entire day since there were many things that had to be discussed.

    When it was over, it was already dark, so we all had dinner together.

    After dinner, I went off to my room and settled for the night.

    I thought that I would be able to get some time alone, but that wasn''t the case.

    I heard some noiseing from outside my room, so I went to check it.

    I found that there was a cloaked figure who was standing there with two maids that were tied up. I recognized these maids since they were part of the ones that served me during this time, so I couldn''t help being confused why they were tied up.

    That confusion became even stronger since I recognized the person that was trying them up.

    It was Shadow Five who was standing over them with a rope in her hand.

    I looked at Shadow Five with a strange look and asked, "What''s going on here?"

    Shadow Five turned to look at me before saying in a calm voice, "I caught them trying to sneak into your room, so I stopped them and tied them up."

    "Sneaking into my room?" I repeated before saying with a serious look, "Were they trying to hurt me?"

    Shadow Five slowly shook her head before saying, "No, it''s not like that."

    There was a strange tone to her voice as she said this that I didn''t understand.

    I just looked at Shadow Five with a strange look, as I tried to figure out what she meant by this. But I wasn''t able to figure it out in the end, so I asked, "What do you mean?"

    Shadow Five seemed to lower her head a bit when I asked this.

    Though I wasn''t able to see her face, it was as if I could see what she was feeling by the way that she was acting.

    It was almost as if I was sexually harassing her by asking this question¡­

    I slowly started to figure out what she meant by this, but Shadow Five still said, "They were trying to sneak into your room to provide you with night time service."

    My chin dropped the moment that I heard this before I turned to look at the two maids that were on the ground.

    I found that they were looking up at me, but they weren''t looking at my face.

    Rather, they were looking at the ce in between my crotch.

    I had already changed into my sleepwear since I had been getting ready for bed, so it was quite loose. These loose clothes actually gave a pretty good outline of what was beneath it, which was what they were looking at.

    I didn''t know what to say when I saw them looking at me like this¡­

    But before I could say anything, there was someone that suddenly ran over.

    After this person ran over, they stopped in front of the two maids and said, "I knew that it was a good idea to send someone to watch over you."

    After this person said this, they looked down at the two maids who were on the ground.

    Seeing this person looking at them, the two maids finally stopped looking at my crotch and looked away with an awkward look.

    This person was naturally Ang, it was no one else that it could be.

    As she looked down at the two of them, she said, "So, what did the two of you want to do?"

    The two maids revealed awkward looks before one of them said, "We heard the rumours¡­"

    Before she could finish, Ang cut her off by saying, "And you got caught. You know that you shouldn''t be here."

    The two maids revealed even more awkward looks before nodding in agreement.

    As I was about to say something on behalf of the maids, Ang gave a nod to Shadow Five who suddenly untied them and let them go. After they were untied, Ang said, "Don''t try to go before your lord. I haven''t even gotten a chance yet and you want to go first?"

    The two maids lowered their heads again before saying, "Yes, your highness."

    Then they left without a single word with their heads lowered the entire time.

    There was a strange feeling that filled me when I saw all of this.

    After a while, Ang turned back to me to say, "It seems that the rumour has spread further than I thought. I need to be even more careful in the future."

    I looked at her with a strange look before asking, "You''re alright with them sneaking into my room at night?"

    Ang tilted her head to look at me with a confused look before saying, "Isn''t this normal for a noble?"

    I looked back at her with a confused look.

    Seeing this, Ang said, "Nobles have the right to be with any women that they want, so there are maids that sneak into the room of their masters to climb up to a better position. This is just one of the things that happen when you''re a noble. I mean, you''re someone with many wives, so isn''t this normal?"

    Was it normal?

    That was all I could think in response to this since in my previous world, the wife would have surely killed both the husband and the maid for something like this.

    Even if this world had polygamy, it shouldn''t be this open.

    I was confused until I suddenly figured it out.

    It was the influence of the game again.

    When this world was a game, there had been night time events that happened when one took the noble route.

    So even after this game world had be a real world, night time events were still a thing.

    That was why Ang found all of this normal and wasn''t even bothered by it.

    It seemed that I still wasn''t able to understand this world fully¡­

 Chapter 687 A raid

    Chapter 687 A raid

    ??I set out with the fourth prince early the next morning.

    We went to a certain part of the city which I didn''t recognize, but when we arrived, I realized what we were here for.

    This was the ce where the fourth prince had put his troops in the capital.

    This ce was a full training camp that was dedicated to training troops that were under him.

    I had never seen this ce before in the game, but I did know that there was a ce like this in the capital. After all, when the coup happened, the fourth prince''s troops had already been in the capital.

    It was one of the reasons why he had been so sessful in his coup that he was able to get rid of all the other princes.

    While they were still waiting for their troops to gather to defend them, the fourth prince''s troops were already there to capture them all. The princes hadn''t been able to do a thing as they were all captured and executed.

    Though in this timeline, they had died a much different death.

    As for the reason why we were getting these troops¡­

    After gathering the fourth prince''s troops and to my surprise, my own troops who I hadn''t seen sinceing to the capital, we headed out to a certain residence.

    The reason why I hadn''t Cecilia and the knights that came with me was because I had been in the castle. They weren''t allowed in the castle as soldiers of a noble, so I had left their arrangement to the fourth prince.

    It seemed that the fourth prince had arranged for them to stay here with his troops.

    As for why no noble soldiers were allowed in the castle, it was to protect the king.

    Only the soldiers that were loyal to the royal family were allowed in the castle. That way, they would be able to protect the king from anything that happened.

    It didn''t take us long to arrive at this residence, that was how effective the fourth prince''s troops were.

    A part of them diverted the people in the streets while the rest of us marched to that residence.

    When we arrived, the first thing that happened was that the secret guard unit took care of all the guards that were around this residence.

    After that, the rest of the fourth prince''s trooppletely surrounded this ce, not leaving a single crack.

    It was as if we wereying siege to this residence.

    We didn''t make much sound as we did this, so the people inside were not alerted of this.

    After sealing off this residence, the fourth prince and I went forward to head into the residence. But of course, we wouldn''t be going in alone.

    There was a group that came with the fourth prince and it was Cecilia''s group who followed me.

    Everyone was in full armour and had a serious look on their faces as we marched up to the door.

    Then the fourth prince and I stood back as they suddenly destroyed the door and burst in.

    Behind that door were the servants of the manor who were going about their daily duties.

    There was a moment of silence as they couldn''t process what happened, but then one of the maids screamed out in terror. With this one scream from that maid, the rest of the maids also started screaming.

    An older gentleman who should have been the head butler of this manor kept his calm better than the others as he came forward to say, "What are you doing here? Don''t you know that this is the residence of General Gardner? How dare you barge in like this?"

    But no one paid any attention to the head butler as they started capturing all of the servants.

    The head butler had tried to resist, but he was easily taken care of by the fourth prince''s soldiers.

    The head butler was brought forward in front of the fourth prince and he asked, "Where''s General Gardner?"

    The head butler had a defiant look on his face until the fourth prince pulled out a scroll and unfurled it in front of the head butler. The head butler saw the seal that was on the scroll and immediately revealed a shocked look.

    He no longer tried to act tough as he said, "The master is still upstairs in the master bedroom with the mistress. They still haven''t arisen yet."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before waving at his soldiers to follow him.

    We went up the stairs and arrived at the master bedroom before the fourth prince''s men kicked open the door.

    "What is going on?" A voice shouted from within before it was followed by the screaming of women.

    Though the head butler said that he was with the mistress, it turned out that it wasn''t just the two of them.

    There were several women who were in bed with General Gardner and his wife and it seemed that they had been ying around just now as the women were naked.

    Seeing the door being kicked open like this, they all grabbed at the nket to cover themselves, but there was only so much nket for all of them.

    Still, we didn''t care about the show as we only focused on General Gardner.

    He was the one that we wanted.

    General Gardner was a senior military official, so he of course recognized the fourth prince.

    But he wasn''t scared when he saw the fourth prince.

    He just narrowed his eyes to look at the fourth prince before saying, "Your highness, what is the meaning of this?"

    The fourth prince didn''t bother answering as he raised the same paper that he had raised before in front of him and unfurled it to read, "On behalf of the royal family, we are here to capture the traitor York Gardner and to bring him to trial."

    General Gardner was shocked to hear this, but he didn''t ask if this was a joke.

    That was because he could see the royal seal that was on the paper.

    That was what had forced the head butler to stop resisting earlier.

    No one would be foolish enough to forge the royal seal, which meant that this was a true royal decree.

    So General Gardner just said, "You''ll regret this."

    The fourth prince didn''t bother answering again as he gave the signal for his men to capture him.

 Chapter 688 Fake court (1)

    Chapter 688 Fake court (1)

    ??Once General Gardner was taken in, we didn''t have any business with the rest of his family.

    He was the only one that we were after in the first ce, so he would be the only one that we would take in.

    Though after what happened next, it would be hard to say that we wouldn''t have anything for his family. It was just that we couldn''t touch his family or his fortunes until the next part came.

    When we came back, we didn''t hide ourselves as much as we did when we went to capture General Gardner.

    In fact, we even paraded him in front of everyone in the capital as if we were showing off his guilt.

    General Gardner had an ugly look when he was being paraded around like this, but he never allowed his spirits to break. He had a fierce and defiant look on his face as he was being marched through the streets.

    Even when people pointed at him and whispered, he didn''t seem to waver at all.

    It was as if there was something that he believed in that would get him out of this situation.

    So he remained firm and waited to see what would happen next.

    We didn''t really care since this was only the first part of our n.

    Even if General Gardner didn''t react to this first part of the n, there was still a second part of the n that we would be using on him. There was no way that he would be able to ignore the second part of the n.

    General Gardner was led through the streets by us until we arrived at the special prison that was near the castle.

    There were two prisons in the capital.

    There was one where the normal prisoners went that was located near the slums of the town. That ce was where most of the criminals that were caught would be brought, though it was only most because there would be criminals that would receive the death sentence.

    This was a fantasy world set in Medieval times, so the death penalty was actually amon thing.

    It wasn''t strange to see executions being held once in a while.

    This was the case even in my town, but that had gone down by quite a bit after Rose took over.

    The second prison that was near the castle only had a few prisoners in the first ce.

    That was because this prison served a very special purpose.

    The purpose of this prison was to hold noble prisoners.

    These were prisoners who had once been nobles that hadmitted some kind of offense and had their titles stripped from them. So they were just waiting in that prison to be judged or were serving out their prison sentences.

    This prison was to separate the nobles from themoners since in the first ce, the nobles wouldn''t survive in themoner prison.

    Nobles attracted quite a bit of hatred from themoners in the first ce, so it would only be a matter of time before they were killed if they were ced in amoner prison.

    At the same time, the nobles were quite soft in the first ce, so it wasn''t as if they could survive in amoner prison for long. That ce would truly be considered hell for nobles if they were put in that ce.

    So General Gardner was brought to this prison for nobles.

    When he was put into the cell, he looked at me and the fourth prince who hade along and said, "You''ll regret this. Do you know who I am?"

    The two of us shook our heads with bitter smiles as we looked at him.

    It seemed that even with all of this, he still wouldn''t learn his lesson.

    In that case, there was nothing for us to say here.

    It was better to leave him to slowly realize his fate when what came next came for him.

    So the two of us just left General Gardner there.

    Even when he was alone, General Gardner said, "Just you wait, you''ll see who you''re messing with. When those people behind me step up, it''ll be the two of you who will be begging for mercy."

    ¡­

    It only took a single day for the rumours of General Gardner''s crimes of treason to spread.

    But it would have been strange if it didn''t spread since there had been thatrgemotion yesterday.

    He had been paraded in front of everyone, so it would be strange if they didn''t know about what happened to him.

    This morning, General Gardner was allowed to leave the prison.

    But that wasn''t because he had been freed.

    Rather, it was because he was being escorted to the court where he would be standing trial for his crime of treason.

    This was without a doubt thergest trial that would be held in this kingdom in many years now.

    So there were many people that paid attention to this trial when it happened.

    There were many people that wanted to ask General Gardner questions, but they were all stopped by the royal guards who came to guard the trial. So even if General Gardner wanted to say a few words to defend himself, he just wasn''t given that opportunity.

    When he arrived in court, General Gardner didn''t show any signs of fear at all.

    Rather, he just stood there behind the defendant''s podium with a smug look on his face.

    It was as if he could already see himself being pardoned of this crime and being allowed to leave.

    The way that he looked, it was almost as if he found all of this to be a burden.

    There was a reason why he had this look on his face.

    It was because he recognized the people that were in the jury.

    These were nobles that he was close to, so he was confident that he would be able to get out of this sham trial.

 Chapter 689 Fake court (2)

    Chapter 689 Fake court (2)

    ??After General Gardner was brought in, there were many voices that started talking.

    Though the ones that could attend this trial were all those with status, that didn''t stop them from gossiping about this.

    In the end, humans love gossip like this.

    As for what they gossiped about...

    "Do you know what this trial is about?"

    "I heard that it was on the count of treason, but wasn''t General Gardner on the front lines defending our kingdom?"

    "Right, I just can''t imagine someone like him betraying our kingdom."

    They were mostly in support of General Gardner. It seemed like most people here were confused why this trial was even being held.

    General Gardner looked even more confident when he heard this.

    When even the crowd was with him, he just felt like he couldn''t lose.

    But there was a part of him that was confused about why this was all happening in the first ce.

    Logically speaking, even if the fourth prince had acted arbitrarily, it shouldn''t have been possible for him to arrest him like this. After all, no matter how one looked at it, General Gardner was a senior official of the kingdom.

    The king wouldn''t have allowed him to do something like this unless...

    Before General Gardner could finish that thought, someone suddenly said, "All rise for his majesty!"

    When this was said, everyone turned in the direction the voice came from.

    They saw that a door had opened and there was someone majestic who walked in.

    When they saw this person walk in, they couldn''t help feeling like they should bow to him.

    Naturally this person was the king of their kingdom, the one who ruled over them all.

    So it wasn''t strange that they felt this way.

    The king just walked in with an uncaring look on his face as he swept his eyes over the crowd.

    When this crowd felt the king''s eyes sweep over them, they couldn''t help lowering their heads as if they were avoiding his gaze. It was as if there was a part of them that didn''t allow them to look back into his eyes.

    After casting his gaze across the room, the king went to sit at the high seat at the front of this room.

    Since treason was a crime that was as serious as could be, naturally the king would be presiding as the judge.

    After the king sat down, he said, "Well, what is the evidence?"

    The way that he said this was almost as if he didn''t care about what would be presented to him, it was as if he had alreadye to a conclusion. This came as a surprise for certain people since they didn''t expect this to be the case.

    But General Gardner still had a confident look on his face when he heard this.

    It was almost as if hearing this actually gave him more confidence.

    It was as if hearing this meant to him that the king was on his side.

    The one representing General Gardner as his defense attorney and support was one of his subordinates who was good at this kind of stuff.

    He was the one that started it all by asking, "Your majesty, may we ask what these ludicrous charges even are? We haven''t even had the time to hear these before being dragged here by those ruffians."

    The king just narrowed his eyes to look at General Gardner and hiswyer before waving his hand at the one who was sitting on the other side.

    This person was clearly the prosecutor with the way that they were sitting.

    This person brought out some papers and read, "General Gardner is used ofmitting treason and bringing hard to our kingdom. That is why we are holding a trial for the general today."

    The defense attorney gave a snort as he said, "But we still haven''t heard what the charges are."

    The prosecutor wasn''t in a rush as he casually said, "General Gardner is being used of hurting the kingdom by executing all of the troops from the Beirut Kingdom army instead of capturing them. He will be punished as per the severity of his war crimes."

    "Huh?" General Gardner couldn''t help revealing a shocked and confused look when he heard this.

    After all, he never would have expected these charges to be ced on him since in the first ce, he wasn''t even the one that had killed all of those enemies. He had only been the one that took credit for this, he hadn''t actually done anything to kill them.

    In fact, he wouldn''t have even been able to stop the Beirut Kingdom army if it wasn''t for Duke Zwein showing up with the wyverns.

    In the first ce, he might have even been killed by them since he had fallen for the Beirut Kingdom''s trap.

    But now he was being put on trial for taking this credit¡­

    It didn''t really seem worth it.

    General Gardner pped his hand on the table and said, "I''m being punished for doing my job? You''re saying that I shouldn''t have stopped the enemy and allowed them to invade our kingdom?"

    The prosecutor didn''t argue this and just said, "Instead of capturing the enemies like he should have, he executed all of the prisoners of war that he captured, which further damaged our rtionship with the Beirut Kingdom. As such, it will create asting scar between our two kingdoms. If this isn''t considered treason, then what is?"

    The defense attorney was stunned when he heard this before pping his hand on the table and saying, "So you''re saying that we should have captured and fed all of those enemies that tried to invade our kingdom? Do you know how much of a burden this would have been on our kingdom?"

    "When we can capture, we should capture." The prosecutor said in a calm voice.

    The defense attorney narrowed his eyes to look at the prosecutor before turning to the king to say, "Your majesty, please don''t be fooled by the words of others. This is clearly nder against the general!"

 Chapter 690 Fake court (3)

    <h4>Chapter 690 Fake court (3)</h4>

    The king had been sitting there silently the entire time, as if he wasn''t bothered by anything that they were saying.

    But now that the defense attorney had directly appealed to the king, it wasn''t as if he could remain silent anymore.

    The king looked at the defense attorney and said, "Then can you prove that what he did was not treason and was actually for the good of our kingdom?"

    The defense attorney was taken aback when he heard this since he clearly didn''t expect this. After all, no matter how one looked at it, General Gardner was just protecting their kingdom by killing the enemies.

    This was not any form of treason at all.

    So why was the king saying such words?

    The defense attorney only remained stunned for a second before saying, "Your majesty, the general was only thinking about our kingdom when he did this. The kingdom did not have the manpower or the resources to hold these prisoners of war, so the general had no choice but to execute the prisoners out of consideration for the kingdom. He didn''t want to put a burden on the kingdom by forcing this decision on your majesty, so he took matters into his own hands. This just goes to show how much the general cares about our kingdom."

    The way that he said this, it really made one feel as if General Gardner was a hero of the kingdom who was doing all he could for the benefit of the kingdom.

    If one didn''t know better, they would have been fooled by this defense attorney.

    But to those that knew the full story, they weren''t fooled at all. Rather, they even found the defense attorney''s wordsughable.

    The king was one of those people.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at General Gardner before saying, "Is that so? Was this really out of consideration to the kingdom?"

    General Gardner was surprised to hear the king ask him this all of a sudden, but he received a nudge from the defense attorney beside him that pulled him back to his senses.

    With a serious look on his face, General Gardner gave a nod and said, "Of course, your majesty. This servant is a loyal servant of the kingdom and all that he does is for the benefit of the kingdom. This servant has no intention of rebelling against the kingdom."

    At this, the jury finally spoke up.

    This was a jury that was made up of nobles that were close to General Gardner, so of course they would speak up for him now.

    "Your majesty, I trust that General Gardner would never have any intentions of betraying our kingdom by doing all of this."

    "That''s right, the general is clearly a shining example of what all generals should be like. Instead of using him like this, we should be awarding the general a medal for all that he has done."

    "This must be some kind of plot against the general. I''m sure that the general hasn''t done anything that would harm the kingdom."

    The king didn''t respond right away as he narrowed his eyes to look at the nobles on the jury.

    They were surprised to see the king looking at them like this, but they didn''t have anything to fear since they didn''t think that they had done anything wrong. In fact, they were even proud of themselves since they had been invited as part of the jury for this trial.

    That just went to show that the king trusted their judgement since he would allow them to be part of the jury for this important trial.

    After a moment of silence, the king asked, "Is this really what all of you think?"

    The nobles couldn''t help feeling a bit confused as to why the king would ask them this, but they nodded in agreement in the end.

    The king didn''t bother looking at them anymore and turned back to General Gardner to ask, "General, is there anything that you''ve hidden. Is there anything that you haven''t told us?"

    General Gardner couldn''t help feeling very strange and confused when he heard this.

    The way that the king asked this made it seem like he knew something that General Gardner didn''t know about.

    After a moment of hesitation, General Gardner said, "No, your majesty. I have beenpletely honest this entire time."

    The king gave a sigh before shaking his head as if he was disappointed.

    Everyone who was in the court was confused when they saw this since they had no idea what was happening.

    The king raised his hand and pointed at the jury who became even more confused when they saw this gesture. But the king didn''t care at all about what they felt as he said to the guards, "Take them away and lock them up for their trials."

    The jury members were shocked when they heard this.

    There was one that tried to run away, but he found that the guards had already surrounded them.

    The guards had moved so efficiently that they hadn''t been able to react at all.

    It was as if the guards had already been waiting there to capture them all along.

    It was as if they had fallen in a trap that the king had set for them.

    Since they couldn''t break free of the guards, the only thing that they could do wasin about the way that they were treated.

    "Your majesty, what is this?"

    "Your majesty, we were called here to be a part of the jury for the trial, why are we being surrounded like this?"

    "Your majesty, please give us justice!"

    The king just ignored all of this as the guards suddenly used force to bring the jury along.

    As they did, the nobles of the jury keptining about how they were being treated to the deaf ears of the king.

    Once they were gone, the king said, "Let the real jurye in."

    At this, there was a group of people that suddenly came in through a side door as if they had been waiting the entire time.

 Chapter 691 Fake court (4)

    Chapter 691 Fake court (4)

    ??General Gardner''s eyes immediately fell onto this group as soon as they came in.

    As expected, he didn''t recognize a single person in that group.

    No, there were two that he recognized.

    It would be impossible for him to not recognize these two since they had been deeply ingrained in his memories as the ones that had captured him.

    It was Duke Zwein and the fourth prince.

    After this real jury came in, they sat where the fake jury had sat before and didn''t say a thing as if they were waiting for something.

    The king gave a nod to them before saying, "Let the trial begin."

    General Gardner''s face twisted when he heard this.

    From the very beginning, it seemed that he had been dancing in the palm of their hands as he made a fool of himself. He had thought that he would be able to easily get out of this, but now¡­

    Since the fourth prince and Duke Zwein were on that jury, it should mean that there was something else that they were nning.

    That was what he was worried about.

    The defense attorney also knitted his brows, but he patted General Gardner''s hand and looked at him as if he was telling him to trust him. General Gardner gave a nod in response, but there was still a worried look in his eyes as he looked forward.

    After the king said this, the prosecutor came forward to put a packet of papers in front of each of the members of the jury. Once he finished, he stood in front of them and said, "Please take note of these numbers. This is a record of all the prisoners of war that could have been captured, but was executed by the general. This is a war crime of the highest level, so I hope that everyone will recognize the severity of this crime."

    The defense attorney knitted his brows before saying, "Objection! This is clearly misleading the members of the jury with his words!"

    The king waved his hand casually as he said, "Overruled."

    The defense attorney knitted his brows even more when he heard this, but he couldn''t say anything since the king had already spoken.

    The only thing that he could do was reach his hand out towards the prosecutor as if he was asking for something. But to his surprise, he found that the prosecutor actually ignored him.

    In cases like this, the evidence should be offered to the defense as well so they could cross examine it, but the prosecutor actually ignored him.

    The defense attorney made another objection, but it was once again overruled by the king.

    When this happened, the defense attorney revealed a very ugly expression.

    At this point, even a fool could tell that they were targeting him and General Gardner.

    There wasn''t a single thing that was fair about this trial, it was all designed to make General Gardner seem as guilty as possible.

    There was a moment where the defense attorney had the urge to just leave, but he knew that this was impossible. Not only would they have to fight the royal guards that had gathered because of the king, it would be impossible to repair their reputation if they ran.

    So the only thing that they could do was endure this humiliation and find a way to reverse this trial.

    It was just too bad that there really was nothing that they could do.

    Once the prosecutor finished showing these things, he turned to point at General Gardner and said, "Other than these war crimes, there are other crimes that General Gardner hasmitted. We will be exposing all of these crimes one by one and I hope that you will see that he is not someone who is worthy of his position."

    The defense attorney immediately said, "Objection! We are here to discuss the crime of treason, how could we bring other matters into this?"

    But once again, the king just said with a casual wave of the hand, "Overruled."

    The prosecutor turned to look at General Gardner and the defense attorney before revealing a smug smile.

    The way that the prosecutor looked at the two of them, it was almost as if he was daring them to do something.

    This really pushed the buttons of both the defense attorney and General Gardner.

    This pushed him to the point where he couldn''t take it anymore as he raised his fist and mmed it down on the table to say, "You say that this is a trial, but you haven''t even given us the chance to speak! You call this a fair trial?"

    The prosecutor didn''t answer this time and instead turned to look at the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince gave a nod before standing up and saying, "Of course this isn''t a fair trial. Why would you think that you would be given a fair trial?"

    General Gardner was shocked to hear this before turning to look at the crowd around him.

    He had hoped that at least one of them would be on his side, but he found that all of them had a calm look on their faces even though the fourth prince had admitted to rigging the trial. It was as if they had all been aware of this from the very beginning.

    This shocked him even more since he had heard them speak up for him when he walked in¡­

    It turned out that this had all been a ploy to make him let his guard down so that it woulde as a bigger shock when everything was revealed.

    At this point, he realized that he was nothing more than a fool who had beenpletely manipted by the fourth prince¡­

    But there was something that he still didn''t understand.

    "Why?" General Gardner asked through gritted teeth.

    The fourth prince looked at him for a second before sitting back down and giving the spotlight back to the prosecutor without answering this question.

 Chapter 692 Fake court (5)

    Chapter 692 Fake court (5)

    ??The prosecutor didn''t care at all about the questioning gaze that General Gardner had as he pulled out something from the stack of papers that he brought.

    It was a single piece of paper, but he held it in front of himself as he started reading what was on it.

    It was a list, a list of all the crimes that General Gardner hadmitted.

    General Gardner had a calm look on his face at first, but that expression slowly started to change when he heard what the prosecutor was saying. The crimes that were listed at first didn''t seem that serious at first, but it was slowly bing more and more serious as the list went on.

    These were crimes that were on par with treason...

    But it didn''t seem like General Gardner was going to deny it...

    The look on his face made it clear that the prosecutor had hit the nail on the head with this list of crimes that he was using General Gardner of. Even if he wanted to deny it, there was nothing that he could deny since he was in this sham of a trial.

    For them to bring it up at this point, it was clear that they already had the evidence on all of these crimes.

    General Gardner just had to see if he could find a way out of this...

    When he was done, the prosecutor turned to look at General Gardner and asked, "Is there anything that the defendant wants to say in response to these crimes?"

    The defense attorney was about to say something, but to everyone''s surprise, General Gardner suddenly reached out to stop him.

    The defense attorney looked at General Gardner with a confused look, but he shook his head as if he was telling him to stand down for now. So even if the defense attorney had an unwilling look on his face, he didn''t say anything in the end.

    The prosecutor had a surprised look on his face as he looked at General Gardner, but seeing that he didn''t say anything, he just continued by pulling out more pieces of paper from the stack on his table.

    Each one of these pieces of paper was evidence of the crimes that he had used General Gardner of.

    At this point, it was just the prosecutor using General Gardner of crimes.

    When he was done, the evidence that was against General Gardner was damning.

    The things that General Gardner had done...it was amazing that he hadn''t been caught.

    It was only possible for him to get away with this because of the status that he had as the general.

    If it wasn''t for that, there would have been no way that he would have gotten away with all of this.

    Any one of these crimes was already worth a death sentence on its own after all.

    After the prosecutor finished saying everything he had to say, he looked at General Gardner and said, "Is there anything else that you want to add to this?"

    General Gardner didn''t say anything as he just looked at the fourth prince.

    With the way that he looked at the fourth prince, it was almost as if he was challenging the fourth prince to make his move.

    The fourth prince revealed a faint smile when he saw this, but he didn''t do anything.

    After all, it wasn''t his turn to do anything.

    He would leave this to the king since this was how they had divided their roles in the first ce.

    Seeing that General Gardner didn''t say anything, the prosecutor turned to the king and said, "I rest my case."

    After the prosecutor sat down, the king didn''t even bother asking the defense attorney for his defense as he turned to the jury to say, "What is your judgement?"

    The fourth prince was the one that led the jury in saying, "Guilty."

    The king gave a nod in response to this before turning to look at General Gardner to say, "In the face of this overwhelming evidence, we hereby strip the former general of his rank and his noble title. In addition, we sentence the general to be sent to the Beirut Kingdom for his execution at the hands of the Beirut Kingdom''s court ofw."

    Both the former General Gardner and the defense attorney revealed surprised looks when they heard this before former General Gardner startedughing.

    Seeing himugh like this, everyone looked at him with a confused and concerned look, as if they were afraid that he had lost his mind.

    After all, he was certainlyughing like he had lost his mind.

    Afterughing for a while like this, the former General Gardner suddenly stoppedughing and looked at the fourth prince to say, "So you''re offering me as a tribute to those other kingdoms? Just because I was the one that killed all of those soldiers? You think that will be enough to appease them?"

    The fourth prince just had a calm look on his face when being questioned by the former General Gardner like this.

    Seeing how calm the fourth prince was, the former General Gardner actually became angrier as he said, "What if I''m not the one that killed all those soldiers in the first ce? What if I was just using that incident as a way to increase my own fame? What would happen if that was the case?"

    The fourth prince didn''t say anything, but the others that were in the room couldn''t help slightly knitting their brows.

    Seeing this, the former General Gardner didn''t hold back as he said, "Not to mention, I wasn''t the one that ughtered the armies of the other kingdoms, so what are you nning on doing about that?"

    No one said a word in response to this.

    The former General Gardner ended by saying, "You think that the other kingdoms are that easy to fool? If you want to appease them, you''ll have to send the one who actually did all of this."

    After saying this, his eyes fell onto me.

 Chapter 693 Fake court (6)

    Chapter 693 Fake court (6)

    ??As soon as the former General Gardner''s voice fell, everyone looked at me along with him.

    I could see the strange looks that were cast in my direction, but it seemed that there were quite a few people that seemed to agree with him.

    After all, they knew about the things that I had done and I had even received the nickname of butcher by the popce.

    If we were talking about the people that were most hated by the people of the other kingdoms, I would certainly be at the top of that list.

    So what he was implying was technically correct.

    It was just that¡­

    Seeing that no one said anything, the former General Gardner took this as a sign that they were contemting it, so he continued by saying, "If you want to really appease the other kingdoms, even someone as uncultured as me can see who you should really be sending. I swear that I''ll do all that I can for the kingdom if you send the one that you should really be sending to the other kingdoms."

    He was even making an appeal at the end to show what he was capable of doing to ensure that he would be able to get out of this alive.

    It really was interesting to see how shameless this former General Gardner was.

    It was just too bad that he had no clue at all as to what the real situation was.

    He was nothing more than a fool dancing on the palm of their hands.

    Neither the king or the fourth prince said a thing as they turned to look at me, almost as if they were considering what the former General Gardner said.

    All of this gave the former General Gardner more confidence until¡­

    "Are you done ying around?" I suddenly said this to the fourth prince and the king.

    The former General Gardner was shocked to hear this, but he was even more shocked when he saw smiles appearing on the faces of the king and the fourth prince.

    It was almost as if¡­they had been ying with him just now by giving him false hope.

    The fourth prince said, "Brother, you should know that it''s rare that we get a chance to do this. So we have to take advantage of this while we can."

    The king nodded in agreement before saying, "Is it that wrong to have a bit of fun?"

    There was no response to this other than the shocked looks on the faces of the crowd.

    All of them looked at the king and fourth prince with this shocked look, as if they couldn''t believe that the two of them would say something like this.

    Though it was more the tone of their voice that they were more shocked by¡­

    The way that they talked to Duke Zwein, it was almost as if they were treating him as family.

    They had heard that Duke Zwein was engaged to the princess and that there was a wedding being nned, but they had thought that this was nothing more than a marriage of rtions. There were even some that thought the rtionship between the king and the duke would be tense because of the situation with the wyverns.

    With the duke holding all the power over the wyverns, the king would surely have some strong feelings towards him.

    But now it doesn''t seem to be the case.

    Was this just an act or¡­were they really this close?

    The nobles didn''t know, but they didn''t dare take any risks.

    As for me¡­I knew that they were doing this on purpose.

    They were showing their support for me for the future since I would need even more support from the nobles in the future for their n.

    The former General Gardner had been in a daze when he heard this, but then he mmed his fist down on the table in front of him.

    Even if he was a coward and a suck up, he was still someone that had spent time in the military, so it wasn''t as if he was weak.

    When he mmed his fist down, the table that was in front of him split in half and then shattered to pieces.

    After mming his fist down, he said, "You think that you can take me out like this? If I''m going down, I''ll take one of you with me."

    As soon as his voice fell, both the former General Gardner and his defense attorney charged forward at the jury.

    Their targets were¡­Duke Zwein and the fourth prince.

    It seemed that they were nning on sacrificing their lives to take the two of them down.

    But before they could do anything, there were cloaked figures that suddenly appeared.

    Even if the former General Gardner and his defense attorney hadbat experience, that didn''t mean that they were strong. They were only strongpared to normal people, but they couldn''t take on these cloaked figures.

    That was because these cloaked figures were the elite guards that were under the fourth prince.

    The moment that they appeared, they took no time at all to subdue the two of them.

    They could only lie there on the ground, looking up at the jury in front of them without being able to move a single inch. They were just firmly pressed down on the ground and being restrained.

    The only thing that they could do was look up at the fourth prince and me with eyes that were filled with hatred, but I didn''t care at all.

    From the very beginning, I had been nning on throwing him away like this.

    After all, I knew that this situation woulde up after the war.

    That was why I had let this former General Gardner take the credit for killing the Beirut Kingdom army.

    Looking down at him, I said, "You should have learned from your mistakes of the past and just epted your fate, but you chose to make things worse for yourself."

    The former General Gardner bit his lip before saying, "There won''t be a good ending for you."

    I just said with a shrug, "That is not for you to decide."

 Chapter 694 Strange report

    <h4>Chapter 694 Strange report</h4>

    A week passed since that sham of a trial.

    The former General Gardner and several of his loyal subordinates were handed over to the Beirut Kingdom as punishment for their war crimes.

    But knowing that there was the possibility that things could go wrong, we had to take precautions as well.

    So the former General Gardner and his men were all...executed ahead of time and only their heads would be sent to the Beirut Kingdom.

    Although this would cause a bit of displeasure from the other side since they would want to execute these people themselves, there was no other choice. We wouldn''t let anything go wrong, so we couldn''t let the former General Gardner and his men go to the Beirut Kingdom alive.

    As for their families, they were also executed and sent along with them.

    Cutting the roots as well, that was the only way to ensure that it was safe.

    If we didn''t do this, there was no knowing what would have happened.

    Along with this, the nobles that had been summoned as part of the fake jury had also been executed.

    They were nobles that had their corruption found by the fourth prince, so we were using this chance to catch them all in one fell swoop. We wouldn''t let any of them escape from our.

    Just by taking care of all of them, the capital had be much cleaner.

    There were still nobles outside of the capital that weren''t as clean, but it wasn''t as if we could get rid of them all right away. These nobles held important positions outside of the capital, so it was impossible to kill them all right away.

    If that did happen, then it would mean the copse of the kingdom since there would be too many gaps to fill.

    The biggest threat right now was Duke Yuletide, but it wasn''t the time to take him down yet.

    We still had to stabilize the core of the country before taking him down.

    So that was why I had spent the past week in the castle.

    In fact, most of my time had been spent in the king''s study with the king, going over the reports that he received.

    Even if I had the fourth prince taking care of things for me, that didn''t mean that I would be able to escape taking care of certain things. There were things that only the king was able to do after all, so there would be things that I would have to take care of myself and couldn''t leave to the fourth prince.

    I was shadowing the king to learn these things.

    Today was another boring day of going through reports, though if it was anyone else that was here, they definitely wouldn''t be thinking the same thing. After all, these reports were highly ssified reports.

    These were reports that were supposed to be only seen by the king and his trusted ministers, but I was allowed to read them since I was shadowing him.

    These were reports on the important details of our kingdom, such as reports on the economy, the military, and our food supplies. If any of these were to fall in the hands of the enemy kingdoms, there was no doubt that we would suffer a huge loss.

    So of course it was not something that should be shared casually.

    But here I was with ess to all of this with a bored look on my face.

    As I read through the reports, I suddenly found something that caught my attention.

    This wasn''t a very important report, it wasn''t even one that should be considered ssified.

    This was just a report that had been added in because of how strange it was, so someone thought that the king should know about this.

    It was a report about the situation in a country that was further to the north of us.

    This was a small country that wasn''t even considered a kingdom, but rather a dukedom since it was so small. At the same time, it was a country that had three other different countries between them and us.

    So what happened in this country shouldn''t have mattered to us at all.

    But I found it very strange, so I couldn''t help picking up the report to have a closer look at it.

    When the king saw me reading the report so intensely, he couldn''t help feeling strange, so he asked, "What is it? Is something wrong?"

    I shook my head in response as I said, "There''s nothing wrong in particr, but this seems strange."

    "Strange?" The king repeated before reaching his hand out towards me.

    I just passed him one page of the report while keeping the rest of myself.

    That one page was the general summary of the event while the rest of the report went into further detail about it.

    But basically, this was a report about a rumour from this country.

    It was a rumour that seemed to stir the entire country with the way that it spread.

    There was a forest on the edge of that country andtely, there have been animals that have been dying there. These animals would suddenly cough up ck blood and die in the middle of nowhere.

    It seemed like some kind of illness, but the doctors hadn''t been able to find anything.

    Even the magicians that checked these animals weren''t able to find anything wrong with them.

    So they could only conclude that the animals had died of some kind of natural death.

    But the people that lived in the area surrounding the forest insisted that this was the work of a dark god that was sealed deep in the forest. They said that the seal on the dark god was weakening, which was why these creatures were dying.

    It would only be a matter of time before the dark god was unleashed, so they begged the duke to send for someone to seal this dark god again.

    "Isn''t this just a bunch of superstition? Though the fact that these animals are dying these unnatural deaths does seem strange." The king said aloud, but I didn''t react.

    That was because I had been in deep thought this whole time.

    All of this seemed familiar to me¡­

 Chapter 695 I need to go

    Chapter 695 I need to go

    ??It suddenly came to me.

    I suddenly realized why this ce seemed familiar.

    It was because this ce was the location of a certain event in the game that could be considered a major event.

    The only thing was¡­this event should have happened at least twenty years in the future. This was not an event that should have happened at this stage of the game.

    That was why I didn''t immediately think of this event right away.

    This was supposed to be an end game event, but it was happening now out of all times¡­

    It really was something that waspletely unexpected.

    However, that didn''t mean that there were only demerits to this. There were also benefits that I could gain from this, as long as I yed my cards right.

    The only problem was¡­

    "Your majesty, there''s something that I need to discuss with you."

    The king was surprised to hear this.

    It wasn''t that he was surprised by what I had said, but rather he was surprised by the tone that I addressed him with. After all, in the past few days, we had gotten closer and I had slowly gotten used to calling him ''father inw''.

    So for me to suddenly call him ''your majesty'', it must mean that I had something serious to discuss with him.

    After a moment of silence, he slowly gave a nod before calling for someone else.

    In less than a quarter of an hour, the fourth prince arrived in the study as well.

    The king had called for him since he knew that whatever I had to say would be an important matter, so it was best if the fourth prince was also here to listen and give his advice.

    When we sat down, I said, "I need to go to this country."

    Both the king and the fourth prince were taken aback when they heard this.

    They didn''t answer right away after recovering from their shock and simply looked at the report again.

    The way that they looked at this report, it was as if they were trying to figure out what I thought was so important about it. However, it was clear by the confused looks that were on their faces that they had no idea what I had seen.

    In the end, the fourth prince just asked, "What is so special about this ce?"

    He knew that there was no need to beat around the bush when it was just us. There was nothing that we needed to hesitate over when it was just the three of us.

    I gave a nod before picking out one piece of paper and showing it to them.

    They looked down to find that it was the one part of the report that was about the deceased animals. It was the one part of the report that described the ck blood that the animals spat out and the strange way that they just copsed.

    Once again, the two of them revealed confused looks when I put this in front of them, but they waited for me to exin.

    They knew that I wouldn''t bring this out for no reason.

    After putting this down, I said, "See the strange way that they are dying? That is an indication that something is about to be unsealed. That is why they are dying like this."

    The two of them revealed very confused looks on their faces when they heard this as they couldn''t understand what I meant by this.

    The fourth prince suddenly asked, "How do you know all of this?"

    I didn''t answer right away, but then I said, "You might not believe me, but I''ve read about this situation before. It is like the vigers have said, there is indeed something that is sealed there that is causing this. So I need to go there and deal with this before that thing is released into our world and wreaks havoc."

    Both the king and the fourth prince raised a brow as they looked at me.

    I could see the doubt that was in their eyes, but that doubt didn''tst long before the fourth prince simply asked, "What is sealed?"

    I hesitated once again before saying, "A former demon king."

    Both of them revealed shocked looks this time when they heard this.

    Slowly, the two of them knitted their brows as if they were thinking about something. At the same time, I could see that there were traces of doubt in their eyes over this matter.

    I didn''t me them since I wouldn''t believe it either if it wasn''t for the fact that I already knew about this from the game.

    After a long period of silence, the two of them started looking at me as if they wanted to question me about something.

    I didn''t need to hear it to guess what they were thinking.

    They wanted to question why I knew something like this.

    It seemed that the doubt had disappeared from their mind, but they were naturally curious why I would have this kind of information. After all, this kind of information was not something that could be easily obtained.

    I shook my head as I said, "I can''t tell you right now why I know this, I just need you to trust me."

    The two of them were naturally surprised to hear this, but they eventually nodded in agreement.

    The fourth prince gave a sigh before saying, "Then how are you nning on getting there? It''s not as if you could pass through the surrounding countries easily, let alone going through the country that is between us and that dukedom. At the very least, it''ll take three months to go there and back if you take a horse carriage."

    "I was nning on going by wyvern." I said in a calm voice.

    The fourth prince looked at me like I was crazy.

    He didn''t just look at me like I was crazy, he even said it to my face, "You''re crazy! You''re going to start another war like this!"

 Chapter 696 Diplomatic mission

    Chapter 696 Diplomatic mission

    ??I didn''t need to ask to know why he thought this.

    The biggest problem with this was the wyvern itself.

    That was because the wyvern was what had ended the war.

    That meant that the wyverns had left a deep impression on all of the other countries.

    If wyverns were to suddenly show up in their borders, there was no doubt that they would immediately think that war was being dered on them. They would think that our country would be using the wyverns to invade them.

    But that was also because of who I was.

    If I didn''t have my current status, then I would be able to fly across the different borders without a problem since I would be traveling alone. A single wyvern passing by wouldn''t be considered a threat and would be considered a natural thing.

    It was just that if a pack were to appear, they would assume that it was an intentional invasion.

    After all, only our nation was able to control wyverns like this.

    So if wyverns were to suddenly appear in their territory, they would immediately think that our nation was involved in this matter.

    So that was what the fourth prince meant by starting a war.

    Yes, traveling by wyvern would be equal to starting a war, but...

    It was also the only way that I could travel to make it in time.

    This event was one with a time limit, so I had to arrive in that country before a certain amount of time passed. The signs that were already there meant that the current time limit was a month and a half, so I couldn''t wait three months to get there by horse carriage.

    With the wyverns, it would only take me a week to reach that country.

    I looked at the fourth prince and said, "I''m sure that you can think of some way to make it work. This is something that needs to happen, so I''ll trust in your abilities as my future prime minister."''

    Though it sounded nice, I was simply throwing all my problems to the fourth prince and letting him think of a solution.

    The fourth prince naturally knew that as well, so there was a bitter smile that appeared on his face when he heard this.

    He looked at me with that bitter smile, but he didn''t reject me.

    I could see it in his eyes that his thoughts were forming, so he did have some idea of what to do.

    The king just remained silent as he waited to see what we woulde up with.

    This was his way of showing his support for us as his future sessors.

    After a long silence, the fourth prince finally said with a sigh, "We''ll turn this into a diplomatic mission."

    The king and I both raised a brow to look at the fourth prince as we didn''t understand what he meant by this, but we didn''t say anything as we waited for him to exin.

    The fourth prince didn''t say anything at first as it seemed that he was still gathering his thoughts.

    After a while, he said, "We still need to show the other countries our power after the war, while also starting to restore the rtionship that we once had with them. After all, we can''t justpletely ignore them since these four countries surround our own. We have no choice but to maintain our rtionship with them¡­so we need to send a diplomatic group to each country. While at the same time, we need to show our might with our wyverns."

    As he said this, his eyes slowly lit up as he looked at me, "You would be the perfect fit for this role of diplomat."

    I was surprised since I never thought that I would be sent as a diplomat.

    After all, there was my moniker that was there.

    I was known as a butcher after all the killing that I had done, so I thought that I would be the one that would be the least wee in these countries.

    But the fourth prince was saying somethingpletely different.

    The fourth prince gave an excited nod as he said, "As long as you fly with your wyverns to these countries and impose your might on them, they will have no choice but to ept the current rtionship."

    With a bitter smile on my face, I realized that he was basically using me as a threat.

    But there was also something that I had to ask, "Are you sure that we should be doing this? Won''t this breed further hatred between our countries if we suppress them like this?"

    With a faint smile, the fourth prince said, "You would think so, but that isn''t the case. After all, without a bit of fear, there isn''t any respect. So unless we give them something to fear, they will never put down their pride and negotiate with us properly. It''s all about the carrot and stick."

    I slowly gave a nod even though I didn''t really agree with this, but the fourth prince had never been wrong about these kinds of things before.

    Since he was saying that this was the way we should do this, then I wouldn''t doubt him.

    But there was still a problem that had to be addressed.

    When the fourth prince calmed down, he said, "The only problem with this is that it will take some time before you will be able to reach that dukedom. You will have to pay your respects to all of the different countries beforehand, so it will take some time."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this, but I didn''t reject it right away.

    Instead, I asked, "How long will it take?"

    The fourth prince slowly said, "A month, that is the minimum that I can bring your schedule down to. Any shorter and we risk offending the different countries."

    I didn''t answer right away as I fell into deep thought.

    In my head, the timing for the event quickly ran.

    A month¡­that would be tight, but it was definitely doable.

    So I slowly gave a nod as I said, "Alright, that works."

    The fourth prince let out a sigh of relief before saying, "Alright, let''s start nning this."

    The king just watched with a smile on his face as he thought to himself¡­

    "The future of the kingdom is secure."

 Chapter 697 Is that who I think it is?

    Chapter 697 Is that who I think it is?

    ??Since this was urgent, I set off the next day.

    It was also so that no one would be able to make any moves that would hinder us.

    If we gave them enough time, there was no doubt that the nobles would do something so that they would be able to exert their influence on this mission. Whether that was sending their own people or sending presents for the other countries that would have secret messages.

    In short, there was nothing good that woulde if the nobles were to get involved.

    So we would be leaving first and announcing this afterwards.

    There were spies of nobles that were able to see us leaving, but they weren''t able to stop us.

    The ones that came with me were my own knights that were led by Cecilia which also included Shaka.

    At this point, Shaka had been with me long enough that he could be considered one of the subordinates that had been with me the longest, even though he wasn''t actually my subordinate. However, there was never an order from Shadow Garden for him to go back, so he never went back.

    As well, there were guards that were sent by the fourth prince and the king.

    These were elite guards that had served the two of them for years, yet they were sending them to protect me.

    That was more than enough to show how important I was to the both of them and I couldn''t help being touched.

    Ang had also wanted toe along, but she was thest person that I could allow toe.

    So in the end, we packed up our wyverns and headed out from the capital.

    In just a single day, we were able to reach the border of our kingdom.

    That was just how fast traveling by wyvern was.

    Those that were traveling by wyvern for the first time were naturally shocked by how fast we went, but they quickly came to ept it. That was just how well trained they were.

    We could have gone past the border today, but we wanted to wait until tomorrow to reach the capital of the Beirut Kingdom which was our first destination.

    If we were to arrive in the middle of the night, that would surely be inconvenient for everyone. So instead of scheduling our arrival for the middle of the night, our arrival would be at noon instead.

    That would also give the Beirut Kingdom side to prepare since our message should have reached them today.

    We settled in one of the towns that were near the border.

    When we arrived in that town, we naturally caused argemotion with our wyverns, but the reaction wasn''t as bad as I thought it would be. Instead of people freaking out over the fact that wyverns werending, many of them looked excited and even approached the area where we werending.

    It was as if they all wanted to get a look at the wyverns.

    It seemed that the fourth prince had been hard at work during this time to spread the news of the wyverns under our control.

    But then again, this was a town that was near the border to the Beirut Kingdom.

    This should have been a ce that should have been near the frontlines of the war.

    I could still see that there was a lot of damage in this ce from the war.

    As such, they should have already seen the wyverns that hade to the border to threaten the Beirut Kingdom previously.

    So it only made sense that they were used to seeing wyverns.

    We left the wyverns in a stable that had been built near the gate, which was specifically built for wyverns.

    Like I had suspected, this town had hosted wyverns before when they came to end the war, so they were equipped to host our wyverns.

    The lord of this ce wanted to invite us to a banquet, but we rejected this since we would be setting off early in the morning. When he saw the orders that we had, the lord had no choice but to back down since these were orders from the king.

    But he made sure to set us up in the nicest inn that was in this town, which was still quite badpared to the inns of the capital.

    Still, it was a good enough ce to get some proper rest.

    As well, there was something that I had to deal with.

    While we had been traveling, I had taken the time to get to know the guards that the fourth prince and the king sent. We would be working together, so I wanted to get to know them so I could work better with them.

    But as I was talking to the guards sent by the fourth prince, I couldn''t help noticing something strange¡­

    There was one that I seemed oddly familiar with¡­

    Well, I was familiar with most of the guards that the fourth prince sent since they were the ones that had gone with me when I went to take care of the wyverns. They were the ones that were the most familiar with their wyverns, so they would be the best to threaten the other kingdoms with.

    At the same time, they could be considered the ones that knew me best since they had known me the longest, even if that wasn''t much longer than the others.

    Still, the one that I was oddly familiar with seemed to know me even better than them.

    It was almost as if we were close enough to be called ''brothers''...

    "Is that who I think it is?"

    This was what I couldn''t help saying to myself during this entire time until I finally decided to confront this person.

    That person had an awkward stance when I confronted him, but eventually he took off his cloak.

    "What are you doing here? You''re not supposed to be here!"

    I hate driving people to the airport.

 Chapter 698 The one who snuck along

    <h4>Chapter 698 The one who snuck along</h4>

    "Surprise¡­"

    That was what this person said in an awkward voice when he took off his cloak.

    Seeing him standing there in front of me, I couldn''t help looking at him with a very strange look before saying, "You have to go back."

    "Eh? It''s already toote for that." This person said back to me.

    "Don''t give me that. What will happen if the kingdom copses while you''re gone?" I said in an agitated voice.

    This wasn''t an exaggeration, this was a fact since the person who was standing in front of me was the fourth prince.

    I don''t know why he would do something like this, he had actually snuck along with our group.

    It was just a good thing that I found him before we actually left the kingdom or else it definitely would have been troublesome. It wasn''t an exaggeration to say that there were many things that couldn''t run in this kingdom without the fourth prince.

    There were many things that the king had delegated to the fourth prince, just like how he had delegated things to me. However, the things that he entrusted the fourth prince with were vital things that had to be done to ensure that the kingdom ran properly.

    If these weren''t done, it would only be a matter of time before the kingdom copsed.

    So before that happened, we had to send the fourth prince back.

    "Eh?" The fourth prince said again before saying, "It won''t copse just because I''m not there."

    I shook my head and said with a sigh, "It will, that''s how important you are to the kingdom."

    The fourth prince revealed an embarrassed look when he heard this which made me feel very strange. It wasn''t a good kind of strange, it was a bad kind of strange like the cells of my body were rejecting this very intensely¡­

    After acting this way for a bit, the fourth prince calmly said, "No, it really won''t since I didn''t leave without leaving someone behind to take over for me."

    I was surprised to hear this since I never heard of anyone that could rece the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince said with a smile, "I have a body double that I''ve been preparing for some time now. Of course, this is a secret, so you can''t tell anyone about this."

    I looked at him with a strange look, as if I couldn''t believe that he would tell me something like this that easily.

    The fourth prince just had a smile on his face as he continued to say, "He can take care of business for me and people won''t even realize that I''m gone. But it''s not as if this is a permanent solution since he is just a recement. As long as I''m not gone for more than half a year, it should be fine."

    Half a year, that was how long the fourth prince had prepared for his own disappearance.

    As expected of a man who was supposed to be the main viin of the noble arc, it was as if he had already nned everything.

    But there was something else that I couldn''t help thinking about.

    If he had a body double, then did that mean that he might have actually survived in the game?

    Could it be that the fourth prince that had been killed in the game was nothing more than a body double?

    No, he wouldn''t do something like that.

    After spending quite a bit of time with the fourth prince, I felt that I had a good grasp of his personality.

    I knew that he wasn''t someone that would abandon his people like that just to escape on his own. Even if he was forced to do it by his subordinates, he woulde back in the end to save them.

    So the fourth prince should have died in the game¡­

    The fourth prince could see that there was a strange look on my face as I looked at him, so he asked, "What''s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

    I realized what I was doing, so I shook my head and said, "It''s nothing, don''t worry about it."

    The fourth prince raised a brow as if he was suspicious of me, but he didn''t say anything else.

    I knew that it would be impossible for me to bring him back now without causing amotion, so there really wasn''t a way for me to reject him.

    Not to mention, I found out that he actually brought a trump card.

    The king had actually written an order for me to bring the fourth prince along.

    He stated that he was worried, which was why he wanted the fourth prince toe with me just in case anything happened.

    These two had colluded behind my back to make me bring the fourth prince along¡­

    I had no idea what they were thinking, but they had to have their reason for doing this.

    But there was still something that I had toment on.

    "How are you nning on following me? You could be considered quite the famous person and easily recognized, so wouldn''t they immediately recognize you if you came with me?"

    Even if this game was set in the middle ages, there were things like magic that could project images.

    Even without magic, there were still those that could draw quite well, so images were quite easily sent around. Though that was mainly because of this world''s basis being from one of those games.

    It was a way to easily collect CGs¡­

    So the fourth prince''s face was quite well known since he was an important character.

    Even without that, he would be known by the other royals and nobles since they would have met him before.

    So it wasn''t as if he could just follow me into the other kingdoms like this.

    The fourth prince revealed a smile as he said, "You don''t have to worry about that, I have my ways."

    I raised a brow in doubt, but I just waited to see what he would do.

 Chapter 699 Beirut Kingdom

    Chapter 699 Beirut Kingdom

    ??We set off early the next morning and in the afternoon, we arrived in the capital of the Beirut Kingdom.

    When we went to the border, there was a panic.

    When we arrived in the capital, there was a panic.

    It seemed that no matter where we went, as long as we had these wyverns with us, it would cause a panic.

    But that couldn''t be med on the people of the Beirut Kingdom.

    Wyverns could be considered a deep trauma for them after what had happened during the war.

    They could still remember the sight of the wyverns flying over them, releasing their me breaths down on them. It was the sight of hell on earth as everything had been burning.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that they had held back, the wyverns might have even burned the entire capital to the ground.

    So unlike our own kingdom''s capital, everyone stayed far away from the wyverns when they arrived.

    Whether that was in the Beirut Kingdom capital or the border.

    All of them were afraid to greet us, but there were those that came to greet us since they had no choice but to greet us.

    The ones that weed us didn''t seem like they were of low ranking.

    When they introduced themselves, we found out that it was the prime minister that hade to wee us.

    Of course, it wouldn''t be the king that woulde since they still had their pride as the ruler of this country. But for the prime minister toe showed that they at least showed us quite a bit of respect.

    The one that they came to greet was me.

    I was surprised that they chose to greet me, but I found that was because they knew who I was.

    I didn''t think that they would know who I was, but it seemed that I had amassed quite a bit of fame in these other countries. Or it was better to say that I had amassed quite a bit of infamy with how they looked at me.

    There were traces of fear that were in their eyes, along with some people that looked at me with hatred.

    I wasn''t surprised to see this since I had been the one that had ughtered the entire Beirut Kingdom army. Even if we had sent the former General Gardner as a scapegoat, I knew that it was impossible for the higher ups of the Beirut Kingdom not to know about my involvement.

    As nobles of the Beirut Kingdom, there was also no doubt that their troops and their rtives would have been a part of the army that I destroyed.

    So it was only natural that they would feel hatred towards me.

    But it wasn''t as if they could do anything to me.

    If they were to try anything and I were to escape, there was no doubt that it would be the end for their Beirut Kingdom.

    Right now, the Beirut Kingdom is in a very weak state with all of the troops that they lost. This was the case with not just the Beirut Kingdom, but the other three kingdoms that bordered ours.

    If they were to start an international incident, there was no doubt that none of the other kingdoms would support them.

    When that time came, they would be annexed by our kingdom.

    The only reason we didn''t do it sooner was because our kingdom was also weakened by the war. If we were to take over the Beirut Kingdom territory, it would mean bordering even more kingdoms which would create even more tension.

    So right now, these four kingdoms are being used as buffer zones by us.

    After recovering from his surprise, the prime minister came forward to say, "Duke Zwein, it is an honour for our Beirut Kingdom to wee you to our capital."

    As he said this, he reached his hand out towards me as if offering a handshake.

    However, I could see from the look in his eyes¡­that was thest thing that he wanted to do.

    It was clear that he was also one of those that had lost rtives in the war, most likely at my hands. It was very likely that he wanted nothing more than to kill me as well, but of course he would never get that chance.

    I just calmly took his hand and said with a smile, "It really is my honour to be here. I never thought that I would get a chance to visit this ce after what happened."

    There were a few people that revealed looks of rage when they heard this since they could understand the provocation that was hidden between my words.

    I was basically saying, "I never thought that I would be able to visit this ce after the devastation I caused."

    Though it wasn''t really me who caused that devastation, as it was the fourth prince that sent the wyvern riders to attack the capital.

    But they knew that I was the one that controlled the wyverns, so they med it on me.

    The prime minister also reacted when he heard me say this, but it seemed like he was able to control his emotions better than the others as he forced a calm look on his face and said, "It really is lucky that you were able toe here."

    There were a few more introductions that were made, but I didn''t really care about remembering their names. This was supposed to be a short visit to threaten them, it wasn''t as if I was here to be their friends.

    In the future, they would want nothing more than to kill me, so it was better not to get too familiar with them. The more they knew about me, the more information that they would be able to use against me.

    When it came to introducing our side, there weren''t many people for me to introduce since most of the ones that came with me were guards.

    Though there was one that I did have to introduce.

    "This is Count Navar."

    This was a person that hadn''t been with our group untiltest night.

 Chapter 700 Pitiful

    <h4>Chapter 700 Pitiful</h4>

    When I introduced this person, I couldn''t help feeling nervous.

    After all, I had no idea if they would be able to see through this or not.

    The prime minister and the others from the Beirut Kingdom had surprised looks on their faces when they heard this since they didn''t recognize this person.

    They had expected to recognize everyone that came as part of the diplomatic mission, but they didn''t recognize this person.

    However, that didn''t stop them from treating them properly.

    They were here as part of the diplomatic envoy from the Beirut Kingdom, so they had no choice but to treat them well even if they didn''t know them.

    So it didn''t take long before the prime minister and the other officials started greeting Count Navar in a friendly manner.

    I was still nervous watching all of this, but as time passed, I knew that they weren''t doing this because they were trying to figure out who he was. They were doing this because they had no idea who he was, so they were treating him as a normal member of the diplomatic envoy.

    Of course, this person that had joined us all of a suddenst night was the fourth prince.

    When I had asked him how he would disguise himself, he had suddenly taken out a badge that he put on his chest.

    When he did, I saw the fourth prince disappear and he was reced with the appearance of Count Navar.

    This badge that he had used was a magic item, one that I recognized since it was amon item in the game.

    It was a normal Disguise Badge which could be found in the mid game which was used for sneaking into ces.

    A normal game wouldn''t need an item like this, but a game like this one...

    Well, there were many things that needed the ability to disguise oneself.

    There was even the option of disguising oneself as someone else and sneaking into the room of one''s lover for that kind of y. That was just how much freedom the game had, which really was one of the main reasons it had be so popr.

    Though it was a mid game item, it was something that could be seen through as long as one was strong enough.

    It seemed that there was no one that was strong enough in this Beirut Kingdom, which was disappointing.

    After we finished greeting each other, we were brought to the castle where the king and the rest of the court were waiting for us.

    When we arrived, the first thing that I did was greet the king with a slight bow.

    When they saw this, everyone who was in this throne room knitted their brows.

    "Your majesty, it is an honour to visit your Beirut Kingdom. I am here on behalf of our Kite Kingdom to extend our courtesy and deepen the rtionship between our two kingdoms after our rocky past." I said in a calm voice without a care for the res that wereing from all around me.

    The king of the Beirut Kingdom also looked at me with slightly knitted brows at first, but those quickly rxed.

    He knew that he couldn''t say anything even if I treated him without respect since this was a matter of his entire nation''s safety. He had no choice but to swallow this injustice even if it hurt his pride.

    The king of the Beirut Kingdom took a deep breath before saying with a faint smile, "Duke Zwein, it is our Beirut Kingdom''s honour to host you. I have long heard of your fame and have long wished to meet you."

    After saying this, he turned to the side and waved his hand for a girl to step forward.

    This was a beautiful girl who looked to be in her early teens, who had barely stepped into puberty, so her figure wasn''t as full as it could be. But with her long flowing red hair and green eyes, she was without a doubt a beauty in her own right.

    She looked very familiar to the king who also had the same red hair and green eyes.

    After this girl stepped forward, the king said, "Duke Zwein, since you aren''t familiar with our kingdom, I will have my daughter show you around. I hope that you will have a pleasant stay in our¡­"

    Before he could finish, I suddenly raised my hand and said, "Your majesty, unfortunately I won''t be able to have a chance to enjoy thepany of the princess. My stay here will be short and during this time, there is something that I must do."

    The king was surprised to hear this, but he said with a nod, "Please, tell me what you need to do."

    I took out a scroll and unfurled it before saying, "I am here on behalf of our kingdom to perform an inspection of the mines and farms of your Beirut Kingdom. I hope that you will not mind this."

    After saying this, I turned the scroll that I was holding around so that they could see the seal that was on it.

    When they saw the royal seal that was on it, they had no choice but to ept that this was indeed a decree from the king of our Kite Kingdom.

    At that, they all revealed ugly expressions.

    That was because¡­there was nothing that they could do to refute this.

    All of this stemmed from the fact that they were behind on their war reparation payments.

    So the moment that I brought this up, their plots hade to a stop.

    Their idea of using a honey pot on me in the form of the princess and the daughters of the other nobles, as well as the other plots that they had for me were all stopped with this one move.

    This was a move that the fourth prince hade up withst night.

    He had even brought a copy of the royal seal that we could use freely to make more decrees when we wanted.

    As expected of the main viin of the noble plotline¡­

    So as I looked at the ugly expressions that were in front of me, I couldn''t help feeling that they were pitiful.

    They tried to take on the fourth prince and failed miserably.

 Chapter 701 A poor country (1)

    Chapter 701 A poor country (1)

    ??In the end, there was nothing that they could do in the face of this royal decree.

    It was a fact that they were behind on their payments, so they had to ept the demands that we were making since these demands were rted to these payments.

    What I was doing was inspecting the resources of their country to see what could be used as coteral for dying this payment.

    So what I was technically doing was the work of a debt collector.

    The second reason why they were allowing all of this to happen was because of the wyverns that we had brought with us. It was like bringing a gun with us that would force them to ept our demands.

    After all, if the wyverns were to rampage in their capital, the damage would be unimaginable.

    That was thest thing that they could allow to happen, so they had to follow our demands.

    Once that was settled, there wasn''t much else that needed to be said as we were brought to the residence that they had prepared for us.

    It was a bit worn down, but it was still considered arge mansion.

    Though if one looked carefully, they could see that there were burn marks that were around this area. It seemed that this was one of the ces that had been lit on fire when the wyverns attacked the capital.

    Was this on purpose or was it just a coincidence.

    It really was hard to tell.

    Still, it wasn''t as if we would be staying in this ce forever, so we might as well suck it up for a night.

    The inside was at least properly cleaned and decorated, so it wasn''t as if it wascking.

    When the morning came, the prime minister was the one that came to pick us up.

    It seemed like they were taking this matter seriously that even the prime minister was sent toe with us.

    Or at least that was what we thought at first until we saw all the ministers that wereing along.

    This wasn''t them taking it seriously, this was them being cautious.

    All of these ministers wereing along to make sure that we weren''t excessive in our demands and that we didn''t take anything that they couldn''t give up.

    If I had to guess, it was very likely that they would try to keep us from certain areas with their numbers alone.

    This was certainly a strategy, though I couldn''t call it a wise one.

    Still, we had our own card to y.

    "We''ll be taking the wyverns."

    The moment that the prime minister and the other ministers from the Beirut Kingdom heard this, all of them had stunned looks on their faces. It didn''t take long before those stunned looks turned into ugly expressions.

    The prime minister slowly said, "There''s no need for that, is there? Couldn''t we take the horse carriage?"

    I firmly shook my head before saying, "We have little time to spare, so it''s best if we are as efficient as possible. We will be taking the wyverns, whether youe with us or not. If you are noting with us, could you give us a map of the area so we can find the ces we need to go? We''ll meet you there."

    The prime minister once again revealed an even uglier expression when he heard this.

    He had never seen a person as shameless as this, asking for a map of another country''s important resources like this. This was something that would be considered one of the greatest secrets of a country since they would never let another country learn about the resources they possessed that easily.

    So in the end, the prime minister and the ministers had no choice but to get on the back of our wyverns.

    They were so scared that we even had to lift them up and toss them onto the back of the wyverns, though it really wasn''t my tossing them since I wasn''t strong enough for that.

    There was a lot of screaming that came from this while we were tossing them up and it attracted quite a bit of attention.

    There were even some guards that came since they thought that we were kidnapping people, but the prime minister and ministers quickly resolved that.

    Though by the end of it, their faces werepletely red since they had been embarrassed in front of their people like this.

    Seeing this, the fourth prince and I looked at each other with faint smiles.

    This was just one part of our n.

    The second part of our n woulde once we went into the air.

    "Ah!"

    There was even more screaming that rang out when our wyverns suddenly flew into the air.

    The ones that were controlling the wyverns had annoyed looks since their passengers kept moving around. There were even some of them that tried to grab the wyvern riders to stabilize themselves, but they just flopped on their faces since they weren''t used to moving on the back of the wyverns.

    This wasn''t something that anyone could do, let alone a bunch of ministers that spent most of their days in an office.

    So most of them were just disorientating themselves as they struggled on the back of the wyverns.

    I didn''t have to suffer this fate since Joan was special.

    She wasn''t someone that I could let anyone ride, let alone people from other countries that could be hostile. She was the important Wyvern Queen that would maintain the peace between wyverns and humans, so nothing could happen to her.

    Not that they would ever learn of this.

    I could see from the back of Joan just how bad they were getting, which meant that our n was working.

    The fourth prince and I had even secretly told the wyvern riders to go as rough as they could with their passengers.

    After all, we wanted them to be as dizzy as possible when they got off.

 Chapter 702 A poor country (2)

    Chapter 702 A poor country (2)

    ??The first location that we were heading to was a vige outside of the capital city.

    Even though the capital city was the most prosperous location in the kingdom, that didn''t mean that there weren''t viges in the surrounding area.

    This wasn''t like the modern era where there was strict nning over thend used.

    In this world that was in the middle ages, there was only nning when it came to cities and towns since they were important trade centers. Anything outside of cities and towns went however one wanted to do it.

    So there were actually many viges that were outside of the capital.

    Viges were created by people gathering and people gathered based on thend that was avable.

    These viges would generally be built in ces where there was fertile soil so they would be able to farm and feed themselves.

    From time to time, viges would be favoured by nobles and taken under them as territories.

    Or they would be given as territories to nobles for aplishments even if they had nothing to do with the viges.

    That was just how it was sometimes, that was the way of the nobility.

    This was a world that worked on the feudal system after all.

    When we arrived in the vige, the first thing that happened was that there was a panic that came from below.

    The vigers scattered like ants when they saw that there were wyverns heading towards them.

    The men gathered up with makeshift weapons as if they were prepared to fight while the women and children were all evacuated into the forest. From above, we could see that there was a makeshift shelter in that forest that they were hiding in.

    But of course, it wasn''t as if we were here to attack them.

    So wended on the outskirts of the vige.

    Afternding, there was a group that came to meet us, but we didn''t deal with them first.

    What the prime minister and ministers did first was...hug the ground and then spew out their breakfasts. They couldn''t control themselves at all as they puked out all of the food that was in their stomach.

    It really wasn''t a pleasant sight to see, but it could be said that this was our fault.

    So it wasn''t as if we could just abandon them.

    We had to at least help them get over this nausea that they felt even if we were the ones that caused it.

    Once they recovered, the prime minister talked to the chief of this vige.

    The chief was naturally shocked to hear that it was the prime minister himself who came to visit them, but he quickly calmed down and listened to everything that the prime minister had to say.

    When they finished their chat, the vige chief looked over at our group with a strange look.

    There was even a trace of hostility in his eyes, but he quickly hid it since he knew that it would be impossible for him to do anything to this group. After all, this was a group thatmanded a group of wyverns.

    If they wanted, it would be easy for them to burn down their vige.

    The chief couldn''t make a mistake of identally offending them and getting the vige destroyed.

    That would go against his duties as the chief of this vige.

    So the vige chief quickly revealed a smile and came forward to greet us.

    The fourth prince and I had naturally not missed the look of hostility that had been in his eyes, but we ignored it as we followed the vige chief into the vige.

    Though before we did enter the vige, the vige chief asked us, "Um, my lord, what are you nning to do about the wyverns?"

    I just calmly said, "They''ll stay there until it''s time for us to leave. We''ll be taking them back to the capital after all."

    There was a bitter look that appeared on the vige chief''s face when he heard this, but there was nothing that he could say in response to this.

    Over the next hour, we were led to different parts of the vige.

    While we were in the vige, we could see that the women and children that had been evacuated were brought back to the vige. But they made sure to stay out of our way as we toured the vige.

    I could even see that some of the women were scared of even matching our gazes as they walked by.

    It was as if they were afraid to attract any attention to themselves.

    I could already guess why that was the case.

    They were afraid of catching the eyes of a noble since it would mean being torn away from their vige and their family.

    This was a world with the feudal system and one where prima nocta still existed, so thesemoners wouldn''t be able to resist the nobility at all.

    But the way that they looked at us was more than that¡­

    It was as if something like this had already happened before, which was why they were so scared of us.

    It seemed like the nobles of the Beirut Kingdom really weren''t that good in the first ce¡­

    As for the parts of the vige that we were shown, we could see that there were crops that were growing quite well in their fields. It seemed like there would be a good harvest this year for this vige, but¡­

    I also noticed that the vige chief and the men who followed him seemed a bit thin, as if they were a bit malnourished.

    So while the prime minister and the ministers seemed to be pushing these crops onto us, the vige chief and his men seemed to be staying quiet.

    It was almost as if they were praying that we would leave their vige alone.

    At the same time, it was almost as if they had suffered from an incident that was simr to this before.

    That was how expressive the emotions on their faces were.

 Chapter 703 A poor country (3)

    <h4>Chapter 703 A poor country (3)</h4>

    When we were done inspecting the vige, the next ce that we went was one of the copper mines near the capital.

    This time, it was much more restrictive.

    The prime ministers and ministers did all that they could to keep us from going to certain parts of the mine. At the same time, they did what they could to stop us from talking to the people working at the mine.

    It was as if they were doing all that they could to stop the mine from catching our eyes.

    This was most likely because they didn''t want to give up these ores.

    They were happy to give up crops aspensation, but it wasn''t the same for the ores that they obtained from this mine.

    These ores were important for not just creating weapons and armours, it was also what they used for creating the tools and items that they exported. It wasn''t just important for the military, it was also important for the economy.

    But the most important thing was, it was their benefits that would be hurt if the ores were taken.

    The one that benefited from these ores and the sale of the items created from these ores were the nobles of the Beirut Kingdom. They were the ones that pocketed most of the money that came from the sale of these items, so naturally they didn''t want to give up these things.

    It wasn''t a small amount of money that they were siphoning from this.

    At the same time, it could also be said that it was arge amount of money that went to support the Beirut Kingdom.

    So they didn''t want to lose any of this.

    But more importantly, the fourth prince and I noticed that there was something very wrong with this mine.

    It was that the people who worked here were all clearly malnourished and overworked.

    It almost seemed like they would fall over at any moment at this rate with how much it seemed like they were being abused.

    It made it very clear that the working conditions in this mine were not very good, but it seemed that the people working here didn''t have any choice. After all, there was arge number of guards that were standing all around the mine.

    The prime minister and ministers all said that this was to protect their precious mine, but it was clear that this wasn''t the case.

    "It seems like the situation in the Beirut Kingdom isn''t even worse than we thought."

    The fourth prince secretly said this to me and I nodded in agreement to this.

    The other reason that we had requested to see the mines and farms in the Beirut Kingdom was because of the rumours that we had heard.

    Well, it really wasn''t the rumours that I had heard, but rather the rumours that the fourth prince had heard.

    These rumours had given the fourth prince an idea of how to take care of the Beirut Kingdom, which was why we had to inspect these ces first.

    And after inspecting them, I had to say that I was far more disappointed than I thought I would be.

    It was clear that this ce was not a good ce for its citizens to live in.

    Once we had finished inspecting the mines, the prime minister and ministers looked like they had somewhere else that they wanted to take us.

    However¡­

    "We have seen enough. We want to go back and rest for now." I suddenly said this when they asked us where we wanted to go.

    The prime minister and ministers were all surprised to hear this, but they couldn''t help feeling that something was off.

    If it was anywhere else, they might not have been as worried.

    But in this ce where their interests were, they had no choice but to be worried.

    After all, since they wanted to stop after seeing the mine, didn''t it make sense that they had already decided on taking the resources from the mine?

    But they couldn''t let that happen since it would hurt their benefits if the things from the mines were taken.

    So they had to do something to distract them.

    In the end, they had no choice but to give up.

    We were the ones that held all the cards, so the only thing that they could do was try to give suggestions to us. They couldn''t force us to go anywhere that we didn''t want to go, so they just had to ept that we didn''t want to go and bring us back to our residence.

    But along the way, they still tried to make more suggestions.

    So I had the wyvern riders give them the same treatment as before.

    When we arrived back at the residence, the prime minister and ministers were just happy that they could touch the ground.

    We didn''t give them any time to say anything else before quickly heading into the residence.

    With this, they had no choice but to give up on trying to convince us otherwise.

    But the one thing that they could do was report this to the king and try to figure something out.

    So they didn''t bother us anymore and immediately headed to the castle.

    That didn''t mean that we were idle during this.

    The fourth prince and I gathered in one of the rooms of the residence alone.

    That was because everyone else that was with our group was standing guard outside this ce.

    They werepletely focused on making sure that not a single thing could enter or escape from this room. They were making sure that no matter what happened, no one would be able to hear our conversation.

    That was because we had something important to discuss.

    "It seems that this country is much poorer than we had expected." The fourth prince opened up with this.

    I nodded in agreement without saying a thing.

    "Not only that, it seems that those at the top are quite tyrannical."

    It wasn''t just the fourth prince, I also knitted my brows when I heard this.

 Chapter 704 A poor country (4)

    Chapter 704 A poor country (4)

    ??After a long silence, I gave a nod in response and said, "It seems like we don''t have a choice. It seems that we really have to go with your n."

    The fourth prince didn''t seem happy when he heard this.

    With the way that his brows remained knitted, it was almost as if he was disappointed that this was the result.

    After all, the fourth prince''s idea was to incite rebellion in the Beirut Kingdom and then take over their territory.

    But that was supposed to be a long term n.

    If we were to do it now, it would mean having to take in the Beirut Kingdom when it was in this weak state.

    The n was supposed to be long term to give the Beirut Kingdom time to recover before taking it over.

    It was just that we might not have that time.

    The Beirut Kingdom simply put was too corrupt.

    It was a poor country that was filled with corruption at the top, which just fermented more and more hatred in itsmon citizens.

    While the nobles at the top would have the power to suppress the citizens, that was only to a certain extent. Once their corruption reached a certain point, they wouldn''t be able to stop an uprising.

    Especially since their corruption actually weakened their power.

    During the audience with the king, the fourth prince and I had also secretly observed the ministers that were in that throne room to see if any of them had what it took to be a pir of the country.

    If there were any like that, we knew that this country might be able tost a bit longer.

    But everything that we had done had gone the way that we had expected.

    There wasn''t a genius like the fourth prince hidden among the nobles of the Beirut Kingdom.

    It was only a matter of time before they copsed on their own at this rate.

    Which was thest thing that we wanted.

    After all, if they copsed on their own, that would mean that we wouldn''t be able to benefit from their uprising.

    It was only when we controlled the copse of the Beirut Kingdom that we would be able to benefit from it.

    So we had no choice but to get involved much sooner than we wanted to.

    I looked at the fourth prince and asked, "How long do you think it''ll take before they start copsing."

    This was an indirect way of asking..."How long can you stall it?"

    The fourth prince didn''t say anything right away as he just had a look of thought on his face.

    After a while, the fourth prince said with a sigh, "I don''t know, but I can at least guarantee that I can stall it until after your coronation."

    I gave a nod in response, but I still asked, "How long after that can you stall it?"

    The fourth prince just revealed a bitter smile when he heard this before saying, "That I can''t be certain."

    This situation really was the worst case scenario for us since the timing really was bad for us.

    Until we stabilize the situation in our kingdom, it would be bad for us to take over the Beirut Kingdom. This would especially be true for when I seeded the throne and took the position of the new king.

    It was just that it was impossible to stop what was going toe, so we had no choice but to ept this.

    After another silence, the fourth prince said, "While it''s impossible to stop it, I can at least think of ways to make it easier for us. So don''t worry, I''ll think of something to deal with this."

    I gave a nod in response, but there was still a worried look on my face.

    After a pause, I still asked, "Even if we take them over, do you have a way to solve the poverty in this country? If we try to solve it with our own money, it will take a lot of funds for us to do so. I''m sure that this won''t be a small amount that we can pay on our own."

    The fourth prince gave a nod, but he didn''t say anything.

    There was this look of thought that was on his face for a while before he finally said, "I have some ideas, but I need to check a few more things before I can put those ideas into y. I''ll ask that you just leave this matter to me, I''ll take care of it for you."

    Another nod followed in response to this.

    If someone asked me who I trusted the most, the fourth prince would certainly be at the very top of that list.

    If he was telling me to leave this matter to him, then I would certainly do so.

    Especially since I found this matter a pain to deal with in the first ce.

    Instead of continuing this topic, I asked him about something else.

    "What are you nning to do about the coteral for the missed payments? It isn''t as if we can just ignore this, right?"

    The fourth prince nodded in response before saying, "I''ve already considered that, but there really isn''t much that we can take. However, I''ve heard a few interesting rumours about the castle, so I want to take a look at some things before making a decision."

    "Interesting rumours?" I couldn''t help asking.

    The fourth prince gave another nod in response before saying with a smile, "There are quite a few interesting rumours about the castle, but I have no idea if it''s true or not. I''ll have to take a close look to figure this out."

    Then after a pause, the smile on his face became wider as he said, "If it is true, we might even find a treasure that everyone else missed."

    He rubbed his hands together as he said, "I really hope that it is something that they missed."

    Once again, I couldn''t help feeling pity for the people of this Beirut Kingdom.

    Having to deal with the fourth prince was like facing a natural disaster.

 Chapter 705 Without knowledge

    <h4>Chapter 705 Without knowledge</h4>

    The next morning, we went back to the castle.

    It wasn''t to meet with the king, but rather because there was something else there that we wanted to see.

    The prime minister and other ministers were up bright and early to greet us, but they were surprised when they heard where we wanted to go.

    "The royal library? Is that really all you want to do today?"

    The prime minister asked this with a surprised and confused look when he heard this.

    After all, he didn''t think that the library was that valuable that it would need inspection, but he also didn''t dare neglect us. So the prime minister and the ministers all quickly led us to the royal library.

    Once we were there, the fourth prince just ignored them as he started going through the books that were here.

    Seeing this, there was a bit of understanding that appeared in the eyes of the prime minister and the other ministers.

    It seemed that this group from the Kite Kingdom was just here to read books at the request of this Count Navar. It seemed that they weren''t really interested in anything else other than the books.

    But they also recognized that this was an opportunity for them.

    This royal library was a restricted ce, but that was only for normal people.

    For nobles like them, it was easy to gain ess.

    That also included their daughters.

    During this time, they had been trying to figure out a way to introduce their daughters to this group from the Kite Kingdom so they could earn some benefits from sending their daughters to them. However, it seemed like nothing would work since they never stayed still and always rejected visits from others.

    This wasn''t the case now.

    If they were going to read books in the library, they would be in that ce for a while.

    If they knew where they would be, then it was their chance to send their daughters to try and honey trap them.

    Of course, that was all because they thought that everything in the royal library was useless. They didn''t think any of the books that were there had any value since they were just there to collect dust.

    With that, the prime minister and ministers quickly excused themselves, even though they left guards to watch over us.

    The excuse was that the guards were there to protect us, but really they were there to monitor us. They wanted to make sure that we didn''t go anywhere and if we did, they would know exactly where we would be because they had assigned guards to us.

    It was so that they could put their n in action.

    Not long after, there were some girls that wandered into the library.

    They acted like they were just there to see the books, but it was clear by the way that they dressed up that they weren''t here just for this. After all, no one would wear a dress and heels just to go read a book.

    They made sure to show off in front of us, as if they were trying to attract our attention, but we just ignored them as we continued reading our books.

    It seemed that they were trying to seduce the fourth prince more than me.

    After all, the fourth prince, or rather Count Navar, was someone that I had shown respect to during this time. This wasn''t something that the prime minister and ministers hadn''t missed.

    They knew that this Count Navar had a special position for me to treat him this way.

    Or at least that was what I wanted them to think.

    I knew that the fourth prince didn''t actually want any of this, so being surrounded by girls like this was a form of torture for him.

    That was my way of getting a bit of revenge for how he had forced his way intoing with me.

    But since all of the girls were ignored, there was nothing that they could do except sit nearby with books in front of them, as if they were pretending to read. However, it was easy to see that they were looking in this direction the entire time.

    The fourth prince and I just ignored them as we had our own little conversation.

    "So, how is it?" I asked all of a sudden.

    The fourth prince gave a sigh before saying, "As expected, it is as bad as you think."

    "Is that so?" I raised a brow when saying this.

    The fourth prince gave a slight nod before pointing at the book in front of him, as if he was pointing out a part in the book. But he said, "Just take this book as an example. It was covered in dust when I picked it up, showing that they never even bothered reading it or taking care of it. However, as soon as one reads this book, they will understand just how much knowledge is in this book."

    I leaned in to take a look at the page that the fourth prince was on and couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    It wasn''t that I could see what he was referring to, it was that I couldn''t understand what was written on it. There was this strangenguage on the page that I just couldn''t understand at all.

    It was no mystery why they didn''t care about this book, but I was surprised that the fourth prince was able to read this without a problem.

    It seemed that he was even more high spec than I thought he was.

    The fourth prince just ignored the way that I looked at him and continued by saying, "It''s no wonder this kingdom is like this. There''s no knowledge for them to survive on at all. They are just doing the bare minimum to keeping their kingdom from falling apart, it just takes a single poke for it all to break."

    I revealed a faint smile before saying, "Then you''ve made up your mind?"

    The fourth prince gave a nod before saying, "Right, I know what we''ll take."

 Chapter 706 Are you sure?

    Chapter 706 Are you sure?

    ??The next morning, we went back for another audience with the king.

    Once again, all of the ministers gathered and they all had worried looks on their faces.

    This was ourst day in this Beirut Kingdom after all, so it would be the day that we decided what we would be taking from them. This was what they had been afraid of the entire time.

    So naturally all of the ministers gathered so that they could say something if it came to it.

    When we stepped into the throne room, we immediately became the center of attention.

    The way that everyone looked at us like this would have been enough to put pressure on normal people, but for us...it was nothing. We were already used to it since this was how we had spent our time during our stay in this Beirut Kingdom.

    No matter where we went, we had been the center of attention.

    So we were already used to it.

    We came up in front of everyone and just like before, I greeted the king of the Beirut Kingdom with a slight bow.

    It was still as disrespectful as before, but no one seemed to care this time.

    All of them had worried looks on their faces instead, as if they were afraid of what we were going to say.

    After receiving our greetings, the king said, "Duke Zwein, I hope that you have enjoyed your visit to our Beirut Kingdom. I''m sure that you must have seen many interesting things during your time in our Beirut Kingdom. May I ask if there was anything in particr that caught your attention?"

    Though this was a roundabout and indirect way of doing this, what he was basically asking was...

    "What do you want from us?"

    As soon as he said this, all of the ministers once again looked at us with expectant looks.

    I didn''t say anything at first as I just looked at the king with a calm look on my face.

    But after a while, I said, "I have indeed seen many interesting things in your country, but there wasn''t much that actually caught my eyes."

    The king and the ministers all revealed ugly expressions when they heard this.

    It wasn''t as if they hadn''t considered this possibility before as well, but to actually hear it was something different.

    There was still the possibility that he didn''t want anything at all.

    If that was the case, wouldn''t he insist on being paid the amount of reparations that they were owed?

    That was not something that they could do because...they just didn''t have that much money.

    Well, it wasn''t that they didn''t have that much money, it was that the country didn''t have that much money. The kingdom''s finances had taken arge hit after the war, so there wasn''t much that was avable to be used to pay these reparations.

    Yes, it was the kingdom''s finances that were drained.

    It wasn''t the actual amount of money that was in the kingdom that was drained.

    The personal wealth of the nobles still remained.

    Even the royal family had a personal wealth that was even greater than the finances of the country.

    But there wasn''t a single moment where they thought about using that wealth of theirs for the country. There wasn''t a single moment that it registered in their minds that they could use their personal wealth to pay the reparations.

    That was just how greedy they were.

    The king gave a cough to calm himself down before saying, "Then Duke Zwein, are you saying that¡­"

    He didn''t finish his sentence, but the meaning of his words being left hanging were clear.

    When I heard this, I looked at him with a smile and said, "That is what I was thinking, but there was something that did catch my attention in the end."

    The king and all of the ministers held their breaths when they heard this.

    Whether this was a good thing or not was still to be seen, but at least this saved them from their worst case scenario.

    Seeing them like this, I couldn''t help giving a sigh deep down.

    These people, there really was no helping them.

    Taking a deep breath to adjust myself, I said, "Yes, what has caught my eye is your library. I want to take the books in there as coteral for the payment."

    "Eh?" There was a look ofplete shock on the face of the king when he heard this.

    It wasn''t just him, it was also the ministers that were shocked when they heard this.

    They looked at each other with confused looks before looking at me again as if they couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    After a long silence, the king asked, "Are you sure about that?"

    I just gave a simple nod before saying, "Please make sure to deliver those books to our kingdom within two weeks and we''ll take off two months of war reparations for you."

    The king and the ministers were even more shocked since they didn''t believe that the books in the library held such value. But they didn''t say anything since this was the best deal for them.

    If there really was anything that was important in the library, they could just remove it during the transporting process. After all, it was impossible for the other side to memorize everything that was in the library.

    Or at least that was what they thought until I took out a sheet of paper.

    "This is theplete list of books that we expect to receive."

    I raised it up in front of me as if waiting for someone to take it.

    One of the ministers came forward to take it before bringing it over to the king.

    The king looked at it with a confused look before looking up at me and giving a nod since he didn''t understand what was so important about these books.

    In the end, they didn''t have the foresight to understand, so they gave up their precious knowledge.

 Chapter 707 The clash of titans

    <h4>Chapter 707 The sh of titans</h4>

    Once we had finished with the Beirut Kingdom, it was time to move to the next kingdom.

    However, this was not one that was as easy to deal with as the Beirut Kingdom.

    Unlike the Beirut Kingdom that was a den of corruption because of those that sat at the top, this next kingdom had someone who was holding it together. This one person had the same status as the fourth prince in our kingdom.

    We were heading to the Midra Kingdom.

    I was surprised by the one that greeted us since I never expected this person toe personally.

    It was the second prince who led the delegation that weed us.

    Though, he didn''t really lead it in a way that one would expect.

    The official leader was the prime minister of the Midra Kingdom, but the way that everyone acted made it clear that the second prince was the one that was actually in charge.

    As expected of a hidden mastermind kind of character.

    The prime minister of the Midra Kingdom introduced us to everyone that was in their party, but when it came to the second prince¡­

    It almost seemed like he didn''t intend to draw any attention to himself.

    So the fourth prince was the one that went forward to greet him as a member of our party that was just as insignificant as the second prince was in his party.

    This might seem like an inconsequential meeting, but it wasn''t the case for me.

    For me, it seemed like a meeting of the titans since these two were famous mastermind characters in the game. I was very curious just how the two of them would act towards each other.

    And¡­it was surprisingly simple.

    It didn''t seem like either of them were saying anything special, it almost seemed like they were just chatting with each other.

    It was far from the sh that I thought would happen between the two of them.

    When the meet and greet was over, we were brought to the castle by the prime minister.

    I found that the second prince had actually disappeared from the area, whether it was to take care of his own matters or if it was because he was nning on heading to the castle first.

    The fourth prince came back to me during this time and said, "He certainly didn''t disappoint."

    I was surprised at first when I heard this, but I quickly started asking him what he meant by this.

    The fourth prince didn''t really give an answer when I asked him this.

    Instead, he just seemed to look off into the distance as he said, "That man is hiding more secrets than anything thinks. He has something that he wants to do, something that is very interesting."

    I raised a brow to look at the fourth prince as if I was asking him what that was, but the fourth prince chose not to borate.

    Instead, he just had an amused look on his face as if he had found something funny.

    I really didn''t understand what he was thinking, but there wasn''t anything that I could do about it if he wasn''t going to say anything.

    When we arrived at the castle, it was the same as before.

    We were led to the throne room where the king and the ministers were all waiting for us.

    They wanted the same thing as before, but this time, we didn''t have any way of rejecting since we didn''t have anything on the Midra Kingdom.

    Unlike the Beirut Kingdom, they weren''t behind on their reparation payments, so there wasn''t anything that we could do to keep them at bay.

    They did the same thing as the Beirut Kingdom where the princess came forward to greet us. Then the king of the Midra Kingdom had wanted the princess to guide us around during our stay in their kingdom.

    Since we didn''t have a way to reject them, it seemed like we would be stuck with this.

    Or at least that was what it seemed until the second prince suddenly stepped forward.

    We didn''t notice him until now since he had been hiding in the crowd, but when he stepped out, he suddenly became the center of attention.

    With the way that everyone looked at him, there was no mistaking the second prince''s fame in this Midra Kingdom.

    In fact, it almost seemed like he was someone who was even more popr than the current king. It was to the point where even the king looked a bit ufortable being overshadowed by his son like this.

    But the king had been on the throne for a long time, it would take a lot to really shake him.

    The king took the initiative by asking, "Do you have some other ideas?"

    The second prince nodded before saying, "Your majesty, if you would allow it, I wish to personally show the guests from the Kite Kingdom around."

    Everyone was shocked when they heard this.

    This further cemented just what kind of position the second prince had in the Midra Kingdom.

    After staring at his son for a bit, the king suddenly said, "Are you sure about this? I''m sure that you''re still busy with your work."

    The second prince said with a casual smile, "Your majesty, please don''t worry. I''ll take care of all my work and still have time to show the guests around."

    The king had an awkward look on his face when he heard this, but he eventually nodded in agreement even though it didn''t seem like he was willing.

    Once he received permission, the second prince didn''t mind anyone else who was here as he turned to look at me to say, "Shall we?"

    I was certainly surprised to see the second prince doing all of this, but I gave a nod before following him.

    Following close behind me was the fourth prince.

    Our group was led by the second prince until we reached a private room in this castle.

 Chapter 708 A surprising proposal

    Chapter 708 A surprising proposal

    ??When we were in the room, it was only the fourth prince, me, and the second prince sitting there.

    The rest were all standing outside keeping guard, but that was quite awkward since it wasn''t just our guards that were standing there. There were also the second prince''s guards that were standing outside this room.

    They just stood on opposite sides and stared at each other awkwardly, but neither side let down their guards as they stared at each other.

    Inside the room, that was the least of our concern as we were focused on the second prince.

    Though he was the one that had led us here, he didn''t say a single word as he sat there across from us.

    All three of us just stared at each other as if we were waiting for someone to talk.

    Finally, the second prince broke the silence by saying with a smile, "I''ve long heard of your fame, but it really is an honour to meet you both. Duke Zwein and the famous fourth prince of the Kite Kingdom."

    Both of us immediately knitted our brows when we heard this, but we can''t say that we were surprised.

    The fame of the second prince was just so great that it wasn''t surprising that he would be able to see through the disguise of the fourth prince.

    It was just surprising that he would reveal this fact to us.

    After all, it would make more sense to hide the fact that he knew this so he could use this information to his advantage. The fourth prince being here and away from our kingdom was a serious matter, so he could have used this to do many things.

    But the fact that he was willing to expose this meant that he saw more potential from exposing this than keeping it secret.

    It really made us wonder just what he was nning...

    However, since he was willing to expose this, then we should at least show the same kind of courtesy.

    The fourth prince removed his disguise and revealed his true appearance before saying, "I''ve long heard of the fame of the second prince as well. It seems that the rumours weren''t even close to describing the second prince properly."

    The second prince revealed a smile as he said, "Rumours are just rumours in the end. I hope that we can forget about all those rumours and just talk properly."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before narrowing his eyes to say, "What do you want?"

    The second prince was surprised to hear this since he never thought that the fourth prince would be this direct.

    However, the fourth prince knew that the only way to catch him off guard and bring the tempo back on their side was to be direct. Only by being direct would he be able to shift the momentum in his favour like this.

    The second prince just looked at the fourth prince with a confused look for a bit before suddenly breaking out inughter and saying, "It seems that the rumours do not do justice to the fourth prince either."

    The fourth prince didn''tugh along as he just narrowed his eyes to look at the second prince.

    It was clear by the suspicion in his eyes that he didn''t trust the second prince, but the second prince didn''t seem to care.

    Seeing that he wouldn''t say anything else, the second prince continued by saying, "It''s very simple, I have a request that I want to make of you. It''s one that might be a bit hard to ept, but I hope that you will consider it."

    Both the fourth prince and I knitted our brows when we heard this, but we didn''t reject him right away.

    For the second prince to do all of this, it was clear that the request that he had wasn''t a normal request.

    If that was the case, it actually made us curious about what his request would be.

    The second prince saw this and continued saying with a smile, "It''s actually a very simple request, I just want to join your country and work for you."

    We knitted our brows even deeper when we heard this as the fourth prince and I looked at each other. We could see the confused looks in each other''s eyes, showing that neither of us understood what he was saying

    But that wasn''t strange when the second prince had made such a crazy request.

    A prince of a country was actually asking to be a subordinate.

    Let alone a prince that had the level of fame and power as the second prince of the Midra Kingdom.

    There didn''t seem to be a benefit to him switching sides like this.

    The second prince could guess what we were thinking based on the looks on our faces, but he didn''t panic as he calmly said with a smile, "I know that it must be hard to believe that I would do something like this, but¡­" The smile disappeared from his face and a serious look reced it as he said, "There is no future in this country. I am not delusional enough that I can''t see something like that. While I might be able to do something for our people if I took the throne, it''s clear that this isn''t the best course of action anymore."

    After saying this, he narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "You''ve done things that I''ve never been able to imagine. These things almost seem like magic, but I know that it''s not that. You seem to possess knowledge that no one seems to have."

    A bitterugh rang out in my mind when I heard this, but I kept the expression on my face calm.

    The second prince just calmly said with a smile, "I know that it''s hard to believe me right now, but I hope that my actions over the next few days will convince you of my sincerity."

 Chapter 709 The second princeâ€™s sincerity (1)

    Chapter 709 The second prince¡¯s sincerity (1)

    ??The next morning, it was the second prince who came to visit us at the residence that we were staying at.

    He had arrived bright and early to show us around, waiting for us even when we weren''t ready yet.

    It seemed like he was raring to go, which was very surprising.

    With the fame that the second prince had, he was certainly a very busy person.

    So it was strange that he was able toe this early in the morning.

    But what was stranger was where the second prince wanted to take us.

    He didn''t want to take us to see the capital or bring us to meet with the daughters of the ministers, he wanted to take us out of the capital to one of the surrounding viges.

    It was simr to what we had done when we went to the Beirut Kingdom.

    Though in the case of the Beirut Kingdom, it was something that we had forced onto them. In this Midra Kingdom, they were willingly showing this to us.

    The fourth prince and I both had to double check with the ministers that hade with the second prince. We had thought that they would stop us from going to the viges around the capital, but they seemed like they agreed with the second prince.

    It just didn''t make sense since they shouldn''t want us to see something like this.

    When we were heading out, we made the same request as before to take the wyverns, but I found that the second prince agreed without any hesitation.

    The look on his face even seemed like he was excited about riding on the wyverns.

    Though the same couldn''t be said about the ones that were behind him.

    When we came to the wyverns, the ministers all had looks of terror on their faces.

    It was clear that they didn''t want to do this¡­

    But since the second prince had already agreed to it, they had no choice but to ride the wyverns.

    The second prince actually went on the wyvern of the fourth prince.

    It was the same young wyvern from before, but it had grown a bit so it was able to carry someone other than the fourth prince now. Though I had to admit that I might have had a hand in its growth.

    I might have rmended a few things that the fourth prince could feed to his wyvern that would make it stronger.

    It wouldn''t be stronger than Joan, but there was no doubt that it would be stronger after eating these things.

    So other than Joan, it could be considered the strongest wyvern.

    But even then, the second prince didn''t seem to mind at all as he sat on this roller coaster of a wyvern. It was like he was being thrown around at high speeds when riding on the back of the fourth prince''s wyvern.

    He just acted like he was on an actual roller coaster and enjoying the ride.

    It was hard to tell if he really was enjoying it or not, but I had to admire the courage that the second prince had.

    It was a very striking contrast between the second prince and the ministers that came with him

    The second prince was just like the fourth prince when he was on his first wyvern ride, even going as far as stretching his hand out to enjoy the wind better.

    The ministers on the other hand were all holding onto the wyvern for their dear lives. It was as if they were afraid that if they let go for a single second, they would be thrown off the back of the wyverns.

    It really was something seeing the difference between them.

    At the same time, it made one admire the second prince more.

    Well, it would be a lie to say that one didn''t fear the second prince a bit when they saw him like this. It made one wonder just what was going through his mind.

    When we arrived at the vige, it was the same reaction asst time.

    But this time, it was easier for us to convince them that we were friendly.

    That was the fame of the second prince.

    Even themoners recognized the second prince and respected him, so they immediately put down their weapons when they saw the second prince jumping off the wyvern.

    It made it very clear just what kind of position the second prince had in this country.

    It wasn''t an exaggeration to say that the second prince might even be more important than the country''s king.

    The ministers on the other hand¡­

    They were actually treated with less respect than in the Beirut Kingdom.

    It was as if themoners of the Midra Kingdom recognized that the ministers of the Midra Kingdom were useless and they weren''t afraid of treating them this way.

    If I had to guess, I would have guessed that this was rted to the second prince insome way.

    It was only the second prince that could create this kind of phenomenon.

    Once the second prince had finished calming down the vigers, he introduced us to the vige chief, "Vige chief, these are our friends from abroad who havee to see the sights of our kingdom. I wanted to show them your fields, if that is alright."

    The vige chief quickly nodded before saying, "Of course, of course. It is an honour for the second prince toe all the way to see our fields."

    Though he said this, it was clear by the way that the vige chief and the vigers had some hostility towards us.

    The second prince didn''t say it out loud, but the fact that we had wyverns made it very clear that there was only one kingdom that we could havee from.

    This was the kingdom that had caused them quite a bit of pain and suffering during this time.

    But out of respect for the second prince, they didn''t do anything.

    As we headed to the fields, the fourth prince and I were even more confused about what the second prince was doing.

 Chapter 710 The second princeâ€™s sincerity (2)

    <h4>Chapter 710 The second prince¡¯s sincerity (2)</h4>

    By all right, showing us this was showing us how strong their country was.

    This should be a secret that was closely guarded by them and the second prince should know this, but he was actually bringing us to tour the farms.

    It was almost as if he was inviting us to see the state of his country.

    Just how would that help him?

    But of course, we wouldn''t turn this opportunity down.

    In the first ce, the Midra Kingdom was still a hostile kingdom to our kingdom, even if we were trying to build rtions with them. In the end, we would have to take care of the Midra Kingdom eventually since they wouldn''t give up on trying to take down our kingdom.

    So we would naturally try to find as much information as we can about the Midra Kingdom.

    What we found was...

    The Midra Kingdom''s crops were growing well.

    Unlike the Beirut Kingdom that had poornd and poor farming techniques, the Midra Kingdom''snd was well managed and properly equipped. The crops were growing abundantly in the Midra Kingdom, unlike in the Beirut Kingdom.

    We could see that they even had enough crops to sustain feeding livestock, something that wasn''t present in the Beirut Kingdom.

    It was clear that the Midra Kingdom was much better off than the Beirut Kingdom.

    However, that was a bit strange since the Midra Kingdom''snd shouldn''t be that much better. Thend that they owned was in the same climate region and had the same fertility as thend in the Beirut Kingdom.

    So even if they were in two different kingdoms, the nts should have grown at around the same pace. Of course, that was considering the difference in technique as well.

    When asked about this, the vige chief proudly said, "Because of our second prince, we put in farming reformations a few years back. Since then, our crops have been growing unlike anything that we''ve seen before. In just a few years, we have grown more than enough food to feed ourselves and we''ve been able to sell the excess for plenty of money."

    "Farming reformations?" I couldn''t help asking about this, "What kind of farming reformations?"

    This time, the vige chief wasn''t as willing to talk.

    But it turned out that the second prince wasn''t the same.

    When the second prince spoke, not only the vige chief, but also the ministers were shocked. But that shock kept increasing as they heard what he said.

    "It''s not enough to praise. It''s just a shell that I found that when crushed up creates a powder that helps the growth of nts."

    A shell?

    The fourth prince was surprised, but I wasn''t as surprised since I knew a little about this.

    Calcium, it was what was in the powder of the crushed shell that helped raise the quality of the soil. The higher quality the soil, naturally the better the nts grew.

    This was something that normal people wouldn''t have been able to discover since most people wouldn''t crush shells in the first ce. So for the second prince to discover this, he or the people that worked for him had quite the curious minds.

    But I also knew that it was impossible for crushed shells alone to have this kind of effect.

    They had to also have some kind of fertilizer that helped the nts grow.

    This had to be fertilizer that was better than the manure that was already used in this era.

    I didn''t know what kind of fertilizer the second prince had found, but it was certain that he had found some kind of fertilizer.

    This was a man that had all kinds of innovation and had all the tools to make his country prosperous. It didn''t seem like there was a need for him to want to do something like work for us¡­

    As long as he waited long enough, it would only be a matter of time before he took the throne and he would be able to do what he wanted with his country.

    When that happened, this Midra Kingdom might actually be a country that would far surpass the surrounding countries.

    So I was more and more confused by what the second prince was doing.

    The fourth prince seemed like he wanted to ask a few more questions, but I grabbed his shoulder and stopped him.

    When the fourth prince looked at me, I just gave him a look that seemed to be telling him to stop.

    I had already gotten enough information from this and I knew that pushing further would only harm us. So I didn''t want him to keep pushing or else it would arouse suspicion.

    The second prince revealed a faint smile when he heard this before saying to the vige chief, "How about showing them the fruit orchard that we have growing?"

    The vige chief quickly nodded before leading the way with a proud look on his face.

    Not only did they grow their normal nts, they had even started a fruit orchard.

    It had to be known that a fruit orchard waspletely different from just farming normal crops. A fruit orchard was not something that could be created that easily since it took arge amount of time before it could yield fruits.

    Yet the fruit orchard in this vige was already filled with trees that were fruiting, showing that it had been here for a while.

    This was a clear sign of just how prosperous this vige, no this entire country was.

    This was not a small deal, this was a very big deal.

    The ministers revealed proud smiles as well when they saw this.

    The reason that they had even agreed to this was because they had been told by the second prince that this was a good chance to show off the might of their kingdom with their resources.

    Seeing the look on my face, they knew that I had realized just how prosperous they were, which meant that they had achieved their goals.

    The second prince didn''t waste any time after that as he finished the tour and led us to another ce.

 Chapter 711 The second princeâ€™s sincerity (3)

    <h4>Chapter 711 The second prince¡¯s sincerity (3)</h4>

    The next destination that we headed to was¡­a quarry.

    This wasn''t just any quarry, it turned out to be a quarry that was filled with a special material.

    Limestone.

    This was a limestone quarry.

    As soon as I saw this, there were things that were suddenly made clear to me.

    When we were in the vige, there was something else that I had noted.

    The buildings that were in the vige weren''t just the normal stone and wood buildings that could be seen everywhere else. The buildings in that vige were like stone buildings, but the material seemed different.

    The fourth prince didn''t really pay attention to this since he didn''t know what this material was in the first ce.

    However, it was different for me who hade from a more modern world.

    The moment that I saw it, I recognized it.

    It was concrete that was used to make these houses.

    Though I had no idea what that concrete was made from until I saw this mine.

    While I didn''t really know how they did it, I did know that limestone was used for concrete back in ancient times. So this was the only thing that the limestone from this quarry could be used for.

    No, it wasn''t the only thing that this limestone could be used for.

    There was actually another use for it that also exined another thing that had puzzled me.

    Fertilizer.

    Limestone could also be used for fertilizer.

    This was something that was done in the middle ages in my old world, so it fit the time period, but it was strange that the second prince was able to discover these two uses for the limestone in such a short period of time.

    This was something that took mankind a long time to discover in my previous world, yet the second prince was able to discover all of this in such a short period of time.

    I couldn''t help finding this suspicious no matter how I looked at it.

    Was the second prince just a genius or was there something else at y here?

    There was a part of me that didn''t want to think that this was true, but there was also a part of me that felt that this was the most logical exnation at the same time. After all, it would exin everything that was happening with the second prince¡­

    The fourth prince looked at me as if he was hoping that I would know something about this, but I just shook my head to show that I didn''t know a thing.

    The fourth prince raised a brow when he saw this, as if he was doubting me, but he didn''t say anything in the end.

    The second prince just led us around for a bit longer before bringing us to the office of this quarry.

    The ministers had wanted to join, but they were actually sent out by the second prince.

    They didn''t even bother arguing about it as they just listened to what the second prince said, once again showing just how much power he had in this kingdom.

    After sitting down, the second prince looked at us with a smile and said, "Do you see my sincerity now?"

    Both the fourth prince and I were taken aback when we heard this.

    After all, we never expected him to suddenly say something like this.

    Sincerity¡­was this sincerity?

    It seemed like he was just trying to show off how much power their Midra Kingdom had instead of showing us anything that would show his sincerity.

    But thinking about it another way, it was a way of him showing his sincerity since this was showing us just what kind of things that Midra Kingdom was relying on.

    If one thought about it as information on the Midra Kingdom, this was information that we shouldn''t have been able to get without paying arge price.

    Of course, the key parts of the information, such as how these things were used and made were missing. However, this was certainly considered a show of sincerity based on the information that was given.

    The second prince just sat there with a smile on his face, waiting for us to say something.

    The fourth prince didn''t say anything as he looked at me, as if he was leaving this decision up to me.

    I just looked at the second prince for a bit before saying, "Why? You still haven''t answered why you want to do this."

    The second prince was a bit surprised to hear this before saying, "I''ve already told you, the Midra Kingdom is doomed to fail with these people in charge. It''s only a matter of time before¡­"

    "No, that''s not what I meant." I suddenly cut him off.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before saying, "You and I both know what I''m really asking, so I''ll ask one more time. Why?"

    It was one simple word, but it made the second prince deeply knit his brows.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at me before taking a deep breath and saying, "If I answer this, will you give me an answer?"

    Both the fourth prince and I were once again surprised to hear this, but after looking at the second prince for a bit to gauge him, I gave a nod.

    I didn''t know why, but it felt like this was just the right thing to do.

    Both the fourth prince and I had stunned looks on our faces when we heard the second prince''s real reason. The two of us just kept staring at him in shock for a bit, as if we were trying to figure out if he was being serious or not.

    But in the end, I said with a nod, "Alright, I can ept your exnation. I just want to know, just what do you want us to do?"

    The second prince revealed a smile before saying, "It''s very simple, I just need you to¡­"

 Chapter 712 A surprising gift

    Chapter 712 A surprising gift

    ??The next morning, we went back to meet the king of the Midra Kingdom once more.

    We were brought to the castle and brought to the throne room once more where the ministers and the king were all waiting for us.

    It seemed that they had already gathered beforehand and I could guess what they had been discussing.

    What else could they have been discussing?

    There was no doubt that they had been discussing us while we weren''t there.

    I''m sure that they were most likely talking about what we wanted from this meeting.

    I could see that the second prince wasn''t here, so it seemed that they had held this meeting without the second prince.

    Even if the second prince had his level of prestige in this Midra Kingdom, it didn''t mean that everyone was happy about this. The one that should be the least happy was the king...

    Even though the second prince was his son, he was also a threat to his rule.

    The second prince was so outstanding and the king...

    Well, he wasn''t exactly the best king there was. He wasn''t even considered a good king.

    It was already considered good that nothing really bad happened during his reign.

    The people didn''t have any expectations until the second prince suddenly showed his prowess.

    Now, people were just waiting for the second prince to take over, but this wasn''t something that the king wanted to do. After all, the king had only been on the throne for a decade since taking over for his father.

    Compared to his father''s long forty years of reigning, that was still very short.

    So the king was wary of the second prince, even if he used the second prince to make himself look better.

    Not long after we arrived, I saw the second prince alsoing in.

    Only then did I start getting to the main issue.

    Without the second prince, none of this could happen.

    "Your majesty, I must say that I am very impressed with what I''ve seen. There are many things here that I have never seen in our own kingdom that have caught my eyes." I said all of sudden, catching the king and the ministers off guard.

    All of them looked at me as if they were trying to figure out just what I was nning, but I looked back at them with a calm smile on my face that didn''t reveal a single thing.

    Finally, the king said, "Duke Zwein, it is our honour to catch your noble eyes. However, is there anything else that you want to say?"

    With a nod, I said, "I wish to open up trade between our kingdom for a few of your resources."

    The king slowly gave a nod before asking, "Which resources?"

    It wasn''t as if he was against this, but of course he had to think about his own safety.

    That was right, his own safety.

    His first thought wasn''t the safety of his country, but rather his own safety since that was the most important thing to him.

    That was the kind of king that this was.

    I looked around at the ministers and saw that many of them had simr looks.

    Even though the second prince had been doing what he could to make this country prosperous, there were these people who only cared about their own interests who were harming the country.

    It was no wonder that he said that it was only a matter of time before this Midra Kingdom copsed.

    It most likely wouldn''t remain until he was able to take the throne.

    After looking around, I just simply said, "The limestone, I''m interested in that."

    The king slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but he didn''t reject this as he said, "Oh, Duke Zwein, I never thought that you would be interested in something so mundane. I was certain that it would be something more extravagant."

    With a smile, I calmly said, "We all have our own tastes, mine is just a bit different from yours."

    The king narrowed his eyes for a few seconds as he looked at me, but then he said, "Alright, it''s not as if this can''t be done. It''s just that before doing this, we need to figure out what the price of the limestone will be."

    I was already expecting this, as well as what came after.

    There was a trace of greed that appeared in the king''s eyes before he said, "I was thinking that since this is a precious resource, we should make sure that we get the right price. I was thinking¡­how about its weight in gold?"

    I slightly knitted my brows hearing this since I never thought that he would be so shameless as to ask something like this.

    He was basically saying that he wanted to trade the limestone pound for pound for gold.

    Was this worth that much?

    Never.

    Yet he had the audacity to say something like this.

    I didn''t let myself be bothered by this as I just said with a smile, "You jest, your majesty."

    Then in a more serious voice, I said, "How about ten gold coins per tonne?"

    This was already a very generous offer since it was already double the current market price, but¡­

    It still wasn''t enough for this greedy king and his greedy ministers.

    "I''m sure that you can do better than that, Duke Zwein. This is a precious resource that is hard to find and hard for us to mine, so I''m sure that you can offer a bit more." The king said with a greedy smile.

    I just gave a sigh deep down as I felt that there really was no helping this fool of a king.

    But the real goal of this proposal wasn''t actually to buy the limestone.

    The limestone was nothing more than bait to make sure that they agreed to this.

    Without answering him, I said, "Your majesty, I wish to present a gift to your Midra Kingdom."

    The king and his ministers were all caught off guard when they heard this, but they waited to hear what we had to say.

    "Wyverns, I wish to give you some wyverns."

 Chapter 713 Another condition

    <h4>Chapter 713 Another condition</h4>

    The king and the ministers just looked at me as if they couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    They even had to look at me several times as if they were making sure that they had heard the right thing.

    But in the end, there was no denying what they had just heard.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "Duke Zwein, I think that I misheard something just now. Could you please repeat what you just said?"

    It seemed that even though they had taken all this time, they didn''t believe what I said that easily.

    But this couldn''t be med on them since this was something that was just too hard to believe.

    Wyverns were a precious resource no matter how one looked at it.

    After all these were what had ended the war with their might.

    Any nation that had wyverns would surely be able to protect themselves from any future invasion.

    In a time where they were weak, there was no doubt that the wyverns would protect the Midra Kingdom should anything happen.

    So wyverns really were a hard thing to pass up.

    But there were no free meals in this world and the king of the Midra Kingdom recognized that.

    He knew that to be offered wyverns, there had to be a catch which was what he was trying to figure out now with this confirmation of his. He had shown his interest, it was all about what the other side would do now.

    I just said with a calm smile, "I said that I wish you gift some wyverns to you."

    The king slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but he didn''t allow himself to be disturbed as he said, "This kind of gift is a bit too much, isn''t it? I think that it''ll be hard for our kingdom to reciprocate this gift."

    "A gift is a gift, is there a need to reciprocate?" I asked with a faint smile on my face, but the king didn''t see this smile as a friendly smile.

    The king actually saw this as an almost taunting smile¡­

    So the king just narrowed his eyes to look at me for a bit before saying, "Let''s not beat around the bush. I''m sure that there are conditions for this."

    I raised a brow after hearing the king say this since I had to admit that I didn''t expect the king to suddenly be so blunt.

    My impression of the king was bad in the first ce, so seeing him act like this was strange since I didn''t think that he was capable of doing something like this.

    But since he was being blunt, there was no need to y around and tease him anymore.

    "One gold coin per tonne of limestone, I''m sure that''s a deal that we can strike, right?" I calmly said in response to this.

    This was ten times less than what I had offered in the first ce, but whenparing it to the wyverns¡­it should be that the wyverns would win out. Though the king couldn''t help feeling suspicious about the reason why I wanted this limestone in the first ce.

    After considering it, the greedy side of the king still came out as he said, "Two gold coins per tonne, that is as low as I''m willing to go."

    But I shook my head and said, "One."

    The king knitted his brows deeply when he heard this since he didn''t expect me to be this adamant about this. But instead of refusing this offer, he just asked, "Then how many wyverns are you nning on giving us?"

    "Ten." I said in a calm voice.

    The king and the ministers were once again shocked when they heard this.

    After all, they didn''t expect me to give them this many wyverns.

    At best, they had only expected one or two. So suddenly receiving ten like this hadpletely surpassed their expectations.

    They also couldn''t help feeling a bit suspicious since I was so generous with the wyverns.

    The king once again looked back at me with narrowed eyes before saying, "What else do you want?"

    I said with a smile, "I want a few books from your library."

    One of the king''s brows raised before he asked, "Just that?"

    I said with a simple nod, "Just that."

    The king continued to look at me with a brow raised before asking, "Is it really worth it?"

    I said with a cryptic smile, "To me it is."

    The king deeply knitted his brows, but it was clear that he was enticed by this.

    He clearly wanted these wyverns, even if he did know the value of some of the books and the limestone.

    But in the end, the king said, "Alright, we can agree to this."

    I gave a nod, but I also said, "I have another condition that I want to add."

    The king slightly knitted his brows, but he didn''t say anything as if he was waiting for me to speak.

    With a calm look, I turned to the second prince and said, "I want the wyverns to be ced under the second prince."

    The ministers and the king all revealed displeased looks when they heard this.

    After all, they had all wanted the wyverns for themselves. Even if they couldn''t get all the wyverns, they still had wanted a few of them for themselves.

    So this wasn''t something that they could ept that easily.

    The king immediately asked, "Why did you suddenly add this condition?"

    I calmly said, "Well, I''ve had the chance to talk with the second prince and it seems he''s much more moderate than your majesty. After all, your majesty did just start a war with our kingdom not that long ago."

    All of the nobles looked away with awkward looks when they heard this

    The king also had an ugly expression on his face, but he couldn''t say anything in response since he knew that there was nothing that he could say.

    Everything that I said was fact after all.

    The king looked at the second prince who gave him a look as if saying, "You can leave everything to me."

    The king didn''t want to leave the wyverns to the second prince who he found an eyesore, but there was no other choice. It was clear that the other side wouldn''t give the wyverns unless this condition was met¡­

    So the king had no choice but to agree in the end.

 Chapter 714 Swearing fealty

    Chapter 714 Swearing fealty

    ??We once again convened in a room where it was just the three of us.

    After reaching the deal with the king of the Midra Kingdom, we went back to meeting with the second prince again.

    The excuse that he gave was that we would finalize the details of the wyvern transfer.

    However...

    They never would have expected that we had already worked everything out.

    In the beginning, this was our n.

    All of it had been a bait so that we could get the wyverns under the second prince since that was what he had asked for.

    So I had gone through all those hoops, making all those demands that they would let their guards down. I did all of this so they wouldn''t suspect the only real demand that I had, which was that the wyverns would go to the second prince.

    As expected, their greed hadpletely taken them over and they didn''t question it at all.

    I had even been able to negotiate for a few of the books from their library which we had never even visited before.

    That was how greedy they were for the wyverns.

    There was even a part of me that thought that they would have done anything to get the wyverns that they might have never cared that these wyverns would be under the second prince.

    But it was still better safe than sorry.

    After we sat down, the second prince suddenly lowered his head to me and said, "Your lordship, thank you for going along with that farce."

    I was surprised to see the second prince doing this, along with being surprised by the tone that he spoke to me with.

    This waspletely different from how he spoke to me before.

    It was almost as if he was acting like he was submitting to me.

    I didn''t know how to feel about this since I actually preferred if he treated me the same way as before.

    But at the same time, I had an idea of why he was doing this.

    The second prince had shown me his weakness before I offered him the wyverns, so I knew exactly what drove him and what to use against him if anything happened.

    The only thing was...I never expected that he would even take this a step further.

    The second prince suddenly stood up to the surprise of both me and the fourth prince.

    The two of us looked at him with a strange look as he suddenly came forward to me and started lowering his head. Then as shock filled us, the second prince bowed his head to me.

    "I thank the lord for everything that you''ve done for me. I hereby swear my loyalty to you."

    After saying this, the second prince fell to one knee in front of me and lowered his head even more as he bowed to me.

    It seemed that he was very serious about this.

    There was a part of me that wanted to go forward to help him up, but I stopped that part of me in the end.

    I knew what the second prince was doing this for, so I knew that I couldn''t stop him.

    After a few seconds of silence, I said, "Alright, you can get up now."

    The second prince slowly raised his head to look at me and then stood up in front of me.

    As he did, I said, "There''s no need to act so stiff around me."

    There was a faint smile that appeared on the second prince''s face when he heard this.

    Then when he fully stood up, it was as if there was a switch that flicked in him as all of that seriousness disappeared without a trace.

    When he stood up, the second prince said, "Then let''s stop acting that way then."

    He was speaking just like he did before.

    It was clear that the second prince didn''t like acting this way either, so he changed his tone quite fast.

    When he sat back down again, I asked him, "So what do we do now?"

    The second prince would have a better understanding of thendscape of the Midra Kingdom, so it was better to ask him than to make ns on our own.

    This was the trust that I would give him since he had sworn his loyalty to me.

    The second prince gave a nod with a look of appreciation before saying, "Nothing."

    The fourth prince and I raised a brow to look at him.

    It wasn''t that we were doubting him, it was just that we were caught off guard by this.

    The second prince just calmly exined, "These things take time, don''t they? It''ll take some time before the kingdoms can recover from the war, so we can''t put the n into action right away. Just like what you''ve been doing in the Beirut Kingdom."

    The fourth prince and I looked at him with a surprised look again before suddenly revealing smiles.

    With the abilities that the second prince had demonstrated, it wouldn''t be strange that he had spies set up in the other countries. It was likely that he even had spies in our country, which was why he already knew so much about us.

    The second prince really was a bad person to get on the wrong side of, just like the fourth prince.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit worried about my future with the two of them.

    Still, since the second prince was right about nothing needing to be done, then there was nothing that needed to be done.

    Or at least there was nothing that needed to be done for me.

    I just left the rest of the discussion to the fourth prince and the second prince.

    The two of them started discussing things that they would set up for what they had nned in the future.

    From what I could hear, it seemed that they wouldn''t just stop at the Midra and Beirut Kingdoms.

    It sounded like they wanted to build an entire empire from the surrounding countries¡­

    I really couldn''t help worrying about my future.

 Chapter 715 Can I ride on your wyvern?

    Chapter 715 Can I ride on your wyvern?

    ??It took three weeks, but we were able to make our way through the four kingdoms and two more other nearby kingdoms.

    This was all because of the efforts of the fourth prince.

    If it wasn''t for him giving me advice on how to avoidmitment with the nobles that tried to get closer to me, I really wouldn''t have been able to avoid being swamped by them.

    That would have caused us to stay even longer in these kingdoms.

    But because the fourth prince was with me, I was able to keep each visit short and precise which allowed us to reach the dukedom earlier than predicted.

    I had to admit that while I was against the fourth princeing with me in the first ce, he was showing just how useful he was and my opinion hadpletely changed about him following me.

    When we arrived at the dukedom, the party that was there to greet us was¡­a bitcking.

    There were only a few people that were there and these people clearly weren''t as impressive looking as the ones that had weed us before. They looked no different from civilians based on what they were wearing.

    But it turned out that one shouldn''t judge a book by its cover.

    That was because these people were¡­the duke and his family.

    The duke didn''t bring any important people with him, he just brought his family along to wee us.

    It was the duke, his wife, his son, and his daughter, along with some of their guards.

    When wended, the first thing that happened was that the duke''s son came forward and said, "Can I ride on the back of your wyvern?"

    I was certainly caught off guard when I heard this as I never expected this to be the way that I was weed to this Nergiante Dukedom. However, it wasn''t as if I was unhappy or offended by this.

    Rather, there was a smile that appeared on my face when I saw the little boye forward to ask this with a curious look on his face.

    But I didn''t get a chance to say anything as the duchess quickly came forward to grab her son before apologizing to me, "Your lordship Duke Zwein, I''m sorry about our son''sck of manners. He''s just a young child, so I hope that you will not mind his rashness."

    I just looked at the boy with a smile as I said, "Of course not, I''m happy to see that he''s filled with curiosity." Then I said to the boy, "If there''s time, I''ll bring you for a ride on the wyverns. But that''s only if you can get permission from your parents first."

    The boy''s eyes lit up when he heard this before he quickly gave a strong nod.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit sorry for the duke and duchess for inciting him like this.

    But I was happy to see that not everyone in this world was afraid of the wyverns.

    Everywhere we went, we were looked at with fear when we arrived on the back of our wyverns. Even if we didn''t mean any harm to them, there wasn''t a single person that was able to ovee that fear and see us as we were.

    I couldn''t help admiring this little boy for the open way that he saw the world.

    Not judging things because of prejudice, but because of what he wanted.

    I knew that he would be one that would go far in the world.

    But I was pulled back to my senses by the fourth prince coughing beside me.

    When I heard this, I turned back to look at Duke Nergiante and said, "Your lordship, it is an honour to meet you."

    Duke Nergiante said with a smile, "No, no, your lordship, it should be my honour to have you visit our small country like this."

    Pleasantries were exchanged between our groups before we were invited to go back to the manor of Duke Nergiante.

    Right now, we were standing outside the city that was the capital of this Nergiante Dukedom, so this really wasn''t the ce to talk about this.

    As we were about to leave, I could see that the duke''s son was looking at our wyverns with a longing look, so I called for a stop before we could leave.

    Then I went over to the duchess who was still holding her son back.

    She looked at me with a surprised and confused look, but I said, "Madame, how about we let the boy stroke a few of the wyverns before we go?"

    The duchess had a slightly worried look in her eyes when she heard this.

    But in the end, she couldn''t do anything against the boy''s enthusiasm.

    At the same time, the duke gave her looks as if he was telling her to ept this.

    His reasons were much more impure than the boy''s, but I didn''t say anything about it.

    So in the end, the boy was allowed to go over and stroke a few of our wyverns on the head.

    As he did this, his eyes were wide up and sparkling.

    During this, Cecilia couldn''t helping over to ask, "Why did you do that?"

    I didn''t say anything at first as I looked at the boy with a smile on my face, but then I leaned in closer and said, "I was just wondering if our kid would be as cute as him once he or she grows up."

    Cecilia was taken aback when she heard this before a blush quickly appeared on her face.

    She just gave me a soft punch in the chest before walking back to her position.

    I just looked at her walking off with a smile on my face, but there was a trace of bitterness that soon appeared in that smile.

    That was because¡­even though we had started trying to have a child, we hadn''t been blessed with luck so far¡­

    After this trip, I should take some time off and focus on that with my wives.

    It was just to make babies, not for anything else¡­

    A smile crept onto my lips as I thought this.

 Chapter 716 Nergiante Dukedom

    Chapter 716 Nergiante Dukedom

    ??Once the duke''s son had his fun with the wyvern, we made our way through the city.

    The wyverns would have to wait outside the city since unlike the other kingdoms, there was no ce for the wyverns to stay inside the city.

    The other kingdoms had the finances to afford building such a ce in a hurry, but the same couldn''t be said about the Nergiante Dukedom.

    As we rode through their capital city, it was very clear what the finances of the Nergiante Dukedom was.

    Even though this was supposed to be a capital city, it was only at the same level as a town in our kingdom. This ce was clearly not as prosperous as the other countries, but that wasn''t strange since it wasn''t as big as those other countries in the first ce.

    There was a reason why it was just a dukedom and not a kingdom.

    Thend that it upied wasn''t even a fourth of thend that our kingdom had, so there was just noparing the two.

    But there was something else that caught my eyes as we passed through this ce.

    The fourth prince who was in the same carriage as me also seemed to notice it as he looked at me with a special look.

    It was like he was asking¡­

    "Are you seeing this?"

    I gave a nod back in response, but I didn''t say anything as I kept looking out the window at the scenery around us.

    This town¡­even if it was poor, it had one advantage that the other cities didn''t.

    The nning of space usage in the town, it was something that was far better than any town or city that I''ve seen before. I had to admit that it was even better than the nning in my town.

    However, that was only because I inherited the town and hadn''t been able to make proper changes to it yet.

    Rose was in charge of that, but I had given her the idea to sector the town based on function.

    Which was what had led to the economic zone in the first ce.

    Though the introduction of the economic zone meant that it took us longer to implement the n than it should have.

    Still, that didn''t exin why the capital city of this dukedom was nned in this fashion.

    This was definitely something that was worth bringing upter.

    But for now¡­

    The fourth prince and I just sat in our carriage as we passed through the city.

    The two of us had rxed looks on our faces as we looked out the window.

    This city¡­it was very peaceful.

    It waspletely different from the capital cities that we had visited before.

    The people here just lived their lives at their own pace without worrying about the future, but that was just because they didn''t need to worry about it. The clothes that they wore and the food that they carried, it was clear that they had an abundance of natural resources that allowed them to live a happy life.

    This was the kind of ce that I actually wanted for myself.

    Though the strange thing was that the fourth prince looked like he was thinking the same thing as me.

    Could the fourth prince be thinking the same thing as me?

    The one that had even sacrificed his life in the game for the prosperity of the kingdom?

    He wanted to abandon everything and just move here to live a simple life?

    It was hard for me to ept this, but there was no denying the look that was on the face of the fourth prince.

    I knew what that look meant as someone who had the same look on my face not that long ago.

    But for now, I didn''t ask him anything.

    Rather, I was focusing on what woulde next¡­

    Though I had said that I would be able to take care of this when I was with the others, I had hidden one thing.

    Since this quest was one of the ones that happenedter, it was actually one of thete game quests. This was a quest that should be very hard for the current me who was still considered in mid game.

    If there wasn''t an easy way to finish this quest, I really might have never thought about taking it on. But since there was an easy way to finish this quest, it meant that I could do it without any problems.

    Or at least I hoped.

    It would all depend on this meeting with the duke.

    That was because the duke had something that would make this much easier for me to handle as long as the duke was willing to hand it over. If the duke wasn''t as willing to hand it over, then it certainly would make things hard for me.

    So I was counting on this meeting with the duke to go well.

    After riding in the carriage for a bit, we arrived at the duke''s manor.

    This was different from all of the castles that we had seen before.

    The duke and his family seemed to live simple, so this manor wasn''t evenparable to some of the manors of lower ranked nobles in other kingdoms that we''ve seen. It was clear that the duke and his family didn''t care about those things.

    When we arrived, there were only a few maids and all of them spoke with the duke and his family casually.

    It was as if they had been here serving the duke and his family for many years now.

    The maids even seem like they were friends with the duke''s son and daughter.

    My brain couldn''t help spinning an image that didn''t belong in this world.

    If this was my world, this scene would definitely be from one of those isekai slow life novels¡­

    The duke talked to his butler for a bit before bringing us to the reception room of the manor.

    When we sat down, he didn''t beat around the bush as he asked, "Your lordship, is there a reason why you came to our dukedom?"

 Chapter 717 I want to solve this for you

    <h4>Chapter 717 I want to solve this for you</h4>

    Both the fourth prince and I were surprised to hear this.

    The two of us just looked at the duke who had a calm look on his face with one brow raised.

    Then the two of us looked at each other as if we were seeing what the other person thought.

    But in the end, I said with a smile, "It seems like you aren''t ying around."

    The duke just returned the smile as he said, "I don''t think that I have the room to y around. It''s better to make things clear so we can handle things as quickly as possible."

    There seemed to be a double meaning to the words that Duke Nergiante said.

    That was not missed by the fourth prince and me as we both had looks of understanding in our eyes after he said this.

    It seemed that Duke Nergiante was sharper than we gave him credit for.

    This would certainly make things easier for us.

    But still, I didn''t answer the question right away as I calmly asked, "Can you tell me about what has been happening in that forest?"

    "That forest?" Duke Nergiante repeated with a confused look at first before narrowing his eyes to slowly say, "Do you mean the Dark Forest on the edge of ournd?"

    I gave a nod in response before waiting for him to say something.

    Duke Nergiante didn''t say anything as he kept looking at me with his eyes narrowed.

    But after a bit of silence, he said, "I''m sure that you''ve already heard all the rumours, is there anything that you still need me to say?"

    The way that he said this, it was almost as if he was unwilling to show any signs of weakness in hisnd. So even if they were asking him about it, he wouldn''t tell them a single thing.

    Though it was also clear by the look in the eyes of Duke Nergiante that he was confused about being asked this question all of a sudden.

    It certainly wasn''t a question that he was expecting to be asked.

    This might be a bit hard if I didn''t already have a grasp of what kind of personality this Duke Nergiante had.

    So I looked right into his questioning gaze and said, "I want to solve this matter for you."

    "Huh?" It wasn''t just the duke, but also the duchess had a confused look on her face when she heard this.

    The two of them didn''t say anything in response as they looked at me with doubtful looks.

    It was clear that the two of them had no idea what I was nning when I said this, so they couldn''t say anything since they were afraid of saying something wrong. But I also didn''t say anything to rify since I knew that this would be a bad move.

    The duchess eventually looked at the duke as if she was leaving this decision to him.

    The duke still didn''t say a thing as he kept looking at me with the same look on his face.

    But eventually he said, "Duke Zwein, you have to understand our hesitation if you say something like this. While we understand your sincerity, that doesn''t mean that we can exactly trust it. So I hope that you will be able to give an exnation first before I respond."

    I shook my head as soon as his voice fell and said, "This is a very simple matter. You can either agree to this or you can reject me."

    Duke Nergiante deeply knitted his brows when he heard this, but it didn''t look like he was upset or offended.

    Rather, it seemed like he waspletely taken aback by how firm my stance was.

    At the same time, there was a small part of him that was intrigued because of it.

    That was what my main n was.

    To act as mysterious as possible and it seemed to be working.

    It only worked because of the reputation that I had.

    There was no doubt that Duke Nergiante already knew about the things that I have done in the past, that was the bare minimum that he had to do as the ruler of thisnd.

    Not to mention, I was even a person that had arrived on the back of wyverns.

    It was hard not to portray a powerful image just based on that.

    When people with powerful reputations presented a mysterious image, it gave off the feeling that one was capable since they didn''t seem bothered at all by rejection. The calm feeling that this gave made them feel like this person had everything in the palm of his hands.

    Which was why it made people trust them naturally.

    So Duke Nergiante looked like he was really starting to be shaken because of this.

    At this time, if I offered him a bit of bait¡­

    "I won''t tell you exactly what it is, but I''ll give you a hint as to what you''re dealing with." I suddenly said this while they were still debating on what to do.

    Duke Nergiante was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard this and he immediately looked up at me with an expectant look.

    In a calm and mysterious way, I said, "This is something that has to do with a former demon king."

    "Demon king?!" The duke and duchess both repeated with a shocked voice.

    The two of them looked at each other as if they were exchanging silent words, but the duke looked back at me as if he was asking me to say more.

    I just remained silent and waited for the duke''s response.

    The duke looked like he was hesitating a bit more, but in the end¡­

    With a sigh, the duke said, "Even if I wanted to stop you, I wouldn''t be able to, right? Then I might as well be involved in this matter so I can make sure that it will go the way that I want."

 Chapter 718 Heirloom

    Chapter 718 Heirloom

    ??A smile crept onto my face when I heard this.

    This duke really didn''t seem to care about being subtle at all as he said all of this to my face.

    Even if it was true, it wasn''t something that should be said out loud since it might offend the other side.

    But I wasn''t offended by this since I liked someone who was this frank with me.

    However, I also couldn''t help wanting to tease the duke a bit.

    So I said with a smile, "Why do you think that?"

    It was the duke''s turn to smile as he looked at me with that smile and said, "With the wyverns that you''ve brought alone, we''re already helpless. With those wyverns, do you really think that we could do anything to stop you?

    He shook his head as the smile on his face became helpless before saying, "To be honest, Ipletely thought that you were here to invade us when you showed up with those wyverns. So if you really want to do anything in our country, it isn''t as if you can stop us."

    His eyes suddenly became serious as he looked at me.

    He looked at me like this for a bit before suddenly saying, "That just makes me wonder...what are you asking me for permission for?"

    I said with the same smile, "It''s your country, isn''t it normal for me to ask for permission?"

    A bitter smile appeared on the duke''s face as he said, "Didn''t I just say that you can do whatever you want in my country as long as you have those wyverns? Would I be able to stop you?"

    Though it seemed like he was being self deprecating, there was another reason why he was saying these things.

    Basically, he could guess that there was another reason why I hade to ask for his permission.

    It wasn''t so much as asking him for permission, rather it was as if there was something that I needed from him.

    Seeing him ask me this, I stopped ying around and said, "Well, there is another reason for me doing all of this."

    The duke wasn''t surprised at all, as he just waited for me to say what I wanted to say.

    The smile disappeared from my face and a serious look appeared in its ce.

    With that serious look on my face, I looked down at the duke''s hand which confused him.

    The duke followed my gaze and he found that my eyes were on the ring that was on his hand.

    The duke looked even more confused when he saw this.

    After a while, he raised the hand that had the ring on it and said, "All that for this?"

    I gave a nod before saying, "I need that heirloom of yours to help me take care of the disturbance in the forest. Without it, it will be impossible for me to solve this problem of yours."

    Heirloom really was the right word to describe this since this was a ring that had been passed down through the duke''s family for generations. Though the duke had no idea what the real value of this ring was.

    Only I knew why this ring had been passed down in the duke''s family for generations.

    The duke knitted his brows when he heard this.

    After all, this was his family heirloom that I was trying to ''borrow''.

    It would be hard for him to give up this ring to someone that was close to him since it was the heirloom of his family. So it was even harder for him to give this up to me who had just arrived in his country and asked for this ring.

    In the end, Duke Nergiante didn''t deny my request and instead just asked, "What do you need this family heirloom of mine for? I think as the owner of this thing, I''m entitled to ask that at the very least, right?"

    I shook my head and said, "I can''t answer that until it''s over. Until then, you just have to trust me." Then after a pause, I added, "Of course, you cane with me if you''re worried about your item."

    Duke Nergiante had looked a bit displeased with what I said at first, but his expression quickly changed when he heard thetter half of what I said.

    Slowly, he asked, "You''re saying that I cane with you?"

    I gave a simple nod in response to this.

    Duke Nergiante looked at me with a strange look, as if he didn''t know what to say in response to this.

    He had beenpletely expecting me to tell him to stay here and leave things to me, so he waspletely caught off guard when he was told that he would be allowed to go.

    Duker Nergiante slowly raised a brow to look at me before saying, "Alright, but the ring never leaves me. That''s the only condition that I have."

    I gave a nod in response.

    I didn''t actually need the ring itself, I just needed to use the ring for a bit when we arrived at our destination. I didn''t want to offend or provoke Duke Nergiante since he seemed like quite a good person.

    He was definitely someone that I wanted to befriend after everything that I saw here.

    After seeing my response, Duke Nergiante gave another sigh before saying, "Though if you really wanted to take it, I couldn''t stop you, could I? You really are hard to read, I''ve never met anyone like you before."

    I just said with a smile, "Then let''s take our time to get to know each other."

    Duke Nergiante once again looked at me with a strange look before slowly nodding in agreement.

    Since the ice had been broken and an agreement had been reached, we just took our time talking to each other.

    Not just me, but the fourth prince also found Duke Nergiante to be quite the pleasant person.

    It seemed that he had the same idea as me judging by the look in his eyes.

 Chapter 719 Spring blossoming

    <h4>Chapter 719 Spring blossoming</h4>

    After settling this matter, it wasn''t as if we would be heading to the Dark Forest right away.

    It had taken some time to convince the duke and we had arrived in the afternoon instead of the morning.

    So it was decided that we would be heading to the Dark Forest in the morning rather than heading out in the middle of the night.

    That gave us time to get more familiar with the duke''s family.

    The fourth prince and I both had the same idea about this Duke Nergiante, so we both knew that it would be better for us to get closer to the duke''s family with this opportunity that we had been given. This would without a doubt help us in the future when we made our move against Duke Nergiante.

    One thing that caught my eye was¡­

    While I was talking to the duke, the duchess, and his son, the fourth prince was talking to the daughter of the duke.

    The daughter of the duke didn''t seem interested in the fourth prince at first, but slowly he broke the ice with her and they seemed like they were having quite the good conversation.

    With the way that the two of them talked to each other, it really seemed like they would be a good match for each other.

    Not to mention, I could see from the fourth prince''s eyes that he was genuinely enjoying his conversation with the duke''s daughter rather than just faking it. I had gotten quite good at seeing how he faked talking to noble girls after visiting all those kingdoms with him.

    It seemed that this was not one of those cases where he was faking it.

    A faint smile appeared on my lips when I saw this since I knew the worries that Ang and the king had about the fourth prince.

    Even with how old he was, he had never shown any interest in the opposite gender.

    They had even been worried that he swung the other way, which was why they had been trying to push an engagement on the fourth prince now that things had settled. However, the fourth prince had rejected everything that they brought his way, so that matter had been benched for now.

    But it seemed that he had quite the good rtionship with the duke''s daughter.

    Alicia Nergiante, she was the daughter of Duke Nergiante.

    When I asked about her, these two doting parents were more than happy to brag about her.

    It seemed that she was quite the outgoing and knowledgeable girl, who was also very responsible to the point where she was even able to help her father with governing their territory.

    This seemed like a perfect kind of wife for someone like the fourth prince.

    But I found that there was a problem.

    I had already known about this, but I had ignored it since this was their matter and not mine.

    It was something that they should handle by themselves, so I had been avoiding it.

    But I couldn''t as she was the one that came to me this time.

    Shadow Five was clearly unhappy about how close the fourth prince and the duke''s daughter seemed, so she approached me to ask for a favour. I was certainly surprised since I never thought that she would ask me this kind of favour, but¡­

    It seemed like it would be good for the fourth prince if I went along with it.

    It definitely wasn''t because I found it interesting or anything like that.

    When we went to dinner, I introduced another person.

    "This is Yvonne, a diplomat who works for our kingdom. She was busy with other matters this afternoon, so she wasn''t able to join us before this."

    It was a beautiful pink haired girl in a sleek red dress that fit her well even though she was a bitcking when it came to curves.

    When the fourth prince saw her, he couldn''t help slightly knitting his brows.

    That was because the one that I had just introduced was Shadow Five.

    The favour that she asked of me was for me to bring her to dinner with the duke''s family.

    The duke and his family didn''t find this strange at all, rather they even weed it. The fact that I was suddenly bringing out this diplomat meant that we were open to creating deeper rtions with their dukedom.

    I had clearlye with a purpose, so I couldn''t be considered a diplomat here to build deeper rtions.

    But it was different for someone that specially came for that.

    So she was allowed to join the dinner and even sat down beside the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince looked at Shadow Five with a questioning look, but she deflected it to me.

    I could hear her say, "The duke said that we need someone to y the role of diplomat to build a deeper rtionship with the Nergiante Dukedom, so I volunteered to y that role."

    The fourth prince looked at me with a re after Shadow Five sold me out like that, but the only thing that I could do was go along with this.

    After Shadow Five had finished deflecting this me to me, she said, "It seems that your highness was getting quite close with the duke''s daughter. Could this be considered a n to approach the duke through her?"

    The fourth prince was surprised to hear this, but he said, "It isn''t like that at all. I''m just genuinely building a rtionship with them."

    Shadow Five looked a bit displeased when she heard this.

    To my surprise, the fourth prince said, "It isn''t what you think. This is a purely professional business."

    There was no need for the fourth prince to say something like this, but he had said it in the end as if he was rifying something.

    I had thought that they weren''t that close, but it seemed that I might have been wrong.

    If that was the case¡­

    Perhaps there was spring blossoming for the fourth prince after all.

 Chapter 720 A secret door

    <h4>Chapter 720 A secret door</h4>

    In the morning, we set off for the forest.

    Though the Nergiante Dukedom was a small country, that didn''t mean that it was small enough that we would have been able to reach the edge of the country where the forest was in a day if we traveled by horse carriage.

    So naturally the only way that we could reach the forest in a day was by taking the wyverns.

    Our group was already used to this, but it definitely was a frightening experience for the duke and his men.

    Though his son did look at him with an envious look when he saw the duke getting to ride on the back of the wyvern.

    The duke didn''t know whether tough or cry when he saw his son looking at him like this.

    On the backs of the wyverns, we quickly traveled thend of the Nergiante Dukedom. Though we did cause quite a bit of chaos as we flew overhead.

    However, it also gave us a good insight into the Nergiante Dukedom.

    The ces that we flew over...the soldiers came out to protect the people without fear of losing their own lives.

    Even the lords seemed toe out to protect their people instead of cowering in their manors.

    In a smaller country like this, it seemed that the nobles were less corrupt.

    Was it because they had less wealth to corrupt them or was it something else?

    In just a few hours, we were able to reach the forest on the edge of the forest. When we arrived, our group immediately understood why it was called the Dark Forest, though I already knew since I had seen it in the game.

    The forest waspletely filled with jet ck trees.

    These trees seemed like they were corrupted, but the duke guaranteed that this was just how they looked.

    After arriving at the edge of the Dark Forest, the first thing that we did was go to the guard post at the edge of the forest.

    Since everything that had happened, the duke had increased security around the Dark Forest just in case anything else happened.

    So these guards would have all the information about what was happening inside of the Dark Forest.

    The guards were naturally surprised to see wyvernsnding in front of them. They even raised up their weapons at us without fear of their own lives when wended.

    It seemed that the duke had trained his men well.

    But they quickly calmed down when they saw it was the duke who had arrived on the back of these wyverns.

    Even though the duke exined the situation to them, they still couldn''t help looking at our wyverns with a strange look. That was just how it was when one travelled by wyverns.

    After they calmed down, I asked them about the situation in the forest.

    The guards looked at the duke with a look as if they were asking if this was alright and the duke nodded in agreement.

    It was only then that they gave me a summary of what they knew.

    The animals were still dying strange deaths, but it didn''t seem like anything else had happened.

    "Just this morning, we found another dead deer. It''s being hung up over there to air out before we burn it." The captain of the guard pointed in a certain direction.

    I gave a nod before heading over without saying a single word.

    Everyone looked at me with strange looks, but they still chose to follow me over to see what was happening.

    When we came over, I took out a knife and then started cutting into the deer''s antlers.

    Everyone looked at me with the same strange look, but they didn''t stop me.

    After cutting into the antlers, I turned it around so I could look at the insides.

    I had to dig a bit before I was able to find what I was looking for.

    When I saw this, I gave a satisfied nod as I said, "It seems that we came earlier than I thought. The rate of the seal being released is far slower than what I thought it would be."

    They all looked at me with even more confused looks, but I chose not to exin.

    I turned to the duke and said, "We need to go into the forest."

    The duke hesitated for a second before giving a nod in response.

    The captain of the guards didn''t seem to trust me, so he insisted that hee along with his men.

    The duke thought about it for a moment before nodding in agreement to this without caring for my opinion. Though I wasn''t against it in the first ce since more people would always be good if something went wrong.

    Not that it would go wrong since I had my knowledge from the game.

    With this new group, we progressed into the forest.

    As we went into the forest, they raised their guards as if they were afraid that they would be attacked at any moment.

    I shook my head when I saw this, but I didn''t stop them as I was focused on finding the right way.

    And it turned out, it was easy for me to find the right way since I was able to find all thendmarks that had been used in the game. So it was easy for me to follow the path that was followed in the game.

    When we arrived at our destination, everyone was confused about why we were here.

    That was because we had arrived in a clearing with nothing but arge stone in the center.

    This stone seemed unnatural, but there wasn''t anything special about this stone from what they could see.

    I just ignored all of them as I went over to the side of the clearing and started looking at the trees there. After looking at them for a bit, I found one tree that stood out and pulled one of the branches.

    When I did, the stone suddenly disappeared without a trace to reveal a set of stairs leading down.

 Chapter 721 Use of the ring (1)

    Chapter 721 Use of the ring (1)

    ??Everyone just looked at the stairs that appeared with a stunned look on their faces.

    Well that was except for me who already knew that this would happen.

    I was a bit surprised to see it in real lifepared to seeing it on a screen, but I walked forward and started heading down the stairs.

    When the rest of the group saw me like this, it was the captain of the guard that suddenly came forward to stop me. He stood there in front of me with his weapon raised, as if he wouldn''t allow me to pass.

    The captain of the guard just narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he didn''t trust me before saying, "This is our Nergiante Dukedom. We won''t let someone else head in before us."

    I raised a brow to look at him before turning to look at the duke.

    He also was a bit surprised by what this captain of the guard said, but he stood behind him in the end.

    This captain of the guard was his subordinate and he was acting on behalf of their dukedom, so of course he would support him.

    It didn''t seem like they would back down on this matter, so in the end¡­

    I just let them go first.

    There was no reason for us to fight over this in the first ce.

    Whether I went down first or they went down first didn''t matter since there was no danger inside of this ce. The dangerid with the thing that was sealed inside of this ce, the thing that I was here to take care of.

    The captain of the guard called his men together and taking a formation, they led the way down.

    I had to admit that these men really were loyal.

    They were willing to go forward into this darkness without any fear, all for their country.

    This was loyalty at its finest.

    But they really did move too slow for my liking.

    In the end, it even took them several minutes just to reach the bottom of the stairs and this was only two sets of stairs. They were moving so slow that it took almost a minute to go down one step.

    They had been trying to figure out what was in front of them, but the torches that they used just weren''t bright enough to see everything.

    After they went down, I followed behind them while shaking my head.

    As they were still trying to figure things out, I went over to the side and pressed something on the wall.

    The moment that I pressed this thing, there was a light that appeared from above us.

    This light had appeared too suddenly that no one was able to adjust in time.

    They had to cover their eyes so that they wouldn''t be blinded by the light.

    I was the only one that had reacted to this since I knew what would happen.

    I went in front of the captain of the guards and his men before saying, "Come on, it''s just in front."

    They slowly adjusted to the light before looking at me with strange looks.

    The way that I had reacted, it was almost as if I already knew what this ce was.

    The way that they looked at me, it was clear that they had more questions that they wanted to ask me, but I didn''t give them any time to ask me anything as I continued down this hall in front of us.

    This hall wasn''t that long and it didn''t take long for us to reach arge room that was well lit.

    Since it was well lit, they were able to see what was in the room right away.

    In the center of the room was arge ck crystal that just seemed to float there in the air.

    No one really knew what this ck crystal was, but they didn''t like the look of this ck crystal.

    That was because of the feel that came from this ck crystal.

    It was a disgusting feeling like it was something that was diseased.

    They didn''t know why they felt this way about this ck crystal.

    Whether it was the aura that came from it or the colour that it was, it just looked and felt very strange.

    But I just ignored all of them as I went forward towards the ck crystal.

    Before I could reach it, the captain of the guard came forward to stand in front of me. He raised the spear in his hand so that it was pointed at me before saying, "You will go no further."

    The look on his face made it clear that he wasn''t to be trifled with.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before turning to look at Duke Nergiante.

    He could see the way that I was looking at him, so he said, "Move aside."

    The captain of the guard was shocked to hear this before quickly saying, "But your lordship, this is¡­"

    Duke Nergiante took a deep breath before saying, "I already said move aside. He''s here to help us, so stop getting in his way."

    The captain of the guard looked dismayed when he heard this, but he still eventually moved out of the way. Though when he did, he made sure to re at me as he passed by me.

    I just ignored all of this as I went forward to look at the crystal.

    I didn''t look at the crystal itself, but at the area around the crystal.

    I was looking around as if I was looking for something special.

    It took a while before I found what I was looking for.

    It was a groove that had a strange shape.

    But I gave a nod when I saw this shape and turned to wave my hand at Duke Nergiante.

    He looked at me with a strange look and hesitated for a bit.

    The captain of the guard shook his head at Duke Nergiante when he saw this, but Duke Nergiante came over in the end.

    I pointed at this groove and said, "Put your ring in."

 Chapter 722 Use of the ring (2)

    <h4>Chapter 722 Use of the ring (2)</h4>

    Duke Nergiante looked at me with a look like he didn''t understand what I was saying at first.

    Then when he looked closely at the groove, he noticed that this groove was shaped like the ring that he was wearing.

    This was the heirloom that had been passed down for generations in his family and the thing that I had asked him for earlier.

    Duke Nergiante couldn''t help knitting his brows when he heard this.

    He didn''t put the ring in like I told him to and instead looked at me as if he was trying to confirm what I had just said.

    I pointed at the groove and calmly said, "Just put the ring in there and we can get started."

    Duke Nergiante knitted his brows even more when he heard this.

    He just looked at me like he was asking for an exnation, but I looked back at him while matching his gaze without saying a single thing. It was as if I wouldn''t exin no matter how he questioned me.

    Duke Nergiante couldn''t help hesitating when he saw this.

    The captain of the guard seemed like he wanted to say something, but the duke raised his hand to stop him before he could.

    Duke Nergiante just looked into my eyes for a bit longer before turning to face the groove.

    He brought his hand up in front of the groove and then...his hand just remained there in the air for a bit.

    He didn''t bring it forward and he didn''t pull it back.

    With the way that it just lingered in the air, it was as if Duke Nergiante was having an internal struggle over this matter.

    But in the end, he looked at me and then pushed his hand forward so that the ring went into the groove.

    The moment that the ring went into the groove, there was a scraping sound that rang out.

    The captain of the guards didn''t hesitate to lead his men forward to surround Duke Nergiante as if they were prepared to fight to the death to protect him.

    My own group had wanted to do the same, but I just raised my hand to stop them.

    This scraping sound continued for a bit before it was revealed what was making that sound.

    It was a door that suddenly slid open in one of the walls in this room.

    This was a door that seemed to be part of the wall itself and slid open when something activated it.

    As for what activated it, the only possible thing was the ring that Duke Nergiante had ced in the groove.

    Instead of looking at the door that had opened, Duke Nergiante looked at the ring in the groove with a concerned look. It was as if he was afraid that he wouldn''t be able to take back the ring.

    I had been about to go through the door that appeared, but I saw the way that Duke Nergiante looked and turned around.

    Coming over to where the ring was inserted, I pulled it out without any hesitation.

    When the ring was pulled out, the door naturally closed as well.

    Everyone looked at me with strange looks as if they couldn''t understand what I was doing, but I wasn''t bothered as I casually put the ring back into the groove.

    When it was put back in, the door slid open once more.

    After demonstrating this, I said, "It can be removed at any time, so you don''t have to be afraid that you won''t be able to take it back."

    Duke Nergiante couldn''t help revealing a helpless smile when he saw this before saying, "Sorry for the distraction. Let''s go in."

    I gave a nod before leading the way in.

    This time, the captain of the guard didn''t say anything to stop me, but he made sure to stay near the duke just in case anything happened. At the very least, it was admirable how loyal he was to the duke, even if he kept trying to make things harder for me.

    When we came into the room, the first ce that I went to was the desk that was in that room.

    Everyone''s eyes followed me as I went over to it, but they didn''t seem to follow me.

    They spent their time looking around the room, trying to figure out just what this ce was.

    In the end, Duke Nergiante asked me, "Duke Zwein, this ce is¡­"

    He might have left his words hanging, but it was clear what he was trying to ask.

    I ignored it for a bit as I examined the documents that were on the table, but then I turned around and said, "Well, now that we''re here, I can finally tell you what this ce is and what I''ll be doing here."

    Duke Nergiante was caught off guard by these sudden words, but he gave a nod in response.

    I gestured around me with my hand and said, "This ce is where the seal for the former demon king is. The reason why your ring was able to open this ce up was because your family was charged as the guardians of this ce by the ones who created it all that time ago. Though with how long it''s been, it''s not strange that you''ve already forgotten about this."

    Duke Nergiante was shocked when he heard this as he slowly looked around this room again.

    There was a trace of doubt that was in his eyes, but he also looked like he was slowly believing what I said.

    After all, this situation was just too strange to be exined with anything else.

    After a moment of looking around, he turned back to me with a bitter smile as he asked, "Why couldn''t you have told me this sooner?"

    With a faint smile, I said, "Well, I was worried that you might not want to open this ce if you knew about this. My concern is sealing the demon king again, so I had to worry about you not wanting to go along with my intentions."

    Duke Nergiante had aplicated look on his face, but he eventually gave a nod in response.

 Chapter 723 Studying the seal

    <h4>Chapter 723 Studying the seal</h4>

    Duke Nergiante took another moment to adjust his thoughts before revealing a bitter smile.

    With that bitter smile on his face, he said, "I would thank you not to think so little of me. Even if I am someone who can be considered a coward when ites to matters like this, I do know what is important."

    He looked at the table that I was standing in front of and said, "I at least know what is important and what isn''t. At the very least, I know what I have to do."

    With that, he came forward to stand beside me and looked down at the documents that I had been looking at.

    The only problem was¡­

    These documents were all written in an ancientnguage.

    So no matter how Duke Nergiante looked at this thing, it didn''t matter since he wasn''t able to understand a single thing. All he could do was stare at these pieces of paper with a nk look on his face.

    During this time, I had been carefully looking over these things.

    After a long silence, Duke Nergiante finally asked me, "Are you able to read these?"

    I gave a nod before waving my hand at the fourth prince.

    He and the rest had been standing on the side as Duke Nergiante and I had been looking over these documents.

    There wasn''t that much space to begin with, so it wasn''t as if he could have done anything even if he came over.

    The fourth prince was a tactful person, so he knew that he had to at least give Duke Nergiante this chance in the spotlight beforeing forward. But since Duke Nergiante wasn''t able to do anything, it was time for him to do his thing.

    After seeing the fourth princee forward, Duke Nergiante stepped back to give him space with a bitter smile on his face.

    During this, the captain of the guard came over and seemed to ask Duke Nergiante something.

    Duke Nergiante just shook his head and said, "They are here to help us."

    The firm tone that he said this made it very clear that he didn''t want any discussions on this matter.

    The captain of the guard was surprised to hear this, but he still listened to the duke''s orders. Though it was clear by the look on his face that he didn''t seem like he was willing to ept this.

    In the end, he was stopped by the duke''s personal guards that hade with us from the capital.

    It seemed that the captain of the guards had already crossed a line that the duke wasn''t willing to stay silent about anymore.

    The fourth prince and I just ignored all of this as we focused our attention on the pieces of paper in front of us.

    After a while, the fourth prince waved his hand at a few of his guards and he handed a few pieces over to them before giving them some instructions.

    They took these pieces of paper and moved around the room while looking at them. With the way that they were holding them up in front of themselves as they moved around the room, it was almost as if they were looking for something specific based on what was on those papers.

    Duke Nergiante felt a bit left out when he saw this, so he asked, "What are you doing?"

    Neither the fourth prince or I said anything, rather it was the fourth prince''s guards that exined what the situation was to Duke Nergiante.

    "Let us help." Duke Nergiante said with a serious look.

    After a moment of hesitation, the guard gave a few of the pieces of paper over to Duke Nergiante after a nod from both me and the fourth prince.

    Taking these pieces of paper, Duke Nergiante revealed a bitter smile since these were the ones that he had picked up previously.

    He hadn''t understood what they meant before, but now that they had exined it, he understood.

    These were blueprints for the seal that had been ced here.

    Following what was written on these pieces of paper, he was able to find some runes that were carved on the wall. It was just like how the pieces of paper had described them.

    Working together with the fourth prince''s guards, they were able to eventually figure out what these runes were leading to.

    It was on the other side of the room, but it didn''t seem like there was anything there.

    That was until I came over and pressed my hand up against the wall.

    I touched the wall in a certain way that slowly caused runes to light up on this wall.

    These runes seemed to be in the shape of some kind of array, like it was sealing something.

    Then again, that was what they were looking for in the first ce.

    They had been looking for the seal for the demon king that was here.

    I didn''t do anything after making this seal appear other than looking carefully at it.

    While I was looking at it, I held up the pieces of paper from the table in front of me.

    After a while, I pointed at one part of the array and asked the fourth prince, "It''s this part, right?"

    The fourth prince came over to look at where I was pointing and narrowed his eyes to look carefully at it for a bit.

    Eventually, he said with a nod, "It is this part."

    The others were all confused when they heard us say this.

    Duke Nergiante was the one that asked for everyone by saying, "What are you talking about?"

    Neither the fourth prince or I said a thing as we kept looking at this array on the wall.

    After looking at it for a bit, I said, "This is the part that''s the problem with the array. This is the part that''s decaying and allowing the demon king to escape."

    As soon as they heard this, everyone tried to get a closer look at this.

    But that wasn''t all that I had to say.

    As I looked carefully at this, I said, "This is a problem."

 Chapter 724 Thereâ€™s only one way

    Chapter 724 There¡¯s only one way

    ??Everyone looked at me with a confused look when they heard this.

    The only one that wasn''t confused when I said this was the fourth prince.

    He had a look on his face like he understood what I was saying, which meant that he knew just how serious this was.

    After a moment of silence, Duke Nergiante asked, "What do you mean by it''s a problem? If we know where the problem is, doesn''t that make it easier for us to fix it?"

    But after a pause, he added, "Or could it be that because it''s ancient magic, we can''t fix it? Or is it that we''re missing some kind of material to fix it?"

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything in response to this, Duke Nergiante actually became even more anxious until he finally said, "Stop keeping it a secret already and tell us already."

    I gave a deep sigh before saying, "I was just trying to figure out how to say it."

    Duke Nergiante looked at me with a look like he was still waiting for me to speak.

    So in the end, I said, "You''re partially right, we can''t fix it. However, it isn''t for any of the reasons that you mentioned."

    Duke Nergiante had a very confused look when he heard this, but he still waited for me to exin.

    I slowly said, "It''s not that we don''t have the material or the magicians to restore this. It''s just that the part that is damaged is a special part of the array that can''t be reced. The moment that we try recing it, it will cause the entire array to fail and the demon king will be released."

    "Huh?" Duke Nergiante said with a shocked look on his face.

    He turned back to look at the part that I had pointed out before saying, "Are you sure? It seems like it''s only a small part of the rune that is eroded. As long as we get a skilled magician, we should be able to rece it."

    I shook my head before pointing at the part that was eroded and saying, "Do you see this? This part that is eroded is actually connected to the main power line of the seal. The moment that we erase any part of it to fix it, it will immediately shut the whole thing down."

    Duke Nergiante gritted his teeth when he heard this.

    He looked at the seal again as if he was trying to find something that he could do, but there wasn''t anything that he could do.

    In the first ce, he couldn''t understand the ancientnguage to understand the blueprint of the seal. So even if he wanted to do something, he would only be making things worse since he wouldn''t be able to do anything helpful.

    After a long silence, Duke Nergiante suddenly said, "The library! Our library has books from previous generations! I''m sure that we''ll be able to find some kind of information about this seal inside of those books."

    The fourth prince and I revealed interested looks when we heard this, but I still shook my head and said, "There''s no point since we still wouldn''t be able to do anything. There''s no way to fix this, that is that."

    Duke Nergiante deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    The captain of the guard seized this chance toe forward to say, "My lord, we shouldn''t listen to these outsiders. We should look into this matter ourselves before figuring out a situation for this."

    Duke Nergiante looked at this captain and he just slowly shook his head.

    He didn''t get angry with the captain since he knew that the captain of the guards was just speaking up for their dukedom.

    However, Duke Nergiante already knew that there was nothing that they could do.

    They didn''t know about any of this in the first ce.

    So even if they wanted to do something about this, they wouldn''t have reached this ce without Duke Zwein leading them.

    At the same time, there must be a reason why those books in the library had been ignored the entire time.

    They were most likely written in the same ancientnguage as these scrolls.

    They could get Duke Zwein to read this, but would he be willing to do so?

    Not to mention, those books should be the hidden knowledge of their Nergiante Dukedom and shouldn''t be shared that easily.

    No matter how he looked at it, there were all kinds of things that were getting in his way¡­

    Finally, Duke Nergiante turned back to look at me and asked, "You''ve already thought of something, haven''t you?"

    I slowly gave a nod before saying, "There''s only one thing that we can really do."

    Duke Nergiante took a deep breath to brace himself before asking, "What is this one thing?"

    I said with a smile, "It''s very simple, the only thing that we can do is release the seal on our own."

    Everyone except for the fourth prince was shocked when they heard this.

    In the end, it was the captain of the guards who reacted first by saying, "My lord, this is clearly a trick! He just wants to unleash the demon lord and destroy our dukedom!"

    Duke Nergiante slowly came back to his senses when he heard this, but his reaction wasn''t as extreme as the captain of the guard.

    He raised his hand to stop the captain of the guard before looking at me to ask, "What do you mean by that? Wouldn''t that just cause even more destruction?"

    I ignored the reing from the captain of the guard and calmly said, "It''s very simple. Since we have no choice but to let it out, we should let the demon king out on our own terms."

    Duke Nergiante knitted his brows as he revealed a look like he didn''t agree.

    After all, this was a demon king.

    A demon king was not something to y around with.

    I didn''t mind as I said, "As long as we can control where ites out, then we can trap it and take it down."

    Duke Nergiante still had a look of doubt on his face when he heard this, but he slowly said, "Alright, exin."

 Chapter 725 A bunch of dildos

    Chapter 725 A bunch of dildos

    ??I didn''t say anything at first as I looked at the seal a bit longer.

    Holding a piece of paper in my hand, I looked at it and the seal at the same time as if I was trying to figure something out.

    After looking at it for a bit, I went back out to the room with the ck crystal in it and started moving around until finally stopping in one spot.

    Standing in this spot, I looked around myself for a bit before giving a nod.

    I turned back to Duke Nergiante and the others to say, "This is the spot that the demon king will appear in when it is released."

    There wasn''t much of a surprised look that was on their face when they heard this.

    Rather, they just looked at me with bitter smiles as Duke Nergiante asked me, "Even if we know where it''ll appear, that doesn''t mean that we''ll be able to do anything to it. This is a demon king that we''re talking about!"

    The others didn''t say anything in response to this, but it was clear by the looks on their faces that they agreed to this.

    The only one that actually said something was the captain of the guards who said, "My lord, this man is clearly crazy. We shouldn''t listen to him any longer and bring more men to surround this ce."

    I didn''t answer the question as I turned to my people and said, "Bring out the holy water."

    They were all surprised to hear this, but Cecilia came forward with her Storage Ring and brought out small vials of water.

    I had loaded up on these vials of holy water before leaving.

    Everyone had been confused why I had bought all these vials of holy water, but now they seemed like they understood what it was for.

    From the very beginning, I had been nning on fighting the demon king.

    They just didn''t know about the demon king until now.

    While Duke Nergiante was surprised by therge amount of holy water that I brought, he still couldn''t help saying, "Will this really be enough? Just holy water alone won''t be enough to deal with a demon king."

    This time, the fourth prince nodded in agreement since he thought the same thing.

    The fourth prince had remained silent since he had been trying to figure out what I had been nning to do.

    He was hoping that I had some kind of good n to deal with this, but seeing that it was just the holy water that I bought, he couldn''t keep believing in me anymore.

    But I wasn''t done with just the holy water alone.

    I ignored their reaction and turned to Shaka to say, "Bring that out."

    Shaka was surprised when he heard this before looking at me with a look like he was asking me if I was certain about this.

    I just gave a nod in response.

    Shaka gave a sigh beforeing forward and raising the Storage Ring that he had.

    When he raised this Storage Ring, there was arge number of items that fell to the ground.

    These things that came out of the Storage Ring looked like weapons, but they had a strange colour and shape to them.

    When the fourth prince saw these things, he couldn''t help revealing a shocked look since he recognized them. He just looked at these weapons with a strange look for a bit before turning to look at me as if he was asking something.

    In response to this questioning gaze from the fourth prince, I just said with a simple nod, "These things aren''t as strong as the main one since they are replicas, but they aren''t that much weaker either."

    The fourth prince stroked his chin when he heard this.

    During all of this, Duke Nergiante and his men had very confused looks on their faces as they couldn''t understand what was happening.

    Finally after some thought, the fourth prince said with a nod, "Alright, maybe this will work."

    Duke Nergiante was still very confused when he heard this, but there was something more pressing that he had to ask.

    He had been trying to figure out what these weapons that had suddenly been taken out were. But eventually, he couldn''t help feeling that the shape of these weapons seemed familiar.

    Especially the tip of this weapon.

    That round and blunted shape, it almost looked like a d¡­

    Before he could ask this question, I said, "These are special magic weapons that I''ve brought with me. As long as we have these, we will be able to hurt the demon king along with the holy water that I brought."

    Of course the special weapons that I had taken out were the dildo bats.

    There was arge pile of these dildo bats that were currently lying on the ground.

    Duke Nergiante was confused when he heard this, but I quickly offered him a demonstration of the power of the dildo bats.

    This demonstration made even the skeptical captain of the guards believe in the power of the dildo bats.

    Still, Duke Nergiante had to ask, "How certain are you in this n?"

    This was his dukedom that he had to take care of and if this n failed, the demon king''s rampage would fall on his dukedom.

    These people from abroad might be able to do this without any harm to them, but he had to care about the lives of his people.

    I knew that of course, so I looked deeply into Duke Nergiante''s eyes and said, "There''s nothing that is absolutely certain in this world, no one has the power to guarantee that. However, this is our one and only chance, so I urge you to take it."

    Duke Nergiante''s eyes made it very clear that he was struggling with all of this.

    But in the end, he slowly gave a nod as he said, "Alright, I''ll ce my faith in you. I hope that you will show that this faith isn''t wrong."

    I gave a simple nod in response.

 Chapter 726 Ah, my butt!

    Chapter 726 Ah, my butt!

    ??Of course, we didn''t release the demon king right away.

    Before we could release him, there were still things that we had to do.

    It took everyone''s hard work before we were ready to release that demon king.

    First, we had to set up the dildo bats so they would be ced all around the demon king when he appeared. There were even some that were ced right where the demon king would appear, so it would stab him right away if he were to appear there.

    To do that, I had my people go outside to collect a bunch of wood and then I had them build stands that we tied the dildo bats to.

    All of this took a while since it wasn''t as if they were familiar with building stands in the first ce.

    It took us a while to build stands that were strong enough to hold the dildo bats, though most of the work was done by the soldiers of the dukedom.

    It turned out that since the dukedom didn''t have many enemies and few monsters, most of their work was actually helping out with the dukedom''s constructions. They had done things from building houses to building bridges to even paving roads.

    It could be said that their experience was better than most professional builders.

    With this, they were able to build proper stands that held the dildo bats.

    What my people really did was open the vials of holy water and pour the holy water onto the dildo bats.

    We made sure topletely cover the dildo bats in this holy water, making sure that we didn''t miss a single spot of the dildo bats.

    We had to make sure that not a single spot was missed since only when it waspletely covered in holy water would it have the greatest effect.

    In the center of this formation was The Prator.

    Though it seemed like it was being ced in a very strange position with how it was made to stand up straight.

    I personally made sure topletely soak The Prator in holy water, though it did feel strange to be surrounded by dildo bats like this.

    Second, I had a few of my people take some of the dildo bats and surround the area that the demon king would appear in.

    These dildo bats were also covered in holy water and they looked like they were prepared to strike at any moment.

    Only when all of this was prepared did I go back into the room with the seal.

    I taught one of the fourth prince''s men how to release the seal when the time came since I wanted to be in the main room just in case anything happened.

    Only after all of this were we finally prepared.

    Duke Nergiante and his men seemed like they wanted to help, but I had them stay back just in case since I didn''t know what the demon king would do.

    While I understood their intention of wanting to protect their home, they were actually getting in the way since there wasn''t anything that they could do to help us. After all, they didn''t even know that there was a demon king under their country, let alone know how to deal with it.

    During all of this, the captain of the guards still looked at me with the same re.

    I really didn''t understand what was wrong with this man that he still mistrusted us after all of this¡­

    But for now, it wasn''t the time to think about that since the important thing was dealing with the demon king.

    Seeing that everyone and everything was in position, I gave a nod to the fourth prince''s guard inside of the room.

    He had to take a minute to find what part of the seal he needed to erase, but he was able to find it in the end.

    I saw him take a deep breath before he used the knife that I gave him to carve into those runes.

    The knife that he used started to shine the moment that he went to carve up those runes.

    This was a special rune engraved knife that I had made with the dwarves that had several runes for cutting on it. So even if this was a seal that was strong enough to seal a demon king, it was still able to cut through it.

    The moment that the runes were cut through, there was a cracking sound that came from the ck crystal in the center of the room.

    Everyone revealed nervous looks when they saw the crack on that crystal.

    They looked even more nervous when they saw the ck energy that was seeping out of the ck crystal as more and more cracks formed on the surface of the crystal.

    It wasn''t just the fact that the crystal cracked that made us nervous, but rather the pressure that came from it. The pressure that came from the aura that was being released by the ck energy, that was what was making everyone nervous.

    This was clearly not a normal amount of pressure.

    One could only say¡­

    As expected of a demon king!

    This pressure kept growing as more and more of the ck energy seeped out of the crystal, but nothing happened other than the appearance of the ck energy. It didn''t seem like anything was about to happen after the ck energy seeped out.

    That was until the ck energy suddenly started to flow from the ck crystal to where we had set our trap.

    The crystal was slowly losing that ck colour that was in the center of it as more and more of this ck energy flowed out.

    Eventually, itpletely lost that ck colour as the ck energy gathered where the trap was.

    Finally, that ck energy gathered together and formed¡­a ck skinned figure.

    This was like the demons that we had met before, but this one was definitely much stronger than them.

    The first thing that they said was¡­

    "Ah! My butt!"

 Chapter 727 How is this fair?

    <h4>Chapter 727 How is this fair?</h4>

    The dark energy that had gathered took the form of a demon, but¡­that demon appeared right above The Prator.

    No, it wasn''t even above The Prator.

    The dark energy had gathered around The Prator and eventually created that demon figure around it, so The Prator was actually already inside the demon when it formed.

    So The Prator was actually deep inside the demon king''s butt when he appeared.

    That was why the demon king had suddenly screamed like this.

    The demon king could only writhe in pain as smoke started toe out of his butt.

    It wasn''t just that The Prator had entered into the butt of the demon king, it was also that there was the effect of the holy water that had been sprayed on it.

    Normal holy water wouldn''t have an effect on the demon king since it was too strong for the holy water to have an effect on him. However, the holy water that I had poured over The Prator was currently affecting the demon king, as shown by the smoke that came out of his butt.

    That was partly because the demon king was in a weakened state from being suddenly released and partly because¡­of The Prator.

    The holy water that had been poured over The Prator acted like a kind of coating for The Prator. It was like in games where one would rub something on their weapons to change the attribute of the weapon.

    This holy water changed the attribute of The Prator into the holy attribute, which caused holy damage to the demon king.

    That was further strengthened by the special power of The Prator.

    Since it was the Prator that was coated, it meant that the 99% pration effect was also applied to the holy damage.

    Which was why this holy water was having an effect even though it was just normal holy water.

    As the demon king screamed out in pain, he started iling around as if he wanted to find a way to escape this pain.

    However, all that did was knock him into the various dildo bats that were around him.

    While these dildo bats didn''t have the same pration effect as The Prator, they still had a pration effect. So what they did was the same thing as The Prator where they applied holy damage to the demon king.

    So when the demon king swung his arms into the dildo bats around him, all he did was cause pain to himself. There was smoke that came from his arms as they hit the dildo bats around him, causing him to scream out in pain again.

    During this, the demon king cursed out, "What is this? What is happening here?!"

    The demon king had a look of absolute panic and confusion on his face as he looked at the strange things that were around him.

    In a way, he had adapted to the dildo bats that were around him and The Prator inside of him.

    They still dealt damage, but he was able to numb himself enough that he didn''t feel that pain anymore and could look around himself.

    That was when I gave a nod to the ones standing around the demon king with the dildo bats in their hands.

    The moment that they received this nod, they immediately raised the dildo bats in their hands and swung them down at the demon king. This was the signal that they had been waiting for the entire time, so they had actually been quite tense during this.

    So they took this chance to release all of this tension that had been inside of them in one go.

    When the demon king felt the dildo bats hitting him, he cried out in pain since each hit actually caused even more smoke toe from his body.

    The demon king tried to raise his arms to protect himself, but he just couldn''t stop the smokeing from his body as the dildo bats kept hitting him. The more that they hit him, the more it seemed that his body was burning up.

    The demon king roared, "You, all of you! How dare you do this to the great Ziltan! I am the Thirty Seventh Demon King! The rightful ruler of this world!"

    But even though he roared out in anger, it didn''t seem like a single person cared about what he had to say as everyone kept hitting the demon king with those dildo bats.

    The demon king slowly began to nt and it didn''t seem like he had any power left as his hands drooped down. It seemed like he wouldn''t be able to resist at this rate.

    In a voice that was bing weaker and weaker, the demon king said, "You! You''re all bullying me! How is this fair? Fight me one on one like men instead of ganging up against me like this!"

    Cecilia was the one that said, "I''m a woman."

    The demon king was shocked when he heard this as he didn''t know what to say in response, but that didn''t mean that everyone stopped pounding the demon king.

    It was like this that the demon king started to change into wisps of dark energy.

    These were the same wisps of dark energy that the demon king had been turned into when he had been sealed inside of the crystal.

    This dark energy seemed to be escaping from the body of the demon king and disappearing into the world.

    This was confusing to the others, but I knew what this was.

    It was that the demon king was just too strong to exist in the form of a corpse, so it broke down into dark energy when it died.

    This was a sign that the demon king was dying.

    So I said, "Keep hitting it, it''s almost over."

    The demon king looked at me with a look of hatred as he said, "You''re the one that did this? This isn''t fair at all, how could I be destroyed after being unsealed after all this time."

    I didn''t respond as the demon king turned into dark energy with an aggrieved look on his face.

 Chapter 728 Itâ€™s over?

    <h4>Chapter 728 It¡¯s over?</h4>

    When the demon king dissipated into dark energy, he scattered without a trace.

    Everyone that had been hitting the demon king with the dildo bats in their hands suddenly stopped.

    They just stood there with the dildo bats raised, as if they couldn''t understand what had just happened.

    Then they slowly turned to look at me, as if they were asking me, "What happened?"

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything, Duke Nergiante spoke up for everyone, "Is that it? Is it over just like that?"

    I had been staring at where the demon king had been as if I was waiting for something when Duke Nergiante called out to me.

    Even when he called out to me and snapped me out of my thoughts, I still looked at the same spot as I said, "It''s over, the demon king is taken care of."

    Duke Nergiante and all of the others who were standing nearby revealed strangeplicated looks.

    It wasn''t that they didn''t believe me, it was just that they didn''t know how to feel about this.

    Demon king, that was a being that was at the peak of the demon race.

    It should have represented the most powerful being in all of the demon race, a being that should have been very hard for humans to deal with. Unless the champions of the human race came forward, it should have been very hard for them to deal with this demon king.

    However...the demon king didn''tst more than ten minutes under the trap that they hadid for it.

    The people that had participated and watched this all happen knew that this wasn''t because of their own power, but rather because of the things that a certain someone brought.

    So they couldn''t help looking at the strange weapons that were still being held up with strange looks.

    They knew that it was all because of the power of these things that they were able to defeat the demon king in the end.

    But...just what were these things?

    Seeing that the demon king was gone, I went forward towards The Prator.

    I didn''t care about the rest of the dildo bats and just went for The Prator, as if I didn''t trust anyone with it.

    But that could be considered correct since I didn''t trust anyone with it.

    Or rather, there was a certain someone that I didn''t trust.

    This person had been trying too hard to deny my involvement in this matter that I couldn''t help feeling a bit suspicious. I also looked at them from the corner of my eyes to see that they were still standing there with a shocked look.

    The only problem was...the fact that The Prator had been up the demon king''s butt.

    Even if it spawned inside the demon king''s butt when he appeared, it meant that there was still blood and other things that were on The Prator.

    I hesitated for a second before grabbing the hilt of The Prator and picking it up.

    But as I leaned in, I made sure to put something else that was there into my Storage Ring.

    This was a thing that had dropped from the dark energy that the demon king had dissipated into. This was the thing that I hade here for in the first ce since this was a special item that had a variety of uses.

    It would be something that I might depend on in the future.

    So of course I wouldn''t give it up to the people of the Nergiante Dukedom.

    As for The Prator, I brought it over to the pile of holy water that was left and I started pouring some of the holy water on it.

    As soon as the holy water fell onto it, there was smoke that came from The Prator.

    The blood and other liquids from the demon race was filled with dark energy, so the holy water actually helped me quite a bit in this. I didn''t have to actually wash it off as the holy water disinfected what was dirtying The Prator.

    Though there was a strange smell that filled the air as I did this.

    Seeing what I was doing, the others also came over with the dildo bats that had been stuck inside of the demon king. They were also covered in the blood of the demon king, so they had to be disinfected as well.

    While we were doing this, Duke Nergiante slowly came back to his senses and asked me, "Then what do we do now?"

    I looked at him while I was still pouring the holy water and said, "You can do whatever you want now. This ce no longer has a demon king sealed, so your problems have been solved. Though if you don''t believe me, feel free to explore this ce for as long as you want. This is a ce that belongs to your country in the first ce, so you can do whatever you want with it."

    A bitter smile appeared on Duke Nergiante''s face when he heard this.

    He had thought that the fight with the demon king would be like the end of the world, but it turned out that it had been as easy as pie.

    This famous Duke Zwein had taken care of the demon king with a simple flip of his hand¡­

    There were just too manyplicated feelings that filled him at this moment for him to ept this.

    But while Duke Nergiante was thinking these things, the captain of the guard came forward to say, "My lord, those weapons of theirs¡­they''re clearly not normal weapons. Should we¡­"

    He left his words hanging, but it was clear what he was implying.

    Duke Nergiante narrowed his eyes to look at the captain of the guards, but he found that it wasn''t just the captain that seemed to think this way. The rest of the guards and even some of his soldiers looked like they agreed with this.

    But Duke Nergiante knew better¡­

    The moment that they tried anything, it would be the end of them.

    This was a person that had taken care of a demon king this easily, what would they bepared to that?

    So he firmly shook his head and said, "Never think of this again."

    I could hear this as I poured holy water on The Prator, so I couldn''t help revealing a smile.

    It seemed that the fourth prince and I had been right about Duke Nergiante.

 Chapter 729 Letâ€™s make a detour

    <h4>Chapter 729 Let¡¯s make a detour</h4>

    Since the matter of the demon king had been settled, we didn''t stay for another day.

    We had already discussed things with Duke Nergiante before heading to fight the demon king, so there wasn''t much else for us to discuss.

    Not to mention, we had already been away from our own kingdom for close to a month now.

    It was fine for me to be away, but the fourth prince¡­

    The longer that the fourth prince was away, the worse that it was for our kingdom.

    So I had to bring him back as soon as possible.

    For now, there wasn''t much that we could even do with the Nergiante Dukedom in the first ce.

    The Nergiante Dukedom was just too far away for our kingdom to have proper rtions with in the first ce. So it was just building up a friendly rtionship now for what wouldeter.

    Such as if¡­our borders were to suddenly be closer, then it would be possible for us to build rtions.

    Such as if one of the kingdoms around us was taken over by us, decreasing the distance between us.

    On the way home, we didn''t say much as we were in a rush to head back.

    But once we reached our kingdom''s borders¡­I suddenly thought of something that I wanted to do.

    If I were to head back to the capital now, the only thing that was waiting for me were a bunch of nobles that would be trying to bother me. As well, there would only be a bunch of lessons from the king on how to act like a king.

    These days of traveling had been a very nice distraction from it all and I didn''t want it to end.

    So right after reaching our kingdom''s borders, I suddenly said, "Let''s make a detour."

    Everyone was surprised when I suddenly made this suggestion, but the fourth prince seemed like he was the first one that agreed to this as he said, "Sure, where do you want to go?"

    I could guess why he wanted to take a detour, but he was thest person that I could allow to take a detour.

    So¡­

    I looked at the shadows and said, "Grab him."

    The shadows were surprised to hear this and they hesitated a bit, but they still grabbed the fourth prince in the end. Though it was clear by the way that they did it that they weren''t willing to do so.

    The only reason that they were doing this was because the fourth prince had given them the order to follow my orders during the trip.

    Until we went back to the capital, this trip still wasn''t over yet.

    So they were still following my orders.

    But then again, it wasn''t like my order was a bad thing since they could guess what I was nning to do with the fourth prince.

    "Brother, what are you doing?" The fourth prince asked in a panicked voice.

    I just looked at him and calmly said, "Brother Noah, you''re not getting out of work by using me as an excuse. You''re going back to the capital."

    The shadows all nodded in agreement to this when they heard me say this.

    I knew that the shadow were worried about this, but they hadn''t been able to do anything since the fourth prince was their master. As guards that had been trained in utmost loyalty, they couldn''t go against the fourth prince in any way.

    Even if they clearly didn''t agree with his ns.

    But the fourth prince¡­couldn''t ept this that easily.

    After all, he wouldn''t just let me go have fun on my own while he was stuck doing work.

    So he began toin about this.

    I gave a nod to the shadows to cover his mouth and stop him fromining.

    Then looking right at him, I said, "You can only me yourself for sneaking out like that or else I can get even in another wayter on."

    The fourth prince suddenly stopped struggling when he heard this.

    I gave a nod to the shadows who released the hands that were on his mouth to let the fourth prince speak again.

    With a bitter smile, the fourth prince said, "You really are mean, aren''t you?"

    I just looked back at him with a faint smile as I said, "This is my kindness."

    Then looking over at Shadow Five, I said, "I''ll leave him in your hands during this time. You can go with the fourth prince to the capital."

    Shadow Five was surprised to hear this, but she slowly gave a nod.

    After all, even if she had an order from the fourth prince to follow me, the fourth prince had already said that all orders from me during this trip would be above all.

    So for this time, she could follow this order and go with the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince looked at me with a betrayed and sad look as he was brought back to the capital by the shadows, but it didn''t seem like he was resisting as much as one thought he would.

    I could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew what he had to do and was only acting this way because it was me.

    If it was anyone else, he definitely wouldn''t have acted this way.

    Once the fourth prince''s group left, there was only my group that was here.

    This was the group that had Cecilia and the knights from my town, along with Shaka and his men.

    I turned to look at them before saying, "Let''s head home."

    They were surprised to hear this, but then they happily nodded since it had been a long time since we had been back in my territory.

    Since heading to the capital and after everything that happened, we hadn''t been back home in close to two months now.

    It wasn''t just me that was missing home, all of them were missing their family back in my territory.

    But I was missing someone else for a certain reason¡­

    A reason that would end in our bedroom.

 Chapter 730 Back to school (1)

    <h4>Chapter 730 Back to school (1)</h4>

    With the wyverns, it took us no time to reach my territory.

    The reaction that we received when we returned was different from every other time we arrived on wyverns.

    The people just kept walking and didn''t even bother looking at us since they were so used to wyvernsing and going now.

    Though when we came closer and they saw that it was Joan that was returning, they started crowding.

    After all, it was a rare scene to see the wyverns gathering like this and preparing to wee someone. The only thing that could invoke that was the Wyvern Queen Joan.

    So they were all looking forward to seeing her and to a lesser extent me since I was still technically their lord.

    When wended, I found that Rose was already waiting there with a group of other girls who were all here to wee us.

    This was naturally my other wives and fiancees.

    When I came down, they whisked me away before anyone else could even talk to me.

    I was brought back to the mansion and put in a room as they all surrounded me.

    I wanted to say that I was surprised, but I really couldn''t be surprised since I could already guess why they were acting this way.

    They should have received the letter that I sent from the capital that told them about everything that happened. So it would be strange if they weren''t angry about the fact that I had only sent a letter instead ofing to see them.

    I could only take what wasing to me, so I braced myself for what came.

    But to my surprise, it wasn''t what I thought it was.

    I felt a soft pair of arms wrap around me when I braced myself to be pped by Rose.

    I opened my eyes to find a pair of soft and ample breasts ced right in front of my face.

    When I looked up, I found that it was Rose who was hugging me, though I did recognize her breasts since I had already seen them so many times.

    I just looked up at her with a confused look as I waited to see what she would do.

    Hugging me like this, Rose said, "It''s just good that you''re back. I missed you."

    I was once again taken aback when I heard this, but my heart couldn''t help aching when I saw the way that she looked at me.

    Two months, that was how long I had been gone.

    The only thing that had told Rose that I wasn''t dead were a few letters that I had sent to her.

    I could understand why she was feeling this way and I could understand that I was a terrible husband.

    So in a slow voice, I said, "I''m sorry."

    She gave a nod before suddenly moving back and releasing me from her arms.

    I was once again surprised by this, but not as surprised as by what happened next.

    "Pa!"

    There was a loud pping sound that rang out through the air as my head suddenly turned to the side. I could feel the stinging sensation that came from my cheek that made it clear that I had been pped, but I was caught off guard by the fact that she had suddenly pped me like this.

    Rose then said, "This is for keeping me waiting for so long."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this, but I turned back with a serious look and said, "I''m sorry for being away for so long."

    Rose once again took me in her embrace, but she wasn''t able to keep me to herself for long.

    There were still other girls in this room who wanted to do the same.

    A hug and a p, that was what came from each of them.

    With how consistent they were, it was as if they had already discussed this ahead of time.

    But this wasn''t the only thing that they wanted.

    There was something else that a few certain people wanted to do.

    After all, it had been too long since I hade home.

    So after dinner, I was kidnapped once again and brought to the bedroom.

    There were others that had wanted to join, but they were kept out since this was something that only those that were married were allowed to do.

    This definitely wasn''t an excuse so that they would have more time for themselves.

    I was made to sit in the bedroom and wait for the three of them toe back.

    It took a few minutes, but when they came back, I was shocked by what they were wearing.

    Though one of them seemed a bit embarrassed by it.

    Rose and Haley were the ones that seemed like they were fully confident, but Cecilia looked like she was too embarrassed toe in. In the end, she had to be dragged in by the hands by both Rose and Haley.

    Dragging her in, the three of them just stood there in front of me as if they were showing off what they were wearing.

    However, I wasn''t able to react properly since I waspletely shocked by what they were wearing.

    This was something that I had seen before on Earth, but it wasn''t something that was seen thatmonly in this world even though it seemed like it would be somethingmon.

    After all, this was amon outfit seen in H-games like this.

    But this was something that was locked behind a DLC and wasn''t avable readily.

    There should have been only one ce in this world that this outfit was avable from.

    However, I knew that it was impossible for them to get this outfit from that ce since it was just too far from here.

    They must have made it after I told them about this before.

    "Do you like it?" Rose asked me with a teasing smile.

    I just gave a nod in a daze when I heard this.

    What was there not to like?

    Was there a man that didn''t like a school uniform?

 Chapter 731 Back to school (2)

    Chapter 731 Back to school (2)

    ??I took a moment to enjoy their appearance in its full splendor.

    The three of them were dressed in the typical school girl uniform with a white shirt, blue skirt, and red tie, but there were still differences between them.

    Namely¡­how much they filled out that white shirt.

    It was Haley who was the smallest, even if she wasn''t that small in the first ce.

    Then it was Rose who filled it out quite well.

    Finally, it was Cecilia who looked like she was about to burst out of that shirt at any moment.

    The buttons that were at her cor looked like they were about to pop off from the pressure that she was putting on them.

    I really couldn''t help staring when I saw this.

    And then¡­there was a button that actually popped off.

    This was the top button of her shirt that couldn''t take the pressure anymore.

    The moment that this top button popped off, it flew across the room and hit me right in the face since I was sitting there in front of them.

    This button hit me right on the forehead and it stung a bit, as it flew out with quite a bit of force when it popped off her shirt.

    Cecilia couldn''t help revealing an embarrassed look when this happened and she reached her arms out to cover her chest, even if it was quite hard for her with how big they were.

    But after a moment, she remembered what she was here for in the first ce and brought her arms down, revealing everything.

    Now that the top button had popped, I had a view of the bountiful valley that was hidden within and I could see an endless gap in between thoserge peaks.

    A wave of excitement filled me when I saw this and I finally snapped out of my daze.

    I took the button from my forehead and held it in my hand as my brain tuned.

    "I can do this, right?"

    That was what I asked myself as I looked at the three of them.

    Finally, I came to a decision.

    They were my wives and this was our private time, so of course I could do what I want.

    So holding this button, I said, "It seems like the three of you arete to ss." Then bringing the button up, I continued by saying, "It seems like you''re even breaking dress code now. I wonder what I''m supposed to do with you three."

    The three of them had confused looks at first, but then Rose had a look of understanding on her face. It was as if she had figured out what I was trying to do here.

    As soon as she did, Rose came forward and leaned in to entuate her cleavage before saying, "Sir, I can exin¡­"

    I immediately raised my hand to stop her before saying, "It doesn''t matter what you try to say, there''s no way that I''ll let you get out of this. I''ll make sure that you''ll be punished."

    Rose trembled a bit when she heard this, but she kept ying the role of a scared school girl as she said, "Sir, please, I can''t exin this to my parents if you do that." Then she came forward a bit and pushed up her chest even more as she said, "Perhaps there''s another way that I can convince you to let this go?"

    Looking at her like this, a smile crept onto my lips.

    I had only told them that this was an outfit that girls would wear to school in a distant country, I didn''t tell them anything else.

    Yet just from that, Rose was able to get into her role so well.

    I really was amazed by how easily she was able to get herself into this role.

    I stroked my chin before saying, "Well, perhaps there is something that you can do, but¡­"

    I turned to look at the other two who were still just standing there with strange looks on their faces, but I didn''t say a thing. I just looked at them with one brow raised, as if I was implying something.

    The two of them looked at each other beforeing forward to stand beside Rose.

    The two of them also leaned forward and held their chests just like Rose did before saying¡­

    "Please sir, I''ll do anything you want."

    "Please¡­just¡­don''t¡­tell¡­my¡­parents."

    One of them was t and one of them was stuttering like she didn''t know what to say.

    It was clear that the two of them couldn''t do the same roleying as Rose, but they were at least trying their best, so I really couldn''tin about this.

    After looking at them for a bit, I said, "Alright, I can keep this a secret, but¡­that depends on what you''re willing to do for me."

    Rose was about to take the lead by speaking for all three of them, but something happened that stopped her from doing this.

    There was another button that suddenly popped.

    This was the second button on Cecilia''s shirt.

    When she copied Rose and lifted her chest like she did, the pressure that she put on the shirt was just too much for it and it couldn''t take this pressure. So in the end, the second button popped just like the first one had.

    But it wasn''t just the button that popped.

    It was much more than the button alone that popped.

    Because the button was gone, the pressure was just too much for the shirt itself and what was inside couldn''t help slipping out from her shirt.

    Those plump and luscious breasts popped out right in front of me.

    She didn''t even wear a bra, though it most likely would have been too much pressure for her to wear one¡­

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help looking at her with an awkward look.

    Cecilia was about to hold her chest, but then she stopped herself as she looked at me.

    She was making it very clear what she wanted with this gaze of hers.

    Seeing this, a faint smile appeared on my lips before I said, "Alright, let''s get to your punishment."

 Chapter 732 Back to school (3)

    <h4>Chapter 732 Back to school (3)</h4>

    I made the three of themy in bed while still in their uniforms, but I didn''t have themy down in a normal manner.

    Instead of having themy on their backs, I had themy down with their faces forward and their butts sticking out in the air.

    The way that they were leaning in on the bed, it was almost as if they were praying.

    But this was anything but holy...

    It could even be said that what we were doing was considered unholy with how much it was catering to a specific kink.

    After theyid down like this, I stood over them and looked down at the perfect bottoms that were pointing up at me.

    With their fair white skins, it was like six moons rising in the sky.

    They were so full and plump that I really wanted to put my face in and just motorboat them, but I held myself back in the end. After all, there was something else that I wanted to do while they were like this.

    The three girls were justying there without saying a word, but I could sense the excitement that wasing from them based on their heavy breathing. At the same time, it seemed like there was something that was dripping down from their legs.

    It was a kind of liquid that was slowly dripping down the side of their legs.

    With a smile, I said, "The three of you have been quite naughty, haven''t you?"

    There was a tremble that came from all three of them when they heard this before they said together, "Yes, we have."

    The smile on my face grew even wider when I heard this before I said, "Then I''ll have to punish you."

    With that, I stepped forward so that they were right in front of me.

    But I didn''t pull down my pants and release the beast.

    Instead, I came forward to gently stroke one of the bottoms in front of me.

    It was Cecilia who immediately started trembling in excitement when she felt my touch.

    To the side, I could see Rose and Haley looking at me with disappointed looks, but I couldn''t help it.

    When her top had popped like that...it really made me want to tease her.

    While stroking her soft and full bottom like this, I said, "So you''ve been very naughty and need to be punished?"

    Cecilia bit her lip before saying, "Yes, I..."

    Before she could finish, my hand suddenly fell down hard on her bottom.

    "Eek." There was a girl cry that didn''t suit Cecilia at all that came from her mouth.

    This was a kind of cry that only I had ever heard before.

    It was clear that she didn''t expect me to suddenly p her like this, but...I could see that she was getting even wetter from it.

    Then when I took my hand off her butt, I could see the red handprint which turned my on even more. It was almost as if I was leaving my mark on her, like I was saying that she only belonged to me.

    With an evil smile, I said, "Do you think that''s the only punishment that you''ll receive?"

    Then without any hesitation, there was another p that fell onto her other cheek.

    "Ah¡­" There was a different cry that came from her this time.

    It was one that was filled with pleasure rather than surprise.

    There were now two bright red marks that were on her butt, but I didn''t stop there as I kept pping her.

    While pping her, I said, "You really are greedy for punishment, aren''t you? Just see how my hand sinks perfectly into your butt, it''s almost as if I''m being sucked in."

    Cecilia just kept moaning with every p that she received until she finally couldn''t take it anymore.

    Without even touching her private parts, she was able to climax like this.

    Her legs gave out under her and her behind fell down as she fell forward.

    In between her legs, on the bed, there was this area that seemed to be wet because it had been soaked in some kind of liquid. With how it was shaped, it was almost as if that liquid had been shot out from between her legs.

    I just looked at her with a wide smile on my face.

    As expected of the masochist, just this alone was enough for her.

    But seeing her like this really made me want to y with her even more.

    Or at least that was what I was thinking until I heard¡­

    "Ah, sir, please punish us as well. We''ve been naughty too."

    I looked up to see Rose and Haley looking at me with pleading looks on their faces.

    It was clear that they had been turned on from the sounds of the ps and the look on Cecilia''s face while this had all been happening.

    They clearly wanted me to do the same thing to them.

    Just looking at them begging me like this was enough for me as something started to grow inside of my pants.

    Cecilia, who was right in front of me, might have been lying down face first on the bed, but she quickly raised her head when she felt something poking her from behind.

    She didn''t need to turn to know what it was, so she quickly raised herself up again to press up against me.

    Even though she didn''t know how to role y like Rose and Haley, she definitely knew what to do to turn me on.

    But this wasn''t the time for that.

    I had to give the other two a chance as well.

    So I just pped Cecilia''s butt once more, but this time I did it much harder so that she would be pushed out of the way.

    I then grabbed both Rose and Haley''s butts before pressing myself up against them and saying, "Are you ready to be punished?"

    There was no need for them to answer as the answer from their bottom halves was more than enough for me.

 Chapter 733 Summon from the church

    Chapter 733 Summon from the church

    ??"Knock, knock."

    When the sun rose, that was the first thing that we heard which woke us up.

    This knocking came for the door to our room and it seemed like whoever was trying to see us was quite urgent about it.

    But all four of us were tired after what had happenedst night.

    The cosy really had ignited the mes in my soul and I hadn''t been able to stop myself as Ipletely ravaged the three of them.

    I had been quite pent up after all since it had been a while since I had been home.

    Even though Cecilia had been with me the entire time, we had never done it since she was on guard duty.

    She was someone that took her duty very seriously, so she never came to my room alone in the middle of the night. She had always been on guard for if anything happened to me, so she couldn''t afford to be distracted like that.

    Which was why I had been pent up all this time.

    But that was all releasedst night, so I was feeling very refreshed and tired right now.

    Which was why it was much worse to hear this knocking so early in the morning.

    It didn''t take long for this knocking to wake up the girls around me who were just as tired as me, but Rose had all of us get up since she knew that the only reason that they would be here this early was if there was something important.

    It turned out that it was the maids who were knocking on the door.

    They justpletely ignored me and Cecilia as they went to Rose and Haley.

    As I listened to their conversation, I learned that there were many things that happened while I was gone.

    The economic zone n had proceeded while I was gone and it seemed like it was going quite well.

    So well that it seemed like there were requests from other ces to copy this n.

    So it turned out that this was what they had been working on while I was gone.

    While I was a bit surprised they didn''t tell me anything, I knew that there was no reason for them to tell me anything.

    I left everything in the territory to Rose and she had Haley helping her with anything that involved the economy of our territory. So they were more than enough to handle this without any interference from me.

    I trusted Rose enough that she could represent me in all matters rted to this.

    But the problem was that I couldn''t do anything to help them.

    Because of how excellent the two of them were, there wasn''t really anything that I could do to help them even if I wanted to.

    So all I could do was awkwardly listen on the side.

    Beside me was Cecilia who had somehow fallen asleep because of the talks that were happening in front of us. It wasn''t that she was just tired, she just wasn''t suited to things like this in the first ce.

    While this was happening, I was surprised to find that there was a butler that came over to me.

    I had to look at him with a questioning gaze as if I was making sure that he wanted to talk to me, but when he gave a nod in response, I asked, "What''s wrong?"

    The butler bowed to me before saying, "My lord, the priest at the church is asking for your presence today."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I gave a nod in response to show that I understood.

    I was certainly surprised to hear that the priest was asking to see me.

    After all, I was the one that had blown off our engagement before.

    It wasn''t my fault since I had been summoned to the capital, but I did feel guilty because of it.

    But what I was surprised by was the fact that he was summoning the day after I came back.

    I didn''t think that there was anything urgent that the priest had to talk to me about, so I couldn''t think of why he would summon me so soon.

    Still, I had no reason not to go see him.

    I could apologize for blowing him off and see what he needed me for.

    I left everything here to Rose and Haley, while also leaving Cecilia in bed.

    Since I was in my own town, there was no need for me to be followed by any guards. It should be safe enough here that I could walk around on my own.

    Though to be fair, there were still guards that came with me.

    I just didn''t know about them since they were hidden guards that Rose had assigned to me.

    As I walked through the town, I was amazed by how prosperous it had be.

    There were people all around even though it was early in the morning. They all looked lively and busy, as if there were plenty of things for them to do.

    At the same time, I could see all the various products that they brought out.

    These were products that I had never seen in our town before since these were considered rare products that weren''t produced here. Yet here they were being handled by these regr people.

    I was of course recognized and many people offered me free things, but I had to turn them down since I couldn''t hold these things in the first ce.

    When I arrived at the church, that was when it became much more quiet.

    Unlike the town that was filled with people, it seemed like the church was less crowded.

    Though that wasn''t strange since it wasn''t the weekend, so it wasn''t as if people had the free time toe to the church.

    When I arrived, I found that the priest was there at the door waiting for me.

    Seeing me, he said, "My lord you''re here."

 Chapter 734 The reason whyâ€¦

    <h4>Chapter 734 The reason why¡­</h4>

    I was certainly surprised to find the priest waiting outside for me.

    But at the same time, I was also feeling guilty since I was the one that had bailed on him before.

    So I came forward and said, "Father, there was no need for you to wait for me. Let''s go in and talk."

    The priest shook his head and seemed like he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself with a difficult look on his face.

    In the end, he just gave a nod and led the way in.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help being surprised and confused.

    After all, I didn''t like the way that he had stopped himself from speaking just now.

    It was like there was something that he was having difficulty saying, or there was something that he didn''t know how to say.

    When that happened, it usually meant bad news...

    So there was a part of me that wanted to ask him right away what the problem was, but I didn''t do it in the end. I knew that doing this would just make it harder for him, so at the very least, I had to wait until he was ready to tell me.

    We went into the office of the priest and he sat down after bringing some tea over.

    Though we had sat down, we just sat there in silence for five minutes as the priest just sipped his tea and gave sighs as if he was struggling with something.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and asked, "Father, is there something wrong?"

    The priest opened and closed his mouth a few times before slowly shaking his head and saying, "Well, it''s not that there''s something wrong, it''s just that..."

    When his voice trailed off, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows as it really felt like there was something wrong.

    So I said, "If there''s something wrong, you can tell me. Could it be that it''s rted to the main church headquarters? Have they given you some kind of order that you can''t refuse?"

    The priest was surprised to hear this before quickly shaking his head and saying, "No, no, it''s nothing like that. The church does not get involved in private matters that easily, so there''s no need for you to worry about that. Not to mention, you are a man with the Mark of God, the church wouldn''t turn against you that easily."

    I was relieved, but also a bit surprised by thetter part of what he said.

    Still, I was confused why he had said what he had said.

    So I asked again, "Is it a personal issue that you have with me? Is it because I went to the capital and blew off our study sessions? If it is, then let me apologize to you."

    The priest once again shook his head and said, "No, no, it''s not that either. I know that you are busy my lord, I would never hold that against you."

    I just looked at the priest with a confused look after hearing this.

    If it wasn''t this or that, then I really had no idea why he would say something like this.

    After all, I couldn''t think of another thing that I had done wrong¡­

    The priest could see the look on my face, so after struggling a bit more, he said with a sigh, "My lord, it''s just that this is something that''s hard for me to say because it can be considered a personal matter for you. It''s not a matter that others should be asking about, but I have to talk to you about this."

    I was even more confused when I heard this, but I gave a nod of acknowledgement before waiting to see what he had to say.

    The priest took a deep breath before saying, "My lord, are you and the madam trying to conceive a child?"

    A look ofplete shock appeared on my face when I heard this.

    After all, this was thest thing that I expected the priest to say.

    There was a blush that appeared on my face since this was indeed quite the personal matter, but I didn''t hold it against the priest for asking me something like this. It was clear by the look on his face that he had a reason for asking me this.

    So I slowly gave a nod and asked, "We are, is there a problem with that?"

    The priest shook his head as he said, "No, of course not. Children are the gift of god and everyone should have the chance to have one." Then after a pause, he said, "But¡­that is where the problem lies."

    "Huh?" I was once again confused when I heard this.

    Problem?

    What problem could there be?

    The priest paused for a minute before taking a deep breath and saying, "There''s no easy way to say this, but I''ve been reading some of the texts about the Mark of God and I''ve learned something disturbing."

    I raised a brow with a questioning look when I heard this.

    If it was disturbing, then that was bad since I was the one with the Mark of God on me.

    The priest gave another sigh, but he didn''t finish that thought as he asked, "My lord, have you and the madam been trying for a long time to have a child?"

    Once again, I was surprised by this change in topic since I was more concerned about the disturbing thing that he found. However, I still gave a nod in response.

    Seeing this, the priest said, "As expected¡­"

    "As expected?" I repeated in a questioning tone.

    The priest gave a nod before saying, "There''s no easy way to say this, so I''ll be frank. My lord, the reason why you and the madam are having difficulty conceiving is because of the Mark of God."

    "What?" I asked in a shocked voice.

    After a pause, I asked, "Are you certain about that?"

    The priest gave a nod before standing up to go get some books that he had on his table.

 Chapter 735 Too much divine energy

    Chapter 735 Too much divine energy

    ??Bringing the book over, he opened it to a specific page before he started reading from it.

    The way that he did this seemed like he had already memorized exactly what page he needed to turn to.

    In addition to this, judging by how tattered the pages of the book looked, it seemed that he had been reading this book quite a few times.

    This didn''t seem like a good sign, especially with what he was telling me.

    After turning the book to that specific page, the priest turned it for me to look at. He was even pointing at the specific part that he wanted me to read.

    I narrowed my eyes to look carefully at this passage.

    "The Mark of God fills the one that possesses it with pure divine energy. This is the connection between the one that possesses this Mark of God and the one that bestowed this Mark of God."

    The first part seemed like it was quite normal, but the second part¡­

    "This pure divine energy is not something that should exist in the world of mortals in the first ce. As such, when it is left inside of a mortal body, it will be treated as a foreign substance and will be isted from the rest of the mortal world."

    It was worded a bit strangely, but I was able to get the gist of it from this.

    "So I have this divine energy inside of me?"

    The priest gave a nod before saying, "From what I''ve been able to gather, this divine energy should naturally flow into your body through the Mark of God. Once it''s in your body, it will flow through it and integrate with your body, filling it with divine energy."

    The priest raised his hand towards me as if he was asking for my hand before saying, "If I may?"

    I was a bit confused what the priest wanted to do, but I didn''t go against it as I put my hand in his.

    The priest then took a small needle and suddenly poked my index finger with it.

    It was painful since he had poked it deep enough that I would bleed, but I wasn''t even able to react in time as the priest had already healed it with his magic. With the magic of the priest, that wound quickly closed and disappeared, as if it was never there.

    But there was still a drop of my blood on the needle that he had poked me with.

    Using this needle, the priest brought my blood over to a cross that he had set on the side and dropped it onto the cross.

    I was very confused seeing all of this until¡­

    As soon as the drop of my bloodnded on the cross, the cross suddenly lit up.

    There was this pure white light thatpletely surrounded this cross.

    It was almost too dazzling for me to look at directly.

    After a while, the pure white light that surrounded the cross started to fade away before disappearing.

    Once it was gone, the priest said, "As you can see from this special relic that operates on divine energy, your blood is filled with it."

    I slowly gave a nod since there really was no exining what had just happened other than that.

    But the problem was¡­

    "How do I solve this problem? How do I decrease the concentration of divine energy in my blood so that I can have a child?" I asked in a serious voice.

    After all, even if he was telling me all of this, the priest wasn''t giving me the most important information. He wasn''t telling me how I would be able to get past this and have a child with my wives.

    The priest just had an awkward look on his face as he shook his head and said, "I don''t actually know."

    I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this.

    I just looked at the priest with a disappointed look, but there really wasn''t anything that he could say in response to this.

    After all, the priest had already gone through the book many times looking for a solution.

    The only problem was that this was divine energy.

    This was energy that the gods controlled, something that humans wouldn''t be able to manipte at all.

    So it wasn''t as if the priest was able to do anything even if he knew what the problem was.

    Seeing that he didn''t have anything else to say, I just gave a sigh before saying, "Is there really just no way at all?"

    The priest looked at me with a look of sympathy, but then he said, "Actually, it isn''t as if we can''t do a single thing. There is something that we can still try."

    I was surprised to hear this before asking, "What is it?"

    The priest hesitated for a second before saying, "Divine energy is the energy of the gods, so the only ones that can control it are the gods themselves. However, normal humans wouldn''t be able to contact the gods. Even those that devote themselves to the worship of gods would find it hard."

    The priest suddenly paused as he leaned in to look at my hand that had the Mark of God on it. As he looked at this hand, he said, "That is for normal people. For someone like you who has a connection to the gods, it should be easier."

    I was surprised as I looked down at the Mark of God on my hand before saying with a bitter smile, "Easier doesn''t mean that it''s easy overall. You have no idea if it will work at all, right?"

    The priest revealed a bitter smile before saying with a nod, "That''s right. Even if it is easier, that doesn''t mean that it will be easy to do this. To be honest, I don''t even know what I should do tomunicate with the gods, but I''m willing to give it a try."

    I didn''t say anything at first, but I slowly gave a nod in response.

 Chapter 736 Summoning the gods

    Chapter 736 Summoning the gods

    ??Half an hourter, the two of us were in front of the cross that was in the priest''s office.

    The first time that I met Solista was when I had looked at the cross in this office and had been pulled into that realm of hers.

    So I figured that if I wanted to talk to her again, I should try using the same method.

    However, the problem was that I had no idea what had even happened the first time.

    The only thing that I knew was that Solista had been the one that had pulled me in. So unless she wanted to do that again this time, it didn''t seem like anything was going to happen from just staring at the cross.

    Still, that didn''t mean that we were willing to give up that easily.

    Even if she didn''t pull me into her realm, there were still other things that I could do to help facilitate the process.

    So the priest stood over me, reading from the scriptures of this world''s religions.

    It wasn''t my first time listening to them, but it certainly was a strange feeling kneeling down in front of the cross while listening to the priest read them to me.

    We kept doing this until my knees just couldn''t take it anymore and I had to sit down for a bit.

    The priest kept looking through different books on his table, as if he was trying to find some kind of way to send me to the god''s realm. However, it was clear by the look on his face that he was struggling with this.

    As for me, I had my hand raised and I was looking at the Mark of God that was on the back of my hand.

    I didn''t know if I could use this Mark of God for anything, but I wanted to believe that it was more than just a decoration that made it impossible for me to have children. I believed that there had to be a use for this thing that I didn''t know about.

    After my legs recovered, I started squeezing my hand and concentrating.

    I was focused on the Mark of God that was on the back of my hand, as if I was trying to get it to do something.

    I didn''t care what it was, I just wanted it to do anything.

    It was too bad that this Mark of God didn''t do anything in the end.

    It just remained a simple mark on my hand that didn''t react at all.

    As I stared down at it, I said to myself, "Just how can I see you again?"

    After a moment of silence, there was a light that suddenly came from the Mark of God that caught both me and the priest off guard.

    The priest wanted toe forward to take a look at the glowing Mark of God, but my hand had other ns. My hand suddenly came up and it was pointed at the cross that was in this room.

    Then it pulled me up from the chair that I was sitting in and started pulling me closer to the cross.

    At first, I tried to resist since I had no idea what was happening.

    But then the priest said, "It must be guiding you. Just go along with it and see what happens."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard him say this.

    There was a part of me that really wanted to quip, "It''s not your body that''s being manipted, is it?"

    But in the end, I took the priest''s advice and just allowed the Mark of God to pull me.

    As expected, it pulled me over to the cross on the way.

    However, it didn''t just stop there in front of the cross.

    It made me go right up in front of the cross and then pulled my hand forward as if it wanted to grab the cross off the wall.

    When my hand made contact with the cross, there was a sudden burst of light that appeared.

    This was a burst of light that even the priest could see, but there was something else that shocked him, "This burst of divine energy, just what is happening now? What did you do?"

    I shook my head as I said, "I have no idea!"

    The priest seemed like he was saying something else, but for some reason, I couldn''t hear what he was saying. The light that wasing from my hand was just getting stronger and stronger,pletely blinding me.

    It was so bright that I had no choice but to close my eyes.

    "You called for me?"

    Those were the words that I heard in my ears and it came from a familiar voice.

    This was a voice that seemed toe from all around me.

    When the light slowly faded and I was able to see again, I found that I was in the same empty white space as before.

    No, actually, this ce wasn''t empty like before because there was a figure of light that was standing there in front of me.

    Or that was what I thought until that figure of light suddenly became two figures of light.

    One was a white figure of light and the other was a green figure of light.

    Both of them were figures that I had seen before, but this time¡­it didn''t seem like the light around them was as bright as before.

    I could see the faint outline of their figures, even if I couldn''t see their full appearances.

    These two were the goddesses that I had met before.

    It was Solista and Vivrum.

    Neither of them said a thing as they just stood there, as if they were waiting for me to speak.

    I didn''t say anything either as I just looked at the two of them in silence for a bit.

    Finally, I raised my hand that had the Mark of God on it and asked, "Can you exin the meaning of this to me?"

 Chapter 737 A solution

    <h4>Chapter 737 A solution</h4>

    The two of them didn''t even bother asking me what I was asking about as they just came forward to stand in front of me.

    But they also didn''t look at the Mark of God that I was holding up.

    The two of them were just looking at me, or at least that was what it seemed.

    Solista was the one that spoke first by saying, "It''s not because of this that you''re not able to have children."

    Vivrum gave a nod of agreement after Solista said this.

    I couldn''t help revealing a surprised look when I heard this from the two of them.

    I wasn''t actually surprised by what they said, but rather the way that they said this.

    The way that they said it was almost as if they knew something that I didn''t know.

    It was almost as if there was something that they were hiding from me.

    "Don''t ask us, we can''t tell you yet." Solista suddenly said as this thought passed through my mind.

    Vivrum said with a nod of agreement, "This is something that involves a matter much bigger than this. This is not something that we can discuss until the time is right."

    I looked at the two of them with a strange look before asking, "Then when is the time right?"

    Neither of them said a thing in response to this.

    Rather, it looked like they weren''t able to say anything in response to this.

    It was almost as if there was something that was keeping them from telling me what they wanted to tell me.

    Seeing this, I just said with a sigh, "Then at least tell me what I should do about this. Even if you aren''t able to tell me anything, you can at least tell me something about how to solve this, right?"

    Solista gave a simple nod when she heard this.

    With a wave of her hand, there was a white light that suddenly appeared around me.

    I was very confused why she would do this, but the reason showed itself.

    When this white light appeared around it, it seemed to pull some kind of white energy out of me. I had no idea what this white energy was, but it didn''t seem like it was a bad thing that she was doing it.

    After this white energy was pulled out, Solista said, "This is the divine energy that is gathering inside of your body. We could drain it out of you like this, but it wouldn''t be effective at all."

    With another wave of her hand, the white light disappeared from around me.

    I couldn''t help asking, "Why did you stop? Wouldn''t it work if you just drew out the divine energy from my body?"

    Solista shook her head as she said, "This is only a temporary solution and wouldn''t solve the root of your problem."

    "What is the root of my problem?" I asked right as she said this.

    Solista raised her hand and gathered some of the white energy that she had drained from me. This white energy just floated there as a ball of white energy while she spoke.

    "Divine energy as the name suggests is the energy controlled by gods. That means that this is the energy of the gods and not something that mortals would be able to make contact with."

    I gave a nod of understanding since this was already something that the priest had told me about.

    "So why do you think that this divine energy is able to remain in your body?"

    I was surprised to be asked this, but then I said with a bitter smile, "Isn''t it all because of the mark that you gave me?"

    Solista shook her head as she said, "But a mortal body is something of the mortal world, so why would it be able to contain divine energy in the first ce? This isn''t something that would make sense."

    I was confused at first, but I slowly understood what she was implying.

    So I had to ask, "Then you''re saying that the scriptures that were left in the mortal world were wrong?"

    Solista shook her head and it almost seemed like she was smiling as she said, "The humans that received the Mark of God before have put a bit of an exaggeration in those ounts. Of course they are human, so they will feel greed as humans. We can forgive a little greed from them since they are only human and they have performed greatness with our Mark of God. But that doesn''t mean that it''spletely urate. A mortal shouldn''t be able to contain divine energy in the first ce."

    It was all slowly clicking in ce for me.

    What she was saying was that the ones that had received the Mark of God before had lied about their conditions to make themselves seem even more eminent so they could receive more benefits.

    When in truth, their bodies didn''t have any divine energy at all.

    In that case, why did I have divine energy in my body?

    Not only did the priest demonstrate this with the cross, even Solista herself pulled the divine energy from my body.

    "This isn''t something that we can tell you. You have to figure this out on your own in time or else it will have no meaning."

    A bitter smile appeared on my lips again.

    They were gods, of course they could read my mind¡­

    So I ignored this and said, "Alright, let''s forget about that for now. You have a solution for this problem, right?"

    Solista slowly gave a nod before she continued with her exnation.

    "The reason why your body is so filled with this divine energy is because you only have two kinds of divine energy. There''s enough room in your body to bnce all of this, so they are too strong for the mortal world. But if there''s another form of divine energy that enters your body and shes with our divine energy, then it''ll weaken it to the point where it won''tpletely fill your body with divine energy."

 Chapter 738 Third god

    Chapter 738 Third god

    ??I was very confused by the solution that Solista gave me.

    What she was basically telling me to do was to add more divine energy into my body that was already filled with divine energy.

    This seemed like it was the opposite of what I should be doing since this would just fill me with even more divine energy.

    However...

    "What you should do now is go to the Dwarven Kingdom and ask to enter their holy temple. That is where the third god is waiting for you to bestow upon you another mark."

    She didn''t seem to care at all about what I was thinking and was just pushing me to go see this third god.

    But the Dwarven Kingdom...

    I never thought that she would tell me to go to the Dwarven Kingdom for this.

    "That''s because the god that the dwarves worship is Terra, god of earth. Well, not your Earth, but rather the very earth under us."

    I gave a nod to show that I understood what she was talking about, but still...a third god.

    No matter how I thought about it, it didn''t seem like this would be the right thing to do.

    The only problem was that there wasn''t another option for me.

    I didn''t know how to solve this problem and the only one that was giving me a solution was...

    "It is the only way." Solista suddenly said when I looked at her.

    The more time that I spent with them, the more that I was getting annoyed with the fact that they could read my mind. It didn''t give me a single bit of privacy with the way that they read my mind constantly.

    Even if I couldn''t see Solista''s appearance, it felt like she was looking at me with a smile on her face.

    Almost as if she was saying...

    "This is your only choice."

    This was different from the way that she had said it before.

    The way that she said it before was as if she was being considerate to my feelings. The way that I figured that her smile would look was more of a threat than a suggestion.

    Solista suddenly said in a serious voice, "I can tell you that we don''t want to hurt you. We''re here to help you because we''ve been asked to take care of you by the God of Earth. We don''t do anything to harm you."

    Vivrum who had been silent the entire time gave a nod of agreement after Solista said this.

    I looked at the two of them for a bit before saying with a sigh, "Alright, I''ll trust you."

    Both Solista and Vivrum nodded in response to this.

    Then Solista raised her hand as if she was about to send me back, but before she could...

    I looked at Vivrum and said, "I''ve run into a bit of trouble with the elves. Is there any way that I can easily make up with them?"

    Vivrum was surprised to hear this before she lowered her head a bit.

    With the way that she was standing, it was almost as if she was searching for something.

    After a moment of silence, she let out what seemed to be a sigh of relief before saying, "It''s not that you''vepletely cut your ties with the elves, it''s just a private feud with someone high up among the elves. Then that shouldn''t be a problem."

    My eyes lit up when I heard this, but what came next immediately dimmed the look in my eyes.

    I even couldn''t help looking at her with a disappointed look when I heard what she had to say.

    "Just let things work themselves out. You don''t have to do anything." Vivrum said in a very calm voice as if this didn''t affect her at all.

    "Huh?" That was my only response when I heard this.

    Was this really the advice that a god should give?

    Vivrum gave a bitterugh before saying, "You''re thinking that a god should be able to do anything, but there are times that gods can''t act. In this case, it would be better to let things progress as they would naturally. Sometimes, things just work out."

    I still couldn''t help feeling that this seemed a bitzy, but since she didn''t want to give me an answer, there wasn''t anything that I could do about it.

    Vivrum didn''t say anything else in response even though I knew that she was able to read my mind.

    Since that was the case, there really wasn''t anything else that had to be said here.

    The only problem was¡­

    "I''ll send you back." Solista suddenly said this.

    I was surprised, but I also remembered that this was what she had been nning on doing the entire time. She had been about to send me back when I had suddenly interrupted her by asking that question.

    So I gave her a grateful nod and said, "Thank you."

    Solista just shook her head before saying, "If you ever need toe talk to us again, just visit any church and ask to see us through the mark on your hand. We''ll bring you back to see us any time."

    I was surprised to hear this since I never thought that the gods would be so willing to meet me, but this wasn''t a bad thing.

    If there was something that I ever needed help with, weren''t the gods the best people to ask?

    In a bitter voice, both Solista and Vivrum said, "Don''t rely on the gods too much. You should experience this world on your own as much as possible."

    I gave a slow nod, but I couldn''t help feeling that what they said was a bit strange¡­

    However, Solista didn''t give me time to think about it as she raised her hand that was covered in white light.

    It released a sh of white light thatpletely blinded me.

    When that white light cleared, I found that I was back in the priest''s office.

 Chapter 739 Get going already!

    <h4>Chapter 739 Get going already!</h4>

    The moment that I appeared back in the priest''s office, I found someone grabbing my hand.

    When I came back to my senses, I saw that it was the priest who had grabbed me.

    He was holding my hand tightly, but it wasn''t for the reason that one might have thought it would be for.

    He grabbed my hand with both his hands and lifted it up in front of his face, turning it around a few times as if he was looking for something special. It seemed that his attention was focused on the Mark of God that was on my hand.

    After fullying back to my senses, I asked him, "What happened?"

    The priest didn''t seem to hear me at first, but he reacted when I asked this a second time.

    The priest was still looking at my hand as he said, "There was a sudden white sh of light before you disappeared without a trace. I had no idea where you were, so I was waiting for you toe back the entire time."

    I was surprised to hear this since I never thought that the gods would pull me directly into their space like that.

    I thought that they would have only pulled my mind in likest time, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    But then again, the problem was with my body¡­so it wasn''t strange if they pulled all of me in so they could see what was wrong with my body.

    While I was lost in thought like this, I found that the priest was still staring at my hand.

    It was only then that I realized that my hand was still glowing as it was being raised towards the cross.

    I pulled back my hand to the disappointment of the priest and when that happened, the light that had beening from the Mark of God on my hand disappeared.

    It seemed that only when it was near the cross like that would it glow like this.

    Since I had already gotten the information that I wanted, I wanted to head back so I could discuss this with Rose and the others.

    The only problem was that the priest didn''t seem like he wanted to let me go.

    It seemed like he wanted to keep analyzing the mark on my hand, but I didn''t feel good about the way that he was looking at my hand. There was a strong feeling of rejection that wasing from inside of me that wanted to get away from here.

    So in the end, I was able to convince the priest to let me go.

    I didn''t hesitate at all to leave his office while he just looked at me with a longing look as I left.

    I had known the priest for a while now, but I never thought that he would have this kind of hidden personality¡­

    Was it because he was a priest and he liked¡­

    No, I shouldn''t bring that kind of joke from my past life to this world or else it might actually be true. After all, this was a game that was created by people in my past life that were influenced by those jokes¡­

    So it might actually already be in the game¡­

    I quickly threw this thought out of my mind and went back to my manor.

    This time, I just rushed there instead of leisurely walking back to the manor, so the people that tried to talk to me left me alone when they saw how much of a rush I was in.

    When I arrived back at the manor, the first person that I saw was Cecilia.

    She seemed like she had just gotten up with how she was dressed.

    When she saw meing in, there was a blush that appeared on her face since she didn''t want to be caught like this. Her eyes showed that her thoughts were running fast until she suddenly decided toe forward towards me.

    However, I didn''t like the way that she was moving towards me.

    Especially the way that she was raising her fists¡­

    It almost seemed like¡­

    "Erase the evidence. Forget what you saw."

    She didn''t even bother hiding it as she said it right to my face.

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this as I quickly started moving away from Cecilia, but that didn''t work since she was faster than me in the first ce.

    The only thing that I could do was try to distract her by saying, "Where are the others? There''s something important that I want to discuss with you all."

    Cecilia stopped for a second to look at the expression on my face.

    When she saw how serious I was, she stopped trying to beat me up and went off to gather the others.

    In the end, it took close to half an hour before all of us were gathered.

    The ones that were gathered were the ones that I was married to. The fiancees were still waiting outside since I wanted to discuss this with my wives first.

    After taking a deep breath, I told them what Solista told me.

    When it was over, I just waited to see what their reaction would be.

    But to my surprise¡­

    "What are you still doing here? Get going already!" That was the first thing that Rose said to me as soon as I finished telling them the story.

    I looked at her with a shocked look before turning to look at the other two, but I found that they were also looking at me in the same way.

    I didn''t know what to say, but there was nothing that I could say as Rose dragged me outside to where my fiancees were waiting.

    I didn''t even get to say anything as she told them the same story that I had told the three of them.

    Once they were finished, Ang was the one that said, "What are you still doing here? Get going already!"

    All of the others nodded in agreement to this.

    The only thing that I could do was reveal a bitter smile.

 Chapter 740 Forced to leave

    Chapter 740 Forced to leave

    ??Early the next morning, I was on a carriage that was heading to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    I didn''t even get a chance to rest the night before, but it wasn''t for the reason that one might think it was for...

    It wasn''t that my wives would miss me and they wanted to get ate night session in before I left.

    Rather, they worked into the night to prepare everything that I would need to head to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Rose prepared everything that I would need to give to the Dwarven King and the other dwarven family heads.

    Haley prepared all the goods that I would need for this trip, along with all kinds of goods that I could use as bribes if needed...namely a bunch of booze.

    Cecilia gathered the strongest knights that we had, the ones that had been trained with the wyverns.

    With this lineup that they prepared, it was almost as if they were preparing to invade the Dwarven Kingdom.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that Elsa wasing along, then one might really think that we were there to invade.

    As for the side of our own kingdom, Ang would be heading back to the capital to take care of the king and the fourth prince.

    She had been in the capital when I had left, but she hade to my territory during my outing to the different kingdoms. It was so that she could grow closer with Rose and the others, so that things would be harmonious in the future.

    But now, she was heading back to make sure that the king and the fourth prince wouldn''t stop me from heading to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    The way that she looked as she prepared to head to the capital, I even felt sorry for the king and the fourth prince.

    But then again, I was also scared of the other girls as well.

    They had wanted to ride full on into the Dwarven Kingdom on wyverns, but I knew that this would send the wrong message.

    If anyone saw a bunch of wyvern ridersing, then they would have thought that it was a full on invasion.

    So that was why I had insisted on this carriage.

    Though once we were out of the city, I felt something pick up my carriage.

    I looked up to find that it was Cecilia''s wyvern.

    That wyvern was holding the carriage in its ws and it had lifted us high up into the air, but it was clear that this was something that she had done arbitrarily. After all, the horses that were tied to the carriages were still strapped to the carriage and dangling in the air.

    They were kicking at the air out of fear, but there was nowhere that they could go.

    So eventually, they tired themselves out and stopped struggling.

    Cecilia just didn''t care about any of this as she had her wyvern carry the carriage.

    I could see that all around me, the other wyverns had also lifted the other carriages in the same manner. Just like this, we were all lifted into the air and were traveling much faster than before.

    But there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I saw this.

    I shouted up at Cecilia, "Wasn''t the n to take the carriage to the border and then bring the wyverns out? If we go like this, they''ll surely misunderstand our intentions."

    Cecilia just calmly said, "We''ll be dropping you off near the border so that won''t happen. We were traveling just too slowly before, so I decided that we needed to go a bit faster."

    The bitter smile on my face became even more bitter when I heard this.

    I really didn''t know what had gotten into her, but it seemed like there was no way of talking her out of this.

    However, the way that they did all of this¡­

    It was almost as if I was being driven out of my own town.

    It was like I was being forced to go to the Dwarven Kingdom as soon as possible.

    I really couldn''t understand why they were so desperate to send me to the Dwarven Kingdom as soon as possible.

    No, that was a lie¡­

    I did understand why they wanted me to head there as soon as possible since they had made it very clearst night why they wanted me to go there. I just never thought that they would be so headstrong about all of this.

    This¡­weren''t they being a bit too rash?

    Weren''t they being a bit too forceful?

    Was it really that important to them?

    I don''t think I would ever understand how important something like this was to a woman, but it seemed like it was very important to them.

    So the only thing that I could do was go along with them.

    very important to them.

    So the only thing that I could do was go along with them.

    With the speed of the wyverns, it took us no time at all to reach the border.

    Though¡­we did cause quite a bit of panic with the way that we were traveling.

    It was mainly because our wyverns were flying so quickly that most of the viges under us thought that we wereing to attack them. Even if they were used to wyverns, most wyverns would slow down around viges to show that they meant no harm.

    With the way that Cecilia did this, I was certain that it would cause argemotion in the capital.

    I could only look forward to being scolded when I came back.

    Once we reached the border, she dropped us down like she had promised, but Cecilia still forced us to keep going even though it was already night time.

    Normally, we wouldn''t have been allowed past the border since it was already thiste.

    However, that was where Elsa came into y.

    14:28

    With her status, she was able to convince the border guards to open the gate for us even if they looked at us with strange looks.

    It seemed that it wasn''t just our capital that I had to apologize in, it seemed that I would also need to apologize in the Dwarven Kingdom''s capital¡­

 Chapter 741 Enough of that!

    Chapter 741 Enough of that!

    ??After passing through the border, I thought that we would get a chance to rest up since it was already getting quitete.

    But in the end¡­

    Those hopes werepletely dashed as we were picked up again by the wyverns and carried off towards the capital.

    It was a good thing that it waste and the skies were dark, which allowed us to hide the wyverns. If it wasn''t for that, I was certain that we would have caused quite argemotion flying across the Dwarven Kingdom with the wyverns like this.

    There was no doubt that an international incident would have been raised.

    It would be strange if the dwarves didn''t think that we were invading them because of this.

    But with the speed of the wyverns, we were able to make it past all the different towns and viges that were along the way without being spotted.

    The only problem was that when we arrived in the capital, the sun was already rising.

    That meant that the moment that we approached the city, there were rms that were raised in response to our arrival.

    I could see in the distance that the dwarves were arming themselves and were lining the walls of the city. They were all heavily armoured and it looked like they were prepared to fight to the death against these wyverns that were approaching their city.

    I knew that this was very bad for us, so I said to Cecilia, "Slow down! Stop heading towards the city! Land outside and send someone to the capital to inform them of our arrival!"

    But I found that¡­Cecilia wasn''t listening to me at all.

    Sitting beside Cecilia was Elsa who hade along with us and it seemed like the two of them were discussing something.

    When we were just outside of the range of the arrows that coulde from the city, Elsa suddenly took a crystal out of her pocket and spoke into it. The moment that she spoke into it, her voice was enhanced and broadcasted to the city.

    I was surprised to see this since I never knew that there was such a magic item before.

    This definitely would have been something that I could have used before¡­

    "It''s us! Drop your weapons now and let us in! Big brother, if you don''t, I''ll tell everyone what happened when we were five!"

    As soon as they heard this, all of the dwarven guards on the walls revealed confused looks. There were some that still held their bows and pointed them at us, but it seemed like most of them had stopped looking at us with hostility.

    It didn''t take long before a familiar dwarf appeared on the walls.

    He seemed to have the same crystal that Elsa had and he brought it up to say, "Everyone, stop! They aren''t enemies!"

    Then when all of the dwarven guards on the walls lowered their weapons, this dwarf said, "Land in the square in the center of the town, that''s the only ce that''s big enough!"

    After that, the dwarf didn''t forget to add, "If you dare say a single word about that, I''ll make sure that you pay! I don''t care if you''re my sister, I''ll go all out against you!"

    The one that was on the walls with the crystal was naturally the Dwarven King, the big brother of Elsa.

    He had been leisurely heading to the walls when he suddenly heard what Elsa had said.

    The moment that he heard it, he immediately ran to the walls.

    That was because he recognized the tone that she had said this in, he knew that she would have seriously done it if he didn''t give this order. That was thest thing that he could allow to happen if he wanted to maintain his prestige as the Dwarven King.

    I could see that the Dwarven King was panicking, so I poked my head out the carriage and asked Elsa, "What happened? What did he do?"

    Elsa looked down at me and said, "He peed his pants in the middle of the night. Mom even spanked him and hung his sheets out in front of all the neighbours for it."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this.

    It was no wonder the Dwarven King had done all of this to avoid having this story being spread.

    There was no doubt that he would have lost all his prestige as the Dwarven King if Elsa had made this story public.

    The wyverns quickly flew over the city walls and thennded in the city square that had been emptied for them.

    Waiting at the edge of the city square was the Dwarven King and a bunch of dwarves.

    There were quite a few armoured dwarves that were there, but it seemed that they were there just to be safe. They didn''t seem like they wanted to attack us at all as they just stood there on the side as the Dwarven King came forward.

    As soon as the Dwarven King came forward, he said, "What do you think you''re doing? Do you know how much of amotion you''ve caused with this stunt?"

    Though he was saying this to Elsa, it seemed like he was looking at me.

    It was almost as if he was saying with his eyes, "How could you let her do all of this?"

    A bitter smile crept onto my lips when I saw this before I looked back at him like I was saying, "I can''t stop them, they''re crazy."

    The Dwarven King was surprised to see this look, but he was even more surprised by what Elsa said next.

    "Enough of that! Move out of the way and clear a path to the Earthen Temple! We need to go there right away!"

    The Dwarven King waspletely taken aback when he heard this, but then he shook his head and said, "No, this can''t be allowed. We can''t just let outsiders¡­"

    "When he was five, my brother¡­"

    The Dwarven King immediately ran forward to stop Elsa before saying through gritted teeth, "Alright, let''s discuss this¡­"

    An exasperated look appeared on his face as soon as his voice fell.

 Chapter 742 Mark of Earth

    Chapter 742 Mark of Earth

    ??Five minutester, we were sitting in one of the restaurants in the square.

    The Dwarven King had wanted to go back to the castle, but Elsa didn''t seem to want to waste any time at all, so she demanded to speak there in the square. But in the end, that just couldn''t be done since it was too open and there was no knowing who was listening.

    In the end, I had to step in.

    I knew that the Dwarven King was just doing what he had to do and I couldn''t just remain passive, so I forced them to listen to him.

    Well, I couldn''t force them to listen to him since they clearly wanted to rush to the Earthen Temple, so I could only force them topromise.

    That was how we ended up in this restaurant.

    The first thing that the Dwarven King did after sitting down was order a drink for himself.

    He didn''t care about anything else and just ordered a drink.

    As soon as the mug came, he didn''t hesitate to down the entire drink like it was water.

    Though I had already seen dwarves do this kind of thing quite often during my stay in the Dwarven Kingdom.

    I knew that a drink like this might as well have been water for the Dwarven King.

    After that drink, he gave a sigh and said, "Alright, now that I''ve settled down, tell me why you''re doing all of this."

    Elsa had an impatient look on her face the entire time and the only reason why she didn''t blow was because I had told her topromise. But now that the Dwarven King had asked this question, she wasn''t nning on holding back.

    Or at least that had been her n, but I raised a hand to stop her the moment that I saw her like this.

    I shook my head at her before turning to the Dwarven King to say, "We need to enter your Dwarven Temple to do something. I hope that you will let us in."

    The Dwarven King narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he was judging me before he shook his head and said, "I''ve already said it before, this is our dwarven sacred ground,it isn''t a ce that we can let anyone in at will."

    Elsa looked like she was about to blow when she heard this, but I stopped her once again before saying to the Dwarven King, "I understand, but there really is an important reason for this."

    The Dwarven King once again looked at me with those narrowed eyes for a bit before slowly giving a nod and saying, "Alright, I know that you wouldn''t be doing this unless you had a very important reason. The least I can do is hear you out and see what you have to say for yourself."

    I said with a nod, "Thank you."

    Then I brought my hand up onto the table to show the Mark of God before preparing to speak. However, before I could even say a word, I saw that the looks on the faces of the dwarves hadpletely changed.

    I didn''t understand why they were looking at me like this with these expressions, I could see that they were looking at the mark that was on my hand.

    I had only brought it up since I thought that since this was rted to the sacred temple of the dwarves, this mark would have some sway. I just never expected to create such arge reaction with them.

    After a long silence, the Dwarven King said, "The Mark of Earth, it''s the real Mark of Earth. But why would it appear on a human?"

    I was confused when I heard this before saying, "Mark of Earth? Isn''t this the Mark of God?"

    The Dwarven King didn''t say anything at first, but then he slowly said, "The Mark of God is what you humans call it, but we call it the Mark of Earth. This is the mark that the gods give to their chosen ones¡­but for it to appear on a human in this generation¡­It seems that we are not lucky enough¡­"

    I was even more confused when I heard this, but I didn''t get a chance to say anything as the Dwarven King suddenly said, "Alright, you can ess the Earthen Temple."

    I was caught off guard when I heard this before asking, "Are you sure? Weren''t outsiders not allowed in the Earthen Temple?"

    The Dwarven King revealed a bitter smile before saying, "You have the Mark of Earth and you want to call yourself an outsider? If anyone belongs in the Earthen Temple, then it''s you."

    But after a momentary pause, he added, "But it''ll be just you alone." He turned to look at Cecilia and the others, "We can''t let other humans in the Earthen Temple. I hope that you can understand that."

    I didn''t mind, but it was clear that Cecilia had something else to say.

    So I just gave her a look that seemed to say, "This is the easiest way to get what you want."

    When she saw this, Cecilia hesitated a bit before backing down.

    The reason that she and Elsa had done all of this was just to get me to meet the God of Earth as soon as possible.

    So in the end, she could make a bit of apromise.

    Seeing that they agreed, the Dwarven King said, "Alright, let''s go to the Earthen Temple."

    I gave a nod in response in a calm manner, but deep down, I was certainly surprised.

    I was surprised since I never thought that things would progress this smoothly just because of the Mark of God, or rather the Mark of Earth as the dwarves called it.

    As I thought about it, I realized that the dwarves must have more information about this Mark of God that I didn''t know about.

    After all, the Dwarven King had said that it appeared on a human in this generation.

    There was quite a bit of information from these words¡­

 Chapter 743 What are you two doing here?

    Chapter 743 What are you two doing here?

    ??True to his word, the Dwarven King brought us to the Earthen Temple.

    The wyverns were left in the square that wended since they were just too big toe with us, but my group came along.

    Even though the Dwarven King had said that they wouldn''t be allowed into the temple, they still came along as if they wanted to protect me.

    One might think that the Dwarven King would feel offended by this, but the dwarves weren''t as close minded as humans. The Dwarven King didn''t take this as them thinking that they wouldn''t be able to protect me.

    Rather, the Dwarven King took this as a disy of their loyalty that they wanted to follow me as far as they could.

    The dwarves really didn''t think as deeply as humans, but that was because they couldn''t be bothered to.

    One might think that this would make them easier to take advantage of, but that wasn''t reality. The dwarves had a strong intuition that allowed them to see through most attempts to harm them.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if they were omnipotent and could see through everything.

    So there were still things that they fell for since it wasn''t as if they could do everything.

    When we arrived at this Earthen Temple, I couldn''t help being surprised by the appearance of it.

    As the name suggested, this ce was actually madepletely out of earth. But it wasn''t made of stone as one might have thought, it was actually a building that was madepletely out of dirt.

    Though the dirt temple didn''t look that bad.

    It was made out of dirt, but it had been built in such a way that it looked like a real temple.

    Not to mention, with how there was this sheen to it, it seemed like the dwarves had tempered it in such a way that it might not have been weaker than a temple made of stone. It seemed that the dwarves weren''t just skilled at working with ores, they were also skilled at building with dirt.

    No, it should be that they were skilled at anything that required their hands to build anything.

    When we arrived, that was when the Dwarven King put his foot down and stopped Cecilia and the others from following me in.

    The surprising thing was that he had even stopped Elsa from going in with me even though she was a dwarf. Even when she started threatening him with the same embarrassing story as before, he still didn''t allow her to go in.

    "This is the business of the one that possesses the Mark of Earth. This is his private business and none of us should go in with him."

    All of us were surprised when we heard the exnation that he gave, especially me since I didn''t think that he would trust me this much to let me in this sacred temple of theirs without anyone watching.

    But I could tell that half of this came from the mark that was on my hand, only half came from his trust in me personally.

    This exnation was enough to convince everyone in the end, so they allowed me to head in alone.

    As I went in, the Dwarven King said from behind me, "Be careful."

    I was a bit surprised to hear this, but he didn''t say anything else as he stood there with a serious look on his face.

    It was almost as if he knew something that I didn''t¡­

    However, it didn''t seem like he was nning on saying anything else.

    So I just went into the temple with this and approached the altar that was at the very front of the temple.

    As I stood there in front of the statue of what should be the God of Earth, Terra, I raised my hand with the Mark of God on it towards this statue and said, "I need to see you."

    There was only silence that followed after I did all of this.

    There wasn''t the same sh of white light as before, there wasn''t even a reaction from the Mark of God as I held my hand up.

    Could it be because I had never met the God of Earth Terra before that he didn''t react?

    My Mark of God was from Solista after all and I didn''t know what the rtionship between the gods was anyway, so it might be possible that the two of them didn''t get along.

    It might be because of this that Terra refused to see me.

    So I just stood there with an awkward look on my face while holding my hand up towards the statue.

    As I was debating whether I should leave or not¡­the sh of white light appeared from the Mark of God.

    This white light became stronger and stronger until it suddenly released a sh just like before.

    This sh of white light blinded me and I wasn''t able to see anything but white, but I didn''t panic because of this. That was because this was just like what had happened before.

    This was what had happened when I had been pulled into the divine realm of Solista.

    Since it was happening in this Earthen Temple, then that should mean that I was on my way to see Terra.

    While there was a part of me that was confused about the dy, I didn''t think too much about it since it had worked out in the end.

    Or at least that was what I thought until I saw who was there in front of me.

    When the white light faded and I could see what was in front of me, I waspletely caught off guard.

    It was the same world of white as before, but there were also the two same figures as before.

    One figure of white light and one figure of green light were standing there in front of me.

    As I looked at the two of them, I said, "What are you two doing here?"

 Chapter 744 Lazy god

    <h4>Chapter 744 Lazy god</h4>

    The two that had appeared in front of me were of course Solista and Vivrum.

    I didn''t expect the two of them to suddenly show up like this since this was supposed to be where I met Terra, but here they were in this white space.

    Solista said in a confused voice, "Why didn''t you expect to see us? You came to see gods, are we not gods?"

    Vivrum nodded in agreement after Solista said this.

    I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile that also had a strange look to it.

    That was because the moment that Solista had said this, it almost seemed as if she was like a jealous girlfriend who had caught me with someone else...

    I realized my mistake as soon as I thought that since I remembered that the gods could read my thoughts. But to my surprise, it didn''t seem like Solista reacted at all to that thought.

    I thought that it was quite rude to think of her like that, but it didn''t seem to faze her at all.

    It seemed that she really was a god as she wasn''t bothered by something small like this.

    So after giving a cough to calm myself down, I said, "It isn''t that I don''t want to see you here, it''s just that I didn''t expect to see you here. After all, the ce that I came from wasn''t a ce that was under your dominion. I thought that I was here to see Terra and not you two."

    Both Solista and Vivrum nodded in response to this as if they could understand where I wasing from.

    But then Solista said, "You are meeting him. He''s been here the entire time."

    I was immediately caught off guard by her saying this before looking around for the god that Solista was referring to. However, no matter how I looked around the area, it didn''t seem like he was there.

    All I was able to see was white space and nothing else.

    It really seemed like there wasn''t a single thing here.

    So after looking around for a bit, I turned back and said, "What do you mean? I don''t see him at all."

    The way that the two of them stood there, it was almost as if they were smiling at me though I couldn''t see their true appearances because of the light that surrounded them.

    Solista raised a hand and pointed downwards.

    When she did, it was only then that I saw that there was something lying on the ground there.

    This was a figure of light just like the two of them, but this one was a figure of brown light.

    With the way that this brown figure of light was lying there, it was almost as if he was sleeping. With the way that he was lying on his side and had one hand holding up his head, it seemed like he was just napping here.

    However, I couldn''t help finding this strange.

    He was a god, did he really need to nap?

    Solista said with a bitterugh, "He''s special, don''t use him as a judge of all the gods. This idiot likes to ck off and will never respond unless he''s prompted by the rest of us. That''s why we had toe here and pull you into his divine realm or else he never would have spoken to you."

    Vivrum just put her head in her hand after Solista said this.

    It even seemed that she was giving a helpless sigh after hearing this.

    I slowly looked down at the brown glowing figure that was on the ground with a strange look.

    Then all of a sudden, Solista raised her foot and kicked that brown figure of light on the back of the head.

    When she did, that brown figure of light''s head slipped out of the hand that was holding it and fell right to the ground. With the force of the kick that shended, he actually went forward andnded right on his face.

    "Who is it? Who''s bothering my nap?"

    That was the first thing that this brown figure of light said after being kicked to the ground like this.

    He didn''t even ask who was attacking him, he just cared about who was disrupting his nap.

    Solista shook her head with a sigh before saying, "See? This is just the kind of god that he is."

    "I resent that."

    That voice came from the brown glowing figure that was still on the ground.

    I found that the brown glowing figure hadn''t even turned himself over and was still just lying there on the ground, as if he wasn''t going to flip himself over. It was almost as if he was gettingfortable in the position that he was in.

    In that position, the brown glowing figure said, "I''m a very busy person since I manage all the ground in this world. It''s arge world, so there''s a lot for me to do."

    Solista gave a disdainful snort as she said, "Thend can take care of itself and it does. The only time that you have to interfere is when you have to after arge ident."

    The brown glowing figure didn''t even bother arguing as he simply said, "My job is to supervise and not get involved directly, so I''m busy supervising."

    "You were just sleeping." Solista said in a straight voice.

    "I was meditating." The brown figure of light on the ground replied without missing a beat.

    "Ah, so that''s the kind of god he is." That was my only thought when I saw him like this.

    "I resent that!" The brown figure of light on the ground said again before finally getting up.

    When he did, he looked at Solista and Vivrum before saying, "Oh, it''s you two. What do you want with me? Did something big happen again?"

    Solista just pointed at me as she said, "Not me, he''s the one that''s here to see you."

 Chapter 745 Itâ€™s that simple?

    Chapter 745 It¡¯s that simple?

    ??The brown figure of light followed Solista''s finger and looked at me.

    When he saw me, there was a moment of silence before he said, "Oh, it''s you. I''ve been waiting for you."

    I was very confused when I heard this.

    After all, the brown figure of light was saying this almost as if he already knew who I was.

    Well, he should know who I was since he was a god. Or rather, it should be said that it was easy for him to find out who I was since he was a god.

    But the way that he said this was different from just knowing who I was.

    It was almost as if...he was someone that was close to me. Like he was someone that knew me from something else.

    But no matter how I thought about it, it didn''t seem like I knew him...

    However, there was denying the way that he was acting around me...

    Before I could ask anything, Solista suddenly gave a cough that cut us off.

    The brown figure of light looked over at her before awkwardly scratching his head and saying, "Right, we weren''t supposed to be talking about that."

    Even though I couldn''t see their appearances, it was pretty clear that Solista was ring at the brown figure of light at this moment.

    When I sneaked a peek at Vivrum, it almost seemed like she was doing the same thing.

    I didn''t understand why the two of them were acting this way, but I knew that there had to be something that they were hiding from me.

    Still, if they weren''t going to tell me anything, there was nothing that I could do about it.

    The brown figure of light just stood there for a bit as if it was feeling awkward before saying, "Alright, let''s forget about all of that."

    The way that he said it was almost as if he was toozy to bother with this anymore.

    So he turned back to me and asked, "What did youe here for?"

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile when I saw the brown figure of light acting like this, but I still gathered my scattered thoughts and said, "I''m here to receive your blessings."

    "Oh is that it?" The brown figure of light said beforeing forward to stand in front of me.

    He looked at the mark that was on my hand before looking at my forehead.

    After looking at me like this, the brown figure of light said, "You two really are just doing whatever you want, aren''t you? You''ve already basically imed all the important spots and now you just want me to put my mark wherever?"

    Solista stepped up behind the brown figure of light and pped him on the back of the head before saying, "Just do it already and stopining."

    The brown figure of light shook his head and while I couldn''t see his appearance, I could tell that there should have been a bitter smile on his face when this happened.

    It seemed that this poor god was being bullied by the other gods...

    "It''s not that I''m being bullied, it''s just that I know better than to do something futile."

    The way that he said this really seemed like he was just making an excuse to himself¡­

    This time, Terra didn''t give an excuse.

    But I could see the way that he was looking at me, almost like he was feeling betrayed.

    I wanted to think something, but I also knew that the other gods would be able to hear my thoughts. So I held myself back in the end and just let him feel this way.

    Terra only took a moment to recover beforeing forward and reaching for my other hand.

    The Mark of God was only on one of my hands, so that meant that I had another hand for him.

    I didn''t resist at all as he took my other hand.

    When he held my hand, there was a brown light that came from him before it faded away.

    Once it faded, he let go of my hand and moved back.

    I looked down and found that there was a mark that was simr to the mark that Solista had given me. However, this mark had a different colour to it and there was what seemed to be a different design.

    I wanted to say something, but then I felt like there was this strange energy filling me.

    This was a strange feeling as if there was something crawling around inside of me.

    Eventually, that feeling settled and there was no other strange feeling that came from inside of my body. It seemed like everything was settled once that feeling disappeared.

    But there was something different about my body..

    I gripped my hands together and it felt like I was stronger than before.

    Once that feeling was gone, Terra gave a nod in my direction before lying back down and saying, "Alright, you can go now. Let me get back to my nap."

    "That''s it? It''s that simple?" I couldn''t help asking this when I heard him say this.

    Terra looked up at me after lying down and asking, "What else did you expect? I already gave you my mark, so you''ve already aplished your goal. Did you expect some kind of trial? Please don''t make me do that."

    Solista once again kicked Terra on the back of the head after he said this, but she turned to me and said with a nod, "Yes, it really is just that simple. There''s nothing else that you need to worry about, just wait for your body to adjust."

    I looked at the three of them with a strange look.

    Yes, three of them.

    Even though she hadn''t said anything, Vivarium was still there watching over everything.

    It was clear that they knew something that I didn''t know and they didn''t seem to be willing to tell me¡­

    But before I could ask anything, Solista waved her hand at me and said, "Alright, it''s time for you to go back."

 Chapter 746 Relic

    Chapter 746 Relic

    ??When the white sh of light disappeared, I found that I was back in the Earthen Temple, standing in front of the statue of Terra.

    There was a bitter smile that crept onto my face when I saw this statue.

    After all, I had seen the real Terra and...I could say that this statue didn''t seem simr to him at all.

    While I didn''t see his face, I had definitely seen the way that he acted and I knew that he didn''t match this statue at all. This statue was of a serious and aloof looking god, not the one that I had actually seen.

    Though I''m sure that no one would believe me if I were to tell anyone about this.

    So I just shook my head with that same bitter smile on my face before walking out of the Earthen Temple.

    The moment that I came out, I was immediately swarmed by those people who had been waiting outside for me.

    It was Elsa, Cecilia, and the Dwarven King who led this group.

    As they surrounded me, they all asked me different things, but the gist of it was that they wanted to know what had happened inside.

    I just simply raised my hands and showed them the two marks that were on them now.

    The moment that they saw this, they all revealed shocked looks.

    The Dwarven King was the most shocked, but he was also the first one to recover as he quickly came forward to grab my hand.

    The hand that he grabbed was the one that had the mark that Terra had given me.

    As he looked at it, he slowly said, "This mark, it really is as the books described them..."

    I was a bit confused when I heard this, but the Dwarven King didn''t wait as he started pulling me into the Earthen Temple. As he did, he said, "Come with me, there''s something that I need to show you."

    However, I didn''t follow him this time.

    To the Dwarven King''s surprise, he found that he wasn''t able to pull me anymore when I suddenly stopped. It was also a surprise to me since I didn''t think that I would be strong enough to stop him like this.

    The Dwarven King immediately turned around and asked, "What''s wrong?"

    I looked at the others of my group and said, "They can''te with me. Can''t you just bring it out to show me?"

    The Dwarven King hesitated a bit, but he eventually gave a nod before heading in with a group of dwarves that were in robes.

    This group of dwarves in robes were the ones that were in charge of this Earthen Temple.

    So they were simr to the priest of the church in my town.

    It was just that they had a much higher position since they were in charge of the religion of the dwarves that worshipped the God of Earth, Terra. Their positions should bepared to the pope and cardinals from the human religion that worshipped Solista that the priest of my town was from.

    Thoughparing the two, the religion worshiping Terra was definitely smaller.

    After a while, the Dwarven King and those dwarves in robes came out carrying something.

    This thing seemed to be some kind ofrge rectangr box that contained something.

    When they brought it out, they ced it in front of me and then opened the lid to reveal what was inside.

    It was a staff.

    It was just a simple staff that didn''t seem to have any decorations on it.

    The only thing that was different about this staff was at the very end of it where there was something that seemed to be a ball of dirt. It was strange to see a ball of dirt on the staff, but it seemed that it had beenpacted enough that it didn''t break apart.

    After cing this box in front of me, they all just looked at me as if they were waiting for me to do something.

    I just looked at the staff that was there inside of the box before slowly reaching my hand out towards it.

    The hand that I reached out was naturally the hand that had Terra''s mark on it.

    When I grabbed the staff, the mark suddenly lit up with a brown light.

    Seeing this, the Dwarven King revealed a look like he had already expected this.

    But the dwarves in robes behind him¡­they suddenly dropped to their knees and started praying.

    I knew that they weren''t praying to me, but rather to the mark that was glowing on the back of my hand. Still, it was awkward for me when there were people on their knees in front of me praying.

    I turned to the Dwarven King and asked, "So, what is this all about?"

    The Dwarven King didn''t answer at first as he looked at the staff that was in my hand, but he eventually said, "This is a relic that was left to us by the God of Earth, Terra. It''s said that it contains magical powers, but it''s not something that can be used by mortals. Only those that have been blessed by the God of Earth, Terra can use it."

    I gave a nod in response before focusing on the staff.

    I could feel a connectioning from it through my hand, so I decided to see what I could do with it.

    Waving the hand that held the staff, the ball of dirt at the end of the staff suddenly started to glow with the same brown light that wasing from the back of my hand.

    As it did, the ground underneath me started to move.

    It was only a bit of movement at first before it formed a tform under me.

    I didn''t know what I was supposed to do with this staff, so I had left it up to the staff to show me its powers.

    It turned out that it had the power to move the earth, which should have been expected.

    I was about to say something, but I felt a strong wave of powerlessness fill me before I suddenly started falling forward.

 Chapter 747 Terrible mileage (1)

    Chapter 747 Terrible mileage (1)

    ??As I fell, I felt myself falling into a soft embrace before my eyes closed and I lost consciousness.

    When I woke up again, I found that I was inside of a simple looking room that didn''t have much other than the essential things that a room should be decorated with.

    Then when I looked around, I found that I wasn''t alone in this room.

    I found that it waspletely filled with people that seemed to be looking at something.

    I started to sit up and that was when I attracted their attention.

    When they turned around, I saw who was in the room with me.

    Though there were a few people that I had already recognized because of the height.

    It was the Dwarven King and my group, along with the dwarves in robes that were in charge of the Earthen Temple.

    Seeing them, I realized where I saw.

    This should be one of the rooms inside of the Earthen Temple since the walls werepletely made of dirt. In fact, all of the furniture in the room was also made of dirt.

    I had thought that the furniture was a strange colour, but that turned out to be because it was made of dirt.

    The first ones that came over to my bedside were Elsa and Cecilia.

    The two of them immediately came over to my sides and started looking over my body as if they were trying to see if there was anything wrong with me.

    A bitter smile crept onto my lips when I saw this, but I didn''t stop them since I was already used to this.

    This was something that they always did when something happened to me.

    I had already learned from experience that it was better to just let them do what they wanted instead of trying to fight it.

    So I just let the two of them examine my body as I turned to look at the Dwarven King who was standing nearby.

    While they were examining me, I asked, "What happened?"

    The Dwarven King shook his head with a bitter smile before saying, "I don''t know. You were the one that suddenly fainted after using the Staff of Earth."

    Then after a pause, his smile became even more bitter as he said, "It took us quite a bit to calm down the two beside you right now. If it wasn''t for the fact that we noticed that you were just asleep, they might have already razed the city with those wyverns of yours."

    It was clear that he wasining to me, but there was nothing that I could say in response to this.

    So all I could do was change the topic by saying, "Where''s the Staff of Earth now?"

    The Dwarven King slightly knitted his brows when he heard this before looking at me as if he was trying to figure out why I was asking this. But in the end, he turned around to look at the dwarves in robes that were still gathered around something and said while pointing at them, "It''s over there."

    I looked over and found that the dwarves in robes seemed to be talking about something.

    There were some of them that seemed to be praying while some of them were discussing something.

    At the same time, I could see that there were some traces of brown light that wasing from the gaps in their stances. It seemed like there was brown light that wasing from the area that they were surrounding.

    This brown light was just like the one that hade from the mark on my hand when I held the staff.

    The Dwarven King saw the way that I was looking at them, so he turned and said, "Bring it over already."

    The dwarves in robes seemed like they didn''t hear him at first, but eventually they brought it over when the Dwarven King spoke up again.

    They justpletely ignored him as they brought the staff over to where I was.

    It seemed like they wanted to see what would happen if I were to take the staff again.

    However, I could see that the brown light that I saw before wasing from the staff that they were bringing over.

    Specifically, it wasing from the ball of dirt that was at the top of the staff.

    It seemed that this ball of dirt was glowing like it contained some kind of special power.

    As for what this power was, it should be the power of Terra, the God of Earth.

    As the staff was brought over, I could see that the mark on my hand was also starting to glow.

    It was almost as if the mark on my hand was reacting to the Staff of Earth when it came near.

    The eyes of the dwarves in robes lit up the moment that they saw this and they wanted to bring the staff closer. However, there were two people that stopped them from approaching in the end.

    It was Cecilia and Elsa.

    The two of them clearly weren''t taking any chances as they didn''t want to let anything strange approach me.

    But it was clear that the fervor of the dwarves in robes wasn''t normal.

    So in the end, the Dwarven King backed them up and stopped these dwarves in robes from approaching me with the staff.

    The dwarves looked like they had been betrayed when they saw this and they still insisted on bringing the staff over.

    In the end, they had support from a source that they never expected.

    "Let them bring it over. I want to take a look at it."

    Everyone looked at me with surprised looks when they heard this before revealing uncertain looks.

    It was clear that they didn''t want to let this happen, but they couldn''t stop me if I insisted on it.

    So the dwarves in robes brought the staff over to me and presented it to me.

    Taking hold of the staff, I realized what the problem was.

    This thing¡­had terrible mileage.

 Chapter 748 Terrible mileage (2)

    Chapter 748 Terrible mileage (2)

    ??The moment that my hand took hold of the staff, I could feel a sense of weaknesse over me.

    It wasn''t as strong as the wave of weakness that had knocked me out earlier, but it was a feeling of something being drained out of me.

    I could feel that there was something inside of this staff that seemed to be taking this energy from me. It just wasn''t as strong as the feeling that had knocked me out earlier.

    It seemed that while this staff was powerful, it wasn''t adjusted so that people could use it.

    Thinking of the one that it was linked to, it made sense...

    He seemed like a god that would neglect things like this...

    Forgetting that he needed to adjust it to the power level of the one that was using it, so that they wouldn''t faint from using it.

    But then again, when I thought about it...

    The Dwarven King had said that this thing couldn''t be used by normal people, there had to be a reason for this.

    If it couldn''t be used by normal people, then there should be something that stopped it from draining the power of normal people. That should be the reason why others weren''t able to use it.

    So most likely the mark from Terra was necessary to even activate it.

    Did that mean that the fault with this didn''t lie with Terra, but rather with me?

    Did it mean that I was just too weak to use this thing?

    There was a part of me that still wanted to me Terra for this, but I knew that it wouldn''t be the case.

    It was just that for me, it would have terrible mileage since I just wasn''t strong enough to use it properly.

    These thoughts quickly passed through my mind and I didn''t tell anyone about this since...I didn''t want to embarrass myself.

    After holding it for a bit, I handed the staff back to the dwarves in robes and turned to the Dwarven King to say, "Alright, that should prove it, right?"

    The Dwarven King slowly gave a nod before saying, "It seems that you really had a reason for all of this, but you had to admit that this was a situation that was a bit hard for me to deal with."

    As the Dwarven King said this, he slowly looked over at Elsa with aplicated look.

    I could see this, but once again, I didn''t respond.

    The only reaction that I had to this was the bitter smile that appeared on my face.

    After the Dwarven King shook his head and gave a sigh, he said, "Now I know what to do."

    He turned to the dwarves in robes and said, "Give it over to him."

    I was caught off guard by these sudden words from the Dwarven King.

    The dwarves in robes also seemed like they were hesitant over this, but they eventually listened to the Dwarven King and brought the staff back beside me.

    I looked at the Dwarven King with a strange look as I said, "What are you doing? Is there a need for me to hold it again?"

    The Dwarven King just said with a smile, "Who said that I want you to just hold it? I''m telling you to take it with you."

    The dwarves in robes revealed bitter looks on their faces when they heard this.

    They had already been suspecting this, but now that the Dwarven King had actually said it, they had no choice but to say something.

    "Your majesty, this is a relic that was left to our temple by Lord Terra. It isn''t something that we can just give to others at our own discretion, that would be¡­"

    Before the one that seemed to be the pope of the religion could finish, the Dwarven King said, "Even if you keep it, what would you do with it? Are you saying that you could use this Staff of Earth when no one else has been able to?"

    The dwarves in robes looked at each other with awkward looks on their faces as if they didn''t know what to say.

    After all, they couldn''t deny this usation from the Dwarven King.

    There was indeed not a single one of them that had been able to use it and they had even forgotten about it.

    Before they had brought it out, the box had been kept in one of the storage rooms of the Earthen Temple. It was a relic that had beenpletely forgotten and wasn''t even taken care of by them.

    Though it didn''t really need to be taken care of since it was a relic with the power of a god.

    It wouldn''t get dirty even if it was left alone.

    Seeing that they didn''t say anything, the Dwarven King said, "Instead of leaving it here to rot away, it''s better if we give it to someone that can actually use it."

    The dwarves in robes didn''t ept this that easily as they said, "As long as we pray hard enough, I''m sure that we can use it."

    Then the pope looked at me, or specifically at the mark that was on my hand and said, "As long as we can have a chance to observe the mark Lord Terra left on this human, I''m sure that we can figure out how to use the Staff of Earth. So I ask your majesty to ask this human friend to stay here for a bit for us to study him."

    The Dwarven King shook his head with a sigh before saying, "You know how ridiculous that sounds, right?"

    The dwarves in robes slowly revealed awkward looks after the Dwarven King said this.

    There was even a look of shame that appeared on their faces as they realized what kind of requests they were making.

    The Dwarven King just shook his head again before ignoring them and turning back to me to say, "Alright, from now on, this Staff of Earth is yours. I hope that you will use it properly."

    I gave a nod even though a part of me didn''t want this thing because of the terrible mileage that I had with it.

    But it was a relic¡­so I did want it in the end.

    The best part was that it was free!

 Chapter 749 A shocking offer

    Chapter 749 A shocking offer

    ??After that incident in the Earthen Temple, a day passed and we were brought to the castle.

    I rested up after being drained by the Staff of Earth and I was able to move again.

    However, there was still a drained feeling that filled me as I now carried the Staff of Earth on my back.

    There was no need for me to do this, but I discovered something after recovering from being drained by the Staff of Earth.

    It was that my mana pools were muchrger than before.

    It seemed that by draining myself of all my mana, I was able to increase the size of my mana pools.

    Well, I had already discovered this before, but it seemed like the effects were much better when I used the Staff of Earth.

    Was it because it was a relic from a god?

    That was the only exnation that I could think of.

    As for why I was carrying it on my back, I found that it also had an effect of increasing the size of my mana pool just by the natural draining effect that it had. Just carrying it on my back and letting it use my mana like this also increased the size of my mana pool.

    Though it was less prominent than letting myself bepletely drained by the Staff of Earth.

    Still, it was better than copsing and creating a scene.

    This would allow me to slowly be stronger by building up the size of my mana pool.

    Perhaps one day I''ll be able to use the Staff of Earth without falling unconscious.

    As for the reason why we were in the castle now, that was because there was something that I had to discuss with the Dwarven King. It was something that I had wanted to discuss a long time ago, but I never got the chance to discuss it with him.

    I had also left this matter with Elsa, but she hadn''t been able to find a way to talk to her brother about this.

    Or rather, it was hard for her to bring it up since she couldn''t find a way of bringing it up without seeming suspicious.

    But after this incident, it seemed like the perfect time to bring it up.

    "I want to give you some wyverns." I said without any hesitation when we sat down.

    The Dwarven King looked at me with a shocked look as if he didn''t know how to respond to this. He just kept looking at me like this as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not.

    When he saw that my expression didn''t change at all, he simply asked, "Why?"

    In a calm voice, I said, "Well, you should already know about our kingdom''s situation with the wyverns, right?"

    The Dwarven King narrowed his eyes to look at me for a bit before slowly giving a nod.

    This was something that most countries should have information on since this was a matter of national security. If they didn''t know about these wyverns and they suddenly showed up on their doorsteps one day, they could only me themselves for what happened.

    So of course the Dwarven Kingdom also knew about the wyverns.

    But their response was more mild than the other countries just because of the alliance that they had formed with our Kite Kingdom.

    That didn''t mean that they still weren''t wary of the wyverns.

    It was a personal alliance that the Dwarven King had formed with me and I was only a duke of the Kite Kingdom.

    The dwarves knew that humans could change their ns whenever, so it wasn''t as if they would sink all their eggs into one basket.

    But now that I had made this proposal, the Dwarven King just had no idea what to make of it.

    It could be a trap or it could be a genuine offer.

    There was no telling what was real based on just the information that he currently had.

    Before he epted this offer, the Dwarven King had a few more things that he needed to ask.

    Seeing him nod in agreement, I continued by saying, "You should already know that I''m the one that controls the wyverns."

    I once again paused to wait for his reaction.

    The Dwarven King was surprised, but it was more that he was surprised that I would actually tell him this rather than being surprised by what I had said. After all, this was information that would be considered basic, so it wasn''t strange if he already knew about this.

    A nation survived on information gathered and a nation that wasn''t able to collect this basic kind of information wouldn''t be considered a proper nation.

    It would be a nice piece of meat that would be torn apart by the other nations around it.

    So of course the Dwarven King would already know about this.

    After looking at me for a bit, he once again gave a nod in response.

    But still he didn''t say a thing as he waited to see what else I had to say.

    So I calmly continued by saying, "Since I''m the one that controls the wyverns, I''m the one that can decide who I want them to follow. As such, I want to choose people that I can trust. I hope you understand what I mean."

    The Dwarven King didn''t seem to react at first when he heard this, but he eventually revealed a touched look as he said, "I''m honoured that you would think of me this way, but you should know that¡­"

    He didn''t finish his sentence, but it was clear what he was implying.

    I gave a nod in response since I had already expected this.

    While I didn''t know much about the politics of the Dwarven Kingdom, I had my experience with what happened before. I knew at the very least that there was the chance that someone might try something.

    So I just calmly said, "Unless I give the order, they will not follow anyone that I do not permit. I hope that you will choose your people wisely."

 Chapter 750 Secret alliance

    Chapter 750 Secret alliance

    ??The Dwarven King couldn''t help knitting his brows when he heard this before looking at me with a gaze that seemed like he was questioning me about this.

    I just looked at him with a calm look as if this would give him his answer.

    After a long silence, the Dwarven King said with a nod, "Alright, I can do that."

    But after another pause, he added, "However, you have to at least tell me why you are doing this. Otherwise, I can''t trust a deal that seems too good to be true." Then after another pause, he said, "You have to see it from my position. I am responsible for everyone in my country and I can''t just risk their lives like this."

    This time, I no longer remained silent.

    I understood the Dwarven King''s position and I knew that it would be impossible to convince him unless I said something.

    Not to mention, I didn''t want topletely leave him hanging like this.

    He was someone that I considered a friend, so it wasn''t as if I wanted to make things difficult for him.

    There were just a few things that I couldn''t tell him, but beyond that...it wasn''t as if I had to leave himpletely in the dark.

    So I said, "I''m doing this because I want to build allies that I can trust."

    The Dwarven King deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He just looked at me with a look that was very uncertain, as if he could tell that this was something very big. But at the same time, it didn''t seem like he was against what I was about to say.

    It almost seemed like he wanted to support me.

    The problem was that without enough information, he couldn''t judge how dangerous this would be for his people.

    If it was just him alone, then the Dwarven King wouldn''t mind taking a risk for his friends.

    But if it meant risking the lives of all the dwarves in the Dwarven Kingdom...

    Naturally this was not a risk that he could take.

    I could see that as well, so I continued by saying, "There will be a change in the Kite Kingdom soon and I hope that you will help us when the timees. That is why I want to give you these wyverns to help us create a powerful ally."

    The Dwarven King deeply knitted his brows since he had already expected this, but this still wasn''t enough information for him to ept this.

    I knew that as well, so I gave him thest piece of information that I could give him.

    "I''m marrying the princess of the Kite Kingdom, you should already know that. It means that I''m quite close to the current royal family. At the same time, you should know that the fourth prince calls me brother. So it isn''t as if there''s a bad rtionship between me and the royal family of the Kite Kingdom."

    The Dwarven King deeply knitted his brows once more when he heard this.

    There were naturally many questions that he wanted to ask after hearing this, but¡­he knew that this should be all that I was willing to say.

    Anything more would havepletely exposed my ns and put not just me, but also him in danger.

    So he didn''t ask anything else even though it was clear that there were other things that he wanted to ask.

    After a long silence, the Dwarven King said, "Alright, I''ll trust you this one time."

    The way that he said it almost seemed like he was doing me a favour, but I knew that this was just his way of saving face for himself.

    If he didn''t say it like this, it would seem like he was only doing this for me and he couldn''t do that as the king. He had to at least pretend that it was for the good of the Dwarven Kingdom that he was doing this.

    This was his bottom line as the Dwarven King.

    I revealed a faint smile when I heard this, but I gave a nod in response before reaching my hand out towards the Dwarven King and saying, "Consider it repayment for the Staff of Earth."

    The Dwarven King was surprised by this before suddenly breaking out inughter.

    Afterughing for a bit, he wiped the tear from his eye and said, "It seems like you''ve already figured everything out, haven''t you? You''ve evene up with an excuse for me."

    I just revealed a smile without saying anything.

    But after a while, I still said, "If it wasn''t for this business with the Staff of Earth, I really wouldn''t have known how to bring this matter up. I can only say that I''m grateful that this matter happened or else I might not have been able to bring this up."

    The Dwarven King revealed a bitter smile before saying, "Then should I be saying that it''s my luck to give up the relic of my people?"

    I just smiled at him without saying anything.

    The Dwarven King shook his head once more and gave a sigh, but he didn''t keep pursuing this matter.

    After all, the Dwarven King knew that if he kept talking about this, he would be the one that suffered.

    The smile on my face slowly disappeared as I revealed a serious look and said, "From now on, we''ll be in a secret alliance. I hope that this will work out for us."

    The Dwarven King gave a nod at first, but then he said, "Don''t worry, I will never betray a friend. I hope that you will be the same."

    I gave a nod before reaching my hand out to him and saying, "Of course not, I would never betray a friend as well. I hope that we will be able to keep this rtionship going for a long time."

    The Dwarven King took my hand and nodded in agreement when he heard this.

 Chapter 751 Going homeâ€¦or not

    Chapter 751 Going home¡­or not

    ??We stayed in the Dwarven Kingdom for two more days.

    It was both for me to recover from being drained by the Staff of Earth and to hash out the details of the wyverns being sent to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    The n was to have the dwarvese to our kingdom to pick up the wyverns and then they would work for us as carriers. They would be part of the caravan that regrly transported ores from the Dwarven Kingdom to our kingdom, though they would be under the control of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    Until it was time to reveal their true identities, they would be working for the caravan.

    This was how we would be able to keep the secret alliance under wraps until it was the right time.

    After receiving the mark in the Earthen Temple, I wasn''t certain if my problem had been solved. However, that didn''t mean that there was no change at all in my body.

    With the new mark, I found that I was much stronger than before.

    It was as if my muscles had suddenly be much stronger after receiving my mark.

    I had first noticed this when the Dwarven King hadn''t been able to pull me along that day. Butter, I found that I had be strong enough that I was able tost a few seconds in an arm wrestling match against Cecilia.

    If it was the past, I wouldn''t have been able tost even a single second.

    My hand would have been pinned down as soon as it started.

    But this time, I was actually able to stop her for a few seconds before she pushed my hand down.

    This showed that my body was stronger than before, though I didn''t really understand why that was the case.

    Still, that meant that my body had changed in some way.

    It was possible that the situation down there had also changed.

    That would all depend on my experiments with my wife, which I was very excited to get to.

    I could have done with Cecilia while we were in the Dwarven Kingdom, but both of us chose to abstain until we were back. She wanted us to do it all together as well since she didn''t want to leave the other two out.

    That was why I actually supported her this time in heading back with the wyverns.

    I wanted to get back as soon as possible.

    But it didn''t go the way that I wanted to.

    When I arrived at my town, there was a group there waiting for me and it wasn''t the group that I had expected.

    Instead, it was the fourth prince who had a smug look on his face when he saw me.

    But the fourth prince wasn''t alone.

    Ang was there with him with a bitter smile on her face.

    At the same time¡­there was a group of royal guards that were surrounding the fourth prince that looked like they were ready to make a move at any time. It seemed that they were here to pick me up and they weren''t afraid to use force if they needed to.

    I was naturally surprised to see the fourth prince here with all of these royal guards, but I quickly found out that they had a good reason for this.

    Simply put, we had made too much noise on our trip to the Dwarven Kingdom.

    They were here to escort me to the capital to receive my punishment.

    There was even a royal decree that had been sent to make sure that I went with them.

    If need be, they could use force to take me in, but it was clear that the royal guards didn''t want to do that. After all, in front of them were a bunch of wyverns that I controlled.

    It was terrifying to be facing all these wyverns like this.

    I had to admit that they were quite brave that they didn''t run when faced with all these wyverns.

    Naturally, I didn''t want to start a war between me and the royal family, so I wouldn''t forcefully break my way out of this.

    Not to mention, I''m sure that the king had a reason for doing this.

    Namely, it was to appease the nobles that must haveined because of the incident that we caused.

    So I chose to go with the fourth prince to the capital.

    As we entered our carriage, he looked at me and asked, "Did you have fun?"

    I could see the aggrievement that was in his eyes and the betrayal that was in his voice. After all, I had let him be taken back to the capital instead of going back to the capital with him.

    I was the only one that escaped all the work that was left in the capital.

    With a faint smile, I gave a shrug as I said, "I had no other choice, this was something that I had to do for my future."

    The expression on the fourth prince''s face changed after he heard this.

    He slowly looked down at my crotch which really was a strange feeling. Having a man stare at my crotch like this definitely wasn''t something that I wanted to experience, so I closed my legs and gave a cough.

    The fourth prince looked back up at me and asked in a cautious voice, "Did it work?"

    I shook my head to the fourth prince''s surprise, but he was even more surprised by the answer that I had for him, "I have no idea."

    "Huh? What do you mean you have no idea?" The fourth prince was very confused when he heard this.

    I just casually reached my hand out towards the fourth prince and he slowly reached out to take it. Then all of a sudden, I squeezed my hand and the fourth prince said, "Ow!"

    The fourth prince pulled his hand back and rubbed it before saying, "What are you doing?"

    I just calmly said, "This is the change that happened with my body, but I''m not sure if ''that'' is fixed."

    The fourth prince looked down at my crotch again before slowly giving a nod.

    Seeing him like this, I reached my hand out towards his hand again and he quickly pulled his hand back.

 Chapter 752 Punishment?

    Chapter 752 Punishment?

    ??It took only two days for us to reach the capital in the end.

    We were traveling by carriage at first, but it seemed like it was just too slow for the fourth prince, so he decided that it was better to travel by wyverns.

    The wyverns naturally came with us since that was just how it went now that my knights had be wyvern knights.

    The royal guards on the other hand...

    When wended, there wasn''t a single one of them that didn''t throw up from traveling by wyvern.

    The ones that had been chosen to be wyvern riders by the fourth prince were his elite guards, which were different from these royal guards who worked for the king. The royal guards were some of the most powerful knights in the kingdom, but the fourth prince had listened to me and chosen his own guards to be wyvern riders.

    Though in the future, when I took the throne, I felt that it would be necessary for the royal guards to get their own wyverns. After all, they would be the most powerful knights of the kingdom and they would be under my control, so I could trust them with the wyverns.

    Until then, they wouldn''t get any wyverns.

    Though it wasn''t bad for them to get experience riding wyverns right now.

    As soon as we arrived in the capital, we were led to the castle.

    There were royal guards who had been waiting at all four gates for our arrival, so they immediately surrounded us and brought us to the castle.

    Though before heading to the castle, they looked at theirpanions who were throwing up with looks of sympathy.

    They could see just how much theirpanions had been through on this trip, so they felt sorry for them.

    Since we were being escorted into the castle by these royal guards, we naturally drew a lot of attention.

    There were many whispers that came from around us, but the one theory that they had that stood out the most was...

    "Is that a criminal?"

    Why would they immediately default to thinking I was a criminal?

    Just because I was being escorted by all of these royal guards, did that automatically mean that I was a dangerous criminal?

    Hmm, maybe that did make me seem like a criminal a bit, but I resent that stereotype!

    When we arrived at the castle, there was a part of me that was worried about being punished because of themotion that I had made. At the same time, I could see the way that the nobles that I passed looked at me.

    The expression on their faces made it clear that they expected something to happen when I met the kingter.

    It was as if they were expecting me to be punished for what had happened.

    Then it seemed like the king really was angry about what happened?

    For now, I kept calm as I didn''t want to get in my own head, but the atmosphere of the entire castle seemed like I would be punished.

    When I arrived at the king''s study, I found that he was just sitting there at the desk waiting for us with a stern look on his face.

    The fourth prince went over to the side of the king while Ang stood beside me.

    Once I was standing there in front of his desk, the king slowly said, "Well, do you want to exin yourself?"

    A bitter smile appeared on my face since this was the worst way that he could have started this. After all, he didn''t state what I should be exining for, so I had no idea what he wanted me to say.

    Basically, he was using this method to see what else I could have done during my absence.

    I just calmly said, "I took a detour."

    The fourth prince looked at me with a trace of admiration in his eyes.

    However, the king just pped his palm down on the table and said, "Do you think that''s funny?"

    I looked right at the king with a calm look in my eyes, not showing any signs of being shaken by his actions.

    The king kept staring at me for a bit before suddenly giving a sigh and asking, "At the very least, did you manage to fix that problem?"

    After saying that, he looked down at my crotch just like the fourth prince had done before.

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I saw him do this before turning to look at Ang.

    She turned her head away with an awkward look when she saw this and she didn''t say anything to exin herself.

    I did send her to the capital to exin what had happened, but she didn''t need to give such a detailed exnation, right?

    It wasn''t as if the whole world needed to know about my infertility issues!

    Shaking my head with the same bitter smile, I said, "I don''t know."

    The king raised a brow before asking, "You don''t know? What does that mean?"

    I said with a sigh, "It''s not as if this is something that could be known unless it''s tested first and I didn''t have time to test it before I was brought here."

    The king and the fourth prince both revealed awkward looks when they heard this.

    I just continued by saying, "For now, my body has changed a bit, so it feels like there''s been some change with me."

    "Changes?" The king asked in a doubtful voice.

    This time, the fourth prince spoke up by saying, "I''ve seen it myself, he''s much stronger than before. I''m certain that something must have changed about his body during this time."

    The king looked at me with one raised brow as if he was still doubtful of this.

    But there really wasn''t anything that I could say in response to this and I wasn''t able to give a live demonstration of this, so I changed the topic by asking¡­

    "Am I going to be punished?"

 Chapter 753 Dig out the roots

    Chapter 753 Dig out the roots

    ??The king raised a brow when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything.

    He just looked at me with this brow raised for a bit before saying in a whimsical voice, "Should I punish you? You''re the one that suddenly ditched all your work to cause thisrgemotion for a ''detour''...that was what you called it. You didn''t tell us anything about this ''detour'' and just headed off on your own."

    The way that he said this, it was almost as if he was teasing me about this which made a bitter smile appear on my face.

    But I didn''t say anything as it seemed like he was avoiding the issue by talking about these things. It was as if he was trying to keep me in suspense for as long as possible, though I didn''t understand why he would do that.

    It didn''t seem like there was anything for him to gain from this.

    After teasing me for a bit, the king suddenly revealed a serious look as he said, "The nobles are calling for me to punish you. Since the day that we received the report of the wyverns flying to the Dwarven Kingdom, they wanted me to punish you for provoking the dwarves and endangering our rtionship with them."

    He narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "They are even saying that they want to try you for treason for trying to start another war between our country and the Dwarven Kingdom."

    I gave a nod with an understanding look, but there was still a trace of bitterness on my face.

    I knew that the nobles weren''t thinking about the kingdom at all, but rather they were thinking about their own benefits. So the reason why they wanted to punish me was to restrain the power that I currently had in this kingdom.

    If there really was a war, all they would do is hide in their territories again or even switch sides if they felt that it was necessary.

    But still, I did have to be punished for this.

    Ang suddenly stepped forward and said, "If anyone should be punished, it should be us. We were the ones that forced him to go there in the first ce and we were the ones that forced him to take the wyverns. So we''ll take the punishment in his ce."

    When he heard this, the king looked like he had been punched in the chest.

    With a sigh, the king said, "It''s true that when a daughter finds love, she doesn''t care about her family anymore."

    The fourth prince nodded in agreement as he said, "It really does seem to be the case, royal father."

    The two of them were acting like what Ang had said didn''t matter.

    They were saying this like they were just chatting instead of discussing something serious.

    Ang remained silent at first since she wanted to respect the two of them and since there was nothing to gain from losing her temper over this. But seeing that neither of them were taking this seriously, she couldn''t take it anymore.

    She pped her hand down on the table and said, "What are you two talking about? This is serious."

    The king shook his head with a bitter smile before saying, "Darling, you''re worrying too much. From the very beginning, we had no intention of punishing either of you. There''s no need for you to care about what the other nobles were saying, all that matters is that¡­"

    He slowly looked at my crotch again before saying, "All that matters is that an heir can be born."

    There was a blush that appeared on her face when she heard this.

    I just shook my head with a bitter smile before saying, "You took it a bit too far."

    I had already guessed that this was the case earlier with how the two of them were acting, but Ang had reacted before I was able to say anything.

    So in the end, it ended like this.

    Ang turned to look at me with an angry look before saying, "You knew?"

    I shook my head quickly before saying, "It was just a hunch, I wasn''t a part of this at all."

    She narrowed her eyes to look at me before slowly giving a nod. Then she turned back to re at her father and her brother once more.

    The fourth prince suddenly broke this tense moment by saying, "But of course, even if we don''t punish him, this does give us a unique opportunity to dig out the roots once and for all."

    I was caught off guard by what he said before suddenly narrowing my eyes to look at him.

    After looking at the fourth prince like this for a bit, I asked, "Are you sure about this?"

    It was the king who answered by saying, "It''s been a long time since we''ve cleaned up the court. People have becent and it''s something that should be done. Not to mention, it''ll be the right time since I''ll be stepping down soon."

    Both Ang and I were surprised to hear this, but we were surprised for different reasons.

    She was surprised since that meant that we would be married soon.

    I was surprised since I never thought that the king would abdicate so soon.

    Or rather, I didn''t want him to abdicate so soon.

    It wasn''t a good thing for him to abdicate soon since that meant that I would have to take the throne which was what I didn''t want to do.

    But it didn''t seem like anyone would be able to talk him out of this based on the look on his face.

    So I turned to the fourth prince and asked, "What''s the n?"

    Since it was inevitable, it was better to get involved in the n from the beginning than to be dragged along by them.

    The fourth prince revealed a sly smile as he said, "Well the n is¡­"

 Chapter 754 A talk about the fourth prince

    Chapter 754 A talk about the fourth prince

    ??The discussion about the nsted for a while and when it was over, the sun had already set.

    Since the sun had set, it meant that it was time for dinner.

    So all four of us headed to the royal dining room.

    This was one of the parts that I enjoyed about staying in the castle.

    The royal castle was the home of the royal family, which meant that it was a ce where the best resources of the nation were gathered. That meant that the best cooks were gathered here to make meals for the king and his guests.

    The dishes that were brought out always made me feel like my tongue was melting when I bit into them.

    No matter what, I was already determined to keep these cooks and give them even more funding when I took over as king.

    This was something that I had decided the first time I had their food.

    As for the mood during dinner, it wasn''t the mood that one would think would be present at a dinner for royals. Instead of being on edge and guarded against each other, we were just casually talking with each other like it was a normal family meal.

    That was how rxed we were with each other.

    Though if any of the other princes had survived...it would have been different.

    During this dinner, there was an interesting topic that was brought up.

    It was brought up by Ang who had been silently eating her food the entire time.

    Before she brought up the topic, she turned to look at the fourth prince with a sly look.

    The fourth prince couldn''t help trembling as he felt that something was wrong, but he wasn''t able to stop her from saying what she said.

    Ang suddenly turned to the king and said, "Royal father, now that my wedding has been decided, what about my little brother''s wedding? It seems like his partner still hasn''t been decided on yet."

    The king was surprised to hear this, but he gave a nod in response before turning to look at the fourth prince with a serious look and asking in a worried voice, "That''s right, old fourth. What are you nning to do about that? I''ve already asked you about this many times, but you''ve always avoided giving me an answer. If you don''t give me an answer today, don''t think about leaving."

    An awkward and bitter smile appeared on the fourth prince''s face when he heard this.

    He slowly turned to me with a look like he was asking me for help, but I just looked at him with a smile on my face.

    That smile made it clear that I wasn''t nning on helping him.

    Rather, the smile made it clear that I was on the opposite side.

    It was my petty way of getting a bit of revenge on the fourth prince for everything that he had already put me through.

    Though it would be a lie to say that I wasn''t interested in whether the fourth prince did have someone in his heart.

    That was because I knew that there was someone that had the fourth prince in her heart.

    After a long silence, the fourth prince said, "I''ll be too busy with work for stuff like that. There''s still so many things that we have to do, so it''ll be hard for me to think about that."

    The king shook his head as he said, "No, no, a family is something important. It''s something that motivates you to work even harder and it''s something that can providefort when you''re feeling down. You should build your family as soon as possible."

    The fourth prince had another awkward look appear on his face when he heard this.

    Ang didn''t back down either as she said, "Your older sister is about to get married and you''re still alone, don''t you think that this is embarrassing?"

    There was an awkward silence that filled the air as the fourth prince didn''t say anything in response to this.

    With the look that was on his face, it really seemed like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

    So I took a deep breath and said, "Well, what about people that you already know? I''m sure that there are those that are interested in a handsome young man like you."

    The king raised a brow before turning to look at me to ask, "Who? Are you saying that there''s people that old fourth is close to?"

    Ang red at me before pouting her lips to say, "Why didn''t you tell me sooner?"

    An awkward smile appeared on my face before I opened my mouth to say something.

    But before I could, the fourth prince suddenly stood up and said, "This is my business, please don''t interfere in it."

    All three of us were surprised by the fourth prince''s sudden outburst.

    We looked at him with strange looks, but it seemed like he wasn''t willing to say anything else on this matter.

    However, I could see that there was a different look in the fourth prince''s eyes when he said this. It was almost as if he had alreadye to a decision on what he would do.

    It was almost as if¡­he already knew who he wanted to be with.

    So a smile crept onto my face as I said, "You should know that you shouldn''t keep them waiting for too long. It''s not fair for them to keep waiting for that long."

    The fourth prince was taken aback to hear this.

    But after his expression changed a few times, he just gave a simple nod.

    With that, I was satisfied since I had received my answer, but Ang was still confused.

    Since she couldn''t get anything out of the fourth prince, she turned to me who seemed to know the answer.

    But before she could ask anything, the king suddenly said, "Alright, that''s enough. You should know when to back down."

    Ang was surprised once again, but she gave a nod in the end.

    It seemed like even the king knew about the bond between men and that some things shouldn''t be said out loud.

 Chapter 755 Finally punished

    Chapter 755 Finally punished

    ??Two dayster, the nobles were all gathered in the throne room.

    I was also brought there, but it was different from before where I was allowed to move freely.

    I was apanied by two royal guards who seemed to be stopping my every action. It was as if they wouldn''t allow me to move a single inch other than where they were allowing me to stand.

    I was brought forth in front of everyone like this

    When I came into the throne room, I could see the way that the nobles were looking at me.

    It was clear that they were happy to see that I was being escorted by the royal guards like this.

    Once all of the nobles arrived and I was brought forth in front of the king, the king suddenly said, "I''m sure that you have an idea of why we have been gathered here."

    The nobles nodded in agreement before turning to look at me.

    The king also narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

    I looked up at the king and then said, "I did what I did because it was an emergency. Everything was done because I had no other choice."

    The nobles knitted their brows when they heard this before looking at the king with a worried look. It was as if they were afraid that the king would actually be convinced by the words that I said.

    However, the king gave a snort before saying, "You almost caused a war and you''re saying that you had no other choice? It''s clear that there were other things that could be done. However, it''s also clear that you are showing no signs of remorse at all over your actions. Since that''s the case, there''s no need for me to show you any mercy."

    The nobles werepletely caught off guard when they heard this, but then they quickly revealed excited looks since this was what they had been waiting to hear the entire time.

    They had been worried that the king would let Duke Zwein go since he was his future son inw and because of the power that he controlled, but it seemed like he wasn''t nning to.

    In that case, it meant that they would be able to¡­

    When I heard this, I knitted my brows as I said, "With the things that I''ve done for this kingdom, you are seriously nning on punishing me?"

    The king gave a snort before saying, "All men in this kingdom are bound by thews, there''s no one that is above thews."

    Iughed at him before saying, "And you are the man who creates all thews. So you''re saying that you''re even restrained by your ownws?"

    The king didn''t say anything in response to this.

    The nobles all had worried looks when they heard this.

    Though this was the situation that they wanted to see, the way that it was developing was not a good sign for them. After all, the way that they had wanted to see this go was the king punishing Duke Zwein and reducing his power a bit.

    But with the way that the two of them were shing, it almost seemed like it was developing into something that they were afraid of.

    It seemed like Duke Zwein might even consider¡­

    After a silent showdown between the two of them, the king said, "Your punishment will be that you will be brought to the punishment mine on the border and made to do hardbour for a month."

    Everyone took a cold breath when they heard this.

    After all, not a single one of the nobles had expected the king to give this kind of punishment.

    This was a strict punishment that was given to serious offenders, not someone who would soon be their son inw.

    But many nobles quickly revealed sly looks after hearing this.

    This might be a sign that the king was going back on his decision to marry the princess to Duke Zwein¡­

    This might be a sign that Duke Zwein was losing influence with the king and was being deposed from his position.

    This was just what the nobles wanted to see since Duke Zwein was in a very terrifying position for them.

    However, there was still a matter that was concerning for them.

    It was about a certain thing that Duke Zwein controlled¡­

    As if prompted by them, I suddenly said, "What if I don''t want to? What can you do about that?"

    All of the nobles felt a chill run down their spines the moment that they heard this.

    This was what they were afraid of¡­

    Before any of them could say a thing to me, the king mmed his fist down on the armrest of his throne and said, "How dare you say such things to me! Do you even know who you''re in the presence of!"

    The nobles once again trembled when they heard this.

    But I gave them something to be more terrified of, "Do you think that you''ll be able to control the wyverns without me? The moment that you try to do anything to me, who knows what will happen?"

    Yes, the nobles were worried since I was the one that controlled all of the wyverns.

    If I did something to them, then with how many wyverns were in the kingdom¡­it would be aplete disaster.

    The nobles wanted to convince the king to calm down after hearing this, but the king suddenly raised his head tough into the sky. Afterughing for a bit to the confusion of the nobles, the king said, "Is that supposed to be a threat?"

    Before I could say anything, the king gave a snap and the fourth prince walked in.

    The moment that I saw what was in the hands of the fourth prince, I said in a shocked voice, "Where did you get that?!"

 Chapter 756 Turnaround

    Chapter 756 Turnaround

    ??The nobles were all shocked by my reaction before quickly looking at what the fourth prince had in his hand.

    It was a small round and smooth white stone that didn''t seem like anything special, but to anyone that had the ability to sense it, they would be able to feel the magic energy fluctuationsing from this stone.

    It was clear that this wasn''t just any normal stone.

    After the fourth prince came out, he didn''t say any word until he was right up beside the throne. Then holding up the stone, there was a roar that came from outside of the castle.

    This roar was powerful enough to fill the entire throne room, showing just how loud it really was.

    There was no doubt that this would have caused chaos outside, but no one really cared about that right now. At this moment, all eyes were focused on the stone that was in the hands of the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince brought the stone down and said, "You never thought that we would find it, right?"

    I gritted my teeth and wanted to take a step forward, but the two royal guards suddenly brought down their spear to stop me. They held their spears crossed in front of me, preventing me from moving.

    The eyes of the nobles lit up when they saw this as they could guess what this stone was.

    Even if they weren''t certain, they already had some ideas of what this stone was.

    The fourth prince confirmed these guesses by saying, "That''s right, it''s the Wyvern Stone."

    The nobles looked even more excited when they heard this.

    Naturally they had heard the rumours of this Wyvern Stone, it was what had caused thatrgemotion in the capital not that long ago. Though many of them thought that it was just a rumour that was used to lure the princes out of the city for them to be ughtered.

    Now it turned out to be real and the fourth prince was holding it.

    Based on the rumours of the Wyvern Stone, they knew that this thing had the power to control the wyverns. They knew that this was the thing that Duke Zwein had used to build up his power.

    If the fourth prince had it now...it meant that they most likely took it from Duke Zwein when he wasn''t looking.

    It was no wonder the king suddenly decided to act like this.

    Since Duke Zwein had lost his Wyvern Stone, he had lost the power that could cement his position. Without the Wyvern Stone, there really wasn''t anything that Duke Zwein had to his name.

    That was why the king was no longer cordial with the duke and was punishing him like this.

    Everyone knew that once the duke left the capital, he would most likely never return.

    There weren''t many eyes in the mine on the border, so there''s no telling what could happen when no one was watching. There were some things that shouldn''t be said in this world...

    But the nobles were all happy about this.

    They had felt that Duke Zwein was a threat to them with how quickly he had risen up.

    There was no doubt that he would be a thorn in their sides if he was allowed to live.

    The king just ignored all of the nobles as he looked down at Duke Zwein, but then he suddenly looked up and said, "Before we sentence him, I wish to seek the counsel of my ministers. If there''s anyone that wishes to speak up for him, speak up now."

    There wasn''t a single person that spoke up.

    There were a few people that looked like they wanted to say something, but they kept their mouths shut in the end.

    The king''s eyes swept over them and he gave a nod before saying, "Now, if there''s anyone that wishes to condemn the duke, speak up now."

    This time, it wasn''t as quiet as before.

    There were some that immediately spoke up and called for the death sentence for crimes that had never been listed before.

    There were some that only spoke up after everyone else spoke up, but their words weren''t as harsh as the first ones to speak. It was as if they were still hesitating over something.

    Finally, the king raised his hand and said, "Alright, I have heard your voices and will send the duke to two months of hardbour at the mine on the borders. If there''s anyone else that has anything to say, then speak up now."

    This time, no one said a thing.

    They all knew that the king had already made his decision and he was only saying this out of ceremony.

    There wasn''t anything that they could say to actually change his mind.

    Speaking up now would actually hurt them.

    The king gave another nod before turning to the fourth prince to say, "You will lead the wyverns to escort the duke to the mine on the border. This will be an opportunity, so do not waste it."

    All of the nobles immediately reacted when they heard this.

    They knew what the opportunity the king mentioned was.

    Now that the fourth prince had the Wyvern Stone, this would be their way of showing that the wyverns were now in the hands of the royal family. If the nobles wanted anything to do with the wyverns, they would have to listen to the royal family.

    It was a way of establishing the might of the royal family.

    So the nobles all started nning on how to treat the royal family in the future.

    After all, those were wyverns!

    Everyone wanted the power of the wyverns for themselves.

    The fourth prince bowed his head before saying, "Your son obeys."

    Then when he looked up again, he turned to look at me to say, "Brother, it seems like this will be our final trip together. I hope that you will try to enjoy it at the very least."

    I just red at the fourth prince as he said this.

 Chapter 757 Paraded

    Chapter 757 Paraded

    ??After the punishment was decided, the fourth prince didn''t waste any time.

    With a snap of his fingers, there were several more royal guards that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

    The nobles were naturally surprised by the appearance of these royal guards, but they weren''t afraid of them. Rather, the ones that had spoken up the most against me were all looking at me with looks of schadenfreude on their faces.

    The royal guards quickly surrounded me and made sure that I wasn''t able to do anything.

    Just like this, I was led out of the throne room and made to walk out of the castle where there was a carriage that was waiting for me.

    Seeing this, I had a grim look on my face.

    This wasn''t the normal kind of carriage that a noble would take, but rather this was a carriage that was clearly for transporting something. The carriage was nothing more than a cart that even had bars all around it that seemed like it was keeping something in.

    This was clearly a cart for transporting prisoners.

    The royal guards used their spears to ''guide'' me into the prisoner cart.

    Though it was more like they were forcing me into the cart rather than guiding me.

    Once I was in, the fourth prince personally sat down in the driver''s seat of this cart and grabbed the reins to the horses. With a flick of his wrist, the cart started moving forward.

    The nobles that had followed after us were shocked to see this, but the ones that didn''t like me had even stronger looks of schadenfreude on their faces. It was as if they wished that they could be driving the cart themselves with the expression that was on their faces.

    But the fourth prince didn''t let anyone approach as he had the royal guards surround the cart.

    It was a parade.

    They were parading me down the streets of the capital to show everyone that I had been captured.

    The citizens that were walking through the streets were confused by what was happening at first, but it soon became clear to them what was happening. However, the moment that they saw that it was me who was in the carriage, there were some strange looks that were shot in my direction.

    It wasn''t strange in the way that they didn''t like me and wanted to throw stuff at me.

    It was strange in the way that they all seemed worried about me.

    There were many people that turned up on the path that the cart traveled to the gate of the capital.

    These people all had worried looks as they looked in my direction.

    It even seemed like there were some of them that wanted to charge forward to help me if it wasn''t for the fact that the royal guards were here.

    But as more and more people showed up, it seemed like more and more of them were prepared toe forward to save me.

    The nobles that had followed us from the castle to enjoy my trip through the capital saw this as well, so they immediately sent people forward to stop those people.

    I was very confused why the people of the capital looked at me this way until I heard a few things from the crowd.

    "Isn''t that Duke Zwein? The hero of our kingdom?"

    "Right, he''s the one that saved us from the invasion of the other four kingdoms. He''s a hero that saved the citizens of this kingdom, how could they treat him like this?"

    "Don''t you see who it is that''s driving the cart? It''s the fourth prince. It has to be a battle of power between the royal family and the duke¡­"

    "But wasn''t the duke supposed to marry the princess? Why would they suddenly fall apart like this?"

    "What else could it be? The royal family must fear the power that the duke holds, so they don''t want to see him rise any further. They must have found a way to take the power of the wyverns from him and must be suppressing him now¡­that''s most likely why the wyverns were roaring earlier."

    "Shh¡­do you not want to keep your heads anymore? Do you know what talking about this kind of stuff will bring?"

    "But your wife and children were also saved by the duke¡­"

    The nobles immediately cracked down on the ones that said the things near the end.

    It seemed like they were threatened by these people and were afraid that the fourth prince would react to these words, but the fourth prince was solely focused on driving the cart. It didn''t seem like the fourth prince was reacting at all to what was happening around him.

    However, I couldn''t help knitting my brows a bit because of this.

    Because of the actions of the nobles, there were small shes that started breaking out between the guards and themoners.

    Themotion that this caused continued to increase the noise around us until itpletely drowned out everything.

    Unless someone was right up beside us, they wouldn''t have heard what we said¡­

    So I took this chance to ask the fourth prince, "Was all of this really necessary?"

    The fourth prince''s expression didn''t change at all as he still had that serious look on his face. But even with that serious look, he said in a yful voice, "If we don''t put on a show, they won''t believe that it''s real. This is necessary for what is about to happen. If we don''t do this, they''ll never actually believe that this is real."

    I still slightly knitted my brows as I said, "But the people¡­"

    The fourth prince''s voice became a bit darker as he said, "Don''t worry, I''m noting down everything. They will receive their just desserts when the timees, they won''t be able to get out of it."

    I just gave a sigh before sitting back in the cage and watching all of this happen.

    I would enjoy it when these nobles received the punishment that they deserved.

 Chapter 758 Showcase

    Chapter 758 Showcase

    ??When we reached the gates, the crowd that gathered had reached its peak.

    The area around the gates waspletely surrounded by people, so much so that the guards at the gates even had toe out to help out with crowd control.

    It took a while for them to keep the crowd away so that the cart could continue forward.

    As for outside the gates...the entry into the capital had beenpletely stopped for this matter. With how serious this was, it was better for them to suspend all entries until this matter was over.

    The travelers that were waiting outside were naturally angry about being made to wait, but they soon realized that this was something serious when they saw the cart. There were many of them who recognized who I was, just like the people of the capital.

    Many of them also reacted the same way as the people in the capital did, but they didn''t do what the people in the capital did since there were just too few of them. Not to mention, the soldiers of the nobles were still here and at this point, they had even drawn weapons.

    No one was going to risk their lives just to try and save me.

    Or at least not when they met me for the first time.

    Though it was clear that many of them seemed disappointed by what was happening.

    At the same time, there were some that directly turned around and started heading off in different directions.

    It seemed that these people had given up on going into the capital and were heading off to different ces. They were most likely going to sell the information that they had witnessed firsthand to different ces.

    With all the different people that headed off, it would only be a matter of time before this matter spread all over the kingdom.

    But the fourth prince didn''t stop them.

    The nobles naturally didn''t stop them, they even looked like they were happy about this. It was like they wanted everyone in the kingdom to see my shame.

    Though they didn''t know that they were dancing in the palms of the fourth prince.

    Once we were out of the capital, the fourth prince stopped the cart.

    The nobles were all confused when they saw this, so one of them who had been chosen as the representative came forward to ask, "Your highness, why did you stop? Is something wrong?"

    The fourth prince didn''t answer this question as he reached into his pocket to take out a round and smooth white stone.

    When the nobles saw this, all of them couldn''t help taking a step back.

    After all, they all recognized this stone and knew what this stone was.

    If the fourth prince was taking the stone out at this time...

    There was a roar that rang out through the air before severalrge figures suddenly appeared.

    That included my wyvern, Joan.

    She was the one that was leading the rest of the wyverns as they came down to where the cart was. However, they didn''tnd on the cart andnded in the area in front of the cart.

    Once theynded, they bowed their heads to the fourth prince.

    Though Joan did cast a small look to me that no one else noticed.

    The fourth prince stepped forward to pat Joan on the head and whispered something in her ear that no one else could hear before getting on her back.

    With a pat of her head, Joan suddenly flew back into the air andnded over the cart that I was in. Her ws came down to grab the side of the cart while the royal guards released the horses that were attached to the cart.

    Then in one swift move, Joan lifted the cart off the ground.

    The nobles were shocked to see this, but they quickly understood what happened.

    The representative of the nobles came forward and asked the fourth prince, "Your highness, is it possible to borrow a wyvern or two? We wish toe along and see the fate of this traitor to the kingdom firsthand."

    The other nobles nodded in agreement after he said this.

    But the fourth prince just narrowed his eyes to look at the representative of the nobles before saying, "Don''t you still have things to do for the kingdom? Or are you telling me that you''re trying to skip out on your work?"

    The nobles all revealed awkward looks when they heard this.

    They had gotten so caught up in this matter that they had forgotten about their duties.

    It was only when the fourth prince scolded them that they finally remembered that they had other things that they had to do.

    So they had no choice but to back down in this matter.

    Though as they left, they gave me onest look of schadenfreude as if they really enjoyed this.

    I just ignored them as Iid there in my cage without any expressions.

    They thought that I was being strong, but it was anything but that.

    They didn''t know what was really going to happen to them.

    The fourth prince didn''t waste any time after that and headed off with several wyverns that had his personal elite guards on them.

    ¡­

    The first stop that we made was a town.

    It was a small town that was near the capital and it wasn''t gettingte yet, but the fourth prince stopped here.

    The nobles of the town came out to greet him when hended, but they were shocked to see the cage that I was in.

    There were some that were happy about the situation and there were some that seemed disturbed after seeing me sit there in the cage like this.

    But when I saw all of this, I understood what the goal of the fourth prince was tond in this small town.

    A showcase.

    I was being made into a showcase to properly sell our n so that the enemies would buy it¡­

    A helpless look appeared on my face when I realized this, but the nobles just thought that it was me feeling helpless about my current situation.

 Chapter 759 A moment of respite

    Chapter 759 A moment of respite

    ??As we passed through this town, there were some nobles that suggested that they clear out a space so that the fourth prince could make a speech in front of their citizens.

    Of course, that would also include showing off me, who was sitting in the cage.

    They wanted to bring down my prestige as much as they could and to make sure that everyone knew that I had fallen this far.

    They wanted to kick me when I was down.

    It was clear that the nobles in this town were not on my side.

    It was clear that these were nobles that disliked me, whether it was for personal or professional reasons.

    But that was the reason why the fourth prince chose to bring me here in the first ce.

    He wanted to show my predicament off to these nobles to help sell our cover. At the same time, he wanted to make preparations for when we took down these nobles since this n was also targeting them.

    In the end, the fourth prince said, "No, there are still other ces that we have to go before today ends. I just came here to show you all the plight that Duke Zwein is in and I hope that you will¡­" After a pause, the fourth prince revealed a sly look as he said, "Help me spread the news of this."

    The nobles had looks of understanding slowly appear on their faces before they all nodded in agreement with smiles on their faces.

    As soon as they heard this, they knew what the fourth prince was asking of them.

    He was asking them to help spread the news even further so that my reputation would be ruined even more.

    He was basically telling them to help destroy me, which was what they wanted to do in the first ce.

    So the nobles naturally agreed to this without any hesitation.

    With that, the fourth prince had Joan pick up the cage once more and headed off to the next town.

    Just like this, we made our way to three different towns and one city, only stopping in the city since it was gettingte.

    The fourth prince was given a residence by the nobles of the city and it was there that I was finally let out of the cage.

    The nobles had wanted to keep me in the cage, but the fourth prince just simply said, "Do you want him to escape? By leaving him outside in a cage, you''re making it easy for him to escape. Instead, it is better to keep him in the residence with all of my guards keeping watch."

    The nobles were surprised by this, but they realized that the fourth prince was right.

    Being in a cage outside was too dangerous since it was too dark and the space was too open. There was anything that could happen during this time that could allow the prisoner to escape.

    It was better to keep the prisoner in a ce that was enclosed and filled with guards than to keep them outside.

    The nobles wanted to offer their own guards to keep watch over Duke Zwein as well, but the fourth princepletely rejected their offer in the end.

    Since the fourth prince rejected, there was nothing that the nobles could do other than leave their guards nearby to watch over the residence in case anything happened.

    But the fourth prince didn''t care about that.

    Once we were inside of the residence, that was when I finally had freedom.

    The chains that were locking up my hands were taken off and I was able to wash up before meeting the fourth prince in one of the bedrooms.

    "So, how did it feel to be a prisoner like that?" The fourth prince asked with a teasing smile.

    A bitter smile crept on my face as I shook my head and said with a sigh, "It definitely is an experience. I''m not sure if I would want to experience something like this again though."

    But when I thought about it, it wasn''t as if this was the first time that I had been treated like this.

    The first time was when I had arrived in this world, I had been put in the dungeon by the baron after he bought me for his wife.

    That was how I had arrived in this world and I was experiencing something like this again¡­It really was a strange feeling.

    Still, it wasn''t as if I was actually a prisoner.

    After sitting down and resting for a bit, I asked with a serious look, "How do you think this will go? Do you really think it''ll all go as nned?"

    The teasing smile disappeared from the fourth prince''s face as he revealed a look of deep thought.

    After a moment of silence, he said, "There shouldn''t be a problem. I''ve already made sure to take care of all the things that could go wrong and I''ve even taken precaution against things that no one would expect. So in the end, it should be fine."

    I looked at him with narrowed eyes for a bit before slowly giving a nod.

    There still seemed like many things that could go wrong with this, but at the very least he seemed confident.

    So far, nothing had gone wrong, so it wasn''t as if I could say anything.

    Though I did feel like it wouldn''t turn out as simple as the fourth prince thought it was.

    For now, I just sat back on the couch that I was on and rxed.

    The fourth prince saw this and said with a smile, "What''s wrong? Are you that tired?"

    With a bitter smile, I said, "You can try being in a cage and telling me how it feels. This is the only downtime that I''ll have during this time, so I''ll make the most out of it."

    The fourth prince gave a nod with a faint smile, but he didn''t say anything.

 Chapter 760 The real destination

    Chapter 760 The real destination

    ??Over the next few days, I was dragged to several other towns and cities.

    The visit to each town and city went the same way where we were greeted by the nobles and I was shown off to them.

    The reactions from the various towns were different, but at the same time, there were simrities between them.

    The first town was the one that had the strongest reaction as almost all of the nobles were against punishing me. But in some of the other towns, it was clear that there were nobles that weren''t certain about this.

    These nobles didn''t seem like they supported my capture like this, but they also didn''t have enough power to stop this.

    These were nobles that were strong enough to be considered powerful in their own territories, but this was a decree that came from the king. Not to mention, the fourth prince was also here escorting me to the mines where I would be punished.

    If they were to do anything to help me, there was no doubt that they would be punished as well.

    So even if they didn''t support it, they had no choice but to pretend that they didn''t disagree.

    Though it was clear by the looks in their eyes that they didn''t support this.

    I made sure to take mental note of these nobles for the future.

    They were most likely the ones that the fourth prince would spare.

    Though it was also possible that they just didn''t feel this way towards me and were stillmitting certain crimes, so the fourth prince would still be cleaning them up. Still, they made a good impression on me since they didn''t instantly judge me.

    Like this, we made our way to the western border where the mines were located.

    However, it wasn''t as if the mines were our final destination in the first ce.

    From the very beginning, there was a certain ce that we were heading towards.

    It was a city that was on the western border.

    No, to simply call it a city on the western border wasn''t doing it justice.

    It was thergest city in the western part of the kingdom and it was a city that was ruled over by a duke.

    Since it was the capital city of the west, it was naturally...Vayne City.

    This was the territory of Duke Yuletide and the Yuletide Family.

    They were the target this time.

    We hade up with this entire n just to take care of Duke Yuletide and the Yuletide Family since they were thest obstacle that had to be cleaned up before I took over the kingdom.

    This was a family that had been plotting against the royal family for all these years and had remained hidden all this time. If I was to allow this family to continue to exist during my reign, then there was no doubt that they would be a problem in the future.

    So I had to take them out here and now before I took over the throne.

    When we arrived in Vayne City, we were surprised to find that¡­

    "Your highness, is this really all necessary?"

    That was the first thing that Duke Yuletide said when he saw me in the cage.

    The fourth prince knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "Are you saying that you wish to defy the royal decree?"

    Duke Yuletide didn''t panic in the face of these usations and calmly said, "No, of course not. I''m just saying that there''s no need to treat Duke Zwein like this, right? He is the hero of our kingdom, the one that saved us all during the war. Someone like this shouldn''t be treated in such a manner, right?"

    With the way that he said this, we might have actually believed that he was concerned about me if we didn''t know what kind of person he really was.

    But what surprised us even more was that it wasn''t just Duke Yuletide who was acting this way.

    The other nobles of the city all seemed like they were willing to speak up to me, even though they shouldn''t have had the status to speak up for me. They should have been too afraid of the royal family to speak up for me like this, yet here they were all supporting Duke Yuletide.

    It seemed that he really had quite a bit of power in this Vayne City that he could get these nobles to support him like this. Especially when the other side was the royal family.

    The Yuletide Family had really built up their power well over the generations¡­

    That was what made them troublesome to deal with.

    Or at least they would have been troublesome if we didn''t find something that we could use against them.

    It was their hidden secret and where most of their powery, which was why we were certain that we could deal with them.

    It was also the reason why the fourth prince hade up with this n.

    The fourth prince just silently listened to all of the protests of the nobles with a calm look on his face. It was as if he wasn''t bothered at all by the words that they were saying.

    But in reality, it was different under the surface.

    The fourth prince was filled with disdain towards these people as he thought to themselves, "What hypocrites. They sell themselves to the Yuletide Family and betray the kingdom, yet they can speak of loyalty to the kingdom like this."

    Finally, the fourth prince said, "Are you all done?"

    The nobles were surprised to hear this from the fourth prince.

    Duke Yuletide slightly knitted his brows before asking, "Your highness, is there a problem?"

    The fourth prince just calmly said, "This isn''t a matter of who has a reputation as a hero or not, this is simply an enforcement of thews of the kingdom. We must show that no one is above thews, not even those at the top or else anarchy will spread through the kingdom. Do you understand?"

    Duke Yuletide was a bit caught off guard when he heard this, but he eventually said with a helpless sigh, "Yes, I understand."

 Chapter 761 Breaking out

    Chapter 761 Breaking out

    ??Though Duke Yuletide said he understood, the things that he did showed that he was thinking the opposite.

    After meeting us at the gate, we were led to his manor where he would be hosting us.

    Along the way, we didn''t meet a single person.

    It was as if in thisrge Vayne City, everyone had disappeared.

    There wasn''t a single person who was walking in the streets, it even seemed like the streets had beenpletely cleaned up of any traces of people with how barren it was.

    The fourth prince knitted his brows before asking Duke Yuletide, "What is the meaning of this?"

    Duke Yuletide just calmly said, "The people have better things to attend to, so they aren''t here."

    The way that he said this made it sound natural, but it was clear that he had a hand in this. It was clear that he had made sure that not a single person would be here as I was transported through the city.

    If one didn''t know better, they would have thought that he waspletely on my side with how much he was doing to help me keep my prestige.

    If I didn''t know what he was truly about, he might have fooled me.

    But I knew that this was clearly just nothing more than a ruse.

    There was something that he wanted from me, which was why he was putting on this charade in the first ce. He was doing all of this just so he could build up rapport with me.

    Once he did that, he would surely try to use that rapport to get what he wanted from me.

    I wasn''t going to let myself be fooled by him, but at the very least, I should y along.

    Seeing that there wasn''t a single person in the street, I turned to give Duke Yuletide a grateful look.

    A faint smile appeared on his face as he gave a nod to me before he went back to having the same expressionless look on his face.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at Duke Yuletide for a bit before saying, "I don''t know what you''re ying at here, but do you think that this will end well for you?"

    Duke Yuletide just looked right back at the fourth prince and calmly said, "I don''t know how this will end, but I can''t just abide silently by this."

    The fourth prince gave a snort before saying, "Very well, do what you want. Just know that I''ve remembered this."

    Duke Yuletide gave a simple nod before leading the way forward to his manor.

    When we arrived, it was already gettingte, so the fourth prince and his men were led inside. Duke Yuletide had prepared a banquet for them to enjoy after their long journey.

    For once, the fourth prince actually agreed to this.

    At the same time, the fourth prince didn''t give the same argument as before where he wanted to keep me close and confined. This time, the fourth prince agreed to leaving my cage right in the center of the manor where the duke''s men would guard me.

    He didn''t even bother leaving a single one of his men behind as he allowed the duke to take charge of guard duty.

    It might seem like the fourth prince was being negligent, but it was just him setting a trap for the duke. The duke didn''t mind this since he had a trick up his sleeve that he could pull.

    It was because of what he would use to set off the trap.

    Since my cage was left right in the center of the manor yard, it was quite easy for me to break out of if I wanted to break free.

    There were guards that were standing around me, but it didn''t seem like they were that motivated to do their jobs.

    This was even further proven when they were suddenly knocked out.

    There was no resistance at all from the guards, it was as if they wanted to let the people who knocked them out knock them out. It was clear that the guards and the people that were here were on the same side.

    These people surrounded the cage and after a few seconds, they pulled out the key for the cage.

    Well, it wasn''t the real key since this key was kept by the fourth prince and it would be impossible for them to steal it. So it was clear that this was some kind of replica that was made.

    The only problem was how could they make a replica so soon¡­

    Unless there was some kind of internal leak¡­

    Or that would be the case if the fourth prince hadn''t already nned for this and had leaked the key himself. That was the reason why they were able to make this key.

    "Sir Zwein, pleasee with us. We are breaking you out." The leader of these people said this to me.

    I looked at this person before saying, "And why should I go with you?"

    The leader wasn''t surprised since he knew that no one would just go with someone that they were meeting for the first time. So instead, he pulled out a token before saying, "This is the token of my master. He hopes to meet with you."

    Seeing this, I gave a nod before standing up to follow them.

    This was what I had been waiting for, even though I had no idea just what kind of move that person would make.

    Thest move I would have expected was a direct break like this, but they must have their reason for doing this¡­

    The token that the leader had shown was the token of the Yuletide Family.

    That meant that these people worked for Duke Yuletide.

    It was no wonder the guards allowed them to knock them out that easily.

    They must have already nned everything.

    After breaking me free of my bindings, these people quickly took me away from the manor and into the streets of Vayne City.

 Chapter 762 Find him!

    Chapter 762 Find him!

    ??Naturally, this escape wasn''t missed by those that were inside the manor.

    An hourter, the fourth prince found out that the prisoner was missing and he flew into a rage.

    "How could you let him escape?" The fourth prince said as he pointed his finger in Duke Yuletide''s face.

    Duke Yuletide his head down as he said, "I''m sorry, your highness. I never expected him to suddenly make a break for it. I''ll be sure to punish the guards that let this happen."

    Though he said this, it was clear that he wasn''t actually nning on doing anything like that.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at Duke Yuletide before saying, "I don''t care what you have to do, find him! I''ll give you three days to find him or else you should know what will happen."

    Duke Yuletide slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but he still gave a nod in the end.

    After all, there was no denying that this was his fault.

    The fourth prince just looked at him for a bit longer before turning around to head back inside.

    Duke Yuletide was surprised to see this so he asked, "Your highness, where are you going?"

    The fourth prince stopped and looked at Duke Yuletide to say, "Where else would I be going? I''m going back to enjoy myself."

    Duke Yuletide was even more surprised when he heard this, but he didn''t let that surprise show on his face. After a moment of silence, he said, "Then please enjoy yourself, your highness."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before heading in without turning back once.

    When Duke Yuletide was left alone there, there was someone that came up to him.

    This was the captain of the guards that had been in charge of watching over the cage.

    When he came over, he bowed his head and asked, "My lord, what should we do now?"

    Duke Yuletide didn''t answer this question as he turned to pat this captain on the shoulder before saying with a smile, "Good job. You can leave the rest to me."

    The captain of the guard was surprised, but he quickly gave a nod before turning to leave.

    Once Duke Yuletide was alone again, he stroked his chin and said to himself, "Strange, why would he act this way?"

    The person that he was referring to was the fourth prince.

    The fourth prince that he knew wouldn''t act this way since he was someone who was very serious about the things that he did. There was no way that someone like him would have just ignored this break out to go back to partying.

    He would have surely sent his men out to find the prisoner who escaped and captured them regardless of the cost.

    It wasn''t just the rumours about the fourth prince that Duke Yuletide had this impression of the fourth prince, it was also his own investigations into the fourth prince.

    Duke Yuletide had full confidence in his informationwork since this was something that had been developed for many generations now.

    So he was certain that the fourth prince was up to something.

    "How should I go about this?" Duke Yuletide said to himself.

    If he didn''t nip this problem in the bud, it might develop into something that was bad for him¡­

    So it seemed like it should be better to take some kind of action.

    After being lost in thought for a bit, Duke Yuletide suddenly gave a snap.

    When he did, there was a dark clothed figure that suddenly appeared behind him. It was as if this dark clothed figure had just appeared out of nowhere.

    After appearing, that dark clothed figure bowed down to Duke Yuletide and said, "My lord."

    Duke Yuletide didn''t respond to this and just simply asked, "Has the package been secured?"

    The dark clothed figure gave a nod before saying, "They''ve already taken the package to that ce and are just awaiting your instructions. There are no problems on that side at all."

    Duke Yuletide gave a nod, but he didn''t say anything else as he was lost in thought again.

    After a long time, he finally said, "Perhaps I should provoke that side a bit to see if I can get some information. Even if I don''t get any information, I should be able to gain a few things by making this move."

    Then with a satisfied nod to what seemed to be himself, Duke Yuletide said, "Go cut off the head of the captain of the guard and present it to the fourth prince."

    The dark clothed figure just simply gave a nod before standing up to leave.

    This dark clothed figure wasn''t surprised at all by the cruelty that Duke Yuletide was demonstrating since he was already used to it.

    Once the dark clothed figure left, Duke Yuletide stroked his chin again for a bit before saying, "Now that all the pieces are in my hands, it''s all about how I y them. With this, I should be able to aplish the generations long wish of my family."

    A smile slowly appeared on his face as he said this.

    If there was anyone there to see that smile, they would have been shocked.

    This was different from the friendly smile that Duke Yuletide normally had on his face.

    This was the smile that a viin would have.

    No, it was even beyond that.

    This was the smile that a psychopath would have.

    This was just the pressure that came from generations of expectations ced on him, causing him to be pushed to the brink.

    But it was all about to end with this.

    ¡­

    When the blindfold was removed from my eyes, I found that I was in a luxurious room.

    This was clearly a room that was designed to show off wealth and providefort, but the problem was¡­

    Where was this?

    "My lord, if you please, we have prepared a bath for you."

    I was surprised by this voice that suddenly rang out.

 Chapter 763 Snake Syndicate (1)

    Chapter 763 Snake Syndicate (1)

    ??Turning around, I found that there were two maids that were waiting there along with two dark clothed people who had their faces hidden.

    With the way that the maids had been waiting there, it was as if they had been waiting there the whole time just to serve me.

    But I shook my head in the end and said, "No need. I''ll talk to your master first."

    The maids were surprised to hear this before looking at the two cloaked figures as if they didn''t know what to do.

    To be fair, the two of them were quite beautiful. They were definitely beauties that would have been able to make heads turn just by walking down the street.

    However, they weren''t at the same level as my wives, so it wasn''t as if they could do anything to me.

    In a way, having beautiful wives was a good way to build up resistance to beauty.

    So I wasn''t taken aback by them like they thought would happen.

    For a brief second, I could even see the two of them looking at me with a strange look.

    They were so confident in their appearance that¡­they even looked at me as if they were wondering if I swung the other way.

    I really didn''t know where they gained this confidence from.

    Perhaps it was because they were big fish in a small pond and they had never gone far enough to see people more beautiful than them.

    Either way, it didn''t matter to me.

    What mattered was that one of the ck clothed figures said, "You''ll do that after you wash up. The boss is a clean freak and he won''t talk to you unless you clean yourself up first."

    A bitter smile crept onto my lips when I heard this.

    I looked at the ck clothed figure with that bitter smile and asked, "Really? Do I have no other choice? It seems like this is something that can''t be dyed."

    But to my surprise, the ck clothed figure just shook his head and said, "I''ve already told you, the boss won''t talk to you unless you clean up."

    To be fair, I was quite dirty since I had been traveling in a cage for several days.

    Even if I was let out of the cage at night, it wasn''t as if I could clean myself up or it would have seemed suspicious.

    So I understood that they felt that I was a bit dirty.

    I went along with it and took a bath, though I didn''t allow the maids to follow me to help me.

    They were clearly disappointed and they still looked at me with the same look, but they listened to what I said and left me alone. It seemed that I had some sway since they felt that it was important enough to bring me here in the first ce.

    But as for what this ce was¡­

    When I finished bathing and changed into new clothes, the two dark clothed figures came to pick me up again.

    Though I couldn''t see their faces since they had masks covering them, I could tell by the way that they were looking at me that they were impressed with what they were seeing.

    One of them even whistled and said, "I guess it''s true that clothes do make a man."

    I shook my head with another bitter smile before saying, "Are we here to chat or are you going to bring me to your master?"

    The two of them looked at me for a bit before nodding in agreement.

    After turning around and walking off, one of them waved their hand at me to follow them.

    I just hesitated for a second before following them out of the room that they had left me in.

    Aftering out, I found that this was a luxurious manor that was in the center of Vayne City.

    As for why I knew this was Vayne City, that was because I could see a familiar manor in the distance. This was a manor that I had seen not that long ago.

    It was the duke''s manor.

    That meant that this ce wasn''t even that far from the duke''s manor where the fourth prince and the others were, but they felt safe enough to stay in this ce. This just went to show how much power that they had that they felt safe enough to stay in a ce like this that was right under the nose of the fourth prince and his elite guards.

    They led me down a hall to what seemed to be an office.

    The two dark cloaked figures stopped at the entrance and opened the door for me before gesturing for me to go in alone.

    The two of them were just standing there at the door as if they were going to keep guard.

    As for what they were keeping guard against¡­it was hard to tell.

    Was it against an enemy or was it to make sure that I didn''t run away?

    I didn''t know, but there was nothing for me to do other than go into this office.

    After entering, I saw that there was a simrly ck clothed figure that was sitting at the desk in this office.

    They were just sitting there with a casual manner to them, but there was also a pressure that came from them even though they sat there doing nothing.

    This was a natural kind of pressure that came from a person that held a high position ormanded a lot of power.

    So there was no doubt that this person was a leader in this ce.

    This person just gestured for me to sit down in the seat in front of him.

    After a moment of hesitation, I went forward to sit down across this person.

    There was a moment of silence before they said, "Your grace, I''m sure that you''re wondering why we''ve brought you here. First let me introduce myself, I am the head of the Snake Syndicate."

 Chapter 764 Snake Syndicate (2)

    Chapter 764 Snake Syndicate (2)

    ??The moment that I heard this, I slightly knitted my brows.

    The ck clothed figure who was sitting there in front of me didn''t say anything, but I could see by the change in the look in their eyes that they seemed proud of this.

    But they seemed to have misunderstood something.

    This reaction from me wasn''t because I was surprised by the fact that they came from the Snake Syndicate, it was surprise from the fact that they would suddenly admit something like this.

    At the same time, I knew that I had to be in some kind of danger for them to suddenly say this.

    After a long silence, the ck clothed person said, "I''m sure that thises as a shock and you must be confused why you''ve been brought here, but let me exin it for you. It''s very simple, you no longer have a path forward with the royal family turning against you, so we want to work with you."

    The way that they said this made it very clear that they wanted something from me.

    But I already knew that from the moment that they went that far to break me out.

    Then to my surprise, the ck clothed person reached up and pulled their hood and mask off, revealing their face. This was a face that was very forgettable, a face that one might have seen many times on the street.

    In short, this was the perfect face that one could have as someone who worked in this line of work since it was so easy to forget.

    It made sense that this person was in charge of the Snake Syndicate.

    As for what the Snake Syndicate was, it was one of thergest crime organizations in the kingdom.

    The reason why they had never been caught before was because they operated like their namesake, a snake. They would separate themselves at multiple different levels and if they were ever caught, they would shed their skin by cutting off the ones that were caught.

    So until now, they had been able to operate without anyone ever touching their foundations.

    In fact, no one knew who was even at the head of the Snake Syndicate.

    That was until myst trip to Vayne City.

    Shadow Five had been able to discover something quite amazing by ident.

    That was that the Yuletide Family were the ones that were in charge of the Snake Syndicate.

    That was why I wasn''t surprised by the fact that he was the head of the Snake Syndicate, I was surprised by the fact that he would admit it that easily.

    The Yuletide Family had never associated with the Snake Syndicate and had done a lot to suppress it just to seem like they weren''t associated with them. So for this person to admit that they were from the Snake Syndicate, especially when we were this close to the duke''s manor¡­

    That was just like admitting that the Yuletide Family was connected to all of this.

    The head had been waiting for me to say something, but he saw that I didn''t say a single word, so he said, "I''m sure that this is a lot for you to take in, but know that we are short on time here. There''s a lot to do and so little time, so please make a decision quickly."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before saying, "What are you proposing?"

    The head was a bit surprised to hear this instead of an answer, but he remained calm as he said, "You don''t get to ask anything right now. There''s only two ways that this will go, you can either say yes or no."

    I didn''t say anything in response, which prompted him to push further by saying, "One way will end in your deathter and one way will end in your death now. So what will you choose?"

    Looking into his eyes, I said with a calm smile, "Then kill me now. Unless I know what I''m getting into, there''s no reason for me to agree. I would rather die a quick death than struggle without any hope."

    The head waspletely taken aback when he heard this.

    It was clear that he didn''t expect to hear this.

    He looked at me for a moment as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not, but then he suddenly gave augh before saying, "Good, good, I knew that I liked you for a reason."

    Afterughing for a bit, he calmed down and said, "Fine, we can talk. I like someone that I can work with instead of an idiot who only knows how to follow orders."

    With a more serious look, he said, "What we''re trying to do is take control of the wyverns from the fourth prince. I''m sure that there''s something that you can do about it as the person that once controlled them, right?"

    I narrowed my eyes before saying, "They took the stone from me, what can I do about it?"

    The head revealed a smile as he said, "You don''t need to worry about that, we can get the stone back for you. The only thing you have to worry about is how to use that stone to take control of the wyverns."

    I narrowed my eyes even more as I said, "I''m sure that this won''t be all that you''re looking for. After all, giving me control of the wyverns again has no benefits for you."

    The head gave a nod as he said, "That''s right. We''ll only do this if you give us control of two thirds of the wyverns before we do anything else. If you try anything, we''ll kill you and take the stone back before you can even do anything. I''m sure that you won''t doubt that we have the capability to do that."

    "Ho, two thirds? Aren''t you generous?" I said in a teasing voice.

    The head didn''t react to this at all as he stood up and said, "Come with me. There''s someone I want you to meet."

 Chapter 765 Snake Syndicate (3)

    Chapter 765 Snake Syndicate (3)

    ??I hesitated for a second, but eventually I stood up and followed the head out of this office.

    It wasn''t as if there was anything for me to do if I were to stay in this office, so it was better to go along and see what they were up to.

    The head led me out of this office and to another room that was near the center of the manor.

    I found that the office that we were in before was an office that was at the edge of the manor. The one that we had juste to was one that was right in the center, near the entrance of the manor.

    It was clear that this office was the main office of this manor.

    Once we were here, the head suddenly stopped right outside of the door of this office and stood there.

    The way that he acted was just like how the other ck clothed figures had acted previously.

    The way that he was acting, it was clear that he was the subordinate of whoever was inside this room.

    It was surprising to see that he was willing to act as a subordinate, but I could already guess who was inside the room because of this. But at the same time, I couldn''t help being even more surprised since I never thought that person woulde himself.

    Perhaps it was just a proxy of that person?

    After he stopped, the head opened the door for me and turned around to say, "He''s waiting for you inside."

    With the door open, I was able to see who it was that was waiting there for me.

    It was exactly who I thought it was¡­

    Sitting there at that desk was Duke Yuletide, but I couldn''t help being surprised by the fact that it really was him.

    I never thought that someone like him would do something like this.

    No, it was better to say that I was surprised by how resolute he was on this matter.

    Since he was willing to show himself in this ce, it was clear that he had already made up his mind and knew what he wanted to do. That meant that if I were to go against him¡­it would most likely end up in my death.

    Seeing that I was just standing there, Duke Yuletide waved his hand at me with a friendly smile on his face and said, "Duke Zwein,e over and let''s have a talk."

    The way that he said this was almost as if he was friends with me.

    But there was a tone that was in his voice that almost made it as if I had no other choice. It was almost as if¡­if I were to disobey him, he might give the order to cut me down right away.

    As if to enforce this, the head looked at me with a smile while his hand went to his waist.

    Under his dark clothes, I could see that there was something that looked to be a sword that was at his waist. It seemed that if I were to disobey, he might really pull out that sword and cut me down on the spot.

    So I had no choice but to go along with them.

    To my surprise though, the head closed the door after I entered the room so that it was only Duke Yuletide and me in the room.

    It was as if they were trying to hide what I was about to discuss with him.

    But it didn''t seem like they were afraid that I would do anything to Duke Yuletide when we were alone.

    Though I knew that the reason why he wasn''t afraid was that I didn''t have any weapons and because¡­he had people watching over this room. They would be ready to stop me the moment that I tried anything.

    That was why he wasn''t afraid.

    With the duke''s position, there was no doubt that he would have some elite guards that were secretly guarding him out of sight.

    So they would be able to stop me if I were to try anything.

    Aftering into the room, Duke Yuletide gestured to the chair that was in front of the desk and said, "Please, sit and let''s have a talk."

    The way that he said this was just like before.

    It was clear that he wasn''t giving me any choice in the matter.

    It was either sit down or I would be taken out right away.

    So I sat down in front of him and just narrowed my eyes to look at Duke Yuletide, as if I was trying to figure out what he was up to. Though in reality, there wasn''t much for me to figure out since I could already guess what he was thinking.

    The only thing that I really wanted to know was where he got this confidence from that he wouldn''t fail.

    After all, if he didn''t have this confidence, there was no way that he would have shown himself to me like this.

    What was giving him this kind of confidence?

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything, Duke Yuletide didn''t seem to mind as he said, "I''m sure that you wouldn''t want to waste any time, so I''ll be straight with you. I want to take over this kingdom and I need your help to do it."

    I narrowed my eyes even more after hearing this.

    Duke Yuletide didn''t seem to mind this at all as he just waited to see how I would respond.

    After a long silence, I asked, "Why are you doing all of this?"

    Duke Yuletide revealed a smile as he said, "It''s all because of the royal family. They were the ones that robbed my family of everything that we were supposed to have."

    It was like a dam had been released once he started talking about this.

    Duke Yuletide startedining about all the things that the royal family had ''done'' to his family, even though it was clear that some of these things were nothing more than his delusions.

    But from this, I could tell that the reason he was talking to me in the first ce was because¡­

    He felt a sense of resonance with me.

 Chapter 766 Snake Syndicate (4)

    Chapter 766 Snake Syndicate (4)

    ??Resonance...

    Yes, it was a sense of resonance that could be heard from his voice.

    That was because he felt that his family had been betrayed by the royal family all this time, so now that he saw me who had also been ''betrayed'' by the royal family like this, he felt that we were simr.

    That was why he went as far as revealing himself like this.

    He was confident enough that he would be able to convince me to side with him against the royal family, which was why he wasn''t afraid to show himself like this.

    This was not something that I had expected when the fourth prince and I came up with this n, but this was definitely something that I could use. After all, the trust gained from a misunderstanding was the best way that something could turn out.

    It meant that I wouldn''t have to do a single thing to gain the trust of this person who I wanted the trust of.

    That would without a doubt make things much easier.

    The problem was that I couldn''t just be lured in that easily or else it would seem suspicious.

    So I had to at least pretend that I was against this.

    When he was done with his rant, Duke Yuletide clearly had a satisfied look on his face as he said, "You and I are the same, we were both betrayed by the royal family of this kingdom. There''s no need for you to be loyal to those that would throw you away like this."

    He reached his hand out towards me as he said, "I''m offering you the chance to stand on the right side of history. I''m offering you the chance to take what you deserve."

    I looked down at the hand before looking back up at Duke Yuletide with an emotionless look on my face. I didn''t say a thing as I just kept looking at him.

    Duke Yuletide didn''t seem offended by this as he kept looking at me with that same smile on his face.

    Finally, I slowly said, "And what do you have to offer me if I do this? It isn''t as if there is any guarantee that I''ll be free after this, so there''s no real reason for me to help you. After all, I''m dead one way or another."

    Duke Yuletide once again didn''t seem offended when he heard this as he just calmly said, "What if I say that I''ll give my word?"

    I gave a disdainfulugh before saying, "Do you really expect me to just trust your word? I''m not that foolish."

    Duke Yuletide gave a nod before saying, "Of course not, I don''t take you for a fool either. I know that this is a big matter that I''m asking of you, so what do you need to trust me?"

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before saying, "A written deal. I need evidence of this so I can use it against you if you try to do anything to me after this."

    A teasing smile appeared on Duke Yuletide''s face as he said, "You''re not afraid I''ll kill you and take it back?"

    I just calmly said, "Do I have any other choice in this matter?

    Duke Yuletide gave a nod before saying, "Well, at least you''re cautious, I''ll give you that. Though, you are right that you really don''t have any choice on this matter."

    Then in a more serious voice, he said, "I can give you some leeway. Since we are birds of a feather, as long as you''re willing to submit to me, then I''ll leave you as my second inmand. I''ll even let you marry my daughter when the timees if that will make you more assured."

    I narrowed my eyes again before saying, "The only thing that I want is to live in peace on my territory with my wives."

    Duke Yuletide gave a casual nod when he heard this, but then he slightly knitted his brows as if he realized that something was off.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at me before saying, "Are you including the princess among those wives?"

    I looked right into his questioning eyes and gave a nod.

    Duke Yuletide knitted his brows even more when he saw this.

    In his n, he had wanted to kill off every member of the royal family that had doomed his family to live the life that they were currently living. That naturally included the princess who was a part of the royal family.

    But now¡­

    Duke Yuletide just looked at me with the same look on his face, as if he was pressuring me. Only this time, I didn''t back down at all as I looked right back at him with the same firm look on my face.

    In the end, he gave a sigh and said, "Fine, just her. But that''s only if she''s willing to step down as the former royal family and give the title to me publicly."

    I gave a nod in response to this before saying, "Then I''ll work for you."

    Duke Yuletide gave a satisfied nod when he heard this before saying, "You''re making the right choice."

    I didn''t say anything in response to this, but Duke Yuletide didn''t mind as he continued by saying, "Now tell me about this Wyvern Stone. I want to know everything about it."

    I gave a nod before saying, "The Wyvern Stone is a special stone that can assert dominance over wyverns as long as it is used in the right way. That''s why people have never been able to use it before I found it. However¡­the fourth prince tricked me and took the Wyvern Stone for himself."

    Duke Yuletide stroked his chin before saying, "Then will you tell me how to use the Wyvern Stone?"

    With a bitter smile, I asked, "Would you still need me if I were to tell you?"

    Duke Yuletide shook his head with a smile, without hiding a thing.

    Then he said, "Alright, let''s talk about how we''ll get it from the fourth prince and then how you''ll use it to take care of them."

 Chapter 767 Visitor in the night

    Chapter 767 Visitor in the night

    ??When Duke Yuletide was finished talking to me, I was escorted back to the same room as before.

    The two maids were still there as if they were waiting to serve me.

    They just stood there at attention as if they were waiting to cater to my every whim, but I could tell that there was a trace of disdain that was in their voice. It seemed that before I had arrived, there was someone that had told these maids some things.

    If I had to guess, it was most likely the two ck clothed figures that had escorted me back.

    I could see that as they were leaving, they said a few things to the maids.

    The way that they spoke to the maids showed that there was some kind of connection between them, as if they already knew each other before this.

    At the same time, it was the kind of ambiguous connection that went beyond just being friends.

    If I had to guess, the two of them were most likely intimate with these two maids.

    That might be the reason why these two maids had even been chosen to serve me in the first ce.

    They were most likely using me to raise their own position, only to find that it might not be useful at all since I didn''t have any power at all. They most likely found out that I was just being used by Duke Yuletide, so they were looking at me with disdain.

    Though in reality, this was all just a ruse, so I didn''t care what they thought.

    Once the two ck clothed figures left, the two maids turned back to me as if they were prepared to serve me.

    However, I wasn''t in the mood to entertain them, so I sent the two of them away.

    The two of them didn''t seem to mind.

    In fact, they even seemed happy to leave.

    It was as if they were nning on having some fun before turning in for the night, so they were most likely looking for the two ck clothed figures.

    I didn''t really care about that since I wasn''t interested in the two of them in the first ce.

    But that did raise an issue¡­

    That meant that there were other guards that were watching over me.

    After all, it was impossible for the duke to just leave me alone even though we hade to an agreement. There were all kinds of things that could suddenlye up, so he wouldn''t be reckless or dumb enough to just leave me alone.

    There was no doubt that he would assign someone to watch over me.

    If it wasn''t the maids or the two ck clothed men, then it would be someone that was hidden that was watching over me.

    That would be a big problem.

    After all, I was certain that the fourth prince would send someone to contact me during this time to make sure that I was alright and to pass some information to me. Only when we maintained contact would we be able to properly n things out.

    But with the factor of these hidden guards, it was hard to say if the people the fourth prince sent would even be able to find me. Or even if they did find me, it would be hard to say if they would be able to reach me.

    After all, I had no idea just how skilled the people that Duke Yuletide posted were.

    It was possible that they might be even more skilled than the fourth prince''s people in this matter.

    But it turned out that this was an empty worry in the end.

    I waited for half an hour and it seemed like nothing was going to happen, so I turned off the light and headed to bed.

    That was when I found that there was a dark clothed figure that appeared.

    However, it wasn''t just any dark clothed figure that appeared. It was one that I was familiar with.

    It was Shadow Five.

    After she arrived, she shook her head at me and brought a finger up to her lip as if she wanted me to keep quiet.

    I was confused why she was acting this way, but I was sure that she had her own reasons, so I stayed quiet.

    During this, she moved around the room and ced what seemed to be a few pieces of metal on the walls around us. Only after she finished putting these things on the wall did she say, "Alright, we can talk now. Tell me everything that happened."

    I had questions of my own that I wanted to ask her, but hearing the urgency in her voice, I just told her about everything that happened.

    When I finished, I asked her, "What is the fourth prince nning on doing?"

    Shadow Five didn''t answer right away as she just stood there in silence for a bit.

    But then she suddenly said, "Perfect, this is going exactly as his highness nned."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I didn''t get to ask any other questions as Shadow Five suddenly said, "Just keep ying along as I report everything back. I''ll have more information for you tomorrow."

    Then before I could say anything, she suddenly went to take those pieces of metal off the wall.

    I didn''t know what those pieces of metal did, but I was certain that it was used to keep others from hearing us. So as she was taking them down, I didn''t dare talk out of fear that I would give up her position.

    But I still looked at her with a look that made it clear that I had questions for her.

    It was just too bad that Shadow Five wasn''t in any mood to listen to me.

    She disappeared as quickly as she appeared, so the only thing that I could do once she was gone was give a sigh of disappointment.

    I would have to wait until tomorrow like she said.

 Chapter 768 Hunting trip

    Chapter 768 Hunting trip

    ??For the first time in a while, I was finally let outside.

    I was surrounded by several men in dark clothes that all belonged to the Snake Syndicate. They looked like they were there to protect me, but there was no mistake that they would have cut me down at any moment if they were even the slightest bit suspicious of me.

    They had been sent by Duke Yuletide to make sure that I did what I was supposed to do.

    As for what that was, there was a reason why I had been brought to the forest like this.

    Simply put, I was here to aplish our goal of taking the Wyvern Stone.

    Why the Wyvern Stone would be here, there was a simple reason.

    The fourth prince had suddenly proposed a hunting trip, which was why they would soon be arriving in this ce.

    Duke Yuletide had certainly been surprised that the fourth prince would suggest a hunting trip at a time like this, but it was also the perfect opportunity for him to aplish his goals.

    So he epted and arranged everything rted to this.

    He wanted to make sure that the fourth prince wouldn''t be able to do anything on this hunting trip.

    Which was why he thought the fourth prince had arranged this hunting trip in the first ce. He thought that the fourth prince wanted to bring him into the woods to do something to him.

    But he would turn this around on the fourth prince.

    That was what Duke Yuletide was thinking.

    It was just too bad for him that the fourth prince was fully aware of this.

    After all, the fourth prince had one spy that Duke Yuletide never would have suspected.

    With my perfect acting, Duke Yuletide was fully convinced that I was on his side.

    He never would have suspected that I was feeding the enemy information from the inside.

    All of it was going from Shadow Five to the fourth prince.

    So this was going to be where this all ended.

    Duke Yuletide''s n was that he would find a way to distract the fourth prince so that I would be able to take the Wyvern Stone.

    The reason why I was the one that was going to take the Wyvern Stone was because he thought that I was the only one that could use it. So he wanted me nearby to stop the wyverns just in case anything happened.

    After all, if the wyverns weren''t stopped even if the stone was taken, then it would all be meaningless.

    In the face of the might of the wyverns, Duke Yuletide wouldn''t be able to do anything even if he controlled the Snake Syndicate.

    So the only thing that he could do was try to take the Wyvern Stone and control the wyverns before anything else happened.

    The only thing was...

    He never told me what his actual n was.

    Duke Yuletide had only said to wait for the signal and thene out to take the Wyvern Stone, but he had never told me what the signal was. So I was just left standing there with these thugs while feeling awkward.

    It was very quiet in this forest and other than the sounds of nature, no one else said a thing.

    It was clear that everyone else was tense as well.

    That was until there was a sudden sound that came from the distance.

    It wasn''t a loud sound, but it was clear that there was something over there that wasing over to where we were.

    That was when the dark clothed thugs suddenly made me hide in the bushes.

    I wasn''t able to see much, but I was eventually able to see a group of horsesing down the path that we were hiding near. Sitting on one of the horses was the fourth prince.

    Beside the fourth prince was Duke Yuletide.

    With the way that the two of them were interacting, it seemed like they were having a good time. However, not a single person bought this since they all knew that it was impossible for them to just be having a good time like this.

    The group that was behind them was clearly tense.

    That included both the fourth prince''s people and Duke Yuletide''s people.

    Suddenly, Duke Yuletide''s horse stopped in the middle of the road near where we were and he got off the horse.

    He waved his hand at the fourth prince and then moved to the side while holding his stomach.

    It was as if he was saying that he needed to use the washroom.

    But as he walked over, he shot a look at our group as if he wanted us to do something.

    I didn''t know what he wanted, but the thugs around me did.

    So they had me move closer to the fourth prince.

    Was that really their n?

    Faking a bowel emergency and then having me run forward to grab the Wyvern Stone?

    This seemed like a n that any idiot coulde up with no matter how one looked at it.

    It didn''t seem like something that Duke Yuletide would employ¡­

    But it seemed that this wasn''t the only thing that Duke Yuletide had prepared.

    All of a sudden, there was a loud rustling that came from the bushes on the other side.

    While everyone was turning to look in that direction, there was a roar that cut through the air. This was a powerful roar that could even pop eardrums if one was right beside the thing that gave this roar.

    Then the bushes parted to reveal arge bear charging through it.

    Everyone was surprised since they hadn''t sensed the bear at all, but the fourth prince''s men didn''t hesitate to move in to stop the bear.

    Duke Yuletide''s people also moved, but they didn''t go as forward as the fourth prince''s men.

    If I had to guess, this was most likely the signal that Duke Yuletide wanted me to take.

    So I stood up and started moving towards the fourth prince.

 Chapter 769 A ruse all along

    Chapter 769 A ruse all along

    ??When the dark clothed figures saw me stand up and move towards the fourth prince, they had no choice but toe out as well and follow me.

    Though they walked in a calm manner to blend into the chaos, their hands were on their weapons.

    They didn''t let their guards down for even a single second as they were prepared to fight their way out if things went south. Though it was clear that the first person that they were prepared to kill if things went wrong was me.

    We just casually walked forward towards the fourth prince.

    It didn''t seem like anyone noticed what we were doing as we approached the fourth prince.

    The guards around us were all focused on the bear that had appeared out of nowhere.

    "Stop it!"

    "Protect his highness!"

    "Don''t let it get close to his highness!"

    These were the things that were said by these guards as they were focused on the bear.

    It seemed like everything was going ording to n until¡­we suddenly reached the fourth prince.

    The dark clothed thugs didn''t go with me as I approached the fourth prince since they were afraid of alerting the fourth prince. So instead, they were hiding nearby just in case anything happened so they could act at any moment.

    I walked right over to the fourth prince''s horse without anyone doing a single thing.

    Even though there were still elite guards that were standing near the fourth prince, they didn''t seem to stop me.

    But then all of a sudden, the fourth prince turned to look in my direction.

    With the way that he was looking me right in the eyes, it was clear that he was looking at me.

    When the dark clothed thugs saw this, they all trembled with fear. Even a fool would be able to tell that they had been discovered and the n had failed.

    So there were some of them that raised their daggers, as if they were preparing to throw them.

    Since they had failed, they could only do the other thing that they had been ordered to do.

    They would clean up all remaining evidence and take care of Duke Zwein.

    However, they never got a chance to do that.

    As the fourth prince looked at me, I didn''t say anything as I calmly moved forward towards the fourth prince on his horse. Even though the fourth prince noticed me, he didn''t say a thing and the guards didn''t do anything.

    When I was right by the fourth prince''s horse, the fourth prince suddenly reached his hand down to me and said with a smile, "Brother, it''s been hard on you."

    I gave a nod before saying, "You''ll have to make it up to me once this is over."

    With one quick pull, the fourth prince brought me up to his horse and I sat there behind him.

    All of the dark clothed thugs were shocked when they saw this as their brains just couldn''t process what had happened. Not a single one of them could understand what they were seeing.

    Their eyes were seeing this, but they just couldn''t understand what was happening.

    After standing there in a daze for a bit, a few of them still reacted in the end and raised the daggers in their hands. They had no idea what was happening, but they knew that they wouldn''t be able to go back if they didn''t do something about this.

    So they were nning on taking down Duke Zwein before anything else just to cover their bases.

    It was too bad that the guards that were near where they were hiding suddenly turned to look at them.

    With the way that they were looking at them, it was as if they had already known where they were in the first ce. The only reason that they didn''t do anything was because they wanted them to have a false sense of safety.

    Before they could throw their daggers, they were cut down by the elite guards of the fourth prince.

    These were elite guards of the fourth prince and they were thugs that were employed by the Snake Syndicate, there was noparison between the two.

    "It''s over, finish them off." The fourth prince suddenly said after pulling me onto his horse.

    The moment that he said this, all of the fourth prince''s elite guards suddenly turned around to face Duke Yuletide''s men. At the same time, there were roars that came from above them asrge shadows were cast on the ground.

    There were a bunch of wyverns that suddenly appeared in the air.

    Duke Yuletide''s men couldn''t do anything as they werepletely outmatched by the elite guards of the fourth prince.

    It wasn''t that they hadn''t been trained enough, it was that they werepletely outssed when it came to gear.

    Even if Duke Yuletide didn''t spare any expense, it wasn''t as if they were able to get the best gear. After all, the best gear was something that money couldn''t buy. It was something that could only be obtained when one knew people.

    That was the case with the fourth prince.

    Or rather, it was the case with me.

    With the dwarves in my town, we had been supplying the fourth prince with weapons and armour forged by them. The elite guards were wearing these rune enhanced weapons and armour, so there was no way that they would lose.

    At the same time, the wyverns in the sky shot their mes down on the formation of Duke Yuletide''s men.

    So in the end, they couldn''t do a thing as they werepletely overwhelmed.

    It was at this moment that Duke Yuletide suddenly came back from the forest.

    With the way that he was panting, it was as if he had suddenly run back after noticing what had happened.

    When he came out, he immediately asked the fourth prince, "Your highness, what is going on here? Is there some kind of misunderstanding?"

 Chapter 770 It isnâ€™t over yet!

    Chapter 770 It isn¡¯t over yet!

    ??The way that Duke Yuletide was acting was as if he was treating all of this as some kind of ident.

    It was as if he was trying to sweep everything under the rug.

    He went even further with this as he pointed at me and said, "Your highness, I found that this is all the tricks of this fugitive. Please hand him over to me so I can punish him for the things that he''s done to my men."

    He didn''t even hesitate to throw me under the bus, while also trying to get me back so he could continue with what he was about to do.

    But the fourth prince just shook his head with a helpless smile before saying, "Do you still not get it?"

    Duke Yuletide trembled when he heard this, but he still said with a fake confused look, "Your highness, what do you mean? Isn''t this the criminal that you were looking for? What is there to understand?"

    The fourth prince gave a shrug before ignoring Duke Yuletide and saying to his elite guards, "Kill them all, there''s no need to spare a single one."

    Duke Yuletide trembled even more when he heard this before saying, "Your highness, what is the meaning of this? My family has dutifully served the kingdom for many generations and this is how the kingdom repays us?"

    At this, the fourth prince revealed a smile as he looked at Duke Yuletide.

    Duke Yuletide couldn''t understand what was happening, but he knew that this smile wasn''t a good smile.

    It was like the smile of the devil as it was aimed at him.

    The fourth prince just looked at Duke Yuletide like this for a while, but during this time, the sounds of people being ughtered didn''t stop. During all of this, Duke Yuletide''s men were being cut down by the fourth prince''s elite guards

    Duke Yuletide couldn''t take this anymore, so he roared, "Answer me!"

    The fourth prince gave a shrug and spread his hands to the side as he said, "Don''t you already have an answer in your heart?"

    Duke Yuletide''s face turned very ugly when he heard this, but he didn''t lose faith as he said, "Do you think that the people of the kingdom will ept this? You''re turning the nobles against you like this!"

    Though he said this, Duke Yuletide''s eyes were moving around.

    It was as if he was looking for some way to escape this ce.

    The fourth prince didn''t mind this as he said with a serious look, "Do you really take me for a fool? Do you think that I don''t know anything?"

    Duke Yuletide revealed another confused look when he heard this.

    The fourth prince just continued by saying, "The Snake Syndicate, did you really think that we didn''t know a single thing about what you''ve been doing?"

    Shock filled Duke Yuletide''s face the moment that he heard this.

    He opened and closed his mouth a few times before suddenly revealing a bitter smile and asking, "How did you know about this?"

    The fourth prince turned to me and said, "Didn''t you already reveal everything to him?"

    Duke Yuletide immediately narrowed his eyes to look at me after hearing this before saying, "You? You betrayed me to save yourself?"

    I shook my head with a faint smile before saying, "Betray? You say that like I was working with you all along."

    "Ha, what else could it be considered if not that? You were going to betray the royal family just for your¡­" Duke Yuletide''s words trailed off as he slowly turned to look at the fourth prince.

    It was as if the pieces of the puzzle were fitting into ce and he was slowly realizing something as he looked at the fourth prince.

    Then in a slow voice, he said, "From the very beginning?"

    The fourth prince just gave a simple nod as he said, "Did you really think that he was our prisoner at all? Why would we suddenly have a falling out now after everything that''s happened?"

    "But the Wyvern Stone¡­" Duke Yuletide said in a voice filled with disbelief.

    The fourth prince took out the ''Wyvern Stone'' and then dropped it onto the ground before having the horse crush it with its hoof.

    The Wyvern Stone was crushed to dust, but the wyverns overhead were still acting the same way.

    It was clear that crushing this stone had no effect on them.

    So from the very beginning, the Wyvern Stone didn''t exist.

    When it was put this clearly, it was impossible for Duke Yuletide to delude himself any longer.

    It was clear what the situation was.

    All of a sudden, Duke Yuletide suddenly broke out intoughter before saying, "So you''ve been nning this all along? When did you find out?"

    I just calmly said, "Last time when we came during the war. Did you really think that we wouldn''t notice your treachery? Did you think that we didn''t know about the Yuletide Family''s intentions to rebel?"

    Duke Yuletide''s face twisted when he heard this.

    He looked at me with a look that was filled with hatred, as if he wanted to rip me to pieces.

    But I just looked calmly right into his eyes, as if I wasn''t bothered by this at all.

    Finally, Duke Yuletide''s expression rxed, but that wasn''t a good thing.

    After all, if he were to feel rxed at this moment, it could only mean that he still had a trump care that he felt that he could rely on.

    The fourth prince also noticed this, so he said, "Guards, protect us!"

    The elite guards suddenly moved in between us and Duke Yuletide while raising their guards.

    There was a reason why they were the fourth prince''s elite guards.

    But Duke Yuletide didn''t seem to care as he reached into his breast pocket to pull out a dark stone.

    He raised this stone up above him before saying, "It isn''t over yet! You haven''t won yet!"

 Chapter 771 Summoning Crystal

    Chapter 771 Summoning Crystal

    ??After he pulled out this dark stone, Duke Yuletide raised his other hand up to his mouth.

    However, he didn''t seem to do anything after that.

    With the way that he was just standing there, it was almost as if he was hesitating to take this final step.

    Both the fourth prince and I knitted our brows when we saw the dark stone that he took out.

    While I had no idea why the fourth prince was looking like this, I had this worried look on my face since I could feel the magic energying from this dark stone. It was clear that whatever this dark stone was, it wasn''t a normal item.

    It was clear that this thing was some kind of magical item that must have some kind of shocking effect if Duke Yuletide thought that it would be able to save him from this situation.

    It was just that I had no idea what this was.

    That was until the fourth prince suddenly said, "Where did you get this thing?"

    When Duke Yuletide heard this, the hesitant look on his face was reced with confidence again.

    He had been hesitating over using this thing since there was a dire consequence that came with using it. However, if the fourth prince recognized it and knew what this thing was, then he would have a chance to avoid using it.

    After all, if he could just use this thing to bluff his way out of this, that would be good enough for him.

    If he didn''t need to actually use it and was able to threaten them into letting him go, that would actually be the best case scenario. After all, that would mean that he would have some kind of leverage to protect him and his family as they escaped from this kingdom.

    As long as they still had the Snake Syndicate, it was possible for them to rise up in another kingdom.

    That was what Duke Yuletide thought.

    So he lowered the hand that was in front of his mouth and lowered the hand that was holding the dark stone high up.

    He didn''t bring it all the way down and just held the dark stone in front of him as he said with a smile, "You recognize this?"

    The fourth prince didn''t need to say anything, but he still said with a nod, "That''s a Summoning Crystal, isn''t it?"

    I was surprised since I had heard of these Summoning Crystals before. However, it was only in the vour text of the game and wasn''t in the game itself since the Summoning Crystal would have been too broken of an item.

    I had also heard online that while this game was still in testing, the Summoning Crystal had been considered a broken item that was immediately taken out by the developers.

    So I knew that the Summoning Crystal that the fourth prince mentioned wasn''t a normal thing.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the dark crystal in Duke Yuletide''s hand after the fourth prince said this.

    Duke Yuletide gave a satisfied nod before saying, "It''s good that you recognize this thing." Then his eyes suddenly turned sharp as he said, "Since you recognize it, you should know just how dangerous this thing is."

    He raised it up a bit higher before saying, "If I were to unleash this thing, what do you think will happen to everyone here?"

    Both the fourth prince and I knitted our brows when we heard this.

    I turned to look at him and I found that he was looking at me as well.

    It was clear that both of us were hesitating on what to do in this situation.

    However, I could see that there was a trace of a n that was in the fourth prince''s eyes when he looked at me. Unlike me who didn''t have a single idea, it seemed like the fourth prince had some idea of what to do.

    Well, since that was the case¡­

    I didn''t believe that the fourth prince would make a bad decision in a situation like this.

    So I just suddenly gave him a nod as if I was agreeing to whatever he was nning to do.

    The fourth prince was surprised to see this and he even looked at me as if he was confirming whether I was really supporting what he was nning to do.

    In response, I just gave another nod of agreement.

    I had no idea what to do, so I trusted the fourth prince in this situation.

    I was certain that he would have the same idea as me in a situation like this.

    But¡­

    After seeing this nod, the fourth prince turned to look at Duke Yuletide and said, "Men, take him down! Don''t mind the Summoning Crystal and just focus on taking him down! We will not let him escape today!"

    I looked at the fourth prince with a shocked look on my face when I heard this.

    At the same time, Duke Yuletide revealed a very ugly expression as he saw the fourth prince''s people moving towards him.

    He knew that it was impossible for him to bluff his way out of this situation, so Duke Yuletide once again lifted his hands up. One hand was in front of his mouth while the other one was held high up above him.

    Seeing him like this, I couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile.

    It seemed that this time, the fourth prince and I were not on the same page.

    I thought that the fourth prince would think of some way to take Summoning Crystal away from Duke Yuletide before he had a chance to use it, but it seemed that this wasn''t the case.

    The fourth prince was just nning on using brute force to take Duke Yuletide down which would most likely be the most costly move.

    It was just that it was toote to stop it.

    When Duke Yuletide saw the fourth prince''s mening closer, he suddenly bit into his finger and there was blood that came out. After that blood came out of his finger, he raised that hand up to where the Summoning Crystal was and dabbed his finger on it, leaving his blood on the Summoning Crystal.

 Chapter 772 Eh, this isâ€¦

    Chapter 772 Eh, this is¡­

    ??The moment that his blood made contact with the Summoning Crystal, there was a dark energy that suddenly came from the Summoning Crystal.

    At the same time, there was a strong aura that came from it that made the fourth prince''s elite guards stop in their tracks. They were waiting to see what was going to happen with this Summoning Crystal instead of trying to stop it.

    The fourth prince saw this and shouted at them, "What are you doing? Stop him before the summoning ceremony is over!"

    The elite soldiers were surprised to hear this, but they once again started moving towards Duke Yuletide.

    Or at least they would have if it wasn''t for a voice that suddenly rang out.

    "Who dares to awaken me from my slumber?"

    This was a powerful voice that seemed to shake the air itself when it rang out.

    When everyone heard this, they couldn''t help taking a step back from the pressure that this voice naturally gave off. It was as if just being able to hear the voice made it hard for one to do anything.

    But Duke Yuletide seemed to be filled with joy when he heard this.

    Heughed out loud as he said, "Great lord, I summon you to crush my enemies and save me from this situation!"

    The dark energy around the Summoning Crystal seemed to grow even stronger after Duke Yuletide said this before the voice once again rang out.

    "Do you understand the consequences of summoning me?"

    Duke Yuletide slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but then he said with a firm nod, "I''m willing to pay the price as long as the lord can help me this once."

    A loudugh came from the Summoning Crystal before the same voice said, "Very good, very good. Your offer is epted and I wille to your aide."

    Duke Yuletide had a look of absolute confidence when he heard this before saying, "Thank you, my lord."

    The fourth prince had an ugly look on his face when he saw this and he even said, "Stop him!"

    It was just that it was already toote as everyone had been too stunned to do anything.

    The dark energying from the Summoning Crystal was getting even stronger and even the ground started to shake from this. It seemed like there was something big that was about to happen.

    Cracks suddenly formed in the ground, but it didn''t form randomly.

    They formed in such a way that they were gathered on one spot.

    It was as if there was something that was about to pop out of the ground from that one spot.

    It was a pair of horns that came out of the ground first before the rest of the head came out. However, just the size of these things was shocking.

    This head was as big as a boulder when it came out of the ground in front of Duke Yuletide.

    He almost couldn''t help falling over from the ground cracking and shaking under him. If he really fell, it would have been bad for him since he most likely would havended in the crack in the ground near him and fallen into who knows where.

    This head was followed by the rest of the body.

    Soon, it was revealed to be a giant demon that came out of the ground.

    When this giant demon appeared, all of the fourth prince''s elite guards couldn''t help taking a step back. It was partly because of the pressure that the giant demon put on them and partly because the ground beneath them was cracked.

    The fourth prince''s expression had turned even uglier when he saw this.

    However, my expression wasn''t as bad as his.

    Rather, I was quite calm as I stared at the giant demon that had appeared out of the ground.

    The way that I looked at the giant demon, it was as if I didn''t feel anything towards it.

    The fourth prince saw this and asked, "Brother, should we have the wyvernsunch an attack at this demon while it''s stilling out of the ground?"

    I looked at the fourth prince and asked, "Is there a need for this?"

    The fourth prince had a very rmed and confused look on his face when he heard this before slowly asking, "Shouldn''t we stop this while we can?"

    "Eh? This is¡­not that bad though. There''s no need to panic like that, is there?" I said in a surprised voice.

    The surprise that I felt wasn''tparable to the surprise that the fourth prince felt.

    Or rather, it was better to say that the fourth prince was inplete shock when he heard this. He looked at me withplete shock and confusion as he tried to understand just what I was nning to do.

    However, it was clear by the look on his face that he had no idea what was happening.

    I just calmly looked at him and said, "It''s just a Demon Count, it''s not as if this is something to worry about."

    "Just¡­" That was all the fourth prince was able to say.

    The demon that had appeared out of the ground cut him off by saying, "Oh, so you can tell that I''m a Demon Count? It seems like there''s someone that knows about demons here."

    The demon narrowed his eyes to look at me for a bit before saying, "Human, I am the Demon Count Mephisto. Are you saying that you''re able to deal with me easily?"

    His eyes and voice turned cold as he said, "Aren''t you looking down on me a bit too much?"

    The elite guards, the fourth prince, and even Duke Yuletide felt a chill run down their spines when they heard this.

    It seemed that this demon Mephisto didn''t hold back at all when he said this.

    It seemed that he had really been insulted by thisment.

    But I just looked right back at him and said, "Is a Demon Count really worth being scared of?"

 Chapter 773 No, how is this possible?

    Chapter 773 No, how is this possible?

    ??	Mephisto seemed even more insulted when he heard this as he pped his tail on the ground.

    When he pped his tail on the ground, the ground once again shook and even more cracks formed.

    The cracks that formed forced the fourth prince''s men back even more since they would have fallen into the cracks if they didn''t move back.

    Just the fact that this p of his tail alone was enough to create these cracks in the ground showed just how much power Mephisto posesseed. This was not the kind of power that normal people could think of facing.

    Even those that had the support of the powerful wyverns wouldn''t be able to do that much to this even more powerful Demon Count Mephisto.

    So all of the fourth prince''s men couldn''t help feeling worried.

    When Mephisto saw the humans acting this way, he had acent look on his face as he said, "Do you really think that you can do anything to me?"

    While the fourth prince''s men and the fourth prince looked worried about this, I just looked at him calmly and said, "I''ll give you a chance to leave while you still can. If you don''t, then don''t me me for what''s going to happen next."

    Mephisto was taken aback when he heard this and looked at me with a surprised look, but then he revealed a frown as he said, "Human, are you really trying to tell me what to do? Do you really think that I won''t kill you right now?"

    At this, there was a dark energy that suddenly surrounded Mephisto.

    This was a dark energy that seemed to swallow all light that came in contact with it.

    It was a kind of dark energy that seemed to be at the peak of all dark energy.

    This just went to show how Mephisto was at apletely different level from other demons.

    As expected of a Demon Count.

    However, there was still a calm look on my face as I looked at Mephisto, seemingly feeling no fear at all at the power that he demonstrated.

    There was a strange look of surprise with a trace of wariness that appeared on Mephisto''s face.

    That was because he couldn''t see through this human at all.

    There was this strange feeling that wasing from this human that Mephisto just couldn''t understand. It was this feeling that made him feel wary as he didn''t know what this human was nning to do.

    Demons were naturally able to see through humans and manipte them.

    If they couldn''t see through them, there were only a few possibilities.

    Not a single one of these possibilities was a good thing for him.

    After a moment of silence, Mephisto decided that...it was better for him to end things here.

    He didn''t like the way that this situation made him feel, but there was an easy way for him to end this. After all, he was much stronger than everyone else that was here, so it would be easy for him to take them all out.

    The only way that he might even be in the slightest bit of danger was if he let his guard down against the wyverns, but he had been paying attention to them the entire time. They wouldn''t be able to catch him off guard.

    Once he came to this decision, Mephisto raised a finger and gathered the dark energy around him in a single point.

    With the way that he was pointing out with this finger, it seemed like he was nning on shooting out some kind of attack.

    The fourth prince immediately knitted his brows when he saw this because¡­he could see that this finger was pointed at him.

    No, when he looked at it a bit closer, he could see that the finger was pointed at the person sitting on the horse behind him.

    Still, it wasn''t as if he was about to abandon the one that he called his brother for his own safety.

    The fourth prince raised the reins and wanted to move the horse forward, but he found that there was no response from the horse at all. When he looked down, he found that the horse was in a state ofplete shock.

    It seemed like no matter what he did, he wouldn''t be able to get the horse out of this state of shock.

    So there was only a single thing that he was able to do.

    The fourth prince suddenly turned around and reached out his hands as he said, "Brother, get behind me!"

    At the same time, one of the wyverns came down from the sky as if it wanted to take this blow for the two of them.

    This was Joan.

    During all of this, I had been looking at Mephisto with a calm look on my face even though he was pointing this finger of death attack at me.

    There was no fear or worry at all on my face as I looked right at him which unnerved Mephisto.

    So he no longer hesitated and released that beam from his hand.

    It was too fast for Joan tond in time, so it wasing right at me in the end¡­or rather, it wasing for the fourth prince.

    However, before it was able to hit us, there was some strange movement that came over the beam of dark energy. It seemed to suddenly bend before twisting in on itself. It was almost as if it had suddenly copsed because of some kind of external pressure.

    The beam never reached us as it just copsed and disappeared on the spot.

    The fourth prince had his eyes closed, but he eventually opened them when he felt that there was nothing happening.

    He turned to see that there was nothing there before asking, "What happened?"

    I just smiled without saying a thing, but it was different for Mephisto.

    There was a shocked look on his face as he said, "No, how is this possible?"

 Chapter 774 Weâ€™re on different levels

    Chapter 774 We¡¯re on different levels

    ??Mephisto couldn''t help taking a step back after he said this before revealing an embarrassed look.

    It was the embarrassment that came from having been forced back a step like this by someone he considered a lowly human. It was a blow to his pride as a powerful Demon Count for something like this to happen.

    So he couldn''t hold back his anger that came after the embarrassment as he suddenly raised his tail and whipped it out at the fourth prince''s men in front of him.

    They were far enough that they weren''t hit directly by the tail whipping at them, but the shockwave that came from this tail whipping out was enough to force them all back. If they hadn''t braced themselves before it happened, then they might have even been picked up off the ground and tossed away.

    That was in a situation where they were wearing full armour, so they weighed far more than usual.

    That was more than enough to show how much power was in that tail whip.

    If it had actually hit them, then there was no doubt that it might have smashed them to pieces.

    All of the fourth prince''s elite guards couldn''t help giving a gulp when they realized this and they all took another step back.

    The fourth prince let out a sigh of relief when he saw that his elite guards were still fine, but then he said, "Spread out! Don''t group up for him to hit you like that!"

    "No need." I suddenly said, cutting the fourth prince off.

    The fourth prince looked at me with a surprised and confused look, but I had already jumped off the horse and was walking towards Joan who hadnded on the ground in front of me.

    Once I was on her, we immediately flew up into the air and I said, "All of you, stand a bit further back."

    The fourth prince''s elite guards were surprised and confused as well when they heard this, but they listened to me in the end and moved back. That was because the fourth prince had already told them before this that they should listen to me during this time.

    The orders that I gave them should be considered direct orders from him and they should obey it, unless they had already received a prior order from him. In that case, they should follow whichever one that they felt was correct.

    He didn''t even force them to follow his orders, that was how much he trusted me.

    As I moved forward on Joan, there were other wyverns that followed us.

    However, I stopped them froming with us since I knew that it would be too dangerous for them.

    The ones that were on the wyverns were Cecilia and her people who had been hiding amongst the elite guards of the fourth prince. They had only taken action now because they knew that I would be here, but I stopped them from following me.

    That was because I was the only one that could take care of this Demon Count right now.

    When Mephisto saw me approaching him without any fear, he couldn''t help revealing a strange look.

    That was because thest time that this happened, the beam of death that he shot had been taken care of without any problems. He couldn''t help fearing what would happen this time...

    But he also stopped himself from feeling this way since he was filled with even more embarrassment at having felt this way.

    Mephisto gave a snort, almost as if he was calming himself before saying, "Human, you dare go against me?"

    I didn''t say a thing as I had Joan slowly fly closer to Mephisto.

    She didn''t even fly right at him, but rather it was like she was floating over to him slowly like it was a procession.

    Mephisto knitted his brows when he saw this since it almost felt like he was the one that was waiting for Zwein toe over.

    This made it feel like he was the one that was subordinate and Zwein was the superior.

    This was not a feeling that he enjoyed, so he roared out, "You think that a lowly human like you can do anything in this situation? You should know your ce, human!"

    He raised his finger again as if he was about to shoot out another beam of death, but I raised my finger at the same time as him and the dark energy that he had been gathering suddenly copsed. The dark energy just folded in on itself, almost as if it was bowing in prostration before disappearing without a trace.

    Mephisto hadn''t seen this before, but now that it had appeared in front of him, he couldn''t help beingpletely shocked.

    "Just what are you?" He couldn''t help saying in a shaky voice.

    After all, this was something that he had never encountered before.

    In his world, he had always been the one that was at the peak and there was no one that was above him. So he had always been the one that had been above all others.

    He had never felt this feeling of being below someone before.

    That was the feeling that he felt after the dark energy had folded like that.

    He knew what was happening.

    It wasn''t an ident that his attack had been stopped just now, there was a very simple reason why.

    It was because the dark energy that he used had felt that there was a stronger demon here.

    The demons cared only about strength and the weak obeyed the strong, so that was why Mephisto''s demon energy had suddenly acted that way.

    I just calmly looked at him and raised my finger to point at him, which made Mephisto tremble even more.

    As he trembled like this, I just simply said, "It''s because we are onpletely different levels."

    Then bringing my finger down, Mephisto suddenly fell face first to the ground.

 Chapter 775 Youâ€™re the same

    Chapter 775 You¡¯re the same

    ??Mephisto had a look of absolute shock on his face as his face was nted on the ground.

    He tried to push himself off the ground, but he found that he wasn''t able to push off at all. It was as if there was some kind of invisible pressure that was pressed down on him that prevented him from moving.

    No, even before that...it was as if there was some kind of prestige about the other side that made him unable to fight back.

    It was as if he himself didn''t even want to resist the pressure that was on him.

    For a Demon Count like Mephisto to feel that way, there was only one exnation.

    It was that there was a higher ranked demon that was on the opposite side of this pressure that was forcing him to submit.

    But no matter how he looked at this human, he didn''t seem like any kind of higher ranked demon. No matter how he looked at him, it was clear that this person was nothing more than a lowly human.

    How could a lowly human possibly make him feel this way?

    After dealing with Mephisto, I turned back to look at Duke Yuletide and asked, "Is there anything else that you have to save yourself with? If you do, you should use it while you still have the chance. Don''t regret itter, thinking that you should have done something while you could have."

    Duke Yuletide looked at me in shock when he heard this.

    The expression on his face twisted and he looked like he had swallowed something disgusting, but he didn''t say anything in response to this.

    If he really did have something else, he would have already used it.

    So the only thing that he could do now was hope that Mephisto still had another trick up his sleeve.

    Seeing the way that he looked at Mephisto, I knew that there was nothing left up his sleeve.

    So it seemed like it would be time topletely crush his hopes.

    I turned back to Mephisto, who trembled when he saw me looking in his direction.

    With the way that he was looking at me, it was almost as if he was hoping that I would forget about him.

    I lifted my finger that had been pointing out the entire time and Mephisto felt like he could stand up again. However, the pressure had only been relieved enough that he was able to lift his head to look up at me.

    It was still impossible for him topletely stand up just yet.

    He looked at me with a terrified look and with the voice that he had regained, he asked, "Just who are you?"

    I shook my head as I said, "That isn''t what you should be asking. I think you would rather want to know what I am, right?"

    Mephisto''s eyes opened wide when he heard this.

    Though he didn''t say anything, the expression on his face made it clear that this was indeed what he wanted to ask. He just couldn''t figure out how this human was able to suppress him like this.

    But I just said, "That''s not something for you to know."

    Mephisto slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but instead of wasting time trying to say anything else, he said, "Just let me go then. Since wee from the same source, there''s no need for you to do this."

    With a faint smile, I stepped forward a bit and spoke in a voice that only the two of us could hear, "When did demons let each other go?"

    His eyes opened wide as he said, "So you''re really a¡­"

    Before he could finish, I brought my finger down again.

    The moment that my finger came down, the same pressure fell over Mephisto and he could no longer speak.

    I raised my other hand and pulled out a sword from my Storage Ring.

    I jumped off Joan andnded beside Mephisto, raising the sword as Inded.

    Mephisto looked at me with a look as if he was asking me not to do this, but I didn''t listen at all.

    The runes that were on the sword lit up before I brought the sword down on Mephisto''s neck. There was no resistance at all as his head was severed from his body, turning a few times in the air beforending on the ground.

    However, there wasn''t a single drop of blood that came from the corpse.

    It was as if there was no blood at all in his body with how dry his neck was.

    But after that, the head and the body suddenly dissipated into ck energy that disappeared without a trace.

    The fourth prince slowly came over and asked, "What happened?"

    "It was an avatar. It wasn''t his real body that was summoned, but rather his avatar, so he''s not really dead." I said in a calm voice.

    "He''s not dead?" The fourth prince asked in a worried voice.

    I just gave a simple nod in response.

    The fourth prince deeply knitted his brows and looked at me with a worried look, but I said, "Don''t worry, if hees back, I have my ways of dealing with him."

    That was right.

    I might not have had a way to deal with demons before, but now¡­I didn''t fear them at all.

    That was why I had shown no mercy to Mephisto just now.

    There was still a trace of doubt in the fourth prince''s eyes, but he eventually gave a nod to show that he understood before turning to look at Duke Yuletide who had copsed onto the ground.

    There was a look of absolute shock on Duke Yuletide''s face as if he couldn''t believe what had just happened.

    I saw the fourth prince looking at the duke, so I said, "It''s time for you to suffer the consequences of your actions."

    The fourth prince nodded in agreement before sending his elite guards forward to capture Duke Yuletide.

    Duke Yuletide didn''t resist at all since he knew that he had beenpletely defeated, but it didn''t seem like he had lost all hope yet.

 Chapter 776 The fate of the duke (1)

    Chapter 776 The fate of the duke (1)

    ??The duke and the remainder of his men were captured.

    It didn''t seem like the fourth prince had nned on capturing them at first since he wanted topletely decimate the forces that the duke controlled, but now it seemed like he was too tired to care.

    It seemed like he had beenpletely exhausted by his encounter with the Demon Count Mephisto that he didn''t care if there were a few remnants.

    After all, it was impossible for the duke to do anything with these remnants.

    We put them all in binds and then put them in the cage cart that the fourth prince had prepared. These were actually nearby the area that we had been in, showing that the fourth prince already knew everything that the duke had been nning.

    I couldn''t help revealing a faint bitter smile when I saw this since I had no idea what the duke was nning.

    The fourth prince had kept me in the dark the entire time.

    The duke was allowed to travel in the same carriage as us, but he was naturally tied up so he couldn''t do anything.

    We sat there in silence for a bit before the duke finally asked, "How did you find out? Not just the Snake Syndicate, about my family''s intentions to betray the kingdom."

    He turned to look at me before saying, "It''s certainly not because of you alone. To prepare all of this, you must have known all of this before I told you anything."

    The fourth prince just looked at me as well before saying with a smile, "It was my brother here that found out your family''s intentions to betray the kingdom."

    Though he didn''t say anything else, it was clear by the way that he looked at me that there was something else that he wanted to say.

    For example¡­

    "Though he hasn''t told me how he found out about this either."

    I had just asked the fourth prince and the king to trust me in this matter, so I had never actually exined anything to them.

    It wouldn''t have been strange if they had rejected this, but they had listened to me in the end and had gone along with me, taking down one of the four dukes of the kingdom. It certainly shouldn''t have been easy since it was one of the four dukes, one of the four highest ranking people in the kingdom.

    Duke Yuletide looked at me with a surprised look and looked like he wanted to ask me more.

    However, I didn''t let him ask anything as I said, "You must be wondering what will happen to you now."

    Duke Yuletide immediately knitted his brows when he heard this before looking at me with narrowed eyes. It was as if he was trying to judge what I was nning to do by asking this all of a sudden.

    I just calmly looked at him and said, "First off, your family has already been apprehended."

    There was an ugly look that appeared on Duke Yuletide''s face when he heard this before he said, "You better not have hurt them!"

    The way that he said this almost made it seem like he wasn''t a man that had been pushed to the edge. The way that he said this was almost as if he still had some kind of hope.

    I wasn''t surprised since I guessed that he must have something else that he was clinging to, which was why he had been so calm as he sat there in the carriage with us.

    That was why I was even saying all of this to him.

    I wanted to break his hope so he wouldn''t try anythingter.

    I just calmly looked at Duke Yuletide and said, "They''re a family of traitors, what they get is what they deserve."

    Duke Yuletide''s face became even uglier for a bit, but then his expression rxed a bit as he said with a sigh, "My daughters didn''t know a single thing. At the very least, can you spare them?"

    I was surprised to hear this since I thought he would never beg for mercy like this, but¡­it seemed that he was a father in the end.

    He wasn''t certain what would happen, so at the very least, he wanted to make sure that his daughters didn''t suffer no matter what happened.

    I could understand this since I had witnessed another father who cared very much for his daughter firsthand. I knew how deep a father''s feelings for his daughter could be¡­

    I looked at the fourth prince and saw that he seemed to be thinking the same thing.

    So exchanging a nce with him, I finally said, "We''ll keep that in mindter on at the trial."

    Duke Yuletide gave a simple nod as if he understood before his expression became serious again.

    No, it was better to say that his expression became determined, almost as if he was determined to keep his daughters from harm.

    It seemed that he had resolved himself to do all that he could to protect them, which meant that he was going to go all in with the cards that he thought he still had.

    One might consider this a backfire, but I didn''t mind since there was still plenty to talk about.

    I just calmly continued by saying, "The duke''s manor and all of your assets have already been seized as per thews of the kingdom. You and your family will stand trial for your crimes of treason."

    Duke Yuletide just gave another simple nod since this was all expected.

    This was the basic sentence that could be given for a crime of this manner.

    It wasn''t something to be surprised by.

    Duke Yuletide just focused on what would being next.

    As he expected, I continued by saying, "We have already raided the hideout of the Snake Syndicate. We have captured all of your associates and seized all of the assets that were hidden in that manor."

 Chapter 777 The fate of the duke (2)

    Chapter 777 The fate of the duke (2)

    ??There was a calm look on Duke Yuletide''s face when he heard this.

    It waspletely different from when I told him about what had happened to his family and his manor.

    It was almost as if he wasn''t bothered at all by this even though this should have been the core of his power.

    However, I did understand why he would be feeling this way.

    There was a reason why the Snake Syndicate had never been caught even though it had been operating in the kingdom for so long.

    They were a group that had many different leaders and had many different branches. Even if there was a branch and a leader that was caught, there would be others that could rece them.

    It was even the case for Duke Yuletide who should have been the one that was in charge.

    That was the reason why he was so calm in the first ce.

    He believed that even if he was taken to prison, the Snake Syndicate would eventually rescue him. He believed that as long as he was alive, there would be other branches of the Snake Syndicate that woulde for him.

    As for the reason...It was simply because he was someone irreceable to the Snake Syndicate.

    The things that he held would be crucial to their survival and as long as he didn''t talk, they would want to get him back in one way or another.

    After all, if he were to talk, it would mean all of them being buried with Duke Yuletide.

    That was just the power and information that he had as the leader of the Snake Syndicate for so long.

    So even if the branch that he worked most closely with and used to control most of the other branches was destroyed, even if the one that had been working for him for many decades now had been caught, he wasn''t worried at all.

    Duke Yuletide knew that the structure of the Snake Syndicate woulde through for him.

    I of course also knew that this was what he was thinking, which was why I had deliberately paused at this moment.

    I wanted to build up his hope before crushing it.

    Seeing that he was ready, I said, "But that isn''t the only hideout of the Snake Syndicate that we''ve found."

    A trace of surprise appeared in Duke Yuletide''s eyes, but he quickly forced himself to seem calm as if this didn''t bother him at all. However, there was also a trace of worry that appeared in his eyes.

    The duke was a smart person, so it wasn''t as if he couldn''t understand what I was implying with these words.

    I gave him a moment to let all of this set in and to make him even more nervous before saying, "There were many different hideouts that we found out about and we sent our people to take care of them at the same time. By now, they should have all been taken care of."

    Duke Yuletide kept pretending like he was calm, but it was clear that the trace of worry in his eyes was growing. It seemed like he just couldn''t hold himself back when he heard this.

    Duke Yuletide opened and closed his mouth a few times as if he was trying to figure out what he wanted to say, but eventually he just said, "Is that so? What do you think you will aplish by telling me all of this?"

    I just calmly looked at him and said, "I thought that you should know."

    Duke Yuletide slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything else in the end.

    It looked like he had wanted to say something at first, but eventually he seemed to stop himself from asking it. It seemed like he hade to terms with this and knew that it was better to ask about this.

    Or¡­it could be said that he was just too scared to ask about this.

    It was clear that there was a part of him that wanted to know, but he didn''t let himself ask since he knew that the answer might not be what he wanted to hear.

    So he didn''t ask to let himself hold onto hope.

    Even if that hope was faint¡­

    Instead of asking about this, Duke Yuletide asked, "What are you going to do to me?"

    This was the one thing that he was the most concerned about since he had no idea where they were even heading. Though he had some idea based on the direction that they were currently moving in.

    It seemed like they were heading back to Vayne City.

    I didn''t say anything at first, but then I said, "You''re being brought to Vayne City so we can pronounce your crimes to your subjects and then state your punishment to them."

    brought to Vayne City so we can pronounce your crimes to your subjects and then state your punishment to them."

    "Ha, you want to parade me around like they did with you?" Duke Yuletide teased me.

    I just calmly looked at him with a smile and said, "Well, it seems like you do understand."

    Duke Yuletide was surprised to hear this since he didn''t think that I would be able to quip back at him so easily. He thought that he had hit a sore spot, but it seemed that he waspletely wrong.

    But when he thought about it, he realized that this made sense.

    After all, he had just been pretending to be a prisoner all along, so it wasn''t as if there was anything for him to be ashamed of.

    Unlike Duke Yuletide who was now a real prisoner¡­

    It seemed like Duke Yuletide had actually hurt himself with this quip as he quickly fell silent.

    Still, there was nothing wrong with a bit of silence right now.

    Perhaps silence would be just the thing that he needed to think of a n to save himself.

    Though when Duke Yuletide thought about it, he realized that there was just too little information¡­

    Just what was waiting for him in Vayne City?

 Chapter 778 How the mighty have fallen

    Chapter 778 How the mighty have fallen

    ??When we arrived back in Vayne City, it hadpletely changed.

    The guards that were at the gate had been changed to a group that I was familiar with.

    It was a group that I didn''t expect to see so soon, but here they were.

    It was General Killock and his men.

    I knew that the fourth prince had moved his people to take control of Vayne City during this time, but I never thought that he would move an entire army. But I quickly found out that it wasn''t the army that had been moved in.

    It was just a small groupposed of General Killock and his men that hade to take Vayne City.

    As for how they had done it with so few people...it was because they were wyvern riders.

    As General Killock was one of the few that had followed me during the war and one of the trusted aides of the fourth prince, naturally he was high up on the list of people that would be chosen as wyvern riders.

    He and his men were among the first batch that had been sent to me...or at least they would have been in the first batch if it wasn''t for the fact that we were still at war during that time. The names of General Killock and his men were among those that would have been the first batch, if not for the fact that he was busy with the war.

    But after the war, they hade right away to im their wyverns.

    All of them were men of war and had excellent skills, so it didn''t take long for them to be wyvern riders.

    Of course, it wasn''t just wyvern riders along that would be enough to take a city.

    To prepare for this, the fourth prince had already snuck many people into Vayne City under the nose of the Yuletide Family. They had been waiting the whole time for this day where they would have the chance to act.

    When they acted, Vayne City stood no chance.

    They had infiltrated into the guards of the city, near those in important positions, and many other key positions.

    So the moment that General Killock and his men showed up on their wyverns, Vayne City almost immediately surrendered.

    There were one or two leaders in the guards that were loyal to Duke Yuletide and the Yuletide Family, but they were quickly taken care of. The spies that the fourth prince had snuck into the city weren''t just spies, but also those that could take care of business secretly when needed.

    So those that were loyal to Duke Yuletide and the Yuletide Family were immediately taken out before they had a chance to cause amotion.

    With that, Vayne City immediately fell to the fourth prince''s men.

    As we came in, General Killock greeted us with a wide smile on his face, but that surprised me. After all, he shouldn''t have known about our ruse in the first ce and should have thought that I was still a prisoner.

    But to my further surprise, he said, "I knew that it was all a trick. I knew that his highness wouldn''t miss how valuable you are and do something that burns the bridge after crossing like this."

    It seemed that General Killock had a good intuition and a deep loyalty to the fourth prince, but one thing that surprised me was his trust in me.

    At the very least, it seemed like I had made a good impression on him during our time together in the war.

    I thought that he would be terrified of me after everything that happened, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    After the greetings were over, we brought Duke Yuletide in.

    When General Killock saw him, he immediately spat at him before saying, "It seems like the mighty have fallen."

    Duke Yuletide narrowed his eyes to look at General Killock before looking around the area.

    With the way that he was looking around, it was almost as if he was looking for any signs of his people in the city. However, he found that there wasn''t a single person that he recognized in this ce.

    It seemed like his city had been entirely taken from him and there was nothing that he could do about it.

    He took one look at the wyverns and gave a sigh.

    That was just the power that wyverns had, even a powerful gated city like this couldn''t do anything in the face of these wyverns. Though he was a bit surprised that there wasn''t more destruction in the city.

    He had expected far more destruction that there actually was.

    General Killock red at Duke Yuletide a bit longer before turning to the fourth prince to ask, "Your highness, what should we do about him?"

    The fourth prince didn''t answer as he waved his hand at one of the spies that he had sent into Vayne City. When they came over, he asked them, "Has that been prepared?"

    The spy replied with a nod, "It''s all been set up and it''s ready to use at any time."

    The fourth prince said with a satisfied nod, "Very good. Go and gather the people,e tell me when everything has been gathered."

    The spy nodded before heading off.

    After that, the fourth prince went over to Duke Yuletide and simply asked, "Give us the information that you have on the Snake Syndicate and I''ll go easy on you."

    Duke Yuletide was surprised to be asked this.

    It was clear that he didn''t expect to be asked this, but he quickly revealed a smile as if he had gained some kind of handle on the fourth prince.

    "Do you think that I''ll really tell you? But if you want to know, then you''ll have to offer¡­"

    Before Duke Yuletide could finish what he was going to say, the fourth prince said, "Well, I tried to offer you the easy way out. You can''t me me for what happens next."

    Without caring for Duke Yuletide''s reaction, he calmly walked away.

 Chapter 779 You, you monster!

    Chapter 779 You, you monster!

    ??Duke Yuletide had an uncertain look on his face after the fourth prince just ignored him.

    He knew that the fourth prince was nning something and he had no idea what it was, so he couldn''t help feeling more and more worried.

    There was the reputation that the fourth prince had and Duke Yuletide knew that his enemies didn''t get off easy. So now that the fourth prince had captured him and his family, what would he do?

    There was a good fifteen minutes that passed before the spy from before came back.

    When he did, he went right over to the fourth prince and saluted to him before saying, "Your highness, it has been prepared."

    The fourth prince just gave a simple nod before turning to the guards surrounding Duke Yuletide.

    He waved his hand at the guards and said, "Alright, bring him along."

    They nodded in agreement before forcing Duke Yuletide to follow the fourth prince.

    As he followed, Duke Yuletide had a worried look on his face.

    Before this, he had been trying to remain as calm as possible. However, it seemed that he wasn''t able to remain calm any longer after everything that the fourth prince said to him.

    It seemed like he was finally cracking under the pressure of all of this.

    He really wanted to know what the fourth prince had in store for him.

    However, the fourth prince had a calm look on his face as he led Duke Yuletide through the streets of Vayne City.

    As they walked through the city, there were some people that recognized Duke Yuletide and started to follow the procession. However, they weren''t able to approach since the elite guards of the fourth prince kept them away.

    Duke Yuletide couldn''t help feeling more and more uneasy seeing the number of people that were following them.

    After all, it wasn''t as if he had a good rtionship with the people of his city.

    He¡­could not be considered a good lord¡­

    The fourth prince led Duke Yuletide all the way to the square where there were already a bunch of people gathered. When the people that followed the procession came into the square, they joined the crowd andpletely filled up the square.

    The number of people that were in the square had now reached a scary number.

    Duke Yuletide however wasn''t paying any attention to this.

    What had caught his attention when he came into the square was the stage that had been set up in the square.

    There wasn''t much that was on the stage other than a pillory.

    It seemed like a ce where one would show off criminals¡­

    With the crowd that was gathered and the stage that had been set up, Duke Yuletide was beginning to slowly piece together what he thought the fourth prince''s n was. To bring him here at this time, it was very likely that he would ce him in the pillories in front of everyone.

    The fourth prince just ignored the way that Duke Yuletide looked at him as he brought Duke Yuletide onto the stage.

    The crowd immediately recognized Duke Yuletide since he was someone that they all knew, but many of them were confused about who was leading Duke Yuletide up. That was until some of the merchants in the crowd recognized the fourth prince and started spreading his identity.

    The crowd was soon filled with whispers, but the main thing that everyone was asking was¡­

    "Why is the fourth prince here and why did he have the duke locked up like this?"

    After bringing Duke Yuletide up to the stage, the fourth prince stepped forward to say, "The duke here has been arrested on counts of treason and he will be standing trialter on."

    "Si!" A cold breath came from the crowd as shock quickly filled them.;

    It was clear that they never expected the first words from the fourth prince to be this.

    However, there were many people that seemed like they were a bit happy to hear this.

    It was clear that Duke Yuletide was not a good ruler for this city.

    It was only because of the power that their family received at the founding of the kingdom that they even had this power in the first ce.

    Once the fourth prince waited a bit, he continued by saying, "So before we bring the duke here to the capital to stand trial, we have a little punishment prepared for him. This is a special punishment that I''m giving him with my right as the fourth prince, so I hope that everyone will not mind how small it is."

    The fourth prince gave a nod to the guards near the pillory and they opened it up.

    Duke Yuletide looked a bit relieved when he heard this since he had already expected this to happen. But he also heard the fourth prince say that he would bring him to the capital for trial, so he knew that the fourth prince wouldn''t kill him.

    What was a bit of humiliationpared to the chance of survival?

    In the end, he would just take this and turn the other cheek.

    Or at least that was what Duke Yuletide thought would happen.

    However, it wasn''t him that was brought over to the pillory.

    The guards that were watching over Duke Yuletide just kept him there in ce.

    Instead, there were some other guards that left the square as if they were going to pick something up.

    Duke Yuletide looked confused at first when he saw this as he had no idea what was happening, but the expression on his face quickly changed. The moment that he saw who the guards were bringing in, there was a look of shock and panic on his face.

    He looked at them for a bit before turning to the fourth prince to say, "You, you monster! How dare you involve them!"

    The reason for thisrge reaction from him was because the guards hade out with his wife and daughter.

 Chapter 780 You think I wouldnâ€™t?

    Chapter 780 You think I wouldn¡¯t?

    ??The guards didn''t stop even though Duke Yuletide made that outburst.

    They just followed the fourth prince''s orders and brought the duke''s wife and daughter up onto the stage.

    When they saw everyone that was there, the two of them started trembling in fear.

    The only one that they could turn to was Duke Yuletide since he was the only one that was on their side. Both of them immediately looked at Duke Yuletide with looks as if they were begging him for help.

    Duke Yuletide had a look like he wanted to rip the fourth prince to pieces after seeing the way that his wife and his daughter looked at him.

    However, the guards were restraining him and wouldn''t let him move at all. So it wasn''t as if he could do a single thing physically.

    The only thing that he could do was say, "What do you want?"

    The fourth prince stopped talking to the crowd and turned to look at Duke Yuletide after he heard this. With a calm smile on his face, the fourth prince said, "I''ve already told you what I wanted and I''ve told you not to regret the chance that I gave you earlier."

    Duke Yuletide felt a chill run down his spine when he heard this.

    Even though the fourth prince was smiling at him, it was more like the smile of a devil more than anything. He didn''t know what to say in response to this, but it didn''t matter what he would have said.

    The fourth prince didn''t wait for Duke Yuletide to respond anyway as he turned back to look at the crowd.

    He even took a step forward so he was right in front of the crowd as he said, "To punish the duke for the crime of treason that he''smitted, we will punish his wife and daughter."

    Duke Yuletide immediately felt another chill run down his spine when he heard this.

    It wasn''t just that, it was almost as if all of his limbs went numb the moment that he heard this.

    As for the duke''s wife and daughter, both of them revealed looks of terror before they started begging for mercy. Before this, they had kept their mouths shut to a certain extent in hopes that Duke Yuletide would save them.

    But now that the fourth prince said this, they didn''t hold back at all to throw him under the bus.

    They stated that everything that was done was all Duke Yuletide''s fault and that they had nothing to do with it. They said that if anyone should be punished, it should be him since he was the one thatmitted the crime.

    Duke Yuletide felt even more numb when he saw his wife and daughter selling him out like this, but there was nothing that he could say in response to this. After all, he knew that it was all his fault in the first ce since he wasn''t able to protect them.

    He was indeed the one that had followed his family''s footsteps in trying to get revenge on the royal family for all of the injustice that their family had suffered.

    So he was the one that dragged them into this...

    Duke Yuletide felt like he had beenpletely drained of all energy, but he still had to speak up in this situation.

    At the very least, he felt that he was responsible for protecting his wife and daughter.

    So Duke Yuletide suddenly said, "Stop that already! You already said that we would be standing trial, is this how the system ofw works in this kingdom? If you were to do anything to them, do you think that people will just let this slide? After all, if you do this once, there''s no telling what you might do in the future. Even if that isn''t the case, this won''t be what the other nobles will think. Do you really want to turn all of the nobles against you like this?"

    Duke Yuletide might seem like he was rambling, but there was some logic in the words that he was saying.

    If the fourth prince really were to do this, it would turn out the way that Duke Yuletide had stated it.

    But the fourth prince just calmly turned to look at Duke Yuletide before saying, "Do you really think that I won''t do this?"

    Duke Yuletide had a look of disbelief as he once more felt a chill running down his spine.

    That was because he could tell that the fourth prince was absolutely serious based on the expression that was on his face. It was as if he didn''t care a single bit for what Duke Yuletide said.

    The only thing that he cared about were a few certain words from Duke Yuletide.

    These would be the words that would not only decide his fate, but also the fate of his wife and daughter.

    These were words that would be rted to the Snake Syndicate.

    After staring at Duke Yuletide with this serious look for a bit, the fourth prince ignored him as he turned back to the crowd with the same smile as before as he said, "Now, since we are a civilized group, we won''t give them a serious punishment."

    The duke''s wife and daughter let out a sigh of relief when they heard this, but it was too early for them to rx.

    Duke Yuletide was different since he could hear the sinister undertone that was in the fourth prince''s voice.

    He knew that the punishment wouldn''t be as simple as he made it out to be.

    The fourth prince had given a deliberate pause as if he wanted to instill this false hope in the duke''s wife and daughter.

    However, once they had that look of relief on their faces, he continued by saying, "Their punishment will be simple. They will be locked up in this pillory for seven days in this square."

    This did seem like a simple punishment, but everyone was certain that the fourth prince''s punishment wouldn''t be that simple since they gathered them all here. This seemed like it was just too simple¡­

    The kicker came with what the fourth prince said next.

    "They will be left here without any supervision."

 Chapter 781 Then itâ€™s your own fault

    Chapter 781 Then it¡¯s your own fault

    ??"Si!" There was a cold breath that rang out through the crowd when they heard this.

    At the same time, there were looks of despair that appeared on the faces of Duke Yuletide, his wife, and his daughter at the same time. It was clear that all three of them immediately understood what the fourth prince was implying with this.

    However, there were some people in the crowd who didn''t understand.

    Those people started asking the people around them and soon they quickly understood what the fourth prince was nning to do.

    He was nning to leave them here in the pillory without any supervision, that meant that he was giving his implicit permission to do whatever they wanted with the wife and daughter of Duke Yuletide.

    They were free to do whatever they wanted to do, that would all be left up to the citizens of Vayne City in the crowd.

    As soon as they understood, there were some people that started looking in the direction of the duke''s wife and daughter with unsavory eyes.

    There was no doubt that the wife and daughter of the duke were beautiful, which just made those eyes turn even more unsavory. It was clear that there were things that they wanted to do with the wife and daughter of the duke.

    When the duke''s wife and daughter felt the gazes that were cast on them, they both had terrified looks on their faces as they began begging for mercy again. It was just too bad that their words fell onto deaf ears.

    They slowly realized that there was no use in begging the fourth prince for mercy, so instead¡­they quickly turned to look at Duke Yuletide.

    "Tell him what he wants to know already!"

    "Papa, please, I don''t want this! Just tell him what he wants to know!"

    Duke Yuletide deeply knitted his brows when he heard this, but he remained silent.

    He could see the fourth prince turning to look at him, as if he was waiting to see what he would do.

    But Duke Yuletide didn''t say a single thing even though his wife and daughter were begging for him to do something.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes when he saw Duke Yuletide like this.

    There was a long silence that hung in the air, even the crowd fell silent as they felt that something was off, so they didn''t dare make too much noise.

    After that long silence, the fourth prince said with a sigh, "Fine, don''t me me for what''s about to happen. It''s your own fault that this is about to happen."

    Duke Yuletide knitted his brows even more when he heard this, but it didn''t seem like the fourth prince cared.

    The fourth prince just turned back to face everyone as he said, "We will now put the criminals in the pillory. Once that is over, we''ll leave them here to serve out their seven days of punishment."

    Both the wife and the daughter of the duke trembled when they heard this, but they realized something.

    There was only one pillory that was on the stage right now.

    Did that mean¡­?

    Both of them looked at each other in that moment and they could see what the other was thinking. Both of them immediately looked at each other with hostility as soon as they realized this.

    It was clear that the fourth prince was only nning on putting one of them in to serve as an example, so that meant¡­

    Both of them immediately started denouncing each other.

    They both started to scream out crimes that the other person had done, in an effort to make themselves seem less guilty.

    However, that was all in vain as the guards brought out another pillory.

    When the two of them saw this, they both had looks like they were about to die on their faces.

    They weren''t fools, so they knew that the fourth prince hadpletely tricked them.

    He had only put one pillory on the stage to make them think this and to turn them against each other. In truth, he was nning on putting both of them on the stage from the beginning and he was just using this chance to torture them even more.

    Both of them were filled with shame at the fact that they had fallen for the fourth prince''s trap and turned on each other like that. Neither of them could even look at each other after what had just happened¡­

    But there was still something that they had to do.

    If they didn''t do anything, there was no telling what would happen to them¡­

    So they both started urging Duke Yuletide to give the fourth prince what he wanted.

    Only this time, they weren''t as kind as before.

    "You decrepit old man! Just tell him what he wants to know already!"

    "You useless father! How dare you bring me down with you like this!"

    It had reached the point where they were even cursing out Duke Yuletide for his insistence on keeping silent.

    Once the second pillory was ced, the fourth prince gave a nod to the guards and said, "Make them morefortable."

    Both the wife and the daughter of the duke trembled when they heard this.

    They clearly didn''t like what this meant, so they looked at the guards with eyes filled with fear.

    One guard went behind each of them to hold their hands, making sure that they couldn''t do anything. Another guard came in front of them with a sword pulled out and they grabbed their clothes, almost as if¡­

    The eyes of the two opened wide in fear, but they didn''t get a chance to say anything as the guards had also muffled them.

    They could only look on in absolute terror at what was about to happen.

    Duke Yuletide had been gritting his teeth so hard that it even seemed like his teeth were about to crack.

    But he finally did break as he said, "Enough! I''ll tell you what you want!"

 Chapter 782 Real fourth prince

    Chapter 782 Real fourth prince

    ??The fourth prince raised his hand when he heard this.

    He didn''t tell the guards to move away, but he did stop them from doing what they had been about to do. Though the guards had stopped, that didn''t mean that they let go of the duke''s wife and daughter.

    They were still restraining them and even had the swords still pointed at them, as if they would do what they had been nning to do at any moment.

    Everything would depend on what Duke Yuletide would say next.

    Duke Yuletide had a very ugly look on his face as he looked at the fourth prince, but he still said, "I''ll tell you what you want to know."

    The fourth prince gave a nod before moving forward, as if he was giving Duke Yuletide a chance to say what he wanted to say.

    However, Duke Yuletide tried to move even closer to the fourth prince before being restrained by the guards. He wasn''t allowed to move any closer to the fourth prince than this by the guards.

    They were watching him carefully, as if they were expecting him to y a trick at any moment.

    But to the surprise of the guards, the fourth prince suddenly raised his hand and said, "It''s fine."

    The guards wanted to say something to stop the fourth prince, but the fourth prince just ignored them as he stepped forward. He moved in close to Duke Yuletide and whispered something that made Duke Yuletide''s eyes tremble.

    But in the end, Duke Yuletide gave a nod and revealed a defeated look.

    With a sigh, he started saying some things that only the fourth prince could hear. He didn''t attempt to try and hurt the fourth prince at all, he just kept talking the whole time as if he was confessing everything.

    That just went to show how defeated Duke Yuletide really was.

    Everyone was shocked when they saw this, even his wife and daughter were shocked as they had never seen him like this.

    But there was a person that wasn''t shocked to see all of this.

    I was just staring at the fourth prince the entire time with aplicated look.

    I didn''t look at Duke Yuletide since I already knew that this would be the result. I knew that as long as the fourth prince was like this, this was the only way that this could end.

    That was because this was who the fourth prince was.

    This was the true fourth prince.

    This was the fourth prince from the game.

    Cold, efficient, and terrifying.

    The things that he did could be considered inhumane, but there was no doubting the efficiency of what he did. He was someone who urately found the weaknesses of those that he was targeting and exploited those weaknesses to get what he wanted.

    He didn''t care if they were considered cruel or vindictive, he just did what he wanted.

    That was how terrifying the real fourth prince was.

    That was why he was considered the final viin of the noble quest line.

    Though in this world, I had seen less of this side of him and more of the silly side of him. However, that didn''t mean that this terrifying side of him didn''t exist anymore.

    He was still there hidden under the surface, able toe out at any time.

    I knew the circumstances that the fourth prince suffered from, so I didn''t want to let this side of him out unless it was absolutely necessary.

    It seemed that I wasn''t able to stop him this time¡­

    After Duke Yuletide finished saying what he had to say, he gave a deep sigh before letting his shoulders sink like he was defeated.

    He looked like he waspletely defeated now, like there wasn''t a single trace of hope left for him.

    But the fourth prince didn''t seem satisfied with this yet, so he said, "As expected, it seems like we''ve already taken care of all of the hideouts that there were. It seems like there''s no need to do anything else."

    Duke Yuletide had already looked like he was numb to everything and didn''t seem like he would react, but he couldn''t help reacting the moment that he heard this.

    He looked up at the fourth prince in shock and disbelief.

    The disbelief remained on his face for a bit before suddenly disappearing.

    It seemed like he firmly believed what the fourth prince said, but that made sense when one thought about it.

    At this point, what did the fourth prince gain from lying to him like this?

    Duke Yuletide was already a broken man who had given up everything that he had, so there was no reason for him to lie to him.

    The only reason that he would even tell him this was to throw him into further despair.

    Duke Yuletide slowly looked like he had absolutely nothing left and looked like he waspletely burnt out. He looked like he was about to turn into ashes at any moment with howpletely burnt out he was.

    The only thing left that could be done to him was¡­

    But the fourth prince didn''t go that far.

    He had already aplished what he wanted to do and he had no reason to take it any further.

    So he just said to the guards, "Take them away."

    The guards nodded in agreement before putting away their swords and leading the wife and daughter of the duke away. Both of them had looks of relief on their faces, but they also had looks of absolute shame.

    It seemed like they had already lost everything and this fact was deeply sinking in now that they were being taken away.

    The fourth prince took onest look at Duke Yuletide and said, "These are the consequences of your own actions."

    Without saying anything else, he waved his hand at the guards holding Duke Yuletide and said, "Take him away."

    Duke Yuletide didn''t resist at all when he was being taken away.

    That was just how broken he was.

 Chapter 783 Biggest trial of the century

    Chapter 783 Biggest trial of the century

    ??Since the fourth prince had already achieved everything that he wanted, there was no longer a reason for us to remain in Vayne City anymore.

    The next day, we were already heading back to the capital.

    With the way that he was going, it almost seemed like he was in a rush to go back.

    When we reached the capital, I understood why.

    There were many different criminals that were being escorted to the capital from all over when we arrived. It didn''t seem like there would be an end to it as more and more people were brought into the capital and it seemed like all of them were bound up in some form.

    It seemed that there were quite a few people that had been captured by the fourth prince during this time.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if they were captured for no reason.

    After leaving Duke Yuletide, his family, and the others that we had captured in Vayne City to the guards, we headed to the castle.

    We didn''t even get to the castle before finding a sea of people.

    There were all kinds of people here and it seemed like they wanted an audience with the king. Most of them were nobles, but there were also knights and influential merchants that were here.

    If I had to guess who they were¡­

    They were most likely rted to the ones that had been captured in some way or form.

    They must be here to plead innocent for their rtives.

    When they saw using, there were many of them that suddenly changed their target to us.

    Or rather, they changed targets to the fourth prince.

    They knew that the fourth prince was rted to this matter, so they wanted to appeal to the fourth prince for leniency.

    It was just that they didn''t get a chance at all as the fourth prince''s elite guards quickly created a path for our horse carriage to go through.

    If we took the wyverns, then we could have directlynded in the castle courtyard and gone in, but we couldn''t do that right now. They needed to at least put on the appearance that the wyverns were separated from the royal family to a certain extent and that there was order in the capital, so wyverns were only allowed in the edges of the capital near the gate.

    Once we reached the castle, there was no dy at all as we were brought up to the king''s study.

    As we made our way through the castle though, we could see that this ce wasn''t any less quiet than outside the castle. There were many people who were running around like they were very busy with something.

    As for what that something was¡­it was naturally the trials that would be held soon for the criminals.

    This was something that was now public since the fourth prince had spared no effort in spreading this information all throughout the kingdom. They also knew that my previous sentencing was fake and that I was still close to the royal family.

    The way that the fourth prince spread this almost seemed like he wanted to make sure that everyone still knew this.

    It was as if he cared very much that everyone knew that we were still close.

    I would have been fine with this information being spread slowly since I had already sent a messenger back home that told Rose and the others everything. They wouldn''t be worried since they knew that all of this was fake.

    When we arrived at the king''s study, we could see that he was also busy.

    He didn''t look up at first, but when he did, he immediately waved his hand at the two of us.

    Both of us revealed bitter smiles when we saw this since we could see the mountain of paperwork that was on the table, but we still went over since we were technically the cause of all this work.

    Without any ceremony, the king just handed us each a stack of paperwork and went back to what he was doing.

    He had just thrown this work to us without any hesitation, showing how much he trusted us.

    But I knew that it was more than he had no choice.

    Instead of beingpletely overwhelmed by this, it was better for him to throw this to us.

    So the fourth prince and I shared another bitter smile before diving into paperwork that we had been handed.

    As I read what was given to me, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    As I read more and more, the more I knitted my brows.

    I looked up at the fourth prince and found that he waspletely focused on reading the paperwork that he had been given, so I gave a cough to get his attention.

    When he looked up, I asked him, "Aren''t there too many of them?"

    The fourth prince just calmly shook his head before saying, "This is necessary. This is the most we can purge without anysting damage to our kingdom, so we should make the most of this. After all, if we were to try anything like this again, there is no doubt that it won''t work as well since they are aware of our tricks."

    I raised one brow in doubt as I looked at him and asked, "Are you sure about this?"

    The fourth prince just gave a simple nod with a confident look on his face without saying anything else.

    I was still feeling doubtful, but the king said, "Stop chatting and get back to work already!"

    The fourth prince and I shared another bitter smile before he went back to reading his paperwork.

    But there was still a part of me that was worried about all of this.

    That was because we really were purging too many nobles from our kingdom.

    It was supposed to be a fourth, but now it turned out to be a third of all the nobles in the kingdom¡­

    This had turned into the biggest trial of the century¡­or rather the biggest trials since there were enough tost a full seven days.

    Would the kingdom really be alright after this?

 Chapter 784 Filled with corruption

    Chapter 784 Filled with corruption

    ??The first day of the trials, the stands werepletely filled with people.

    In order to make sure as many people could watch the trials as possible, the fourth prince had decided to hold the trials in the square of the capital.

    This was thergest square in the entire kingdom and could fit over ten thousand people.

    But even then, there were many who couldn''t get into the square since it had beenpletely filled.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if the square was emptied so people coulde in. Half of the square was upied by things that would be necessary in the trials, so there was only half the square open to people who wanted to watch.

    But five thousand wasn''t a small amount either.

    They were all excited to watch because this was the first time that nobles were being held responsible for their actions. So for the first time, the citizens would get to see the nobles that treated them like dirt being punished.

    There wasn''t a single person who wanted to miss that.

    The first day was just for all of the small offenders.

    There were simply too many of them that it would be impossible to take care of them after the major trials, so it was decided that they would be taken care of first. That way, there would be no need to worry about them in the future.

    After all, most of them only had minor crimes to ount for, so it would be simple to pass a verdict on them.

    The problem was the sheer volume of people that needed to be tried.

    There were just too many of them that hadmitted these minor crimes.

    There were crimes such as embezzlement, oppressing themoners, smuggling, and other small crimes.

    Of course, these were small crimespared to the crimes that the other criminals hadmitted.

    These were still crimes that were big enough for us to strip away their titles and reim theirnd.

    The only reason for these trials was to show the people that even those who were in power would be held responsible for their actions.

    This was something that had been proposed by the fourth prince.

    The king had been shocked by this, but for someone like me who came from a more modern society...it was much easier for me to ept. After all, this kind of thing wasmon in modern society where politicians were much more susceptible to scandals.

    Though that was in an era where everything was public because of the ease ofmunicating with each other.

    At the same time, it was much easier to find information because of digital traces onputers and the inte.

    But there were still many that tried to fight against this by bringing in their rtives.

    These were knights and merchants of repute that had some influence.

    What they didn''t know was that they were also on the list that the fourth prince had created for judging who would be brought in. They were on the list of those that didn''tmit crimes that were great enough, but they had alsomitted crimes of corruption.

    In short, this kingdom really was just too filled with corruption, but that was from my viewpoint of someone from a modern society. If one thought about it from the viewpoint of a medieval society that this game world was based on, then it was perfectly normal for these people to do this, even if there werews in ce.

    So it could be said that the fourth prince''s ideas really were progressive for their time.

    But that stemmed mainly from his desire to protect the citizens.

    This was not something that anyone else in this era would think of.

    In the end, most of the nobles that went up on trial were found guilty by the judge and jury.

    That was because the fourth prince had yed some of his tricks.

    The people that were chosen as the judge and jury might seem like normal people, but if one dug deeper, they could see that they were always rted to these nobles in some way. So even if the noble somehow made themselves seem innocent, the judge and jury wouldn''t care.

    From the very beginning, the trials had been rigged against them so that they would never be found innocent no matter what they did. So in the end, all of them were found guilty by the judge and jury.

    Though not a single person was able to make this connection and realize that the trials were rigged.

    Only the fourth prince knew this and he had told me before the trials started so that I would understand what was happening. It could be said that he trusted me quite a bit to tell me this secret, but it made me more scared of him.

    After all, this showed that the true fourth prince was always lurking under the surface¡­

    Though I also had to admire the amount of work that he put into this.

    It certainly wasn''t easy to find these connections between these people and the nobles since these were very minor connections that no one would have figured out. It would take a lot of digging just to find these connections and then it would take a lot to gather them all.

    After all, even if the judges only changed every couple of trials, the jury changed with every trial.

    So that meant that the fourth prince had found all of these people just to try these people.

    It must have been an incredible amount of work, but these were just for the ones that had minor crimes.

    "Just what has he prepared for the bigger criminals?" That was all I could ask myself when I realized all of this.

    It also made me even more terrified of the fourth prince and I made sure to never be his enemy in the future.

    Just like this, all of the ones that went to trial were found guilty and they were punished.

 Chapter 785 The first major trial

    <h4>Chapter 785 The first major trial</h4>

    It took two days for all the minor trials to be taken care of, a day longer than what the fourth prince had nned.

    But that was just because there was too much corruption in the kingdom.

    Though by the old standards, it wouldn''t be considered corruption.

    It was only considered this because of the newws that the fourth prince had passed in the past few years.

    It could even be said that he had been preparing for this for a long time.

    When these minor trials were over, on the third day, it was time for the first major trial.

    This was to be one of the biggest criminal trials in the entire country since it involved the Snake Syndicate, which was the biggest crime organization in the kingdom.

    The number of defendants alone was in the thousands, showing just how many leaders there were in this Snake Syndicate. But this was an organization that made use of this disorganized system to evade thew for so long.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that I had the guide to taking down the Snake Syndicate in my mind, then it wouldn''t have happened.

    That was also what the fourth prince hadpared the information that he received from Duke Yuletide to. I had already told him the locations of all the Snake Syndicate hideouts that he needed to destroy, so that was why he said that we had gotten them all.

    Of course, it was impossible to try them all at once, so there were a few representatives that were chosen.

    This was usually the case when one took down an organization, they would have those that were at the top be the representative for the organization.

    The one that was leading them was the head that I had encountered.

    Iter learned that his name was Viper, which was a bit on the nose¡­

    Still, he was the one that had been running the Snake Syndicate for Duke Yuletide, so there was no one that knew the Snake Syndicate better than him. At the same time, he was the one that would take all of the me as the head of the Snake Syndicate.

    Though knowing the fourth prince, I was certain that he wouldn''t let any of them off.

    "What is the meaning of all of this? We were captured all of a sudden without any exnation and then brought here. If you look at our papers, you can see that we are a legitimate business." That was the argument that Viper made when he was allowed to present his case.

    He wasn''t lying about this since this was one of the ways that the Snake Syndicate used to protect themselves.

    There were loopholes that could be used and with this loophole, they were able to register the assets of the Snake Syndicate as assets of a legitimate business. So unless there was a reason for seizing them, it would be considered an uwful seizure.

    He was trying to present the case as a case of a merchant being abused by the government, which would incite the other merchants to protect them even if they didn''t want to. After all, if this case was allowed to pass, then it would set a precedent that would be dangerous for merchants.

    If the government could seize their properties whenever they wanted without proper justification, it would mean that the merchants would have to fear this in the future.

    But the fourth prince immediately shut that down.

    The prosecutor that the fourth prince sent immediately submitted documents that showed that the loophole that they used was closed and that they were not an officially registered business. That meant that all of the things that were seized were from the criminal organization Snake Syndicate.

    There was nothing that they could im was actual property of their business since their business simply didn''t exist.

    Viper had an ugly look on his face when he heard this since he clearly didn''t expect this, but he didn''t give up as he had prepared many other arguments.

    It was just that not a single one of these worked.

    It seemed that no matter what kind of argument he made, the prosecutor that the fourth prince sent was already prepared.

    The prosecutor would always have surprise evidence that he submitted to the court and would always give a statement that would shut down whatever Viper had prepared.

    It was almost as if the fourth prince had already expected everything that Viper would use and had prepared everything to shut it all down.

    This just went to show how terrifying the fourth prince was when he was focused on one thing.

    After a long trial, Viper sunk in his chair looking very defeated.

    That was because there wasn''t a single thing that he presented that worked.

    When he waspletely shut down like this, it would be strange if he wasn''t defeated.

    But it didn''t seem like he waspletely dead yet as there was a look of hesitation in his eyes. It was as if there was something that he still held onto in hopes of saving himself.

    When the judge was about to make his verdict, Viper suddenly said, "I have one more thing that I want to present."

    The judge narrowed his eyes to look at Viper when he heard this, but then he looked at the prosecutor as if he was asking him if he would allow this.

    The prosecutor¡­turned to look at the fourth prince.

    With the way that this went, it was almost as if the fourth prince controlled everything.

    Though if that really was the case, I wouldn''t be surprised.

    The fourth prince thought about it before giving a nod to the prosecutor who passed it on to the judge.

    When the judge received this, he allowed Viper to present what he wanted to present.

    "This is a secret that isn''t known by many, but I am actually a member of the Tide Empire''s royal family! If you do this, do you think that they''ll just ept it?"

 Chapter 786 Tide Empire

    Chapter 786 Tide Empire

    ??There was only silence that followed after Viper said this.

    I could see the brows of the fourth prince beside me knitting as he stared at Viper, but I could understand why he was acting this way.

    It waspletely because of what Viper had just said.

    The Tide Empire that he mentioned was just that meaningful.

    There were many kingdoms on the continent, but there were only a total of four empires that were out there. The reason for that was because there were only four countries that had the power to be named empires.

    The other kingdoms only survived because the empires didn''t invade them.

    That was because the four empires kept each other in check.

    But if they were to attack one or two kingdoms, it wasn''t as if the other empires would care.

    Which was why this was a problem.

    If Viper really was rted to the Tide Empire, then it would be troublesome.

    The Tide Empire was one of the four empires and the only one that was located near the coast.

    That was because as the name of the empire implied, they were an empire that relied on the power of the tides. It was said that the special forces of the Tide Empire had the capability to breathe underwater, which was how they were able to sneak into the territory of their enemies and attack from behind.

    After all, rivers were the lifeblood of any kingdom and it was impossible for a kingdom not to have any rivers.

    Kingdoms relied on rivers not just as a source of water for farming, but also as a valuable method of transportation.

    So any kingdom would be filled with rivers that could be taken advantage of by the special forces of the Tide Empire.

    In addition to this, the Tide Empire was a major source of transportation since they had the power to control water as well.

    It was said that one of the biggestkes on the continent was once a dukedom that had offended the Tide Empire.

    In the end, the Tide Empire sent arge flood to destroy that dukedom, which was what had created thatke.

    So there were very few people that dared to provoke the Tide Empire.

    Of course, this was allmon knowledge.

    For me who hade from the world where this world had just been a game, I naturally knew a lot more about the Tide Empire than normal people did. That was because there was a quest line that was tied with the Tide Empire in the game, so I had learned quite a bit about the Tide Empire.

    That quest line was the mermaid quest line.

    In this world, there was an empire under the sea known as the Merman Empire.

    This was an empire that had been formed by the merfolk who were born under the sea and had taken over the undersea world. However, they were a group that didn''t want to associate with humans since they didn''t trust them.

    Or rather, it would be better to say that they didn''t care about the humans at all.

    That was just their pride as the rulers of the sea.

    However, there was one connection that they had to thend since they knew that they couldn''t justpletely ignore thend and the humans who lived there.

    It was the Tide Empire.

    The Tide Empire was founded by a son inw of the Merman Empire.

    There was a mermaid who had saved a human pirate and they fell in love.

    As such, the mermaid gave up her voice toe live onnd with human legs.

    The human pirate and the mermaid loved each other deeply and working together, they created the Tide Empire.

    That was how the special forces of the Tide Empire were able to breathe underwater.

    They had the blood of the merfolk in them.

    It wasn''t that the mermaid had cheated on the human, but rather they had many children who went off on their own paths. As such, the merfolk blood was spread all over the area of the Tide Empire, so that the merfolk blood could even be found in themon people.

    Of course, those that went off were struck from the records of the royal family.

    So even if they were very distantly rted, themoners that had merfolk blood were still regarded asmoners.

    Like this, an entire empire filled with those that had the merfolk blood was born.

    Since they had the merfolk blood in them, the royals of the Merman Empire were willing to form a connection with the Tide Empire.

    This made them the only connection onnd to the Merman Empire.

    As such, one had to learn about the Tide Empire if they wanted toplete the mermaid quest line.

    But even for me who knew all those things about the Tide Empire, I had never heard of a quest like this.

    He could be lying, but there was also the chance that he might be telling the truth.

    He could just be amoner that was struck from the records of the royal family, or¡­he might actually be rted to the royal family. It was hard to tell since it was impossible to ess the records of the Tide Empire''s royal family.

    Or at least, we weren''t allowed to ess it even if we had the power of the Kite Kingdom behind us.

    The fourth prince looked at me as if he was asking for my opinion, but all I could do was shake my head and say, "I don''t know. I really don''t know anything about this."

    After all, I had never heard of this person in the side quest to expose the Yuletide Family.

    This was one of the downsides of bringing knowledge from the game to this world.

    The game didn''t go deeply into these things since it wouldn''t be fun for the yers, so they solved all of this for the yers.

    The yers would never have to think about the consequences of their actions¡­

 Chapter 787 Dissatisfied with the ending

    Chapter 787 Dissatisfied with the ending

    ??The fourth prince looked like he wasn''t happy with this response, but he didn''t say anything in the end.

    I also didn''t say a word since there really wasn''t any information that I could give him even if I wanted to.

    The game didn''t give me any information on this, so there wasn''t anything that I could tell him.

    In the end, the fourth prince just gave a simple nod before saying, "Then what should we do about him?"

    I knitted my brows in thought for a bit before saying, "Well, there is one thing that we can test before anything else. If this test works, then we might have to consider what we will do with this person."

    The fourth prince was surprised to hear this, but he gave another simple nod without saying anything.

    It seemed that the fourth prince trusted me to the point where he wouldn''t ask what I was nning. He would just ept that I had a n and go along with it.

    "We''ll need..."

    ...

    An hourter, there was arge tub of water that was rolled into the square.

    This tub was arge water storage tub that was used to store water for the city. This was one of the emergency tubs that was used around the city just in case there was ever a drought, so this was a tub that could hold arge amount of water.

    As for why it was brought here...

    When Viper saw this tub being rolled in, he was certainly surprised. However, that surprise didn''tst long as he could already guess why it had been rolled into this ce.

    After he confessed that he was from the Tide Empire''s royal family, there was only reason that it could be brought here. Though he had to admit that he was surprised by the fact that the people of this kingdom seemed to know about the history of the Tide Empire.

    Once the tub was rolled in, the guards lifted Viper over and threw him into the tub.

    They didn''t even bother releasing the cuffs that were holding his hands, so he wasn''t even able to swim since they inhibited his hands. As soon as he touched the water, Viper started to sink because of the weight of the cuffs on his hands.

    However, Viper didn''t seem to panic at all as he sank under the water.

    He didn''t even bother taking a deep breath as if he was nning to hold his breath.

    After sinking into the water, Viper just calmly stood there at the bottom of the tub with a rxed look on his face.

    The only way that he could be doing something like this was if he was able to breathe under the water.

    When one looked closely, they could see that there were ps that had appeared on the side of his neck. It seemed that those ps had only appeared when he sunk into the water, almost as if it was a reaction to being soaked in water like this.

    Viper just calmly stood there in the water for a while before saying, "Is this enough for you?"

    Both the fourth prince and I knitted our brows when we heard this.

    After all, this was more than enough to prove at the very least that Viper had the merfolk bloodline. While it wasn''t certain if he was rted to the Tide Empire''s royal family, it still meant that he was from the Tide Empire since he had merfolk blood.

    The fact that he was able to breathe underwater showed that the concentration of merfolk blood in his veins was quite thick.

    While this didn''t prove his ims, it meant that his ims weren''t baseless.

    That meant that at the very least, we couldn''t do what we wanted with Viper.

    He was the only one that had to be treated differently.

    The fourth prince was silent for a bit before giving a nod to the guards.

    The guards pulled Viper out of the water and they didn''t even bother drying him as they pulled him away.

    The fourth prince personally went over to the judge and whispered a few things in his ear.

    The judge had a visible look of surprise on his face when he heard what the fourth prince had to say. After he finished speaking, the judge even looked at him as if he was questioning if he was being serious or not.

    Seeing that the fourth prince''s expression didn''t change at all, the judge had no choice but to ept that the fourth prince wasn''t joking.

    The judge then mmed his gavel and said, "Because of indecisive evidence, the trial for the criminal Viper has been dyed. He will be tried at ater time when all the evidence has been gathered."

    While he hadn''t been freed, Viper was at the very least not sentenced at the moment and given a dy of trial.

    That meant that there might be a change in the future depending on the situation.

    So in a sense, it was his victory.

    The rest of the Snake Syndicate would be tried as normal since this was a revtion that only affected Viper.

    They all tried toin about how unfair this was, but the fourth prince just ordered the guards to gag them. It seemed like he wasn''t ying around anymore as hepletely took away their right to resist.

    It was almost as if he had lost his patience and wanted to end this as soon as possible.

    Though the trial was already over and they would have been sentenced anyway even if he left them alone.

    It didn''t seem like something that the fourth prince would do, but I understood why he did this.

    It was because he was dissatisfied with this ending.

    He had nned everything and then there was this unknown variable that had suddenly thrown a wrench in his ns, ruining all of his hard work.

    Anyone that encountered this situation would be unhappy with how it ended, not just the fourth prince.

    So I just remained silent and let him pout.

 Chapter 788 You need to calm down

    Chapter 788 You need to calm down

    ??The trial ended as one would expect.

    All of the members of the Snake Syndicate received the death sentence for their crimes.

    From the very beginning, the fourth prince hadn''t been nning on letting any of them live. The only reason that he went through with this sham of a trial was because he wanted to show the people of the kingdom that he would not tolerate criminals like this.

    He wanted to use this trial as a message for all those that were still out there that there was someone to protect the people of this kingdom.

    He wanted to use this trial to instill fear into the other criminal organizations that were in the kingdom.

    Of course, this wasn''t the only thing that he had nned for them, but that was another matter.

    It would have been perfect if it wasn''t for the final blemish at the end. Though this blemish was only a small one that wouldn''t really affect the overall message that the fourth prince was nning to send.

    At the same time, even if it was something that might involve the Tide Empire, it was something that was easy for the fourth prince to cover up. With his influence in the kingdom, it was easy for him to make news like this disappear as he pleased.

    The only problem was that this was a blow to the ego of the fourth prince.

    He thought that he had nned everything perfectly and now there was something that he hadn''t been able to predict.

    So for the fourth prince who wanted to do everything perfectly, the first thing that he did was...

    He threw himself into his work.

    As soon as we returned to the castle after the trial, the fourth prince immediately went into the king''s study and started going over the details of the future trials.

    Even when it was time for dinner, it didn''t seem like he was going to respond.

    Though I wanted to go and see what the fourth prince was up to, the king stopped me.

    He just simply said, "Let him do what he wants. I know that child and I know that he needs time to unwind, so just leave him be."

    I had a look on my face that didn''t seem as certain about this, but the king was the fourth prince''s father after all...

    Still I couldn''t hold myself back in the end as I went up to the study after dinner.

    I found that the floor waspletely covered in papers and the fourth prince was scouring over them like he was a madman. It was as if he was obsessed with what was written on them and he wouldn''t calm down unless he found every single thing that he was looking for.

    The way that he was going over these pieces of paper, it was clear that it wasn''t healthy.

    It was clear that the fourth prince was pushing himself too far as seen by his appearance.

    If he didn''t stop, he might even run himself ragged.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if this was just the result of him pouring over these papers.

    This was the result of his several weeks of stress.

    Ever since he had learned about the Yuletide Family''s intention to rebel against the kingdom, the fourth prince had been preparing for this. This was why everything had been nned and there wasn''t a single thing that escaped the fourth prince''s ns.

    But that naturally took a toll on the fourth prince since doing something like this clearly wasn''t easy.

    The fourth prince looked like he could copse at any moment.

    I just couldn''t let him keep going like this.

    So I stepped forward and said, "That''s enough."

    The fourth prince didn''t seem to hear me at first, so I stepped forward and pulled him up.

    The fourth prince quickly turned around to look at who it was that was disturbing him. The way that he even looked at me was almost as if he wanted to forcefully pull himself away from me.

    But when he saw that it was me that was holding him, that look disappeared from his face.

    Still, he didn''t stop as he said, "No, I need to keep going. I need to make sure that nothing goes wrong."

    I shook my head and said with a sigh, "What if you copse? Isn''t that considered something going wrong? You need to calm down and see the bigger picture."

    The fourth prince was about to say something, but when he saw the way that I looked at him, he stopped himself.

    After a long silence, he said with a nod, "You''re right, I was wrong."

    The king who had been watching from the door had a shocked look on his face.

    After all, he had never seen his son acting this way in all this time that he''s known him.

    The only person that had ever tried to stop the fourth prince like this was still in the dungeon¡­that was why he hade along in the first ce. He had been nning to help Zwein if anything happened.

    I gave a satisfied nod after hearing this and said, "Come and eat. You need to rest up for tomorrow."

    The fourth prince just gave a simple nod before following me out the room.

    As we walked past the king, I could see that he was looking at me with a strange look.

    As for why he was looking at me with this strange look¡­

    It was because he realized just how much trust the fourth prince had in Zwein.

    He had been worried about his son because it had seemed like he would never trust anyone in his life. He had always kept his true feelings to himself and even if he worked with others, it was always him dominating them.

    But now¡­it seemed like he had formed his first real connection.

    As a father, the king was naturally happy about this.

    As a king, he was even happier since he knew that the future of the kingdom were in the hands of these two.

 Chapter 789 These idiotsâ€¦

    Chapter 789 These idiots¡­

    ??Other than the problem with that one trial, the rest of the trials went as nned.

    These were nobles of their kingdom, so it wasn''t as if there was anything that they could hide.

    The fourth prince found everything there was to find about these nobles in the first ce, so it wasn''t as if there was anywhere for them to run or anything for them to hide.

    So there were no surprises that came during the trial like with the Snake Syndicate trial.

    All of the nobles were sentenced properly.

    They were stripped of their titles, had all of their property confiscated, and they were sentenced to death like the fourth prince had nned.

    Without these nobles making a mess of the kingdom, it would be a much better and safer ce.

    That was what the fourth prince had nned since the beginning.

    After all of these trials, there was only a single trial left.

    It was the trial that had been left to the end since it was the most important trial.

    It was the trial for Duke Yuletide and the Yuletide Family.

    They were the ones that had caused this purge in the first ce, so it could be said that everything that happened was their fault.

    Of course, the fourth prince would have eventually done something simrter on in the game, but that was because of his own plot line. It was unrted to the Yuletide Family which was another quest line.

    When Duke Yuletide was brought out, he lookedpletely defeated.

    He had already seen the trial for the Snake Syndicate and all of the people that had been dragged in from the Snake Syndicate. The fourth prince had made sure that this happened because he wanted Duke Yuletide to see this.

    He wanted Duke Yuletide to see all of the people that had been brought in from the Snake Syndicate so he could crush his hopes.

    That was why the duke lookedpletely defeated when he was brought in.

    The trial went on like normal...that is until.

    "Boom!"

    There was arge explosion that came from the back of the square, on the opposite side of the square where the trial was being held.

    This was the ce where there were many citizens gathered since they were here to watch the trial.

    As soon as this happened, the fourth prince sent his people to make sure that the citizens were alright.

    However, before they could do anything, there were a bunch of people that ran through the crowd. These people all had weapons raised, which forced the citizens to move out of the way for them.

    At the same time, all of them were wearing dark clothes and had masks on their faces even though it was the middle of the day. It seemed like they were trying to hide their identities, but really it made them stand out more.

    It was basically them wearing the wrong outfits to hide themselves.

    Like wearing camouge in the middle of the city.

    They all made a mad dash for Duke Yuletide who was being detained in the defendant''s position.

    Duke Yuletide had a surprised look on his face that made it seem like he didn''t expect this at all and that was because¡­he really didn''t expect this at all.

    Duke Yuletide had no idea who these people were and why they wanted to rescue him, but he could tell that they didn''t have any good intentions. There was a part of him that didn''t want them to rescue him, but there was a part of him that wanted to see where this was going to go.

    But it wasn''t as if he coulde forward to go with these people since there were guards around him that were restraining him.

    So Duke Yuletide could only watch as everything unfolded.

    And things¡­didn''t go his way.

    The fourth prince knitted his brows when these people appeared, but he didn''t show a single trace of worry seeing them. Instead, he waited for a bit for them to approach and to see if there were any more of them.

    When it was clear that this was all that was here, he gave a snap of his fingers.

    The moment that the fourth prince snapped his fingers, there were several dark cloaked figures that appeared.

    However, these dark cloaked figures were different from the ones that came to save Duke Yuletide. Unlike those people who ran through the crowd and caused argemotion, they had appeared out of nowhere and suddenly rushed at those people causing amotion.

    With the speed that they went at, it took them no time at all to restrain the ones closest to Duke Yuletide.

    The others saw this and revealed looks of fear.

    But when they turned around to run, they found that they werepletely surrounded by the fourth prince''s people.

    They tried to fight their way out, but there was a reason why these cloaked figures were the fourth prince''s elite guards. They weren''t able to do a single thing before they were incapacitated by the fourth prince''s elite guards.

    They were all disarmed and then brought away for the trial to continue.

    Duke Yuletide had a disappointed look, but it didn''t seem like he was affected that much.

    After all, he had alreadye to terms with his situation and it wouldn''t make him have second doubts now.

    Once they were all taken care of, the fourth prince stood up and looked at me.

    I gave a nod and went off with him, without caring about how the trial would end since we already both knew how this trial would end.

    When we came to the room where the assants were held, the elite guards suddenly pulled off the masks of these people.

    The fourth prince was surprised because¡­he didn''t recognize a single one of them.

    He honestly had no idea who these people were until one of the elite guards gave him a piece of paper.

    Reading it, the fourth prince knitted his brows before saying, "These idiots¡­"

 Chapter 790 Connections

    Chapter 790 Connections

    ??The reason why the fourth prince was so angry after reading this was¡­

    These people didn''t have a real reason for saving Duke Yuletide.

    These people were nothing more than people who had wanted to seize this opportunity to gain more power and to gain favour with Duke Yuletide, which was why they thought that they could take this risk and try to save him.

    In truth, they were nothing more than idiots who thought that they could take advantage of this situation.

    They were idiots who had nothing but optimism¡­

    So they were not people that should be taken seriously.

    The fourth prince had thought that this was some kind of deeper plot that involved multiple organizations, but it turned out that this wasn''t it at all. It turned out that this was just a bunch of idiots that were trying to take advantage of the situation.

    They had no ns at all, they were just acting first and thinkingter.

    It even made the fourth prince a bit embarrassed since he had taken these people seriously.

    Shaking his head, the fourth prince said with a sigh, "Perhaps I really was thinking too much. It seems that no matter how much you think about it, you really can''t prevent everything from happening."

    I gave an approving nod when I heard this.

    The one problem with the fourth prince was that he took things too far sometimes.

    He had a thing about wanting to control everything so that he could feel assured about everything that''s happening. But sometimes, one needed to ept that they couldn''t control every single little thing.

    There was no predicting all the things that could happen in this world since there were many things that could happen.

    Sometimes, it was just best to deal with these things as they came.

    Sometimes, it was best to just roll with the punches.

    Aftering to this revtion, the fourth prince calmed down and said to me, "What do we do now?"

    I knew exactly what he was talking about.

    He wasn''t referring to the trials anymore, but rather to another problem that had urred.

    The Tide Empire.

    He wanted to find some preemptive way to deal with this matter rather than just wait for them toe looking for us. But I felt the same way as him since being passive in situations like this was usually the wrong way to go about it.

    If we just remained passive, there was no telling what would happen when they finally came.

    Being caught off guard like this would be the worst thing that could happen, especially since the other side was much stronger than us.

    But this was something that involved one of the taboos of the other side, so it wasn''t easy to do something about this.

    Or else the fourth prince wouldn''t be asking me this.

    With the powers that the fourth prince had, if he knew what to do, he wouldn''t have wasted any time thinking about this and would have already made some moves. It was only because he didn''t have any ideas that he was like this.

    I didn''t say anything at first since there was a part of me that was hesitating over this matter.

    There was a part of me that didn''t want to actually do anything since this would mean taking an unnecessary risk¡­

    But I knew that it would be impossible to avoid this in the end, so I took a deep breath before saying, "There might be something that we can do."

    The fourth prince was surprised since he didn''t expect this, but there was also a part of him that seemed like he did expect this. After all, there was a reason why he was asking me this in the first ce.

    There was a reason why he kept turning to me when it came to matters like this.

    It was because I had always been able to give him some kind of surprise.

    Just like in the war and just like with the wyverns.

    He never expected anything, but I always managed to find a way to surprise him.

    So he was hoping that I could surprise him once more.

    The fourth prince immediately revealed a serious look as he said, "What is it?"

    He didn''t waste any words at all, he just wanted to know as soon as possible.

    It was just too bad that I was still hesitating.

    After a long silence, I said with a sigh, "I might have some connections that we can investigate."

    To call them connections was a bit too much since I had never actually contacted those people before. Even if I were to tell them my name, it wasn''t as if they would know who I was.

    But there was a reason why I could rely on these ces.

    That was because of my knowledge from the game.

    The ces that I was thinking about reaching out to were ces to obtain information in the game. These were ces where one could obtain information as long as they had the money for it, so it wasn''t as if they needed to know who I was.

    As long as we had enough money, then we would be able to find the information that we were looking for.

    The fourth prince narrowed his eyes to look at me, as if there was a hint of doubt in his eyes.

    But in the end, he just gave a simple nod and said, "Alright, I''ll leave this matter to you."

    I shook my head and said, "Actually, it''s better if you handle it."

    The fourth prince was surprised to hear this, but he still gave a nod in the end.

    While he didn''t know what I meant by this, this was still enough to show that he had faith in me that he was willing to listen to what I said.

    There was a part of me that wondered if this really was the right thing to do since there was no doubt that it would be harder to use these connections in the future if I were to use them now.

    At the same time, using these connections might draw the attention of certain people¡­

 Chapter 791 Delayed again

    Chapter 791 Dyed again

    ??When the trials were over, there was only one thing that was left.

    The executions.

    Most of these trials had ended in the verdict of a death sentence, so naturally these needed to be executed.

    The fourth prince decided to hold these as public executions since he wanted the public to see the fates of these corrupt nobles and criminals. There were many people in the crowd who cursed these people and threw things.

    It was clear that they had suffered in some way because of these people being executed.

    In a way, this was the fourth prince''s way of letting these people vent the feelings that had been dwelling inside of them the entire time.

    He was punishing these people even further by putting them through this treatment.

    But that didn''t matter to us since we didn''t go and see the executions.

    The way that we acted was as if we hadpletely washed our hands of these things.

    That was because there were other things that we needed to take care of.

    "Go away for a while."

    That was what the fourth prince said to me during our meeting after the executions started.

    This was a meeting that didn''t just have me and the fourth prince, it also had the king and Ang here as well. Both Ang and I seemed surprised by what the fourth prince said, but the king seemed like he already knew this.

    After looking at the fourth prince with a confused look for a bit, I asked, "What do you mean? There''s still plenty of things to do here, I can''t just leave, right?"

    The fourth prince shook his head and said, "No, it''s better if you leave right now."

    I was even more confused when I heard this.

    The fourth prince didn''t exin as he turned to Ang to say, "At the same time, it''s best if we dy your wedding for a bit."

    This time, Ang wasn''t able to sit still.

    She immediately knitted her brows to look at both the fourth prince and the king.

    It was clear by the look on her face that she wasn''t happy, but she was giving the two of them a chance to exin.

    The fourth prince and the king revealed bitter smiles when they saw this, but they did exin it.

    "With everything that''s happening, it''s just not a good time. Before we can do anything like that, we still need to settle things in our kingdom. So we need you to hide out during this time so that no one will get any ideas."

    I understood why they were doing this, but I was worried that¡­

    In the end, it seemed that my worry wasn''t necessary as it seemed that Ang understood.

    She was a member of the royal family, so of course she would understand.

    However, it wasn''t as if that stopped her from being unhappy about this.

    So she narrowed her eyes to look at the fourth prince before saying, "How long?"

    The fourth prince was surprised to be asked this.

    He looked at the king and the two of them exchanged nces as if they didn''t know what to say.

    In the end, the fourth prince just shook his head and said, "I don''t know. It could take a few weeks, it could even take a few months. In short, this isn''t something that came be done that easily."

    This time, Ang didn''t take it as well.

    She pouted her lips as she red at the two of them before saying, "Make it happen faster."

    The two of them had surprised looks on their faces before revealing bitter smiles again. The fourth prince just said with a serious look, "This isn''t something that can be rushed, it''s something for the benefit of the entire kingdom. This must be something that is done carefully and properly."

    When he became serious like this, Ang no longer responded.

    It was clear by the look in her eyes that she understood what he was saying, but¡­she was still unhappy because of it.

    The fourth prince knew that there was nothing that he could say to her, so instead he turned back to me to say, "For now, you should go back to your territory. It''s out of the way and a ce that you control, so it should be safe."

    I looked at him for a bit without answering before asking, "Plus it''ll be a long time before I''ll be able to go back?"

    The fourth prince didn''t say anything, but the look on his face made it clear.

    Once I came back this time, it would be time for the wedding.

    But along with the wedding, there was something else that had been nned.

    The coronation.

    The king had been nning to step down as soon as I married Ang, which meant that the moment that we got married, I would be taking over as the new king.

    As the king, it was expected that I stay in the capital and take care of stately matters.

    It was expected that I wouldn''t be able to leave unless it was for important business.

    So in a sense, this was thest trip that I was getting before I was chained to the capital.

    In a sense, this was like thest trip that I would have as a free man.

    Because after this, I would only be able to act when the benefit of the kingdom needed me to act.

    Since the fourth prince didn''t say it out loud, I didn''t force him.

    I had already epted this fate, so it wasn''t as if I would back down now.

    But I was grateful that he was giving me this chance to settle everything before settling down as the king of this kingdom.

    There were certainly things that I wanted to settle before this and there were people that I wanted to bring back to the capital with me.

    This trip would be the perfect chance to take care of everything.

 Chapter 792 Sick

    Chapter 792 Sick

    ??Since I had been allowed to leave, I didn''t waste any time and headed out the next day.

    The past period of time had been rather stressful for me with everything that had happened, so I certainly could use some time to rest and rx.

    That was why I was quite happy when we were heading back to my territory.

    Right, we¡­

    It wasn''t just Cecilia and the others who came with me, but also Ang who was going back with me.

    It seemed like this was the fourth prince''s way of making it up to her.

    So all of us headed back to my territory for some rest and rxation and if possible¡­I wanted to have some private time with my wives.

    It was just too bad that I didn''t get a chance for this.

    "This is bad, this is bad."

    That was the first thing that Rose said to me when I arrived.

    I waspletely caught off guard by her sudden words, but I went forward to take her by the shoulders before saying with a calm voice, "What''s wrong?"

    When she heard this, she looked at me and then buried her head in my chest before saying, "It''s my father, I received a message about him."

    I was surprised since I thought the two of them weren''t on speaking terms, but the fact that she had received a letter¡­it was very likely that there had been some kind of change with her father.

    I could understand why she was worried if that was the case.

    No matter how bad the rtionship with her father was, he was still her father in the end.

    It was only natural that Rose would be worried about her father if something happened.

    But I couldn''t show any signs of worry with how worried she was, so the only thing that I could do was¡­

    I held her more firmly by the shoulder and raised her head to look into her eyes before saying, "No matter what happens, I''m here for you. There''s nothing that we can''t face together."

    Rose was surprised when she heard this before she simply said, "Thank you."

    I tapped her on the forehead and said, "What are you thanking me for? This is just how it is when you''re married."

    I gave her another minute to calm down before saying, "Alright, what happened with your father?"

    Rose revealed aplicated look before heading over to the table to pick up a piece of paper that she brought back for me.

    I was surprised, but I started reading the letter that she handed me.

    It turned out that this was a letter from her mother and it was about her father.

    Her father had fallen ill and her mother was asking her toe visit.

    As I read this, there was only one thing that I could think of¡­

    "Wasn''t this too much of a coincidence?"

    I knew that thinking this would be rude towards Rose and her family, so I didn''t say it out loud.

    However¡­

    "I know what you''re thinking. This came at just the right time after everything that has happened, so it seems like they might be ying some tricks." Rose gave a sigh before continuing, "I won''t lie, I thought the same thing as you when I received this letter, but¡­"

    She didn''t finish her words, but it was clear what she was thinking.

    It was her family after all¡­

    Even if it was a lie, it was hard for her not to be worried.

    Plus, there was the chance that this wasn''t a lie.

    But as a smart person, she could figure out why her family would do this if this was a lie, so there was a part of her that didn''t want to go.

    That was what was causing the strong internal conflict inside of her.

    I shook my head with a smile before saying, "They''re family, so let''s just go."

    Rose was surprised to hear this.

    She looked at me like there was something that she wanted to say, but seeing the way that I looked at her, she wasn''t able to say a thing. The expression on her face turned to a look of gratitude, but she didn''t say anything.

    After all, there was no need for words.

    With that, it was decided that we would be visiting the territory of Rose''s parents.

    Though this would go against the fourth prince''s wishes of having me in a safe and isted ce, this was what I had to do for her.

    Once this was decided, it was time to break it to the others who thought that I would be staying here for a while.

    But to my surprise, all of them supported this.

    It seemed like Rose had gotten quite close to the other girls during this time and all of them showed their support.

    Though it did help that most of them hadplicated rtionships with their own families in the first ce¡­so it wasn''t as if they couldn''t sympathize with her.

    They knew what it was like to be in her situation.

    All of them agreed that we should go and all of them agreed that they shouldn''t go.

    This was a private family matter, so it was for the two of us to handle instead of them butting in.

    During her absence, Ang would be running my territory for her.

    Though by this time, Rose had already had a good system in ce to take care of everything if she were to ever leave, so there wasn''t much that Ang needed to do.

    But she was from the royal family for a reason.

    She had been trained on things like this since she was young, so she was easily able to step into Rose''s ce and take care of the territory without any problems.

    The rest of them all promised to work with Ang while we were gone, except for one person.

    Cecilia wasing with us as a guard since this was also where she grew up.

    Rose insisted on hering, so Cecilia came with us.

 Chapter 793 Roseâ€™s plan

    <h4>Chapter 793 Rose¡¯s n</h4>

    When we left, we took the wyverns.

    I wanted to go with a horse carriage, but it seemed like Rose wanted to travel by wyvern.

    Though I felt that this might be a bit too much for her parents.

    At the same time, it was better to keep a low profile since the fourth prince told me to keep a low profile.

    However, for some reason, Rose seemed insistent that we take these wyverns.

    It wasn''t as if she had never ridden on the back of a wyvern before, so I couldn''t understand why she was so insistent on going by wyvern.

    At the same time, she was insisting that Cecilia ride with us, so the three of us were together. There was no one else that was allowed on the same wyvern as us as everyone else flew on their own wyverns around us.

    When we were in the air, Rose finally told me why she insisted on all of this.

    "When we get to my father''s territory, these will be our roles."

    Both Cecilia and I were surprised by these words from her.

    After all, before we left, she seemed like she was worried about her family and now¡­it seemed like she was plotting against her family. It was as if the side of her that she showed before was all fake.

    Rose could see the way that I was looking at her, so she said, "It''s just that I''ve calmed down and gathered myself. I was worried earlier, but you assured me that it''ll all be fine, so I''ll believe that."

    I was surprised again at how much she trusted me, but I didn''t say anything as I just gave a simple nod in response.

    Rose continued by saying, "Besides, now that I''ve calmed down and thought about it, I know that there''s one thing that I want to do. Just in case this is all a trick, I want to make sure that I don''t have any ns at all. I don''t want to regret anything, so I''ll make sure that I can make things go the way that I want."

    Seeing the way that she said this and the look in her eyes, both Cecilia and I were a bit afraid of her.

    But it wasn''t as if we couldn''t understand what she was feeling.

    So the two of us fell silent and listened to what Rose had to say.

    "The division of roles will be¡­"

    The expression on our faces slowly changed as we listened to her n.

    First it was surprise, then it was shock, and finally we had serious looks on our faces.

    I just looked at Rose with this serious look for a while before asking, "Are you sure about this? They are your parents after all."

    Rose just looked at me with a calm look like she wasn''t bothered by this before saying, "If they really do this, then I won''t take this lying down."

    Seeing her like this, I just shook my head with a faint smile and said, "Alright, I''ll support you no matter what you do."

    There was a bright smile that appeared on her face as she came forward to hug me and put her head in my chest. As sheid there in my chest, I heard a soft voice say, "Thank you."

    I was sure that this all must be hard for her, so the only thing that I could do now was give her my support.

    Cecilia also came forward and said, "I''ll support you too."

    The way that she said this seemed a bit too enthusiastic, but this couldn''t be med on her.

    After all, there were her feelings for Rose along with her feelings for me.

    This was a matter that involved both of us, so it was something that she was doubly entangled with. This gave her double the reason to do her best in supporting both of us.

    The three of us just stayed like that for a while as we enjoyed the scenery from way up in the air. Thend beneath us seemed so far away, but it was a beautiful scene when staring at it from above like this.

    It really made the world seem small, especially when the people down there looked as small as ants.

    ¡­

    Three dayster, we arrived in the territory of Rose''s father.

    This wasn''t because it was far away, but because¡­she wanted to catch him off guard.

    She didn''t send a letter as soon as we left our town and since we left on the wyverns, she was certain that the person that her father sent to watch the town wouldn''t know. At the same time, she had someone send a letter by horse when we came close to her father''s territory.

    So we had actually been waiting nearby for the letter to arrive.

    That way, we would be able to catch them off guard.

    When we arrived, there were people that came forward to point their weapons at us.

    They naturally didn''t expect us, so naturally they would point their weapons as the wyverns that suddenly appeared. However, it was very clear that they were very scared of our wyverns.

    These soldiers were nothing more than simple guards in the middle of the countryside that had never seen any real action. They couldn''tpare to the soldiers on the frontline that had seen all kinds of warfare.

    Not to mention, even those soldiers on the frontline would be scared when they saw wyverns arrive.

    So it wasn''t strange that they had this reaction when they saw us.

    Rose stepped forward on Joan''s back and said, "Who do you think you''re pointing your weapons at? I am Duchess Rose, the count''s daughter! I was told that my father was ill and I even sent a letter stating that I would be visiting! Are you saying that I''m not wee?"

    Since they were soldiers that worked for the count family, they had naturally seen Rose''s portrait before and recognized her.

    When they saw her, none of the soldiers knew what to do.

 Chapter 794 Arriving before the message

    Chapter 794 Arriving before the message

    ??The soldiers just looked at each other in a daze in response to Rose''s usation.

    It was a good thing that the captain of this group was able to react in the end.

    He quickly came forward and gave a bow before saying, "Mydy, we''ve never heard of any of this before. If you would just give us a bit of time, we''ll go and confirm this with our superiors, as well as bring your family over to see you."

    Then after a pause, he boldly said, "If you woulde with us, we could also bring you to see your family right now."

    Rose gave a snort before saying, "Is this how my family will treat me? Perhaps I should just leave then?"

    The captain trembled when he heard this before quickly shaking his head and saying, "Mydy, we would never do something like that. It''s just that..."

    Before the captain could finish, there was a group of horses that rushed over.

    When they came over, the one that was in the lead came right up to Joan and the person riding on it jumped off before saying, "Sister, what are you doing here?"

    Rose narrowed her eyes to look at this handsome red haired young man who stood there. She just stared at him in silence for a bit before finally saying, "Henry, didn''t you and mother send me a message saying that father was ill? Because of that, I dropped everything and rushed back to see father."

    The one she called Henry was surprised to hear this before saying, "Sister, if you wereing back, you could have sent a letter, right? If you''re going toe like this, we at least need to know to stabilize our hearts."

    Rose gave a snort before saying, "I did send a message. Are you saying that you didn''t get it yet?"

    As if on cue, there was someone else on horseback that suddenly came over.

    When they saw the wyverns, they only seemed a bit surprised as if it was their first time seeing wyverns. However, they didn''t seem like they were surprised that there were wyverns here.

    After riding over, that person jumped off their horse and stood in front of Henry, giving him a bow before saying, "Young lord, there''s an urgent message for you."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on Henry''s face as he took it before saying, "Why didn''t you bring it sooner?"

    The person that brought it over said with a bitter look, "My lord, it just arrived..."

    Henry just gave it a simple look before throwing it back to the messenger.

    With a bitter smile on his face, he turned to look back up at Rose before saying, "Sister, you can''t just arrive before sending a message like this."

    Rose gave a shrug before saying, "I sent the message and you''re just receiving it, is that my fault?"

    Henry slightly knitted his brows before asking the messenger, "Why did it take so long to arrive?"

    The messenger still had the same bitter look as he said, "The messenger came by horse, so it just arrived at our town not long ago."

    Henry realized what the messenger meant by this, so he turned back to look at Rose with the same bitter smile before saying, "Sister, you''re sending someone on horseback to send a message¡­Of course they won''t make it before the wyvern."

    Rose gave a shrug before saying, "You wanted me to send a wyvern?"

    Henry trembled when he heard this, but he quickly shook his head and changed the topic by saying, "Sister, why are you in such a rush anyway?"

    Rose narrowed her eyes to look at Henry before saying, "Weren''t you and mother the ones that wanted me toe back quickly? Weren''t you the ones that said that father was ill?"

    Henry was caught off guard when he heard this as if he didn''t expect her to say this, but then he said, "Right, father is¡­well, he was ill. It''s just that he''s better now."

    Rose narrowed her eyes even more to look at Henry before saying, "Since that''s the case, then there''s no need for me to stay any longer."

    Henry was once again caught off guard when he heard this before he quickly stepped forward and said, "Sister, since you''re here, why note and see mother and father? It''s been so long since you''ve visited, I''m sure that they would love to see you."

    After that, he turned to look at me and said, "I''m assuming that you must be Duke Zwein. We would love to have you visit as well. This is our first time meeting, but you can be sure that we support you and your marriage to my sister."

    The way that he said this seemed much more friendly than how he talked to Rose.

    It was clear that he was much more interested in me than he was in Rose, which meant that our suspicions had been confirmed. They were doing all this just to get me toe to their territory.

    As for what their goal was¡­

    I didn''t get to answer as Rose suddenly said, "So is that the only reason that you want to invite us? In that case, there''s no reason for us to stay." She turned around and said to me, "We''re leaving."

    Henry revealed a shocked look when he heard this since he never expected Rose to react like this.

    Then there was a look of panic that appeared on his face as he didn''t know what to say next. It wasn''t as if he could use force to make them stay since the other side had wyverns.

    Even if all his men tried, they wouldn''t be able to do a thing.

    But we didn''t leave in the end as I grabbed Rose by the shoulder and said, "Wait, let''s not be hasty. Your brother is inviting us to meet your parents, I think that we should at least go."

 Chapter 795 For the wyverns

    Chapter 795 For the wyverns

    ??Henry and the rest of his men were shocked to hear this.

    After all, they never thought that I would suddenly speak up for them.

    In the first ce, we weren''t even rted other than me being married to Rose.

    His own biological sister was treating him that way and here I was speaking up for him.

    It really was a strange feeling seeing this¡­

    But Henry remained silent as he waited to see what would happen next.

    Rose narrowed her eyes to look at me and the two of us just looked at each other for a bit before she finally lowered her head to say, "Alright, we''ll listen to you."

    Henry was even more shocked when he saw this.

    After all, he knew what kind of personality his sister had, so he knew how she would have normally responded. It definitely wouldn''t have been how she responded now¡­

    However, he quickly gathered himself and said, "Then shall we head to the city?"

    There were many things that he didn''t understand, but there was one thing that he did understand. Instead of dwelling too deeply on one thing, it was better to just go along with it and slowly figure out what was happening.

    Not to mention, this was a situation where he had some form of control.

    After all, they were the hosts here and they were the ones that it seemed that Duke Zwein wanted to meet. So they should be able to sway him to a certain extent as long as they didn''t go overboard.

    Rose narrowed her eyes to look at Henry again, but she calmed down when I patted her on the shoulder.

    After seeing the gaze from me, she lowered her head and moved behind me as if she waspletely submissive.

    Henry had a visible shocked look on his face when he saw this, but he quickly calmed himself down and led the way for them.

    As they led the way, as we flew on the back of Joan, Rose and I exchanged a look.

    This was a look that made it clear that all of this was nned.

    From the very beginning, these were the roles that Rose hadid out for us.

    She wanted me to be the one that seemed like I was in charge so they would focus their attention on me.

    As for why she wanted that¡­

    It was because she knew that her father and brother were men who didn''t think much of women. She had seen it growing up in that house, they were people that didn''t think that women were capable even though this was a world where gender equality was quite good since women were able to take any jobs they wanted.

    It was just that these two were rare misogynists, so they looked down on women in the first ce.

    That was how Rose had been raised, so it was a wonder how she had turned out the way that she did.

    Though if one thought about it¡­the more that one was taught one way, the more that they would want to do things another way. Perhaps that did exin why Rose turned out the way that she did.

    When we arrived in the town, Henry awkwardly asked us to keep our wyverns outside of the gates.

    After all, this was one of those towns that hadn''t had to build facilities for wyverns yet.

    They were far away from the frontlines and this was a rtively safe area, so the wyverns had nevere here before.

    But it was clear by the materials that they were stockpiling that they were prepared to build these facilities at any time.

    This actually made things easier for me since now I knew exactly what they wanted from me.

    If it wasn''t the wyverns, why else could it be?

    In that case, I knew what cards I held and how to y them.

    It would be easy to deal with them.

    I could see that Rose had the same look in her eyes as me when she saw these materials piled on the side.

    After leaving the wyverns, the only ones that came with us were Shaka and Cecilia.

    Even though this was a personal matter, I had Shakae since he was the strongest person that I knew that could act as my guard. If things went wrong, I needed a one man army like him.

    As for Cecilia¡­

    "Isn''t that Cecilia?" Henry suddenly asked after Cecilia dismounted her wyvern and opened up her helmet.

    Because she had been in full armour and was riding on the wyvern before, Henry hadn''t actually recognized her. However, the moment that he saw her, he immediately went to greet her.

    The way that he greeted her was even more enthusiastic than when he greeted me or Rose.

    The look in his eyes also made it clear that he had other intentions.

    So before she could answer, I said, "Cecilia is our guard, which is why she came with us."

    Henry was surprised that I answered for her before saying, "Oh, I never thought that you would still be with Rose after all this time. It seems like the two of you really are close."

    Once again, I answered for her by saying, "It''s not that they''re just close, she''s serving as the captain of our knights right now. So it''s only normal that she''s with us as we travel."

    Henry gave a nod before saying, "Still, it''s good to see you¡­"

    Before he could finish, I added, "But then again, it would be strange if I didn''t bring my wife back to see her hometown."

    This time, there was a much stronger reaction from Henry as he looked at us in shock. After a long moment of silence, he asked, "What did you just say?"

    I looked at him with a smile as I said, "I said that it would be strange if I didn''t bring my wife back to her hometown."

    "Your wife? You mean my sister?" Henry asked in a slow voice.

    I just calmly said, "Yes, your sister is my wife, but I have more than one wife. Cecilia is my second wife, along with the head of our knights."

    Henry looked even more shocked when he heard this before turning to look at Cecilia.

    Cecilia didn''t even care about how he looked at her as she made her way over to where Rose and I were. She just stood beside me, as if she was using this to prove what I said.

    Henry''s face twisted when he saw this.

    There was a clear look of anger and hatred, as well as a look of betrayal that appeared on his face. It was clear that there were other feelings that he had for Cecilia, but that wasn''t strange with how beautiful she was.

    It was just that she was my wife now, so¡­I wouldn''t let anyone do anything to her.

    In a colder voice, I asked, "Brother inw, is there some kind of problem?"

    Henry slowly came back to his senses when he heard this and that look disappeared from his face, but there was still a trace of anger and hatred in his eyes as he looked at me.

    But he said, "No, no, of course not." At that, he revealed a smile and said, "I was just surprised to see an old childhood friend."

    Gesturing forward, he said, "Shall we? Our parents are waiting for you."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before giving a nod.

    But in my mind¡­I already thought about how I would take care of him in the future.

    Nobody wouldy a finger on any of my wives.

 Chapter 796 Count Amboise

    Chapter 796 Count Amboise

    ??The manor that they lived in was like the manor of the other nobles that I had met.

    It was clear that they cared very much about their appearance with the size of their manor.

    Though walking through their town, it didn''t seem like their management of their people was that bad. It seemed that there was a bnce between caring about their people and putting on appearances.

    So they weren''t the worst nobles that I had met and they weren''t the best.

    They were right in the middle, they were just considered normal.

    When we arrived at the manor, there was a beautiful woman that came forward to greet us.

    This beautiful blonde haired woman looked just like Rose even if she had blonde hair and even though she seemed a bit older, she seemed more like a sister rather than a mother.

    Right, a mother.

    That was because this was Rose''s mother, Lily.

    Both the mother and daughter seemed to be named after flowers, was it some kind of tradition or was it something else?

    Though that really wasn''t something that I should be thinking of.

    When Rose''s mother came down, the first thing that she did was take Rose in her arms and give her a big hug.

    Judging by the wide smile that was on Rose''s face, it seemed that she was happy to see her mother as well. It seemed that the two of them were quite close with how long they hugged and even though they eventually separated, she didn''t move that far away from Rose.

    That was until her eyes fell onto Cecilia.

    With a wide smile, she stepped forward to take Cecilia in her embrace as well.

    Based on Cecilia''s reaction, it seemed that she was quite close with Rose''s mother as well.

    Of course, that wasn''t strange since Cecilia was Rose''s childhood friend in the first ce.

    It wasn''t strange that her mother would know Cecilia and would be close to her.

    It was only after she greeted the two of them that she finally turned her gaze to me.

    When she looked at me, she changed into apletely different person.

    Gone was that free spirited appearance that she had before, now she looked like a properdy as she greeted me.

    "Duke Zwein." She said with a slight bow before continuing to say, "It''s an honour to meet you."

    I gave her a gentleman''s bow before saying, "Madame, it should be my honour. I want to apologize for noting sooner. We should havee after the marriage to greet you and father inw."

    Lily was surprised to hear this, but she then gave a satisfied nod before saying, "I''m sure that you were busy during this time. I have heard many tales of your aplishments, so I''m sure that it must have been hard for you to find the time toe."

    I just said with a smile, "Mother inw, there''s no need to act like this. You can speak to me without all this etiquette."

    "Is that so?" Lily asked before suddenly changing back to the appearance that she had before. With a wide smile, she said, "I really don''t like being like that anyway, so it''s better if we can talk informally."

    My lips twitched when I saw this since I never thought that she would change back into a different person so easily¡­

    But I didn''t let this emotion show on my face since she was still my mother inw and I didn''t want to leave a bad impression on her.

    After watching us for a bit, Rose suddenly said in a worried look, "Mother, what about father? Is he alright?"

    Lily was surprised to hear this before revealing an awkward look.

    Rose didn''t say anything as she just kept looking at her with the same worried look, so Lily had no choice but to say, "Your father is alright, it''s just that¡­"

    Rose kept pushing by asking, "Just what?"

    Lily gave a cough to hide her awkwardness even though it was hard to hide it on that face before saying, "Your father was ill a while ago, but he just recovered. There''s nothing for you to worry about."

    Rose narrowed her eyes after hearing this before saying, "Mother, you were the one that sent me those letters about father in the first ce. Are you really saying that there''s nothing to worry about now?"

    Lily trembled when she saw her daughter staring at her like this before eventually saying with a bitter smile, "Come upstairs and talk to him then. Your father is working in his study."

    Rose gave a nod before following her up.

    Behind them came me, Henry, Cecilia, and Shaka.

    There was a look that Henry shot Shaka as if he wanted him to stay, but Shaka''s presence was more than enough to make him back down. At the same time, I didn''t say anything about Shaka being here, so he couldn''t say anything.

    When we came up to the study, we found a stern looking red haired man sitting there at the desk.

    His desk was covered in papers and he seemed to be lost in thought as he stared at them.

    When he heard the sound of the door opening, he said, "What is it?"

    Lily just said with a faint smile, "It''s your daughter."

    The red haired man was surprised to hear this before looking up to see us standing there at the door.

    He looked at me and Rose for a bit before giving a nod and saying, "Sit for a bit, let me finish this."

    I didn''t need anyone to introduce me to know that this person was Count Louis Amboise, Rose''s father.

    The way that he worked was just like the way that she worked, he wouldn''t stop until he was done with what he was doing.

    After a few minutes, he finally put away the pieces of paper in front of him and looked up at Rose to ask, "What is it?"

 Chapter 797 Family tension

    <h4>Chapter 797 Family tension</h4>

    Rose was surprised to hear this at first before saying with a bitter look, "I think I should be the one that''s asking you this. You''re the one that summoned me back by saying that you''re sick."

    Count Amboise narrowed his eyes for a bit as if he had to think about this before turning to look at Henry.

    Henry turned away when he saw Count Amboise looking at him like this.

    Count Amboise remained silent as he kept staring at Henry before turning back to say, "Right, your father was ill, so he wanted you toe back. Is there something wrong with that?"

    Rose was surprised by how shameless he was before saying, "But you''re not ill."

    "I was ill and now I''m better." Count Amboise said in a calm voice, as if he wasn''t shaken by her usation at all.

    Rose was even more surprised by how shameless he was.

    The sayings really were true¡­the older a pepper is, the hotter it bes.

    It was clear that Count Amboise had a lot of experience with matters like this, which was why he wasn''t fazed at all by Rose''s words.

    But the clues that I got from this made it very clear who the real culprit behind all of this was.

    I could tell that there was someone who had acted behind the count''s back to orchestrate all of this, that was why it seemed like the count didn''t know anything about this.

    And that person was in the room with us.

    But as a father, it didn''t seem like Count Amboise was nning on exposing that person and was even nning on covering for them.

    Rose just looked at Count Amboise for a bit before saying, "Alright, since you''re better, there''s no reason for us to stay any longer. We''re leaving then."

    This time it was Count Amboise''s turn to be surprised, but the way that he showed it was a bit strange.

    Instead of showing actual surprise, he just slightly knitted his brows.

    But it was different from Henry and Lily who were not as good at hiding their true feelings.

    Lily was the one that came forward to say, "Sweetie, what are you saying? You''ve finallye back after all this time and you''re saying that you''re leaving already? How could you do that?"

    Rose just had a calm and expressionless look on her face as her mother said this.

    Eventually Henry came forward as well and said, "Sister, you shouldn''t do this to mother and father. It''s been so long since they''ve seen you and you''re just leaving like this? Why not just stay a bit longer?"

    Rose turned to look at Henry to say, "If they wanted to see me, why couldn''t theye and see me? Why must Ie and see them?"

    Henry was caught off guard when he heard this.

    He opened and closed his mouth a few times before closing it again as he didn''t know what to say.

    Well, there was something that he wanted to say, but he didn''t say it in the end when he saw how Rose looked at him. It was clear that if he were to say what he wanted to say, it wouldn''t end well for him.

    So the only thing that he could do was turn to me as if he was looking for help.

    But I justpletely ignored him.

    This was something that Rose was doing, so I would support her in the end even if it meant antagonizing her family.

    So the only thing that Henry could do in the end was awkwardly turn away.

    Rose didn''t care about him as she looked at her father and mother.

    Both of whom had remained silent during all of this.

    In the end though, Lily said, "Sweetie, we''re a family. You shouldn''t be acting this way."

    Rose just said with a snort, "We''re a family? Then why did you never visit after pawning me off to some random noble?"

    Lily''s eyes trembled when she heard this before awkwardly turning away.

    Even though the count didn''t say anything, it was clear by the slight furrowing of his brows that he also had a slight reaction to this.

    Henry came forward and said, "Sister, you can''t talk to mother and father like this."

    This time, he had actual justification which was what gave him the confidence to speak.

    It was just too bad for him that Rose didn''t give him any face at all.

    "And who do you think you are to talk to me like that? I have to remind you that I am a duchess, the wife of a duke. You are nothing more than the son of a count, one that hasn''t even inherited a title yet. Do you really think that you can talk to me like this?"

    If she went even further, then she might have pped him in the face.

    But he was still her brother, so it wasn''t as if she could just p him right in the face like that.

    That didn''t mean that it didn''t feel like getting pped in the face for Henry.

    The words that Rose said were like ps that made his cheeks sting.

    It was even so powerful that he wasn''t able to lift his head to look at her.

    The only thing that he could do was shoot looks at me like he wanted me to help, but this time, he was surprised to see the stern look that I had. The way that I looked at him made him feel pressured as well¡­

    Since my wife was bringing out her status as the duchess, I naturally had to support her as the duke.

    If they were going to disrespect her, then I would side with her no matter what.

    Both Rose''s mother and father didn''t know what to say in this situation since she had brought out her title.

    After all, both of them were technically lower ranked than her and couldn''t say anything if she was to bring out her title.

    Even if they were her parents, it couldn''t be done.

    There was this tense atmosphere that filled the air.

 Chapter 798 Stay one night

    Chapter 798 Stay one night

    ??In the end, it was up to me to diffuse the situation since there was no one else that was qualified.

    At the same time, I could see the subtle looks that Rose was giving me.

    I knew that she also wanted me to do this.

    After all, the n was to stay in the first ce and take care of her family.

    If we were to leave just like this, there was no telling what they would have done in the future. Instead, it was better to stay here and manipte them into doing what we wanted them to do.

    It was better to subtly control the family rather than to forcefully take overter.

    So with a cough, I put a hand on Rose''s shoulder and said, "Now, now, there''s no need to act so fierce. We came here to check on your family and there''s no telling what could happen. Your father is most likely weak from his illness, so it''s possible that he might rpse because of this. As such, we should stay and make sure that he''s alright, right?"

    Rose just looked at me for a bit before slowly giving a nod.

    When they heard this, the looks on the faces of the others looked a bit better.

    However, before they could say anything else...

    "Though they have been a bit rude, so it doesn''t seem like there''s a need to stay that long." I suddenly raised a finger and said, "One day, we''ll just stay one night and see how they act. If they can change their ways, then we''ll stay longer. If they can''t, then there''s no need for us to stay any longer."

    Rose gave a much stronger nod this time before turning to look at her family.

    The way that she looked at them made them feel pressured again, which caused them to remain silent.

    Though it wasn''t as bad for her mother and father, it seemed like she was putting quite a bit of pressure on her brother.

    In the end, it was Lily who said, "Sweetie, let''s go and have some tea. There''s a lot that I want to talk to you about."

    Then turning to me, she said, "As for the men, I''m sure that your father will want to talk to your husband. Since he''s your father, he''ll want to have a proper talk with your husband."

    Rose slightly knitted her brows when she heard this, but I just gave her a nod to show that it was fine.

    It was only then that she left with Cecilia and her mother.

    Shaka on the other hand stood there behind me the entire time without moving.

    Once it was just the four of us left in the room, I turned to look at Henry and said, "You can leave now. There''s nothing for you here."

    Henry waspletely taken aback when he heard this.

    There was a confused and surprised look on his face as he had no idea what was happening, but there was also a trace of worry in his eyes. It was as if he could tell that there was something wrong...

    But then I said with a smile, "I want to have a private talk with my father inw. I hope that you can understand that."

    Henry''s expression slowly rxed before he said with a smile, "Of course, brother inw. There are some things that I want to talk to you about as well, but I''ll wait until you''re done with father."

    With that Henry and Shaka also left the room.

    Shaka raised a brow to look at me when I asked him to leave, but he left still when I gave him a confident nod.

    Then it was only the count and I left in the room.

    There was an awkward silence that hung in the air as neither of us said a thing.

    Both of us just sat there with calm looks on our faces, but it was clear that one side was faking it while one side was actually calm. As for which side was which, it was quite easy to tell just based on the looks in our eyes.

    After a long time, I finally broke the silence by saying, "There''s really nothing for you."

    Count Amboise knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He didn''t say anything as he just looked at me with this look on his face, but I also didn''t say a thing as I looked back at him with a calm look on my face.

    It didn''t seem like he was about to say a single thing as he just sat there staring at me, so I said, "If you don''t discipline that one child, you might end up losing even more."

    This time, Count Amboise couldn''t remain silent.

    The looks in his eyes already made it clear how worried he was about this situation, so the only reason that he had remained silent this entire time was to gauge how bad the situation really was. He wanted to judge what I was thinking and see what I would do.

    The words that I just said were the final nail in the coffin.

    It was clear that I wasn''t someone that was just an emptymp, I was someone that knew exactly what was happening and I was nning on taking action ordingly.

    These words that I gave him were the first and only warning.

    So Count Amboise had no choice but to take it.

    After all, the difference in status and power was clear.

    With a sigh, Count Amboise said, "I''ve spoiled that child too much since he was young, it''s my fault."

    I was surprised since I never thought that these would be his first words, but the look on his face told me that he was being sincere.

    It was as if he was letting out all of the feelings that were deep in his heart.

    But there was also something that I wanted to ask.

    "Why do you treat your children differently?"

 Chapter 799 Teach him a lesson

    Chapter 799 Teach him a lesson

    ??Count Amboise looked at me with aplicated look before saying, "It''s hard when one of your children is too capable."

    I was surprised to hear this since this certainly wasn''t what I had been expecting to hear.

    After all, isn''t it a good thing if one''s child was capable?

    Count Amboise then said with a sigh, "Since one of them was too capable, I couldn''t help spoiling the other to feel normal. I know that this isn''t the right thing to do, but I just couldn''t help myself¡­"

    My brows slightly knitted when I heard this as I was confused what he meant by this.

    Especially the part that he said about feeling normal.

    What did he mean by that?

    But it didn''t seem like he was going to say anything, so I asked, "What do you mean by this? They are still your children, is there anything wrong with that?"

    The only thing that I could think of was that he might think that Rose wasn''t his child. If she was too capable, then perhaps he might think that she was the spawn of someone else because of how bad the brother was.

    It turned out that this wasn''t the case.

    Count Amboise shook his head, but he still didn''t say anything.

    It was almost as if there was something that he was hesitating to say.

    In the end, he still looked at me and said, "There''s nothing wrong with her, I know that she''s my child. It''s just that from time to time, I can tell that there''s something different about her. There''s something that''s hidden deep inside of her and it''s that part of her that scares me."

    I was surprised to hear this, but it wasn''t as if I couldn''t understand what he meant by this.

    After all, I had seen that part of Rose before.

    I thought that it was only because of the curse that her husband put on her that she acted that way, but it might not be the case at all.

    It might be that there was this part of her all along and that curse just amplified it to the point where it came out. That might also be the reason why she was acting the way that she was now.

    After amplifying it, that part of her had be a natural part of her that came out from time to time.

    Seeing the way that my eyes changed, it seemed like Count Amboise felt like he had met someone that could understand what he was thinking. It really seemed like he saw me as some kind ofrade in understanding what was wrong with his daughter.

    But I didn''t want to give him that impression.

    I didn''t want him to think that I thought that there was something wrong with Rose.

    After all, in my mind, there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

    Even if she did act a bit strange from time to time, this was just who she was.

    I was more disappointed in Count Amboise as a parent because of this.

    After all, a parent should be someone that cares about their child regardless of how they were. It was the job of the parent to guide them on their path and choosing to run away from that was letting their child down.

    So there was no way that Count Amboise could count as a parent in my mind.

    In the end, I pped my hand down on the table and said in a cold voice, "You were too afraid to try to be a good parent, you have no one to me but yourself."

    Count Amboise was taken aback when he heard this, but he slowly gave a nod and looked down with an embarrassed look on his face.

    There was nothing that he could say to refute this.

    In fact, he even wanted someone to say this to him since he knew in his heart that this was the case.

    I didn''t say a thing as I just watched him like this, but eventually I said with a sigh, "Putting that matter aside, there''s something that I want to say."

    Count Amboise was pulled out of his daze and looked up at me with a surprised and confused look.

    Seeing him look at me like this, I said, "I want to teach him a lesson."

    Count Amboise was even more surprised, but he was no longer confused.

    It wasn''t hard for him to understand what I meant by this, but it was a bit hard for him to ept this since this was the child that he had pampered all this time. Even if he had been called out on it, it wasn''t as if it was that easy for him to change.

    This was something that had been embedded in him over a long period of time, so it wasn''t as if he could change as he wanted.

    Count Amboise just looked at me with aplicated look, but I looked back at him with a stern look.

    In a sense, this was my way of judging to see if he was someone that was worthy of continuing to associate with.

    If he failed, I might even consider getting rid of him just for Rose''s sake.

    I know that it would make her sad if her parents were to disappear, but¡­in the long run, it would be for the better. After all, the longer that this kind of parent remained, the more pain that it would cause her.

    So even if it meant bing a martyr, I was willing to do this for her.

    Count Amboise''s expression changed several times, but theplicated look on his face remained constant.

    But in the end, he said with a sigh, "I hope that you will show mercy."

    I gave a nod, but there was a part of me that didn''t really want to listen to this.

    After all, that idiot son of his had crossed a line.

    He looked at another man''s wife with eyes that he shouldn''t have.

 Chapter 800 Do what you need to do

    Chapter 800 Do what you need to do

    ??Dinner was a somber affair since the matters between Rose and her parents hadn''t been cleared up.

    Lily tried her best to keep the mood light, but it was clear that no one was in the mood for it.

    So after dinner, we all went to our own rooms.

    They had tried to put Cecilia in a different room, no doubt this was because of Henry, but she just came to our room without a care. It was as if she was already familiar with this manor, but that wasn''t strange since she was Rose''s childhood friend in the first ce.

    It turned out that the room that we had been given was Rose''s room in the first ce.

    This was where she lived until she was married off the baron.

    Now that she was back, she couldn''t help feeling a bit nostalgic seeing her old room. However, it wasn''t just nostalgia that she felt...

    As she looked around the room, I could see that there was a trace of sadness that was also in her eyes. It was as if she was remembering things that she didn''t want to remember.

    Seeing this, I took another point away from Count Amboise.

    Though in my books, it wasn''t as if he was anywhere near being positive yet. So it didn''t really matter if I took away another point from his total.

    In a sense, that was his super power.

    He was so far down that it was hard for him to fall any further...

    After taking some time to look around her room, Rose took a deep breath and turned to look at me with a calm look as she said, "Well? What''s it going to be?"

    I was surprised to see herpose herself this quickly, but I alsoposed myself and said, "I want to punish him."

    Rose had a surprised look before asking, "You''re not going to say that there''s no need for that since they''re family?"

    A wry smile appeared on my face as I didn''t expect her to ask this.

    I thought that Rose would be the one that would be hesitant since she had me step in earlier, but it seemed that this wasn''t the case. Perhaps it might be different if it was her father or mother, but it seemed like there was no love lost with this brother of hers.

    So I just calmly said, "Did you see the way that he looked at Cecilia?"

    Rose wasn''t surprised when she heard this, instead she just gave a sigh and said, "I know, I know, he''s been like that forever. He''s a spoiled child that won''t listen to what I say, so it might be good for him to learn a lesson."

    The look that appeared in her eyes was a bit scary and I could sympathize with Henry for a bit since I had seen sisters bullying their brothers before. But that sympathy really didn''tst long since in the first ce, he was just getting what he deserved.

    Instead of worrying about that, I turned to look at Cecilia and asked, "This is something that involves you, so I wanted to see how you felt about it."

    Cecilia just gave a simple nod as she said, "As long as you decide to do something, I will support you. Not to mention, you''re doing this on my behalf. You don''t have to worry about me, I never liked him in the first ce."

    I gave a nod before turning to look at Rose with aplicated look.

    There was something that I wanted to tell her, it was rted to what I had talked to her father about.

    Rose could see that there was something that I was agonizing over, so she said, "It''s alright, you can just tell me."

    The way that she looked at me seemed like she was ready to ept anything that I had to tell her. However, there was still a part of me that was afraid that this would leave a deep scar in her heart.

    In the end, I took a deep breath and told her everything that I talked about with her father.

    Rose''s expression didn''t change as she listened to me, but Cecilia''s expression did the more that she listened. It was almost as if she couldn''t believe what she was listening to.

    When I was done, Cecilia suddenly mmed her fist down on the table in front of us and said, "How could he feel that way about his own daughter?"

    But then she revealed a worried look as she looked at Rose.

    Rose had a calm look on her face the entire time, as if she wasn''t bothered by this.

    Though to say that she wasn''t bothered by this at all was a lie.

    After a long silence, Rose gave a deep sigh before saying, "It seems like there''s something I need to discuss with my father."

    Both Cecilia and I remained silent as we waited to see what else Rose had to say, but she quickly calmed her face and looked up at me to say, "But before that, you have to take care of my brother."

    I was surprised by how calm she was being and I was worried that she might be holding her feelings in.

    I was about to move forward to say something, but she raised her hand to stop me and said, "I know what you''re about to say and you don''t have to worry. I''ll support you in whatever you need to do, so you just do what you need to do. After this is over, I''ll have a proper talk with my father."

    There was a touched feeling that filled my heart and I wanted to say something, but I felt that it would just cheapen the sentiment if I did¡­

    So I just gave a nod and said, "Un."

    With that, I gave a snap and there was a dark figure that appeared in the room.

    It was Shadow Five.

 Chapter 801 How about a ride?

    Chapter 801 How about a ride?

    ??When morning came, we came down with smiles on our faces.

    It was as if the tension from yesterday didn''t exist at all.

    Lily and Henry were happy to see this, though there was a trace of something else in Henry''s eyes when he saw the three of use down together.

    It was something that seemed to be aimed at Cecilia...

    But he had learned his lesson from yesterday and learned how to hide it before we came over.

    Of course, I didn''t miss it since my attention had been on him the entire time.

    As for the count, he had a calm look on his face, but his brows were slightly knit.

    This was no different from how he normally acted, but there was a sparkle of something different in his eyes.

    When we sat down, I said, "How about we go and take a look at the wyverns today? I''m sure that all of you are interested in the wyverns that we''ve tamed."

    Henry was surprised when he heard this before his eyes lit up.

    This was something that he wanted to bring up, but he had no idea how to bring it up. But if this brother inw of his was to bring it up on his own, that was the best case scenario for him.

    Of course, this wasn''t his house.

    This was the count''s manor and as the count''s sessor, it wasn''t his ce to speak.

    So instead of answering, Henry looked at the count as if he was urging him to agree to this.

    The count looked a bit disappointed when he saw Henry acting like this.

    After all, anyone with a brain would have noticed that something was strange after the tension from yesterday. If this brother inw of his suddenly acted this way after the tension from then, he must be nning something.

    But it seemed like even his wife was going along with it.

    It seemed like she wanted to believe that everything was fine, that she forced herself to believe in it.

    So it was only the count who could see through everything.

    But it wasn''t as if he could say anything.

    First, there was no need to mention if his son and wife would even believe him.

    If he were to actually say anything, then there was no doubt that more drastic measures would be taken.

    In a sense, this was a form of mercy that was shown because they were family.

    As such, the count could only give a look to Rose as if he was asking her to show mercy.

    However, Rose had a calm and firm look on her face that made it clear that there were no negotiations.

    The count couldn''t help feeling a chill run down his spine when he saw this.

    This was the side of his daughter that he was afraid of, the part that he had been afraid of all this time¡­

    But there really was nothing that he could do in this situation when everyone was against him.

    So all that the count could do was give a nod of agreement.

    After getting his approval, there was no time wasted on the part of Henry as he started urging everyone to go to the wyverns as soon as possible. The way that he was acting, it was almost like he was some kind of child that was excited about something he was interested in.

    It was clear that this kind of person was spoiled since he was young, but this was something that the count had already admitted to.

    As we left the manor, the count moved closer to me and simply said, "Please show what mercy you can."

    He didn''t expect an answer in the way that he said this, almost as if he was already epting what was toe. However, the way that he said this made it clear that he was still favouring one person over the other.

    This was not something that I was happy to see, but I kept my tongue.

    Looking at the count, I said, "That will depend on him."

    The count slightly knitted his brows, but he eventually gave a nod.

    After all, he knew that this was already me being reasonable.

    If I wanted, I could have done all of this without even telling him anything.

    The fact that I told him meant that I was still trying to give him a chance to make up for everything that happened in the past and still build a rtionship between us. But the only way that this was going to happen was if he allowed us to do what we needed to do.

    If he were to stand in our way¡­there was no way that we would be able to work with each other.

    So the count could only ept what was about to happen.

    The wyverns were being held outside of the town since there was no ce for them to stay, so we had to leave the town to reach them. Of course, with the count leading the way, there was no trouble in leaving the town.

    They were happy to open the gates for us and let us out.

    When we arrived at where the wyverns were, the members of our group who had stayed with the wyverns came forward to greet us¡­or rather they came to greet me.

    It didn''t seem like they cared about the count or his family at all.

    The wyverns also came forward to greet us since we had been separated for a night.

    While everyone was with their wyverns, I was secretly observing Henry.

    I could see the look on his face, the look that made it clear that he wanted to get to know the wyverns better.

    The reason that he wanted the wyverns perhaps wasn''t just because he wanted the power of the wyverns, but also¡­

    So I suddenly asked him, "Do you want to ride the wyverns? How about we give you a ride then?"

 Chapter 802 What would happen if you drop?

    Chapter 802 What would happen if you drop?

    ??Henry was surprised to hear this before his eyes lit up even more as he said, "Brother inw, can I really?"

    This time, Lily was also worried.

    After all, seeing the wyverns and riding the wyverns werepletely different.

    If something were to happen, it would be toote to do anything when the time came.

    So she wanted to say something to stop Henry before he could say anything else.

    It was just too bad that the count grabbed her by the shoulder. When Lily looked back at the count, she found that he was shaking his head at her, as if he was telling her not to interfere.

    There was an unhappy look on her face when she saw this, but she didn''t say anything in the end.

    If it was anyone else, she might have said something.

    But since it was her husband who stopped her, she had no choice but to listen...

    Henry didn''t notice any of this as his eyes had been on the wyverns the entire time. The way that he looked at it was like he could already see himself on the back of it, flying over thends.

    It was as if he could see himself as a hero of the people.

    That was just the kind of self obsessed behaviour that he was engaged in.

    One could say as expected of a spoiled child.

    But the point was to get him excited about this and then take him up into the sky like this. After all, the real n began once he was in the sky.

    Since he was so excited about going up, it was easy to talk Henry into going up on one of the wyverns.

    Naturally I wouldn''t be the one that took him up, it was one of the other knights who would take him.

    For a moment, it seemed like he wanted to get on Cecilia''s wyvern. There was no doubt that there were other intentions in his mind when he wanted to get on her wyvern.

    However, it seemed that he was able to hold himself back in the end.

    Though the moment that we actually got on the back of a wyvern, the excited look started to fade from his face and there was a trace of fear that came through.

    It seemed like he was second guessing this decision and wanted to back out.

    Of course, I wouldn''t allow him to do something like that after bringing him all the way here. So I gave a signal to the knight who was on the same wyvern.

    Before Henry could say a thing, the knight suddenly tapped the back of the wyvern. The moment that the wyvern felt the knight tapping its back, it reared back and suddenly flew up into the sky.

    Henry waspletely taken aback by this and even fell backwards. He didn''t grab anything, so he was about to fall off the wyvern as it took off.

    That was if not for the knight suddenly grabbing him by the foot. As the knight grabbed him, he also shook his head with a sigh.

    Just like this, Henry was left dangling in the air, too scared to even scream. He felt the wind rushing past him which knocked him out in the end, but the strong wind also woke him up.

    It was this feeling of being knocked out and woken up that made Henry feel depressed.

    After all, the way that he was being dragged by the knight was almost as if he was a piece of luggage instead of a person.

    It was like he was just being treated like some kind of item.

    But eventually, the wave of wind that was hitting him in the face stopped as they slowed down.

    The wyvern reached a peak in the air and just floated there in the air, which allowed Henry to catch his breath. At the same time, it allowed him to take a proper look at the scenery around him.

    Seeing the beauty of thend below, that feeling of depression at being treated as an object went away as he focused on what was down below.

    After enjoying it for a bit, Henry said, "Can we fly around a bit more? I want to experience how it feels."

    The knight gave a nod before patting the wyvern on the back.

    When he did, the wyvern started to fly forward.

    Henry remembered to grab onto the back of the wyvern this time and he held on tight as he enjoyed the view.

    He was so excited that he didn''t notice that the wyvern seemed to be heading in a certain direction.

    It seemed to be moving away from the town.

    Down below, it wasn''t just the count who knitted his brows. Lily also knitted her brows the moment that she saw this, but the count stopped her from doing anything.

    After a while, we had left the area of the town below us.

    It seemed like there was only forest beneath us and nothing else. It didn''t seem like there was a trace of humanity at all with how far we had gone.

    When Henry saw this, he couldn''t help feeling strange about this.

    It was as if there was this sense of danger that filled him, as if there was something that was about to happen.

    So Henry couldn''t help slowlying back from his excitement as he said, "Brother inw, should we head back? I think that we''ve already gone far enough, we should head back before it gets toote."

    Joan had been flying beside the wyvern Henry was on the entire time, so I had heard everything that he said.

    However, I didn''t seem to respond as I just gave a nod and a thoughtful hum.

    After a long silence that made Henry even more worried, I said, "What do you think would happen if you were to drop from this height?"

    There was a chill that ran down Henry''s spine when he heard this.

 Chapter 803 Did you think that I wouldnâ€™t know?

    Chapter 803 Did you think that I wouldn¡¯t know?

    ??There was a strong tremble that came over Henry''s body before he suddenly said with a smile, "Brother inw, what are you saying?"

    The smile wasn''t a confident one, but rather a desperate one.

    It was like he knew that his situation was very bad, so he could only cling to the only straw that was avable to him.

    But I wasn''t that easy to fool.

    With a calm and cold look on my face, I said, "Did you think that I wouldn''t know what you did? Did you really take me for a fool?"

    Henry was shocked and confused when he heard this.

    The expression on his face made it clear that he had never expected to hear this.

    It was as if he thought that his ns had been perfect and there was no way that he would have been caught.

    There was a part of me that recognized him as an idiot when this look appeared on his face.

    After all, the things that he did...were just too obvious to call them hiding it well.

    Just a simple search was enough to uncover everything that he did...

    I really couldn''t understand how he managed to look so confident like he had done something great.

    But still, that was the kind of fool that I was dealing with.

    After a long silence, Henry kept ying the fool by saying, "Brother inw, I really don''t know what you''re talking about. I think that there must be some kind of misunderstanding. So how about we just go back to the ground and talk this through?"

    I shook my head and said with a sigh, "You made two mistakes in the end."

    Henry was even more confused when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything as he looked at me with a cautious look.

    It was as if he was trying to figure out what I was going to do.

    I didn''t mind this as I just calmly said, "Your first mistake was thinking that you could take advantage of me. Instead of just weing me like you should have, you wanted to be greedy and wanted to get all that you could from me. You thought of me as an easy mark, which was why you did all of this."

    Henry once again trembled when he heard this, but at the very least, he could pretend to deny this. At the very least, he did what a viin would do and pretend that he didn''t know anything about this.

    It was just that I didn''t bother listening to him as I continued to the second point.

    "The second mistake is that you set your eyes on someone else''s wife."

    Henry immediately stopped talking the moment that he heard this.

    His eyes opened wide in shock when he heard this as he looked at me.

    Then he slowly looked at Cecilia who was on the side with a hesitant look. Only there was a trace of hopefulness that was in his eyes as he looked at her.

    After hesitating for a bit, he finally said, "You''re the one who''s forcing her to stay by your side. You''re just a tyrant who doesn''t care about her at all!"

    It seemed that he was giving up trying to act like he didn''t know anything.

    Instead, he looked like he wanted to confront me with the way that he said this.

    "We''re the ones that are childhood friends, the one that should have been destined for each other. If it wasn''t for¡­"

    His voice trailed off a bit, but it was clear that he was referring to how Cecilia had gone off with Rose when she had been married off to the baron.

    Then he said with a firm look, "I would have gone for her and taken her as my bride when the time came, but now you''ve stolen her from me!"

    Then turning to Cecilia, he said, "I''m the one that truly loves you, the only one that can take care of you! You shoulde back with me!"

    Cecilia just shook her head with a sigh when she heard this, but it seemed like she was too exasperated with him to actually correct him.

    In fact, Cecilia had already told me that she was very bothered by all the things that Henry did when they were younger.

    It was one of the reasons why she had even followed Rose in the first ce.

    Seeing this, I knitted my brows.

    This idiot waspletely ignoring me and confessing to my wife, where did that put me?

    There was no respect given to me at all.

    I was being treated like I didn''t even exist!

    How could I let him do something like that?

    So I waved my hand at Cecilia, who looked at me with a confused look. Still, she came over to Joan and got on Joan''s back toe to my side.

    When she came over, I looked at Henry and grabbed Cecilia by the waist to pull her in.

    Cecilia was surprised by this action, but she didn''t resist at all as she let me do what I wanted.

    At the same time, there was this blush that came over her face.

    Henry''s face immediately turned dark when he saw this before he roared, "What are you doing?!"

    I just calmly said, "She''s my wife, I can do whatever I want with her."

    Then before he could say anything, I grabbed Cecilia''s cheek and turned her face over to give her a deep kiss.

    Cecilia was caught off guard by this and she seemed even more embarrassed at being treated like this, but she didn''t resist as she let me do what I wanted.

    No, she didn''t just let me do what I wanted, she even got into it.

    By the end, it was as if she was the one that had engaged.

    By the end, Henry had a look on his face like a stake had been driven into his heart and hepletely lost control of himself.

    He tried to charge forward, but the knight that was with him on the wyvern suddenly hit him in the back of the head and knocked him out.

    Seeing this, I stopped kissing Cecilia and to her disappointment, I said to the rest of the knights, "We''re heading back."

    All of them nodded, though there were strange looks on their faces as they looked at me.

 Chapter 804 Stripped of rights

    Chapter 804 Stripped of rights

    ??When we returned we found that everyone was there waiting for us.

    It didn''t seem like they had even moved even though we had been gone for at least an hour.

    It seemed like they had been just waiting for us the entire time.

    When wended, the knight jumped off before throwing Henry to the ground like he was some kind of sack.

    Henry hadpletely lost consciousness, so there was no reaction at all that came from him. However, that didn''t mean that there was no reaction from the people who saw this.

    The count just knitted his brows while Lily ran forward while saying, "My little boy, what happened?"

    No one said a thing as the knights moved to secure the area.

    It was as if they wouldn''t let a single thing past them as they moved the wyverns into position.

    The count was surprised to see this, but that look of surprise quickly disappeared as he knew that whatever I had nned wasn''t over yet. Even though Henry had been knocked out, it seemed that this wasn''t over yet.

    Lily looked at the count as if she wanted him to do something about this, but the count just shook his head before turning to look at me. The way that he looked at me, it was as if he wanted to see how I would handle this situation.

    Lily also looked at me, but gone was the gentle look from before.

    This time, she was looking at me with hostility.

    This wasn''t strange since I had gone out alone with Henry and he came back unconscious.

    I was just a son inw while Henry was the son that she gave birth to.

    But I wasn''t bothered at all by this as I came down from Joan with Cecilia.

    I just walked over to Rose''s side before turning to the count to say, "I''ve given him a bit of punishment as I said."

    The count was surprised to hear me say this, but he didn''t say anything as he gave a nod. But the count soon knitted his brows again when he heard what I had to say next.

    "However, this isn''t the only punishment that I will be giving him."

    The count deeply knitted his brows as he looked at me in silence for a bit, but he eventually gave a nod and gave a sigh.

    One of the knights went over to where Lily was as she held Henry''s head in herp.

    He didn''t care at all about her protests as he grabbed Henry by the arm and lifted him up.

    Lily looked like there was more that she wanted to say, but the count had stepped forward to take her by the arm and pulled her over to the side. When she looked at him with a displeased look, he just shook his head with a stern look.

    When she saw the stern look that the count had, she had no choice but to fall silent.

    Though the way that she looked at me was still filled with hostility.

    The knight just waited until this was over before raising his hand to p Henry across the face.

    "Pa!"

    There was a crisp p sound that rang out before a scream of pain rang out.

    "What''s happening? Who pped me?"

    Those were Henry''s first words when he woke up. He looked around himself and fell silent just as quickly as he realized what the situation was.

    Then he turned to the count and said, "Father, save me!"

    The way that he said this was just like a spoiled child would say it, making it clear how he had been treated previously.

    The way that he said this seemed like this wasn''t his first time saying this.

    Lily also looked at the count as if she was expecting him to say something, but the count just gave a sigh and shook his head.

    After a long silence, he turned to me to ask, "What else do you have nned for him?"

    Both Henry and Lily looked at the count with a shocked look on their faces.

    Even I couldn''t help being a bit surprised by how forward the count was being.

    I thought that there was a part of him that would hesitate to punish this child that he pampered, but it seemed that he had already made up his mind. It seemed that the count didn''t have his title just because of inheritance, he was someone that could do what was necessary.

    In that case, there was no reason for me to keep them in suspense.

    I gave a nod to Shaka and he left the blockade.

    Five minutester, there was a group that was tied up who was brought back by Shaka and a cloaked figure.

    This cloaked figure was Shadow Five.

    As for who the ones that were tied up were¡­

    The moment that Henry saw these people, he couldn''t help revealing a shocked look.

    Lily was also surprised since she recognized these people, but she looked at Henry with a concerned look.

    That was because these people were the ones that often hung around her son.

    Once they were brought forward, I gave a nod to Shadow Five who brought out a piece of paper that she started reading from.

    What was written on this piece of paper was a list of crimes that these people hadmitted.

    There were small things such as bullying themoners and stealing from them, but there were also serious things such as embezzling tax money and r*pe.

    The people that hung out with Henry were not good people.

    Among the list of crimes was the crime of attempting to attack me to force me to hand over the wyverns to them. Henry was supposed to lure me to their hideout alone and they would hold me captive until I handed over their wyverns.

    The crimes against them were very clear and it was also clear that Henry was deeply involved in this matter.

    The count''s expression looked uglier and uglier until he finally said to Henry, "I''m stripping you of your rights of session."

 Chapter 805 These are your only options

    <h4>Chapter 805 These are your only options</h4>

    Henry looked like his world copsed the moment that he heard this.

    He looked at the count as if he was trying to figure out if he was being serious or not, but there was no mistaking it.

    The count meant every word that he said.

    As a spoiled child, the first thing that came to his mind was¡­

    "Father! You can''t do this to me! I''m your son, your one and only son! How can you believe an outsider over me?!" Henry started to cry in outrage and tried throwing a tantrum to get his way.

    The count''s expression turned even uglier when he heard this.

    He looked carefully at Shaka and Shadow Five before saying with a sigh, "Outsider? Do you not see the mark that they have? If you can''t even recognize this, it seems that I have raised you in vain."

    I was surprised since I didn''t expect the count to notice a detail like this.

    This was something that I had prepared just in case we needed it, but it seemed that the count was able to recognize it.

    This was the mark of Shadow Garden, the organization that still had sway over the nobles.

    This was an organization that was in charge of keeping the nobles in line by reporting directly to the king, so it was the organization that the nobles feared the most. It was just that most of them didn''t know who the members of this organization were.

    It seemed that the count had quite a bit of information that he was able to recognize this sign that I left.

    Henry didn''t stopining even after hearing what the count said.

    While he was screaming about all of this, he also looked around himself as if he was looking for anything that he could use to help him.

    Eventually, his eyes settled on one of the weapons that one of the guards was holding loosely.

    It was as if this guard had been too shocked by what was happening, that he couldn''t do his job properly.

    This was one of the guards that the count had with him.

    Seeing this, Henry decided to take a chance.

    He wanted to take the only chance that he seemed to have before it was toote.

    There wasn''t a single second where he considered the consequences that taking this chance would bring.

    He only thought of himself.

    So he broke free of Lily''s arms around him and charged at the guard that was holding his weapon in a loose grip.

    Not a single person expected this since they never thought that he would do something as dumb as this.

    He was able to make it to where the guard was and grab the sword from his hand before turning around to look at me. The way that he looked at me, it was clear that there was something that he wanted from me.

    Judging by the way that he looked at me and the way that he held this weapon, I didn''t think that he would be dumb enough¡­

    but it seemed like he wanted to take me hostage to escape this situation.

    I didn''t move at all even though I could see what Henry was nning to do.

    Henry''s expression twisted a bit when he saw this, as if he could see that he was being looked down on.

    This made him even more determined to charge at me with this weapon raised.

    The way that he handled the weapon made it clear that he had never fought with a weapon before, even if he had received formal training.

    So in the end¡­he wasn''t even able to reach me as Shaka and Shadow Five stepped forward.

    The two of them easily disarmed him and then pushed his face into the ground.

    Henry was just forced to stay there on the ground while Shaka and Shadow Five stood over him.

    He tried struggling, but there was no way that a spoiled child like him could break free of their grasps.

    So as heid there on the ground, the only thing that he could do was¡­

    "Mom, dad, save me!" He started crying and begging for help.

    Lily knitted her brows when she saw this and even though the count shook his head at her, she still said, "He''s still your brother inw, you should let him go and let''s talk this through."

    The way that she said this already made it clear that she was filled with hostility towards me, but I didn''t care at this point.

    Since I had prepared to do this, I wasn''t going to hold back.

    I looked at her with a calm look and said, "It''s this or he gets treated like a proper criminal. These crimes are not light, he will not escape the death sentence."

    The moment that death was mentioned, but Henry and Lily''s chins dropped and their faces turned pale.

    The count just put his hand on his head and shook it with a sigh before saying, "I''ve already said that I will strip him of his rights as the sessor, I think that this should be enough."

    I turned to look at him with narrowed eyes before saying, "Not only that, he will be exiled and sent to live on a small property while being watched. If he ever breaks his exile, he will be executed on the spot."

    The count knitted his brows when he heard this and looked like he wanted to say something, but I cut him off by speaking first.

    "Make no mistake, the crimes that he''smitted is more than enough to get him executed five times over. The fact that he''s not facing an execution on the spot is the fact that I''m protecting him."

    Then narrowing my eyes even more, I said, "Of course, it doesn''t matter to me which way this goes. You should know that at this point, this is his only option."

    The count gave a gulp when he heard this before slowly giving a nod.

 Chapter 806 The successor is my child

    Chapter 806 The sessor is my child

    ??Even though I had made it very clear for him, it didn''t seem like Henry was willing to ept it.

    He was still throwing a fuss about how he should get away with whatever he wanted since this was hisnd, but no one paid any attention to him.

    It had reached the point where even Lily realized that there was no other way.

    No matter how much she loved her son and wanted to protect him, she knew that the list of crimes that he hadmitted were very serious. These were things that went beyond what normal nobles might lose their titles for.

    Not to mention¡­just a few days ago, the capital had held the biggest trial in the kingdom.

    Many nobles had been executed because of their corruption and the country was now cracking down on corrupt nobles.

    The things that her son had done was more than enough for their entire family to be convicted of corruption.

    Not to mention, she had heard what her husband had said before.

    Her reasoning might have been biased, but it was still there.

    She realized that this situation might really be bad if they didn''t make a choice now¡­

    In the end, the count couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Shut your mouth now or I''ll shut it for you."

    The moment that Henry heard this, he had apletely shocked look on his face.

    That was because this was the first time that his father had ever talked to him like this.

    In his entire life, no matter what he did, his father had never raised his voice like this.

    So when he heard it for the first time, there was a chill that ran down his spine before an aggrieved feeling filled him. His face twisted like he was about to cry, just like a spoiled child being scolded for the first time.

    But he could hear how serious the count was, so he fell silent.

    I was certainly surprised to see this since I never thought that the count would lose his temper like this.

    I thought that he would try to protect his son at the very least, but it seemed that he hadpletely lost his temper and no longer cared.

    It could be said that the stress of the situation made him snap.

    So I didn''t push him any further and turned to look at the others that were being held by the knights. They had tried to make amotion at the same time as Henry, but my knights noticed this and moved over to gag them, so they couldn''t do a thing right now.

    I gave a nod to the knights and they took off the gags before I said, "We''ll execute them on the spot for their crimes."

    Henry''sckeys were all shocked when they heard this and they seemed like they wanted toin, but the knights just put the gags back in their mouths before forcing them down on their knees.

    I gave a nod to the knights before saying to the count, "We''ll take care of them and sweep all of this under the rug."

    This time, it was the count''s turn to be surprised.

    However, he gave a firm nod in the end as he understood what I was doing.

    Simply put, I was taking care of the evidence by silencing theseckeys of Henry.

    Once they were gone, as long as Henry didn''t make any fuss, then it could be said that this matter was over. This would remove the dark side of the count''s family that would have gotten them in trouble.

    Theckeys naturally wanted toin, but there was nothing that they could do.

    They wereckeys, they were not trained soldiers.

    They were no match for the knights as they were held down by them.

    All of them had aggrieved looks on their faces as their heads flew through the air andnded in front of Henry''s face.

    There was a look of shock on Henry''s face when he saw this and there was this liquid that came from his pants that made Shaka and Shadow Five want to release him, but they had no choice but to keep pinning him to the ground.

    Seeing this, I was satisfied since there was another reason why I had executed theseckeys in front of him.

    I was showing him the consequences of his actions.

    I wanted to make sure that Henry knew what would happen to him if he continued acting the way that he was acting.

    I wanted to make sure that he would ept this punishment and not do anything in the future.

    But of course, I would also make sure to have someone watch over the count''s family in the future.

    I wouldn''t let them be a danger to us.

    Once Henry''sckeys had been executed, there was nothing that Henry could say.

    He just looked at the heads in front of him with a look like he had lost everything.

    The count had a heavy look on his face as well, but he knew that there was nothing that he could say at this point.

    It was a matter of his son or his family and he knew what choice he had to make.

    So he turned to Rose and for a moment, there was a look of difficulty on his face.

    But he was able to push through before saying, "I want you to inherit my title when the timees."

    I was once again surprised by his determination in this matter, but this was also what I wanted to see.

    This was the recognition that Rose should have deserved, if not for the fact that her father had been scared of her.

    But to both of our surprise, Rose just shook her head and said, "No, I won''t be the sessor."

    The count had an ugly look on his face when he heard this while I wanted to say something to remedy this situation, but Rose seemed to have other ns.

    "I want my child to be the sessor."

 Chapter 807 Pregnant

    Chapter 807 Pregnant

    ??We all looked at her with a shocked look as Rose''s hands came down to her stomach.

    As she held her stomach, there was a faint smile that appeared on her lips while she turned to look at me.

    I was the one that was the most shocked since I had never heard anything about this.

    After a moment of silence, I couldn''t help asking, "What did you just say? Can you say that again?"

    Rose gave a nod as she said, "I want the sessor to be my child."

    I slowly looked down at the stomach that she was holding and then the shocked look on my face became even stronger, but at the same time, there was a look of joy that filled my face.

    However, I didn''t let that joy show as Iined, "Why didn''t you tell me sooner?"

    Rose revealed an awkward smile as she said, "I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to keep a surprise too." Then she slowly looked at her mother and father before saying, "I also wanted to share it with them."

    Both the count and countess were taken aback when they heard this.

    The count looked especially strange when he heard this since he never expected Rose to say something like this.

    He had thought that with the rtionship between them¡­

    It didn''t take long for a person to react, but it was neither the count nor me.

    It was Rose''s mother, Lily.

    She came right to Rose''s side and even pushed me out of the way so she could take her in her arms before saying, "Darling, why didn''t you tell me sooner? This is great news!"

    The count and I awkwardly looked at each other before we both gave coughs to calm ourselves down.

    The count walked over and said with a nod, "This is indeed good news. It means that there is someone who will carry on our family line. I would dly make him my sessor, if not¡­"

    He slowly turned to look at me as if there was something that he was worried about.

    He didn''t need to say anything for me to guess what he was worried about.

    After all, I was someone with a noble title as well, so there was always the worry that I would need a sessor as well. If the count were to pass his title to Rose''s child, then that would mean that I wouldn''t have a sessor anymore.

    It wasn''t as if we could both pass our titles to one child.

    The count title in the face of a duke''s title wasn''t worth anything.

    Rose shook her head as she said, "It''s fine, you don''t need to worry about anything. As long as you''re willing to pass on the title to my child, that is enough."

    The count had an awkward look on his face as he kept looking at me, but in the end, he nodded in agreement.

    He didn''t know what Rose had nned, but he knew that it was impossible for her not to think of the same things he did. Since she was still insisting on him giving his title to her child, it must mean that she had thought this through.

    In that case, there was no need for him to worry about it anymore.

    But on the other side, there was someone who was lying on the ground inplete despair.

    In just a few hours, he had lost everything that had been his.

    His right to seed his father as the count, all of theckeys and power that he built up, even the woman that he thought would be his¡­

    Everything had slipped out of his fingers.

    "Ah!" Henry cried out in despair as he realized that everything that he thought was his was gone, but no one paid any attention to him.

    Even Lily who we thought would at least speak up on his behalf ignored Henry.

    She just brought Rose to the side so that she wouldn''t have to look at him anymore.

    Once the two of them left, I went over to look down at Henry with the count.

    The count had aplicated look on his face, but he didn''t say anything to help his son.

    It seemed that he had already epted this situation.

    I was prepared to just throw Henry into a remote ce for the rest of his life, but it seemed that he wasn''t willing to let things end with just this.

    He looked up at me with eyes filled with resentment as if he was saying, "I''ll kill you."

    Since he was looking at me like this, it wasn''t as if I could just leave him be.

    "I''ve changed my mind."

    The count was shocked by my sudden words before looking at me with a concerned look.

    I ignored this as I looked down at Henry to say, "You want to hurt me, there''s no doubt of that. So I''ll be taking away your ability to do so."

    I gave a nod to Shaka and Shadow Five, "Cripple him. Break all his limbs."

    Henry''s eyes opened wide in shock and fear when he heard this, but there was nothing that he could do. He was even gagged so he couldn''t scream out in pain before fainting from having all his limbs broken.

    I turned to the count and said, "Keep him locked up with only a maid that hates him to take care of him. Make sure that she knows that she can do whatever she wants, but she can''t kill him."

    The count trembled when he heard this, but he still slowly gave a nod.

    He knew that this was a test that I was giving him, so if he were to ever try any tricks¡­it would be the end of him.

    It was at that moment that the count realized that there was no way that his daughter would have married a normal person.

    She was someone who he feared¡­so there was no doubt that the one that she married would be just as terrifying.

    But there was nothing that he could do about it.

    So all he could was ept that this was how it was to be and that he should make the best of it.

 Chapter 808 What are you planning?

    Chapter 808 What are you nning?

    ??With Henry out of the way, the visit had suddenly be much more pleasant.

    Though the majority of this was due to the fact that they realized that I wasn''t someone to mess with.

    Both the count and countess became much more respectful after what had happened with Henry.

    In a sense, they had even seemed a bit fearful of me.

    This might not be the best way that this could have concluded, but it was better than most options. In the end, one couldn''t always hope for the best option, they could only hope for a good ending.

    After dinner was over, I brought Rose to our room alone and asked her, "What are you nning?"

    Rose was surprised to hear this and even seemed like she didn''t know what I was referring to, but I didn''t buy it at all. I just looked at her with a stern look as if I was waiting for her to answer me.

    There was a long silence that lingered in the air before Rose finally said, "I''m looking out for my child."

    "Huh?" I waspletely taken aback when I heard this.

    However, there was also a part of me that was disappointed when I heard her say this.

    After all, the fact that she said this made me feel like she didn''t trust my ability to provide for our child. It seemed like she was nning for the future where if anything happened to us, there would be something that this child relied on.

    When Rose saw the look on my face, she said, "It isn''t that I don''t believe that you have the ability to care for us or our child, it''s just that the situation haspletely changed. In the past, I thought that we would just live a simple life in our territory, but now..."

    Her voice trailed off, but there was no hiding the bitter look that was on her face.

    It was clear that there was something that made her feel this way and I could already guess what.

    These were things that I didn''t want either, but I had somehow gotten caught up in all of these things.

    There was nothing that I could do about it, so I just epted it and moved on.

    But at the same time, I could understand why she was worried about this.

    So I firmly said, "Don''t worry, no matter what happens, the child between us is the most important thing for me. I won''t ever neglect it or mistreat it."

    As I said this, there was a determined look that appeared in my eyes.

    After all, this situation made me think of the way that the count had treated Rose her entire life.

    He was someone that I recognized as a failure of a parent, someone that I didn''t want to be anything like in the future.

    When my child came, I would treat them theplete opposite of how the count had treated Rose. That was the decision that I hade to the moment that I learned how the count really felt about Rose.

    But to my surprise¡­

    "It isn''t about that. I''m not worried that you will neglect or mistreat our child, I just want the best for our child." Rose said with a faint smile.

    This time, I couldn''t help feeling confused as I didn''t understand what she was saying.

    If she wanted the best for our child, wouldn''t that mean letting our child be the duke after me?

    Or even better, wouldn''t it mean letting the child be the crown prince?

    As if she was guessing what I was thinking, she said, "No, it''s not always the highest position that''s the best. You and I both know what it''s like when there are too many below that want to take your position. It''s the case with this country, right?"

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my lips when I heard this since I knew what she was referring to.

    The corruption that was present in this country was because of all those people who were left to their own devices in the different parts of the country while there was an internal struggle in the capital.

    So there was something that I had to say, "Won''t they feel slighted if we give them lower positions? There are people that want to rise up higher in life and won''t be satisfied with these lower positions."

    That was the case with the princes¡­

    They all wanted to be king, which was why there was that internal struggle.

    But Rose didn''t seem worried at all as she said with a smile, "It''s up to us to teach them better. I choose to trust our children." Then after a pause, she added, "Of course, that was also because they were neglected the whole time."

    Thetter part of what she said was a bit more hesitant as if she wasn''t sure she should say this, but she still said it in the end.

    I couldn''t help giving a nod of agreement when I heard this since I had seen the way that the king was with his children¡­

    Other than the fourth prince and the princess, it didn''t seem like he spent that much time with his children¡­

    Perhaps that was what caused the divide between them in the first ce.

    Rose looked at me with a serious look and said, "We won''t let the same thing happen to our children. We''ll raise them well and give them all the love that they deserve."

    There seemed to be something else that was in her eyes as she said this, almost as if there was something in her past that was influencing her¡­

    I cursed the count in my mind again before taking her hand and saying, "Of course, we''ll give them all the love they deserve and more."

    "Yes." She simply said before putting her head in my chest.

    It would have been a sweet moment if not for¡­

    "The title of count can go to our child, the title of crown prince can go to the princess'' child, the title of duke can go to Haley''s child, the title of knight captain can go to Cecilia''s child¡­"

    I was about to agree with her until I realized that something was off about what she said¡­

 Chapter 809 Not a single one missed

    Chapter 809 Not a single one missed

    ??She seemed to have mentioned a few names at the end there¡­

    Was it just an example or was it¡­?

    No, the way that she said it made it clear that there was something that she knew that I didn''t know yet.

    So with a stern look on my face, I looked at Rose who was still in her dark nning mode.

    I had to admit that if it was the past me, I would have been a bit afraid of Rose when she was in this mode. This was the side of her that her father was afraid of, the side of her that had been pulled out by the cursed ne.

    However, I realized that this was still a side of Rose, so I slowly became less and less afraid of her.

    It was impossible to bepletely unafraid of this side of her since I knew what she was capable of, but now was not the time to be afraid. I had to get the answers that I needed from her.

    "What are you not telling me?" I said in a serious voice.

    The moment that Rose heard this, she stopped talking about her n and looked at me with a surprised look.

    She just kept looking at me with that surprised look until she suddenly looked like she realized something. After that look of realization, there was a look of regret on her face as if she realized that she had said something that she shouldn''t have said.

    Rose looked away from me and said, "I was just giving an example."

    I wanted to stay stern and serious, but I couldn''t help shaking my head with a faint smile when I saw her like this.

    This was one of the cute sides of my wife.

    While she was scary when she was in her dark side, this was a side of her that only I was able to see.

    That was because this was a side of herself that she would only show someone that she trusted.

    This was the side of her that only I would be able to see.

    In front of me, she really was just bad at lying.

    However, after enjoying this cute appearance of hers for a bit, I said, "Tell me the truth."

    Rose lowered her head for a bit before suddenly looking up to say, "Can you call Cecilia in here?"

    I was surprised to hear this, but then thinking about what she had said, it made sense if we called Cecilia in here as well.

    When Cecilia came in, she had a confused look on her face as she didn''t know what was happening.

    The first thing that happened was that Rose lowered her head to Cecilia to Cecilia''s surprise and said, "I''m sorry, I identally spilled the beans."

    Cecilia was confused at first before slowly looking down at Rose''s stomach and then her own stomach.

    Seeing this, I knew that my guesses were correct.

    It seemed that they had been hiding something quite big from me and there might be a bit more¡­

    I knitted my brows as I looked at the two of them and asked, "Why didn''t you think to tell me?"

    The two of them both awkwardly lowered their heads and avoided my gaze, as if they were afraid to look at me directly.

    It was clear that I had hit the nail on the head.

    I walked over to where Cecilia was and took her in my arms before saying, "Why didn''t you tell me sooner?"

    Cecilia knew that she had been caught and there was nothing that she could do about it. Though before she actually said anything, she looked at Rose with an aggrieved look like she had been betrayed.

    All Rose could do was look at her with an apologetic look.

    Cecilia took a deep breath and said, "It wasn''t long since I found out and I wanted to surprise you with it."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at her before saying, "Really?"

    Cecilia trembled in my arms when she heard this before lowering her head to say, "Alright, we were nning on surprising you together. However, I never thought that Rose would actually tell you about it first like that."

    Once again, she looked up with an aggrieved look of betrayal at Rose.

    Rose just looked even more awkward when she heard this and apologized once again.

    I looked at the two of them with the same narrowed eyes for a bit before suddenly giving a sigh and saying, "Alright, is there anything else that you want to tell me?"

    Both of them were caught off guard by this, but I just looked at Rose and said, "You mentioned another name earlier¡­"

    Rose trembled when she heard this.

    With an awkward look, she said, "Would you believe it if I said that it was just a hypothetical?"

    I narrowed my eyes even more without saying a thing when I heard this.

    Rose just gave a sigh before saying, "Alright, but you didn''t hear it from me. It''s Haley as well, all three of us are pregnant."

    Both Cecilia and Rose looked at me like they were waiting for me to react.

    It seemed like they were scared of what kind of reaction I would have to this news.

    I just had a calm look on my face as I released one of the arms that was around Cecilia and reached out for Rose.

    She looked a bit worried, but she didn''t resist as she just let my arm go around her.

    Once my arm was around her, I pulled her in along with Cecilia to hold both of them in my embrace before saying, "Silly girls, did you think that I would be angry? I''m filled with joy that I''m going to be a father for all three of you."

    They both revealed sighs of relief before revealing wide smiles.

    But those smiles stiffened for a second when they heard, "But I am a bit angry that you didn''t tell me sooner."

    Though I said this, there was a part of me that was proud.

    I didn''t miss a single one.

    I had gotten all three of them.

 Chapter 810 Uncertain future

    <h4>Chapter 810 Uncertain future</h4>

    Once I found out, I wanted to start nning for the future.

    But that was when I found out how amazing mothers were.

    The two of them already had ns.

    Well, I had already heard Rose''s ns, so I knew what kind of things that she was nning for not just my children, but also the children of the rest of my wives.

    It turned out that Cecilia also had ns for her kids.

    "They will be a knight that will protect their brothers and sisters in my ce."

    It seemed that she was determined to teach her child the ways of being a knight regardless of whether they had the aptitude for it or not.

    But I couldn''t just force my child into being a knight for a reason like that.

    At the very least, I had to stand up for them and their right to choose for themselves.

    So I said, "You can''t force a child to be what they don''t want to be. I won''t allow that to happen."

    Both Cecilia and Rose were surprised to hear this before knitting their brows to look at me.

    I looked at them with a calm look and said, "Things like inheriting titles and such, there is no other choice in that matter. However, things like bing a knight and such, I will not force my child to do things like that."

    Cecilia and Rose both looked confused when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything as they waited for me to exin.

    They knew that I must have some kind of exnation for saying something like this.

    I did, so I said, "Things like bing a knight and such cannot be forced. There is no controlling whether a child has the aptitude for it or not, so we can''t force them to be one just because we want them to be one. If there''s something else that they are interested in and have an aptitude for, we should support them in doing that."

    Both of them revealedplicated looks after hearing this.

    There was a part of them that disagreed with this, but there was also a part of them that agreed with this.

    I appealed to the part of them that agreed with this.

    This was the part of them that sympathized with being forced to do what they didn''t want to do.

    After all, this had happened to them when they had been sent off to the baron''s territory.

    So they could understand what I was saying.

    In the end, Cecilia gave a nod as if she agreed, but then she said, "But there''s no telling what kind of aptitude they will have, right? If they have the aptitude and the drive, then there''s no problem with it, right?"

    I gave a nod in response before saying, "All I''m saying is that I don''t want to force our children down a path that they might not want to take. I hope that you can respect that."

    Cecilia and Rose both nodded in agreement to this.

    It seemed that this was the one thing that they could at least agree to.

    That was more than enough for me.

    ...

    Meeting Cecilia''s parents went much smoother than meeting Rose''s parents.

    Both of Cecilia''s parents weremoners who had made their own way in the world.

    Cecilia''s father worked as one of Count Amboise''s knights, so they were certainly better off than most people were.

    That was why she had seven brothers and three sisters.

    All of them were excited about the fact that she was pregnant and all of them were excited to meet me.

    Though a few of her sisters were a bit too excited¡­

    However, Cecilia shut that down in the end.

    The look that she gave me was as if she was saying, "Don''t you dare touch my sisters."

    Even if I wanted to, I knew better than to do something like that.

    It would always lead to trouble to do something like this, even in a world based on a h-game.

    After meeting everyone, it was finally time for us to head back to my territory.

    As we left, both parents came to see us off.

    There were only one pair of parents who remained on the walls of the town as we flew off on the back of our wyverns.

    Count Amboise looked at his wife and said, "You''re wondering why I did all of that?"

    Lily looked at him with a calm look before shaking her head and saying, "I know why you did all of that, I just want to hear what else you know. The way that you acted was different from normal."

    Count Amboise gave a sigh before saying, "There are too many uncertain things in the future that I had no choice but to act that way."

    Looking in the direction of the wyverns that had disappeared, he said, "Did you know that the fourth prince is close to him? It''s to the point where they seem too close, even if they are inws."

    Lily raised a brow when she heard this before asking, "Are they like that?"

    Count Amboise shook his head before saying, "No, it''s more like he''s the fourth prince''s advisor."

    Looking around, he came in closer and said, "The Yuletide Family, they were taken down by him and the fourth prince working together."

    "Huh?" Lily revealed a shocked look when she heard this before asking with a serious look, "How do you know this?"

    Count Amboise gave a sigh before saying, "Just know that I have my own source of information and that I know this is true. So he is not someone that I can look down on."

    With another sigh, he said, "For now, it''s a good thing that he''s with our daughter. But in the future¡­if anything happens, we''ll have to be careful. That''s why for now, I went along with him."

    Lily had aplicated look on her face when she heard this.

    Seeing this, the count said, "For now, just forget about our son. He doesn''t exist anymore."

    Lily had the sameplicated look on her face, but she still gave a nod.

    Her expression rxed a bit before she said, "At least we still have our grandson."

    The count nodded, but also shook his head before saying, "That is if we even get time with him."

    Lily had a sad look before giving a sigh, but she didn''t say anything in response.

    Their backs looked a bit lonely as they realized the errors of their ways, but it was already toote to undo what had happened¡­

 Chapter 811 Harmonious

    <h4>Chapter 811 Harmonious</h4>

    When we arrived back in my territory, I found that things were going even better than before.

    It wasn''t just because Rose had left everything well in ce, but also because of Ang''s skilled management skills. It turned out that the lessons that she had learned as part of the royal family really paid off.

    But that was also partly because of the connection that she had as part of the royal family.

    Since she was part of the royal family and had information that other people didn''t, there were things that only Ang could do.

    If she went too far, one might even think that the royal family was trying to curb the nobles in this area through me. Luckily, Ang knew how far to take things without pushing the nobles too far.

    If she did, then we might have had a problem on our hands.

    Luckily, she knew when to stop.

    When Rose came back to the office, she was very impressed with all the things that Ang had done during her time. But that wasn''t the only thing that Rose was impressed by.

    That was because there was something else that Ang had done during the time that we were away.

    "This, all of this, how did you manage to do this?"

    Ang just said with a faint smile, "It isn''t hard with the right connections. As long as you know who to talk to, this is a piece of cake."

    Rose looked at Ang with an impressed and somewhat fearful look when she heard this, but that fear quickly disappeared and was reced with even more admiration.

    The fear that she showed was just instinct and there was no real need for her to fear Ang.

    After all, they were about to share the same husband.

    In a case like this, the more negative feelings that were built up, the worse it would be for everyone.

    At the same time, she also had her personal rtionship with Ang.

    This wasn''t something that she should be feeling towards her.

    Ang didn''t react at all, but she also saw the look on Rose''s face.

    Still, she was thinking the same thing as Rose, so she acted like nothing had happened.

    I was just on the side shaking my head with a bitter smile as I watched all of this.

    But it didn''t take long for me to feel a chill run down my spine.

    That was because¡­the two of them had a greed that I never imagined that they would have.

    In no time, they were alreadying up with a n that made me feel sorry for all of the nobles in the country. This kind of n was best not said out loud, but they didn''t hold back at all as they threw in more and more ideas.

    Well at the very least, it seemed like they were happy.

    It was like they had met someone that could understand them for who they were.

    Though I''m not sure if it was a good thing to let them cut loose like this¡­

    ¡­

    For the next few weeks, there was only peace and quiet.

    I had been worried that with the three of them getting pregnant, there would be some kind of discord between them. After all, there were those that could get pregnant and those that couldn''t since they weren''t married yet.

    However, it turned out that I was worried for nothing.

    There was also a small part of me that had been worried about the future since the more wives there were, the more children there would be. I was worried that the children might also not get along because their mothers wouldn''t get along.

    But that was the good part about having a diverse harem.

    Since all of them had their own things, it wasn''t as if there was anything that would sh with each other.

    It seemed that they all wanted different things for their children and none of that shed, so it seemed like they would be quite harmonious in the future.

    It seemed like there was nothing for me to worry about.

    The ones that weren''t pregnant even went out of their way to take care of the ones that were pregnant, so it was quite a beautiful sight.

    Though the one thing that they didn''t do was¡­let me help.

    They didn''t have any trust in me and sent me off to do menial tasks for them when I tried to help.

    It really sunk in the feeling that when it came to pregnancy, the most useless person involved was the husband.

    After making the baby, there really wasn''t anything that the husband could do to help with the process. The only thing that he could do was go along with the requests of his wife and not get in the way.

    After all, it was the woman who was doing all the hard work by creating a little miracle in them for nine months.

    Of course, there was noining that came from me.

    I was more than happy to do whatever it took to keep them happy and I was happy to see them all getting along like this.

    It would have been good if we were able to remain like this for a long time, but that didn''t happen in the end.

    That was because a month and a halfter, there was someone that suddenly dropped into our town.

    It was someone that we were familiar with.

    It was the fourth prince.

    Whenever the fourth prince came, it was never a good thing.

    It would always turn into a big mess, so we were curious why he was here this time.

    "It''s time for your wedding." The fourth prince said with a calm look on his face.

    All of us were shocked when we heard this since this was not what we had expected to hear.

    After all, it had only been a month and a half.

    Was that really enough time to stabilize the kingdom?

 Chapter 812 Itâ€™s time

    <h4>Chapter 812 It¡¯s time</h4>

    As if he could see the doubt that was on my face, the fourth prince said with a smile, "It''s not as if we''ve been idle this entire time. We''ve already taken care of most of the matters and it''s time for the changing of the guard."

    His expression became serious when he said this.

    After all, it wasn''t just the wedding alone that was the focus this time.

    There was something else that was going along with this that was more important than the wedding.

    Though that was a bit rude to the bride and groom who were me and Ang, it was a fact that this was more important than our wedding.

    It was that the king was going to step down from the throne and hand his crown to his sessor.

    One might think that it would be the fourth prince who would receive this crown since he was the only prince that was left, but it wasn''t him. It wasn''t even the princess who could have served as the queen as the king''s eldest daughter.

    It was me.

    I was the one that was about to be the new king for some strange reason.

    The one that had been proposed to by the princess and now chosen as the new king.

    I didn''t understand why they were doing this, but at this point, I had already given up and epted that this was just how it would be.

    At this point, I epted that I would be the new king of this kingdom.

    Though that was mainly because this was the ce where the people that I loved were.

    Still, that didn''t stop me from asking, "Are you sure about this? It''s not toote to take the crown if you want to."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my lips when I said this.

    The fourth prince just looked at me with a smile before saying, "I prefer not having to do all that work?"

    The bitter smile on my face became more bitter when I heard this before saying, "Aren''t you going to be doing that work anyway? You''re the one that volunteered or are you telling me that you''re going to abandon me now?"

    The fourth prince just shook his head before saying, "Of course not, but it''s apletely different concept holding the title and the power thates to it than just having the power thates with it. There are many annoying things that you have to deal with if you have both."

    He looked at me with a knowing smile.

    The bitterness on my face grew when I heard this.

    Basically, he was saying that he was using me as a scapegoat to deal with the annoying people while he held all the power.

    That was definitely a viinous thing to say and a thing that fitted the fourth prince, but I knew that he was just ying around.

    If he really was going to do something like that, he never would have told me in the first ce.

    This was the kind of thing where the victim needed to be unaware to do.

    At the same time, I knew that the fourth prince wouldn''t do something like this to me after everything that happened.

    So instead, I asked, "What is the situation in the capital right now?"

    Since it was going to happen either way, it was better for me to ask about what to expect when I arrived in the capital.

    The fourth prince gave a serious nod before taking out arge folder for me.

    This contained a bunch of papers that looked like reports on things that he wanted me to read.

    Seeing this, there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face, but I still took it and started reading it.

    However, as I read it, I couldn''t help looking at the fourth prince from time to time with a strange look.

    After all, the things that I was reading¡­were just too terrifying.

    I thought that he would slowly build up the kingdom after the purge, but it seemed like he wasn''t nning on taking it slow at all. Instead of using a moderate strategy that would focus on rebuilding, he was doubling down in the chaos.

    This strategy of his would cause the country to be unstable in the short run, but in the long run¡­it would be much more powerful than before.

    However, the instability of the country wasn''t small.

    It was arge instability where there would be famines andplete shortage of basic necessities for a period of time. However, the fourth prince had made sure that there was enough breathing room that there would be no idental deaths.

    That was his bottom line that he would never touch.

    After all, the people were his number one concern.

    However, I couldn''t help wondering what kind of measure he had in ce for the criticisms that would inevitablye our way.

    Once I finished reading, I didn''t ask a thing as I looked at the fourth prince with a brow raised.

    He had a smile on his face as if he already knew what I was about to ask, so he just calmly said, "I hope that your face is thick enough, or else this will be hard for you."

    A bitter look appeared on my face when I heard this.

    As expected, he was nning on just riding it through until the situation became better.

    He was nning on enduring all of the criticisms until his ns came to fruition.

    One thing that I had to praise him for was how effectively he took away the people''s power to protest.

    So even if they had criticisms for us, they wouldn''t actually be able to act on it.

    There was no oversight at all, it was a perfect n.

    Just that it would be a bit hard for us.

    With a sigh, I said, "If this is what it takes, then it is what it takes."

 Chapter 813 Wedding of her dreams

    <h4>Chapter 813 Wedding of her dreams</h4>

    With the wyverns, it didn''t take us long to arrive in the capital.

    What took us a long time was getting everything ready for our trip.

    That was because for once, all of us would be heading to the capital.

    Normally, it would only be Cecilia that would apany me to the capital, but this time all of my wives and fiancees wereing with me.

    During the month and a half that we were here, it turned out that Rose and Ang had been setting things up so that Nicole could take over running this territory in Rose''s ce.

    After all, in the future, Rose would be with me in the capital.

    I thought that she would have remained in this ce since she had be attached to it, but it seemed that this wasn''t the case. I had even nned on thinking of a way to move us all here once I took the throne, but it seemed that it was unnecessary.

    "Wherever you go, I''ll be there with you."

    That was what Rose said when she told me that she had prepared everything.

    I felt that they were too good for me, but I didn''t say it out loud.

    There was no need for it after all.

    When we arrived in the capital, we were ushered to the castle just like before.

    After arriving at the castle, we were brought to the king''s study.

    I couldn''t help feeling nervous since this time¡­I hade with my other wives and fiancees.

    The king was someone that cared very much about his daughter, so if I were to bring all of these other women with me when I was about to marry his daughter¡­it would certainly look bad.

    But to my surprise¡­

    "Wee, wee, it''s good to see you all."

    The king didn''t seem like he was bothered at all by the fact that I was bringing all of these women with me. It was as if he knew about them for a long time and even weed them like they were close, even though they had never met him before.

    It was as if he was treating them as family.

    But that just confused me even more.

    The other girls were certainly surprised since they knew that we were meeting the king and they didn''t expect him to treat them like this, but Rose was the one that reacted first by saying¡­

    "Your majesty, thank you for your kind wee."

    The king to everyone''s surprise just said, "Of course, it''s natural. We are family after all."

    Everyone looked at the king with chins dropped when they heard this as they couldn''t believe what they were hearing.

    After all, no one would have thought that the king would actually call them family like this.

    The king just waved his hand with a smile on his face before saying, "Come and sit. We have a lot to talk about."

    All of us looked at each other with confused looks when we heard this, but we still went forward to sit on the couch in the study.

    After sitting down, the king personally poured each of us some tea.

    Looking at this tea on the table, there were strange looks that appeared on our faces.

    After all, this tea seemed like some kind ofst offering before the king did whatever he was nning to do. There was no telling what the king was thinking, but no one thought that it would be anything good.

    Once he was finished, the king looked at Ang and asked, "Have you thought about your wedding yet? We still have to prepare everything for it."

    Ang''s eyes lit up when she heard this before saying with a nod, "I have some ideas."

    The king just gave a nod as well before saying, "That''s good. Just tell me whatever ideas you have and I''ll make it happen for you."

    The way that he said this, it was as if he had already given up on being the king.

    He was no longer speaking with the regal manner that he was speaking with before.

    It was as if he was just talking to Ang like he was her father.

    It seemed that the king had already epted that his reign as the king ended here and was getting ready to pass the throne down.

    That caused a bitter smile to appear on my face, but I didn''t say anything to spoil the mood.

    After a moment of hesitation, Ang said something surprising.

    The king was caught off guard by what she said before asking, "Are you sure about this?"

    Ang looked around at everyone else in the room and gave a nod.

    The king was even more surprised when he heard this, but he gave a nod to show that he supported her.

    In fact, there was a smile on his face that seemed like he approved of her actions.

    Even though I was afraid that he would have lost his temper when he heard what Ang asked of him.

    It seemed like I had beenpletely wrong.

    Seeing the way that he looked at her after he said this, I could guess what he was thinking.

    It seemed like there was a regret that filled him which was why he approved of her suggestion.

    Since the king had agreed, Ang waved her hand at the other girls and they all came forward to gather around the table.

    At this point, there was nothing that we had to do but sit and watch.

    From time to time, they would ask for my opinion, but it was mainly for small matters.

    This was a special matter for them, so it wasn''t as if I was going to butt into this.

    A wedding was a once in a lifetime event for most people if they weren''t promiscuous, so this was something that was very important for all of them. They would make sure to do all that they could to make this sess.

    All I had to do was show up.

 Chapter 814 Biggest celebration

    <h4>Chapter 814 Biggest celebration</h4>

    Three dayster, the news of the royal wedding was released to the entire world.

    Everyone was shocked since they never thought that a royal wedding would be held at this time, but everyone was more than happy to celebrate this wedding since it was something that distracted them.

    There was no doubt that everyone in the country was suffering because of the n that the fourth prince had put into ce.

    It needed something to bring up their mood during this time and this was the event that was going to do it.

    As for where the money for this came from, the royal family would be paying for everything.

    Even if the country was in decline, that didn''t mean that the royal family was poor.

    In a way, this was a kind of stimulus for the economy since the economy had been stagnant because of everything that happened recently. The businesses of the capital were more than happy to ept the money that came from the royal family.

    That was how it also turned into the biggest celebration in the history of the kingdom.

    The people who now had money spent this money to celebrate and that went in a loop until everyone was celebrating.

    That was just what a sudden injection of money could do.

    Of course, the ones that cared the most about this were the nobles.

    A royal wedding, this was a ce for them to show off.

    To show off was in the nature of the nobles and if there was such a perfect venue for them, one can be sure that they wouldn''t hold back.

    The nobles were suffering just as much as the citizens were, but they didn''t hold back since this was also a chance for them to raise their own position.

    With the money that the nobles spent, the economy was moving even more.

    It reached the point where even the surrounding viges were earning money from things being brought into the capital.

    The effects of the royal wedding were even greater than one had imagined.

    The fourth prince certainly didn''t imagine that the nobles would be this fervent towards this.

    He wondered if it was because they had sensed something, but I calmed him down by telling him that this was just how nobles were. At the same time, there were plenty of reports that indicated that this wasn''t the case.

    Still, this was nothing more than a temporary boost.

    Until the changes that the fourth prince implemented took effect, this temporary boost wouldn''tst long.

    So there would still be a period where everyone would suffer for a bit.

    The wedding itself was being held in thergest church in the capital and there were already people that were camping outside the church just in case anything happened.

    These were the reporters that were waiting for any news at all.

    Articles rted to the royal family sold well after all.

    They were waiting to report on the wedding.

    However, it wasn''t as if everything was left unguarded.

    Since it was rted to the royal family, it was something that received the most powerful guards as well. So even before the wedding began, there were many royal guards that were already at the church making sure that nothing went wrong.

    They hadpletely locked down the area around the church, so most of the reporters were waiting on the streets near the church.

    That was just how much everyone cared about this wedding.

    As for the main stars of the wedding¡­

    When I saw all of the people that were gathered around the church, I couldn''t help shaking my head with a faint smile.

    It seemed that no matter what world it was, royal weddings were the most exciting thing for people who loved to gossip.

    It was the case in my past life and it was the case in this life.

    I had to admit that even I was one of those who had watched with bated breath when they broadcasted the royal weddings in my world.

    Though this time, I was on the opposite side.

    Instead of being someone who wasn''t rted to it, I was someone who was on the nning side.

    But of course, the nning went to Ang and the others.

    Only the nning wasn''t done at the church.

    The nning at the church was mainly taken care of by the king since this was more of a ceremony rather than an actual wedding.

    The actual wedding would be held in apletely different ce.

    Though the ceremony at the church was without a doubt an important one.

    It was where the king was nning on handing down the throne.

    So there was no doubt that it would be the biggest surprise for those that went to the wedding.

    ¡­

    On the day of the wedding, there were many luxurious carriages that headed to the church.

    All of these carriages naturally belonged to nobles with how decorated they were, but it wasn''t just that. The carriages had even been spiced up more by the nobles since this was their chance to show off.

    Those that were invited to the wedding would without a doubt be considered the most important nobles of this kingdom.

    After all, only those that had position and power would be invited to such a wedding.

    That was what everyone thought.

    But that didn''t stop the others from celebrating.

    All around the city, there were many bars and taverns that were filled with people celebrating the royal wedding.

    It really had be thergest celebration in the history of the capital with how many people participated. There were even people that had rushed from other parts of the kingdom just to participate in this wedding.

    Not justrge nobles, but also merchants who wanted to take advantage of this event to sell their goods.

    When I passed them on the street during the past few days, I even found clothing that had the faces of Ang and me on them¡­

    I really didn''t know what to say when I saw this¡­

 Chapter 815 All eyes on you

    <h4>Chapter 815 All eyes on you</h4>

    Regardless of how the people felt, it was more important that everything went smoothly.

    With the fourth prince running everything, it went more than just smoothly.

    There wasn''t a single mistake that happened.

    Though that would be the case with how many royal guards had been summoned to the premises.

    With how tightly it was guarded, one might think there was some kind of national secret being guarded in this ce. This was definitely not a ce that anyone could enter and leave freely.

    But that was how important the wedding was.

    The stars of the wedding were nowhere to be seen even though there were guests arriving.

    The guests showed up in their luxurious carriages and made sure that the reporters would be able to see them. The reporters were writing down as much as they could about each of the people who were invited.

    They did all of this without anyone telling them to, even though the stars of the wedding weren''t there yet.

    That was just how this society was.

    I was with the king as we watched over this from the top of the church.

    This was a private room inside of the church that we were using as a waiting room/nning room. So it wasn''t just me and the king that were here, there were many others who were running around.

    It was only the king and me who were free to watch over this.

    Even the fourth prince seemed busy with all the things that he was handling.

    The king and I just watched all of this in silence.

    Neither of us had any emotions on our faces, so it was hard to tell what we were thinking.

    However, both of us knew exactly what the other person was thinking as we looked down at the people beneath.

    There wasn''t a need to say anything.

    That silence just remained in the air until the king finally turned to me to say, "Today is the day that it all happens. Are you prepared for what is about to happen?"

    I was surprised to hear this since I never thought that he would be asking me this now.

    It was mainly the way that he said this that had surprised me.

    The way that he said it almost made it sound like he was giving me the option to back out if I really wanted to. It was as if he was giving me onest chance to end this all, as long as I said that I didn''t want to do this.

    From the very beginning, he had acted as if I had no choice in this matter.

    But now, it sounded like he was actually giving me a choice¡­

    I didn''t believe that he would actually give me a choice, so it felt like there was something more happening here. It felt like there was some kind of trap that was beingid out for me¡­

    Still, it wasn''t as if I was nning on backing out now that I''vee all this way.

    I knew that it wasn''t just me who had already epted this, it was the rest of my wives who had also epted this.

    At the same time, I knew that the more power that I had in this world, the better it would be for me to protect what was mine.

    Sinceing to this world, there were many scenarios where I had been caught up in something and had almost lost my life.

    I knew that if I wanted to stay in this world and protect the ones that were dear to me, I would need more power. Right now, there was nothing that would give me more power than taking the throne of this kingdom.

    So even if the king wanted to back down, it wasn''t as if I would let him.

    But for now, it was better to see what he wanted before jumping the gun.

    I just calmly looked at him and said, "I''ve already prepared myself, so there''s only one way to go."

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at me for a few seconds before giving an approving nod.

    I was surprised to see this approving nod from him, but then the king said, "Good. It''s good to see that you''ve already made up your mind. I was worried that you would back down now that we''vee this far."

    A bitter smile appeared on my lips when I heard this.

    It seemed that he never had any intentions of actually agreeing if I said that I wanted to stop.

    It seemed that all along, he was just testing me to see if I was determined to see this through.

    There was a part of me that couldn''t help wondering what he would have done if I had actually said that I wanted to stop this, but I stopped myself from saying anything.

    In the end, I just said, "This world depends on power and to protect the ones that I care about, I''ll grasp that power. So I''ll take this throne even if you don''t want to give it up."

    The king revealed a smile that had a trace of admiration in it when he heard this.

    With a nod, he said, "That is the kind of attitude that you should have as the future king."

    But then with a serious look, he saId, "But you have to remember that all eyes will be on you today. What you do now will determine how the others will see you, so you have to make sure that you show them that you aren''t to be messed with."

    I looked at the king with a surprised look when I heard this.

    I clearly didn''t expect to hear this from him, but the king just calmly said, "Treat this as myst bit of advice to you as the current king."

    I raised a brow when I heard this, but the king just looked at me with a smile before walking away.

 Chapter 816 All eyes on her

    <h4>Chapter 816 All eyes on her</h4>

    The way that the king said this, it was almost as if he was expecting something to go wrong after this wedding.

    However, that confused me.

    This wasn''t some kind of coup where I was seizing control, this was a willing transfer of power in the first ce. So it wasn''t as if I would be doing anything to the king after this was all over.

    I was even counting on him to help me with governing the country in the future.

    His experience was an asset that would surely help me in what I would do in the future.

    But it sounded like he wasn''t nning on doing this.

    This confused me very much, but there wasn''t anything that I could say about this since I had no idea what he was thinking.

    For now, there was only one thing that I should focus on.

    The fourth prince had prepared everything, so there wasn''t anything that I really had to do.

    The only thing that I had to do was show up and be in the spotlight as the groom.

    There wasn''t much else that I had to do today.

    The rest would be taken care of by the fourth prince and the king.

    So I changed into my outfit and went to the church''s main floor just like the n ounted for.

    When I arrived, it was as the king said.

    The moment that I arrived, I became the center of attention.

    Though the way that they looked at me was different from the way that they looked at the fourth prince and the king who had arrived before me. It was clear by the way that they looked at me that they thought of me as someone who was secondary.

    Though it wasn''t strange that they thought of me that way since the way that the wedding went, it seemed like I was marrying into the royal family.

    So in a sense, I was a secondary character in all of this.

    The most important thing was still the royal family.

    That was why everyone was focused on the fourth prince and the king, as well as waiting to see Ang who still hadn''t arrived yet.

    As I stood there at the altar, there were many whispers that came from around me.

    After all, it had been a while since I had appeared.

    There were many people who were wondering if something had happened. There were even some that wondered if the bride had gotten cold feet and if the wedding would be cancelled.

    The ones that thought this were all young men who didn''t have anyone else with them.

    These were most likely the noble young masters who hadn''t gotten married yet.

    It wouldn''t be strange if they wanted to see this wedding fail so that they would be able to have a chance at getting with Ang. It was just that there was no chance for them since Ang was never interested in any of them in the first ce.

    Or at least that was what it seemed to me when we were alone.

    She had confided in me that she found the gazes that the others cast in her direction disgusting since they didn''t even bother hiding their overwhelming greed. There was only one reason why they looked in her direction, it was rted to her family.

    Or there were looks of lust that were cast in her direction that also made her disgusted.

    I wasn''t worried even though she hadn''t arrived yet since I knew that this was done on purpose.

    The fourth prince was using this opportunity to gauge the nobles that he had invited.

    Even though there were his own subordinates that he nned on bringing into the new regime, he also wanted to see if he could find anyone else to work for him. He was using this as a test for those nobles that he had invited.

    Those that spoke up at a time like this would be considered disqualified.

    After all, if they spoke up at this time, there was no hiding the ambitions in their hearts.

    In the future, they would not be loyal dogs, but rather daggers in the dark.

    The fourth prince didn''t have any interest in nurturing those that would stab him in the back in the future.

    That was why he was testing them now.

    After a while, the attention of the crowd quickly shifted as the doors to the main hall opened.

    There were people that were chattering at first, but the sounds quickly disappeared.

    After all, their attention had beenpletely taken by the person standing at the door.

    It wasn''t just their attention that was taken, it was also my attention.

    "Beautiful."

    That was the only thing that I could say when I saw the person standing there.

    It wasn''t as if there was a single person who would disagree with me based on the looks on the faces of the crowd. It seemed like they had all been dazed by the person who had appeared at the door.

    It was Ang in her wedding dress.

    It was a beautiful dress that was pure white, withyers of frills on it.

    This was the kind of dress that clearly someone of high ss wore and it made her the envy of all the females who were attending this wedding.

    The young ones were envious of the fact that she was able to wear such a beautiful dress.

    The old ones were envious that they didn''t look as good in their wedding dress.

    However¡­it was clear that she didn''t enjoy this.

    Though Ang had a calm look on her face as she stood there, I could tell from the look in her eyes that she was unhappy about this dress.

    That was because this wasn''t the dress that she picked.

    This was the dress that the fourth prince had chosen for her so that she would stand out.

    Since this was what this dress was for, it did its job.

    She had be the center of attention.

 Chapter 817 A new age

    Chapter 817 A new age

    ??Ang just ignored all of the gazes that were on her, but I didn''t.

    I could see that there were a few gazes from people that could be considered disrespectful and since she was about to be my wife...I naturally wouldn''t forget or forgive them.

    I would make sure to get the fourth prince to deal with themter.

    Or at least that was what I thought until I noticed that the fourth prince had also noted these people. At the same time, it wasn''t just the fourth prince alone who noted these people.

    The king also had slightly narrowed eyes as he looked over the crowd.

    It seemed that even without me saying anything, they would have taken care of this matter.

    Still, I had to say something since I was her husband.

    I wouldn''t want to let my wife feel like she was being ignored right after we got married.

    After Ang walked through the church, she came over to my side with a smile and I reached my hand out for her.

    Once she took my hand, we stood there in front of the altar where there was a priest waiting.

    Only this wasn''t any priest.

    This was the cardinal of this religion, the one that was just below the pope that had been sent to this kingdom to watch over the branch of the religion that was based in this kingdom.

    This was the highest church official of this kingdom, but now they were acting as the priest of a wedding.

    That was just how important this royal wedding was.

    Not to mention, the cardinal was actually quite the kind hearted person and seemed to enjoy watching young love. It seemed like he could pick up the small signs from us that showed that we indeed loved each other, so it seemed that he supported us.

    The rest of the wedding just went as the ceremony dictated.

    There was nothing unexpected that happened during the ceremony, though there were times that seemed like people wanted to act.

    In the end, it seemed that these were all just false signs.

    Everyone knew how important this royal wedding was, so they weren''t foolish enough to try anything during the wedding itself. If they were to try anything, it would have been done before or after the wedding.

    After all, if the groom were to die right after the wedding...

    Well there was nothing that could be done.

    But I knew that the fourth prince wouldn''t allow something like that to happen. Especially with what was about to happen after this.

    I had already seen the fourth prince''s defense ns, so I knew that there wouldn''t be a problem.

    First was the vows and then the exchanging of the rings, followed by the kiss.

    Once that was all over, the ceremony was over and everyone seemed like they were getting ready toe forward to surround us. After all, this was the only time that they would have to talk to us and get the chance to get closer to us.

    Or at least that would have been the case if not for the king making his move first.

    As for what the king did¡­

    The king came out from the private seat that he had along with the fourth prince.

    The moment that the two of them appeared, they immediately became the center of attention.

    However, there wasn''t a single person who came forward to greet the two of them.

    All of them could see that there was a specific reason for the two of them to appear at a time like this, so they maintained their silence to see what would happen.

    The king and the fourth prince came forward to stand in front of us before the king reached his hands out towards Ang.

    She went forward with a smile and entered his arms.

    As the king hugged her, he said, "I never thought that I would live to see this day, but I did in the end. I''m really happy to see that you were able to get married in the end."

    Ang and I both slightly knitted our brows since it sounded a bit strange the way that he said this, but in the end, Ang just said with a touched look, "Royal father, thank you for everything."

    The king patted her on the back of her hand before turning to look at the crowd.

    When they heard this, they immediately focused their attention on the king.

    Everyone could see that the king seemed to have something that he wanted to say, so they didn''t want to miss a single thing that he said.

    The king remained silent for a bit before taking a deep breath and saying, "Everyone, with my daughter getting married, I can see that a new age ising. I''ve been getting older as time passes and it doesn''t seem fit that I remain in my position as this new agees."

    Shocked looks appeared on everyone''s face when they heard this.

    After all, not a single person had expected the king to suddenly talk about something like this.

    There were no signs at all that the king would be passing down the throne for ages, but now for him to suddenly mention something like this¡­

    It seemed like the royal family had made their ns a long time ago?

    Everyone nced at the fourth prince who had been following behind the king the entire time.

    The looks in their eyes made it clear that all of them thought that he would be the king''s sessor.

    Though if one thought about it, it made sense.

    The only other child that the king had left was the princess and she had just gotten married.

    So it wasn''t as if she would be able to take the throne now.

    The fourth prince was also the mostpetent one, everyone knew how terrifying he was based on what had happened recently.

    So they were all waiting for the king to pass the throne to him.

    But they were all shocked when they heard what he had to say next.

 Chapter 818 Is this alright?

    <h4>Chapter 818 Is this alright?</h4>

    The king gave a dramatic pause after saying this, but he continued by saying, "I''ve been thinking very hard on who should be my sessor and I''ve finally reached a decision."

    Instead of turning to the fourth prince like everyone expected, the king came over to my side and put a hand on my shoulder before saying, "He shall take the throne and lead the country from now on."

    There was only silence that followed after the king said this.

    Chins dropped the moment that these words were said and everyone looked on in disbelief, as if they couldn''t understand the words that they had just heard.

    All of them looked at the king as if they couldn''t help wondering if there was something wrong with his brain.

    This didn''t change for a while as everyone just looked at the king with those confused looks on their faces.

    But eventually, they had toe back to their senses.

    The king hadn''t said a single thing after this since he was looking out at the crowd.

    With the look on his face, it was as if he was waiting to see how they would react.

    At the same time, it was as if he was judging them to see how they would take this news.

    There were a few nobles that seemed to realize something when they saw this.

    These were nobles that had higher rankings than the others, so they feltfortable acting while others didn''t. They realized that this was the chance for them to act before it was toote.

    After all, if they didn''t say anything now...it would be toote to regret it if it actually happened.

    So one of the nobles suddenly came forward and asked, "Your majesty, is this alright?"

    The king narrowed his eyes when he heard this and he looked at the one who spoke.

    The one who hade forward was one of the four dukes and one of the dukes that I recognized since I had met this person before.

    It was Duke Soutnd who had tried to take the wyverns away from me previously.

    It seemed like he still wasn''t able to get over those feelings from that time, so he was the one that acted first.

    It seemed like he was still looking down on me as he didn''t even look once in my direction the entire time. He had been looking at the king and justpletely ignored me even though it was about me.

    The king just looked at Duke Soutnd for a bit before suddenly saying, "What''s wrong with this?"

    Duke Soutnd was taken aback when he heard this before he said, "Your majesty, this is a matter of the royal bloodline. To hand the throne over to someone that doesn''t have a trace of that royal bloodline, how could that be allowed?"

    The other nobles quickly nodded in agreement to what Duke Soutnd said.

    Since he had given a logical exnation, of course they would do all that they could to support him.

    After all, there wasn''t a single person here that wanted to see me take the throne.

    The king didn''t seem fazed at all by thements that Duke Soutnd made. He just calmly looked at Duke Soutnd which made Duke Soutnd feel ufortable.

    However, Duke Soutnd didn''t say a thing since he knew that there was nothing that he could say in this situation.

    The only thing that he could do was wait and let the pressure from the other nobles fall on the king. As long as all of the other nobles supported him, there was no doubt that there would be pressure on the king on this matter.

    However, in the end, the king just calmly said, "He''s marrying my daughter, so he''s officially a part of our royal family now. Is there a problem?"

    All of the nobles were shocked the moment that they heard this.

    It was clear that not a single one of them had expected the king to say something like this.

    Not one of them thought that the king would be so insistent on this matter.

    But it wasn''t as if this was a proper argument.

    Duke Soutnd took a deep breath before saying, "Your majesty, this is a matter of prestige for the royal family. If someone who marries into the royal family is fit to take the throne, then wouldn''t that mean that anyone would have the right to rule?"

    The way that he said this almost seemed like he was provoking the king, but it was a subtle jab at the pride that a ruler should have.

    After all, it was said that the royal family had received the divine right to rule.

    So by saying this, it was almost as if they were saying that this wasn''t true.

    The other nobles nodded in agreement again and this time, there was someone else who stepped forward.

    It was another noble, but this was a noble who was on the same level as Duke Soutnd.

    This was the final duke of the four dukes, Duke Firestand.

    When Duke Firestand came forward, everyone cleared the way for him.

    After he stepped forward, Duke Firestand said, "Your majesty, please reconsider this. This is a crucial time for the kingdom, we can''t make rash decisions like this."

    Then after a pause, he gestured to the fourth prince and said, "If you''re looking for a sessor, there is one right beside you. Please don''t make the mistake of ignoring what is in front of you."

    The way that he said this could even be considered a way of ttering the fourth prince which made Duke Soutnd knit his brows.

    He didn''t think of it, so he was of course angry that Duke Firestand was taking advantage of him.

    Still, at this point, there was nothing to gain from being divided.

    So in the end, Duke Soutnd also supported what Duke Firestand said about the fourth prince.

    The king just narrowed his eyes to look at them before saying, "Is this really how you feel?"

 Chapter 819 Itâ€™s my choice

    Chapter 819 It¡¯s my choice

    ??Both of the dukes were taken aback when they heard this.

    They never expected the king to ask them something like this, but¡­they slowly came around and felt more confident.

    After all, if the king was asking them something like this, that meant that he at least had to consider their opinion. It seemed that at the very least, they had some kind of sway here.

    This confidence was further boosted when they thought of their positions as dukes.

    Their position in this kingdom was by no means low, so it wasn''t as if they wouldn''t be able to influence the king if they used their position.

    So that was most likely what was happening right now.

    Since the king was asking for their opinion, the two of them didn''t hold back.

    The two of them both turned to the fourth prince and said, "In our opinion, the fourth highness is the best choice for this position. The fourth prince has skill and prestige needed for such a position, so your majesty should pass the throne to the fourth prince."

    The two of them made sure to kiss the fourth prince''s butt while opposing the proposal that the king had put forward.

    After all, in this situation, it was most likely that only the fourth prince would be able to take this position.

    So there was nothing to lose from kissing the fourth prince''s butt early.

    If possible, they would have even offered their daughters or the daughters of their rtives to solidify their own position even more. Only it wasn''t really the right thing to do at a wedding.

    So they could only wait to do that after the wedding.

    For now, the most important thing was to use their power to put the fourth prince on the throne. As long as they did this for the fourth prince, there was no doubt that the fourth prince would be grateful to them.

    After all, the fourth prince had been skipped by the king for the throne.

    Everyone was certain that the fourth prince would have felt slighted by the king because of this.

    It was just that none of them knew the truth.

    The fourth prince had a calm look on his face the entire time as if he wasn''t bothered by this matter at all. It was almost as if this matter waspletely unrted to him with the way that he stood there with that nk look on his face.

    But since the two dukes were pushing him to the forefront, it wasn''t as if the fourth prince could just remain silent.

    He had to at least say a few words since he had be the center of attention.

    Unfortunately for them, the fourth prince didn''t have any words that would give them hope.

    Rather, the words that the fourth prince said gave them only despair.

    "I will be serving as my brother inw''s prime minister. This is something that I chose for myself, so I hope that you will respect my choice."

    The moment that they heard this, everyone revealed shocked looks.

    After all, not a single person had expected the fourth prince to suddenly say something like this.

    All of them thought that the fourth prince would jump at this chance to seize this power for himself since that was what they would have done. Not a single one of them thought that the fourth prince would actually turn down this opportunity that they were giving him.

    At the same time, they could see that the fourth prince wasn''t doing this unwillingly.

    It was clear by the firm look that was in the fourth prince''s eyes that this was something that they had decided ahead of time.

    It seemed that all of them knew about this except for the guests¡­

    The dukes were about to say something to cover their butts when they realized the dangerous situation that they were in, but¡­the king spoke first.

    "I''m curious about something." The king suddenly said to the confusion of all the nobles that were present.

    None of them could understand why the king would suddenly say something like this, but they didn''t say a thing in response. They all waited to see what the king had to say so they would be able to respond.

    "I never knew that the nobles were the ones that were in charge of this country. I never knew that the royal family had to ask the nobles what they had to do." The king''s voice turned cold the moment that he said this.

    As his cold voice rang out, there was a chill that ran down everyone''s backs.

    The king had just recently purged plenty of nobles because of corruption, but that wasn''t the only thing that he purged nobles for.

    There were also plenty of nobles who were purged because of treason.

    The way that he said this was almost as if he was using them of treason.

    So they were afraid that they would be next on the chopping block.

    The two dukes were the most afraid since they were the ones that had stood out the most. But at the same time, they were the most afraid because of what happened to Duke Yuletide.

    That example showed that not even a duke was safe¡­

    With the wyverns that the king currently had, it was hard for them to do anything if the king really wanted to make a move against them.

    So there was nothing that they could really do if the king were to purge them, even if they were from families that had founded this country.

    Both of the dukes looked at each other with worried looks before bowing their heads and saying, "Your majesty, we wouldn''t dare. We were just concerned for the future of our kingdom, but it is as your majesty says. The will of the kingdom is as the royal family dictates and we have overstepped."

    The other nobles all quickly mirrored the two dukes and showed their submission.

    The king just narrowed his eyes to look at them before giving a snort.

    He didn''t even bother saying anything in response as he started to leave the wedding hall.

    Following behind him were me, Ang, and the fourth prince.

 Chapter 820 Real wedding

    <h4>Chapter 820 Real wedding</h4>

    In a much smaller church in another part of the city, there was a group that was waiting for someone to arrive.

    This group had been here the entire time during the royal wedding and they didn''t seem like they were interested in the royal wedding at all.

    That was because they were worried about their own wedding.

    As for who was getting married, it was a bunch of brides that were waiting at this church.

    There wasn''t a single groom that was here.

    That was because the groom was still on his way.

    This groom came in a horse carriage that seemed like it was nothing more than amon carriage used to transport goods. However, the horse that was pulling it was without a doubt a powerful horse that few in this kingdom could obtain.

    As for who came out of the carriage...

    There were four people that came out in the end.

    It was the king, the fourth prince, Ang, and me.

    The four of us had rushed over from the venue of the royal wedding.

    During that time, both Ang and I had changed into different clothing.

    The clothing that we were wearing now weren''t as fancy as the ones that we had worn at the royal wedding, but both of us seemed much happier wearing these clothes. That was because these were the clothes that we had chosen for ourselves.

    The ones that we were wearing before were the ones that the fourth prince had chosen for us since those were necessary for the ceremony that the royal wedding was.

    But these ones were the ones that we wanted to wear and had chosen on our own.

    These were the ones that we wanted at our own wedding.

    When we arrived at the venue, the ones that were inside came out to greet us.

    Though it was just a few men who came to pull us into the church.

    These were the fourth prince''s elite guards who had been preparing everything.

    They separated me and Ang, with Shadow Five and another female elite guard taking her away. I was led away by the men to a dressing room where there were several others waiting for me.

    It seemed that they were there to get me ready.

    I was already used to this, so I just let them do what they wanted with me.

    It didn''t take long for them to finish dressing me up.

    Once I was dressed up, I was led out of the dressing room and brought to the main room where there were several people waiting for me.

    These people were the guests for this wedding.

    These were all people that I recognized.

    First was the king and the fourth prince, but the two of them were sitting in one of the back rows.

    Second was Duke Beauchamp and his wife, Veronica''s father and mother who were sitting in a row in front of the two of them.

    Then there was the elder of the elven vige who had been brought to the capital during this time. This elder was Moon''s grandmother.

    One might think that with this pattern, the next row would be Dwarven King who was the brother of Elsa. However¡­this wasn''t really possible since the Dwarven King was an important person that was in charge of an entire country.

    The elven elder was only in charge of a vige, but the Dwarven King was in charge of the Dwarven Kingdom.

    So it wasn''t as if the Dwarven King was free to leave his kingdom at will.

    It wasn''t the Dwarven King, but rather it was the parents of Cecilia and Rose.

    There was a part of me that didn''t want to invite them, but in the end, I chose to invite them.

    At the same time, Rose and Cecilia agreed to invite them.

    Even though both of them seemed like they had misgivings just like me.

    But that wasn''t strange since Rose was estranged from her parents after all this time. Even if she was trying to slowly get closer to them after everything that happened, it wasn''t as if they could be close all of a sudden.

    So inviting them to this wedding was definitely a stretch and a step forward.

    As for what this wedding was¡­

    It was the request that Ang made when the king asked her for something.

    She wanted a second wedding that was just a small affairpared to the official wedding that was held for everyone to see.

    She just wanted this wedding to be for family, which was why there were only these people here.

    As for the order that they were in, it was the order that I agreed to marry them.

    There was a set of parents missing, but there was nothing that could be done.

    Haley''s father was still aplicated matter.

    Right now, Haley still wasn''t on good terms with her parents.

    Perhaps in the future it might be better, but there was nothing that could be done right now.

    Though I was certain that she was feeling emotional about this even if she didn''t let it show on her face.

    I walked up to the altar just like with the first wedding, but this time, the ceremony was much different. It was much more rxed and casualpared to the official wedding that was considered a ceremony.

    Once I was at the altar, the door opened and there was a single bride that appeared.

    However, when I looked past her, I could see that there were other brides who were waiting outside.

    It seemed that all of them were waiting for their turn toe in.

    The first one was Rose who was in a beautiful wedding dress.

    Since we had rushed our first wedding, she hadn''t been able to put on a dress like this.

    I could see that she was very happy to be able to put on this dress now.

    Though the one thing that she didn''t do was let her father walk her down the aisle.

 Chapter 821 Is this what you wanted?

    <h4>Chapter 821 Is this what you wanted?</h4>

    She walked all by herself down the aisle until she was right beside me.

    With a smile at me, we both then turned to look at the next person walking down the aisle.

    Since Rose didn''t have her father walk her down the aisle, Cecilia didn''t have her father walk her down the aisle either.

    She decided that she would support Rose in what she did, so she chose to do the same thing as her to show her support.

    It was the same for the rest of the girls who also came in alone.

    However, that didn''t mean that they didn''t leave a big impression on me the moment that they walked in.

    They were already beautiful girls in the first ce, but when they came in like this¡­their beautypletely knocked me out. Seeing them in their ideal dresses just made them even more beautiful than they normally were.

    Seeing them like this even had me wondering if they were paintings as they walked in.

    That was just how out of this world their beauty was.

    Thest one to walk in was Ang who had also changed her clothes.

    Gone was the frilly and fancy dress that she had worn before and it was reced with a simple and chic white wedding dress that matched the ones that the others wore. All of them had dresses that were simr to one another''s, showing that they supported each other even though they were marrying one person.

    Once she came over, she stood by my side with all six of the other brides.

    A part of me couldn''t help finding this funny since if this was my previous world, then this would have been considered illegal.

    At the same time, there would be no way that the families of these seven would be able to ept something like this.

    But in this game world, it was a world that had an ambiguous atmosphere in the first ce.

    So polygamy was something that was just epted naturally.

    However, there was still a part of me that couldn''t help being worried.

    The many cases in this world had shown me that even though this was a world that was based on the game that I knew very well, there were many things in this world that were different from the game world that I knew.

    That was because unlike the game world that was fixed, this was a real world with real people.

    That meant that all kinds of things could change in this world.

    So even if they were designed to ept this kind of thing as part of the game, it was important to see just how they really felt about all of this.

    As we were standing there in front of the altar, I suddenly asked them, "Is this what you wanted?"

    All seven of them were taken aback when they heard this.

    They looked at me with looks that had traces of sadness in them which I thought meant that they did have some kind of misgivings. However, it turned out that this was just because of the misunderstanding that I had created.

    "Are you having second doubts now?"

    I was taken aback when I heard this from Rose.

    I could see that the others all looked at me with looks like they cared about my answer to this very much.

    It waspletely different from what I had expected to hear from them.

    I couldn''t help asking in a confused voice, "Why would I have second doubts now?"

    Rose knitted her brows hearing this before saying, "Then why are you asking this?"

    I was slowly starting to understand what she was referring to and at the same time, it was clear that they were figuring out what I was referring to as well.

    After a long silence, I said, "I''m just worried that you might feel aggrieved because of this situation. However, I want you to know that I''ve never had any second doubts about any of this. My feelings are still the same that they''ve always been and I''ve never changed my mind about how I feel about any of you."

    Rose and the others looked at me with touched looks before Rose said, "It''s the same for us. We''ve alreadye to this decision that we want to be with you, so we won''t ever back down on it now."

    Then after a sigh, she said, "Sometimes, you should be more confident in yourself. We like this side of you, but sometimes we want you to take charge as well."

    I was once again taken aback when I heard this before suddenly giving a firm nod.

    I reached out and pulled all seven of them closer before saying, "Then I won''t give up on any of you even if any of you have some kind of misgivings." With what seemed to be an evil smile, I said, "You''re stuck with me until the end."

    All of them suddenly revealed a blush when they saw me like this, but they all nodded in agreement to this.

    The priest who was just watching all of this said with a smile, "Since you''re all ready now, shall we start?"

    I looked at the priest with a smile on my face.

    It was only this priest that I would treat in this friendly manner since there was history between this priest and me.

    It was the priest who was assigned to the church in my town.

    I had him brought all the way out here since he was the one that officiated my wedding to Rose, so I wanted him to be the one to do the same for this wedding.

    After all, I felt a bit guilty towards Rose over what had happened at the time.

    She had married me in front of everyone without a proper ceremony because of the circumstances, so I did want to make up for it.

    Which was why I brought the priest here.

    With the priest officiating, it went very smoothly and we were married without a hitch.

 Chapter 822 To the future

    Chapter 822 To the future

    ??After the wedding, we all went back to the castle.

    That was where the wedding banquet was being held.

    The official one was being held in a hall not far away from the church where the official wedding had been held, but we didn''t go.

    This was a decision by the fourth prince after what had happened at the official wedding today.

    In short, this was his way of showing dominance.

    This wasn''t in the ns initially, but he had added this in after seeing how the nobles had acted.

    He said that this would show them the consequences of their actions, but really...I could tell that he had been angered by them. It seemed like he had been angered on our behalf by them by all the things that they said about me.

    Since he was angry on my behalf, it wasn''t as if there was anything that I could say.

    So that was how those nobles who hade to build rtions and thought that they would have an easy way to the top were now left in worry. They had to worry about whether they would even have a ce in this country after the changing of the crown.

    The ones that were the most worried would be the two dukes who had led them in trying to oppose this.

    After all, it was their fault that the rest of them had fallen into this situation.

    There was no doubt that the rest of the nobles would hold grudges because of this.

    That would make the position of the two dukes even worse as they had to deal with the other nobles along with the threat from above.

    But that was none of our business.

    As for the ones that had been invited to this banquet in the castle, they were naturally those that were rted to the brides.

    That meant that all who had attended the wedding were here.

    But they weren''t the only ones that were here as the fourth prince had also invited a few people.

    That included those that he trusted to work for him.

    It seemed that he was using this as a chance to introduce me to the people that would be helping me run this country in the future. Though the way that he introduced me the entire time was almost as if he was introducing a rtive that he was proud of.

    It was different from how others had introduced me before.

    They introduced me in a way that showed that they clearly had something to gain from me.

    But the fourth prince was just introducing me because he wanted that person to meet me.

    Now that I had gotten married to his sister, it seemed that he was treating me like a real rtive. Though if I thought about it, it seemed like he had been doing that all along.

    Perhaps that was why I couldn''t throw aside the fourth prince even after all the plotting that he had done against me.

    Though there was a part that did feel strange when he kept saying that I was the one to contact if anything happened to him.

    It wasn''t that I was feeling strange about being considered his emergency contact, it was the fact that he kept staring at Ang who was talking to others every time he said this. It was almost as if he was trying to say indirectly that if anything happened to him because of her¡­they shoulde looking for me.

    I didn''t say anything, but I couldn''t help thinking, "She''s your sister, she wouldn''t do anything to you."

    But the way that the fourth prince kept acting made it seem like he thought differently.

    Other than these people, there were also those from Shadow Garden and other organizations that were under the king that attended this banquet.

    I was familiar with the people from Shadow Garden since I had worked with them before.

    In fact, they had been my bosses before.

    Now the shoe was on the other foot, but I had a good rtionship with them, so it wasn''t as if I was going to make things harder for them.

    Especially since we had cleaned up Shadow Garden.

    Using the fourth prince''s intelligence and the things that I could remember, we cleaned up all those other factions that wanted to take over Shadow Garden for their own benefits. The only ones left were those that remembered the mission and would work for the crown, which included Scar and the stuffed bunny boss.

    They would be important assets in the future that would secure my reign.

    The others that came were other organizations simr to Shadow Garden, but were used for other things.

    There was the head of the royal family''spany, there was the head of the royal family''s private guards, and other people of simr positions.

    They would be there to help me in the future.

    Though it seemed like most of them were more respectful to the fourth prince than to me, not that I really minded.

    This was all for the future and he was someone that I trusted, so I would leave it to him.

    That also included Duke Beauchamp who hade since Veronica was also getting married to me.

    That meant that it wasn''t just the royal family alone against the rest of the kingdom, it meant that one of the dukes would be on our side. Two if you included me, but I really didn''t have the same power as the other dukes did.

    Though if you also include the resources that came from raiding the Yuletide Family, that was three dukes.

    In short, it wasn''t as if we were worried that the two dukes were on the other side.

    If it came down to it, we could take their power just like with the Yuletide Family.

    That was just how dominating of a position we were in.

    But halfway through the banquet, my brides and I left.

    Everyone else remained at the banquet while we went off to a special chamber that had been prepared for us.

    It was our wedding night after all.

 Chapter 823 Wedding night (1)

    Chapter 823 Wedding night (1)

    ??The room that had been prepared was one that didn''t have much in it.

    This was clearly a room that wasn''t just here for decoration, this was a room that clearly had a purpose.

    As for what that purpose was¡­

    Therge bed in the center perfectly symbolized that.

    This was a bed that wasrger than any king sized bed in my previous world.

    This was clearly a bed that was meant to hold multiple people and it was a bed that seemed like it was made for a certain something.

    For a world that was based on a H-game, it was normal for beds like this to exist.

    Especially since that game world encouraged the yer to start a harem.

    I had even seen these kinds of beds before, but this one¡­was much bigger than any that I''ve seen before. It was much bigger than the bed that Rose had gotten for our bedroom.

    But then again, that bed was only for five people in the first ce.

    This bed had more than enough space for over ten people.

    That really sunk in how big of a harem I had created during this time.

    Even if it had sunk in a bit during the wedding, it really started to sink in now that we were in the nuptial chambers.

    My biggest concern¡­would I be able to satisfy all of them?

    There were seven of them, one of me and I only had so much stamina.

    Would I really be able to satisfy all of them tonight?

    That was what lingered on my mind for a bit before I shook my head and threw out that thought.

    Regardless of if I thought I could do it or not, that was not what was important.

    It was on my pride as a man that I did as best as I could to satisfy my wives.

    So I couldn''t just think that I would fail without even doing anything.

    At the very least, I had to do what I could.

    The seven of them were currently in the side room getting ready.

    I was taking this time to calm myself down and prepare for what was about toe.

    However, nothing that I did was enough to prepare me for what came in.

    When the door opened, I turned to look in that direction and the scene that I saw sent me to heaven.

    I waspletely shocked as I saw all of them standing there with just a robe over them.

    Even though they had taken off the makeup that they had on for the banquet, they seemed even more beautiful than before.

    As I sat there on the bed in a daze, they came over to me and just stood there in front of me as if they were waiting for me to start.

    Rose and the others knew what they should do, but they held back since it was the first time for the other four. So they were standing a bit further backpared to the four of them, so they could go first.

    But there was nothing that happened since I waspletely stunned by their appearances that I just sat there in a daze.

    After a long silence, I finally gave a gulp and said, "Alright, let''s do this."

    The four of them were surprised to suddenly hear this, but they were even more surprised when I pulled the four of them over and pushed them down onto the bed.

    All four of them were shocked by this sudden move from me, but they didn''t resist at all.

    As they fell onto the bed, there was a jiggle that came from all of them.

    However, the one that caught my attention the most was Elsa.

    Hers were just too big for me to ignore and I had to admit that I liked them big.

    None of them were small to begin with, it was just that Elsa was in apletely different leaguepared to the rest. Hers were so big that they were likerge beach balls that bounced up and down on the bed.

    They were sorge that they even popped out of the robe that she had on and bounced in front of my eyes.

    I was shocked to find¡­

    There weren''t therge tips that I thought that I would see, but rather it seemed like they were hidden inside of her breast.

    Inverted nipples!

    It was the legendary inverted nipples!

    That drove me over the top and I couldn''t hold myself back as I jumped right at her.

    Elsa was taken aback seeing me jump at her like this, but then¡­

    she started moaning from what I was doing.

    I had grabbed both of her breasts with my hand, even though they couldn''t fit in my hands at all. However, I used my fingers to slowly massage them before pushing my hand into her inverted nipples.

    Poking around inside, I finally found the tip and slowly massaged it until they poked their heads out.

    Then without any hesitation, I went for the one that was closest to my face and wrapped my lips around the center of her breast. I poked my tongue out to start licking the small nipple that revealed itself, teasing it with my tongue as I sucked on her breast.

    The more that I did this, the more that she moaned while saying, "Not so rough, be gentle with me."

    However, that just stirred the mes deep inside of me and I started teasing her even more.

    "Ah, ah, I can''t hold myself back anymore!" She said as the burning sensation started burning inside of her until¡­

    "I''m cumming!"

    At that, her body started to tremble before she suddenly jerked back.

    I could feel her legsing up, so I pulled back a bit to see a spray of liquide out from between her legs.

    It created arge wet spot on the bed before she fell down while still panting.

    There was a feeling of satisfaction that filled me seeing this, but that didn''tst long as the other three opened up their robes as well and looked at me like they were sad puppies looking for affection as well.

    Seeing all three pairs of breasts in front of me, I revealed a faint smile before moving towards them.

 Chapter 824 Wedding night (2)

    <h4>Chapter 824 Wedding night (2)</h4>

    I would have done the same with them as I did with Elsa, but...there was something that was raging inside of my pants.

    As I moved, I could feel it pushing up against my pants and the pressure was hard for me.

    So instead of just grabbing their chests, I suddenly stopped and moved my lower body forward.

    The three of them were confused at first until...

    I suddenly pulled my pants down in front of them.

    As I did, my dick got caught on the waist of my pants.

    There was a moment of build up as I pulled my pants down where my dick came down with it, but then the tension couldn''t hold it anymore. There was just too much tension that my dick suddenly popped out of my pants and stood up tall in front of all three of them.

    They had been sitting down while I was standing up on the bed, so it actually flew out right in front of their faces.

    The one that received the full might of it was Ang who was in the center.

    If I had been a bit closer, it might have even caught her by the chin and knocked her back.

    But aftering out of my pants, it bounced up and down in front of Ang''s face until it suddenly settled down in front of her.

    With the three of them showing their chests like this, it was still rock hard as it stood up straight in front of them.

    However, none of them were able to react to it.

    That was because...all three of them were shocked by the size of it.

    They had heard about the size of it before from Rose and the others, but seeing it waspletely different from hearing about it.

    When the three of them saw the size of this thing in front of them, they couldn''t help feeling afraid.

    Wouldn''t this thing split them in half if it were to enter them?

    But there was also a feeling of excitement that filled them after seeing this.

    They couldn''t help wondering just how it would feel to have thisrge thing inside of them...

    Before any of that happened, there was something that I needed them to do.

    I needed a bit of relief from this raging boner.

    I looked down at Ang who was just staring at my dick in a daze and said, "It''s your turn now. You should know what to do."

    She looked up at me in a daze when she heard this before suddenly trembling.

    This was a tremble that was filled with fear and excitement at the same time as she brought a hand out to touch her lips. Her lips opened up slightly as if she was wondering if she would even be able to...

    But I didn''t think too much about it as I suddenly grabbed her head.

    She looked at me in shock when I did this, but I just said, "Open wide."

    She didn''t get a chance to say anything as I started pulling her head forward. So the only thing that she could do was open her mouth wide and hope that it would fit.

    Only the front of the tip was able to make it into her mouth.

    Ang had opened her mouth as wide as she could and only the first half of the tip could make it into her mouth.

    There was a look of disappointment that appeared on her face when she felt the way that I stopped.

    She knew that this was her limit, so the only thing that she could do was¡­

    "Ah." I couldn''t help giving a moan when I felt her tongue rubbing against the ns of my dick.

    It was sloppy, there was no doubt of that. However, the enthusiasm that she had made up for it to a certain extent.

    She was doing all that she could to move her tongue across the part of my dick that was in her mouth. Even from time to time, she identally poked the tip of her tongue into my urethra, which was certainly a new experience.

    After a while, I let go of her head, but she didn''t move back.

    The only time she moved back was to take a breath, but she kept those short and pushed herself as much as she could. Each time she moved forward, it seemed like it was going a bit deeper into her mouth.

    The feeling of this sloppy blowjob that she gave me without a doubt filled me with pleasure since it was a kind of pleasure that I had never experienced before, but there was only so much that enthusiasm could do.

    Eventually, I got used to it even though Ang was trying her best.

    After getting used to it, I turned to Moon and Veronica who were just sitting beside Ang in a daze.

    The two of them just sat there and watched as Ang pushed my dick in her mouth.

    The looks on their faces seemed like they were trying to figure out if they could do the same. At the same time, the looks on their faces made it seem like they knew that they wouldn''t be able to do the same.

    However, I didn''t let them remain idle for long as I grabbed both of their heads as well.

    Both of them were immediately snapped back to reality when they felt me grabbing their heads, but they were confused as they didn''t know what I was nning to do.

    I pulled the two of them forward so that they were on the side of my dick.

    Even though Ang was doing her best to swallow it, she just couldn''t take it that deep.

    So even though she had it in her mouth, there were still parts of my dick that were free for them.

    I said to the two of them, "You can help her lick it."

    Both of them stared at my dick in shock for a few seconds before moving forward with their tongues outstretched.

 Chapter 825 Wedding night (3)

    <h4>Chapter 825 Wedding night (3)</h4>

    Ang was still doing her best at the tip and then there were the two of them doing their best at the side.

    They had already wanted to do the same thing as her earlier, but they just never got the chance.

    Since it was their first time, naturally they didn''t have the skills that someone experienced would. It was them just making up for it with enthusiasm that made me feel good.

    They would try their best with their tongue,pping the side of my dick up and down as much as they could.

    With the three of them working together like this, each lick gave a new feeling since it was always in a new spot. My dick was constantly being moved between the three of them, so it was never in the same spot that they licked.

    Finally, I couldn''t take it anymore and pushed both Veronica and Moon away from me.

    Both of them looked at me with worried looks like they were scared that they had done something wrong, but I didn''t pay attention to them.

    I also stopped Ang who let my dick out of her mouth with a pop.

    She also had a worried look as she was afraid that she had done something wrong.

    However, I just said while stroking my dick, "I''m about to cum. Put your hands out in front of you."

    The three of them looked at each other with confused looks for a few seconds before listening to what I had said. All three of them brought their hands to their chins as if they were about to catch something while waiting for me to do something.

    I couldn''t take it anymore seeing them like this and I blew my load in their face as I said, "I''m cumming!"

    The three of them were caught off guard by the shot that came at their faces and their first instincts were to close their eyes.

    However, they soon opened it when they felt something ssh onto their faces.

    The three of them all looked at each other''s faces with surprised and confused looks at first before Ang said, "This is¡­the thing thates out of a man''s dick, right?"

    The other two slowly nodded in agreement as they reached up to touch their own faces that were covered in my cum.

    There was a satisfied look on my face seeing this since I had never done a bukkake scene like this before. It had honestly never crossed my mind since I had never had a triple blowjob like this, but it didn''t take long for me to get hard again.

    Before the three of them could react, Elsa who had recovered from her orgasm suddenly sat up and pulled me over to her side.

    She didn''t hesitate at all to pull me down to her level and ce her lips on mine.

    With a passion that was like a burning sun, she tried to do all that she could to give a deep kiss.

    There was some familiarity in her actions, most likely from her time with her previous husband, but there was a lot of sloppiness as well. It seemed that she hadn''t been that intimate with her previous husband, not that it was her fault.

    There was a part of me that felt sad because of this, but that just made me more forward.

    Since he wasn''t man enough for her, I would do it for him.

    So I grabbed her and pushed her down under me while poking my tongue into her mouth.

    Elsa''s eyes opened wide at first, but then she quickly responded by sticking her tongue out as well to wrap around mine.

    The two of us just kissed like this, but out of the corner of my eyes¡­I saw something amazing.

    The three who had been left in a daze after getting a load shot in their face had started to move.

    The three of them had been confused at first since they didn''t know what they should do after this, but then they figured something out. What they had figured out hadpletely stunned me.

    That was because the three of them were now licking each other''s faces.

    The three of them were just pressed up against each other while licking the cum off each other''s face.

    The look on their faces made it seem like they were enjoying themselves very much.

    It seemed like they enjoyed the taste of my cum.

    This was something else that I had never seen sinceing to this world since Rose and the others weren''t as voracious as this. They had never done something like this because they seemed to have more control over themselves.

    But this was the first time for the three of them, so they couldn''t hold themselves back at all.

    Seeing them like this made me rock hard again.

    Since I was holding Elsa, having pressed her down under me, that meant that she didn''t miss the change in my dick.

    As my dick became harder and bigger again, it started pushing up against Elsa''s stomach.

    As she felt the heating from it pushing against her stomach, her breathing became more ragged and her face started to turn red. She tried to take care of this heat by intensifying the way that she kissed me, but it didn''t help at all.

    Finally, she let go of me and pulled back before looking down to say, "I need it inside of me. Please stick it in me."

    As she said this, she brought her hands down so that they went in between her legs and she started to spread her pussy with those hands. She opened it wide, as if she was begging me to prate her.

    Though with the way that she had said this, it really was her begging for it.

    This made me even more turned on as I moved myself down into position and then grabbed her by the arms.

    It was a lie to say that I could control myself.

    So even if she wanted to back out, I wouldn''t let her.

 Chapter 826 Wedding night (4)

    Chapter 826 Wedding night (4)

    ??Once I was lined up with her, I didn''t hold back at all as I pulled her in.

    She was already wet enough, so there was no need for me to do anything as I slipped right into her.

    But the moment that I did, I couldn''t help freezing for a second.

    Tight.

    That was the first thing that I thought the moment that I pushed my dick into her.

    This was much tighter than any other girl that I''ve been with before.

    It was so tight that it almost felt like it would cut off cirction to my dick, but it was also slowly growing to fit my size.

    It only took a second for me to realize why this was the case, why she was so tight.

    The size difference.

    That was the key thing here.

    There was arge size difference, which was why she was so tight.

    She was much smaller than me, much smaller than even normal humans, so her insides were much smaller than other women. Not to mention that my dick wasn''t a normal size in the first ce.

    These two factors made her seem even tighter than she really was.

    At the same time...because of the size difference...

    I couldn''t push in any deeper once I reached halfway into her.

    It wasn''t that she wasn''t rxing, but rather because I could feel myself hitting something. This was something that I had felt before with other women, so I knew that there was no pushing any deeper.

    I had hit her womb.

    If I pushed any deeper, I knew that I would hurt her.

    Or at least that was what I thought.

    It wasn''t as if this was Elsa''s first time having sex, so she didn''tpletely lose herself. She even looked at me with a disappointed look when she saw me stop before saying, "Why did you stop? Why didn''t you go deeper? I want you deeper inside of me."

    I was surprised by her insistence, which might even be called a kind of fanaticism.

    After looking at her for a bit, I said, "Are you sure? If I go deeper, I''ll hurt you."

    Elsa shook her head and said, "It''s my body, I know what I can take. My body is telling me that it wants you even deeper."

    The way that she said this was almost as if she wouldn''t ept it any other way.

    I was surprised to see her this insistent, but...since she was being this insistent, what was I hesitating for?

    If that was what she wanted, then I would give her what she wanted.

    With a nod, I said, "Alright."

    It was a simple response before I grabbed her arms even tighter and started pulling her forward.

    As I pushed up against the opening into her womb, I could feel it slowly opening up for me.

    While this was happening, Elsa said, "Ah, ah, this is it! This is what I wanted!"

    All the while, she was moaning in pleasure.

    The look on her face almost seemed like she was about to pass out from the pleasure.

    However, I knew that she wanted more, so I gave her more.

    I pulled her harder and harder until I finally pushed through that opening.

    The moment that it opened up, I felt my dick slip deeper into her without any resistance until¡­I reached the back of her womb. Once I reached the back of her womb, I knew that this was it.

    There was no way to push any deeper since there was nowhere else to go.

    But at the same time, the moment that I reached the back of her womb, I could feel the small body in my hands trembling.

    "Ah, it''s so deep!"

    That was thest thing that Elsa said before she released herself.

    There was arge spray that hit me right in the waist as she shook while shooting it out.

    It was almost as if she was having a spasm attack with how much she was shaking, but that didn''tst long as she settled down.

    When she settled down, she fell back on the bed with her head rolled back and her tongue sticking out.

    Even though it seemed like she was done, I could guess that she wasn''t satisfied with just this.

    Or it should be said that I wasn''t satisfied with just this.

    Now that I''ve finally reached all the way into her, I wasn''t satisfied with just this.

    So I picked her up and then lifted her up above me while Iid down on the bed.

    As Iid down, I held her up above me and then started moving her up and down on top of my dick.

    The way that I was holding her, it was almost as if I was treating her as some kind of cocksleeve instead of as a woman.

    Elsa didn''t react at first as she had zoned out, but then she suddenly snapped back as she felt me moving her up and down. As I brought her up and down atop of me, she said, "Wait, no, I''m still sensitive¡­Ah¡­"

    Sheined at first, but thoseints didn''tst long as they faded into moans of pleasure.

    Though sheined, there wasn''t a single moment where she resisted what I was doing.

    She just let me manhandle her like this.

    There was even a look on her face like she was enjoying all of this.

    That just stirred me on even more as I suddenly stood up and grabbed her legs, lifting them up and holding her with her legs wide open.

    "Wait, no, not in this position! You''re showing everything!"

    I didn''t stop even though she wasining like this and I just kept pushing her up and down on my dick.

    Elsa came two times during this and by the end, her eyes were rolled back in their sockets and her tongue was sticking out, but there was still a moan of pleasureing from her.

    "I''m about to cum." I suddenly said to her that snapped her out of her daze and she gave a nod as she said, "Me too."

    When I came, I pulled her all the way down and mmed my dick inside of her, shooting my load right into her womb.

    I could feel her trembling and could see the dazed look on her face, as if she was about to lose her mind, but that didn''t make me stop.

    It was only when I finished shooting my load deep into her that I dropped Elsa down on the bed.

    She didn''t react at all by the way that she was dropped on the bed.

    She justid there facing down, with her tongue out and eyes rolled back, showing that she hadpletely lost consciousness from what I did. It didn''t even seem to bother her that my cum was dripping out of her pussy.

    I wiped the sweat off my head after seeing this and gave a satisfied nod before turning to look at the other three who had been silent the entire time.

    All three of them had looks of fear and excitement on their faces as they looked at Elsa on the bed.

    Those looks became even more intense when they saw me looking over at them.

    But this time, there was also a trace of anticipation in their eyes.

 Chapter 827 Wedding night (5)

    <h4>Chapter 827 Wedding night (5)</h4>

    I moved over to them, but none of them stepped forward.

    Even though they were filled with anticipation for what wasing, it was still terrifying since it was their first time.

    They didn''t know what to expect or what to even do, which was why they didn''t want to go first.

    But I didn''t let them remain idle as I made their choice for them.

    I reached out and grabbed Ang by the hand, pulling her over to my side.

    When she felt me pulling her over, she started trembling from her fear and excitement. However, there wasn''t a single moment where she resisted what I was doing since she wanted this as well.

    I pulled her over in front of me and then went down in front of her.

    I went right in between her legs and opened them up before sticking my tongue out.

    As I teased her little bean with my tongue, I could feel her trembling.

    There was a faint whimper as she said, "Wait, it''s not clean. I didn''t know that you would be¡­ah¡­"

    She put up this little bit of resistance, but it was no use at all as I kept licking her. I even brought my hand forward and started poking one finger in to tease her along with licking her like this.

    I could feel the trembling of her body getting stronger as I did this, as if she was about to climax.

    So I stopped right before she did.

    Ang looked down at me as if she was disappointed that I had suddenly stopped.

    After a moment of hesitation, she asked, "Why did you stop? I was almost¡­"

    Her face turned red as she said this, as if she was regretting what she was saying.

    But then she had a firm look on her face as if she came to terms with it.

    Like she realized that now that we were married, things like this were just normal.

    I watched this revtion on Ang''s face before saying, "There''s no need for more forey anymore, you''re already wet enough."

    Ang was surprised and a bit confused when she heard this before suddenly realizing what I meant.

    There was a moment where she looked at me in a daze, then sheid back down on the bed all on her own and just held her hand at her chest, as if she was waiting for me.

    A faint smile appeared on my face seeing her like this, but I didn''t forget about the two others that had been watching.

    So instead of going to Ang right away, I turned to the two of them and said, "You should get ready, it''ll be your turn next."

    The two of them were surprised to hear this and were confused by what I meant by this.

    Seeing this, I went over and turned Veronica around so that her bottom was facing Moon and so she was facing Moon''s lower half.

    Both of them were confused why I put them in this position, but I said, "You should give each other a helping hand. You saw what I did earlier, so work together to get ready."

    Both of them immediately looked shocked by what I was suggesting to them, but I didn''t care about either of them as I went back over to Ang. I just left them alone to see if they would actually do it or not.

    After all, this wasn''t really necessary¡­

    It was more for my own enjoyment.

    So it didn''t really matter if they did it or not.

    I went to have my taste of Ang, but before I could, I found¡­

    The two of them had actually started doing it.

    They had been hesitating after hearing what I said, but they weren''t hesitating anymore.

    The one that started it was Veronica.

    When she made up her mind, she really went for it.

    She brought her head down in between Moon''s legs to Moon''s surprise and she came right to her hidden ce.

    As her head was there, Moon could feel her breath.

    There was a tremble that filled Moon when she felt this and she started getting a bit wet, but she still said, "Wait, not so sudden."

    Veronica revealed a smile seeing this before sticking her tongue out.

    However, she wasn''t as skilled as Zwein was, so it wasn''t as if she knew exactly what to do.

    She had only seen him move his head back and forth earlier when he did this for Ang, so she didn''t really know where to lick. The first thing that she did was stick her tongue into Moon.

    She thought that this would be good enough.

    The moment that Moon felt her tongue enter her pussy, she jolted and even jumped up a bit, which caused Veronica''s private ce to fall right in front of her face.

    Seeing how Veronica was also getting wet, she felt that it wasn''t fair that she was the only one feeling this way.

    So Moon brought her head forward and did the same thing as Veronica.

    Veronica also jolted when she felt Moon''s tongue enter her, but she let out a moan afterwards.

    This was a different feeling from how she did it herself.

    Her tongue was much warmer than her finger and much softer¡­

    It was a strange feeling, but that didn''t mean that it was a bad feeling.

    The two of them just kept experimenting with each other.

    At first, they were just experimenting, but then it became a kind ofpetition.

    Neither of them wanted to see the other one make them cum, so they were trying their best to pleasure the other person.

    When I saw them like this, it almost felt like they didn''t need me¡­

    There was this strange feeling that filled me even though I was the one that told them to do this.

    However, there was someone that did need me.

    "I''m still waiting. Please give it to me." A soft voice came from the girl lying on the bed in front of me.

    When she begged like this, how could I ignore her?

 Chapter 828 Wedding night (6)

    Chapter 828 Wedding night (6)

    ??The princess, this was a body that I''ve only seen in the game CG before.

    I was familiar with this body since I had seen it many times in the game, but it waspletely different when it was in front of my actual eyes.

    Especially when I saw her trembling in anticipation while I had my dick over her.

    She looked down at it, as if she wanted it deep inside of her.

    And it seemed like she couldn''t wait.

    That long beautiful blonde hair was flowing down and covering her perfect sized chest, though there were two little pink tips that were poking out because they were hard from how excited she was. At the same time, I could see that there was a flooding from those nice pink lower lips in between her legs.

    She really couldn''t wait any longer.

    It wasn''t just her that couldn''t wait any longer, I was the same.

    Seeing the two others like that and seeing the way that she was showing everything to me was already enough to make me hard.

    So I moved forward and put myself in position before asking, "Are you ready?"

    Ang was looking down at my dick as I brought it into position.

    There was a look on her face like she was shocked by how big it was, but there was also a look like she was entranced by it. She could feel the heating from my dick and it made her even more wet.

    After a moment of silence, she looked up at me and gave a gulp before giving a small nod.

    I pressed myself down over Ang and pushed my hip forward, pushing my dick into her without any resistance at all.

    The moment that it went in, there was a spurt of blood that came out to show that this was her first time, but Ang didn''t pay any attention to that. Rather, her head went back on the bed and she gave a moan of pleasure.

    Even though I had seen it in the game before, seeing it in real life waspletely different.

    Seeing her head go back and her hand go up to grab the nkets under us, I couldn''t help myself as I went down to kiss her.

    Ang''s eyes opened wide when she felt me kissing her, but it didn''t take long before she was the one that was in charge.

    She was the one that was grabbing my face and pushing her tongue through my lips, catching mepletely off guard. I didn''t think that she would be this enthusiastic for her first time, but it seemed that I was wrong.

    I could see it in her eyes...

    It seemed that this feeling had been inside of her for a long time and she was finally letting it out.

    This wasn''t something that had happened in the game, so I waspletely caught off guard by this.

    I thought that I would know what to expect from her since I had the history from the game, but it seemed that this wasn''t useful at all. It seemed like she was actingpletely differently from in the game.

    As for why she was like this...I had no idea.

    Seeing that I wasn''t doing anything, Ang revealed a disappointed look.

    However, she didn''t seem to me me as she suddenly came up to my surprise.

    She took control of the two of us and soon I was the one that was lying on the bed with her sitting atop of me. During all of this, she didn''t let my dick go for even a second.

    In fact, with her getting up like this, it went even deeper inside of her.

    Ang bit her lip for a second as if she was enjoying herself before revealing that disappointed look once more.

    I was just lying there on the bed since I had no idea what was happening.

    "I''ll do it myself then."

    Ang suddenly said to my surprise.

    When I reacted, I found that her hands were on my chest and she pushed herself up so that she was squatting over my dick. Just like this, she started moving up and down on her own.

    I waspletely taken aback by this, but that didn''t mean that it didn''t feel good.

    She was tight, there was no doubt of that. However, it felt like she was deliberately squeezing the insides of her pussy around my dick if that even made sense with how she kept going up and down.

    It was slow at first, but she soon started moving faster and faster as she moaned in pleasure.

    "Ah, I want it deep inside of me, I want it faster and harder!" She said as she continued moving up and down over me.

    It was apletely different experience from usual where I was the one in charge.

    Perhaps this was because of her personality as a part of the royal family¡­maybe that was where she got this side of her from.

    Though I couldn''t say that this was a bad feeling.

    It was definitely an experience that I never had before and I couldn''t say that I wasn''t into it.

    It was different, but not bad.

    However, I could also see that there was a slightly disappointed look on Ang''s face as she moved up and down atop of me. It was like there was something still missing from this for her.

    She looked down at me, or more specifically¡­she was looking at my hands.

    She brought her hands down, but she didn''t stop moving her hips up and down.

    She grabbed my hands and brought them up to her chest before saying, "Do the thing."

    I knew what she was asking me to do, but it certainly was a strange feeling to have her tell me this while she was riding on me.

    Still, I started ying with Ang''s breasts at hermand and soon she was back to moaning in pleasure.

    This continued until both of us couldn''t take it anymore.

    She even went as far as pressing her hips down as much as possible so that I was as deep inside of her as I could be as I came.

    "Ah, this warmth, this deep feeling. It''s like I can feel you inside of me."

    This was almost disturbing the way that she said this¡­but I didn''t let it bother me since she was my wife now.

    After I finished cumming, I was about to let go of her and pull out, but¡­

    "We''re not done yet."

    Ang suddenly looked down at me and said this with a serious look on her face.

    She leaned forward so that her face was at my chest and she started licking my nipples to my shock.

    I couldn''t stop myself from moaning myself from the pleasure that this gave me, but there was something else that also happened.

    "Ah, it''s getting harder inside of me. It seems like you''re ready to go again." She said with a smile on her face.

    From the expression on her face, it seemed like she was insatiable.

    There was a part of me that was a bit afraid of what would happen next, but there was nothing that I could do as she started moving her hips up and down again.

 Chapter 829 Wedding night (7)

    Chapter 829 Wedding night (7)

    ??In the end, what saved me was Ang''s inexperience.

    Even though there were still things that it seemed like she wanted to do, she didn''t have the energy to keep doing it.

    It was tiring moving oneself up and down like this, as well as taking control of everything. It was only a matter of time before she used up all of her energy and then fell down tired on my chest.

    Seeing her like this, I let out a sigh of relief before lifting her and putting her on the side.

    I made sure that she was resting well before taking a break myself.

    The way that Ang had taken control had really given me a fright and I had to take a moment to gather myself.

    But when I was ready, I turned my attention to thest two who were waiting for me.

    The two of them seemed like they were satisfied and tired after the littlepetition that they had, but that didn''t mean that I was about to let them off. I could tell by how wet they were that they were ready for me now, so I went over to them.

    When the two of them saw me, both of them were surprised.

    However, they also looked like they were expecting something from me.

    As if they had been waiting for me to give them something.

    I didn''t do things the way that they wanted me to as I said to Veronica, "Get on top of Moon."

    Both Moon and Veronica were confused when they heard this, but Veronica still turned around and got on top of Moon.

    The two of them looked at each other with confused looks as neither of them knew what was happening, but I was just admiring the scene that was in front of me.

    Since Veronica was atop of Moon, the two of them pointed their butts at me.

    With the way that theyid there with Veronica on top, they showed everything to me.

    Seeing the two of them like this, it reminded me of a scene that I wanted to try, but never had the chance to do.

    So I went up behind them and grabbed onto Veronica''s butt.

    She gave a soft surprised cry when she felt my hand grab her butt like this and she asked, "What are you..."

    Veronica didn''t get a chance to finish as she felt something in between her legs.

    It wasn''t just Veronica who was surprised by this feeling since Moon also felt something between her legs.

    Both of them could feel the heating from it and at the same time, they could feel the pleasure that filled them when they felt this thing poking in between the folds of their pussy.

    It was as if something was being stuck inside of them without being thrusted into them.

    When they looked down, they were surprised to find the thing that they had been admiringing in between their legs.

    This was the special pose that I wanted to try.

    I had pushed my dick in between their pussies without pushing into either of them, feeling the pleasure that came from having both of their pussy folds wrap around my dick.

    After the first thrust, I didn''t hold back at all as I started pushing back and forth in between the two of them.

    Both of them gave moans with each thrust that I gave them and it seemed like both of them were about to¡­

    "Ah, ah, I''m cumming!" Both of them said at the same time before Veronica copsed onto Moon.

    Both of them were breathing heavily as theyid there, but the fact that Veronica had fallen down meant that she was squeezing my dick now with her body.

    That created a pressure on my dick that was a strange sensation, but it also wasn''t a bad sensation.

    I was already close from the pressure that was formed from both of them rubbing against my dick like that, but in the end, it was this pressure from squeezing it that pushed me over the edge.

    Without a word, I just shot my load all over Moon and Veronica who wereying there.

    The two of them had their breasts pushed together, creating a shield in front of my dick. That meant that when I shot my load, Ipletely coated their chest with my cum.

    After taking a few deep breaths, I pulled my dick out from between their legs and admired my work before turning to the final three.

    These three had been waiting on the side the entire time because they felt that they should give way to the new girls.

    The three of them were the wives that I had taken originally, who had already received plenty of loving from me in the past.

    However, just because I got new wives, that didn''t mean that I was going to ignore the three of them.

    They had been patiently waiting on the side, though they did get a bit turned on seeing everything that happened.

    I could see that there were wet patches on the bed where they had been sitting and that their hands seemed a bit wet. It seemed that they had been taking care of themselves while waiting the entire time.

    Still, it was my job as their husband to take care of them and I wouldn''t neglect that job.

    I had been worried about not having enough stamina, but I found that I really couldn''t get my fill.

    With these beautiful women teasing me like this, it was easy for my dick to get hard again.

    That was just the stamina that came with this young body of mine.

    Or it could be said that this was the stamina that came from the main character of this game.

    It was a hentai game, so it would make sense to give the main character this kind of stamina.

    This was one of the things that I was d carried over from the game.

 Chapter 830 Time for work

    Chapter 830 Time for work

    ??A week passed without anyone bothering us.

    While we didn''t spend all our time in the bedroom like this, we did spend quite a bit of time in the bedroom.

    It seemed that my wives had been holding back quite a bit during this time and it had been building up inside of them.

    Since it built up inside of them, when it was finally released...

    It didn''t seem like they were satisfied no matter how many times we did it.

    This made me even more d that I had inherited the stamina that this body had from the game world.

    If it wasn''t for that, I really didn''t know what would have happened.

    However, when the week was over and the atmosphere from the wedding faded, the fourth prince came looking for me.

    Without a word to my wives, he brought me to the king''s study. It was just that when we arrived, the room had been cleared of some things and the king was nowhere to be seen.

    After bringing me to this room, he sat me down at the desk and said, "It''s time for work."

    I was surprised to hear this.

    I looked at him as if I was trying to figure out what he wanted from me, but the fourth prince didn''t seem to care about the way that I looked at him. Instead, he just put a pile of papers down in front of me and said, "You should review these before anything else. That will give you a general idea of what you need to know as the new king."

    This pile of papers didn''t seem that tall, but when I looked at it closely...I found that this was because it was a very general summary of the information that he wanted me to know.

    I could tell that if he were to give me the details, there would have been enough papers to fill this entire room.

    Just staring at this pile was more than enough to give me a headache.

    I didn''t start reading this pile of papers like he wanted me to and instead asked, "Weren''t you supposed to take care of everything? Wasn''t that supposed to be the deal?"

    The fourth prince looked at me with a smile before asking something without answering my question, "Did you just want to be a figurehead? Is that what you wanted when you agreed to this?"

    I was caught off guard by the question that he asked me at first, but then I slowly shook my head in response.

    After all, this was never my intention.

    However, it seemed like he was giving me a bit too much work.

    This almost seemed like he was nning on pushing everything to me.

    But before I could ask anything else, the fourth prince suddenly said with a sigh, "It can''t be helped." He shook his head before saying, "Royal father is gone now, so this is the only way."

    I was about to say something, but there was a look of shock that appeared on my face before I asked, "What do you mean by that? What happened to father inw?"

    The fourth prince looked at me before saying, "There''s no time to talk about that. We should focus on our work right now."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the fourth prince before saying, "Alright, I''ll start reading. Give me a rundown while I read."

    The fourth prince nodded in agreement before he started giving a summary.

    I didn''t ask anything about the former king since I knew that if something really bad happened, the fourth prince would have said something. The way that he brushed it off¡­it at least meant that nothing really bad happened to the former king.

    As I read through the pile of papers and listened to what the fourth prince had to say, I had to admit that the power of the royal family was much greater than I thought.

    There were some things that I already knew about from the game, but there were things that surprised me since I never thought that they were rted to the royal family.

    These were organizations that had quite a bit of power in this kingdom, so having them under the royal family was without a doubt a good thing.

    When the fourth prince finished his rundown, he took the pile of paper back and said, "Alright, it''s time to go."

    I waspletely caught off guard by how the fourth prince was pushing this matter forward. He didn''t even give me a second to digest all of the information that I just heard.

    However, I didn''t get up as I asked, "Where are we going?"

    The fourth prince just calmly looked at me and said, "We''re going to pick someone up and then we''re going to meet with some important people. This will help us with our shortage of people in the future."

    I was even more confused, but the fourth prince wouldn''t take no for an answer as he pulled me out of the seat. He didn''t say a word as he just pushed me out of the office.

    However, we didn''t go far in the end.

    We went back to the bedroom that I had been living in during this week.

    The girls were surprised to see me and the fourth prince back so soon, but they came forward to greet us. Or rather, it was that they were nning to drive the fourth prince out so that we could continue what we had been doing during this time.

    But the fourth prince wouldn''t leave.

    Instead, it seemed that the person that he was here to pick up was¡­

    Haley.

    "Come with us for a bit, there''s something that we need to do."

    Haley was very confused when she heard this.

    She looked at me as if she was asking for an exnation, but there really wasn''t anything that I could say since I didn''t know what was happening either.

    Still, I gave a nod since I trusted the fourth prince.

    Seeing this, Haley trusted me and came along with us.

 Chapter 831 Alfried Company

    Chapter 831 Alfried Company

    ??We left the castle in a horse carriage that the fourth prince prepared.

    This was a carriage that just screamed that it was trying to attract attention since it was clearly decorated to show that there was someone important in it. At the same time, there were many guards that came with us as we headed out of the castle.

    So the moment that we left the castle, we were immediately spotted by the citizens.

    In fact, with how much attention we were drawing to ourselves, it didn''t take long before we were surrounded.

    Though no one was crazy enough to get in the way of a horse carriage.

    No one was willing to risk their lives just for a nce at the people in the horse carriage.

    Seeing the crowd gather around us and the guards creating a perimeter, there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face.

    I turned to the fourth prince and he looked at me with a smile.

    The way that he smiled at me was almost as if he could already guess what I was about to say.

    This was further proven when he said, "It''s a show. This is something that has to be done."

    I raised a brow to show that I was confused, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for him to exin.

    The fourth prince didn''t say anything at first as he just calmly looked out the window. Looking at the people gathered there with a smile, he said, "This is a way to make sure that the people know that those at the top are still there and working hard for them. It''s a way to assure them that they can depend on the leaders of this kingdom."

    I was even more confused at first, but then I slowly realized what the fourth prince was talking about.

    Even though the fourth prince had been taking care of business on my behalf during this time, I had been locked away in the castle. Well, it really wasn''t being locked away in the castle as I had been staying there as a sort of honeymoon.

    It could even be said that I was ignoring my work by staying in the castle during this time.

    But now that period was over, it was time to show myself to the people to show that I was back to work.

    Whether I was a figurehead or not, this was something that was important for the people so that they would have confidence in the new king.

    It seemed that the fourth prince really had already nned out everything, though I did wish that he would have told me this ahead of time. This was the kind of thing that he always did on his own without telling me anything.

    It seemed that even now that I''ve taken the throne, he didn''t n on changing the way that he acted around me.

    I didn''t really mind this since I enjoyed the way that I interacted with the fourth prince, but I did wish he told me a few things beforehand.

    Also, there was something else that I thought of.

    Now that I had taken the throne, it wasn''t as if he was the fourth prince anymore.

    So should I still be thinking of him as the fourth prince?

    It seemed like I really needed to think about how to address him in the future...

    Well, since he was my prime minister, I guess that I should be able to call him prime minister in the future. However, it seemed like just calling him prime minister might seem a bit informal.

    Especially since he was also my brother inw.

    So should I just call him brother or should I call him by his name?

    While I was considering this, the carriage continued along its way until we reached our destination.

    When I looked out at where we had arrived, I found that there was arge building that was in front of us.

    This building seemed very busy as there were many peopleing in and out of this ce.

    This was a ce that most people in the capital would recognize since it belonged to a famous organization in the capital.

    Even I recognized this ce, not just because of my knowledge from the game.

    I recognized this ce also because of the time that I''ve spent in the capital.

    One really couldn''t spend time in the capital without learning about this ce after all.

    This ce was the headquarters of the Alfried Company, thergestpany in the kingdom.

    This was thepany that controlled most of the trade in the kingdom.

    But there was another identity for thispany.

    There was a reason why we hade here.

    Thispany was actually controlled by the royal family.

    I had already known about this from the game, but this was also in the report that the fourth prince had handed me.

    As the destination sank in, I understood why the fourth prince wanted to bring Haley here. However, there was also a part of this that I didn''t understand.

    After all, it wasn''t as if Haley was a part of the Alfried Company in the first ce, she was even the head of her ownpany. Apany that was doing quite well recently and could be considered apetitor of the Alfried Company.

    So I couldn''t help worrying about the fourth prince''s motives in bringing us here.

    After a moment of silence, I asked, "Brother Noah, why are we here?"

    The fourth prince was caught off guard when he heard this.

    He had been heading out of the carriage, but he stopped and turned to look at me with a strange look when he heard me say this. He just kept looking at me with that same strange look before he slowly said, "What did you just call me?"

    I raised a brow before repeating, "Brother Noah?"

    There was nothing that was said as both of us just remained there in silence.

 Chapter 832 Take over

    Chapter 832 Take over

    ??All of a sudden, the fourth prince revealed a smile and said, "I''m happy that you''re willing to call me that, but now isn''t the time for that. I think that when we''re in public, you should address me as prime minister."

    I was surprised to hear the fourth prince...no, the prime minister say this since this waspletely different from how he acted before.

    If this was before, he would have insisted that I kept calling him brother or Noah.

    It seemed that after taking his role, he had matured a bit...

    No, he was always mature before, it was just that he was acting this way around me.

    He had acted in a way that he couldn''t act around others before with me, but now he was holding that side of him back. Or at least, he was doing that while we were in public.

    After being surprised, I gave a slow nod since I didn''t disagree with this.

    But the problem was that the prime minister didn''t say anything past this.

    It was as if he ignored the second half of what I said.

    After saying what he wanted to say, he turned around and headed out the carriage before standing there like he was waiting for us.

    Haley had been watching and listening from the side since she also wanted to know what we were doing here.

    Haley naturally recognized that this was the headquarters of the Alfried Company, so she also wanted to know what was happening here.

    It wasn''t just for her own curiosity, but also for herpany.

    But since the prime minister wouldn''t say anything, there was nothing that they could do about it.

    In the end, all they could do was follow the prime minister into the headquarters of the Alfried Company.

    The moment that they came in, there was a person that came over to lead them into the back.

    It seemed like there was no need to even check in at the front desk, it seemed that the prime minister had already prepared everything. That was why there was someone that was even waiting for them when they came in.

    This person led them to the back and brought them to a meeting room before leaving them alone.

    It seemed like they were waiting for someone, but it didn''t take long for that someone to arrive.

    The moment that this person arrived, the first thing that they did was...

    They went right up to the prime minister and bowed to him, as if they knew exactly who he was. After that, this person said, "Your highness, it is an honour for us to have you visit. May I know what your purpose in visiting today is?"

    The prime minister narrowed his eyes when he heard this before calmly saying, "Carlos, I am no longer a prince, so you shouldn''t be addressing me as your highness."

    The Alfried Company representative that the prime minister called Carlos was surprised to hear this, but he quickly gave a nod and said, "Yes, yes, it was my mistake. I hope that your high...my lord will not mind this."

    The prime minister shook his head before saying, "Just call me prime minister like everyone else."

    Carlos'' eyes opened wide when he heard this, but he quickly gave a nod in response before saying, "Then sir prime minister, is there anything that your humble servant can do today?"

    The prime minister narrowed his eyes again after hearing this, but he didn''t reprimand him this time as he said, "There''s someone that I wanted you to meet today. In the future, they will be an important person for yourpany."

    Carlos was visibly surprised to hear this since he didn''t expect this, but he waited to see what the prime minister had to say.

    The prime minister gestured to me and simply said, "This is our new king."

    The look on Carlos'' face was almost as if he couldn''t understand what the prime minister had just said. It took him a while before that expression disappeared and it seemed like he was slowly understanding what the prime minister said.

    However, as he started to understand this, there was a different expression that appeared on his face.

    It was a cautious one, but there was also a trace of worry in his eyes.

    Almost as if he was afraid of what I would do.

    That wasn''t strange since I was the new king.

    Since this was apany that was run by the royal family, I had technically be the new boss of this ce.

    For me toe right after taking the throne, there must be something that I wanted from them which was never a good thing.

    After a long silence, Carlos'' expression changed once more.

    He revealed a smile like a professional merchant and said, "Your majesty, it is an honour for us to have you visit. Is there anything that your humble servant can do?"

    I couldn''t help being surprised by how shameless he was.

    He put on a smile and said the exact same thing that he said to the prime minister to me.

    It was as if he wasn''t bothered by the fact how this made him seem hypocritical at all.

    It was as if he only cared about doing what he thought was the best for him and hispany.

    It also made me admire the shamelessness that he had.

    This was just how a merchant was since shamelessness was the best way to sell their goods.

    I gave a cough to calm myself before saying, "I''m just here for a visit. It''s the prime minister who has business with you."

    Carlos revealed a bitter look again, but that quickly faded as he turned back to look at the prime minister.

    The prime minister revealed a faint smile that almost seemed like he was teasing Carlos, but he still said, "I''m here to announce that someone will be taking over thispany as of today."

    All of us looked at him in shock when we heard this.

 Chapter 833 Who said that?

    Chapter 833 Who said that?

    ??The one that reacted first was naturally Carlos since this meant that his position would be at stake.

    If there was something that threatened one''s livelihood, it wasn''t as if they would just submit and ept it.

    Carlos would naturally say something to fight for this livelihood of his.

    "Sir prime minister, what do you mean by this? Why would someone be taking over our Alfried Company?"

    The way that he said this had no politeness at all.

    It was clear that he was going to fight to the very end to keep his job.

    But the prime minister didn''t seem bothered at all by this question or the way that Carlos asked this.

    Instead, he just calmly gestured to Haley on the side and said, "This is Miss Haley, one of my brother inw''s consorts and one of the queens of this kingdom. But at the same time, she is the head of the Big Bear Company."

    The moment that Carlos heard this, he immediately narrowed his eyes.

    The Big Bear Company was a name that he had heard of.

    As the head of thergestpany in the kingdom, he naturally knew about the Big Bear Company since it was one of the up andingpanies of the kingdom. The business that they did ovepped with the Alfried Company, so it could even be said that they were rivals.

    The moment that Carlos heard whichpany Haley came from, he immediately started putting everything together and he had an ugly look on his face.

    He could guess what the prime minister was nning to do, but it didn''t seem like there was anything that he could do to stop him.

    In the end, even if he was the head of the Alfried Company, the real power of thepanyy with the royal family.

    If the other side wanted to kick him out, he really couldn''t say anything about it.

    But to everyone''s surprise, Haley suddenly said, "I''m not going to do that."

    Everyone looked at Haley with surprised looks when they heard this since all of us thought that she would jump at this opportunity. Even I thought that she would jump at this chance to swallow the Alfried Company.

    It turned out that this wasn''t the case.

    With the look that was on her face, it even seemed like she was very against this.

    However, this was the opposite of what anyone thought would happen.

    After all, there was everything to gain from taking over the Alfried Company.

    After a long silence, the prime minister gave a cough to calm himself down before asking, "Why? Isn''t it a good thing if you were to take over the Alfried Company?"

    Carlos revealed a very ugly expression when he heard this, but he didn''t say a thing as he waited for Haley''s response. He also wanted to hear just what kind of response Haley would give to this.

    Haley just calmly said, "Mypany is one that I''ve built on my own, I will not give it to anyone."

    Though she said this in a calm voice, the look in her eyes made it very clear that she was firm on this point.

    That wasn''t strange though since thispany was one that she had built from scratch. It was thepany that she fought hard to break free from the grasp of her father, so it was apany that she cared for deeply.

    If someone were to suddenly tell her to hand it over, there was no doubt that she wouldn''t ept this.

    After another moment of silence, Carlos said in a confused voice, "Wouldn''t it be better for yourpany if the Alfried Company was merged with it." With a more proud look, he said, "The Alfried Company is apany that deserves to be called the number onepany in this kingdom. It isn''t something that a smallpany like yours canpare to."

    He didn''t forget to add in a sharp jab at the end of his words to put Haley down.

    However, Haley didn''t seem offended at all by this since she knew that he was right.

    Whenparing the twopanies, there was noparison at all.

    Haley just calmly said, "Even if they were just merged, that means that the policies of the Alfried Company would leak into mypany. You can say that it won''t, but we all know that it will since the people that used to work for the Alfried Company will be working for me now. These people have the pride of those that have worked for the biggestpany in the kingdom before. Will they really do things the way that I want them to?"

    Carlos opened his mouth before suddenly closing it again.

    After all, he couldn''t refute what Haley had just said.

    He could think of ways to refute this, but he knew in his heart that it was all just sophistry.

    After all, the reality of the situation would be as Haley described.

    Those that had the pride of working for the undisputed number onepany in the kingdom, to be forced to work for a smallerpany all of a sudden¡­they would feel unwilling.

    It would be hard for them to ept all of this and they would even make things difficult.

    So Carlos had no choice but to agree with what Haley said.

    Though there was a part of him that wanted to agree since he wanted to use this as an argument for his case.

    The two of them both turned to look at the prime minister who had been silent the entire time.

    The way that the two of them looked at him, it was as if they were saying that they had already said everything that they needed to say.

    The prime minister just sat there with an undisturbed look on his face before suddenly revealing a smile to say, "Who said anything about you merging the two together? I just said that you would be taking over."

 Chapter 834 Truly shameless

    Chapter 834 Truly shameless

    ??Both Carlos and Haley were confused when they heard this.

    If taking over didn''t mean having Haley sit as the head of bothpanies, then they clearly didn''t understand what the prime minister was referring to.

    The prime minister still had a smile on his face when he saw the way that the two of them were looking at him. It was as if he could already see through what they were thinking and had a solution for them.

    So he said, "Who said that you had to merge thepanies?"

    Both Carlos and Haley looked even more confused when they heard this.

    After all, no matter how one looked at it, that was the natural flow of things if they were to have Haley take charge of the Alfried Company. To have bothpanies running at the same time would be inefficient.

    As if he could see through their thoughts, he suddenly said, "Why do you think that it would be inefficient running things like that?"

    The two of them were absolutely baffled by the prime minister''s words.

    It was as if they couldn''t understand a single thing that he was saying with the way that he said this.

    After all, it should be very clear that if they were to run the twopanies separately, all that would do is createpetition between them. At the same time, if they didn''tbine their supply routes and ran it separately, it would be very inefficient in sending supplies.

    So it seemed inefficient no matter how one looked at this.

    But even when he saw them looking at them like this, the prime minister just had the same calm look on his face as he faced the two of them.

    Carlos looked like he wanted to say something, but Haley just raised her hand as if she thought of something.

    The prime minister just remained silent as he waited for her to finish this thought.

    "You want to create the illusion of choice?" Haley said in a slow voice.

    Carlos had a confused look on his face at first as if he didn''t understand what she was saying, but then he slowly started to understand. He had his experience as the head of the Alfried Company for many years now, the time that he had spent here hadn''t been wasted.

    So he could at least see through Haley''s words.

    The prime minister just gave a simple nod before saying, "Instead of taking away their choice, it''s better to give them the illusion of choice. That way, the people feel like they would still be in control."

    Both Haley and Carlos revealed strange looks on their faces when they heard this, but they didn''t refute him this time.

    As I sat there on the side, I couldn''t help feeling impressed by what the prime minister said.

    I wasn''t surprised by it since while it wasn''t something that was put in ce in this world, it was something that was put in ce in my previous world.

    The best example of this was the sses industry of my previous world.

    While it seemed like people had choices since there were many different sses stores, there was actually only one choice since all of the sses that they bought were from the same manufacturer.

    That one manufacturer had been able to control the entire market while still giving people the illusion of choice, which was the reason why they did so well.

    People didn''t have an idea that everything was being controlled by one entity.

    But this wasn''t something that was that easy toe up with, especially in a world that didn''t have economics as advanced as my previous world.

    So the prime minister really could be considered a genius foring up with this kind of scheme.

    Both Haley and Carlos looked like they were considering what the prime minister had offered.

    After another long silence, Haley gave a nod and said, "This can work¡­but it would take a lot of work. At the same time, it would take a lot of support from the government¡­"

    She narrowed her eyes to look at the prime minister before saying, "What are you nning to gain from this?"

    Carlos had been against Haley in the beginning, but now it looked like he was supporting her.

    That was because between the two sides, supporting Haley looked like he was supporting her.

    That was because between the two sides, supporting Haley seemed to have more benefits right now¡­

    The prime minister just said with a smile, "It''s very simple, we''ll just have bothpanies bepanies under the royal family."

    Carlos'' eyes lit up when he heard this, but Haley knitted her brows after hearing this.

    She looked at the prime minister in silence for a bit before suddenly saying, "You really are shameless, aren''t you?"

    Carlos and I were both shocked hearing her say this, but the prime minister just had a calm look on his face.

    Haley didn''t care about Carlos as she turned to me to ask, "Can you believe what he''s saying? He''s basically asking for my money."

    I raised a brow to show that I was confused, which made Haley exin, "By asking for my Big Bear Company to be apany under the royal family, it would mean that the royal family would basically own it. That would mean that the profits can be used by the royal family how they wanted, even for the benefit of the kingdom. He''s basically telling me to take out money to support the kingdom."

    15:40

    The prime minister just calmly said, "Sister inw, you''re married to my brother inw, so you are a part of the royal family no matter how you look at it. Is it wrong for your money to go to your family?"

    Haley knitted her brows when she heard this, but before she could say anything, the prime minister just calmly said, "Sister inw, what if I said that you''ll be the one in charge of how all that money is spent?"

    "What do you mean?" Haley said in a confused voice.

 Chapter 835 Head of a department

    <h4>Chapter 835 Head of a department</h4>

    "What did you say?" Rose said in a surprised voice.

    After returning to the castle, the first thing that the prime minister did wase back to our room with me.

    Though there was a bit of a distraction when Haleyined to Ang about what he did and Ang showed the prime minister who was the boss, we eventually settled down and he was able to ask Rose this question.

    "How do you feel about working as a minister?"

    Rose never thought that she would be given a position in the kingdom, much less such an important one.

    After all, she hade to the capital to be a consort and not the queen, so it wasn''t as if she had a high position in the first ce.

    She had already epted that she would be here to help with a few simple things at most.

    Not something as important as this.

    But the look on the prime minister''s face made it clear that he was being serious.

    Haley even said, "He offered me a position in the department of finances as well."

    That was thepromise that the prime minister gave Haley to make her willing to ept his deal earlier.

    She would give her money to the kingdom through taking over the Alfried Company and attaching the Big Bear Company to the royal family, but she would also be the one that controlled the department of finance that would spend the money.

    In this way, she would be the one that was inplete control of everything.

    Haley never thought that the prime minister would make this kind ofpromise, but he had done it without any hesitation.

    With the way that he did it, it was almost as if this was the original n.

    This was what he had been nning all along.

    But if that was the case, then just how long had he been nning all of this?

    It really felt like all of us had been dancing on the palm of the prime minister''s hands all along¡­

    However, it wasn''t as if this was a bad thing.

    The ns that the prime minister made could be considered the best ns in this situation.

    I trusted my wives with my life, so I would trust them in these positions.

    If I could make it possible, I would have given them the same positions that the prime minister was giving them now. After all, I knew that they would be able to make some much needed changes in this kingdom if they had these positions.

    But even as the king, I didn''t have that authority.

    It was different for the prime minister who used to be the fourth prince.

    The people that were under his thumb were hard to count and it could even be said that he wielded the true power in the kingdom.

    If he wanted to make this happen, it was a simple wave of his hand.

    The prime minister just calmly replied, "I want you to be a minister in the internalnd management department."

    Rose narrowed her eyes when she heard this without saying anything.

    The way that she looked at the prime minister, it was as if she was trying to figure out what his goal was.

    The prime minister just simply said, "I''ve seen your economic zone n and I''m impressed by it. I want to see if you can do that with our entire country."

    Rose was visibly surprised when she heard this since this was not what she had expected from the prime minister.

    Not even in her wildest imagination would she expect him to suddenly ask her this.

    After all, this wasn''t just an experiment that was being run in an area.

    He was asking her to put this n in effect on an entire country.

    An entire country waspletely different from a small region.

    However¡­the experiment had proven sessful and as long as it was regted properly, this would be a very good way to improve the overall prosperity of the country.

    It was just that it would take a lot of work and investment.

    Rose was about to say something before slowly turning to look at Haley.

    Haley also looked at Rose after hearing what the prime minister had to say.

    It was almost as if¡­he had already nned out everything.

    After all, as long as the two of them worked together, it waspletely possible for them to put this n in effect all over the country. It was just that it would take the full support of multiple departments for this to happen.

    But if the prime minister were to support them in taking over these departments, it was more than possible.

    So there was a part of Rose that hesitated on this matter.

    First, this would without a doubt fill her desire.

    This would give her something to do, something that would allow her to leave her mark on this country.

    After all, even if she was a wife, she had her ambitions.

    Second, this would without a doubt help the country that she now ruled over with her husband.

    That would give her stability in the future and stability for her children.

    And most importantly, she wanted to do this because it would help raise the reputation of her husband.

    That was the most important thing for her since everything that she had done was for the sake of her husband.

    In a slow and deliberate voice, Rose said, "Alright, I''ll do it."

    The prime minister revealed a faint smile when he heard this before turning to Ang to say, "You''ll have to help her take control since you''re the queen, but as long as you two work together, it should all turn out well."

    Ang was surprised to hear that she was involved in this matter as well, but she just gave a simple nod in response since she didn''t mind being involved in this. Rather, it seemed like she was happy that she was involved in this matter.

 Chapter 836 Why are you doing this?

    <h4>Chapter 836 Why are you doing this?</h4>

    It didn''t take long for the girls to start discussing their n.

    It seemed tame at first what they were nning to do, but their discussion didn''t remain tame for long.

    They started escting the ns that they were making, even making it seem like they were nning on taking over the entire kingdom. Though if one thought about it, they already controlled the kingdom since they were married to the king.

    Of course, that was only the human brides.

    The other two weren''t able to participate since they were from another race.

    Even if they were married to the king, that didn''t mean that they should interfere too much with the politics of a human kingdom. If they were to do that, there was no doubt that people would start questioning the goals of the king.

    Some people might even think that he was working with the other races.

    So while they could marry him, there was little power that they actually had.

    Elsa would be considered the bridge to the Dwarven Kingdom since there was a treaty signed.

    Moon would be considered the bridge to the elven vige and nothing else.

    If they tried to do more or interfered with the politics of the human country, then it would only hurt Zwein who was now the king and that was thest thing that they wanted.

    So they weren''t really involved in this n even if they gave ideas.

    But they didn''t mind since the rtionship between the seven of them was close and they all supported each other. So even if Moon and Elsa weren''t on the main stage, they would do what they could to support the others.

    That was because they were all doing this for one person.

    During this, I brought the prime minister out of the room and we went back to the royal study.

    Now that I had taken over as the king, this was my royal study and I was in my full right to use this.

    However, that wasn''t what it was being used for tonight.

    Instead, I brought out the drinks that my father inw had hidden in this ce.

    Or I would have if not for the fact that they were missing.

    So in the end, all we could do was get a maid to bring us some drinks.

    When it was just the two of us, the prime minister acted the same way as before. He went back to just being Noah, the brother inw of the king.

    With Noah leading the conversation, it didn''t seem like we would run out of topics to discuss. He even thanked me for bringing him away from his sister and saving him earlier since she had punished him on behalf of Haley.

    But that wasn''t the reason why we were here.

    We weren''t here just so he could avoid the girls while they were plotting world domination.

    We were here because I had something to ask him.

    "Why are you doing this?"

    Noah was surprised when I suddenly asked this in the middle of our conversation.

    He waspletely caught off guard since he didn''t expect me to suddenly ask this question.

    Noah just looked at me with this surprised look on his face for a while before he suddenly asked with a smile, "Why are you asking this now of all time?"

    I didn''t look back at him with a smile, rather I had a serious look as I asked again, "Why are you doing this?"

    The smile slowly disappeared from Noah''s face as he looked at me.

    Finally, he took a deep breath and said, "I don''t have any ill intentions towards you or them. I''m doing all of this for my ideal and yours."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at Noah after he said this.

    Noah just looked right back in my eyes without his expression changing at all.

    It was as if there was no trace of a lie in his eyes at all. It was as if he waspletely serious about what he had just said.

    However¡­it didn''t seem like I believed what he said.

    There was still a part of me that couldn''t believe what he said since I knew what kind of person he was based on the game. In addition to that, I''ve seen the way that Noah has looked during this time¡­

    I knew that there was that part of him deep down and if he were to ever think of us not as his family¡­

    So there was always the risk of things going wrong.

    But for now, I chose to trust him since there was no going back from all of this.

    I never even expected to be the king, but I knew that it was impossible to do everything that I needed to do as the king without Noah.

    So at the very least, we had to work together for now.

    Taking a deep breath, I said, "I hope that you won''t go too far."

    Noah once again revealed a smile when he heard this before saying with a nod, "Brother, don''t worry, I know my limits. I won''t ever go too far without telling you."

    I slightly knitted my brows when I heard this.

    After all, this was different from what I had just asked of him¡­

    Taking another deep breath, I said, "Alright."

    I knew that it was better than to argue with him.

    Noah had always been like this, but at least he was using his power for our benefit right now.

    As long as that stayed the same, there really was no reason for us to fight.

    I just wanted to make sure that he wasn''t putting any of my wives in danger.

    That was the least that I should do as their husband.

    "What happened to father inw?"

    That was the other thing that I wanted to ask Noah.

    After all, the former king and my father inw hadpletely disappeared without a trace.

 Chapter 837 Retired

    Chapter 837 Retired

    ??Noah revealed a faint smile without saying anything when he heard this.

    He just sat there in silence, but I could see that the smile on his face was slowly turning bitter as if he was remembering something that made him feel bitter.

    If I had to guess, it was most likely rted to his father and my father inw who had disappeared without a trace.

    So I just waited for Noah to gather his thoughts and say what he wanted to say.

    There was a long silence before Noah gave a sigh and suddenly said, "He retired."

    I tilted my head as if I was confused and I just looked at him with that look of confusion on my face for a bit before suddenly saying, "Yes, he retired as the king and gave me the throne. This is something that everyone knows."

    Noah''s bitter smile became even more bitter when he heard this and he was silent for a bit longer before saying, "It''s not the same kind of retirement."

    I raised a brow as I was confused by what he said, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for him to tell me what he meant.

    But the fact that Noah was hesitating this much must mean that he felt very bitter about all of this.

    It really made me wonder just what kind of thing the former king had done.

    After one more long silence, Noah said with a sigh, "He just disappeared from the castle one day and left behind a note saying that he was abandoning all of his duties. He will be leaving everything to us from now on."

    I was shocked this time since this wasn''t what I had expected.

    In a worst case scenario, I would have thought that Noah would have sent his father away since he would be worried about him getting in the way.

    I never thought that the former king would actually leave on his own¡­

    This was a big problem since he was someone who we had been expecting to count on for certain things that needed to be done. If he was gone, then that meant that there was a hole that we needed to fill.

    Or rather, it meant that there was a hole that Noah as the prime minister needed to fill.

    This wasn''t a position that could be left empty for long, but it also wasn''t an easy position to fill. So it would certainly be hard for Noah to find a recement for this role.

    After all, the main requirement for the role that we wanted to give to the former king was experience.

    There were few people that had the same experience as him, so there were few people that could even take his role in the first ce.

    The ones that did were those old ministers who had served the former king, but they had retired as well when the crown passed.

    Their retirement waspletely different from the former king''s retirement.

    They had already trained their sessors and had figured out what would happen after they left. The reason why they retired was because this was what they should do once the king passed on the throne.

    This was something that they had already discussed with the former king before he stepped down.

    So there was no changing their minds.

    With how much time had passed, they had mostly left the capital to enjoy their retirement in their estates. After all, they were ministers of the kingdom, so it wasn''t as if they were mistreated.

    They had earned more than enough to buy estates in the countryside for them and their families.

    Right now, they had already left the capital and were enjoying their retirement.

    That meant that there really was no one here to fill the gap that the former king left.

    Both of us just sat there in silence for a bit before I finally said, "How could he be that irresponsible?"

    Noah shook his head when he heard this before saying with a sigh, "He''s been working hard for the sake of this country for so many years now. It''s not like he''s had much time for himself¡­so I can understand why he did this."

    I raised a brow in response to this since I could hear from the way that Noah said this, it seemed like¡­

    "You know where he is?" I asked in a slow voice

    Noah gave a nod without saying anything. After a long sigh, he said, "Royal father is currently living in one of the estates that he has in the capital and it seems like he''s been living a simple life. He''s been going to different ces incognito and enjoying the life that he never had before."

    I looked at Noah with a strange look before asking, "A midlife crisis?"

    Noah shook his head before giving a nod and then shaking his head again.

    He took a deep breath before saying, "In short, it seems like this is temporary and I feel like we owe it to him to give him this."

    I looked at him with the same strange look for a bit before slowly nodding in agreement.

    While I didn''t exactly know what the former king had been through, I could guess based on what I had learned from him.

    Being a king definitely was not easy on a person and it woulde with plenty of stress, so it only made sense that the king would snap after holding it in for this long.

    It made sense that he deserved this midlife crisis and to do what he wanted to do.

    That was why Noah was hesitant to bring him back.

    Noah could see the way that I looked at him, so he said, "For now, it should be fine if he isn''t here. I''d say that in a week, royal father will be back and he''ll take his position again. Someone like him won''t be able to sit still."

    I raised a brow in response, but I nodded without saying anything.

    Noah should know his father best, so there wasn''t anything for me to say.

 Chapter 838 Protests

    <h4>Chapter 838 Protests</h4>

    Noah was wrong in the end.

    He had predicted that the former king would be back in a week, but he was actually back in three days.

    Once the novelty of retirement wore off, he found that he waspletely bored.

    After living in that high speed world of managing the kingdom for so long, it wasn''t as if he would be able to settle down that easily. His personality had already developed because of the way that he lived for so long that it wasn''t that easy for him to change it.

    Used to the fast paced life, he waspletely bored when he had nothing to do.

    That resulted in the former king returning after just less than two weeks of retirement.

    The excuse that he gave was that he was here to visit his family and have some dinner with us, but after dinner...he went to my study with me and Noah and started asking about different things with the kingdom.

    He tried to act nonchnt at first, but it was clear that the more that he asked, the more into it he seemed.

    Eventually, he started asking about the things that he should have been in charge of.

    Noah just answered all of his questions with a casual tone, but it was clear that he was only acting.

    I knew that Noah wanted the former king toe back, so he was answering in such a way that he would be guided intoing back.

    The way that the father and son talked to each other, it seemed like neither of them were willing to directly state what either of them wanted.

    Seeing both of them beat around the bush like this was funny to me.

    It seemed that the two of them were so used to being indirect with each other and hiding their ns over the years that they couldn''t be direct with each other anymore.

    There was a part of me that wondered if I would be like that with my children in the future.

    As that thought passed through my mind, I made up my mind that I would make sure tomunicate with my children properly.

    I didn''t want any misunderstandings between me and my kids since that would just lead to problems in the future.

    In a way, I was learning from the mistakes of the former king and his sons.

    After all, the hesitation from the former king and theck ofmunication with his other sons had resulted in a purge.

    I didn''t want that to happen in my reign.

    No, even before my feelings as a king, there were my feelings as a father.

    I didn''t want my children to go through that.

    So after watching them beat around the bush like this for a bit, I gave a cough and said, "Father inw, is retirement boring for you?"

    The former king was surprised to hear me suddenly ask this.

    He looked at me with a strange look, like he was trying to figure out what I meant by this. However, I just looked at him with a straight look that didn''t have any hidden meanings at all.

    It was as if I was sincerely asking him this question.

    The former king didn''t know how to react at first, but he eventually said with a sigh, "It has been a bit boringpared to my previous lifestyle."

    Since I had been straight with him, he was straight with me.

    There was no hiding his real feelings like before, he just told me directly that he was bored with his current lifestyle.

    Noah was visibly surprised since this was something that he had never experienced with his father before.

    Hearing his father be straight like this was like seeing a human turning inside out.

    In short, it was an experience that he had never had before.

    I ignored the look on his face and gave a nod to the former king before saying, "Then how about youe back to the castle now?"

    The former king was surprised to hear this before revealing an awkward look.

    He had been the one that had run off on his own, so toe back to the castle now¡­

    I knew what he was thinking, so I said with a smile, "We all miss you. How abouting back and being with us?"

    The former king was even more surprised to hear this since being straight was not something that was done in the royal family.

    He didn''t answer right away as he turned to look at Noah who still had a strange look on his face.

    However, when Noah saw his father looking at him, he slowly gave a nod as well.

    There was a faint smile that appeared on the former king''s face when he saw this, at which there was a faint smile that appeared on Noah''s face as well.

    The father and son looked at each other with those awkward smiles for a bit before the former king finally said, "Alright."

    With that, the former king was coaxed back to the castle.

    There was nothing special that happened for about a month.

    Everything went smoothly since Noah had already nned for everything.

    There was a smooth transition between kings and the people epted it very easily.

    Though that was mainly because some of the old ministers had retired with the former king and had created new positions for most people.

    Since there were these open spots topete for, everyone focused on that instead of trying to bring down the king.

    In a sense, it was turning them against each other so they wouldn''t turn on the king.

    So everything seemed to go smoothly until¡­

    "What is it?" I asked in a surprised voice as I saw Noah suddenly burst into my study.

    There was a heavy look that was on his face as he said, "There''s been a protest by the north gate."

    "A protest?" I said in a shocked voice.

    This was something that neither of us had expected.

 Chapter 839 Movement in the dark

    Chapter 839 Movement in the dark

    ??The reason for the protest was that the people were unhappy with the recent changes that we had implemented.

    During this time, we had implemented agricultural changes by having the citizens change what they were to grow.

    We handed out all the new seeds and had them change after thest harvest.

    So currently, there were many empty fields in this country which was why people were worried.

    It had been over a month since the forceful changes that Noah had put in ce and most of the fields were empty¡­Well, they weren''tpletely empty since there were still sprouts that came out of the soil.

    It was just that it took too longpared to the usual crops that the citizens grew that they became anxious.

    They didn''t want to switch to these new crops in the first ce, but they were forced to swap to the new crops because of the royal decree. As such, the only thing that they could do now was gather to protest this royal decree.

    This was a matter of their livelihoods, so these people were ready to fight for it.

    Or rather that''s what it seemed on the surface, but it wasn''t as if the citizens would rise up that easily.

    Not to mention, the prime minister had done quite a bit to make sure that people would be cated during this time.

    There were supplies of grains that were still being sent to the various regions, though the grains were a bit lesspared to usual since there were lessnds growing grains now. At the same time, the newnds hadn''t finished development yet, so they weren''t able to grow new grains to supply the kingdom.

    That was why it would take some time for the kingdom to adjust.

    But to make up for that, the prime minister had given each citizen a subsidy so that they wouldn''t be aggrieved during this time.

    He had made sure topensate them fairly for their losses during this time, which was arge blow to the treasury.

    So why would these people protest?

    There was only one reason for that.

    There was someone who was moving behind the scenes that were orchestrating these protests, which was why the two of us were surprised.

    We had already thought of this ahead of time, so we had made our moves to counter anything that could have happened.

    By all right, those that could have orchestrated such a protest should have already been cated.

    So when it happened, we were naturally surprised by this.

    "Who is it?" I asked the prime minister.

    The prime minister revealed a heavy look before shaking his head and saying, "I don''t know right now. This is something that''s being investigated, so we''ll find out soon."

    I looked at him with a strange look when I heard this.

    For the first time, I could see that the prime minister had really been caught off guard, which was why he didn''t know what to do. This was strange for me who had only seen the confident side of him that had always nned out everything.

    So for him to actually be at a loss like right now¡­

    After a moment of silence, I just gave a simple nod without saying anything.

    The two of us waited there in silence, but I could see that there was a look of anger that was in the prime minister''s eyes. The way that the mes of rage flickered in his eyes, it was clear that he had lost himself in his rage this time.

    I had gotten a bit better at reading him after bing an inw, so I knew that he wanted to rip to pieces the people who were responsible for tarnishing his perfect reputation.

    This was the one and only time that he had failed, so he wanted to erase this failure with his own hands.

    In the end, it was Haley who came into the study with a folder in her hand.

    The moment that the prime minister saw here in, he immediately said in a fierce voice, "Who is it?"

    If I hadn''t reacted in time and held him back, he might have even pounced at Haley just to take the folder from her.

    I wasn''t worried that he would actually do anything to her, but I didn''t want to see her being jumped at by another man.

    The prime minister realized his mistake, so he quickly gave a cough to calm him down.

    After calming down, he said, "It was my mistake. Please tell me who it is that funded this protest."

    Haley raised a brow to look at the prime minister since this was also her first time seeing him like this. But she just gave a nod and opened the folder to read, "The Yumen Company and the Tarda Company."

    The prime minister immediately knitted his brows the moment that he heard this.

    He was silent for a bit before turning to look at Haley with that same frown on his face to say, "Are you certain of this? I''ve already given them more than enough benefits that they shouldn''t have done this."

    Haley just shook her head and said with a bitter smile, "It seems like you''ve underestimated how greedy they are. Once they smell blood in the water, they are like hungry sharks."

    The prime minister knitted his brows even more when he heard this.

    After a long silence, he said, "Let me handle this. I''ll make sure that they rue the day that they chose to betray me."

    Seeing this, I had no doubt that the prime minister would be able to take care of this without a problem, but there was something else that I had to say.

    "Why do you think that it''s just them?"

    The prime minister was surprised to hear this before knitting his brows again.

    It didn''t take long for him to realize his mistake.

    He took a minute to reflect before saying, "I''ll keep investigating ande back with a n tomorrow."

    I gave a simple nod in response.

    As long as the prime minister didn''t lose himself in a spiral, I had no doubts in his abilities.

 Chapter 840 Isnâ€™t this a bit tooâ€¦

    Chapter 840 Isn¡¯t this a bit too¡­

    ??The next morning, there was a bitter look that appeared on my face.

    The prime minister seemed to have worked all night with how dark the bags under his eyes looked.

    It seemed like he had pushed himself to the limit just for this one thing as I could see that there was a thick folder that was on the desk in front of me.

    From the few parts that I could see, I could tell just how detailed his ns were.

    It didn''t seem like the prime minister was nning to show any mercy to the merchants who had double crossed him.

    However, that bitter look that was on my face became even more bitter as I read what was inside.

    "Isn''t this a bit too much¡­" I couldn''t help saying this as I read this, but the prime minister didn''t say a thing as he waited for me to finish reading.

    I didn''t say anything once I finished reading and just handed the folder over to Haley.

    She had been standing silently on the side, waiting for me to finish reading.

    But she didn''t hesitate to take the folder from me to read what the prime minister''s n was.

    As Haley read it, the expression on her face also changed like mine did, but it didn''t change as much as my expressions had changed.

    During this, I just stared at the prime minister with narrowed eyes as if I was using him of something, but he didn''t seem to react at all. He had a calm look on his face as if he was certain that he did nothing wrong.

    Once Haley finished reading, she also looked at the prime minister as if she was trying to tell if he was being serious about this.

    But the prime minister just stood there with a calm look on his face as if he was waiting for someone to say something.

    So in the end, I was the one that broke the silence by saying, "You know that this will destroy the economy of our kingdom, right?"

    The prime minister just gave a simple nod before saying, "We can just rebuild it."

    Both Haley and I looked at him like he was crazy when he said this.

    After all, he was saying that we could rebuild the economy of the kingdom like it was nothing.

    It was as if it was as simple as flipping his hand.

    Though the n that he presented already showed the ns that he had for rebuilding the economy.

    With the n that heid out, it seemed like it was indeed possible for him to do such a thing.

    Though it was certain that there would be quite a bit of chaos because of it.

    This would no doubt have an effect on the citizens of the kingdom, so I was worried that the prime minister was losing sight of his original goals because of it. After all, he had said that everything that he did was for the citizens.

    So I said, "Are you sure that this won''t affect the people though? Even if we rebuild the economy, there will be periods where the people will suffer because of it. Are you sure that there isn''t a less extreme method of doing this?"

    Haley nodded in agreement since she knew just how much this would affect the employees of thepany as someone who ran apany herself.

    Even if they were hired back in the end, the period of time where they would be out of a job would be very hard on them and their families.

    The prime minister didn''t seem worried at all when he heard this as he came forward to take the folder from Haley.

    She handed it over without a problem, but she moved closer to my desk since she knew that he was nning on showing me something.

    The prime minister took out a certain sheet from the folder and put it down before pointing out a certain thing.

    When I saw this, I waspletely taken aback since this was the solution to the problem that I had raised.

    It was a packed folder with many sheets, so there were certain things that I had missed.

    This was one of those things.

    Haley also came closer to read it with me, but she had a much bigger reaction than I did this time.

    That was because this was something that she waspletely unfamiliar with, but it wasn''t that unfamiliar to me since this was something that I had seen before. Of course, it wasn''t something that I had seen in this world, but rather in my old world.

    It was employment insurance which would help these families tide the period of unemployment over.

    This world didn''t have a thing like employment insurance since it was a world that was focused on the nobles.

    The nobles didn''t care about themoners since they thought that they were beneath them and suppressing them made them easier to control. So if themoners faced any problems, it was up to them to solve it alone.

    The nobles would never take out money to help them.

    But this employment insurance that the prime minister was proposing would do the opposite.

    It was like employment insurance in my previous world where the government would pay a portion of their lost wages while they were out of a job so they could have the time to find a new job.

    As for where that money came from, it was said toe from the taxes that thepanies that they were employed by paid. But in reality, it wasing from the money that we would be taking from thepanies after we destroyed them.

    But the prime minister had alsoid out a n for how things would go in the future where we would rely on tax payments to fund this.

    After all, taxes were much greater in this world where nobles controlled everything than in my previous world.

    It would be easy to pay for things with taxes since there was so much of it.

    However, there was something else that I couldn''t help thinking about¡­

    How could the prime ministere up with such a modern idea?

 Chapter 841 Could he be fromâ€¦

    Chapter 841 Could he be from¡­

    ??It wasn''t just this idea of employment insurance, there were many things that were off about the prime minister.

    I had ignored it since I had the preception that he was just that kind of intelligent person from the side of the fourth prince that I saw in the game.

    However, now that I''ve known him for some time, I knew that he wasn''t like that.

    Even if he was intelligent, he still based most of his ideas on the knowledge of this world.

    It wasn''t as if he had ess to a wealth of otherworldly knowledge like I did.

    But that didn''t seem like the case now.

    The way that the prime minister kepting up with these ideas that were far beyond the times, it was almost as if he was drawing on some kind of otherworldly knowledge. This was knowledge that should have only been known by a reincarnator like myself¡­

    So if the prime minister knew these things and kept drawing on them, then did that mean that he was¡­

    Could he be from¡­

    The more that I thought about this, the more likely it seemed.

    After all, the things that he was bringing out all seemed like something that someone that came from my previous world would think of.

    At the same time, the way that he had acted before when he was the fourth prince.

    The reason why he didn''t want the throne and wanted to put me on the throne¡­

    It was almost as if he could see how much of a pain it was for him to take the throne.

    Or rather, it was almost as if he could predict what would have happened if he were to take it with a coup.

    So did he know the events of this game just like me?

    If he was someone from my past life that also knew about this game world, was that why he insisted so much on following me?

    It all started to seem to fit into ce the more that I thought about it.

    This began seeming like the only possible exnation for how the prime minister was acting.

    So I suddenly came up with an idea to test him.

    I pointed out something that I had seen earlier in the folder and said, "When we take over this ce, I want your opinion on what we should do here."

    The prime minister was surprised since he didn''t think that this would be the answer that I would give him. He was certain that I would have something to say about the employment insurance n that he came up with, he didn''t expect me topletely ignore this to talk about something else.

    After looking at me for a bit as if he was trying to scope me out, he said, "I think that this would be a good ce to turn into farnd. Thend is rich and fertile, so I''m sure that it''ll provide a good ce to grow crops."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the prime minister when I heard this.

    This was the wrong answer after all.

    If we were to actually do this, then something would go terribly wrong.

    There was a reason why there had never been farnds developed in this ce, but it was not something that was known by the government. It was something that only the merchants knew, which was why one wouldn''t know about this ce unless they yed the game.

    So the fact that the prime minister had given this answer meant that he didn''t know about the secrets hiding here¡­

    But then again, it wasn''t as if everyone was as obsessive as me about this game and cleared all of the quests avable.

    There were those that only yed the main story, so it would make sense that he didn''t know what was special about this ce.

    So instead, I decided to test him with something else.

    "That really is an interesting idea lol. I think it might not be as fire as you think it is. No cap, it''s not a good idea." I said as I felt a part of me dying on the inside.

    But as I said this, I made sure to look carefully at the prime minister''s face to see what his reaction was.

    The reaction that he gave¡­as well as the reaction that Haley gave made me feel like I was dying even more.

    The cringe was just too strong that it made me want to jump into a hole, but it was already toote for me to back down now.

    I kept throwing out some more inte ng words at the prime minister.

    At this point, it was fine if I revealed my identity as well if it meant exposing him.

    After all, two people from the same past life working together was always better.

    At the same time¡­I really wanted to see if I could find someone else from my past life.

    Someone from my hometown, the hometown that I missed.

    It would help with the bit of loneliness that was in my heart.

    But no matter what I said, it didn''t seem like the prime minister was going to react. There was a genuine look of confusion that was on his face, the kind that couldn''t be faked at all.

    That was because along with Haley, the two of them were looking at me as if they thought I had gone crazy.

    It was the kind of look that made it seem like they were wondering if they should have memitted to an asylum.

    At this rate, it seemed more likely that they would capture me and hold me down than the prime minister admitting that he was from the same world as me.

    In the end, the prime minister just said to Haley, "It seems like we''ll have to take care of this on our own. It seems like brother inw really is too overworked¡­"

    Haley nodded in agreement to this before taking the folder from me and waving at the prime minister to leave with her.

    Seeing them like this, I raised my hand and said, "Stop."

 Chapter 842 He wasnâ€™t the only terrifying one

    Chapter 842 He wasn¡¯t the only terrifying one

    ??The two of them did stop like I requested, but they didn''t let me exin in the end.

    Not to mention that I wouldn''t have been able to exin even if I wanted to.

    The things that I had done were things from my past life, so it wasn''t as if I could exin my past life to them. They might even look at me like I hadpletely lost my mind if I were to exin my past life to them.

    At the same time, I couldn''t tell if the prime minister was from my previous world or not.

    I had used all those different signals, but it didn''t seem like he had reacted at all.

    It might just be a ruse on his part to seem calm, but I wasn''t able to see through him in the end.

    I just couldn''t tell if he was reacting to it or not.

    So the only thing that I could do was leave this matter to the two of them since they said that they would take care of it.

    There was an uneasy feeling that filled me when they told me to leave it to them since I could tell that the prime minister wasn''t nning on holding back. It was clear that he was still feeling angry about what had happened, so there was no way that he would show them mercy.

    That was evident by the n that he showed me.

    So I watched the two of them leave my office with an uneasy feeling.

    After they left, the former king came in with one brow raised.

    I didn''t need to ask to know why he had this expression on his face.

    He must have seen the two of them as they left my study.

    Looking at me with this look, he asked, "What''s wrong with those two?"

    A bitter look crept onto my face when I heard this. I took a deep breath and gave a deep sigh before exining what had happened.

    When the former king finished hearing what I said, there was also a bitter smile on his face.

    He knew what the prime minister was nning to do, but it didn''t seem like he was nning to stop him.

    The bitterness slowly left the smile on his face and he said, "It''s my first time seeing that child like that."

    I was surprised to hear him say this before looking at him with a confused look.

    The former king didn''t exin at first as he looked at the door to the study.

    He just stared at it in silence for a bit before finally saying, "That child has always had a smooth life. It never seemed like he had any setbacks, so he never really learned how to deal with setbacks. This might be the first time that I''ve ever seen him stumble."

    I was even more confused hearing him say this, but I could tell that he wasn''t saying this just to pick on Noah. Rather, the way that he said this was almost as if he was a concerned parent.

    That was a strange way of looking after basically what seemed to be making fun of his child.

    The former king''s next words quickly exined what he meant by this.

    "Since that child has never met with setbacks before, it doesn''t seem like he really knows how to deal with them. I''m sure that he wille up with his own way of dealing with them, but this is a good learning experience for him."

    It seemed that he was showing concern for Noah as a father might, but this was the wrong time for that.

    After all, this was something that would affect the wellbeing of the country.

    If he really went overboard, it was hard to tell what would happen.

    As if he could guess what I was thinking, the former king said, "Do you really think that child would go that far? It''s fine to leave this matter to him, this will be a learning experience for him."

    I had an uncertain look on my face, but I slowly gave a nod.

    Then again, it wasn''t as if there was anything that I could do about this.

    It wouldn''t be that bad, right?

    ¡­

    It was much worse than I thought.

    However, the reason that it became much worse wasn''t the reason that I thought it would be. Rather, there was someone else who made things much worse than it already was.

    That person wasn''t the prime minister, but rather the one who worked with the prime minister to deal with this situation.

    She was the one that should have been the voice of reason, but she had be the terrifying one.

    The prime minister''s n was to leave a piece of the pie for others, but she took it all for herself. Because of that, there were even more people that suffered because of this, though the employment insurance n covered this.

    So there were no citizens that were harmed in this mess, or it was certain that the prime minister wouldn''t have gone along with it.

    When they were in my study, I asked Haley, "Why did you do it?"

    Haley had her head down the entire time as if she was embarrassed about what she had done, but I quickly realized that this wasn''t the case.

    "I thought that it would be better if we controlled everything."

    The way that she said this was almost as if she wasn''t apologizing for what she had done, but rather she was apologizing for getting caught like this. It was as if she felt that there wasn''t anything wrong with what she did, it was just that it was too early to be caught like this.

    The prime minister said, "It''s a good n."

    It was just a simple statement, but it showed his support for Haley.

    That just went to show that she really was the more terrifying one of the two¡­

    Not only her greed, but also her ability to even talk the prime minister into going along with her¡­

 Chapter 843 Another company

    Chapter 843 Anotherpany

    ??It already happened, so there was no need to think too much about it.

    Instead, it was better to focus on what to do from now on.

    That meant fixing all of thepanies that had been taken care of during this time.

    So I asked, "What are you nning to do now?"

    The prime minister and Haley looked at each other before revealing relieved looks.

    It was as if as long as I didn''t keep pushing on the fact that they had taken down all thosepanies. As long as I agreed to it and focused on rebuilding them, then it was all fine.

    The prime minister and Haley didn''t hesitate to present me with another n that they had prepared.

    It seemed like they would be using several proxies to buy up thosepanies and then consolidate them all into a singlepany. Thatpany would give jobs back to the people that had lost their jobs and would take over the shares of the markets that thepanies that they destroyed had.

    In short, they would be turning all of thosepanies into apany that they owned.

    They were going to turn it into apany that belonged to the royal family.

    However, I was a bit concerned about this.

    After all, this meant that it would be decreasing the amount ofpetition in the kingdom.

    This was going against the n that the prime minister had before where he would be trying to bnce the number ofpetitors that we controlled to give the illusion of choice.

    The prime minister naturally knew that as well, so he said, "There are enoughpetitors that we don''t control that it won''t turn into a monopoly. There are enough otherpanies that they would still have the option of choices."

    Then in a different tone, he said, "These are markets that we''ve never dipped our toes in before, so it''ll be our first time in them. So there''s no need to worry about us controlling itpletely."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I looked at the n that they gave me.

    When I read it, I found that there were the names of thepanies that would be considered rivals after we took control of thesepanies.

    However, there was onepany name that caught my attention the most.

    That was because thispany was one that showed up as a rival for all of ourpanies.

    It seemed that thispany would be our mainpetitor.

    I wasn''t worried about thispany bing our mainpetitor since it wasn''t as if there was apany that could match the power that the royal family had. Even if they were backed by all the nobles in the kingdom, it would be hard to match the current royal family.

    Rather I was surprised since the name of thispany was one that I recognized...

    It was the Zephyr Company.

    It was thepany that Haley''s father was the chairman of.

    It seemed that the newpany that Haley was nning to create would be a directpetitor against the Zephyr Company.

    I knew that the rtionship between Haley and her father wasn''t good, but to create apany just topete against her father''spany¡­that didn''t seem like a good way to deal with it.

    It seemed like it was a very toxic and dangerous way to cope with this problem¡­

    It seemed like it would just make their rtionship worse and worse until it reached a point where it couldn''t be fixed anymore.

    So this was not something that I wanted to see from Haley.

    While the prime minister and Haley were stillying out the key points of their n for me, I suddenly raised my hand to cut them off.

    The two of them were confused why I did this, but I didn''t mind the prime minister as I looked at Haley and said, "We need to have a private talk."

    The prime minister was surprised to hear this, but he could hear the tone of my voice and could tell that it was serious.

    As such, he gave a nod and walked out of the room.

    Once it was just the two of us, Haley still had a confused look on her face as she didn''t know what I wanted to talk to her about. However, the moment that I pointed out the Zephyr Company on the nyout that she gave me, there was a look of understanding that appeared on her face.

    Even though there was a look of understanding, she just looked at me as if she didn''t think that she did anything wrong.

    With the way that she looked at me, it was almost as if she felt that she had done nothing wrong.

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I saw this, but I still asked, "Are you sure that you want to do this?"

    There was a look of surprise that appeared on Haley''s face when she heard this.

    She looked at me as if she was trying to figure out what I meant by this, but I just looked at her with a serious look like I meant what I said.

    When she saw this, she just gave a small nod as she said, "This is what needs to be done."

    "He''s your father." I said right after she said this.

    I didn''t give her a moment of thought as I pressed this matter.

    But this time I was surprised as she just calmly said, "Yes, he is. That is why I have to do this."

    I looked at her as if I couldn''t understand her words even though I understood the individual words that she said. When they werebined together, it was as if I couldn''t understand what she had just said.

    Seeing the way that I looked at her, Haley just said, "I know my father and I know that this is what I have to do."

    I was even more confused when I heard this, but I slowly gave a nod.

 Chapter 844 Signs of increased activity

    <h4>Chapter 844 Signs of increased activity</h4>

    When Haley left my study and the prime minister came in, I didn''t notice him at all as I looked in the direction that Haley walked off in.

    The prime minister had been confused at first, but he had done a bit of digging in the time that he had been outside the study. He had one of the shadows do some digging and found the connection between Haley and the Zephyr Company.

    Once he found that connection, it was easy for the prime minister to figure out what I talked to Haley about alone.

    So while I was still staring in the direction of the door, the prime minister suddenly said, "If that''s how she wants to handle it, you should leave it to her. I''ve worked with her for some time now and I know what kind of person she is. She isn''t someone to do something irrational."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the prime minister.

    There was a part of me that was a bit annoyed that he was making a statement about my wife like this, but I also knew that there was no ill intent behind it and that this was his genuine opinion.

    Rather, he was saying this to tell me to trust my own wife.

    That was the part that really annoyed me since I didn''t feel like I needed someone else to tell me that.

    But I knew that he was right.

    I knew that she must have her own way of thinking, which was why she was doing this.

    So at the same time, I was frustrated that I couldn''t do anything to help her.

    The prime minister seemed to be able to see this from my face, so he said, "This is just how theymunicate as father and daughter. Trust me, I''ve had my own experience."

    There was this sort of bitterness that appeared on his face when he said this.

    I knew that he had his own experience with the former king to draw on, so he might really be the best person to say something like this.

    Since the prime minister was saying this, I decided that I wouldn''t butt in on this matter...

    But it wasn''t as if I could just leave this alone.

    This was something that she was doing on the level of managing a country, so it wasn''t something that could be decided that easily. At the very least, she had to be monitored to make sure that nothing was abused.

    Since the prime minister was the one that understood her...

    "I''ll leave it to you to follow up with her. I hope that you won''t let her go too far."

    The prime minister gave a nod in response before saying, "I''ll do what I can."

    There was a part of me that felt uneasy about this, but I didn''t say anything else about this.

    After all, I knew that the prime minister would have his own discretion on this matter.

    There were other things that I wanted to talk to him about, but I didn''t get a chance to say anything else. That was because there was someone who suddenly burst into the study.

    The moment that this person burst in, both the prime minister and I knitted our brows.

    After all, everyone should know not to barge into my study like this without announcement already. This was something that the prime minister had already taught everyone not to do.

    However, here was someone who had barged in regardless.

    It was one of the shadows that were under the prime minister that had barged in.

    Normally, the prime minister would have immediately reprimanded this person, but he didn''t today.

    That was because both the prime minister and I could see that there was something different about this shadow.

    Normally, the shadow would act calm regardless of what happened, but not this time.

    The look on the shadow''s face made it clear that there was something that happened that even made them lose control of their emotions.

    That meant that this must be something that was very serious.

    So both of us waited to see what the shadow had to say for itself.

    The one that came in was Shadow One, the one that led the shadow squad, which gave even more weight to this situation. If it was the leader who barged in, there was no doubt that this was something serious.

    Taking a deep breath, Shadow One said, "There have been signs of increased monster activity all over the kingdom."

    Both the prime minister and I immediately knitted our brows when we heard this.

    This was thest thing that we had been expecting to hear from Shadow One.

    Signs of monster activity were not strange in this kingdom since monsters existed all over the ce, but for it to increase all of a sudden¡­that was not a good sign. Especially since we had just finished the war and were still recovering from it.

    The increased signs of monster activity meant that it was very likely that there would be a monster wave soon.

    If a monster wave happened, then there was no doubt that the people would suffer.

    There just weren''t enough forces to defend against the monster wave, even with the wyverns that had been obtained.

    However, there was a different reason why I had knitted my brows.

    It was because I thought of something else.

    This was something from the game.

    It was an event.

    It was a special event that should have happened around this time in the game''s chronology and it was a special event that should have been dealt with by the fourth prince.

    However, the main thing was that this was an event that was for the yer''s benefit.

    The increased monster activity was a monster spawn event that happened during the off time which allowed the yer to farm more easily.

    Who would have thought that this would be a problem once I became the king¡­

 Chapter 845 Thereâ€™s a way

    Chapter 845 There¡¯s a way

    ??The looks on both my face and the prime minister''s face made it clear that we could see how severe the problem was.

    But at the same time, it didn''t seem like either of us knew how to solve this problem¡­

    Shadow One just stood there in silence, but it was clear that he was getting worried when he saw that the prime minister didn''t have an answer.

    Normally, the prime minister would at least have some kind of stopgap measure to give. However, this time, it didn''t seem like the prime minister had any idea of what to do.

    That was the most terrifying thing of all for Shadow One who deeply believed in the prime minister.

    If even the prime minister couldn''t think of a solution, then this seemed like it was a very big problem¡­

    As such, Shadow One was filled with worry seeing the prime minister like this.

    After a long silence, the prime minister finally looked at me with an expectant look. It was as if he was hoping that I would have a way to deal with this matter.

    There was a bitterness that came from deep down, but I did take this seriously and started thinking of a solution. After all, I was the king of this kingdom now and this wasn''t just a problem that affected him, but also me.

    As the king, I should at least do something to protect the people of my kingdom.

    After thinking for a bit, I dide up with a way.

    It wasn''t as if there wasn''t a way to deal with this increased monster activity, but it wasn''t an easy solution either.

    It would require quite a bit of work and it would require¡­

    "It isn''t as if there isn''t a way to deal with this increased monster activity. In fact, there''s even a chance to take care of the monsters for a good while."

    Both Shadow One and the prime minister were surprised to hear this.

    The two of them looked at me with looks that had traces of doubt in them.

    Normally, the prime minister wouldn''t doubt me since he had this faith in me, but he couldn''t help but doubt me this time. After all, what I was saying was equal to saying that I had a way to deal with a natural disaster.

    Monsters were considered a part of nature for this world and monster waves were considered natural disasters.

    Natural disasters that were at the same level as a tornado or andslide.

    So now that I was saying that I could stop a disaster that was at the same level as a natural disaster was naturally hard for him to believe.

    Even I wouldn''t believe it if someone else said it to me, but I had a reason why I was confident in dealing with this natural disaster this time.

    After all, it was something from the game, so there was information that I had that no one else had.

    One might think that the game designers would have coded this so that it was just a natural thing that happened as part of the design of the world. However, they weren''t satisfied with this kind of half ass setting for this event.

    They didn''t leave this matter as it was and even added a backstory to it.

    That backstory was the reason why I was confident that I would be able to deal with this matter.

    I didn''t say anything as I just calmly looked at the prime minister.

    The two of us just locked eyes for a bit before he slowly gave a nod before asking, "What do we have to do?"

    This time, there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face.

    That was because this was the one problem that I knew that I would have to face.

    "I have to go myself to deal with it."

    There was no way that anyone else would be able to do the same thing as me.

    Even if I were to give instructions to the ones that went, there was nothing better than handling the situation in person. After all, there was no one else that could do the same thing as me since they didn''t have the same knowledge as me.

    The prime minister immediately deeply knitted his brows when he heard this, but he didn''t immediately refute it which was a good sign.

    It seemed that he was at least giving me the benefit of the doubt as he looked at me with narrowed eyes as if he was scrutinizing me. It was as if he was trying to figure out how serious I was about this.

    So I just looked at him with a calm look in my eyes.

    After a long period of silence, the prime minister turned back to Shadow One and said, "Summon all of the shadows, the elites of Shadow Garden, and the hidden guards of the royal family. We have to make sure that we don''t make a single mistake."

    Shadow One was shocked to hear this before looking at me with a strange look.

    But in the end, since it was the prime minister giving this order, Shadow One had no choice but to obey.

    Especially since the shadows had be an elite unit of the royal guards since the former fourth prince was now the prime minister. So they were also under me and were supposed to protect me.

    Once Shadow One left to put the prime minister''s orders into action, the prime minister turned to look at me and said, "Tell me what this small chance is. If it''s too dangerous, then there''s no way that I''ll let you go."

    Even though he summoned everything, it seemed like he still wanted to know everything.

    Though this seemed more about the people that he was summoning than it was about me.

    After all, there was no way that he could risk everyone''s life on a n that only had a slim chance of seeding.

    I gave a slight nod before I told him a bit of what I knew.

    I couldn''t tell him everything after all.

 Chapter 846 A clone?

    <h4>Chapter 846 A clone?</h4>

    "Do you really have to go?"

    That was the first thing that my wives asked me the moment that I told them about my n.

    They all had worried looks on their faces as they asked this.

    It was clear that they didn''t approve of this idea of me going personally, but it wasn''t as if I was going to back down now. This was something that I had to do after all since there was no one who would be able to rece me for this matter.

    I gave a firm nod in response without saying anything.

    They still had worried looks on their faces, but they didn''t say anything else since they could see the serious looks that were on my face.

    So the first thing that they did was turn to look at Cecilia.

    Cecilia was no longer part of the guards in my territory and had actually joined the royal guards after I took up the throne.

    She was not the head of the royal guards since there was already a loyalmander in ce. Instead, she was themander of a small team in the royal guards.

    This was a position that was created for her by the prime minister for her to gain experience for now until it was time for her to be promoted.

    Eventually, she would receive a high position in the royal guards, but that was only when she was ready for it. That was because right now...she was weakpared to the other royal guards.

    The royal guards were the elite soldiers of the kingdom, so there was no way that they would be weak. They were powerful elites that were chosen from all over the kingdom to protect the royal family.

    So these royal guards were the best that the kingdom had to offer.

    Even if Cecilia had trained hard, it wasn''t as if she could match with the best that the kingdom had to offer.

    She was just a small knight in the countryside before this.

    So it would take some time before she would be able to rise through the ranks of the royal guards.

    This was something that she also wanted since she didn''t want to be promoted unless she deserved the promotion.

    After all, the main mission of the royal guards was to protect the royal family and that meant that their main mission was to protect the king and his family. Since Zwein was the king, she naturally wanted the best people to protect him.

    But as everyone looked at her, Cecilia gave a nod to show her understanding.

    They wanted her to go with me and she agreed to go.

    Well, the prime minister would be sending the most capable people, so it wasn''t as if adding Cecilia and her small group would hurt.

    Veronica and Moon also looked like they wanted to go since the two of them could also fight, but they gave up in the end. Veronica wasn''t in the royal guards after all and Moon was an elf.

    Still, I had to spend the rest of the nightforting them and calming them down.

    Or rather, it was more like there was no time to sleep with the things that we did all night.

    When the prime minister saw me the next morning, he revealed a teasing smile as he said, "Busy night?"

    I scowled at him without saying anything.

    The prime minister knew better than to push my buttons, especially since today was the day that we were heading out. So instead, he led me to my study where I was surprised to find someone there.

    I wasn''t surprised by the fact that there was someone in my study, but rather I was surprised by the appearance of that person.

    That was because this person''s appearance was familiar¡­very familiar to me.

    It could be said that there was no one that knew this appearance better than me.

    That was because this person had the same appearance as me.

    Well, there were a few parts of this person that were different from me. However, to those that didn''t know me intimately, this appearance would be enough to fool them.

    "Is this a clone?" I asked the prime minister.

    The prime minister revealed a faint smile before saying, "It''s your body double."

    I was surprised to hear this since I never thought that there would be such a thing prepared so quickly. It had only been a little more than a month since I took over the throne, so it didn''t seem like it was enough time to train one.

    It was as if the prime minister could read my thoughts as he said, "Yes, it was a short period of time, so we could only improvise." He gave a sigh before saying, "This is one of my body doubles who we repurposed as your body double. He won''t be perfect, but it''ll be good enough to fool most people."

    I took a closer look at the body double after he said this.

    The body double just said, "I''ll do my best."

    Even his voice was very simr to mine, though I could hear a small difference since it was my voice.

    The one problem that I had with this was¡­I knew that there were a few people that would notice the body double right away. If they weren''t told about this body double, then there was no doubt that they would be very angry.

    After all, they already knew that I would be leaving.

    I looked at the prime minister, but I didn''t get to say anything again.

    It was as if he already knew what I was thinking, so he said, "I know, that''s why I called you here without them. I need you to help me convince them to ept this body double."

    I was surprised to hear this, but looking at the body double, I revealed a bitter smile.

    I could guess what the prime minister was worried about.

    As for the actual convincing, it didn''t actually take that much time.

    Only after convincing them, they immediately started giving notes to the body double.

    It seemed like they wouldn''t be satisfied until he acted the way that they wanted him to act.

    He even looked at me for help, but I just ignored that look.

 Chapter 847 The same old thing

    <h4>Chapter 847 The same old thing</h4>

    With the body double in ce, there was nothing left holding me back from leaving the capital.

    However, it wasn''t as if we could just openly leave the capital.

    I was the king and the people that I was leaving with were people that were in important positions, so it wasn''t as if any of us could leave the capital that easily.

    To leave the capital, all of us had to split up and go different ways.

    Once we were out of the capital, we would meet up and then head to the ce that I wanted us to go.

    So when I left, it was through the secret corridor in the castle.

    This was the secret corridor that led to the Shadow Garden headquarters.

    This was the secret corridor that I took when I went to the castle the first time.

    At the end of the secret corridor was the bunny doll boss and Scar waiting for me, but they weren''t alone. There were others that were there with them and not a single one of them seemed simple.

    All of them seemed like they were powerful based on how Cecilia reacted when she met them.

    However, this wasn''t a trap.

    This was the group that had been summoned by the prime minister from Shadow Garden. They were the ones that would being with me on this trip as my guards.

    Though for most of them, this was their first time meeting me.

    Of course, that wasn''t strange even though I was in Shadow Garden before bing the king.

    Shadow Garden was a hidden organization that was under the crown and the key thing was that they were a hidden organization. This meant that most of their members didn''t know each other''s identities.

    It was only those at the top that knew who the other members were.

    Even though it was my first time meeting them, these people could be trusted since they were all Scar''s subordinates.

    It seemed that he was in charge of many more people than I thought.

    It seemed that he was in quite a high position in the organization that he was in charge of all these people.

    As for Scar, there was a trust that I had for him that went beyond normal trust.

    That was because we wererades that had gone through life and death together before.

    These people didn''t leave the city with me, it was only Shaka and Scar that went with me.

    With Cecilia, Shaka, and Scar, we boarded a carriage that was waiting outside and we headed off.

    Since it was only a small group and the carriage was a normal looking carriage that didn''t have any special features, we didn''t attract any attention at all.

    But if one looked closely at the building, they would see a bunch of different carriages leaving one after another. It was as if there was a parade with how many carriages were leaving.

    Each of the carriages was a normal looking carriage that didn''t attract any attention at all.

    At the same time, all of them headed off in different directions.

    They were heading in different directions, but they would all be meeting outside of the capital when the time came. This was just how they were leaving the capital without attracting any attention.

    While sitting in the carriage, Cecilia, Scar, and Shaka were all staring at Zwein who was sitting there with a calm look on his face.

    The way that they stared at him, it was clear that there was something that they wanted to ask him even though he just sat there with a calm look on his face.

    After a while, I said with a sigh, "What is it?"

    Cecilia was the one that spoke for them since she was in the best position to speak, "Where are we going?"

    I just calmly looked at them and said, "That''s not important."

    All three of them looked at me with strange looks when they heard this before Cecilia said, "How is it not important? You said that you were going to solve the problem of the increased monster activity, so how can we do that if we don''t even know where we''re going?"

    I just calmly said, "The location isn''t the important thing, the important thing is what''s causing it."

    At this, all three of them deeply knitted their brows.

    They looked at me as if they were waiting for me to exin, but I didn''t say a thing as I just calmly sat there looking out the window.

    Scar was the one that lost his temper in the end as he asked, "Well, what is causing it?"

    I just looked at them with a smile, which made them lose their temper even more since it looked like I was just teasing them.

    However, they didn''t say anything as they waited for me to speak.

    Seeing them like this, I couldn''t help feeling that the prime minister definitely did what he did on purpose. After all, it was fun seeing people looking frustrated like this.

    Still, I didn''t keep them in suspense forever since there was nothing to gain from keeping them in suspense like this other than my own enjoyment.

    I just calmly said with that same smile, "What has been causing all the problems in our kingdom during this period of time?"

    All three of them had confused looks on their faces when they heard this.

    But after thinking about it, Shaka suddenly said in an uncertain voice, "The demons?"

    I gave a nod as I said, "That''s right. It''s the demons."

    It wasn''t just a random answer that I was giving them, but rather the setting that the designers of the game made.

    They wanted an exnation for this increased monster activity and the easiest way to exin it was the demons since that was a major part of the game already.

    So they created a story that involved the demons that exined why the monsters were bing rowdy.

 Chapter 848 Dark crystals

    <h4>Chapter 848 Dark crystals</h4>

    The story that they created was that the demons were using these monster waves to disrupt the human kingdoms.

    It wasn''t just our kingdom that would be experiencing this increase in monster activity during this time, it was all of the human kingdoms that would be experiencing this.

    That worked for the yer since the increase in mobs would make it easier for them to gain experience and items.

    As for how they were doing it...

    Dark crystals.

    That was how.

    These were not normal crystals, but rather special crystals that increased aggression in monsters through dark magic. So even those monsters that would normally be docile would be aggressive after being exposed to the dark magic of these crystals.

    As for why the demons had never used these before, it was because the story stated that these things had only been found recently. They had only obtained the dark crystals after a chance discovery and quickly installed them in the various human kingdoms to raise these monster waves.

    This was the part of the story that seemed sloppy, but no one really thought about it since it was just a side story used to exin this event.

    That was until someone actually went to the world that was based on the game.

    "How do you know all of this?" Scar asked with narrowed eyes.

    I didn''t say anything in response to this as I just looked at him with a faint smile on my lips.

    Naturally, I couldn''t actually tell him why I knew all of this, so all I could do was smile and y it off.

    Scar narrowed his eyes even more and even Cecilia and Shaka started looking at me with doubtful expressions, but they didn''t push any further in the end.

    If I wasn''t willing to say anything, it wasn''t as if they could force me to speak.

    Especially since I was their superior now.

    There was another part of the story that I didn''t tell them since it was something that seemed unnecessary.

    It was that the dark crystals that we were about to destroy were nothing more than receiving nodes. They weren''t the main thing that was corrupting the monsters, but rather receiving nodes for the main thing.

    The real artifact that the demons had found was a powerful dark crystal filled with dark mana that was being kept in the demon king''s castle. All of the dark crystals that were in thends of the human kingdoms were nothing more than receiving nods for the dark magic that woulde from that powerful dark crystal.

    As for why I knew this...

    It was because this powerful dark crystal yed an important role in the demon quest line in the future.

    This was one of the reasons that I had liked this game so much.

    The writers had made sure to take even the smallest details from a random exnation and incorporate them into quest lines further down.

    It really made it feel like everything in this world was connected, which had made me dive deep into the lore of the game.

    That was something that I was very grateful for since it gave me this advantage now that I was in this game world.

    Seeing the look on my face, the other three looked at me with a strange look.

    It was as if they didn''t understand what was happening with me¡­but they didn''t disturb me as I fell into my nostalgia.

    After another silence, Cecilia suddenly asked, "So as long as we destroy these dark crystals, then everything will go back to normal?"

    I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard this, but I just gave a simple nod in response since there was nothing else for me to say.

    But to my surprise, Cecilia knitted her brows, "How are you so sure that we''ll be able to destroy these crystals?"

    This was a question that caught me even more off guard.

    That was because this was a question that I didn''t know how to answer.

    After all, even I had never destroyed the crystals in the game before.

    I only knew the general area that they were in since these were the areas that had the highest increase in monster activity. So I didn''t actually even know where these crystals were exactly.

    I shook my head and said, "I don''t know, but it''s better than doing nothing."

    All three of them deeply knitted their brows when they heard this since this was not what they wanted to hear.

    They had wanted assurance that we would be able to take care of this problem, but it seemed that even I didn''t know how to solve this problem¡­

    But they weren''t surprised to hear this since they knew that this was a problem that was unprecedented. It wasn''t strange that I didn''t actually know the specifics of how to handle this problem.

    I could see the way that they looked, so I did my best as the king to say, "For now, we just have to face the problem in front of us. When the timees, we''ll put our heads together ande up with a solution."

    The three of them looked at me in silence for a bit before slowly nodding in agreement.

    They knew that I was right, there was nothing to really discuss since we didn''t know what the situation was.

    For now, it is better not to show signs of worry since it might affect the others.

    For now, they should try to act as calm as they can.

    But seeing that the person who always seemed to know the answer didn''t know what to do was a blow to them that was hard to recover from.

    I didn''t say anything as I just left them alone to stare out the window.

    I also raised my hand to look at the ring that was on my hand.

    This was the ring that I had obtained from the Nergigante Dukedom.

    "Perhaps I can use this thing?" I said to myself.

 Chapter 849 Isnâ€™t this a bit exaggerated?

    <h4>Chapter 849 Isn¡¯t this a bit exaggerated?</h4>

    After traveling for half a day, we arrived in a town that wasn''t that far away from the capital.

    It was still light outside, so we would be able to keep going if we wanted to, but we chose to stop in this town.

    This town wasn''t the biggest town, but it wasn''t the smallest town either as it had several inns in it. However, there was a specific inn that we chose to head to.

    When we arrived at this Shadow Inn, Scar was the one that went to the front desk to get a room.

    It didn''t take him long to get that room for us, but this wasn''t any normal room.

    But then again, there weren''t any normal rooms in this inn in the first ce.

    Once we arrived at our room, the first thing that the other three did was search the room for anything wrong with it.

    After making sure that there was nothing in this room that shouldn''t be in this room, Scar went over to the bookcase that was in this room. Once there, he pulled out one of the books on the bookcase, but he didn''t pull it all the way out.

    As someone from a different world with a different kind ofmon sense, I already knew what to expect after seeing him pull this book out.

    Though that was also because they had already warned me about this before it happened, so it wasn''t as if I didn''t know what to expect.

    As soon as the book was pulled out, there was a sound that came from the bookcase.

    In no time at all, it shifted out of the way and revealed a secret passage.

    This was the only thing that could have happened in my opinion.

    Once the way forward was clear, there was nothing to do but to go down the passage that had opened up. It was a staircase that seemed to lead into the basement of the inn, but it was actually much further down than just that.

    With how far down we went, it was clear that we weren''t just heading into the basement.

    When we finally stopped heading down, there was a door that was waiting for us.

    It seemed like there was lighting from behind the door, but there wasn''t any sound at all.

    Scar and Shaka were the ones that led the way, but they stopped once they opened the door.

    They turned back to look at me as if they were waiting for me to head in first.

    I gave a nod to them before walking into the room there.

    Even though there was no sound at all, there were many people that were waiting in the room in silence. All of them stood there with calm looks on their faces as if they weren''t bothered by the silence at all.

    The moment that I came in, all of their eyes immediately turned to me and I became the center of attention.

    With the way that all of them were looking at me, it was as if they were scoping me out.

    I wasn''t fazed by this at all as I swept my eyes across everyone here, but there was a strange look that was in my eyes as I saw just how many people were here.

    I already knew that the prime minister had summoned quite a few people to help me with this, but I didn''t expect this many people to be here.

    Wasn''t this a bit too exaggerated?

    It seemed like there were several hundred people that were here¡­

    This just seemed like too many people to handle this one situation, but it was already toote to send them all back.

    In that case, there was only one thing that I could do¡­

    "I''m sure that all of you are wondering why you''ve been summoned here."

    That was the first thing that I said after stepping into the room.

    All of them revealed surprised looks hearing the calm tone of my voice since they didn''t expect this from me.

    But they eventually nodded in agreement since that was indeed the case.

    They had only been summoned in a hurry by the prime minister without being told what was happening. The only thing that they knew was that this was rted to the increased monster activity across the kingdom.

    I took this time to exin the same things that I told Scar and the others about on the ride here.

    As they listened to my exnation, everyone revealed strange looks.

    However, the one thing that was clear from the way that they all looked at me was that they had their doubts.

    It wasn''t just one person that had doubt in their eyes, it was everyone that had doubts in their eyes. Even the shadows who should have known me best because of the time that we had spent together had the same look of doubt in their eyes.

    In the end, they just epted what I said.

    That was their training as special elites of the kingdom.

    They knew not to ask questions and to just go along with their orders, even if they had personal doubts. Especially when there was someone who was much higher than them inmand right now.

    Part of their training was obedience to the royal family and since I was the current king, it meant that I was the head of the royal family. That meant that the obedience that was trained into them was directed to me.

    As such, I could order them around as I wanted.

    I knew better than to question this, so all I did was¡­

    "I know that you might not trust me, but I hope that you will trust that I am doing this for the good of the kingdom. I hope that you will trust that I am doing this for the people that you care about." I said in a firm voice.

    All of the soldiers in front of me were surprised to hear this, but then they all gave a firm nod in response.

    At the very least, I had won a bit of respect from them.

 Chapter 850 Strange duo

    <h4>Chapter 850 Strange duo</h4>

    We didn''t set off right away since it wasn''t as if we could set off right away and in suchrge numbers.

    As such, we had to head off separately.

    There were some that set off right away, some that set off in the middle of the night, and some that set off in the morning at the same time as us.

    With everyone split like this, it didn''t attract much attention.

    The ones that I felt sorry for were those that had set off yesterday and in the middle of the night.

    Since they had left yesterday, it meant that they had to camp outside while waiting for us to leave.

    Though it seemed like they weren''t really bothered since they were already used to it. It seemed that they were not just used to it, but even thrived because of the experience that they had.

    It really made me wonder if they would feel morefortable camping outside than living inside of a house.

    No, I could see that there were some small signs, but they were just pushing through with it.

    It wasn''t that they weren''t bothered by camping outside, it was that they had adapted to it and suppressed thoseints with their will.

    As expected of the elite guards of the kingdom.

    Once we gathered outside of the town, there was no stopping as we all headed forth in a group.

    This was easy since all it took was an official g and a uniform. As long as we had these, we could pass off as an official unit that was on business without raising any suspicion.

    So all of the people that we passed on the road moved out of the way for us.

    No one wanted to get involved with official soldiers, especially a group that seemed to be in a hurry. There was no doubt that we were heading off to something serious, so they didn''t dare get in the way.

    Getting in the way of official soldiers was without a doubt a death sentence, so they wouldn''t dare do something like that.

    Like that, we were able to travel quite quickly along the road and reached our destination very soon.

    However¡­

    There was something that happened when we reached the town that was right before our destination.

    This was supposed to be the ce where we rested before heading in to take care of the ce where one of the dark crystals was, but¡­

    There was something that caught my eyes when we were in that town.

    Or it should be said that there were two things that caught my eyes.

    After arriving in the town, the first thing we did was look for an inn.

    I left that matter to Scar since he was a much better negotiator than me and he was the officialmander of this unit. With those tools, it was easy for him to get good rooms for all of us, even if it did take booking across several inns.

    While waiting for a room, there was something that caught my attention though.

    There were two cloaked figures that were making their way out of the inn as we came in.

    They didn''t seem suspicious since there were plenty of people like that all around, but it felt like there was something familiar that came from them.

    It was just that my contact with them was too short for me to notice anything.

    So I didn''t think too much about it.

    When Scar came back, he said, "Let''s go and have a drink."

    All I wanted to do after a long day of traveling was just rest in my room, but he convinced me out of it.

    After all, we were supposed to be here as a group of soldiers. The first thing that soldiers did when they were on rest was go to the bar to drink.

    So I had no choice but to let myself be dragged to the bar with the rest of the men.

    It seemed that they were used to this as they immediately got into the mood, but I could also tell that they had their guard up even though they were drinking.

    They were clearly elite soldiers that engaged in this kind of espionage business before.

    They didn''t miss a step as some of them even started talking to the locals to get information about the target.

    Of course, this wasn''t the kind of thing that I was good at.

    I was someone who had stayed home and yed video games in my past life. Even if I had be a noble in this life, I left most of that work to Rose.

    I only engaged with people when needed, not when I didn''t need to.

    Plus the most important thing of all¡­my social batteries were drainedpletely.

    I didn''t want to talk to anyone when I was like this.

    Or at least that was what I thought until I felt that familiar feeling again. It was even stronger thanst time.

    When I looked around the bar, I found that the same two cloaked figures from before were just sitting there.

    They seemed to be in a corner, acting inconspicuous as they weened their drinks. The way that they looked around made it seem like they were paying attention to their surroundings.

    Almost as if they were gathering information from the surrounding people.

    No matter how one looked at it, they seemed suspicious once they noticed these two.

    Or I guess it was just me who found them suspicious since I knew what I was looking for.

    But the most suspicious thing about the two of them was¡­

    that strange feelinging from them.

    I was finally able to tell just what that feeling was.

    I wasn''t certain at first since it had been faint, but being near them made it much more clear.

    Demons.

    This was the dark energy that came from demons.

    That meant that these two cloaked figures were most likely demons or at the very least rted to them.

 Chapter 851 Rund Forest

    <h4>Chapter 851 Rund Forest</h4>

    The fact that these two were here was a sign that there was a dark crystal near here.

    Well, the increased monster activity in the surrounding area was already a sign that there was a dark crystal around here. However, it wasn''t as if it was a certain thing since I had no idea what the range of effect the dark crystals had.

    Seeing that there were two were here, it meant that the dark crystal was almost certainly here.

    It meant that they must have been the ones that had brought the dark crystal here.

    They might have even been the ones that had ced the other dark crystals all across our kingdom.

    In that case, it would seem logical to capture them and then have them bring us to the various dark crystals that they nted. However, that wasn''t what I did, I just chose to ignore the two of them in the end.

    Even when they stood up and walked out, I didn''t do a thing.

    I just let them leave without telling anyone about them, but it wasn''t as if no one had noticed the strange way that I was looking at those two. There was someone who had been looking at me the entire time and had noticed the way that I looked at them.

    Once those two left, that person said, "Should we go after them?"

    I was surprised by this question.

    When I turned to look at the person who asked it, I wasn''t surprised that it was this person who asked it.

    After all, I knew that this person was obsessed with me, or else they never would have be my wife.

    It was Cecilia who hade along with us to drink that had asked this question.

    Though her real intention foring along to drink was¡­to keep an eye on me.

    So it wasn''t strange that she noticed the strange way that I looked at those two.

    Looking at her for a bit, I said with a shake of my head, "It''s not time yet. Just let them go free for a bit, they''ll still hang around the area and lead us to the ones that we want to meet."

    Cecilia narrowed her eyes to look at me, but she nodded in agreement in the end.

    She understood what I was nning to do with these two, so she epted what I said.

    There was nothing else that happened that night and soon we quickly turned in since we still had to head to the area of increased monster activity the next morning.

    When we set off the next morning, the mood of the group waspletely different from before.

    There was more of a rxed feeling to the group before this, but now¡­everyone had serious looks on their faces. It was as if they were prepared to fight to the death as they headed forth to their destination.

    But that was the determination that they should have when facing this situation.

    After all, there was no telling what would happen with the monsters.

    If they were surrounded by the monsters, it was even more likely that they would die.

    So going with the determination to die was a good thing.

    The area where the increased monster activity was happening was naturally surrounded by soldiers already. They were the first line of defense if there was anything that happened, so they naturally cared very much about their jobs.

    When they saw us approach, they immediately came forward to stop us and ask what we were doing here.

    However, it wasn''t as if they would be able to stop us.

    We were here on behalf of the two most important people in the kingdom, we were here in my name and the prime minister''s. So the moment that we showed them our papers, they immediately opened up the barricades to let us pass.

    Even though they had curious looks on their faces, they didn''t ask a single thing because they knew that they weren''t in a position to ask anything.

    They just had to follow the orders that came from above.

    After passing through the blockade, we headed towards the Rund Forest where the increased monster activity wasing from. Even before reaching the edges of the forest, we could see the signs of monsters wandering around.

    It seemed that there were more monsters, but they still hadn''t left the bounds of the forest yet.

    The monsters weren''tplete fools after all.

    They knew that the moment that they left the forest, they would be hunted down by the humans.

    Until the monster wave came, they wouldn''t leave the forest where they would be vulnerable. If they went out with a monster wave, then it would be much safer since there were plenty of monsters to work together with.

    However, the fact that the monsters were at the edge made it clear that there were far more monsters and they were much more active in this area.

    It was only a matter of time before there were enough for a wave.

    We didn''t head right into the forest when we arrived, but rather Scar came looking for me to ask, "What do we do now?"

    Even though on paper, Scar was the leader of the group, I was the real leader.

    After all, I was the one that gathered everyone toe to this ce and I should be the only one that knew how to find the things that we were looking for.

    Though if one had to ask me¡­I didn''t really know how to find the dark crystals.

    My n was to scout the area until we found it, but it seemed that this was too dangerous of a n with how many monsters were wandering around.

    As I was trying to figure out what to do, I suddenly noticed something.

    I looked carefully at one of the trees and noticed¡­there was this familiar feelinging from it.

    It was the same feeling that came from the mysterious duo back in town.

    It seemed that there were signs of demon energying from it.

 Chapter 852 Follow the trail

    852 Follow the trail

    I had to look twice to make sure that this was indeed the demon energy that I felt before, but I was sure that this was the demon energy that I had felt from the duo.

    It seemed that this was the trail that they had left behind when they hade to this forest before.

    As for why they hade to this forest before¡­well there was only one reason.

    It was to put the dark crystal that was currently causing the increased monster activity.

    That meant that as long as I followed the trail of demon energy that was left behind, I should be able to find the dark crystal.

    The only thing was I could see that the demon energy trail was leading deep into the forest.

    I didn''t know what the range of the dark crystal was, but it definitely wouldn''t be small. That meant that if we were to follow this trail into the forest, there was no doubt that we would be heading deep into the forest.

    If we headed deep into the forest, it was very likely that we would be surrounded by the monsters that were wandering around.

    In that case, all I would be doing is putting us in danger¡­

    Still, there was no other way than this.

    If we wanted to take care of the monsters that were wandering around, this was the only way to take care of them.

    Taking a deep breath, I said, "Follow me."

    The others were all surprised when they heard me say this, but they quickly reacted when they saw me walking towards the forest. They didn''t waste any time in pulling out their weapons as we approached the monsters that were there.

    The monsters that were wandering around the edge of the forest were goblins.

    These were the lowest tier of monsters that there could be, but that didn''t mean that they should be looked down on. After all, goblins were monsters that were stronger than normal humans.

    They were even stronger than normal soldiers in the army.

    So these were monsters that needed several soldiers working together to take down.

    However, these elite guards that came with me quickly showed why they were known as elite guards of the kingdom.

    The goblins were surprised to see humans approaching them, but they didn''t panic as they pulled out their weapons. They didn''t think that they would lose in a fight against the humans after all. That was the confidence, or rather theck of intelligence that these goblins had that made them feel that they would win. Even though it was clear by the aura that these elite guards released that they weren''t to be looked down on.

    It only took a single moment for the fight to be over.

    The goblins didn''t stand a chance against these elite guards.

    The goblins had been prepared to sh with these elite guards, but then the elite guards suddenly disappeared. When they reappeared, they were in front of the various goblins with their weaponsing down.

    The goblins just weren''t able to react at all as the weapons cut through their necks.

    Their throats were slit before they realized what even happened.

    As for how these weapons slit the throats of these goblins, that was because all of them were special rune infused weapons made of mithril. As for where they came from¡­naturally it was the dwarves from my territory who forged them.

    Even before I became the king, I had already been cooperating with the prime minister to provide weapons to the royal family. Those weapons that had been forged and sent went to these royal guards, as well as Shadow Garden.

    Those were the weapons that were currently in the hands of the ones that came with me.

    That was how they easily cut through the thick hides of the goblins.

    Once all of the goblins were taken care of, we were able to easily make our way through the forest.

    I was the only one that was able to see the demonic energy in the first ce, so the only thing that the people around me could do was clear the area around us. Though when it came to the monsters, they at least had some awareness when it came to life and death.

    They could smell the blood of theirrades and could see the corpses that were around them, so they eventually stoppeding at us.

    While the guards were fighting, I had been looking around carefully for the traces of demonic energy attached to the trees around us. Luckily, it didn''t seem like the distance between the demonic energy trail left on the tree was that far. So I was able to see each of the trees marked by the demonic energy in the distance.

    Like this, we headed deeper and deeper into the forest.

    Luckily for us, it didn''t seem like there were any stronger monsters that appeared.

    The entire time, the only thing that we seemed to encounter were goblins.

    These weren''t evolved goblins, but rather the lowest of low goblins that could have been found anywhere.

    It was as if there weren''t any high level goblins in this forest at all.

    This should have been good news, but I couldn''t help feeling that there was something wrong with this¡­

    After all, just a wave of goblins alone wouldn''t be that threatening¡­

    Well, they would be threatening to a normal kingdom, but it wasn''t as threatening to a kingdom that had wyverns. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It felt like there was something missing here.

    But there was no time to think too much about it.

    Right now, the most important thing was to find the dark crystal and destroy it before anything else happened. As long as the dark crystal was destroyed, the monsters should stop gathering and slowly disperse on their own.

    So I followed the trail until we reached what seemed to be a clearing, but looking carefully¡­I could see that this clearing was made from trees being cut down.

    This was the ce.

    Ipletely forgot what I was going to say...

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 Chapter 853 That was easy

    853 That was easy

    There were no other tracks of demonic energy to follow once we made our way to this clearing.

    At the very least, I knew that the dark crystal would be in this ce.

    It was just that I didn''t know exactly where it was.

    With the royal guards clearing out the goblins in the surrounding area, it wasn''t a problem for us to clear out this clearing for us to search.

    It was just that there was quite a bit of ground for us to cover and there was no telling when another monster would arrive.

    The only thing that we could do was just search this ce by digging in the different parts of the clearing.

    Only by searching this entire area would we be able to find the dark crystal that was hiding somewhere here.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if everyone was able to search during this time. After all, we were still in the middle of the forest that was filled with monsters wandering around.

    Half of us had to form a blockade on the edges of the forest while half of us dug in the clearing for the dark crystal.

    It didn''t take us long to find the dark crystal like this.

    During this time, there weren''t even any goblins that came to attack us.

    It was as if they had learned from the mistakes and didn''t dare attack us even though we were causing such argemotion.

    We could see the goblins even going out of their way to avoid the area that we were digging in. It was almost as if they were afraid to have anything to do with us with the way that they avoided us.

    So we were able to dig without any interruptions.

    The digging went smoothly, it just took a while before we were able to find the dark crystal since it was buried quite deep into the ground. We hadn''t been digging deep enough at first, but we were eventually able to find it.

    The next problem was¡­

    "What do we do with this thing?" Scar asked me.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if he asked me this as soon as they found the dark crystal.

    Rather, they had already tried many different things to destroy this dark crystal.

    However, they weren''t able to make a dent on the dark crystal no matter how they tried attacking it. It was as if it was made out of the hardest material ever as they couldn''t make a single dent, even with the powerful weapons that they had.

    Those mithril rune engraved weapons snapped when they were used in an attempt to destroy the dark crystal.

    So there was no other choice but to turn to me.

    I hadn''t been paying attention since I had been looking at the goblins that were gathered at the edge of the clearing. They were watching us y around with the dark crystal, as if they wanted to take this thing for themselves.

    But the guards that were at the edge of the clearing were enough to scare the goblins away.

    I didn''t have any idea what this dark crystal was, but it was clear that there was something about it that attracted these monsters.

    Since Scar and the others weren''t able to do anything about it, I went over to the dark crystal to take a look at it.

    Though in reality, it wasn''t as if I knew anything about dealing with this thing.

    I had no idea what this dark crystal even was since it had never really appeared in the game before other than in the lore texts, so I really didn''t know what this thing really was.

    But the moment that I went over, I found that there was an attraction from my finger.

    I looked down at the ring on my finger and then looked at the dark crystal.

    I had already guessed that I would need to use this ring to deal with these dark crystals before, but I didn''t know if that guess was correct. Now that there was this attraction from the ring, it seemed like that guess was indeed correct.

    Only¡­how was I supposed to use the ring?

    After thinking for a bit, I waved my hand at Scar and the others to say, "Move out of the way for a bit."

    Scar and the others looked at me with a confused look when they heard this, but they still moved out of the way in the end.

    Though they didn''t move that far since they wanted to stay close just in case anything happened. They wanted to remain at a distance where they would be able to help if something did happen.

    Scar and the others still had worried looks, but they waited to see what happened in the end.

    14:56

    I walked up in front of the dark crystal and just raised my hand.

    I didn''t know what to expect from doing this, but I found that there was this dark energy that suddenly came out of the crystal.

    When this happened, Scar and the others were about to move forward as if they were going to protect me, but I raised my hand to stop them.

    I gave them a look as if everything was alright before turning back to look at the crystal that was turning less and less dark as the dark energy was being drained out of it.

    Scar and the others still had worried looks, but they waited to see what happened in the end.

    After draining all of the darkness out of the crystal, the attraction from the ring on my finger disappeared.

    It seemed that whatever had been attracting the ring had disappeared from the crystal.

    At the same time, the goblins that had been around us reacted.

    After a moment of pause, the goblins all wandered off in different directions as if what had been attracting them before had disappeared without a trace.

    It seemed that by draining the dark energy out of the crystal, it had stopped whatever was attracting the monsters¡­

    That was easy¡­

    It was too easy¡­

    I couldn''t help feeling worried because of it.

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 Chapter 854 Feels off

    854 Feels off

    Seeing the goblins scatter, the ones that formed the blockade around this clearing turned back to look at us.

    They didn''te over right away since there was still the chance that we would be attacked by the goblins, but they could tell that something had changed.

    Scar and the others just looked at me with a strange look, but they didn''t say anything as if they were waiting for me to say something.

    It was just that I was lost in my thoughts about how easy this was¡­

    So it was Scar that broke the silence first bying forward to tap me on the shoulder before asking, "What''s wrong? Are you alright?"

    I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard this.

    I turned to look at him with that worried look on his face and to look at Cecilia who was with the others who also looked at me with a worried look. The only reason that she didn''te over like Scar did was because Scar was in charge of everyone, while she was just a soldier right now.

    She couldn''t just break order because of her personal feelings and put everyone in danger. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I shook my head and said, "There''s nothing wrong."

    Scar raised a brow when he heard this before turning to look at the crystal to say, "What do we do about this now?"

    I looked at the crystal as well for a bit before saying, "Bring it back with us and see what we can learn from it. It''s something that the demons were using to incite the monsters, so it should be worth studying."

    Scar slightly knitted his brows when he heard this as he said, "Are you sure that it''s safe?"

    I hesitated for a few seconds, but I gave a nod in the end as I said, "I''ve already taken care of it. It should be safe now."

    Scar once again raised a brow, but he didn''t say anything as he picked up the crystal.

    The crystal wasn''t that big, so it was quite easy for him to pick up and put away.

    Once we were done with the crystal, there was nothing left for us here.

    It wasn''t as if we wanted to stay in this ce that was filled with monsters any longer, so we quickly left this ce.

    It was a very easy trip through the forest since most of the goblins had scattered to who knows where. The path that we had cleared before was still clear, so it was easy for us to return to the edge of the forest.

    However, the work wasn''t done with just that.

    With my authority, it was easy to get the soldiers to do what I wanted, but I didn''t want to cause amotion by revealing that I was here.

    So Scar was the one that did most of the work.

    It wasn''t a problem since he had the decree that had both mine and the prime minister''s signature.

    The soldiers moved closer to the forest andpletely surrounded it, but the blockade that they formed wasn''t one that waspletely closed. There were gaps all along the blockade, as if they wanted to let things through.

    That was because¡­that was what I wanted.

    We had no idea just how many monsters were gathered in the forest, but I could guess that there wasn''t a small amount based on what we had seen. At the same time, there was the chance that there were high level monsters that were also there.

    Even if we had destroyed the source of what was causing those monsters to gather, it wasn''t as if they would just disappear.

    The monsters that had been gathered and spawned because of the dark crystal would eventually scatter.

    If we just let them scatter without regting it, then it would be chaos for the viges that were around the area. We couldn''t just let them trickle into the viges and cause damage there.

    So we had to contain the spread of the monsters as they left the forest.

    That was the point of this blockade.

    If there were a few goblins that came out of the forest, we would just let them pass.

    A few goblins were not a problem for the viges since there were adventurers who would be able to deal with them. If there was arge group of goblins that came out of the forest, that was when we stepped in to take them down.

    At the same time, if there were any higher ranked variants that came out, we also dealt with those¡­or at least that would have been the case if there were any higher ranked variants.

    It was just goblins in the end.

    Even after two days, there were only goblins that trickled out of the forest and the amount of goblinsing out was starting to decrease. It was as if there weren''t any goblins that were left in the forest.

    In the end, it wasn''t as if we could stay here forever¡­so we had to leave this matter to the soldiers.

    At the same time, I had Scar put up a request at the local adventurer''s guild to see if they could find any higher ranked variants in the forest.

    There was the possibility that they might have formed a base in the forest and weren''t nning on leaving.

    If we just let them be, it would be a danger to the people of the surrounding area.

    So we had to turn to the adventurers to take care of this.

    As I had Scar do all of this, he couldn''t help asking, "Why are you being so cautious? It doesn''t feel like there''s a need to do all of this."

    I didn''t look at him, I just looked at the forest in front of us with knitted brows as I said, "It just feels like something is off¡­"

    He looked at me with one raised brow, but he didn''t say anything in the end.

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 Chapter 855 Who could have done this?

    855 Who could have done this?

    Since we had taken care of the dark crystal in this ce, there was no reason for us to hang here any longer.

    There were still other parts of the country that had increased monster activity after all.

    These were all ces that needed us to take care of, so there was no time to waste.

    The sooner that we took care of those dark crystals, the sooner that this matter would be over.

    Even if there were suspicious figures that were making their way through our kingdom on behalf of the demons, that was second to the matter of the dark crystals. Before the dark crystals were taken care of, there was nothing more important than them.

    So I headed off with Scar and the others.

    We had plenty of information since I was still in contact with the prime minister during all of this through the shadows. They had their own private method of contacting the prime minister in the capital even though we were this far away from the capital.

    I was able to receive information in real time from the capital and immediately decide what was the best ce to go. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    With that information, the next stop was already set.

    "Let''s go." I said to Scar in a determined voice.

    Scar nodded in agreement before getting the rest of the men to follow.

    ¡­

    "What is this? Who could have done this?"

    A voice rang out through the clearing in this forest.

    This was a clearing that was in the center of the forest that had several holes dug in it.

    Standing at the edge of the clearing were two cloaked figures that looked on at the clearing filled with holes with shocked looks on their faces. At the same time, they looked very confused since they had no idea what had happened here.

    Before either of them could say anything else, there was a voice that said¡­

    "What are you two doing here? This isn''t your territory."

    The two cloaked figures turned around to see two more cloaked figures walking into the clearing.

    Seeing the two of them, the two cloaked figures that had been there looked at them with bitter looks on their faces as they pointed at the clearing behind them.

    The two cloaked figures that had just arrived looked past the two of them to see what they were pointing at. The moment that they saw the situation in the clearing, they had shocked looks on their faces.

    "What happened here?" The two of them asked at the same time.

    The two who were standing there just had the same bitter looks on their faces as they didn''t respond.

    How were they supposed to respond?

    They didn''t know what was happening either, they just felt the flow of demonic energy changing and came to check this ce. After a long moment of silence, there were two more cloaked figures that suddenly walked in.

    Seeing the four that were already standing there, these two had surprised looks on their faces before asking, "What are you all doing here?"

    They looked at the two who arrived first and asked, "This isn''t your jurisdiction, you shouldn''t be here."

    The two who arrived first looked at these two and said, "The same to you."

    The two who just arrived didn''t say anything as they looked at the clearing and asked, "What happened here?"

    There was no response that came after they asked this.

    The same bitter looks appeared on the faces of the four that had been here before they arrived.

    It seemed like no one seemed to understand what had happened.

    So instead, the two who just arrived asked, "What about the artifact? Where is it?"

    The four that had been there before suddenly realized this and went to look for the dark crystal that should have been in this ce. They didn''t really have to look for it since they already knew where it should have been.

    They were the ones to bury it in this ce in the first ce.

    When they arrived at the spot, they found that the dark crystal was gone as they had expected.

    "Just where did it go?" The two who were in charge of this area started searching around the area for the dark crystal. The other four just remained where the dark crystal should have been as if they were checking something.

    After a while, they stopped the two of them from searching and called them back to say, "Look carefully at the area."

    The two who were in charge of this area were confused at first, but then they noticed what the four of them were talking about.

    They realized that this ce seemed to have been cleaned of the dark energy that should have beening from the dark crystal. After all, even if the dark crystal disappeared, it wasn''t as if the dark energy that came from it was that easy to clean up.

    Even if the dark crystal had been removed, there should have been traces of the dark energy here.

    However, there wasn''t a single trace of that dark energy.

    It was as if whatever had removed the dark crystal hadpletely drained the dark energy that should have been in this ce.

    But how could someone have done that?

    The dark energy of that dark crystal was not something that most normal demons could deal with.

    After a long moment of silence, they came to one conclusion¡­

    Whatever had taken the dark crystal had found a way to purify the dark energy that came from the dark crystal.

    "Is there anything that can do something like that?"

    One of the cloaked figures asked, but none of the other cloaked figures responded.

    After all, they didn''t know the answer to that question.

    This seemed like something that was impossible in their books, so they really didn''t know what to say in response to this.

    It was at the time that another two cloaked figures suddenly walked into the clearing.

    Kids belong in the mines and factories, developing the economy!

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 Chapter 856 The last one

    856 Thest one

    When the two of them appeared, the same thing as before happened where they questioned what happened here.

    They received the same answer as everyone else who came before them, which was no answer at all.

    After all, there was nothing that they could say in response to this.

    They didn''t know anything about this in the first ce.

    "We can''t just remain passive like this." One of the first two cloaked figures that showed up in the clearing suddenly said this.

    The others all looked at this cloaked figure with strange looks, as if they were wondering what they were talking about.

    Seeing everyone else looking at them, they said, "We have to gather and protect the artifacts. It''s clear that there is someone targeting them, so we have to get ahead of them."

    "Targeting them? Is there something that you''re not telling us?"

    That cloaked figure revealed a bitter look and looked at their partner as if they were hesitating to say something.

    When the other cloaked figures saw this, it was as if they figured something out.

    "Something already happened to your artifact?"

    There was a moment of silence before that cloaked figure and their partner gave a slow nod.

    Seeing this, the other cloaked figures didn''t condemn them or say anything about this. Instead, they deeply knitted their brows as if they were thinking about this before one of them said¡­

    "We need to gather everyone if we''re going to do this. It isn''t just our problem alone, this is everyone''s problem at this rate¡­"

    The other cloaked figures had heavy looks on their faces, but they eventually nodded in agreement. They knew that what this cloaked figure had said was correct, so they couldn''t hesitate on this matter.

    ¡­

    "This will be thest one." Scar suddenly said from beside me.

    I had been looking out the window of the carriage as we traveled along the road.

    When he said this, I turned to look at him and gave a casual nod as if I didn''t really seem to care.

    Scar raised a brow when he saw this, but he didn''t say anything in the end.

    This was one of the crystals that we had obtained after clearing out the area of increased monster activity.

    It wasn''t just Scar who had been looking at it, it was also Cecilia and Shaka who were in the carriage with us who had been examining the crystal as well. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    There were broken weapons that were scattered on the floor of the carriage.

    These were the results of them testing this crystal.

    They had been trying to break it with different weapons, but they hadn''t been able to do anything to it. It was as if this crystal just wouldn''t break no matter what kind of weapons they used.

    It wasn''t as if the weapons that they used were bad weapons.

    These were the special mithril rune engraved weapons that I had gotten for them.

    There was only one thing that Cecilia hadn''t tried yet and that was the dildo bat.

    That was the line that I drew since I didn''t want to actually break the crystal.

    There was no doubt that this crystal wasn''t a normal thing and there should be a use for it in the future, so it wasn''t as if I wanted to destroy it.

    While it wasn''t certain that the dildo bat would be able to break it with its 50% pration effect, I wasn''t willing to take this risk. Not to mention¡­I was certain that Cecilia would ask for The Prator once she saw that the normal dildo bat didn''t work.

    This wasn''t something that I could let her do, so I had to stop her

    As such, there was nothing that they could do with this crystal and they were still looking carefully at it now.

    Though they were looking at it carefully like this, it wasn''t as if they could find anything wrong with it.

    So it was just a futile effort looking at it like this.

    Still, it made them feel better, which was why I didn''t stop them.

    After thinking for a bit, I raised my hand for the carriage to stop.

    The other three in the carriage looked at me with a surprised look, but I didn''t say anything as I moved to get out of the carriage. While I was doing this, I waved my hand at Scar for him to follow me.

    The other two looked like they wanted to follow, but they understood that I only wanted Scar toe with me.

    The other guards that were outside were surprised to see me stop all of a sudden and they also wanted to follow me and Scar, but I stopped them in the end.

    Once Scar and I were aside, I said to him who had a confused look on his face, "This is thest one, we need toe up with a n."

    Scar looked even more confused when he heard this.

    He looked at me in silence for a few seconds before asking, "What do you mean by that? Everything has been going smoothly, there''s no need for us to do anything."

    I shook my head in response.

    It was true that everything had been going smoothly in taking care of the various dark crystals that were around the country, but this made me feel that something was off.

    After all, it had been too easy that it didn''t seem like it was right.

    It felt like there was something building up behind the scenes, which was why I wanted to make preparations.

    I could see Scar looking at me as if he thought that I was overthinking this.

    This was the way that he looked at me whenever I said that this was too easy.

    However, I didn''t mind it as I said, "All you have to do is¡­"

    Iid out my n to him in detail.

    When he was done listening, Scar gave a sigh as he said, "Alright, but this will turn out to be a waste of time."

    I gave a nod without saying anything.

    As long as we did this, I would at least feel much more relieved.

    Whether something happened or not.

    Completely forgot to post this.

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 Chapter 857 It paid off

    857 It paid off

    The forest that we arrived in was called the Wynshall Woods.

    This was a forest that was in the north of the kingdom, a ce that was considered quite remote, which was why this was the final location that we came to.

    This was the furthest ce from our starting position in the capital after all, so this was thest ce that we arrived in.

    Before this, we had already cleared out most of the ces that had increased monster activity and stuck around to make sure that the monsters didn''t swarm the surrounding viges.

    The funny thing was that each of these ces was also in a forest.

    It seemed that it was just natural for monsters to gather in a forest, or was it because the ones that nted these dark crystals just chose to put them in a forest?

    Maybe there was something special about forests that helped monsters gather more easily?

    Perhaps it was because of the cover that the trees gave them that made it easier for them to gather? Because it made them feel safe?

    Regardless of what the reason was, it was a fact that all of the dark crystals had been ced in forests and that was where we got rid of them all.

    I sucked out all of the dark energy from the dark crystals and then took them away.

    Now we had a collection of ten different crystals that didn''t seem like they would be able to do anything.

    Though there was one special thing that all of these crystals had inmon.

    Hard¡­they were incredibly hard.

    No matter what we tried to do with these crystals, we just weren''t able to find a single way to damage them. We weren''t even able to find a way to leave a mark on these crystals.

    That was how hard they were.

    We had no choice but to leave these crystals alone in hopes that we would be able to find another way to use them in the future.

    As for this Wynshall Woods, the monsters that were here were a pack of orcs.

    Orcs, the typical enemy one might think of when they think of a monster enemy in a RPG game.

    Naturally they also existed in this world that was based on a game.

    However, orcs weren''t that simple in this game since the game that this world was based on was a H-game.

    They were uglier and they had a certain something down there that stuck out quite a bit. It was something that would make some men cross their legs with looks of shame on their faces, but it didn''t do that for me.

    I even heard Cecilia say, "Is that really all that there is? He''s bigger."

    The people that I knew looked at me with strange looks when they heard what Cecilia said and I just pretended that I didn''t notice them. Though it would be a lie to say that I wasn''t a bit proud because of what she said.

    It was easy for us to take down these orcs and make our way to the clearing in the center of this forest.

    Then in no time at all, we were able to locate the dark crystal that was in this clearing.

    It was just that when I was about to take care of this dark crystal¡­

    "Swish!"

    "Clink!" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    When I turned around, I saw that Shaka was standing there behind me with a sword raised.

    On the ground near me was an arrow that was sticking out of the ground.

    As soon as this arrow was fired, everyone immediately pulled out their weapons.

    It was as if they had already been expecting this.

    That was because¡­we had been expecting this.

    This was what I had Scar get ready since this was ourst stop.

    I knew that someone would be trying to stop us since they hadn''t done anything the entire time, but I didn''t know what would happen.

    That was why there were only half of us that came into this clearing.

    The rest of us were actually hiding in the surrounding area and had been waiting for something to happen.

    The moment that Shaka blocked the arrow, there were sounds of weapons shing that came from the trees around us. It seemed like whoever had fired the arrow at me was being attacked by the ones that we had left in the forest.

    Though there was a part of me that wanted toin.

    Couldn''t they have stopped whoever it was that fired that arrow from shooting it in the first ce?

    I just buried thatint and gave a nod to Shaka before heading into the forest with them.

    We followed the sounds that were slowly disappearing and soon found where they had been fighting.

    However, it seemed that the fight was already over.

    There were marks on the ground and arrows scattered all over, but the sounds hadpletely disappeared. In the center of this ce, the elite guards hadpletely surrounded a group of cloaked figures. There were broken weapons that were scattered on the ground around these cloaked figures, but it seemed that most of them used bows as their main weapons.

    As for the weapons that the elite guards used¡­there wasn''t a single scratch on them.

    These were dwarven made mithril weapons that had been engraved in runes, they weren''t things that were that easy to destroy.

    Though¡­the crystals had been able to destroy them.

    That was just because the crystals were especially hard.

    When Scar saw use over, he made sure that the cloaked figures were all watched by two elite guards each so that they wouldn''t be able to do anything. It was only then that he came over to me and gave a salute, as if showing the cloaked figures that I was in charge here.

    Looking at the cloaked figures on the ground, I thought to myself, "It really paid off to be prepared. It seemed that I wasn''t just being paranoid."

    When someone from a ce doesn''t even know the history of that ce...

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 Chapter 858 Dark elves

    858 Dark elves

    Since we had caught them, it didn''t make sense not to question them.

    But before questioning them, there was something that had to be done first.

    "Take off their hoods."

    The elite guards nodded in agreement when they received this order and they went to take the hoods off these cloaked figures.

    When their appearances were revealed, I couldn''t help being a bit surprised.

    I wasn''t the only one that was surprised by their appearances, but it was clear that the others were more surprised than I was.

    After all, they had never seen this kind of appearance before.

    Sharp ears, that was the one defining feature that these cloaked people had, but that wasn''t the only defining feature.

    They also had dark skin that waspletely different from the other race that had sharp ears like them.

    Dark elves, these people were dark elves.

    I had thought that they would be a bunch of demons that had snuck into our kingdom, but that didn''t seem to be the case. It was no wonder there were a bunch of bows that were destroyed on the ground.

    Dark elves used bows just like elves did.

    It certainly was surprising seeing the dark elves since I never thought that the demons would actually send the dark elves to take care of their business. But if one thought about it carefully, sending the dark elves was the better choice.

    After all, it was easier for dark elves to move through human society than it was for demons.

    When cloaked, dark elves would at least seem like humans since they had figures that were like human figures.

    Demons had much different features than humans, so it was hard for them to blend in even if they cloaked themselves. There were only a few demons that would seem simr enough to humans that they would be able to blend in with cloaks.

    So dark elves were the better choice in this matter.

    As for what the dark elves were¡­

    Well, they were another race that existed in this world, but it was better to call them corrupted elves than dark elves.

    In the beginning, these dark elves had been normal elves that lived the normal elven life.

    But in the past, during the wars between the different races, these elves were captured by the demons. Or rather, it was the ancestors of these elves that were captured by the demons.

    The demons had only wanted to see if they could experiment on these elves to find their weakness, but it turned out that they created an entirely different race in the end. That was because they experimented on the elves with demonic energy.

    The dark elves were a race that came from elves corrupted by demonic energy. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    No one expected the elves to absorb the demonic energy that was used on them and then turn into dark elves.

    Because of this, the demons didn''t know what to do with them¡­

    There were a few dark elves that escaped and returned to their homnd with the other elves, but they found that they weren''t wee there. The dark elves that had escaped were seen as corrupted by the other elves, so they weren''t wee back in the elven homnd.

    The elves were afraid of the demonic energy that the dark elves now possessed.

    Since they were at war with the demons and hated things like the demons in the first ce, it wasn''t as if they would ept anything that was corrupted by the demons.

    As such, there was no ce for the dark elves to go.

    In the end, the dark elves had no choice but to return to the demons.

    The ones that didn''t escape were used as ves at first, but soon the demons found the uses of the dark elves.

    The demon society was one where those with power would rise, so the dark elves created a ce for themselves with their strength. They rose up from being considered ves and were now considered a subrace of demons.

    Or at least that was the backstory that they had in the game.

    In reality, dark elves were just added because that was one of the tropes of the fantasy world and there was no way that an H-game wouldn''t have dark elves in it.

    There were scenes with the dark elves, but they were difficult to get since the dark elves worked with the demons that were considered the enemies of the main races.

    Of course, I was a man who had gotten those scenes since I was someone who hadpleted everything there was to do in the game.

    After a long silence, I asked the dark elves, "Why did you do this?"

    It was the most basic question that I could have asked, but we did have to start somewhere.

    At the very least, I wanted to see if I could get the dark elves to talk.

    And as expected, they didn''t say a single thing.

    The dark elves did look at me with narrowed eyes as if they were judging me. They looked at me as if they recognized that I was the one that was in charge here, but there was no missing the trace of disdain that was in their eyes.

    It seemed that they recognized that I wasn''t that strong in the first ce.

    In fact, I was most likely the weakest person that was here.

    In a society that was dominated by those that were strong like the demons, it wouldn''t be strange that they would look down on me since I was weak.

    Scar also noticed this, so he swung his sword down onto the ground and said, "Listen here, you only have two choices right now. You can either answer our questions, or you can be buried where you buried that dark crystal of yours."

    The dark elves turned to look at him, but it didn''t seem like there were any traces of fear in their eyes.

    It almost seemed like they had epted death.

    I can''t aim when I''m tired...

 Chapter 859 Drastic measures

    859 Drastic measures

    It was either that Scar wasn''t threatening enough or they had already prepared themselves for death when they came on this mission.

    And it seemed like it was thetter.

    After all, it wasn''t as if Scar was that kind of a person.

    The face that he had was definitely not one that could put children to sleep. It was more likely that children would burst out into tears if they saw the face that he had.

    So he was definitely a person that could put pressure on whoever he said this to.

    The fact that they weren''t afraid must mean that they had already prepared for death.

    But were the dark elves that loyal?

    No, I knew for a fact that the dark elves were not that loyal and they were nothing more than hired mercenaries for the demons. They only cared about their own race after being cast away by the elves, so it wasn''t as if they cared about the demons.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that the demon''s territory was the only ce that they could live after being corrupted by the demonic energy, they wouldn''t have even interacted with the demons at all.

    So there was no way that the elves would be so loyal that they would give up their lives just to remain silent.

    That meant that there had to be another reason¡­

    Seeing that they didn''t respond, Scar had one of the elite guards bring one of the dark elves over.

    He had the elite guard push the dark elf onto his knees and then he brought his sword up to the neck of the dark elf. He held this sword over the neck of the dark elf, as if he was about to decapitate him.

    Then looking at the rest of the dark elves, Scar said, "If you don''t talk, we''ll start executing you one by one."

    Once again, none of the dark elves said a thing.

    Even the dark elf who had a sword at his neck didn''t say a single thing.

    He just looked down with a firm and calm look as if he had already epted his death.

    Scar deeply knitted his brows when he saw this.

    He was someone who had worked in this kind of business for a long time, so it could be said that he was someone with experience and a good eye for people. He knew what kind of things would break a person easily and what kind people wouldn''t break.

    These elves were the kind of people that wouldn''t break.

    It was clear that there was something that they held faith in that allowed them to keep their silence. He had no idea what that thing was, but he knew that it was strong enough that he couldn''t break them no matter what kind of torture he used.

    But it was toote for him to back down now or else he would lose all authority that he had over these dark elves. So the only thing that he could do now was go through with the threat that he made.

    The sword started moving down on the neck of the dark elf and there was red that could be seen.

    The dark elf finally showed a trace of emotion on his face when he felt this, but there was only a slight wince of pain that resulted from the sword cutting into his neck. Other than that, it didn''t seem like there was any other reaction from the dark elf.

    "Stop."

    Before Scar could finish cutting the dark elf''s head off, I suddenly spoke.

    He looked at me with a surprised look, but there was what seemed to be a trace of relief in his eyes that appeared as well.

    As if he was d that I had stopped him from killing the dark elf.

    However, it wasn''t as if I had stopped him from killing the dark elf because I noticed the bind that he was in. Rather, I stopped him because I knew that it was pointless, so there was something else that I wanted to try.

    In the game, there was a system where one could capture enemies, but the system for torturing the enemies was different from what we were doing now¡­

    Because the game was a H-game, there was a specific way to torture enemies to get information from them.

    It was the kind of torture that might seem inhumane, but it was very effective.

    If this world was based on the game world, then this method would have the same efficacy. The only problem was how everyone would look at me when it was all over.

    Or rather, the one that I was the most worried about was Cecilia.

    Once I stopped Scar, I gave a nod to him as if telling him to follow me before turning around to walk away.

    The elite guards looked at me with confused looks, but they didn''t move from their position of watching over the guards.

    The only other one that came over was Cecilia because I had also given her a look.

    Once we had moved to the side, I looked at Scar and said, "I want to use some drastic measures."

    Scar and Cecilia were surprised to hear this since this was thest thing that they expected me to say.

    They had been expecting me to say that we should find another way or we should use the crystals to force them to speak, but they never expected me to mention drastic measures.

    Even if they didn''t know what these ''drastic measures'' were, they could see from the look on my face that they wouldn''t be normal.

    After a long silence, Scar said with a sigh, "You don''t really have to tell us anything, you can just do what you want." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I didn''t say anything as I kept looking at Cecilia.

    Scar had a bitter smile on his face when he saw this, but he didn''t say anything as he waited to see what Cecilia would say.

    Cecilia was surprised to see me looking at her like this.

    She couldn''t even imagine what these drastic measures were that I would look at her like this, but in the end¡­

    She just gave a simple nod.

    I gave a nod as well before turning back to face the dark elves.

    Wizards are really useless at level 1...

 Chapter 860 A couple

    860 A couple

    When we came back, the way that we walked over waspletely different from before.

    This time, I was clearly the one that was in charge and Scar and Cecilia were just following behind me.

    It wasn''t just the dark elves that were surprised to see this, even the elite guards were surprised since they didn''t think that I would take charge in this matter.

    In their minds, I was more of a person that plotted from behind rather than someone that took action.

    That didn''t mean that they looked down on Zwein because they knew all of the things that he had aplished. They knew that he wasn''t someone who was simply a person that plotted behind people''s backs.

    So they were confused that he was actually taking charge now.

    As for the dark elves, they quickly hid their surprised looks and revealed the same neutral looks as before.

    They were acting as if there was nothing that could move them.

    However, I didn''t care at all as I walked over to where the dark elves were.

    I looked at the dark elf that was still bleeding and then took out some bandages from my Storage Ring. After taking out the bandages, I moved over to where the dark elf was and started helping him dress that wound.

    It wasn''t that bad since Scar had been holding back, but it looked quite bad with all of the blood that came out.

    The dark elf looked at me with a strange look when I did this.

    I could tell from the way that he looked at me that if he could move, there was no doubt that he would have tried to grab my neck or restrained me in some other way. It was just too bad for him that the elite guards beside him had a firm grasp on him so that he couldn''t move.

    I didn''t say a single thing even when seeing the way that the dark elf looked at me. I just calmly kept dressing the wound of the dark elf, as if I didn''t even see him staring at me like this.

    When I was done, I looked at the dark elf with a smile and patted him on the shoulder before getting up.

    The other dark elves also looked at me with strange looks when they saw me looking at them with a smile on my face. However, it was clear by the way that they were looking at me that they wouldn''t be fooled by anything that I did.

    It was as if they didn''t care what I did for them.

    I didn''t care about that as I said to them with a smile on my face, "As you can see, as long as you''re willing to cooperate, we can get along. I don''t really want to hurt you, I just want a bit of information from you."

    The dark elves didn''t show any reactions when they heard this.

    There were even traces of disdain that they didn''t mean to show, which was just how much they looked down on me at this moment.

    But I didn''t care about any of that as I looked at them with the same smile on my face.

    After a moment of silence, I gave a nod to the elite guards beside me and said, "Take him back with the others."

    They raised a brow to look at me, but they still followed my orders and brought this dark elf back.

    Even then, none of them reacted as if this didn''t mean anything to them.

    Once again, I didn''t care at all.

    I didn''t even spare a nce for the dark elf that I had patched up as I looked at the other dark elves who all had nk looks on their faces.

    I didn''t care about them as my eyes swept over them.

    I didn''t mind that they were looking at me like this.

    12:57

    I even revealed a smile when I saw them looking at me like this.

    My eyes only stopped when they came to a pair of dark elves that were sitting there.

    The two dark elves seemed to sense the gaze that I was casting on them and they looked right back at me. It didn''t seem like they had any expressions on their faces, but I could see that there was this tenseness that was on their faces.

    After all, the two of them had no idea why I was looking at them like this. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    After staring at them for a bit, I said, "Now, I''ll have to show you what happens if you cross my bad side."

    With a snap of my finger, I said, "Bring these two forward."

    The elite guards were confused as well as to why I cared this much about these two dark elves, but they still brought them forward when I gave this order.

    They brought the two dark elves so that they were in front of me, then they forced the two of them onto their knees so that they were kneeling in front of me.

    I didn''t say anything as the elite guards did this as I just kept looking at the two of them.

    After a bit of silence, I said, "The two of you are a couple, right?"

    Both of them looked up at me and when the elite guards were about to stop them, I raised a hand to stop the elite guards. I wanted these two to look at me.

    I could see that they were looking at me with a confused look as if they didn''t understand why I was asking this.

    I didn''t mind that they were looking at me like this.

    I even revealed a smile when I saw them looking at me like this.

    I had been observing the dark elves the entire time that Scar had been intimidating them, so I had seen a few things between them.

    One specific thing that I noticed was the rtionship between these two elves.

    They were closer to each other than to the others, showing that they weren''t just closer physically, but also mentally.

    It was clear that they were a couple.

    But they are useful once they get a few levels.

 Chapter 861 Spread open

    861 Spread open

    Since they were a couple, that meant that it was easier for me to do what I was nning to do.

    Since they were a couple, it would make what I was nning to do even more effective.

    Though there was a part of me that was hesitant to do this¡­

    But in the end, I made up my mind and decided to follow through since I had alreadye to a decision.

    As such, I looked at the female dark elf and said, "I''ll apologize in advance for what is about to happen."

    The female dark elf couldn''t help reacting when she heard this.

    There was a very confused and surprised look that appeared on her face as she couldn''t understand what I meant by this. But at the same time, it was as if she could tell that something strange was about to happen, so there was a trace of fear that filled her heart.

    I looked at the two elite guards that were holding her and said, "Bring her in front of everyone."

    The two of them were confused as well, but they listened to what I had to say and brought her right up in front of me. Then they turned that female dark elf to face the rest of the dark elves.

    The other dark elves still had calm looks on their faces, but there was no hiding the slight tremblinging from the male dark elf.

    It was clear that he was worried about the female dark elf.

    I just calmly looked at her and asked, "What is your name?"

    She didn''t say anything as she narrowed her eyes to look at me before closing her eyes and turning her head away, as if she was saying that there was nothing that she had to say to me.

    I gave a shrug before saying, "I said that I gave you a chance. You can''t me me for what is about to happen."

    I gave a nod to the elite guards holding her and said, "Make her stand and take off her cloak."

    They were still confused, but they listened to what I had to say.

    The moment that the cloak came off the female dark elf, I couldn''t help being surprised by what I saw.

    "Was she that kind of girl?"

    That was the only thing that I could think to myself.

    After all¡­the clothes that she was wearing could only be described as skimpy.

    It was a crop top and skinny shorts, small enough that it barely hid her skin. It almost seemed like she was showing off with these clothes that she was wearing.

    Though¡­it didn''t seem like there was much to show off with how t she was¡­

    I only stared for a few seconds before shaking that thought out of my mind and focused on the main thing.

    The female dark elf didn''t even try to cover herself up after her cloak was stripped from her. It didn''t seem like she had any shame in showing off her body like this, even if there wasn''t much to show.

    The other dark elves didn''t seem to be worried about this either.

    I suddenly remembered something when I saw them like this.

    This was just how the dark elves were.

    This was also in the game.

    The dark elves dressed like this because they believed that this would allow them to be one with the wind. They took to worshipping a god of wind instead of the god of nature like the elves did.

    Which was why they dressed like this in the game.

    Though I knew that it was just the choice of the game designers since they wanted to make the dark elves look sexier.

    Since that was the case, it seemed like this threat alone wouldn''t be enough.

    I had been nning on waiting a bit to let this sink in for the elves, but it seemed like this wasn''t considered a threat yet.

    So the only thing that I could do was keep asking, "Once again, I''ll ask what is your name?"

    The female dark elf kept her eyes closed and her head turned away from me, as if she was refusing to acknowledge me.

    Once again, I didn''t care about the way that she responded and just gave a nod to the elite guards before saying, "Take off her top."

    This time, they didn''t act right away.

    This time, they werepletely shocked since they didn''t expect me to say something like this.

    At the same time, the female dark elf finally reacted.

    She looked at me in shock as if she couldn''t understand the words that just came out of my mouth. It was as if she couldn''t believe what her ears had just heard.

    If she hadn''t been held down, she might have wanted to touch her ears to make sure they were still working.

    When the elite guards saw the serious look that was on my face, they finally acted.

    In one swift move, they pulled the crop top off her chest and revealed her breasts.

    To my surprise, the first thing that I noticed was¡­

    Contrary to her dark skin, her nipples were quite light.

    They were a pair of white nipples that contrasted the dark skin that she had.

    "Ah!" The female dark elf screamed a moment after her top was ripped off when she finally reacted.

    She wanted to cover herself, but the elite guards were holding her hands tightly and didn''t allow her to do anything.

    As for the male dark elf, he tried to fight against the elite guards as he screamed, "What are you doing to her?"

    I just gave a simple snap when I came back to my senses and said, "Cover his mouth."

    Once the male dark elf had been silenced, I looked at her and said, "What is your name?"

    Only this time, my voice waspletely cold.

    Her tears wereing out as she begged, "Please don''t do this. Please let me go."

    "Wrong answer." I said with a sigh before saying to the guards, "Lift her up and take off the bottom. Then spread her legs open for everyone to see."

    Level 20 wizards are fire ball machines.

    Please send power stones and give reviews to show your support!

    Come check out my stream for sneak peeks: https://twitch.tv/dxhaseoxd n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

 Chapter 862 They are the enemies

    862 They are the enemies

    The elite guards didn''t act when they heard this.

    There was no one that acted when they heard this.

    All of them just looked at me with shocked looks on their faces, but I didn''t seem to react to any of that.

    I just narrowed my eyes to look at the two elite guards holding the female dark elf, waiting for them to obey my order. The two of them could see the way that I was looking at them, which put pressure on them.

    Eventually, they came back to their senses and followed my orders.

    The female dark elf was trembling with fear when she felt the two of them starting to lift her up.

    She did her best to struggle while begging for mercy, but the two of them didn''t listen to her at all.

    That was just how well trained they were that they could follow orders even though it was clear by the looks on their faces that they didn''t want to follow these orders. It was clear by the looks on their faces that they were disdainful of these orders.

    But they did it in the end and lifted the female dark elf right in front of everyone.

    However, since they were holding her up like this, it wasn''t as if they could rip her bottoms off.

    They should have done it before they lifted her up, but they had wanted to get this over as soon as possible, which was why they lifted her up right away and opened up her legs for all of the other dark elves to see.

    They just awkwardly held her up as they thought about how they would rip off the bottoms that she was wearing.

    I was the one that gave them an answer in the end as I came forward and ripped it off myself.

    There was no need for me to do this, but I took this as a demonstration of my resolve.

    It was a way to show that I wasmitted to this and would see this n through to the end.

    As such, I pulled off the shorts that she was wearing and revealed her inner parts to all of the other dark elves.

    But I found that when I did this, all of the other dark elves had turned away. It was as if they couldn''t bear to see one of their own being treated like this, so they were taking the initiative to look away.

    Even if I was doing this, I couldn''t force them to watch.

    Or at least I hadn''t forced them to watch before this, but now¡­

    I gave a nod to the elite guards holding the dark elves and said, "Make them watch this."

    All of them slightly knitted their brows the moment that they heard this, but in the end¡­they still followed orders.

    It was only because of their military discipline that made them follow this order that they clearly didn''t want to follow.

    By the end of it, all of the dark elves were forced to look forward and some even had their eyes peeled open by other elite guards.

    All of them looked at the female dark elf who was being held up with looks of pity and they looked at me with looks of rage and indignity.

    The male dark elf who was the lover of this female dark elf looked at me as if he wanted to rip me to pieces if he could move. However, he was beingpletely restrained by four different elite guards, one of whom was forcing his eyes open.

    With how bloodshot they were, it seemed like he was about to cry tears of blood at any moment.

    During all of this, the female dark elf had been begging me to stop with tears streaming down her face.

    No matter how one looked at it, this seemed like an inhumane scene, but I didn''t feel a single thing.

    I had alreadypartmentalized them as the enemy in my brain, so I didn''t feel anything seeing her like this.

    I heard that this was how soldiers in my past life treated their enemies or some other psychological exnation like that¡­but I never really paid attention to that. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I just coldly stared at her and let her wallow in the shame of all of this for a few minutes before finally saying, "What is your name?"

    The female dark elf had a look of shock on her face while her tears were still streaming down when she heard this. The way that she looked at me was as if she didn''t believe that I was being serious¡­

    So I raised my hand.

    The moment that I raised my hand, she suddenly said, "Rhycu, my name is Rhycu."

    The way that she said this showed that she was afraid of me.

    The way that she said this showed that she was desperate for all of this to stop.

    This made a smile appear on my face.

    Though it was a smile, in the eyes of this female dark elf named Rhycu, it seemed like the smile of a devil. The moment that she saw this, she felt another chill run down her spine and she couldn''t help trembling even more.

    It wasn''t just her, the rest of the dark elves also started trembling the moment that they saw this smile.

    It was all of them who thought that this smile looked like the smile of a devil.

    I didn''t care as I just calmly said, "See, it wasn''t that hard. If you just answered my questions from the beginning, this wouldn''t be happening to you."

    There was another tremble that went through Rhycu''s body when she heard this, but there was also a trace of hope in her eyes. The hope that something was about to happen to get her out of this situation.

    It was just too bad that this hope never existed in the first ce.

    "Now, the next question." I said this with the same smile on my face.

    I''m not even close to the Dawntrail content.

 Chapter 863 What are these things?

    863 What are these things?

    The moment that they heard this, all of the dark elves looked like they had fallen into an abyss.

    They had held the hope that things would end like this, but the moment that this question was asked, it was clear that this matter wouldn''t end that simply.

    It seemed that there were still plenty of questions left¡­

    It was now a matter of if they could answer these questions or not¡­

    The most important thing was for Rhycu, the female dark elf who was being tortured, if she could answer the questions or not¡­

    After all, he opened with this, there was no imagining just what this human would do if he continued this torture.

    After giving them a moment to let this sink in, I asked, "What are you doing here?"

    Rhycu had a very ugly look on her face the moment that she heard this.

    She bit her lips, deeply knitted her brows, and tears came out of her eyes, but she didn''t say a thing.

    It wasn''t that she didn''t want to talk, but almost as if there was something that was restricting her which didn''t allow her to talk. After all, if it wasn''t for something restricting her, would she have bit her lips until they bled?

    But even if that was the case, it wasn''t as if I would show them any mercy.

    Whether it was because they wanted to or not, they were the ones that had invaded our country and ced these dangerous things that would cause danger to our people.

    As such, there was no way that we would be able to show them mercy.

    There was a long silence as Rhycu didn''t say a single thing.

    The other dark elves also bit their lips, though they didn''t bite them as much as she did.

    As for the male dark elf on the ground, he still had his eyes wide open and bloodshot, as if he wanted to rip everyone apart.

    Seeing that she didn''t say a thing, I gave a nod before walking over to the male dark elf''s side.

    When he saw mee over, there was a part of him that looked like he wanted to struggle with all his might to break free. There was a part of him that seemed like he wanted to break free of the binding of the elite guards around him and grab me to hold me hostage.

    Of course, how could the elite guards allow him to do that?

    So they pushed him firmly into the ground, only letting his head move so that he could look up.

    Once I came over to his side, I leaned down and said to Rhycu, "I''m sorry, I''m sure that my questions were a bit too sudden. How about this? What is your lover''s name?"

    Rhycu looked at me with a shocked look as if she didn''t expect this.

    Even the male dark elf who was on the ground waspletely caught off guard by this as he never thought that this would be the question that came out of my mouth.

    I didn''t say anything as I just looked at Rhycu''s face, waiting for her to answer.

    After a short silence, she said in a soft voice, "Vulme."

    I brought a hand to my ear and asked, "What was that? I didn''t hear you clearly."

    Her eyes trembled when she heard this before she said in a louder voice, "Vulme."

    I gave a nod to show that I heard this before turning back to the male dark elf named Vulme on the ground. Looking at him with a smile, I patted him on the shoulder before turning back to look at Rhycu.

    With that smile on my face, I asked, "You wouldn''t to hurt Vulme here, right?"

    This time, it was both Vulme and Rhycu who trembled when they heard this.

    They could hear the chill that was in my voice when I said this.

    But there was nothing that either of them could say in response to this¡­

    Rhycu looked like she was about to cry again after a while, but she still said, "Please don''t hurt him¡­"

    But when she said this, Vulme said, "Don''t worry about me, they can''t break me."

    Though he said this, there was a slight tremble in his voice.

    It was clear that he was afraid of whatever was about toe his way, he was just acting tough to assure her.

    I patted his shoulder with a smile before saying, "Oh don''t worry, we won''t hurt you physically."

    There was a strange look that appeared on Vulme''s face when he heard this.

    It was almost as if he could hear the strange tone that I had said this with.

    But I didn''t care about his reaction as I turned to the other elite guards that were just standing around.

    They had been standing there on guard just in case the dark elves did anything, but I needed them for something. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    After a nod, I said to them, "Take out the weapons that I gave you before."

    They were all surprised to hear me say this, but they still did what I told them to do.

    When they brought out the weapons, they looked at them with strange looks on their faces.

    After all, they had been told that these weapons weren''t normal weapons and they could see that.

    These were strange looking weapons that had a purple tint to them.

    The moment that these came out, the only one that recognized them was Cecilia since she knew what I had done with these things before. However, I had only ever used these things on men before¡­

    Rhycu was a bit confused at first when she saw these things, but then she slowly began to recognize what the tip of these things looked like¡­

    When she did, her mouth dropped and she asked, "What are these things?"

    I didn''t answer this question as I looked down at Vulme to say, "I''ll only cause you mental pain if you don''t answer my questions."

    The MSQ really is a grind...

 Chapter 864 Teasing

    864 Teasing

    The look on Vulme''s face changed slower than the expression on Rhycu''s face, but he eventually recognized what these things were.

    The weapons that I had given the elite guards were dildo bats.

    The key thing was that these were ''dildo'' bats, which meant that other than being used as a weapon, they could serve another function.

    This was the way that I was choosing to torture Rhycu.

    The elite guards were all confused seeing the reaction the Vulme and Rhycu had at first, but then they also started to understand what was happening.

    They could tell from the shape of these dildo bats what they were shaped after and then they looked at me with strange looks. There was a clear tone of judgement that was in their eyes as they looked at me, but I just ignored them.

    Rather, I wasn''t even bothered by this since I wasn''t the one that made these things.

    If they wanted to me someone, they could me my system for making these things.

    That is if they could even speak to my system.

    Ignoring the looks that they gave me, I looked at Rhycu and said, "Well, I''ll give you one more chance before we get started." My eyes and voice turned cold as I asked, "What are you here for?"

    She once again bit her lips until they were bleeding and she didn''t say a thing in the end.

    There were several times that she opened her mouth, but she quickly closed it as if there was something that forced her mouth closed. It was as if there was something that wouldn''t allow her to speak no matter how hard she tried.

    I shook my head and gave a sigh seeing this.

    I''m sure that she had her own circumstances, but that didn''t matter to me since I only wanted answers.

    If she wasn''t willing to give them to me, then my hands were tied.

    I had to go through with this torture or else my pressure would fall. They would look down on me and think that I was all bark without any bite.

    That would make it impossible to squeeze any information out of them in the end.

    So I had to do this. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    I could see that the elite guards holding the dildo bats were hesitating.

    They knew what they were supposed to do now that Rhycu had refused to talk, but it was hard for them to do it.

    Even with all the experience that they had, it wasn''t something that they had done before.

    So there was no way that they would be able to do something like this that easily.

    Luckily for them, I was willing to do this for them.

    Since I was the one that chose to use this method, I should be the one to take the plunge.

    I reached out for the dildo bat of one of the elite guards and walked towards Rhycu after taking it from him. That elite guard wanted to follow me over, but I just raised my hand and stopped him.

    I was the only one that came up to Rhycu in the end.

    She was looking at me with tears in her eyes the entire time as she said, "Don''t do this, please don''t do this. I''ll give you whatever you want, just don''t do this."

    When I stood there in front of her, I said, "I''ve already asked you the question that I want the answer for and you still haven''t answered. You can''t me me for doing this."

    Without waiting for an answer from her, I brought the dildo bat that I was holding down so that it was pointing at her.

    Or specifically, it was pointing right in between her legs, at her opened inner parts.

    She was trembling at this point as she said, "No, no, I swear I''ll answer any other question. Just give me another chance."

    But once again, her words fell onto deaf ears as I took a single step closer, bringing the dildo bat forward towards her inner parts.

    At this point, Rhycu could almost feel it from her bottom half.

    That was just how close it was to her.

    And because of that, there were more tears and more begging that came from her.

    Finally, she said, "We can''t talk, we signed a contract! As long as we have this contract sealing us, not a single one of us is able to say a thing!"

    I stopped when I heard this, which seemed to give her a bit of hope when she saw this, but it wasn''t as if I would be satisfied with just this.

    I coldly looked down at Rhycu and said, "That''s your problem, not mine. Figure out how to break that contract and tell me what I want to know, or else you know what will happen."

    Her expression immediately copsed when she heard this.

    There was nothing that she could do at this point¡­she could only go back to begging, but I waspletely immune to it.

    Even though there was one piece of important information gained, that didn''t mean that I was satisfied. After all, this was something that I had already guessed and it was just her confirming it.

    It wasn''t the main point that I wanted to find out, which was why I wasn''t satisfied with just this.

    Since she wasn''t saying anything else important, I took that final step.

    The dildo bat had reached her entrance, but I didn''t push it into her just yet.

    After all, I knew that there was nothing worse than suspense that came from something that one didn''t want to happen. Instead, I knew that it would be better to¡­

    I brought the dildo bat so that the tip of it was just touching her clit.

    The moment that it made contact, there was a yelp that came from Rhycu before her entire body trembled.

    That was just from the tip of the dildo bat touching her clit.

    If I visit Texas, I''ll assume it''s like Red Dead.

 Chapter 865 Breaking the contract

    Chapter 865 Breaking the contract

    I didn''t move my hand even though she had yelped like this.

    I just waited to see how she would react.

    There was this strange look that was on Rhycu''s face after I put the dildo bat on her clit.

    There was the same unwillingness as before, but her face had turned a bit red.

    It was almost as if¡­there was a part of her that wanted this.

    Well, it wasn''t that she wanted this, it was just that her body was reacting even if she didn''t want it to react like this.

    That was why there were also traces of shame that were in her eyes.

    Even then, I didn''t move as I just left the dildo bat on her clit, though it did shake from time to time since just keeping it there wouldn''t have an effect. So I did move my handa bit from time to time¡­it wasn''t just that the dildo bat was heavy and it was hard for me to hold still.

    As time passed, the blush that was on Rhycu''s face grew darker and her breathing became more ragged.

    It was clear that she was being affected by the teasing from the dildo bat.

    It seemed like there was more and more weakness that wasing through onto her face¡­

    It seemed like she was slowly getting closer and closer to breaking.

    When Vulme saw this, it was as if there was something tearing apart his heart.

    He could feel the numbness filling him as if he had been plunged into a bath of ice.

    His mouth was dry and his breathing was ragged.

    His eyes were opened wide even though he didn''t want to see this.

    It felt like there wasn''t a single thing that he could do in the world, it felt like he waspletely powerless.

    It didn''t even feel like he was a man as he watched Rhycu being tortured like this.

    When he slowly came back to his senses, Vulme bit his lips so hard that they started to bleed as he said, "Stop, don''t do anything to her. Just do whatever you want with me, don''t do anything to her."

    However, his words fell onto deaf ears.

    There was no response that followed after he said this.

    The only thing that Vulme could do after that was try to break free of his captors, but that didn''t turn out well. The elite guards were chosen for their abilities, so not a single one of them was weaker than Vulme.

    All that resulted in was pointless struggle on his part.

    Seeing that he still hadn''t been brokenpletely yet, I knew that there was no point in stalling any longer. After all, I could see just how red Rhycu''s face was and there was nothing more that I could do to her.

    In that case, I brought the dildo bat away from Rhycu''s clit.

    There was a trace of disappointment that appeared on her face when that happened, but then she had a look of relief as if she hade close to losing her mind. It was as if she had stopped herself from falling at thest second.

    But that look of relief didn''tst long as she saw what I was doing with the dildo bat. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    I brought it down so that it was no longer just pointed at her clit, but rather it was ready to prate her.

    That look of relief was quickly reced with a look of despair and fear.

    Part of it was because¡­well, this thing was just too big and she wasn''t that big of a girl, so she was afraid that it wouldn''t even fit if it was pushed inside of her.

    The other part was naturally the fact that this was happening in front of her lover.

    Seeing this, Vulme said, "No, don''t! I''ll do it, I''ll tell you!"

    I stopped my hand when I heard this and looked down at Vulme on the ground.

    There was a twisted look on his face, as if he wanted to rip me apart as he looked at me, but that stopped quickly. He immediately made that expression disappear when I moved the dildo bat in my hand slightly forward.

    Taking a deep breath, as if gathering himself, Vulme said, "We were here to¡­"

    Before he could finish saying what he wanted to say, there was a sudden tremble that came from his body.

    At the same time, there was this dark energy that appeared around him.

    The moment that this dark energy appeared, there was a dark tint that appeared on Vulme''s skin.

    This was different from the dark tint that it already had, this tint waspletely ck and it looked like it was corrupting him. At the same time, one could see that Vulme''s face had twisted in pain.

    It was as if whatever had happened was incredibly painful for him.

    It was easy to guess that this was most likely the contract that they had mentioned before. That was why it had appeared the moment that Vulme tried to tell me what they were here to do.

    The dark energy of the contract had activated to stop him from saying anything else.

    After the dark energy ate away at Vulme for a bit longer, it suddenly disappeared without a trace.

    The elite guards had let go of him when they saw the dark energy appear around him, but they quickly went forward to restrain him once again when they saw the dark energy disappear.

    However, the reaction from Vulme wasn''t over yet.

    Before they could grab him, Vulme suddenly grabbed his chest as if he was filled with pain before spitting out a mouthful of blood.

    This blood was different from the blood that came from his lips before, this blood waspletely ck as if it had been corrupted by some kind of dark energy.

    After spitting out this blood, Vulme fell to the ground with his eyes closed and he didn''t move a single inch.

 Chapter 866: Consequences of your own actions

    Chapter 866: Consequences of your own actions

    ?

    There was only silence that lingered in the air as everyone looked down at Vulme who was on the ground.

    The only ones that moved were the elite guards who held him before.

    They didn''t know what he was capable of or what he would do, so they had to at least hold him again.

    It was their job in the first ce and they had let him go when that dark energy appeared.

    But once that dark energy disappeared, they made sure to hold him so that he wouldn''t be able to do anything.

    However, there was just no reaction from him.

    The one that broke the silence in the end was Rhycu who screamed, "Vulme!"

    The moment that she screamed this, all of us slowly came back to our senses while waiting to see what his reaction would be. It was just that Vulme didn''t seem to react at all as he waspletely unconscious.

    It might have even seemed like he was dead...

    So I asked, "Is he dead or alive?"

    Two of the elite guards who were free moved over and checked his pulse.

    When they did, they couldn''t help slightly knitting their brows.

    Neither of them said anything as they checked Vulme''s condition. From time to time, they looked at each other and shook their heads, as if they were uncertain about something.

    Seeing that they wouldn''t say anything, I asked, "What''s the matter?"

    The two of them looked at each other with strange looks as if they didn''t know what to say, but eventually one of them said, "He''s not dead, but there is a strange energy flowing inside of him. It almost seems like it''s corrupting him with the way that it''s flowing inside of him."

    I raised a brow as I looked at Vulme who was being held down.

    A strange energy?

    Even when I went through the memories of the game that I had, I couldn''t think of a single item that would do something like this.

    There was nothing in the lore either that seemed to have a simr effect.

    Did the demons have a magic that was like this?

    I couldn''t think of a single thing that seemed like it was rted to this...

    Still, regardless of if it was rted or not, it didn''t matter to me.

    There was only one thing that I had to think about right now.

    I looked at the two elite guards and said, "Wake him up."

    They were surprised to hear this and a bit confused about how to do it, but they eventually woke Vulme up by throwing water in his face.

    The look on his face wasn''t good, showing that he had been injured by what happened just now. However, the first person that he looked at when he woke up was Rhycu who was still being held in position.

    There was a trace of relief when he saw that nothing had happened to her yet, but then that look of relief quickly disappeared as he could see that she was still in danger.

    As such, his gaze turned to look at me.

    I had been standing there the whole time waiting for him to wake up and now that he was awake, I said, "It seems like there really is a contract forbidding you from talking about this."

    There was a trace of hope that appeared on Vulme''s face when he heard this before he quickly said, "That''s right, it''s a powerful contract that forbids us from saying anything. As long as you let us go, I promise that I''ll work with you to dispel this contract and then tell you every..."

    I had been deliberately waiting for this since I knew that this was the best way to make him feel despair.

    As soon as he reached this point in his words, I said to him with a cold look on my face, "But that doesn''t matter to me. You''re the ones that chose to ept this contract and invade ournd, so it''s the consequences of your own actions."

    I turned back to Rhycu and moved my hand forward as I said, "If you can''t figure out a way to break the contract, you can only me yourself for epting it in the first ce."

    Vulme''s chin dropped the moment that he heard this.

    But he didn''t dare hesitate since he knew what was about to happen.

    He quickly said, "Wait, I''ll form another contract with you! I''ll even sell you my soul! Just don''t hurt her!"

    Once again, his words fell onto deaf ears as I moved my hand forward.

    "Ah!"

    That was the answer that Vulme received.

    The moment that he heard this answer, it was like his heart had dropped into a world of ice and his entire body went numb. It was so numb that it didn''t even feel like his body anymore...

    "No! Please don''t go any deeper!"

    Or at least that was what he thought until he heard this...

    It was like each word was cutting deep into his heart and ripping him to pieces.

    However, none of that mattered to me as I pushed the dildo bat into Rhycu.

    It was only the tip at first, but then I pushed it deeper and deeper until it wouldn''t go any further into her.

    I could see that there was blood that came out of her as I pushed the dildo bat in, showing that she had been a virgin before this.

    It must have been devastating for her to lose her virginity like this, but I still didn''t care.

    I kept pushing until half the bat was inside of her and then I couldn''t push anymore.

    Since I couldn''t push it forward, I started pulling it out of her.

    In and out, I pushed and pulled the dildo bat.

    Each time that I pushed it in or pulled it out, there was a moan that came from Rhycu.

    It was a pained moan at first, but it soon turned into a moan that was filled with pleasure.

    "Ah, it''s so big..."

    "Ah, no more!"

    "Ah, I can''t hold it in anymore!"

    Those words were like des that made countless marks on Vulme''s heart.

 Chapter 867: Did you think it was over?

    Chapter 867: Did you think it was over?

    ?

    With thosest words, Rhycu really couldn''t hold herself back anymore.

    But I waved my other hand at the elite guards that were holding her up to follow me before she could climax.

    I had them bring her right up in front of Vulme so that she was right in front of him.

    She had reached the point where she couldn''t notice a single thing since she waspletely caught up in the pleasure that this gave her. So she didn''t notice that she had been moved right in front of him.

    But when Vulme saw her close up like this, his eyespletely turned nk and it almost seemed like there was a part of him that died.

    Still, Rhycu didn''t notice at all as she couldn''t take it anymore and came right in front of him. Since Vulme was on the ground and Rhycu was being held up in front of him, she ended up... A mix of love juice and blood fell right onto Vulme''s face, even a bit of it got in his mouth. Though he had been sprayed in the face by his lover''s love juice, Vulme just couldn''t react at all. The nk look on his face was almost as if his mind had beenpletely broken by this

    scene.

    He didn''t try to struggle, he didn''t make a single sound, he just looked up at his lover climaxing in front of him like he was nothing more than a doll with its strings cut.

    When Rhycu finally calmed down and came back to her senses, the first thing that she saw was Vulme on the ground in front of her.

    There was a moment where she was dazed, but then her face filled with shame and her heart split into pieces.

    It felt like she couldn''t feel a single thing...other than the pleasure of the dildo bat that was still in her.

    Since she hadpletely broken, she just gave up and fell to the pleasure that she was feeling.

    "More, give me more! Make me forget all of this!"

    She shouted, but I justpletely ignored her.

    Since it was over and both of them hadpletely broken, there was no need for me to do anything else to her.

    I gave a nod to the elite guards holding Rhycu and they were a bit confused before they slowly brought her down.

    It was hard for Rhycu to stand since her legs were shaky, but she didn''t care at all as she kept screaming for more. It seemed like she no longer cared about her image, the only thing that she wanted to do was fill the hole in her heart.

    This hole that had been made because of the torment that she had been put through, the hole that was left from her heart being ripped apart by the onught of the dildo bats...

    But I justpletely ignored her.

    Even though she screamed, I just ignored her as I waved my hand at the elite guards to take her aside.

    Instead, I turned to look at the other dark elves who were still being held on the ground. Some of them had looked away and some of them were watching with horror.

    But they all looked at me when they heard me walking over.

    The way that they looked at me was filled with disgust, as if they were looking at a monster. However, I didn''t care at all about the way that they were looking at me since I already knew that this would happen.

    Instead, I just held the dildo bat that still had love juice and blood dripping from it over my shoulder before stopping in front of them.

    Once I stopped, I pointed the dildo bat at the dark elves which made them tremble with fear. There had been a sort of rxed feeling since they thought that this wouldn''t affect them. They had thought that this would be over once the torture of Rhycu was over since this human would realize that there was nothing to gain from torturing them.

    But...it didn''t go as they nned.

    Looking at the dark elves on the ground, I could see what they were thinking based on the expression on their faces.

    Since I could tell what they were thinking, naturally it was up to me to crush their hopes and dreams or else everything that I had done just now wouldn''t have had any meaning.

    "Who said that we''re done here? Did you think that it was all over?" I held the dildo bat up to point at them as I said this.

    The dark elves trembled when they heard this before looking at me with terrified looks.

    All of them were scared of me as I pointed the dildo bat at them.

    Then some of them started to speak as they realized that they had no other choice.

    "Why are you doing this?"

    "You should have seen that it''s impossible for you to get any information from us like this."

    "If you''re willing to spare us, we''ll go along with you and try to give you what you want."

    They all tried to beg for their lives, but I didn''t care at all.

    I just calmly stood there listening to them begging for their lives like this.

    Seeing me act this way, they felt that there was a chance that they might be saved...but then...

    I calmly said, "Why do you think that I care about any of this?"

    All of the dark elves immediately shut their mouths when they heard this.

    They all looked at me with eyes that were filled with shock, almost as if they couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    Seeing this, I continued by saying, "You''re the ones that came to harm the people of our country. Regardless of what your situation is, did you think that you would really escape this ce unharmed if you were caught? You should have already been prepared for this from the beginning."

 Chapter 868: Objective accomplished

    Chapter 868: Objective aplished

    ?

    The dark elves looked like they wanted to say something, but it also seemed like their mouths were stuffed with something.

    No matter how they tried, they couldn''t say a single thing.

    After all, there was nothing that they could say to refute this logic.

    This was indeed the situation here, so there was nothing that they couldin about.

    They just never thought that they would be caught like this, so that was why they had never thought of the consequences.

    This mission that they deemed to be easy had turned out to be a lifelong mistake...

    Seeing that they didn''t say anything, I didn''t bother arguing with the dark elves any longer. Instead, I pointed at two of the dark elves and said, "Bring them over."

    "Yes."

    To my surprise, the elite guards actually responded this time.

    Before this, they had never said a thing since they clearly didn''t approve of the method that I was using. They had been acting like they were above it, so they just followed my orders without a word.

    But now that they heard what I said, it was like they hadpletely changed.

    The way that they looked at me hadpletely changed.

    It was as if they had been disdainful of my actions just now.

    But with just a few words, it seemed that their mentality hadpletely changed.

    It seemed that the words that I said had resonated with them and they now viewed this as a patriotic thing. After all, we were torturing invaders who hade to hurt the people of our country.

    It didn''t matter what kind of torture we used, we were just doing our part in protecting our country.

    As soon as the way that they viewed all of this changed, they actedpletely differently. Some of them even seemed like they were willing to help...

    Of course, I didn''t let them do it since I had no idea if they would be able to do the same thing that I was doing.

    I was now an experienced person with how many times I had done it with my wife, so I knew the right way to torture women like this. I had no idea if they would be able to do the same, so I did it all myself.

    After two more couples were tortured like this, I suddenly stopped and said, "Let''s tie them up and get ready to bring them back with us."

    The elite guards were surprised that I had stopped all of a sudden.

    The way that they looked at me, it was as if they thought that I would keep going until I had tortured all of the female dark elves.

    However, that wasn''t what I was going to do.

    There was simply no time for all of that.

    We were in the middle of a forest that was filled with monsters and I had already spent quite a bit of time doing what I had already been doing. If we wasted more time here, there was no telling what would happen.

    I could see the way that the dark elves looked at me, so I knew that I had already aplished my objective.

    I had put a deep trauma of myself in their minds.

    It would help uster when we tortured them for more information.

    So for now, it was best to get out of this ce before we were surrounded or ambushed by a group of monsters.

    Of course, there was still one more thing that I had to do.

    The dark crystal was still in the center of the clearing.

    It wasn''t as if I could just leave that there since it was what was attracting the monsters in the first ce.

    I had to get rid of the dark energy that it contained and then take it away.

    But when I thought about it...

    "Bring the dark elves along with us."

    The elite guards were surprised to hear this, but they still followed my orders in the end.

    But it was clear that they were much more on guardpared to before.

    They were ready to deal with the dark elves the moment that they did anything.

    When we came back to the clearing, the eyes of the dark elves immediately went to the dark crystal. There were a few of them that looked like they wanted to try something, but those looks quickly disappeared.

    That was because they saw what I did with the dark crystal.

    The moment that they saw the dark energy being pulled out the crystal, they all revealed looks of shock. The shock that was on their faces was even greater than the shock that they revealed when they saw what I did earlier.

    It was as if they couldn''t believe their eyes when they saw the dark energy being pulled out. When it was all over, they still stood there with looks of shock and disbelief on their faces. They just simply couldn''t understand what had happened.

    I had no idea what this dark crystal was, but it seemed like it was something that was far beyond important for the dark elves. It seemed like it was some kind of special artifact that they most likely didn''t even understand themselves.

    Which was why they were so shocked when I sucked the dark energy out of it.

    I just waited to see how they would react, but it turned out that this was also part of the contract that they signed.

    When one of them tried to ask something, it seemed like he was suddenly stopped by something. When that happened, this dark elf immediately closed his mouth and stopped

    trying to ask anything.

    Though the look in his eyes made it clear that he was still in disbelief over what had

    happened.

    It seemed that the contract that they signed also prevented them from asking questions like

    this since it would reveal information about the dark crystal.

    In that case, there was no need for me to wait for them any longer.

    With that, I picked up the crystal and we started heading back.

 Chapter 869: Time to pay the price

    Chapter 869: Time to pay the price

    ?

    There was a part of me that dreaded our return since I knew that it would be the end for me.

    After all, there was no way that I would be able to hide what I had done to the dark elves from my wives.

    There were too many witnesses in the first ce and they would surely report what had happened since this was a matter of national security. Once the prime minister knew about this, there was no doubt that my wives would learn about this since he could never hide anything from his sister.

    Though even without that, they would be able to get this information since they all had high ranking positions.

    No, even without that, they would have been able to get the information since one of my wives had been there to watch all of it happen.

    There was no way that Cecilia would hide this from the rest of them, no matter what I said to her.

    Especially Rose...she would never hide anything from Rose.

    The rtionship between the two of them was still as deep as ever, even after the three of us got married.

    It wasn''t something that I coulde in between and it wasn''t something that I wanted toe in between.

    So the only thing that I could do was feel dread over this.

    It was just a good thing that I had a few extra days to prepare since we had to travel slowly with the dark elves.

    It didn''t seem like they would resist with how submissive they were around me, but we had to be careful just in case. They were enemies of the nation, so it wasn''t as if we could just let our guards down around them.

    With that reprieve, I was able to figure out a n to deal with my wives.

    The other lucky thing that happened was that I was pulled into my study by the prime minister as soon as I came back to the capital.

    That gave me a bit more time to think of excuses and also ask the prime minister for some help.

    Since he was Ang''s brother, I was certain that he would have ways of dealing with her. Once the prime minister finished listening to my report, he gave a nod of acknowledgement and was silent for a bit.

    It didn''t seem like he was surprised to hear about what happened, but that wasn''t strange since he had already read the reports on the matter.

    Instead, he was looking at me with a strange look.

    The way that he looked at me was almost as if he couldn''t believe that I had done the things that I had just described to him.

    That made me feel a bit awkward, but I didn''t show any shame.

    After all, I had done what I felt I needed to do for our country, so there was nothing for me to feel ashamed of.

    After staring at me for a bit, he said with a sigh, "Well, it''s a good thing that things have settled down, but this certainly is a mess."

    There was a bitter smile that crept onto my face when I heard this, but I didn''t say anything in response.

    The prime minister just gave another sigh before saying, "Let me see the crystal."

    I had already been expecting him to say this, so I pulled out one of the crystals that I brought back for him.

    The prime minister immediately took the crystal and started looking at it from different angles.

    The way that he looked at it was as if he was trying to figure out something about this crystal, but the look on his face made it clear that he wasn''t able to figure anything out. The longer that he looked at this crystal, the more frustrated the look on his face became until...

    "Thud!"

    The prime minister hadpletely lost his temper and threw it to the ground with all his might. But the only thing that happened was that it created a hole in the ground of the study... my study.

    This was my study and he had just created a hole in it...

    As for the crystal itself, there wasn''t even a single scratch on it.

    It was still as hard and indestructible as before.

    There wasn''t anything that we had been able to do to this crystal even when we used a bunch of weapons, so there was no way that the prime minister would be able to damage this thing just by throwing it to the ground like this.

    Even if he was the strongest man in the world, he wouldn''t have been able to do anything to this crystal just by throwing it on the ground like this.

    It was clear that it wasn''t just because the crystal was hard that it was so strong.

    There had to be some kind of special enchantment on this crystal that made it this hard.

    The prime minister was annoyed seeing the hole that the crystal made, but he stopped when I gave a cough.

    With a cough himself to calm down, the prime minister picked up the crystal and said, "It certainly is a special item."

    I didn''t say anything in response, I just raised a brow and looked at the hole in the ground.

    He gave another cough before saying, "I''ll get someone to fix the floor."

    I gave a nod in response before asking, "So what I was asking you about earlier."

    I had asked him for advice earlier, but he had insisted on listening to the report first.

    Now that I had finished giving my report, I wanted him to answer my question before I went to see my wives.

    "I have no idea." The prime minister said with a shrug which shocked me.

    I looked at him in a daze as if I was trying to figure out if he was being serious or not.

    The prime minister just gave another shrug and said, "If I knew how to handle her, do you think I would have suffered for that long?"

    It was over...

    I could hear a knock on the door.

    It seemed that it was time to pay the price for my actions...

 Chapter 870: Do the same

    Chapter 870: Do the same

    ?

    I felt dread as I headed to the room that I shared with my wives.

    I knew that they were all waiting behind the door for me, that was what the maid who hade to my study to get me had said.

    There was a part of me that wanted to run, but I knew that it would only be worse if I were to run.

    The only thing that I could do now was face the music and own up to what I had done.

    Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and found all of my wives sitting at the table in the living room of our private quarters. They were all just sitting there talking to one another as if they didn''t have a single care in the world.

    There was even tea and cookies that were set up on the coffee table in front of them.

    When I walked in, they didn''t even seem to care as they continued talking.

    There was a part of me that wondered what to do, but there was a bigger part of me that just told myself to remain silent.

    I didn''t know what was happening, but it didn''t seem like a good idea to draw attention to myself in this situation.

    Especially since it seemed like they were in a good mood.

    But that didn''tst long as they finished up what they were talking about and turned to look at me at the same time. The worst part of it all was that they didn''t seem to have any expressions on their faces for me to read.

    It was like staring at a nk screen as they didn''t give me any clues with their faces at all.

    There wasn''t anything that I could do as I just stood there awkwardly waiting for them to say something so I knew what to do.

    In the end, Rose was the one that broke the silence by waving her hand at me and saying, "What are you doing standing there? Come and sit with us."

    The others nodded in agreement to this.

    I waspletely stunned deep down, but I forced myself to reveal a calm look.

    I had no idea what was happening here, but there was nothing to gain from showing that stunned look on my face.

    After a moment of hesitation, I walked over to where they were sitting and sat down in the ce that they opened up for me.

    It was right in the center of one of the couches by the table, which meant that I waspletely surrounded by my wives. They allpletely surrounded me without giving me a single opportunity to run.

    Though I wouldn''t run away in the first ce.

    After sitting down, they poured some tea and picked out some cookies for me.

    The way that they did this, it almost seemed like they were good wives that were taking care of their husband.

    However, I just couldn''t see it that way.

    "Is this my final meal?"

    That was the only thought that was on my mind when I saw them acting like this.

    But it wasn''t as if I could deny what they were offering me, so the only thing that I could do was go along with this and take a sip of the tea.

    My wives just sat there in silence looking at me like there was nothing wrong, but that just made me feel more anxious. It was almost as if they were acting like this just to make me let my guard down so that they could trip me up.

    I didn''t dare let my guard down for even a second.

    Finally, Rose was the one that broke the silence by saying, "How was it?"

    I couldn''t understand what she meant by this, but there was a bad feeling that filled me when I heard her ask this.

    There was a part of me that could guess why she was asking this, especially in a situation like this.

    So instead of reacting slowly, I decided to just take a risk.

    I suddenly stood up and with a perfect ny degree angle, I bowed to them all as I said, "I''m sorry."

    I didn''t hear anything in response to this, not even a single whisper.

    There was only an awkward silence that followed after I gave this apology.

    But even if I didn''t hear anything, it wasn''t as if I would move.

    I knew that the key to all of this was sincerity, so I had to show this sincerity before anything else.

    There was a long silence that followed after this apology from me, but eventually... "What do you have to apologize for?"

    The moment that I heard Rose say this, there was a bitter look that appeared on my face.

    It was a good thing that I had my head down, so they weren''t able to see that expression on my face at all.

    After calming myself, I looked up to say, "The things that I did to the dark elves..."

    Before I could go on to exin myself, Rose suddenly cut me off by raising her hand.

    I closed my mouth immediately and just waited for her to say what she wanted to say, but to

    my surprise...

    "What do you have to apologize for?"

    This time, it waspletely different from the way that she said it before.

    I didn''t understand why she said this before, but now I could understand why she said it.

    The way that she said it was almost as if she was saying...

    There''s nothing for me to apologize for...

    But...

    "You were just doing what you needed to do for our kingdom. There''s nothing that you need

    to exin."

    I was even more shocked when I heard this.

    I slowly looked up and found that all of them were nodding in agreement to what Rose said.

    The way that they looked at me...

    It was as if they were saying...

    "We''ll support you no matter what."

    It seemed that I had misunderstood them.

    It seemed that I might have even been petty with them,

    I had thought too little of them.

    I thought that they would be disgusted by what I had done, but it seemed that this wasn''t the

    case.

    Well, it was possible that they were disgusted by what I had done, but they were most likely holding it back.

    They were saying that they would support me no matter what happened, no matter what kind

    of things I did.

    When they put it like this, I really didn''t know what to say in response.

    I didn''t even know how to feel.

    No, I did know how to feel, it was just that I didn''t think that I deserved this kind of trust from

    them...

    At least if they were going to trust me like this, I should give them a reason to trust me like

    this.

    So I took a deep breath and said, "I''ll do whatever it takes to protect you all."

    All of them suddenly stood up and came to surround me before reaching out to take me in their arms at the same time.

    It was a bit awkward with how many of them there were, but they did surround me in the end.

    Only that wasn''t the end of it.

    I heard Rose whisper, "I am a bit jealous of what you did with them. You should do the same

    with us."

    I looked at them in shock and found that the others had looks on their faces that showed that

    they were thinking the same thing.

    If they were offering...I wouldn''t be a man if I said no.

 Chapter 871: Broken dark elves

    Chapter 871: Broken dark elves

    ?

    I waspletely exhausted when the next morning came.

    There were dark circles around my eyes, but I didn''t regret a single thing.

    When the prime minister saw me, he looked at me with a faint smile.

    The moment that I saw him looking at me with this smile, I couldn''t help feeling annoyed since he hadn''t been any help yesterday. He had actually caused me even more anxiety since he had told me nothing that I could use with Ang.

    So there was a small grudge that filled me when I saw him like this.

    I really wanted to punch that smile off his face, but I held myself back in the end.

    "What are we doing today?" I just ignored the way that he looked at me and directly went into business.

    The prime minister was someone that could adapt, so the moment that I started talking about business, that smile disappeared from his face. He immediately revealed a serious look as well before speaking.

    "The dark elves. We still have to take care of them."

    I gave a simple nod when I heard this without showing any expressions.

    I had already expected this, but to actually deal with them...

    Now that I hade back and reflected on what I had done to the dark elves, there was a part of me that regretted doing it.

    Though that part of me wasn''t as big as the part of me that agreed to doing this for the sake of the kingdom.

    Still, I feel that I could have treated them a bit differently...

    Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly if I treated them a bit differently?

    Regardless, that wasn''t what was important right now.

    After the dark elves had been brought to the capital, they had been locked up in the most secure prisons.

    The prisoners that had been in those prisons before were some of the worst people toe out of our kingdom, but we still moved them because of the dark elves.

    It wasn''t that we were afraid of the dark elves doing anything to them or them doing anything to the dark elves, it was just that we couldn''t risk anything happening to the dark elves.

    They were our important source of information, which was why they had been put in the most secure prison in the first ce.

    It was all to keep them from escaping.

    Of course, the most secure prison naturally wouldn''t be in the castle.

    It wasn''t as if we could keep prisoners near us since that was just too dangerous.

    So the prime minister and I left the castle under the guard of the shadows.

    When the shadows appeared, they looked at mepletely differently from before.

    Before, there was a bit of carelessness in the way that they greeted me since they didn''t respect me as much as the prime minister. But now, there was no carelessness in the way that they greeted me.

    They greeted me the same way as the prime minister, showing that I was on the same level as the prime minister in their hearts.

    The prime minister looked at me with a surprised look when he saw this.

    After all, he had no idea what I had done in this period of time that would make the shadows respect me in this manner.

    With the shadows protecting us, we were able to make our way to the prison without any problems.

    At the prison, the guards naturally didn''t dare stop us.

    We weren''t here with our identities hidden, we hade openly since this was an important matter to the kingdom.

    As such, the guards naturally didn''t dare stop us.

    We were able to make our way into the part of the prison where the dark elves were being held.

    However, when we arrived, we couldn''t help feeling that it was strange.

    "It''s too quiet..." I said when we arrived at this block.

    The prime minister gave a nod before saying, "I was thinking the same thing..."

    The two of us looked at each other before looking at the guards that hade with us.

    The prime minister revealed a serious look and asked, "What is going on here? Are you trying to y a trick on us?"

    The eyes of the guards were immediately filled with fear when they heard this.

    After all, the one that was asking them this wasn''t their superior, but rather the superior of their superior of their superior. In short, the prime minister was someone who was far above them in terms of the organization, so it was easy for him to get them fired.

    Not only that, if they really offended the prime minister...they might even be executed for treason.

    Which was why they didn''t dare offend him at all.

    The guards quickly bowed their heads and said, "No, no, we wouldn''t dare."

    Both the prime minister and I raised a brow when we saw the reaction of the guards before he asked, "Then where are they? Why is it so quiet here?"

    The guards had strange looks on their faces before the leader of the guards pointed at one of the cages in the distance to say, "They are in there."

    The prime minister and I looked at the cage that was in the distance and we were able to make out some figures inside of it. However, it didn''t seem like they were moving at all...

    It almost seemed like there was no life in them.

    Both of us immediately knitted our brows when we saw this before the prime minister said, "We told you to keep them alive!"

    The guards were terrified once again before saying, "They''re alive, they''re alive! We made sure that they were alive...It''s just that...Well, you have to see them to understand."

    Both the prime minister and I looked confused when we heard this, but since the guards wouldn''t exin what they meant by this, we had no choice but to take a look for ourselves.

    When we came over, we were surprised by what we saw.

    The dark elves were justying there in the cage with nk eyes, as if they weren''t interested

    in doing anything.

    It seemed like they had beenpletely broken...

 Chapter 872: Same threat

    Chapter 872: Same threat

    ?

    The way that the dark elvesid there in the cage was like they were puppets that had their strings cut.

    With the way that they looked, it didn''t seem like they would react to anything around them.

    It even seemed like they would stop breathing at any moment, but at least for now, it seemed like they were still breathing. Though how long they would keep this up with the way that they looked was hard to tell.

    After looking at them for a bit, the prime minister looked at me with a strange look.

    I didn''t have to ask him anything to know what he was implying with the way that he looked at me.

    "Just what did you do to them that they''re in this condition?"

    I didn''t say anything in response to this gaze, I didn''t even look in his direction as I just focused on the dark elves inside of the cage.

    I didn''t think that they would be this despondent from just that alone...

    After all, these were the dark elves that I hadn''t even touched yet.

    The ones that I had touched had to be separated because they had beenpletely broken because of what I had done. We had to make sure to separate them from the rest so that they wouldn''t hurt anyone.

    So these dark elves shouldn''t have been this way...

    It was confusing, but it wasn''t as if trying to figure out what happened to them would help. Instead, I went up to the cage and rapped on one of the bars to get their attention.

    It didn''t seem like the dark elves cared at all about the sound that I made as they justid there without a single light in their eyes.

    However, there was one dark elf that was facing us.

    The sound still attracted his attention to a certain extent and he did look at me.

    It didn''t seem like he processed it at first, but then...

    "Ah! It''s the devil!"

    The moment that he said this, all of the other dark elves started to react.

    Their first reaction was a tremble.

    The first thing that they did was tremble in fear when they saw me.

    Then they immediately moved to the other side of the cage while dreaming in fear.

    "The devil! The devil is here!"

    "Hide the women! Hide the children!"

    "What more do you want from us, you devil!?"

    The reactions that they had were certainly a bit too much, but it wasn''t as if I couldn''t understand why they were acting this way.

    After all, what I had done to them...

    Though the way that they acted definitely did not help my image...

    I could see the way that the prime minister and the guards were looking at me. It was only the shadows that didn''t change the way that they looked at me since they already knew about this.

    They had been there to personally witness what happened after all.

    I just let the dark elves continue like this for a bit before saying, "I''m here to talk."

    All of them once again trembled in fear when they heard this.

    They didn''t dare move, almost as if they were afraid of attracting my attention by moving. That naturally meant that not a single one of them said a thing in response.

    With the way that they were acting, it didn''t seem like we would be able to get anything out of them.

    Well, that was if it wasn''t for the fact that I hade prepared.

    Seeing them act this way, I shook my head and said with a sigh, "It seems like you want to do this the hard way...."

    The expressions on the faces of all the dark elves twisted when they heard this.

    There were some of them who had wanted to say something, but I didn''t give them a chance.

    I simply turned around and gave a nod to the shadows.

    They didn''t say a thing as they pushed the guards aside and came forward to stand in front of the cage. They all stood behind me as they pulled something out.

    The moment that the dark elves saw the things that the shadows pulled out, their eyes widened in shock and fear.

    Trauma immediately flooded their faces and all of them moved back even further than before. It was as if they wanted to move to the very edge of the cage that their bodies could take them.

    They were trying to get as far away from us as they could.

    That was because what we had taken out were the dildo bats.

    I had been waiting for this reaction from them.

    Once the fear had been put in them, I raised my hand and pulled out The Prator.

    The Prator was a special reward and was much stronger than the other dildo bats, so it was naturally also bigger than the mass produced dildo bat.

    That was all that was needed to scare the dark elves.

    Especially the female dark elves.

    They looked even more terrifiedpared to before.

    It was as if they wanted nothing more than to be released from this hell.

    It finally reached a point where one of the female dark elves suddenly copsed.

    There was a silence that hung in the air until I broke it by shouting, "Don''t let her die!"

    The guards immediately snapped back to their senses and went into the cage. The shadows moved forward with the dildo bats just to threaten the other dark elves into moving out of the

    way.

    There was no better threat than the dildo bats that traumatized them.

    As expected...she had bit her tongue in an attempt to end her suffering.

    The guards had to take her away to the infirmary to save her life. But that just went to prove how effective this threat was.

    Even though they looked at me with strange looks, I didn''t back down as I kept threatening the dark elves with The Prator.

    In the end, I was able to bring back the light in their eyes and get them to work with us to

    break the contract binding them.

    Though that method used was fear...

 Chapter 873: Mercy

    Chapter 873: Mercy

    ?

    Since that matter was taken care of, there was nothing else that I had to do with the dark elves.

    Or that should have been the case if there weren''t a few dark elves that were different from the rest of the dark elves.

    The reason why they were different was because I had made them that way.

    Because of what I had done, there were dark elves who had their minds broken and couldn''t function the same way as before.

    As such, they had been locked up separately from the rest of the dark elves.

    When we approached, we could hear the screaming that wasing from the separated area where these dark elves were being held.

    "More, give me more!"

    "Kill me! I don''t want to live in this world anymore!"

    These were the two kinds of things that were said by the dark elves trapped here.

    But both sides seemed to be filled with despair.

    It was as if they just didn''t want to remain in this world anymore.

    It just seemed like they wanted it all to end.

    That was why I was here in the first ce.

    They didn''t seem to react to the sound that we made when we entered.

    They just seemed like they werepletely lost in their own world.

    Even when I tapped on the cage, it didn''t seem like they reacted.

    The ones that should have reacted were the male dark elves who were sitting in a fetal position in their cages. After all, I was the one that had ruined everything for them, so their hatred for me should have been something else.

    But it didn''t seem like they reacted to my face at all.

    It was like they just didn''t see me as they just sat there mumbling to themselves.

    Like they had given up on life...

    Well, that wasn''t a bad thing...

    After all, there was a reason why I was here to see them in the first ce.

    I was the one that had turned them into this, which meant that I was responsible for them until the very end.

    Since it didn''t seem like there was anything that we would be able to get from them, it didn''t make sense to keep them in pain like this.

    The reason that I hade here was to give them mercy.

    But it wasn''t as if they could just be allowed to go free since they were criminals who hade to attack our country in the first ce.

    There was only one way to give them mercy.

    I gave a nod to one of the guards who had gone to get something that I requested.

    That guard looked at me with a shocked look when he saw me nod at him like this, but he still brought the item that I requested forward.

    It was arge executioner''s axe.

    This was used by the prison when executing the prisoners and since this was a prison for the worst prisoners in the kingdom, it naturally had a high number of executions.

    These executions would be held in the prison itself, so the prison was well stocked on execution items such as these axes and other things needed.

    Though the guard was skeptical of whether I would be able to use this axe or not.

    It was quite the heavy axe since it had been designed to cut right through a person''s neck and take off their head. It was an axe that wasn''t something that just anyone could wield.

    However, the muscle training that I had been doing hade in handy.

    I was able to lift the axe by using both hands to hold it up.

    With the axe in hand, I moved to one of the dark elves who was in a fetal position.

    This dark elf was one that I was familiar with since he was the first one that I had tortured.

    It was Vulme.

    I gave a nod to the guards to put him in position.

    They brought over a chopping block and made him put his head in ce before holding him down while waiting for me.

    Once he was in position, I moved forward with the axe in hand.

    Before I could reach him though, the prime minister came forward to say, "Your majesty, is there a need for you to personally do this?"

    The way that he was asking this made it clear that it wasn''t just this problem that he had with this. The way that he was asking this clearly showed that he was worried about me since I had suddenly wanted to do this myself.

    Even if I had caused the deaths of many people during the war, personally killing someone was not something that I had done before.

    As someone who had done this before, the prime minister knew how hard the first kill was.

    However, I knew that this was something that I had to do.

    I was the cause of all of this, so it was my responsibility to give them mercy.

    I shook my head and said, "No, it has to be me."

    The prime minister had a concerned look on his face, but he still backed down in the end.

    Though he did make sure to have two shadowse forward with me just in case something happened.

    After walking over, I lifted the axe above Vulme''s head and took a deep breath before saying, "Be on your way. You''ll be at peace soon."

    As if he recognized this voice, Vulme started to turn his head like he wanted to look up.

    It was just that from his position, he wasn''t able to look all the way up to see me.

    At the same time, I had already started swinging the axe down.

    When the axe cut through his neck and his head came off, there was a look of recognition in his

    eyes as his head turned to see me.

    In his final moments, there was a look of utmost hatred that appeared in his eyes.

    But I didn''t let it bother me since I had seen this look from others before. When it was over, I looked at the guards on the side and said, "Bring the next one."

    Everyone looked at me with a strange look, but they still followed my orders.

 Chapter 874: Strange water monster

    Chapter 874: Strange water monster

    ?

    When we came back to the study, there was only the prime minister and me left in the room. After walking in, I sat down in the chair and just let my body slump down in the chair.

    It was as if all the tension that had been in my body had been released and I felt like there was no energy left.

    As Iid there, I couldn''t help letting out a deep sigh.

    The prime minister stood there on the side looking at me with a concerned look when he saw me acting this way. But after a moment of silence, he walked over with a sigh and patted me on the shoulder.

    "You just did what you had to do." He said in a voice offort.

    I gave a slight nod without saying a single thing in response.

    There was a moment of silence that hung in the air before he patted me on the shoulder again and said, "Just take the rest of the day off. There''s nothing important that you need to do anyway, so just take some time for yourself."

    The way that he said this made it clear that he was worried about my mentality after what had happened in the prison.

    After all, it wasn''t just a single dark elf that I killed.

    There were five couples that had been tortured during that time and all of them had been in the same state.

    I was the one that had put them in that state, so I was the one that had given them mercy.

    This was not something that normal people experienced, this wasn''t even something that extraordinary people experienced.

    This was certainly a one in a kind experience that was hard for most people to adjust from, so the prime minister knew that it would be best if he gave me some space.

    However...I didn''t want that.

    I had alreadye to terms with what I did since I knew that this was what had to be done. Rather...if I were to stop now, the memories might actually make it harder for me.

    In a sense, I needed work to distract me until it became numb enough for me to process properly.

    So I just shook my head and said, "I''m fine."

    The prime minister looked at me with a worried look, but I just looked right into his eyes without saying anything.

    In the end, the prime minister gave a sigh as he could tell from the look in my eyes what I wanted. At the same time, he knew that if he were to force this, it would only backfire on him.

    I could see in the prime minister''s eyes that his mind was turning.

    It wasn''t hard to guess that he was most likely trying to figure out a way to make sure that I didn''t deal with anything stressful during this time.

    It might seem like he was babying me, but I knew that this was just his way of showing that he cared, so I didn''t stop him.

    But before he could say anything, there was someone that rushed into the study.

    The prime minister immediately knitted his brows when he heard the sound of the door opening since everyone should have known not to bother them when they were alone.

    However, he waited to see what the person that came in had to say.

    Last time, it was about the increased monster activity.

    He couldn''t help wondering what it was this time that had this person acting this way. As for me, I was just silently waiting to see what it was about.

    I just wanted something to distract me.

    It wasn''t Shadow One that came in this time, but one of the lower numbered shadows that came in.

    As soon as he came in, he immediately bowed to the prime minister and said, "My lord, there''s been some strange activity by the Kleen Rivertely."

    The prime minister narrowed his eyes when he heard this before saying, "Is that really it?"

    The shadow didn''t raise his head, but it was clear by the tremble that he gave that he knew that this wasn''t good for him.

    No, even without any other signs, it was clear by the cold tone of the prime minister''s voice that this wasn''t good for him.

    After all,pared to before, this didn''t seem like: was that important.

    It seemed almost trivial since this was something that could be reported through the normal reports. There was no reason to barge in on a private meeting between the prime minister and the king like this.

    It really seemed like the prime minister was set on punishing this shadow, but I said, "Wait, what is this about the Kleen River?"

    Both the prime minister and the shadow looked at me with surprised looks.

    I didn''t care since this was something that I recognized.

    The moment that I heard of the words Kleen River, I immediately thought of an event from the game.

    As for why I immediately thought about it, it was because I had already been thinking about how to activate this event.

    This was supposed to be an event that happened muchter, which was why I was agonizing on how to activate it.

    But now it seemed like it had already activated on its own.

    This was one of the times where the plot of the game being moved up seemed to work in my favour.

    Seeing that he didn''t say anything, I said, "Tell me already."

    The shadow snapped back out of his daze when he heard this and he said with a bow, "Your majesty, it''s a report that there''s this strange monster that has appeared on the banks of the Kleen River. It seems to be a monster that''s able to control the water ording to the local

    residents."

    The prime minister knitted his brows when he heard this.

    It seemed that this might be connected to the increased monster activity, which was why the shadow had barged in like this.

    But I had a wide smile on my face when I heard this.

    It was indeed the event that I had been waiting for.

 Chapter 875: Iâ€™ll deal with it

    Chapter 875: I¡¯ll deal with it

    ?

    The prime minister had been thinking about how to deal with this when he saw the look that was on my face.

    The moment that the prime minister saw this look, he immediately knitted his brows even

    more.

    After all, the prime minister had been with this brother inw of his long enough that he was able to read him. He had gotten used to the strange things that this brother inw of his did and could guess what he was nning to do.

    So before he could say anything...

    "No."

    The shadow was confused when he heard this, but I just looked at the prime minister with a surprised look.

    The way that I looked at him was almost as if I was saying...

    "How did you know?"

    The prime minister said with a sigh, "You just went to deal with the dark elves and the monsters, we can''t just let you leave the capital as you will. You have to realize that you are a king now, this isn''t the kind of thing that you should be doing personally. You have people to send to take care of this."

    There was a bitter smile that crept onto my lips while the shadow looked at me in shock.

    The shadow naturally understood what the prime minister meant by this, so he quickly put away the report and looked like he wanted to leave the room.

    Before he could, I said, "Stay."

    At this, the shadow had no choice but to awkwardly stand there.

    Though he was standing there with a look on his face as if he wanted to blend into the background.

    He stood there like he didn''t want anyone to notice him.

    The prime minister and I just looked at each other without saying a thing after I made the shadow stay.

    The look on his face made it clear that he didn''t support this idea of mine, but there was no way that I was going to back down on this matter. This was the event that I had been waiting for since this was an important thing for our kingdom.

    Especially after what happened at the trial that we held.

    It was rted to a certain person who had given all of us a shock.

    After a long silence, I said, "Just leave this matter to me, I''ll deal with it."

    The prime minister immediately shook his head before saying, "No."

    I responded with, "I''m the only one that can deal with this since I''m the only one that knows the true identity of this thing."

    The prime minister just calmly shot back, "Then you can tell us and we''ll handle it on your behalf. You''re the king, it''s your job to give orders, not to go to the field personally. There are plenty of subordinates that can go on your behalf."

    The shadow nodded in agreement at this, even if we were both ignoring him.

    I just shook my head as I said, "No, you won''t be able to since you have no idea how to handle them."

    The prime minister just calmly replied, "If you tell us how to do it, then wouldn''t we be able to take care of this matter?"

    I just calmly shook my head in response.

    The prime minister narrowed his eyes to look at me before asking one simple word, "Why?"

    I didn''t answer right away this time.

    There was a moment of hesitation from me before I finally said, "It''s something that''spletely out of the depths of a normal person, so it won''t matter even if I tell them about this. They won''t be able to do the same thing as me."

    The prime minister narrowed his eyes even more when he heard this.

    He looked at me as if he was sizing me up after hearing this.

    Instead of rejecting me, the prime minister suddenly said, "You should know what kind of position being the king is. The king is someone that the kingdom cannot do without, the king is the heart of the kingdom. A king is not someone who..."

    He went on to give a rant about how the king is someone that shouldn''t put his life at risk at the drop of a hat, as well as how important a king was to the kingdom.

    From my understanding of the prime minister, I knew that it would be impossible to stop him once he started ranting like this, so I just calmly waited for him to finish.

    When he was done, he looked at me and said, "Do you understand what a king is now?"

    I just looked at him with a calm look on my face and said, "This is something that I have to do to protect the people that I love."

    The prime minister was surprised to hear this since he didn''t expect me to say something like this.

    When he was caught off guard, I went for the jugr by saying, "This is something that is rted to the Tide Empire, so there''s no other way. It has to be something that is done by

    me."

    The prime minister deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    He looked at me with an uncertain look for a bit before saying, "Are you sure that you have a solution for the Tide Empire?"

    Seeing that he was finally breaking, I said with a firm look on my face, "I guarantee that this will help us with our Tide Empire situation."

    The prime minister might not believe this if it was anyone else, but this brother inw of his had shown him many miracles that he had no choice but to believe him.

    After all, he was the one that had brought the wyverns to their kingdom and had saved them in the war...

    In the end, the prime minister said with a sigh, "Of course, you won''t be allowed to go alone."

    I shook my head and said, "I have to go alone when I meet that monster."

    The prime minister deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

 Chapter 876: Kleen River

    Chapter 876: Kleen River

    ?

    It took a week before the prime minister was able to arrange everything for me and I set out from the capital.

    It was a strange feeling being watched from afar like this, but this was the only way that I could convince him to let me leave the capital.

    If I didn''t agree to this, there was no way that the prime minister would have let me go.

    The entire shadow squad had been sent out just to watch over me.

    At the same time, I had some strong guardians this time.

    They weren''t strong that they were unparalleled in battle, they were strong that they were people that I couldn''t go against.

    As if to spite me, he sent five of my wives with me.

    The only ones that he didn''t send were Rose and Haley who had important positions that they couldn''t leave suddenly or else they might have alle with me.

    After all, they had shown their displeasure at the fact that I was leaving so soon.

    They weren''t angry because they knew that I was doing this for a good reason, they were just displeased that I would be gone so soon aftering back.

    That was part of the reason why all five of them had agreed to go along.

    Though I knew that the prime minister had another reason for sending them along like this.

    His reason was that they would be the only ones that could restrain me if I tried to do something crazy.

    It wasn''t as if I couldn''t see where he wasing from, but it also wasn''t as if they would be able to stop me if I really wanted to do something. They had never been able to stop me before and I doubt they would stop me now...

    I knew that they supported me regardless of what I did, so it was hard for them to actually try and control me.

    So I just rxed and enjoyed the trip instead of thinking too much about it.

    As we headed along, there were a few questions that they had for me.

    The biggest one was...

    "What is this monster in the Kleen River?"

    This was a hard question for me to answer since it was hard to exin to them what it was without scaring them a bit too much. There was one defining thing about this monster that I just couldn''t tell them.

    So the only thing that I could say was...

    "It''s some kind of sea monster."

    "Sea monster?" They all repeated when they heard this.

    "That''s right, a sea monster."

    "Would a monster reallye that far?" They were very confused when they heard this.

    It wasn''t strange since they were right about this.

    The Kleen River was a river that ran across the entire continent, so it was a river that went all the way to the sea. However, that didn''t mean that it was a small distance to go from the sea to our kingdom since we were andlocked kingdom.

    It was actually quite a long swim, so there were few ocean fishes that reached our area. Most of the monsters and fishes in the river were usually from the surrounding area, namelykes and other rivers that fed into the Kleen River.

    It was very strange for something from the ocean toe this far after all.

    There weren''t many things that woulde this far away from their natural habitat after all.

    But that was one of the reasons why this event was so special.

    It was because one of those rare ocean creatures had actuallye all the way to our part of the kingdom through the Kleen River.

    If I were to exin any more, it would be giving too much information.

    So I just shook my head and said, "It''s a secret."

    They all red at me with unhappy looks when they heard this, but they didn''t say a thing since they could see that I wasn''t nning on saying anything.

    In that case, they would just enjoy the sight of the river.

    Since it was arge river, it didn''t take us long to reach the Kleen River from the capital.

    However, that didn''t mean that we had reached the spot where the water monster was spotted and it would take a while in our horse carriages. We would have taken the wyverns if not for the fact that we had left in secret.

    So we could only leisurely make our way to the area where the water monster was spotted. It took four days of traveling when we pulled up into a town called Greves Town.

    This was a town in the middle of nowhere, but since it was along the Kleen River, there were quite a few people that passed through here.

    It was basically a transit town built for people that traveled by boat and at the same time, it was a transit town for merchants that wanted to sell their goods to the surrounding area.

    They would transport their goods to this area by boat and then rent carriages from this town to transport those goods to where they needed to go.

    That was the basic function of this town.

    As for why we were here...it was because this was the town that was the closest to where the incident reported happened.

    That meant that there were quite a few boats that were dyed because of this.

    After all, no one wanted to sail in a ce where there was a rumoured monster.

    Everyone valued their lives, they wouldn''t risk it just for profit that wasn''t worth it.

    It was clear that the mood of the town was tense, we could see it when we passed through the

    gates.

    The guards that were at the gates looked very tense as they checked the people entering the town, but it wasn''t because of the people that they were tense.

    From time to time, they looked at the Kleen River outside of town, as if they were afraid of something.

    Or rather, it was better to say that they seemed like they were afraid of being attacked by something.

 Chapter 877: Tales of the deep

    Chapter 877: Tales of the deep

    ?

    It was very clear that whatever had happened during this time had affected this town, which was why everyone seemed tense.

    Even aftering into the town, we could see that everyone was just as tense in the streets.

    It was as if they were all afraid that they would be attacked at any moment.

    When we listened closely, we could hear bits of the conversations around us.

    "How are we supposed to do business like this?"

    "What is the government doing? How could they just let that monster be?"

    "If we don''t do something, we''ll be in the red this month."

    Since most of the people that came to this town were merchants, it meant that most of the conversations that they had were about their business. It seemed that the water monster that was just outside of town was attacking ships that belonged to the merchants, which was why they weren''t able to make any profit since they had to save their lives.

    There were even some merchants who had lost all of their merchandise and had sufferedrge losses because they were attacked.

    As such, it wasn''t strange that the merchants were all anxious because of this.

    If this continued, there was no doubt that many of them would go bankrupt.

    "Did you expect this when you came here?" Ang suddenly asked from behind me.

    "I didn''t think that it would be this bad. I thought that the monster would at least have a bit of mercy on the people, but that doesn''t seem to be the case." I said with a sigh.

    When Ang heard this, she looked at me with narrowed eyes to say, "Do you regret it now?"

    I just calmly shook my head as I said, "I would never regret this."

    This was a fact.

    Even if things didn''t go the way that I wanted them to, it was still a fact that the general situation was still what I had expected them to be.

    I had no idea what had changed that caused the monster to attack, but it didn''t seem like there were any casualties so far. After all, if there were casualties, there would be more of a

    response from the royal army.

    So for now, it seemed that they were just sinking ships for whatever reason...

    Since we hade to find the monster, naturally the first thing that we looked for was a boat.

    This was a monster in the water, so of course we would need a boat to find it.

    When we arrived at the dock, we found that it was quite empty.

    The town itself was filled with people, but the dock waspletely empty.

    It was as if there wasn''t anyone trying to set off, which was strange considering that this was a port town in the first ce. This was a ce where ships and boats came and went on a daily basis.

    But it didn''t seem like there was any activity at this dock at all.

    It was as if all boats and ships were forbidden to sail.

    However, that wasn''t the case as we were called out by some people that were on the docks.

    Even though there were no boats and ships leaving the port, there were still people that were here.

    "What are you people doing here? Haven''t you heard of the monster?"

    That was the first thing that this chubby man said to us after running over. Though he did have to catch his breath after running over.

    I just narrowed my eyes to look at this chubby man for a bit before saying, "We''re here to rent a boat."

    The chubby man had a shocked look on his face when he heard this before quickly saying, "Didn''t you hear what I said? There''s a monster in the river right now! If you sail out right now, all you''ll be doing is sailing to your deaths!"

    There was a faint smile that appeared on my lips when I heard this before saying, "We know about the monster, but we still need a boat. I hope that you will rent a boat to us."

    I had guessed that this chubby man was someone that worked at the docks, but it turned out that I had underestimated this man.

    "Kid, I know that young people like you are reckless and brave, but trust this old man when I say that this is not something you want to do. The monster shows no mercy to anyone that sails down this river and you''ll be prime bait if you set sail now."

    He shook his head and patted me on the shoulder before saying with a sigh, "I don''t know what your intentions are for setting sail now, but there''s nothing more important than your life."

    The way that he said this showed that he was concerned for us, but that wouldn''t stop me since there was something that I had to do.

    "Thank you for your concern, but we need to rent a boat. I hope that you will rent one to us." The chubby man''s face twitched when he heard this before saying, "Look, I won''t be responsible for your deaths! It''s my responsibility as the head of the docks here to make sure that the people that set out are safe and I just can''t in good conscience rent you a boat in these conditions!"

    I just had a firm look on my face like I wasn''t nning to listen to him.

    This made the chubby man even more annoyed as he started telling us the different stories that the people who have encountered the monster brought back.

    All of them included a period where they spent under the water, in the domain of the monster.

    It was terrifying hearing the stories of the deep from these people, but they still didn''t make me back down since I needed this boat.

    In the end, one of the shadows appeared and pulled the chubby man aside to have a private

    talk.

    After that, he said with a sigh, "Alright, I''ll rent one of my boats to you."

 Chapter 878: Beautiful song

    Chapter 878: Beautiful song

    ?

    I looked at the shadow with one raised brow as if I was asking him what he had done, but he didn''t say anything as he suddenly disappeared.

    It seemed that he had been given the order not to interact with me.

    Well, they were here to watch over me, so it wasn''t as if I had to talk to them.

    Though it was clear that he had done something to the chubby man who was the head of the docks here.

    When the chubby man led us over to a boat, we were surprised by the boat that he led us to.

    That was because this wasn''t just a boat that he led us to.

    This was a proper sailing ship.

    This wasn''t a ship that would be used by just a few people like we had in our group, this was a ship that would be used by argepany to ship arge amount of goods. This was definitely not something that we would be able to sail on our own.

    "Isn''t this a bit too..."

    Before I could say the word ''big'', all of the shadows suddenly appeared.

    We were all caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the shadows, but they didn''t say a word as they all moved onto the ship. Before anyone could react, they had already taken their posts on the ship and looked like they were ready to sail out at any moment.

    It seemed that the shadow that appeared earlier had been responsible for this.

    He had most likely talked the chubby man into letting us take this ship.

    After all, the chubby man didn''t say a thing even though he saw the shadows appear all of a sudden like this.

    With a sigh, I said to my group, "Let''s go then."

    They nodded in agreement before following me onto the ship.

    The chubby man didn''t even ask about payment which made me a bit worried, so I looked at the shadow that had talked to the chubby man earlier.

    "It''s already been taken care of. We wouldn''t do things like forcing people to give us stuff, we would properlypensate them." The shadow said as if he had read my mind.

    I didn''t doubt him as I just gave a simple nod in response.

    Like this, we secured a ship and we started sailing down the river.

    The shadows knew exactly what to do without me telling them a single thing.

    Though from time to time, they looked at me as if they were saying...

    "See, we can do our jobs."

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit bitter when I saw them looking at me like this since I could already tell why they were looking at me like this.

    They had most likely heard me say that I was the only one that could take care of this.

    They wanted to show that they could do anything that I could do, which was why I should be able to trust them.

    This was just their way of acting hurt from what I had said to the prime minister before. The one that was responsible for telling them all of this was the shadow that hade to report this matter that day.

    I could see him in the distance, as if he was trying to stay away from me.

    As if he was afraid of what I would do to him for spreading this rumour.

    I just ignored him and focused on the river in front of us.

    Since they were here and they were willing to do this work, it didn''t matter what they thought.

    I actually preferred them to act this way since it meant that they would work harder than normal.

    I waspletely focused on the river instead of paying any attention to the shadows.

    From behind me, the five girls just waited for me to say something or to have any kind of reaction, but I didn''t react even after half an hour of sailing.

    That was because...we hadn''t found a single thing.

    Ang once again spoke up by saying, "Are you sure that it''s here?"

    I just calmly gave a nod as I said, "I''m sure."

    Then as if to prove me right, there was a sound that suddenly cut through the air.

    The moment that this sound cut through the air, everyone suddenly fell into a daze.

    That was because they were stunned by the beauty of this sound.

    It was someone''s singing that had suddenly cut through the air like this.

    This was a beautiful song even though there were no words. Just the voice alone was more than enough to make everyone fall into a daze like this.

    It reached the point where some of the shadows forgot about what they were doing.

    That was a bad thing since the shadows had been controlling the ship.

    With them falling into a daze like this, the ship actually started to list and it seemed like we were going to crash on the bank of the river.

    I was the only one that was able to react in time since I had already been prepared for this.

    I quickly went over to the shadows and started to p them.

    They looked aggrieved when they saw me after I pped them, but I just said to them, "Get the ship on course!"

    Hearing this order from me, the shadows realized their mistakes and went back to sailing the ship. Though there was a bit of a daze in their eyes as the song was still drifting in the air.

    At the very least, it didn''t seem like we would crash onto the bank.

    After the song had appeared for a while, everyone slowly came back to their senses.

    They had awkward looks on their faces as they didn''t expect to be so caught up in this, but there was no denying the beauty of the singing.

    "What is this?" Ang asked me, but I didn''t say anything as I looked carefully in front of us for the source of this singing.

 Chapter 879: Do you want to be human?

    Chapter 879: Do you want to be human?

    ?

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, Ang suddenly grabbed me and seemed like she was about to shake me until I gave her the answer that she wanted.

    But before she could...

    I suddenly raised my hand and put a finger to her lip before saying, "Shh, let me focus. This is important."

    Ang was caught off guard the moment that she saw this.

    If it was anyone else, she definitely wouldn''t have allowed them to do something like this to her.

    This was the privilege that I received as her husband.

    So seeing that I was this serious, she let go of me and moved behind me while looking at me with a face like she was waiting to see what I was doing.

    But I didn''t notice any of that as I was still looking forward to the river in front of us. After another long silence, I suddenly pointed in a certain direction and said, "Over there!" It wasn''t just the shadows that were surprised by this sudden outburst from me, my wives who had been standing behind me were also surprised. They all looked at each other as if they were trying to figure out what I was doing.

    Seeing that the shadows didn''t do anything, I pointed in the same direction, but I turned back to look at them to say, "What are you doing? Full speed in that direction!"

    When they heard this, the shadows had no choice but to follow my orders.

    Though they did look at my wives with worried looks because of the way that I acted.

    It was as if they were worried that there was a screw loose with my brain.

    Ang stepped forward again when she saw the way that the shadows looked at her to ask, "What did you find?"

    I shook my head and just said, "You''ll see soon enough."

    She knitted her brows, but I didn''t say anything else, so she had no choice but to back down again.

    Though it was clear by the look on her face that she wasn''t happy with this response.

    Still, I was focused on the river in front of us.

    From time to time, I suddenly changed the direction that I pointed in while giving the order, "Turn in that direction!"

    The shadows all had worried looks on their faces, but they still followed my direction. However, the more that I turned, the more worried that they looked.

    After all, it didn''t seem like there was any reasoning behind the directions that I gave. With how sudden I changed the directions, it was almost as if there was no thinking behind this at all.

    It was as if I was just going on instinct alone.

    That was why they were all worried.

    Though it wasn''t wrong to say that I was relying on instinct alone.

    It was based on the current of the river.

    No one was really paying attention to the current of the river since they were still a bit dazed because of the beautiful song that was in the air. They could tell that we were getting closer to the source of the song as it was getting louder, but it didn''t seem like anything serious was about to happen.

    But they were wrong.

    The current was leading in a certain direction and I knew that this current was leading to our goal, the monster that dwelled in this river.

    As for how I knew...once again, it was game knowledge to the rescue.

    After guiding the ship for a while, I suddenly raised my hand and said, "Slow down!"

    The shadows were once again confused, but they didn''t hesitate to follow this order since it was certainly safer to slow down than to speed along this river.

    Seeing that I called for us to slow down, Ang suddenly came forward again to question me, "What are you..."

    I raised my hand again to stop her before bringing my hands to my ears to listen carefully. Seeing this, she didn''t finish what she was saying and just silently stood behind me, though it was clear by the look on her face that she seemed to be fed up with all of this.

    I had been so focused that I had even closed my eyes as I listened carefully to the song around

    us.

    Then all of a sudden, I opened my eyes and pointed in a direction to say, "Over there!"

    Everyone looked in the direction that I pointed in, but they all had disappointed looks as they only saw some rocks that were sticking out of the river. They didn''t know what to expect from me when I had acted all mysterious like this, but they were certainly disappointed seeing just these rocks.

    I shook my head and gave a sigh when I saw the looks on their faces before saying, "Not the rocks, it''s behind the rocks."

    There were looks of doubt that were on everyone''s faces, but I just ignored them as I said, "Pull us over to the rocks."

    The shadows looked nervous hearing this since they thought that I might be risking everyone''s lives with this order, but I just calmly said, "You don''t have to bring us all the way over, just bring us close enough that my voice will reach."

    All of them looked at me with doubtful looks, but narrowing my eyes to look back at them did

    the trick.

    I was the king after all, so I had a certain amount of prestige.

    Though because of this, Cecilia and Veronica moved forward just in case.

    It seemed like they were prepared to tackle me and take me down if it turned out to be

    nothing.

    They really thought that I was crazy, but I didn''t have time to deal with them right now.

    When we came over to the rocks, I suddenly raised my voice to say, "I know that this is our first time meeting, but there''s something that I must ask you. Do you want to be

    human?"

    The moment that my voice fell, the singing stopped.

 Chapter 880: Deal with a mermaid or a devil?

    Chapter 880: Deal with a mermaid or a devil?

    ?

    The moment that the singing stopped, everyone slowly regained their senses.

    At that moment, all of the shadows drew out their weapons and prepared to fight, but they immediately dropped them again when they saw me ring at them.

    I gestured with my hand for them to lower it while I was ring at them, so they had no choice but to lower their weapons in the end.

    But the vignt looks on their faces made it clear that they were ready to react if anything happened.

    There was a long silence that lingered in the air before a voice that was as beautiful as the singing said, "Human, you''re not afraid of me?"

    I gave a chuckle as I said, "Why would I need to be afraid of you?"

    "Hmm? What if I do something like this?"

    As soon as that beautiful voice fell, there wererge tentacles of water that came out of the river. These tentacles were raised in a way that they were all pointing at the ship.

    With the way that these tentacles surrounded the ship, it was almost as if they were ready to p the ship into pieces, sending them all into the depths of the water.

    All of the shadows and my wives looked worried about this.

    They looked at me as if they wanted me to pull out of this ce, but I just ignored them all. Instead, I said with another chuckle, "What would you gain from doing that?"

    There was silence that followed this before the beautiful voice started tough as well.

    As that beautiful voiceughed, the water tentacles suddenly turned back into water that fell into the river.

    Once the beautiful voice finishedughing, it said, "Human, what are you doing here? Or are you here because of the rumours that have spread about me?"

    I just calmly said, "I''m here to meet you, nothing more, nothing less."

    "But you asked if I want to be human?" The beautiful voice said with a confused tone.

    "Isn''t that what you want? Why else would youe to a ce in the middle of nowhere like this?" I calmly replied.

    Another silence followed before the beautiful voice said, "It seems like you know a lot about us."

    "No more than the average person..." After a pause, I added, "Well, maybe a bit more than the average person."

    Both of usughed after I said this.

    "So how about youe out and we have a talk?" I said after we finishedughing.

    After a moment of pause, the beautiful voice said, "Alright."

    With a sshing sound, there was something that came out from behind the rock.

    The moment that the sshing sound was heard, all of the shadows immediately raised their guard once more. They raised their weapons even though I had told them to keep them down since they had no idea what was happening.

    But they were surprised to see that the figure that came out from behind the rocks was much smaller than they thought.

    After that figure swam closer, they were surprised to see that it wasn''t much bigger than a human.

    In fact, it was basically a human that was swimming over.

    The only difference was that instead of legs, this person seemed to have a fish fin for a lower half.

    A mermaid!

    Everyone except for me was shocked the moment that they saw that it was a mermaid that was swimming out from behind the rocks.

    It was clear that not a single person had expected to see a mermaid.

    Once they slowly recovered from their shock, they all slowly looked at me as if they were looking for some kind of confirmation.

    "Ah, he knew." That was the only thing that they thought when they saw the calm look that was on my face.

    When the mermaid swam over, she looked right up at me and asked, "Human, you''re not surprised? Is this perhaps not the first time seeing someone from my race?"

    There was a faint smile that appeared on my face when I heard this.

    It was indeed not the first time that I was seeing a mermaid, but that was only in terms of meeting mermaids in the game. It was my first time seeing a mermaid in real life like this, so it could still be considered a monumental moment.

    However, most of that surprise was negated by the fact that...I had already met this mermaid before.

    It wasn''t that I had met this mermaid in this world before, it was that I had met this mermaid in the game before.

    I knew exactly who she was, I even knew just what she looked like without any clothes on. Though she was only wearing a shell bra in the first ce, it wasn''t hard for most people to

    imagine it.

    This was a beautiful mermaid with flowing red hair and beautiful sparkling blue eyes, simr to the little mermaid of my past life.

    In fact, her name was even the same as that little mermaid.

    Ariel.

    It was clear where the creators of the game had drawn their inspiration from.

    Though she did look a bit more mature than the little mermaid of my past life.

    Seeing this smile on my face, the mermaid revealed a strange look before saying, "Then human, do you know why I''m here?"

    I came out of my daze when I heard this and said with the same faint smile, "I know that you

    want to be human and I can help you with that."

    This time, there was a surprised look that appeared on the mermaid''s face.

    It was clear that she wasn''t expecting to hear this.

    It was thetter part that she wasn''t expecting to hear. After all, the way that this human said

    this was almost as if he already knew how she could be a human.

    After a moment of silence, the mermaid narrowed her eyes to look at me before saying, "Are you sure that you can offer your flesh that easily?"

    Flesh?

    The others all revealed shocked looks when they heard this.

    Was this a deal with a mermaid or a devil?

 Chapter 881: Exchanging flesh

    Chapter 881: Exchanging flesh

    ?

    If I had to say how I felt...I couldn''t say that I felt confident.

    After all, this was the one thing that I had been worried about when I made the decision toe here.

    I did know that the way to establish this contract was to exchange flesh with the mermaid, but I didn''t know the exact details of that. That was because this was a scene that was skipped over in the game.

    It would result in a scene change with a HP drop that wasn''t too bad, but it never showed specifically how that flesh was exchanged.

    Was it cutting off a finger, a piece of one''s flesh, or was it somethingpletely different?

    I thought that I had made up my mind already when I made the decision toe looking for the mermaid, but now that it was right in front of me...I had to admit that I couldn''t help hesitating.

    I don''t think that there would be anyone in this world who wouldn''t hesitate in a situation like this.

    After all, it was scary.

    That''s right, I could admit that it was scary.

    But I had to think that it wasn''t just scary for me, it had to be scary for the mermaid as well since it wasn''t as if I was the only one who would be offering my flesh up. There was a reason why it was called an exchange of flesh instead of just called an offering of flesh.

    To my surprise, I found that the mermaid didn''t seem afraid at all.

    She just looked up at me with an expectant look, as if she was waiting to see how I would respond.

    This mermaid either had nerves of steel or she wasn''t certain of what was going to happen. I had to assume that it was thetter rather than the former.

    Still, since she was willing to go through with it, I would be willing to go through with it as well.

    I needed the help of this mermaid after all.

    The Tide Empire was backed by the Merman Empire, so the best way to ensure that the Tide Empire wasn''t able to do anything to us was by making a connection to the Merman Empire.

    This mermaid was the best connection one could make since she had a hidden identity that no one else knew about.

    I only knew because she was the same mermaid from the game.

    Taking a deep breath, I asked, "How do we do this?"

    The mermaid was surprised by the determination that I showed, but then she said with a wide smile, "It''s very simple, we can just eat a part of each other''s flesh."

    The terrifying words that came out of her mouth didn''t match the sweet appearance that she had as she said them. The way that she looked up with a smile really made her seem like a cute girl from next door.

    I really couldn''t help feeling a bit afraid of her because of this, but I suppressed that feeling as I said, "How much do we need to cut?"

    This time, the mermaid revealed a confused and surprised look when she heard this.

    She looked up at me with a strange look, as if I had said something wrong, but I didn''t feel like I had said anything strange.

    After looking up at me like that for a bit, she finally said, "Just a small piece of skin is enough, you want to cut more?"

    The way that she said this was almost as if she was implying that I was someone that enjoyed the pain of being cut... It was like she was implying that I was some kind of glutton for punishment...

    It was made even worse when she suddenly said, "Could it be that you''re some kind of masochist?"

    She followed it up by saying, "I''ve heard about these humans onnd before, but I never thought that I would meet one in person. Then should I..."

    I didn''t want to hear the rest of what she was going to say.

    My face already looked ugly when she called me a M, especially when I saw the way that my wives were looking at me.

    This was definitely not the way that one wanted to be looked at by their significant other. So I cut her off with, "It''s my first time doing something like this. It''s not as if I''ve done this before, so I don''t know what I''m supposed to do. You''re the mermaid here, aren''t you supposed to exin your race''s special contract magic?"

    The mermaid was surprised by this sudden outburst from me, but she eventually nodded in agreement with a smile on her face before saying, "Right, you''re just a human who doesn''t know anything. All we need to do is eat a small piece of flesh from each other, so a small p of skin is enough."

    I shook my head with a bitter smile.

    A small p of skin...that was still quite terrifying...

    But at least now we knew what to do.

    I had the shadows prepare a small rowboat that was attached to the side of the ship which we dropped down right beside the mermaid with me in it. However, it wasn''t just me alone who was on that rowboat.

    Standing behind me were five girls who insisted oning.

    Though if it wasn''t for the five of them, then the shadows might have insisted oning too. When the mermaid saw the small rowboat beside her, she said with a smile, "This is perfect." Without any hesitation, she climbed into the rowboat, though she almost tipped us over with her strength. If it wasn''t for Cecilia''s quick reactions, then she might have actually tipped us over when she climbed over the side of the rowboat.

    Cecilia was able to stop us from tipping over by putting force on the other side to bnce her out.

    Once she was in, both the mermaid and I held a dagger which we brought to our own arm.

 Chapter 882: Mermaid princess

    Chapter 882: Mermaid princess

    ?

    After a moment of hesitation, the two of us both sliced off a tiny piece of skin from our arms. There was a small spurt of blood, but it didn''tst long since Moon was there to heal us with her magic.

    The wound wasn''t that big in the first ce since we had only cut off a small piece, so it healed almost instantly with Moon''s healing magic. In no time at all, there was no trace of the cut left behind.

    When it was done, we exchanged the piece of skin that we cut off, but...

    Neither of us put it in our mouths.

    After all, it wasn''t as if we had ever eaten something like this.

    A piece of skin wasn''t something that could be considered appetizing, especially when it was raw skin that was cut off a person right in front of them. Doing something like that definitely made things less appetizing.

    It was like seeing your meat being butchered and prepared in front of you.

    It wasn''t a good sight for one''s stomach.

    After a moment of silence, I took a deep breath and put her skin in my mouth.

    I didn''t even bother chewing as I forced myself to swallow, but it wasn''t as if I could ignore the taste of it that spread through my mouth.

    Fishy, that was the taste of her skin.

    Though she was a mermaid that spent most of her time underwater, so it wouldn''t be strange if her skin had a fishy taste to it.

    There was also a slight taste of iron, which came from the blood that was on her skin. That just went to show how fresh it was, so fresh that it had been a part of a living being just a minute ago.

    After seeing me eat her skin, the mermaid didn''t hesitate to do the same thing as me.

    The twisting of her face made it clear that she didn''t appreciate the taste of me and I couldn''t help feeling strange about this. There was a part of me that even wondered why I didn''t taste good.

    Was that normal for when someone ate a piece of you?

    I had no idea, but there was that thought that passed through my mind.

    After she swallowed the piece of my skin, there were bubbles that appeared on her skin...or rather on her scales. These bubbles only seemed to appear on the scales of her lower half.

    Neither the mermaid nor I panicked when we saw this, but my wives couldn''t help panicking. Moon was the one that stepped forward in the end.

    She had her hand raised and there was already mana gathering in her hands, as if she was prepared to use a healing spell. At the same time, she asked, "What''s wrong?"

    There was no hiding the concern in her voice which touched the mermaid, but the mermaid calmly said, "Don''t worry, this is normal."

    Though she said this, she didn''t really know if this was normal since this was her first time doing something like this. She had only heard about this contract magic before, she never knew if it would actually work or not.

    But she didn''t want to give up the chance to chase after her dream, so she seized this chance when it was offered to her.

    After the bubbles came from her for a bit, the scales seemed to disappear.

    It was as if the scales were turning into bubbles themselves.

    Then the tail seemed to split in half before turning into a pair of legs that didn''t have a single scale on them. All of the scales that had been on her tails had turned into bubbles and disappeared without a trace.

    Finally, the bubblespletely disappeared and all that was left were a pair of human legs.

    The mermaid didn''t move after all of the bubbles disappeared.

    It wasn''t that she wasn''t able to move, it was that she didn''t know how to move.

    She was a mermaid, so it wasn''t as if she had ever used human legs before.

    None of us moved forward to help her since we didn''t know what she needed right now, or if we could actually help her. It seemed like it was better to leave it to her to slowly figure out how to use those new human legs of hers.

    And that was what she did.

    The mermaid slowly reached down to touch her human legs before revealing an excited look.

    The first thing that she did after revealing that excited look was swing her legs around. However, since this was just a small rowboat...

    "Ow!"

    That was her scream of pain from kicking the bottom of the rowboat with her legs swinging at full force. She naturally wasn''t able to crack the boat, but there was no doubt that she hurt her heel from that.

    Seeing this, I shook my head and gave a look to Moon.

    She understood the look that I gave her and went forward to use a healing spell on the

    mermaid''s foot.

    Feeling the pain disappear, the mermaid looked up with a grateful look to say, "Thank you."

    Moon just gave a simple nod before moving back over to where we were.

    The mermaid yed around with her new legs a bit longer before turning to me to say, "Thank you for helping me with this. If there''s anything that I can repay you with, then don''t hesitate to ask."

    A faint smile appeared on my lips when I heard this before I said, "Well, truth be told, I didn''t help without any expectations."

    The mermaid narrowed her eyes to look at me for a bit before rxing them and giving a nod to say, "Well that''s to be expected. There''s no free meal in this world."

    She slowly stood up and reached her hand out before saying, "I''ve never introduced myself before. I''m Ariel, the princess of the Merman Empire."

 Chapter 883: Many princesses

    Chapter 883: Many princesses

    ?

    Ariel just said this with a proud look on her face, as if this was something that everyone should take note of.

    Though it wasn''t as if she was wrong about that.

    If it was anyone else, then this was certainly something to be shocked by and to take careful note of.

    It was just that it wasn''t that shocking for us since we were used to this kind of thing. Well, it wasn''t as shocking for me since I already knew about this, but it was certainly still surprising for the others since they never expected something like this.

    They never thought that the mermaid that we had rescued would turn out to be a princess.

    There was a look that appeared on Ariel''s face that made it seem like she was proud of the way that they looked at her, but that look soon disappeared when she saw the calm way that I was looking at her.

    Ariel could tell that it seemed like this human wasn''t impressed by the fact that she was a princess, which made her a bit unhappy.

    It wasn''t just because it hurt her pride a bit that she was unhappy about this, but also because she wanted to use this chance to increase her value.

    After all, a princess would always have more value than someone who wasn''t a princess.

    There was something that this human needed from her, so it was always good to have more value.

    The hit to her pride came second...

    "Why aren''t you that surprised?" Ariel suddenly asked.

    The way that she was looking at me made it clear that this question was aimed at me.

    A faint smile appeared on my lips when I heard this, but it wasn''t as if I could answer this question in a truthful manner.

    The only thing that I could do was give an excuse that I had alreadye up with.

    "Well, there are plenty of princesses here that it just isn''t surprising anymore." I said in a calm voice.

    "Other princesses?" A look of surprise and confusion appeared on Ariel''s face when she heard this before looking around at my wives to ask, "Do you mean them?"

    I gave a nod before gesturing to Ang, "She is the princess of this human kingdom that you''ve drifted into."

    Ariel was surprised again when she heard this, but the way that she looked at Ang changed. It was as if she had found someone that she could sympathize with.

    Though it didn''t seem like she stopped to consider whether Ang would be able to match up to her. She was the princess of the Merman Empire that ruled the entire underwater world, while Ang was just the princess of a small human country.

    Comparing the two, it should be clear who has the greater status between the two of them. But it didn''t seem like Ariel cared at all.

    It seemed that Ariel had been raised in quite the free spirited manner.

    After introducing Ang, I also introduced Elsa.

    "She is the princess of the Dwarven Kingdom."

    Ariel''s eyes seemed to light up more than when she heard about Ang.

    She looked right at Elsa and said, "The dwarves! I''ve heard about them before! It''s said that the dwarves are the most talented when ites to crafting!"

    The way that she said this made Elsa feel a bit embarrassed, but she was also a bit proud that her people were well known enough that even the underwater residents knew about them.

    Going from there, I gestured to Moon and said, "This is the granddaughter of one of the elven viges in our kingdom, so she is like a princess for the elves."

    Ariel''s reaction waspletely different when it came to Moon.

    Instead of being excited about seeing her, she just narrowed her eyes to look at Moon before saying, "One of the descendants of the high elves."

    Moon slowly gave a nod without being too surprised by the fact that Ariel knew this.

    I was surprised at first at how differently Ariel treated Moonpared to Elsa, but then I

    remembered something from the game that exined this.

    Simply put, the mermaids already had contact with the elves before.

    They had once been allied with each other during the race wars and had been quite close before, so it wasn''t as if the elves and mermaids didn''t know about the existence of each other.

    It was also said in the lore of the game that they had broken this rtionship during the race wars for an unknown reason.

    The unknown reason part was because the devs had been toozy to put it in the lore, which was why I was a bit worried seeing them like this.

    However, Moon just gave a calm nod before saying, "I am indeed one of the descendants of the high elves."

    The two of them just looked at each other for a bit before they looked away again.

    It seemed that even if the rtionship between the elves and mermaids had broken up, it didn''t seem like there was a bad rtionship that reced it. It seemed that they at least tolerated each other to the point where they didn''t hate each other.

    Once she had finished looking at my wives, Ariel slowly turned back to me and said, "Well, it seems that with this group, you really don''t need to be surprised by the fact that I''m a princess." But then she said in a sharp voice, "Only, who are you that all of these important people would hang around you?"

    I gave a chuckle when I heard this before saying, "Well, I''m the king of the human kingdom that you decided toe to."

    "Huh?" Ariel was taken aback when she heard this.

    She looked at me as if she was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not, but I just calmly looked at her without turning away.

    After a while, Ariel said, "Oh."

    It seemed that she really didn''t know how to react to this.

 Chapter 884: Freak show

    Chapter 884: Freak show

    ?

    It was better to say that she was all out of surprise to react to this.

    She had experienced many new things today that hadpletely caught her off guard, so Ariel no longer had the surprised feeling to react to all of this.

    So she just seemed like she calmly epted it all.

    But there was something that Ariel still had to ask in the end.

    "But it doesn''t seem like the rtionship between all of you is normal. Why does it seem like they''re closer to you, more than just having a normal rtionship?"

    Another chuckle came from me as I said, "Well, that''s because we''re all married. They are all my wives."

    The five of them nodded in agreement to this as smiles slowly crept onto their faces.

    It was as if they were very pleased to be introduced as Zwein''s wife.

    Though there was also a trace of bitterness that was in the eyes of four of them since it had taken them quite a bit of time to be that. The only one that acted normally was Cecilia.

    Ariel was surprised to hear this, but she didn''t refute it.

    Rather, it seemed like she epted it quite easily.

    She could see that they were happy, so there was nothing that she had to say about it.

    This was a world that epted polygamy after all since it was a game that was based on the H-game.

    Once she got her answer for this, it seemed like Ariel was already done with her questions about us. Instead, there was something else that she suddenly asked.

    "So what do we do now?"

    The way that she said this made it seem like she was prepared toe with us.

    I had no idea what she had been nning to do after we made this contract. After all, even if I knew from my knowledge of the game that she would usually follow the one that formed the contract with her, she was still a living person in this world.

    The events of the game had changed in this world and she was a person with her own thoughts, so she could have decided to go on her own.

    But it seemed that I was able to convince her toe with us in the end.

    That was the real reason why I had said all of that in the first ce.

    I wanted her to understand what position I had in this kingdom so that she would feel assured

    ining with me. After all, there was nothing better than having a big backer whening to a newnd.

    There was no one that could be a bigger backer than me when it came to this kingdom.

    So I was obviously the right choice to make.

    I just calmly said, "We''re heading back to port, do you want toe with us?"

    Ariel''s eyes opened wide with excitement when she heard this, but she quickly controlled herself and just gave a simple nod.

    The way that she gave this nod was almost as if this didn''t matter to her at all, but there was no hiding the expression that she had revealed earlier.

    It was clear that she was excited to visit the human town.

    Though that wasn''t strange since she was someone who hade all this way to make a contract with someone to be a human. It was clear that she was someone who was very interested in humans, though no one really knew why she was that into humans.

    Before we could climb onto the ship though, Ariel suddenly asked, "Right, you said that you wanted a favour from me for helping with the contract. What favour did you want to ask of me?"

    I looked at her with a faint smile and said, "This is something that will take some time, so how about we discuss it once we''re back onnd?"

    Ariel raised a brow when she heard this, but after looking at me for a bit, she still said, "Alright."

    It seemed that I had at least made a good impression on her that she would trust me to this extent.

    The shadows were naturally surprised to see Arieling back with us.

    They hadn''t seen what had happened in the rowboat, so they could only ask my wives for what happened. It seemed like not a single one of them wanted to ask me.

    It wasn''t that they didn''t trust me...it was that they looked at me like they were saying...

    "It''s your responsibility to take care of her."

    As for who the ''her'' that they were referring to was... It was naturally Ariel.

    It was like they had suddenly deemed me to be her babysitter.

    There was nothing that I could say about this, but it certainly was a strange feeling having this task forced onto me.

    Once they finished hearing the story from my wives, all of the shadows looked at me with strange looks.

    I was used to these looks.

    These were the same looks that I received when I led the army in the war.

    It was the way that someone looked at a person that they consideredpletely unnatural.

    It was the way that they looked at a freak.

    There was a small part of me that felt bitter about this, but I didn''t hold it against them since what I had done was really abnormal.

    Ariel also saw this, so she leaned in and whispered, "Are you a tyrant? It doesn''t seem like your subordinates like you very much."

    I felt even more bitter when I heard this, but I didn''t say a thing.

    I just looked at the shadows and said with a sigh, "Stop wasting time, let''s go back. We''re done here."

    They all looked at Ariel one more time when they heard this before nodding in response.

    Since the water monster that had been causing trouble had been dealt with, this matter certainly was over.

    But they were worried about bringing this water monster back with them...

    Their king really made life hard for them sometimes.

 Chapter 885: First time on land

    Chapter 885: First time onnd

    ?

    We hadn''t spent that long on the river, so the chubby dock manager was still there when we came back.

    Seeing the shipe back, he immediately ran over to check on it.

    Though the way that he acted, it seemed like he was more worried about us than the ship.

    It was just that we could see his eyes drifting over to the ship from time to time as if he was checking up on it. No, even without that, there was something else that gave him away.

    "My lord, I''m so d that you''re...back. I was so...worried this whole time!"

    There were those strange pauses in between his words that came when he looked over at the ship to check on it.

    It seemed that this chubby dock manager really didn''t know how to divide his attention...

    We just ignored it since we knew why he was worried about the ship, even more than our lives. It was his job to care about these things and even before that, the ship was something that many people relied on to make a living.

    If it was damaged, then many people would have suffered for sure.

    So it was only normal that he checked that the ship was alright.

    It was just that he couldn''t do it openly while we were still here.

    However, he didn''t get to keep going for long as someone lost their patience.

    "Move out of the way!"

    I heard this soft and beautiful voiceing from the ship.

    It wasn''t just me who heard this, but everyone else heard it as well.

    My wives who were with me shook their heads with bitter smiles, but the chubby dock manager had a different expression on his face. He looked like he had fallen into a daze when he heard this voice.

    It was like his soul had been pulled out of his body, just like the shadows had looked when they first heard this voice singing.

    Even though it was shouting, even though it wasn''t singing, there was still a charming tone to it.

    This was just the natural charm that mermaids had in their voices.

    The owner of this voice was Ariel who pushed her way past the shadows that were trying to stop her. Even though they had been trying to stop her, it wasn''t as if they dared to use actual force since she was now a state guest.

    So she was able to make her way past them easily ande down the gangnk to reach the dock.

    The moment that she reached the dock, she stood still for a few seconds before reaching her hands up into the air and shouting, "This is it! This is the feeling of walking onnd!"

    She didn''t stop with just this as she started running around on the dock, looking at all the different things that were here.

    It was a good thing that there was no one else here, or they would have certainly thought that Ariel was an idiot.

    At the same time, the chubby dock manager still seemed to be in a daze because of her voice, so he didn''t really notice the things that she did.

    The only ones that looked at her with looks like their world views had been shattered were the shadows and my wives. They looked like they were disappointed with her disy, as if their image of mermaids had been shattered.

    It couldn''t be helped since Ariel was a special case in the first ce.

    There were many mermaids that were this interested in humans and thend to begin with.

    The reason that we didn''t bring her down right away was simple.

    She was the monster that had caused all that trouble along the Kleen River and had caused all that trouble for this town. So we wanted to bring her into the town without anyone noticing just in case they put the two together.

    We couldn''t let anything happen to Ariel now since she was an important guest, so we had to take precautions.

    It was just too bad that the one that this all revolved around didn''t seem to care.

    Shaking my head with a sigh, I said, "Stop messing around ande over here."

    It didn''t seem like Ariel heard me the first time that I said this as she kept running around, so I had no choice but to say it a second time. This time, she heard me and slowly walked back over with an unhappy look on her face.

    It was like she was a child that was unhappy that her ytime had been interrupted.

    I shook my head again and gave another sigh before saying, "Don''t get lost, we''re going into the town now. You can see many more different thingster once we go into town."

    The unhappy look that was on Ariel''s face quickly disappeared when she heard this and she just as quickly gave a nod of agreement before looking towards the buildings in the distance. I gave another sigh before saying to one of the shadows, "Take care of the ship." He gave a nod before going over to the chubby dock manager. He wrapped his arm around the shoulder of the chubby dock manager and started bringing him over towards the office.

    The chubby dock manager was still in a bit of a daze because of Ariel''s voice.

    Seeing this, I realized that I should probably take care of this before anything else.

    So I pulled out a notebook and a pen which I handed over to Ariel.

    "What is this?" she asked in a confused voice, but she still took them and looked at them carefully. She looked even more confused when she saw that this book was nk.

    I said, "Don''t speak from now on. Just write what you want to say in this book."

    Ariel was naturally unhappy about this, but I exined it to her.

    "If you talk and expose yourself, don''t you think that it''ll cause quite a bit of trouble. You won''t be able to enjoy your time onnd when the timees."

    Ariel had to admit that I was right, but it still looked like she was unhappy about this.

    So Iforted her by saying, "It''s just a temporary measure. We''ll think of a way to solve this

    later, alright?"

    She just gave a simple nod, but it didn''t seem like it cheered her up.

 Chapter 886: Crazy merchants (1)

    Chapter 886: Crazy merchants (1)

    ?

    When we walked into the town, the unhappy mood disappeared without a trace.

    Ariel''s eyes opened wide and she excitedly looked around.

    I had been worried that she would forget what I had said and would start talking, but it seemed that she was too excited for that.

    However, it wasn''t as if we could just let her run around on her own.

    So I had made sure to put Cecilia, Moon, and Veronica by her side so that they would be able to control her if anything happened. They were already holding her arms just in case she tried to run off, but it didn''t seem like that would happen.

    The look on her face made it seem like her brain had short circuited from the excitement that she was feeling, so it didn''t seem like she was going to run off on her own.

    It was like a kid going to an amusement park for the first time.

    They were just too stunned by the sights to move or make a sound.

    But I knew that this was temporary, so I gave a look to Cecilia, Moon, and Veronica to make sure to hold her properly for when she recovered.

    I knew that it was only a matter of time before she came back to her senses.

    As expected, Ariel tried to run off when she came back to her senses, but she was already being held so she couldn''t do anything. Then when she realized that she was being held, she opened her mouth as if she was about toin, but she couldn''t say anything in the end.

    They were using one hand each to hold her, so they had another hand free for this situation.

    All of them covered her mouth so that she wouldn''t be able to say anything.

    Ariel looked at the three holding her with an aggrieved look, but Cecilia just calmly said, "As long as you don''t run off and you write what you want to say, we''ll let you go."

    Ariel didn''t look happy about this at first, but she eventually agreed to these terms. The first thing that she did after she was released was, "Why are you doing this?" Cecilia just calmly said, "We''re making sure that you don''t cause any trouble." "Isn''t this going too far?" Ariel wrote with an aggrieved look on her face.

    Cecilia once again calmly said, "If you cause too much trouble, do you think that you''ll be allowed to stay here?"

    Ariel was taken aback when she heard this.

    She looked like she wanted to write something, but her hand hesitated as if she didn''t know what to write.

    In the end, she just simply wrote, "Alright, you win."

    With the defeated look that was on her face, it seemed like she was finally willing to listen and follow even though she was filled with excitement.

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with a faint smile when I saw this.

    This was like a kid that waspletely defeated by their parents'' logic that they couldn''t say anything.

    All of us couldn''t help looking at Ariel with pity when we saw her like this since all of us had experienced what she had experienced before. It wasn''t as if we wanted her to suffer in the first ce since we were quite entertained seeing her act like a child exploring the town for the first time.

    So I should at least throw her a bone.

    "Let''s go and check out the market. I''m sure that there are many things there that you''ve never seen before."

    The moment that Ariel heard this, her eyes once again lit up with excitement again.

    She looked at me like a little puppy that was receiving a treat.

    There was the urge to pet her on the head that filled me, but I was sure that would just cause misunderstandings if I were to actually do that. So I just held myself back in the end and waved my hand to say, "Let''s go."

    Ariel happily followed behind me, but...

    I didn''t actually know where the market in this town was, so it was actually one of the shadows that led us.

    The shadows hadn''t disappeared like before since now they were openly guarding us.

    I didn''t send them away either since we now had a state guest with us.

    It was only right that we had proper security because of that.

    Once we arrived at the market, I couldn''t help being surprised by the scene that was in front of

    us.

    This was a scene that I had never seen before, even with all the time that I''ve spent in this world.

    The only word that could describe this was...

    Crazy.

    These merchants hadpletely gone crazy with the way that they were acting.

    There weren''t that many people in the market and it could be understood why.

    That was because all those that came to the market werepletely swarmed by merchants who wanted to peddle their goods.

    We weren''t an exception to this, but we had proper guards so the merchants weren''t able to approach us at all. Though the way that they tried to approach us had even more fervor than when they tried to approach the other people that visited the market.

    Perhaps it was because they could see that I was much richer than the others that were at this market.

    After all, I was the only one that arrived with an escort like this.

    So I had to have a certain amount of status to have this kind of escort.

    The way that the merchants looked at us was like they were hunters that were looking at prey.

    They looked like they were on the hunt for money.

    But it didn''t make any sense at all as to why they were so desperate...

    Or at least I didn''t understand why they were acting like this at first.

    It didn''t take long for me to realize what the reason was.

 Chapter 887: Crazy merchants (2)

    Chapter 887: Crazy merchants (2)

    ?

    Simply put, they were just desperate to sell their goods.

    That didn''t really seem like a good exnation for the crazy way that the merchants acted, but it was the main reason why they were acting like this.

    The biggest factor was the fact that they weren''t able to transport their goods because of the water monster that was in the Kleen River.

    As such, they had no choice but to find another way to get rid of their goods.

    It wasn''t enough to sell it to the viges in the surrounding area since there were only so many vigers and there were so many merchants that were here. Many of them had simr goods, so it wasn''t as if all of them could sell to the vigers in the surrounding area.

    At the same time, it wasn''t as if the vigers would even be able to buy all of their goods in the first ce.

    So their only hope was the market in this town.

    This town was a ce that many people passed through, so there was the chance that someone would buy the items that they had.

    Though they were ignoring the fact that most people were merchants that most likely had the same goods as them since they wanted to sell them to other ces with the same needs. It wasn''t as if they would need to buy goods that they already had...

    At this point, they were just desperate to get rid of the goods that they couldn''t sell.

    That was why they were all going crazy like this.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit awkward since I was rted to this matter.

    It wasn''t as if I was the one that had caused this problem.

    Rather, I was even the one that had solved this problem by taking care of Ariel who was attacking the merchant ships.

    It was just that I felt awkward bringing the cause of all this trouble to this market.

    The funny thing was that the cause of these problems didn''t seem concerned at all as she watched the merchants going crazy with an amused look on her face.

    She even said under her breath, "Humans really are interesting. There are all kinds of humans, aren''t there?"

    It was unknown whether this was because she wasn''t aware of the trouble that she caused or if she didn''t care...

    No, it was most likely the former rather than thetter.

    I preferred to believe that she wasn''t that cold hearted since that would be bad for me if she

    was.

    If she was that cold hearted, then when it came to the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire... That was why I didn''t want to believe that she was cold hearted.

    Since I was bringing the source of the problem here, I shouldpensate them to a certain extent. At the same time, I should help them since it was my duty as the king to make sure that my people didn''t suffer.

    So at the very least, I could buy a few things that they were selling.

    As for money...well, if I was a poor king, then I might as well stop being a king.

    Aftering to a decision, I had the shadows let a few of the merchants through so that they could sell us a few things.

    However, I never realized how big of a mistake that was.

    The moment that the merchants came through the blockade of the shadows, the first thing that they did was...

    "Dear customer, please take a look at this precious vase!"

    "No, no, dear customer, don''t look at that shoddy vase! Come and have a look at our beautiful statues!"

    "Beautiful? More like it belongs in the trash!"

    They all started shoving their goods in my face and trying to sell their goods to me.

    It was just that they had no care for personal space as they had gonepletely crazy about selling their goods.

    After spending some time watching Haley work, I had a good idea what the quality of these items were. They definitely were not the best quality items, but they weren''t considered that bad either.

    The problem was that I really didn''t have a need for any of the things that they showed me, or else I might have bought a few things.

    I had hoped that I could buy a few things that seemed interesting, but that wasn''t the case.

    I didn''t know what I was expecting from merchants that sold items to viges all around the kingdom.

    I thought that they might have one or two good things that I could spend a bit extra on, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    It really seemed like I wouldn''t be able to find anything to buy.

    However, that wasn''t the case.

    That was because there was someone who was quite good at spending my money.

    She was silent at first, but then she started gushing over the things that the merchants showed her even though they were nothing more than ordinary things.

    "What is this?"

    "Are you saying that all humans use this thing?"

    "This must be a work of human art, it''s so interesting!"

    The way that she said all of this made it clear that she wanted to buy everything.

    The only problem was...this person was the mermaid Ariel who didn''t have any human money.

    It wasn''t as if she had thought about bringing human money along since she didn''t know what to expect from this trip. At the same time, it seemed like the mermaid money that she brought waspletely useless since the merchants didn''t recognize it.

    So the only thing that Ariel could do was turn to me.

    She looked at me with a pleading look, like she was asking me for money.

    I gave a sigh before pulling out my wallet.

    I didn''t really want to buy anything useless like this, but the only thing that I could do was think of this as a necessary fund to befriend a mermaid.

 Chapter 888: Not an empty vase

    Chapter 888: Not an empty vase

    ?

    The things that Ariel bought in the end were all useless to me and anyone else in my group.

    These were normal everyday items that would be useful tomoners in viges, but they really didn''t have any use to me.

    In fact, they were just taking up space after I bought them.

    At the same time, it was as if Ariel lost interest in these things right after I bought them.

    So I had to figure out a way to deal with these things.

    It was Ang who gave me a solution, "Just donate them to viges in need."

    That was the only thing that we could do with these things since we didn''t have a need for these things in the first ce.

    It was interesting watching Ariel look over the goods that the merchants showed her.

    It seemed like she was only interested in the most mundane and normal things.

    When they tried to show her some of their specialty goods, it didn''t seem like she was interested at all. It was as if she had already seen these things before, so she wasn''t interested in them.

    The worst case of this was the pearl ne that one of the merchants tried selling her.

    "What am I supposed to do with this trash?"

    That was her response when she was shown the pearl ne.

    It wasn''t just that merchant who owned this pearl ne who was shocked, even the other merchants were shocked when they heard her say this.

    A pearl ne was considered a luxury good no matter how one looked at it. It took many lives just to find the pearls for these nes and then put them together like this.

    That was why pearls had always been sold for a high price.

    But now this youngdy was just calling it trash...

    The merchant who owned the pearl ne really didn''t know how to feel about this...

    For those that didn''t know her identity, they didn''t understand why she would act this way. It was different for those that did know her identity.

    It was even more different for me who knew her identity and knew about the mermaids.

    I knew that pearls were considered actual trash for those who lived under the sea since they were found all over the ce. It was to the point where they were no longer able to get rid of it easily, which meant that the underwater residents considered them useless trash.

    So it wasn''t strange that Ariel had called the ne trash.

    In the end, she was able to settle down and continue buying things with my money.

    But there were things that she ignored just like the pearl ne.

    That was just the difference in value between humans and mermaids.

    After a while, it seemed like she was finally done buying things.

    It was just that she had bought quite a bit of things that it was hard for us to transport them all back with us. To bring them all back to the capital with us, we would need to arrange quite a bit of transport.

    So I just left that matter to Ang since she knew how to take care of this best.

    During this time, Ariel caught me alone.

    "Thank you for spending all that money going along with my whims, I''ll be sure to pay you backter." She said in a sincere voice.

    I was very surprised to hear her say this since this wasn''t the impression that I had of her.

    I didn''t think that she was someone that was even capable of being polite like this, but it seemed like I waspletely wrong.

    Though it wasn''t strange that I was wrong.

    The way that she acted reminded me of a different person when I first met her.

    She reminded me of Ang.

    Both of them were princesses, so they had been raised in a way where they would act with manners no matter where they were. As such, it wasn''t that strange to see Ariel acting this way.

    "It''s fine. You''re our guest and I''m sure that you don''t have the money for ournd, so it''s only normal that we help our guest a bit." I waved my hand at her in a casual manner as I said this.

    Ariel just said with a faint smile, "Yes, but is it really normal to spend that much unless you want something in return?"

    I narrowed my eyes to look at her, but seeing that she didn''t have any hostility, I said with a shrug and a sigh, "It''s good that you know this. It''ll make things much easier in the future."

    Ariel suddenly gave a chuckle before saying, "I''ll keep that in mind."

    Then all of a sudden, that smile disappeared from her face as she said, "I don''t know what kind of favour you will be asking, but there are a few things that I have to tell you first."

    I was once again surprised to see this side of her, but since she was being this serious...

    I revealed a serious look as well and gave a firm nod.

    I released what I felt was the aura of a king since I was the king of thisnd.

    It was Ariel''s turn to reveal a trace of surprise in her eyes, but she still said with the same serious look, "No matter what you request of me, I will never betray my people or my kingdom. I hope that you will keep that in mind."

    I raised a brow when I heard this before asking, "Is that it?"

    Ariel also raised a brow before saying with a sigh, "That''s quite the important thing, isn''t it?"

    I gave a nod before saying with a smile, "It certainly is, but I don''t think that I''ve given off

    such a bad impression. Do you think that I am that kind of person?"

    Ariel was once again surprised before shaking her head with a smile that had a trace of bitterness in it, "No, I don''t think you''re that bad."

    Then in a more serious voice, she said, "Then I''m looking forward to working with you."

    I gave a simple nod as I looked at her with a strange look.

    There was only one thing in my mind.

    "So she wasn''t just an empty vase."

 Chapter 889: Returning through the sky

    Chapter 889: Returning through the sky

    ?

    It took three days before our method of returning arrived.

    The first thing that happened was that the very next day, the noble that was in charge of this town announced that the water monster had been taken care of.

    This was arranged by the shadows who had an order that had both mine and the prime

    minister''s signature. With such a document, there was no way that they would be able to raise anyint.

    Even if they weren''t certain if the water monster had even been taken care of, the noble that was in charge of the town had no choice but to make this announcement.

    There weren''t any merchants that dared to test the waters though.

    Even if the noble in charge of the town had made this announcement, it didn''t seem like any of the merchants believed in this announcement. After all, they had suffered under the threat of the water monster for so long that they just found it hard to believe such an announcement. No one was willing to act as the one that tested the waters for the others.

    It wasn''t just because of their precious goods, it was also because of the fact that there was nothing more important than their lives.

    They weren''t willing to risk their lives on this unreliable information.

    As such, there was no one that set out from the town even though it had been announced that the water monster had been dealt with.

    It was only three dayster when the wyverns arrived that people finally set off.

    The wyverns were actually our transport back to the capital, but the reason for the appearance of the wyverns given to the public was that they were here to clean up after the monster.

    They found apletely different water monster that they dragged out of the river to show all of the merchants.

    This only worked because none of the merchants had actually seen Ariel when they were attacked.

    It turned out that she had only sung for them and then attacked when they tried to attack her because they thought that she was a siren. So they had only seen the waves of the water mming their ships and nothing else.

    That was why no one was able to question the monster that was fished out of the river as a

    cover.

    After they were cated, the ships started heading out of the town again and the economy started to flow.

    It seemed like this ce was beginning to recover, which was why it was time for us to leave. Of course, we couldn''t just get on the wyverns in town, so we had actually left the town a bit earlier than when the wyverns set off. We came to a clearing that wasn''t that far from the town and waited for the wyverns to appear.

    When the wyvernsnded, there was one person that immediately rushed over to them.

    This person had already looked at the wyverns with eyes that were sparkling when they appeared in the town earlier, but she had been held back from rushing over to have a closer look at them.

    This person was naturally Ariel who hade to thend for the first time.

    "It''s amazing! I never thought that humans would have the ability to tame these proud wyverns! I thought that it would be impossible for humans to do something like this when I heard about it, but now that it''s in front of my eyes...I have no choice but to admit that humans really are amazing!"

    As Ariel said this in an excited voice, everyone looked at her with a faint smile on their faces.

    At the same time, they snuck peeks at me which had strange tones to them.

    I knew why they were acting this way.

    After all, they had acted the same way when they saw the wyverns for the first time.

    As for the one that gave them this shock, it was naturally me, which was why they were looking at me like this.

    I didn''t say a thing as Ariel continued admiring the wyverns, I just walked over to Joan who was waiting for me.

    There was someone else on her back on the way here, but they got off her back the moment that they arrived to make way for me.

    Everyone knew that I was the only one who could truly make her listen, so they always yielded to me.

    Seeing mee over to Joan''s side, Ariel didn''t hesitate toe over as well.

    She looked closely at Joan before saying, "You are really something else!"

    Of course she meant Joan, not me.

    Ariel could tell what was special about Joan, which was why she praised her so much.

    Joan raised a wing to her face, as if she was embarrassed about being praised like this.

    But eventually we all got on her back and headed to the capital.

    "WOOO!!!"

    This cry of joy rang out through the air as we flew high above thend.

    It was a good thing that I had the wyverns fly high up so that no one would notice us, or else everyone would be staring up at the sky as we flew over them with how much of amotion Ariel was raising.

    She looked like a child that was visiting the amusement park for the first time.

    She even had her arms up in the air like she was riding a roller coaster for the first time.

    I shook my head seeing this, but I didn''t stop her since I could understand how she was feeling.

    Though there was a look in Ariel''s eyes that seemed a bit dangerous that concerned me.

    It was the way that she looked at the wyverns that the others rode.

    It looked like she was looking at them with a bit of possessiveness in her eyes.

    It almost looked like she wanted to be a wyvern rider herself.

    Of course, that would never happen since we couldn''t give our wyverns to outsiders.

    Even a royal guest wasn''t an exception.

 Chapter 890: I donâ€™t like him

    Chapter 890: I don¡¯t like him

    ?

    With the wyverns, we made it back to the capital in no time at all.

    It only took a single day of traveling, though we did stop midway to stay in one of the towns for the night.

    It was possible for us to make it back in the middle of the night with the speed of the wyverns, but it wasn''t as if we could make our royal guest travel in the middle of the night like this.

    So we stopped in the town, but that wasn''t the only reason.

    Even a fool was able to see the way that Ariel looked at the wyverns.

    The other reason that we stopped was to give her a chance to ride around on the wyverns a bit longer. Though that did make the people of the town a bit anxious seeing the wyvern circling around the town like this.

    The noble in charge of the town even came to find out what was happening, but there was nothing that he could do in the face of a decree that had my signature on it.

    He could only ept that the wyvern was going to fly around his town and went off to calm the people.

    When we arrived in the capital the next day, there was nomotion at all.

    The people were used to seeing wyvernsing in and out of the city, but it was even less than normal.

    The reason for that was...

    The prime minister was waiting where wended.

    It seemed that he had made sure that everyone was kept away for this specific reason.

    When we arrived, the first thing that he did was...

    "Brother inw, you''ve really caused quite a bit of trouble for me this time." Noah said with a bitter smile on his face.

    Instead of calling me ''your majesty'', he was calling me brother inw.

    It meant that instead of being on official business, he was just here toin to me.

    Well, I was already used to hearing himin to me like this, so I patted him on the shoulder and said, "Well, this is for the good of our kingdom. You should already know the situation, so what do you think that we should do next?"

    Noah slightly knitted his brows when he heard this and he didn''t answer right away.

    In the end, he didn''t answer my question at all as he turned to look at the others getting off the wyverns.

    There was one person in particr that he turned his eyes to.

    Who else would it be but Ariel?

    The way that he looked at her wasn''t as if he was interested in her, but rather he was trying to figure out what he could do with her. The way that he looked at her was almost as if he was looking at a chess piece rather than a human.

    Ariel could feel that something was off as she felt a chill run down her spine from this gaze.

    After looking around a bit, she turned to see Noah who was standing beside the human that she had made a contract with.

    Seeing the way that he looked at her...she suddenly moved out of the way and went behind Ang who was nearby.

    It was only when she went behind Ang that Noah stopped looking at her.

    That was because Ang was ring back at Noah.

    I had seen all of this and shook my head with a faint smile, but I didn''t stop them.

    When it was over, I stepped forward to Ang and Ariel to say, "Come over, I have someone that I want to introduce to you."

    I was naturally talking to Ariel, but it was both of them who came over.

    Ariel, who found that Ang was a good shield, didn''t let her leave her side, so Ang could onlye along with them.

    Once she came over, I gestured at Noah and said, "This is my brother inw and the brother of Ang over here, as well as the former fourth prince and the current prime minister of our kingdom, Noah."

    Noah just looked at her with a smile on his face that waspletely different from the way that he looked at her before.

    He had a handsome face, though not as handsome as mine.

    It was handsome enough that it would be able to fool some girls if he acted this way.

    It was just that...

    "I don''t like him."

    That was the response that he received from Ariel.

    All of us were surprised that she would be this blunt, but then both Ang and I suddenly burst intoughter.

    Only Noah stood there with an awkward and bitter smile on his face.

    He couldn''t take ourughing anymore, so he said, "Sister, brother inw, stopughing and exin things already!"

    The two of usughed even more when we heard this.

    After all, this was the first time that we''ve seen him acting this way before.

    In truth, there were very few people that could make him act this way.

    The only ones that could make him act this way were those that he was unfamiliar with, but he knew that had more power than him. As for this princess from the Merman Empire, she

    certainly was someone with more power than him.

    She was someone that had even more power than me, so she was certainly someone to fear.

    Afterughing for a bit, I finally wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to Ariel to ask, "What don''t you like about him?"

    Ariel narrowed her eyes to look at Noah before saying, "He''s too fake."

    We were all surprised to hear her say this, but I was the only one that really understood what she meant by this.

    In the lore of the game, it was said that mermaids were very sensitive to those that were pure

    or not.

    They disliked those that they felt were dirty and that came in many different forms.

    By the definition of the mermaids, the former fourth prince was someone that was quite dirty since he relied heavily on schemes to achieve his goals. He was someone that didn''t hesitate to throw people away after all.

    So in a sense, she had struck at the essence of who Noah was.

 Chapter 891: I want everything

    Chapter 891: I want everything

    ?

    After a long silence, Noah looked at the two of us and said, "Sister, brother inw, you should at least speak up for me."

    Ang and I looked at each other before I went forward to pat Noah on the shoulder.

    As I patted him on the shoulder, I said, "I''m sorry, there''s nothing that we can do."

    He looked at me with an aggrieved look, but I still said, "You know what kind of person you are. Trust is something that is built up over time, so you have to prove that you''re someone worth trusting. There''s nothing that we can do for you."

    Ang nodded at Noah from behind me.

    That just made him let out a sigh, but he eventually nodded in agreement as well.

    It seemed like he epted the situation for what it was and came to the decision that he would do what he could to reverse it.

    Since that was the case, there was no need to rub it in for Noah anymore.

    Instead, we all entered the carriage that he prepared...or at least we would have if not for the fact that Ariel wouldn''t sit in the same carriage as Noah.

    So in the end, he and I went to another carriage that he prepared while the girls all took that first carriage. It seemed like they wanted me toe with them, but I chose to go with Noah in the end.

    It wasn''t that I wanted tofort him, it was that I had something that I wanted to discuss with him in private.

    That was why I took the carriage alone with Noah.

    As we headed to the castle, I asked him, "So, what''s been happening recently?"

    Noah reverted back to the prime minister and told me everything that happened recently. Well...he didn''t tell me everything since there were just too many things in the first ce and it would have been impossible for him to tell me everything that happened. So he just gave me a summarized version of what happened during the time that I was away.

    It didn''t seem like anything unexpected happened during this time.

    The prime minister was skilled in taking care of the country like a king would, so he could run the country all on his own without my help.

    It didn''t really matter if I was here or not.

    It was just that he didn''t want to take the throne and just wanted to live a life where he supported the throne.

    I always thought that it was a waste of his talents, but he was a man who would rather sacrifice himself for the good of the country.

    I knew that I couldn''t push him or he might take things too far.

    The one thing that I did note was how he pointed out that the increased monster activity was happening in the surrounding countries. I didn''t know if he was nning on helping them or pushing them over the edge, but I knew that he had some ns for the other countries.

    It was just that this wasn''t the time to discuss this.

    When we arrived at the castle, Ariel excitedly ran out of the carriage and came over to me to say, "This country of yours really is amazing! I want to see everything that it has to offer!"

    I was a bit taken aback when I saw her like this, but I could guess from the way that my wives looked at me what had happened.

    They most likely talked to her about the different things that they knew about in this country while passing by the sights of the capital. For a human loving mermaid like Ariel, this was just too much excitement for her, which was why she acted this way.

    She didn''t even seem to care that Noah, the one that she hated, was beside me.

    I shook my head with a faint smile before saying, "Before you get too excited, how about we go in and have a little talk first? There''s something that I want to discuss with you before we talk about what you''ll be doing next."

    Ariel''s eyes were still filled with excitement, but this look faded a bit when she heard what I said.

    She narrowed her eyes to look at Noah as if she didn''t trust him before giving a slow nod.

    Noah shook his head and gave a sigh, but he didn''t say anything in the end as he led us into the castle.

    Instead of heading to my study as per usual, he brought us to one of the dining rooms of the castle.

    This was a formal dining room that was used to greet guests.

    Of course, we didn''t juste here to talk.

    There was also food that was prepared waiting for us.

    We had arrived in the middle of the day, so it was actually time for lunch when we arrived. He had anticipated this and had prepared everything...though it was most likely one of the shadows that had sent this news to the prime minister, which was why it was prepared in such a short period of time.

    I didn''t know what kind of method they used tomunicate with each other, but it seemed like it was much more unlimited than I thought.

    Ariel was happy to try all these human dishes, but she red at the prime minister as if she was wary of him. She was like a child that was wary of an adult who had suddenly offered to

    give them candy.

    This was certainly a first for the prime minister, which made him feel even more awkward.

    In the end, he even had no choice but to sit at the end of the table since Ariel wouldn''t let him anywhere near him.

    However, that didn''t seem to put a damper on her appetite.

    Once she saw me start to eat, she didn''t hesitate to eat as well.

    That was a good sign.

    It meant that she at least trusted me enough to believe that there was nothing wrong with the

    food if I ate it.

    Once the meal was over, I tapped my spoon on my cup to get everyone''s attention before looking at Ariel to say, "Now, let''s have a discussion."

 Chapter 892: Possible engagement

    Chapter 892: Possible engagement

    ?

    There was an awkward silence that followed as Ariel didn''t seem to hear me at all.

    She waspletely focused on the dessert that the maid brought her that she didn''t seem to hear a single thing that was happening around her.

    There was an awkward look that appeared on my face seeing this, but I stopped my wives who were beside her from interrupting her as she ate.

    When she was done, I finally said the same thing again.

    Ariel looked at me with a surprised look this time before slowly giving a nod and saying, "Alright, I have a few things that I want to discuss with you as well."

    I was surprised to hear this, but I gave a slow nod in response.

    When the dishes were cleared and the maids left the room, I didn''t speak right away as I looked at the prime minister.

    Only when I saw him giving a nod did I say, "Let''s talk about the favour that I want to ask of you."

    At this, Ariel finally revealed a serious look. However, at the very least, she gave a nod and didn''t seem like she was against this.

    I took a deep breath and looked like I was arranging my thoughts. It was only when the prime minister looked at me with a look that seemed like he was encouraging me to speak.

    With another deep breath, I said, "There''s a problem in our kingdom that I want your help with."

    Ariel raised a brow hearing this, but she didn''t say anything as she waited for me to exin.

    I took another deep breath before continuing, "We''ve run into a problem with the Tide Empire that we need your help with. As long as you''re willing to help, I''m certain that this problem will easily resolve itself."

    To our surprise, there was a look of difficulty that appeared on Ariel''s face.

    It didn''t seem like she was confused by what she heard, it just seemed like there was something about this that made it difficult for her to act.

    It seemed like it was rted to the Tide Empire...

    Since she wasn''t saying anything, I continued by saying, "Just a while ago, we might have done something that might provoke the Tide Empire''s royal family. We were hoping that with your help, we would be able to smooth this out with the Tide Empire."

    I was even more surprised when I saw Ariel''s face filling with even more difficulty.

    It was clear that there was something that was making this hard for her to ept.

    None of us said a thing since unless she told us what was making this hard for her, we wouldn''t be able to move on.

    After a long silence, Ariel gave a sigh and said, "Since you''re asking me this favour, you should know the rtionship between the Tide Empire and our Merman Empire, right?" We werepletely taken aback when we heard this.

    The others had confused looks on their faces, but I wasn''t confused at all.

    I didn''t tell them about the rtionship between the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire after all, though there were some people that had their suspicions because of the rumours about the Tide Empire.

    So when it was confirmed for them, it was a bit shocking and confusing.

    However, I gave a simple nod as I waited for Ariel to continue her exnation.

    Ariel gave another sigh when she saw this before saying, "In the past period of time, the Tide Empire suddenly started trying to build a deeper rtionship with our Merman Empire. Even though we have maintained a good rtionship because of our shared ancestors, it seems like they want to deepen that rtionship."

    The moment that we heard this, all of us knitted our brows.

    The prime minister and I immediately looked at each other as we could guess what the reason for this was, but we still didn''t say anything as we kept listening to what Ariel had to say.

    She had paused as if she was gathering her thoughts before she continued to say, "They have proposed that an engagement be formed between our royal families."

    "So you ran away?" I suddenly cut her off.

    It wasn''t hard to guess what the situation was with what Ariel said, but that confused me quite a bit.

    After all, this wasn''t the case in the game.

    In the game, after meeting Ariel and progressing along her storyline, the main character would be invited to the Merman Empire. However, there was no sign that the Merman Empire had been in contact with the Tide Empire about a possible engagement in the game.

    The game had been quite in depth with the Merman Empire after all, so there were quite a few quests that were found under the water.

    There wasn''t a single one that involved the engagement between the royal families of the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire...

    That was why I was confused hearing this.

    Ariel was surprised to hear me ask this, but after a moment of hesitation, she gave a slow nod. The way that she looked at me was as if she was asking me to understand her situation. Since she had run away, she was naturally the one that the Tide Empire had proposed to. So if she were to get involved with the Tide Empire to return the favour to us, there was no doubt that she would be caught up in this mess once more. She had just run away, so she didn''t want to be caught up in this again.

    That was why it was difficult for her.

    I could see the others looking at me as if they were asking me what we should do about this,

    but there was only a look of deep thought that was on my face as this happened.

    I understood that Ariel had her own circumstances, but it wasn''t as if we could just give up on this idea since it was an important matter for our kingdom...

    "What if we..." I started to say this before suddenly cutting myself off.

 Chapter 893: Feel sorry for them

    Chapter 893: Feel sorry for them

    ?

    Everyone looked at me with bated breath when they heard this.

    There was even a bit of aggrievement in their eyes at the fact that I was keeping them waiting like this, but it couldn''t be helped since I was still figuring out my thoughts.

    There were things that I didn''t know since they were not in the game, so I had to think them through before saying them out loud.

    Finally, Ariel couldn''t take it anymore and said, "What is it? What is your n?"

    I was pulled out of my thoughts, but I didn''t tell her anything about a n. Instead, I said, "Well, you see, the problem that our kingdom is facing right now is that we might have gotten involved with someone rted to the royal family of the Tide Empire."

    I went on to exin the situation with Viper and what he had imed about the Tide Empire. But while I was still exining this, Ariel suddenly said, "What does that have to do with my situation?"

    I looked at her with a faint smile before saying, "Of course it''s all rted."

    Ariel had a very confused look when she heard this, but she wasn''t the only one that looked this way. The others that were at the table all seemed to have some degree of confusion on their faces, that was except for two people.

    They were Rose and Noah.

    The two of them had their brows knitted as if they were lost in deep thought while listening to what I had to say.

    In the end, it was Noah who spoke first as he said in a hesitant voice, "You want to get Princess Ariel involved in this matter?"

    I revealed another faint smile when I heard him say this before turning to give him a nod. Noah and Rose deeply knitted their brows when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything in response.

    Everyone looked even more confused when they heard this, but Ang didn''t just sit still this time.

    After all, the person who was speaking had changed, so there was no need for her to hold back. Pushing her chair back and standing up, she walked over to Noah and raised her fist. Noah didn''t seem to notice this at first, but it was hard to miss when she brought that fist right up in front of his face.

    There was a bitter look on Noah''s face when he saw this as he said, "Big sister, what are you doing?"

    Ang just said with a sweet smile, "Tell me what''s going on, or you''re going to get it." The bitterness grew on Noah''s face and he looked over at me as if he was looking for help, but I just tactfully chose to turn away and pretend I didn''t see a thing.

    There was a look that seemed like he felt betrayed by this, but once again I pretended like I didn''t see a thing.

    With a sigh, Noah said, "It''s not a concrete n, but if there was something that happened between Viper and Princess Ariel, what do you think would happen?"

    Ang raised a brow like she was confused by this before bringing his fist forward like she was threatening him to say, "Make it more clear."

    Noah shook his head with a bitter smile before continuing with a sigh, "If Viper is rted to the Tide Empire''s royal family and he were to offend Princess Ariel who is the princess of the Merman Empire, do you think that there would still be any further talks of engagement?"

    Slow looks of realization appeared on their faces when they heard this.

    But at the same time, the others turned to look at Ariel with looks of worry.

    After all, this was no doubt a n that would cause damage to the Merman Empire.

    First, the rtionship between the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire would be destroyed because of this incident.

    With such arge incident involving the royal families of both empires, there was no doubt that there would be arge tension formed between them.

    Second, this would surely hurt the rtionship between Ariel and her parents since she would be going against her parents like this.

    And finally...there might be damage between rtions between humans and mermaids because of this.

    Since this was an incident between Ariel, the mermaid princess and the Tide Empire, which was now a human empire, there was no doubt that human and mermaid rtionship would degrade because of this.

    In the future, it would be harder for mermaids to have any rtions with the humans onnd because of this matter.

    So everyone was worried that Ariel would reject this.

    Though there wouldn''t be a single person that would me her if she did reject this n.

    But to everyone''s surprise...

    "This is a great n!"

    No one expected this toe from Ariel''s mouth.

    She could see everyone looking at her, so she said with a wide smile on her face, "It isn''t as if

    this will harm the Merman Empire that much, you''re looking down on the Merman Empire a bit too much if you think that this will be enough to hurt us."

    The way that she said this was as if she was fully confident in the power of the Merman

    Empire, but...

    "This will teach my mom and dad to go behind my back like this."

    It seemed that there was a vengeful side to Ariel as well.

    It seemed that she was holding a grudge against her parents, which was why she was in favour

    of this n.

    In the end, we still decided to go with this n for now.

    It seemed like the easiest way to handle the Tide Empire, so it was best to just go with this

    n.

    The only thing that I could say as I listened to Noah and Rose cementing the n was...

    "I really can''t help feeling sorry for them."

 Chapter 894: Powerful legs (1)

    Chapter 894: Powerful legs (1)

    ?

    The next morning, there were dark bags that were under my eyes.

    That was because I barely slept the night before.

    Since I had been away for so long, I wasn''t allowed to go to sleep by my wives...

    They had dragged me into our bedroom without care for our guest who they just left with the prime minister to take care of and then kept me in bed all night.

    With seven of them, it really was hard to have enough energy to satisfy them all, but I did my best.

    But since it had been a while since we had done it, it took much more energy than usual to satisfy them all.

    They were insatiable...

    When morning came, they were all gone since they all had things to take care of since they were in positions that came with responsibilities. Since we were back in the castle, there was no need for them to spend all day with me since they would know where I was at night.

    That gave me some alone time with Ariel when I went for breakfast.

    As I sat down, I could see her ring at me.

    "Thanks for abandoning me with that fake manst night." There was a resentful tone in her voice as she said this.

    There was a bitter smile that crept onto my face when I heard this.

    It was certainly the first time that I heard someone address the prime minister as such, so it was definitely hearing her call him this.

    However, I at least had to speak up for him, "Just give him some time, you''ll get use to him." "Hmph." Ariel said while turning her head to the side.

    I didn''t say anything else about this and instead changed the topic by asking, "What do you want to do today? There will still be some time before we finish investigating Viper''s background, so we won''t be able to move just yet."

    The problem with Viper was that we weren''t certain that he was rted to the Tide Empire''s royal family.

    We had been following up on some leads about him, but we hadn''t found anything concrete that connected him to the Tide Empire''s royal family yet. However, we also hadn''t found anything that disproved this, so we had no choice but to keep searching.

    Only when we found our proof would we be able to do anything, so there was still some time before we put the n we hade up with in action.

    That meant that there was some time before we needed Ariel''s help.

    As such, there wasn''t much for Ariel to do during this time.

    Though it didn''t seem like we needed to worry about her since she was someone who was just obsessed with studying humans.

    We had no idea why she was so obsessed with humans, but it seemed like she wanted to learn everything about them.

    But today it was...

    "I want to test out my new legs." Ariel said in response to my question.

    I was surprised since I didn''t expect this answer, but I also couldn''t help looking at her legs. She was wearing a dress that had a slit in it, so I was able to see the smooth white skin of her legs. It was like a fresh field of snow that had been untouched with how white and smooth it was.

    Since mermaids spent most of the time under the water, that meant that they didn''t get as much sun as humans.

    As such, their skin was much lighterpared to human skin.

    As for why she was wearing that dress with the slit...well, she had gotten into the habit of keeping her legs together like they were a tail since that was what she was used to. As such, she couldn''t wear anything restrictive and opted for this dress with the slit in it.

    Ariel revealed a faint smile when she saw me looking at her before teasing, "Do you want a closer look?"

    I quickly shook my head and changed the topic by asking, "How are you nning to test them?"

    "Well, Cecilia told me about the training of the knights. I figured that I would go and spar with them to see how these new legs hold up." Ariel said in a confident voice.

    I was once again surprised by this answer since I never thought that she would be this violent.

    However, it seemed that this mermaid princess was quite the tomboy...

    Well, I already knew that since that was the personality that she had in the game.

    I just didn''t expect it to be this intense though.

    In the end, I chose to go with Ariel to watch over the training since there wasn''t much for me to do in the first ce.

    There might be a few documents for me to go over, but the prime minister would bring them over when he needed me. Before that time came, I had some time to spare to watch her spar with the knights.

    When we arrived, the knights immediately stopped what they were doing and saluted me. The ones that came forward as the representatives of the knights were a muscr middle aged man and a curvy purple haired girl that had her hair in a ponytail. They were the leader and vice leader of the royal guards respectively.

    The leader was named Klein and the vice leader was named Elizabeth.

    Both of them saluted me before looking at Ariel with one brow raised.

    Ariel was someone who was only known by those that needed to know who she was, so it wasn''t strange that these two didn''t recognize her. We would introduce her to the people in the castleter, but for now...it was better to keep her a secret since there was no telling who would leak her identity.

    I gave a nod in response to the two of them before saying to Klein, "Can you send out one of your female knights to spar with this guest of ours?"

 Chapter 895: Powerful legs (2)

    Chapter 895: Powerful legs (2)

    ?

    Klein looked even more confused when he heard this before looking over at Ariel with one brow raised.

    The way that he looked at her was almost as if he was scoping her out.

    When he finished, he turned back to me to say, "Your majesty, are you sure about this?"

    I didn''t me him for feeling this way since it didn''t seem to me that Ariel was a warrior either. She was quite slenderpared to the female knights and even if she did have some muscle, it wasn''t as if she looked strong enough to be a match for the female knights.

    I didn''t think that she was strong enough to face the female knights either, but this was what Ariel wanted.

    Since she was the royal guest, I had no choice but to go along with it.

    However, I had also made sure toe up with a special method of sparring so that no one would be hurt because of it.

    I gave a simple nod to Klein and said, "It''s fine, just call any of your knights over."

    Klein looked at me with one brow raised as if he was still doubtful of this, but in the end he still called out to one of the knights that was looking over here.

    "Erina,e over here."

    The one called Erina was a pink haired knight with flowing long hair and a single side braid hanging to the left of her head. She had a curvy body that gave her a perfect hourss and her chest...might even give Cecilia a run for her money.

    However, the moment that I saw her, I couldn''t help feeling that she looked very simr...

    Almost as if I had seen her somewhere before...

    It wasn''t the game that I remembered her from, but rather it seemed like I had seen her in some kind of doujin before.

    I remembered that it had something to do with orcs...

    While I was lost in a daze looking at her, Erina calmly walked over and saluted Klein before saying, "Captain, do you need something?"

    Klein gave a nod before pointing at Ariel and saying, "His majesty wants you to spar with this guest."

    Erina slightly knitted her brows when she heard this and there seemed to be a trace of unwillingness that formed in her eyes. But she didn''t reject thismand and just simply said, "Yes, captain."

    It was clear that she didn''t feel like sparring against Ariel would be good training, she even felt like it would be a waste of her time. However, she was a royal guard and there was no way for her to disobey a direct order.

    So she just went over to the center of the training field where there was an arena waiting and then pulled out her sword to point at Ariel.

    The way that she stood there, it was almost as if she was calling Ariel toe to her.

    Klein gave a cough when he saw the dazed way that I was looking at Erina and said, "Your majesty, should we go over and watch?"

    I snapped out of my daze when he directly addressed me, but I shook my head and said, "No, no, we''re not doing that kind of sparring."

    "Huh?" Everyone looked at me with a surprised and confused look when they heard this.

    What else could sparring mean other than going on stage and fighting each other?

    I could see the way that everyone looked at me, but I just shook my head and gave a sigh before going over to the side to pick up one of the swords.

    With that sword in hand, I started to draw a circle in the sand.

    I had the people around me move back as I drew this circle.

    Once the circle was done, I went to the center and drew two lines there.

    Looking at what I drew, I gave a satisfied nod before turning to Erina and Ariel to say, "Come over here."

    Both of them had confused looks on their faces when they came over and they didn''t know where to stand since they didn''t know what I wanted from them.

    I was about to exin it, but then I realized that it would be better if I just directly demonstrated what I wanted them to do to them. So I looked at Klein and waved my hand at him before saying, "Captain, can youe over and help me demonstrate?"

    Klein was surprised to hear me calling for him, but he still came over to see what I was up to. Once he came over, I had him stand on one of the lines while I stood on the other.

    Seeing this, he couldn''t help asking, "Your majesty, this is?"

    "We''re going to try and push each other out of the ring without any weapons. We''ll be depending purely on our strength to push each other out."

    "Huh?" Klein had a confused look after hearing this exnation, but I didn''t bother exining anymore.

    In cases like this, it was better to just give a demonstration rather than trying to exin.

    So once the two of us were in position, I said, "Begin!"

    Klein was still confused, but his reactions were still there. These were reactions that had been built over years of being in the royal guards and years of being on active duty, so it wasn''t something that would betray him.

    There was only a second of hesitation before he came at me with his hands outstretched.

    It was just too bad that I knew more tricks than he did.

    This new body of mine was a bit short, so there was a size difference between us.

    Before he could grab me, I suddenly dived forward under him.

    Then before Klein could react, I suddenly grabbed his legs and pulled them up.

    With the force that he charged forward with and the force that I added, his legs came right off the ground and he was sent flying past me.

 Chapter 896: Powerful legs (3)

    Chapter 896: Powerful legs (3)

    ?

    When it was all over and the dust settled, Klein found that he had flown outside of the ring.

    He hadnded face first on the ground, so it made him look quite awkward, but he wasn''t in the mood to care about that.

    The look on Klein''s face was almost as if he was trying to figure out what just happened.

    What happened was that I had used his own force against him.

    I knew that when it came to a sumo match, the most important thing was keeping one''s center of bnce. The most important part of that was making sure to keep one''s legs rooted to the ground.

    So the key was having strong legs.

    Klein''s mistake was charging forward with all his might and offsetting his center of bnce, which made it easy for me to use his own power against him.

    Just with a little bit of strength, I was able to use his own strength to send him flying like this. Since he had fallen outside of the ring, I let out a sigh of relief and rxed, but it didn''t seem like he was done yet.

    When he came back to his senses, Klein immediately came back into the ring and said, "Your majesty, it''s not over yet! You caught me off guard, that was it! I want to go again!"

    It seemed like he was quite the sore loser, but that wasn''t the point right now.

    With an awkward smile, I raised my hand to stop him as I said, "That''s not the point here, we were just giving a demonstration of how it works."

    Though I said this, it didn''t seem like he wanted to stop.

    Eventually, he did stop asking for a rematch since everyone was watching, but I could tell that he wanted another chance with the way that he looked at me.

    With a cough to calm myself down, I turned back to Ariel and Erina to say, "As you can see, this is a match where you try to push your opponents out of the ring. You''re not allowed to punch or hit, it''s just a match of strength to see who can push one''s opponent out of the ring."

    After a pause, I added, "Oh, right, you''re allowed to p since that''s considered pushing, so feel free to do that."

    It didn''t seem like there was anything else that I was missing when it came to the rules, so I had Ariel and Erinae over.

    As they did, I leaned in closer to Ariel to whisper something.

    "The key to winning is all about one''s legs. The stronger one''s legs are, the better that they can keep their center of bnce and avoid being pushed out of the ring. So this should be a good test of your legs."

    Ariel looked at me with a surprised look before suddenly revealing a smile.

    I had seen the confused look that she had when I exined the rules.

    No, even before that, I had seen the confused look that was on her face when she heard that I wanted her to spar with this knight.

    This was supposed to be a test of her leg strength, not a sparring session.

    But since she knew that this was indeed a test of leg strength, she was filled with confidence. Even though she was facing one of the royal guards, it didn''t seem like she was worried at all.

    As they went over to the lines like Klein and I had been standing at, Klein came over and said, "This really is an interesting method of sparring. I think that we might be able to implement it into our training as part of our close rangebat training."

    It seemed that he had forgotten about his loss against me and he was thinking about how effective this could be as a training method.

    As expected of the captain of the royal guards.

    Or that was what I wanted to think of him...

    "Your majesty, you must join our training session again once we''ve properly implemented this sparring method." The way that Klein looked at me when he said this made it very clear that he had ulterior motives.

    It wasn''t hard to guess what he was thinking.

    He wanted a chance to take revenge for that loss.

    Well, it wasn''t as if this was a bad thing for me since it would mean that I would be able to get closer to the royal guards in the future.

    Loyalty wasn''t something that one should just expect, it was something that had to be earned.

    Only by getting closer to the royal guards would I be able to earn their loyalty.

    Once Ariel and Erina were in position, the two of them suddenly revealed different expressions.

    It seemed like both of them were getting into this.

    Both of them looked like they were going to take this very seriously as they just stared into each other''s eyes.

    The way that they stared at each other was almost as if they were scoping each other out.

    It was like they were rivals who were keeping track of each other''s every movement. Though it did look weird for those that were watching them stand there in silence like this. After a long silence, Erina was the first one to move.

    She had seen many different openings that she could exploit, but she had been carefully thinking of her moves since she didn''t want a repeat of what happened with Klein.

    In her heart, she had to thank the captain for taking the leap for her so she knew what mistakes not to make.

    So instead of charging forward with all her might, Erina lowered her body before moving forward.

    She made sure to keep her feet firmly nted on the ground while charging forward to push Ariel out of the ring.

    Ariel saw this and didn''t hesitate to lower her body just like Erina did to match her pushing

    motion.

    Now it seemed like it was a contest of who was stronger.

 Chapter 897: Powerful legs (4)

    Chapter 897: Powerful legs (4)

    ?

    No matter how one looked at it, it seemed like Erina would be the one winning this sh.

    After all, whenparing the physique of the two, it was clear which one of them was stronger than the other.

    But the strange thing was...

    "Huh?" Erina was shocked when she was suddenly stopped in her tracks.

    She looked down at the figure that was under her with a shocked look as she couldn''t understand what had just happened.

    She had certainly used all of her strength, but she found that she wasn''t able to move the smaller figure beneath her. It was almost as if she was pushing up against a rock with how firm this smaller figure was.

    Gritting her teeth, Erina gathered all her strength and tried to push Ariel again, but she found that it waspletely useless.

    It was as if all of her strength was going into a bottomless pit as she tried to push Ariel back.

    No matter how she pushed, Ariel just wouldn''t budge an inch.

    In short, it was like she was pushing up against a steel wall.

    "What''s going on here?" Erina said in a shocked voice.

    But that was her mistake as she felt herself being pushed back all of sudden.

    She had to stop herself midway and firmly nt her feet on the ground in an attempt to stop herself from being pushed back. But even though she had her feet firmly nted, it felt like she was slipping.

    Just like this, Ariel was able to push Erina back bit by bit in front of everyone''s shocked expressions.

    Erina had her facepletely twisted with effort as if she was trying her best to remain in the ring, but she just couldn''t push Ariel back at all. With how hard she was trying, it was almost as if she was about to burst a vessel on her forehead.

    It really seemed like something bad was about to happen with how much strength she was trying to use.

    But on the other side, it almost seemed easy for Ariel as she slowly pushed Erina back. Well, easy was an overstatement since it still seemed like she was using quite a bit of strength, but she was able to push her back.

    Just like this, Erina went all the way to the edge of the ring.

    Erina saw this as well even though she was using all her strength to push Ariel back.

    She knew that if she didn''t do something, then she would lose.

    So she took this chance to go all out.

    Taking a deep breath, Erina suddenly let go of Ariel and then reached down to grab her as if she wanted to flip her over her head. It seemed like she was trying to use a bridge to catch Ariel off guard.

    But Ariel had already stopped herself as soon as Erina let go of her hands and she was ready to receive Erina''s diving attack.

    In one smooth move, she did the same thing as me where she used Erina''s strength against her and flipped her out of the ring.

    When it was over, Erina just looked up at the sky above her in a daze as she didn''t understand what happened just now.

    Ariel let out a sigh of relief before revealing a big smile.

    As for the crowd...there was only silence and shock that followed.

    There wasn''t a single person that seemed like they had expected this result.

    No, wait, actually I expected this so I was the only one that didn''t seem surprised by the ending.

    As for why I wasn''t surprised, it was because I already knew why she won.

    It was all because of the leg strength that she had.

    I wasn''t certain if this would be the case, but I already guessed why she wanted to test her legs.

    Mermaids had powerful tails since that was the only way that they could move through the ocean. It was the thing that they exercised on a daily basis since it was the part of them that they depended on the most.

    Though my only experience with this was seeing them fight with their tails.

    A single tail p from a mermaid was enough to shatter rocks underwater, so there was no need to guess what would happen above thend.

    Now that Ariel had her tail turned into human legs, I didn''t believe that she would lose all the muscle that was in her tail. I believed that the muscle of her tail would be turned into muscles for her new human leg.

    Which was how she was able to stabilize herself like this.

    That was why no matter how Erina pushed, she wasn''t able to push Ariel back at all.

    When Erina came back to her senses, she looked up at Ariel and said, "How did you do it? How are you so strong?"

    Everyone looked at Ariel as well as if they were waiting for her answer.

    Ariel just raised one leg and said, "It''s because I have powerful legs."

    "Huh?" Erina was confused at first, but then she quickly turned to look at me.

    As for the male knights, there was another reason why they were suddenly dazed.

    After all, Ariel was wearing a dress with a slit on the side, so if she raised her leg like this... Well, it did create a beautiful scene.

    This tomboy princess really was something else, she didn''t think about how she was acting at

    all.

    Though thinking about it, it couldn''t be med on the fact that she was a tomboy alone.

    It also had to be med on the fact that she was a mermaid, so it wasn''t as if she was used to having legs in the first ce.

    I gave a cough to get her attention before pointing down, which caused Ariel to reveal an embarrassed look.

    Even if she was a tomboy, she at least had the delicacy of a girl.

    Though she did re at the knights who had been staring at her in a daze.

    After reminding her of this, I exined to Erina why she lost.

 Chapter 898: Powerful legs (5)

    Chapter 898: Powerful legs (5)

    ?

    "Like she said, it''s because she has powerful legs. With strong legs, one can stabilize one''s center of bnce better and have a firmer foundation. With those powerful legs, she was able to stop herself from being pushed back."

    I went on to exin a few more things from my past life, things that didn''t exist in this world.

    Scientific terms such as gravity and such.

    However, Erina cut me off by saying, "I know that center of bnce is important, I''ve already learned that from the captain''s loss."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on Klein''s face when he heard this.

    He didn''t expect this kind of coteral damage after all.

    Then she said, "I was already keeping myself nted, but she was still able to push me back."

    The way that she said this and the look on her face was almost as if she was implying something.

    This was all aimed at me, so it seemed like she was suspecting me of some kind of cheating.

    Klein seemed to back this as he said, "Right, did you give her some kind of advice before the match?"

    Though he said this in a casual voice, it was clear that he was still sour about his loss earlier.

    But with the way that the facts were, it wasn''t as if he could change the result just byining alone.

    The fact that he had lost was a fact.

    "No, it''s just because her legs are stronger than yours." I didn''t beat around the bush at all and directly said this.

    All of them were stunned by how blunt I was being.

    The one that was the most shocked and a bit offended was Erina.

    She looked at me with a strange look before suddenlying forward.

    It wasn''t as if she came forward to harm me, but...

    She suddenly pulled up the side of her pants to reveal her fair white skin which caught me off guard, but that wasn''t all she did. She suddenly pped the side of her leg which was quite muscr and said, "How can you say that her legs are stronger than mine? Do you not see the definition on these beauties?"

    Eh?

    Was this the kind of personality that she had?

    She seemed like the cool and aloof type, I never thought that she would have this side to her.

    The other royal guards were shaking their heads as if they had already expected this.

    It seemed like they were all aware of this side of her.

    Shaking my head, I said, "Well, take a look for yourself then."

    At that, Ariel came forward and showed off her leg. Though this time, it seemed that she was more aware of her own situation and didn''t make things too awkward.

    She just raised her leg enough to show it off without showing off too much of what was under her dress.

    Erina raised a brow when she was shown this, but she still moved forward to touch Ariel''s leg. The way that she touched it was different from simply poking at it.

    Those that knew how to train their muscles also knew how to appreciate it unlike normal people. So she didn''t just poke it randomly like a normal person in this situation would have done.

    Instead, she touched certain parts of Ariel''s leg with a serious look on her face.

    The way that she did this was almost as if she was some kind of connoisseur that was carefully inspecting something.

    As she did, the expression on Erina''s face changed.

    It was a look of surprise at first, but soon there was also a look of admiration that was also on her face.

    It was the admiration that one would have for someone that shared their hobbies.

    Erina looked up at Ariel and Ariel just gave a simple nod before raising her hand out towards Erina.

    The two of them exchanged a look before Erina took Ariel''s hand and she stood up with Ariel''s help.

    The two of them didn''t let go of each other''s hands and just kept looking at each other before suddenly...giving each other a handshake.

    It wasn''t a normal handshake, but rather that special kind of manly handshake.

    It was a meme in my past life, but now seeing two beautiful girls doing something like this

    was really a strange feeling. It really didn''t fit them to do something like this...

    But then again, it wasn''t as if I couldn''t understand why they were like this.

    It seemed that these muscle brains were morepatible with each other than I thought.

    Once they had finished with their handshake, Erina asked Ariel, "How did you get this kind of definition with your legs?"

    Ariel didn''t hesitate to say, "Swimming. I''ve been swimming every day since I was born." "Eh? Since you were born?" Erina was a bit surprised by this, but then she just figured that it must be a kind of expression before saying, "So swimming is a big part of your regimen..."

    After thinking about it, she turned to Klein to say, "Captain, should we implement it into our training regimen as well?"

    Klein had been stroking his chin and looked to be in deep thought the entire time.

    When he was called out like this, he said, "That does seem like a good idea. This recent incident has taught us that we need to be more aware of water training as well."

    There was a faint smile that appeared on my lips when I heard this since I had brought the cause of the recent incident with me and they just didn''t know that.

    Klein then turned to me to ask, "Your majesty, I''ll have to ask you to approve of this request to add swimming to our training regimen."

    I was about to nod in agreement when I realized that something was off.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him before saying, "Why do you need me to approve this?"

 Chapter 899: Spread like hotcakes

    Chapter 899: Spread like hotcakes

    ?

    There was an awkward smile that appeared on Klein''s face when he heard this question.

    He just looked at me with that awkward look on his face as if he was hoping that I would turn away, but I just calmly looked right into his eyes as I waited for an answer.

    In the end, Klein said with a sigh, "Your majesty, the problem is that we don''t have a ce to train in swimming. The river is too far away for a training session unless it''s a full day session and there are no pools in the castle training grounds, so..."

    His voice trailed off a bit as the awkwardness increased on his face.

    But in the end, he still said, "If your majesty approves of this, then we would be able to build a pool and implement this as part of our training regimen."

    Right as soon as his voice fell, he bowed his head and said, "Your majesty, please approve of this request on behalf of the royal guards. We promise that this will make us much stronger in the end."

    The others had heard this and they all quickly bowed their heads to me as if they were seriously making this request.

    It was just that...I wasn''t fooled at all by them.

    I could already guess why Klein had made this request of me.

    He was trying to use me to get this pool on their behalf, but I wasn''t that easy to trick.

    I just shook my head and said, "If you want to implement this as part of your regimen, you should submit a proper request to your superiors. Once they''ve taken a look at your request, I''m sure that they will approve of it."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on Klein''s face when he heard this before he tried to say something else.

    It was just that I cut him off by raising my hand and saying, "This is something that I don''t have the authority to approve."

    Klein looked at me with his chin dropped, but I just stuck my tongue out at him.

    I wasn''t going to let him get me in trouble like this. If he wanted the pool, then he would have to get it himself without relying on me.

    After all, the one that was in charge of the treasury and the finances of the castle was Haley.

    If I were to approve of this pool purchase, there was no doubt that I would be in trouble.

    I would rather lose favorability with the royal guards than let myself get in trouble with my wife for them.

    Klein had no choice but to ept this in the end, but it seemed that they were happy about something else.

    The other royal guards had already drawn their own sumo rings and were already pushing against each other. Even Klein went to join them after realizing that there was nothing to gain from trying to trick me.

    It seemed that all of them had been interested in the sumopetition, it was just that they had been holding back the entire time.

    But now that everything had been settled, there was no need for them to hold back anymore.

    So they all started organizing their own sumo contest.

    Even Klein was having fun ying sumo with the others.

    Ariel went off with Erina and they organized a group of female knights that they started sumo matches with.

    Since the one that I was apanying was just having fun, there was no need for me to hold back at all.

    I also went off to y sumo with Klein and the others.

    ...

    The next morning at breakfast.

    "I''ve heard that there was something strange spreading through the city." Ang suddenly brought up this topic.

    We all looked at her with curious looks, waiting for her to tell us what it was.

    She didn''t exin as she asked the maid for a pen and a piece of paper.

    Once the maid came back with what she asked for, she took them from her hands and started drawing something on the piece of paper.

    Only when she was done did she turn the paper around for us to see.

    The moment that I saw this, I couldn''t help being surprised by what she drew.

    That was because on this piece of paper was something familiar to me.

    It was the sumo ring that I had shown the royal guards yesterday.

    I didn''t expect Ang to suddenly draw something like this.

    Neither did Ariel who pointed at it and said, "Ah, isn''t that the sumo ring?"

    Ang was surprised by this outburst and looked at Ariel with one raised brow before asking, "How do you know what this is?"

    Ariel pointed at me and said, "Well, he''s the one that showed it to the royal guards

    yesterday."

    The others all looked at me in an instant when they heard what Ariel said.

    Seeing this, I had no choice but to exin what happened yesterday.

    "So it was like this." Ang said with a thoughtful look on her face.

    I was confused by this, so I asked, "What happened?"

    Ang snapped out of her thoughts hearing this and said with a smile, "It''s not anything bad. It''s just that there was this new trend that was spreading through the city, so I wanted to know where it came from just in case."

    "Spreading through the city? Sumo is spreading through the city?" I asked in a confused voice.

    Ang gave a nod before saying, "It''s the newest craze and it''s spreading quickly since it doesn''t actually take anything to y. All the kids in the city are ying sumo now."

    With a sigh, she said, "I was worried that it might be a plot from somewhere..."

    She kept talking about her worries, but I really didn''t hear anything.

    There was a bitter feeling inside of me as I thought that this world really was starved for entertainment if even sumo was spreading this quickly.

    As for how, I could already guess.

    The royal guards had family in the capital, so they must have shown it to their rtives or

    their kids, which was how it quickly spread.

    I just never expected it to spread this fast.

 Chapter 900: Should we help?

    Chapter 900: Should we help?

    ?

    The matter with Ariel wasn''t one that could be settled that quickly since we still had to do our investigation on Viper''s ims.

    So before then, there was nothing for Ariel to do other than y around in the castle.

    From time to time, she would go to the capital and walk around observing human culture. However, it seemed that the thing that she was most interested in now was sumo with the royal guards.

    Perhaps it was because she found friends that shared the same hobby as her.

    It turned out that it wasn''t only Erina alone who was a muscle brain.

    It turned out that many of the female royal guards were the same as her.

    They all had the hobby of bodybuilding, so it was easy for them to be friends with Ariel just as Erina had done.

    Still, that meant that at least she wouldn''t be bored in the castle.

    This meant that she would at least be upied while she was waiting for us to finish our part.

    But that didn''t mean that I was as free as her.

    For the first few days, I was allowed to go around with Ariel since she was a royal guest and it was my duty to show her around.

    But after those first few days, I was dragged back into the office by the prime minister.

    It seemed that there was some work that he wanted me to do.

    Or it was better to say that there was some work that he wanted to toss to me instead of doing it himself. Though the way that he said it was as if it was important work that was for me.

    That was why we were in my office holding a meeting this day.

    "This is what we have to decide on today." The prime minister said as he ced a document on the desk in front of me.

    I looked down at it before raising a brow to look back at him.

    That was because what was written on the document was "increased monster activity issues". But that should have been something that I had already solved.

    That was the whole reason I had gone to those different ces across our country in the first ce. That was the whole reason I had collected all those crystals and captured all those dark elves.

    So for the prime minister to bring me a report like this...

    The prime minister could see the way that I was looking at him and to my surprise, he suddenly revealed a faint smile.

    Pointing at the document, he said with the same smile, "Just read it and you''ll understand."

    I looked even more confused hearing this, but since he was so confident...

    I opened up the document and started reading.

    The more that I read, the more that my brows knitted.

    It turned out that this was a report on increased monster activity, but it wasn''t one that was about the increased monster activity in our own territory. This was a report on the increased monster activity in the surrounding kingdoms.

    When I was finished reading, I once again looked at the prime minister with a confused look.

    After all, the increased monster activity in those kingdoms shouldn''t be a problem for us. This was something that was happening in the territory of other kingdoms, so they should be the ones to deal with it themselves.

    It wasn''t as if those other kingdoms around us had a good rtionship with us.

    They had once dered war on us, so it wasn''t as if we had any good feelings towards them. But here was the prime minister showing me this which meant that he wanted something. The prime minister could see the way that I looked at him, so he said, "I want to discuss whether we should send troops to help them deal with this problem."

    This time, I couldn''t hold myself back as I said, "Why should we help them in the first ce? There''s nothing for us to gain from that."

    The prime minister just calmly said, "If we don''t deal with this, there''s the chance that the monsters from these kingdoms wille to our kingdom."

    "There''s a reason why we have border guards. Not to mention, if ites to that, that is when we should help them. Helping them at that point will mean that they have reached a point where they can''t take care of the problem themselves and it will be easy for us to destroy their kingdom, taking them over."

    I looked at the prime minister with a confused look.

    It wasn''t as if he wouldn''t be able to figure this out, so it was even more strange why he wanted to help them.

    I just couldn''t figure out what he was thinking.

    After a moment of silence, the prime minister suddenly said, "Well, it isn''t as if there isn''t anything for us to gain from this."

    The way that he was being mysterious really annoyed me, so I said, "Just tell me what it is that you''re nning already."

    The prime minister didn''t answer this as he said, "Is it that hard to believe that I wouldn''t help out of the goodness of my heart?"

    "When hell freezes over." There was no hesitation in my voice as I said this.

    The prime minister revealed a hurt look as he said, "You really have that little faith in me?"

    Once again, I gave a nod without any hesitation.

    There was no need for me to be polite with the prime minister since we were inws.

    The prime minister just shook his head with a sad look and gave a sigh.

    I had enough, so I stood up as if I was nning to leave.

    It was only when I did this that the prime minister put an envelope on the table.

    I pointed at it and asked, "This is?"

    The prime minister just said with a smile, "You''ll know when you read it."

 Chapter 901: Secret letter

    Chapter 901: Secret letter

    ?

    When I opened it, I found that there was a letter inside.

    As for who this letter came from...

    It was the second prince of the Midra Kingdom.

    The moment that I read that it was from the second prince of the Midra Kingdom, I looked up at the prime minister with narrowed eyes.

    However, he just gestured for me to keep reading the letter.

    The letter itself didn''t seem that strange since it was nothing more than a simple request from the second prince for us to aid the Midra Kingdom in this crisis. It didn''t seem like anything more than a simple request from the second prince.

    It was just that I knew that the prime minister wouldn''t show this to me if it was a simple request like this.

    There had to be another reason why the prime minister was showing me this letter in the first ce.

    So I put the letter down and said with a sigh, "Stop being mysterious and tell me already." The prime minister pointed at the letter with a smile and said, "Read the first letter of every line and you''ll see the message."

    I raised a brow hearing this, but I looked back down at the letter.

    It was strange that this was such a long letter since it was just a letter asking for help, but I realized that there was a reason why the letter was so long. It wasn''t just because the second prince was writing with courtesy as expected of nobles.

    There was a hidden message that was a part of the letter.

    "Now is the time for action, pleasee."

    That was the message that was hidden in the letter.

    If one didn''t know what he was talking about, then they wouldn''t know what was the point of this hidden message.

    However, both the prime minister and I knew what he was referring to since there was the deal that I had made with the second prince.

    When the time was right, we would take the Midra Kingdom for ourselves with the second prince as our conspirator. However, it didn''t seem like the time was right yet.

    It hadn''t been long since we had made that deal with the second prince, so it didn''t seem like it was enough time for him to prepare what we needed him to prepare.

    This felt more like a trap than an opportunity.

    Once I saw the hidden message, I took a deep breath before looking back up at the prime minister with narrowed eyes to say, "Do you really trust this? Don''t you think that this is suspicious?"

    The prime minister just calmly said, "There''s nothing to lose from this in the first ce. Even if he fails, then there''s nothing that can tie this back to us and there will be no losses on our side. So regardless of what happens, there''s no need for us to worry."

    I was surprised to hear this, but not as surprised as I was by his next words.

    "I''ll need you to take a trip down to the Midra Kingdom to handle this matter." The prime minister said this as if it was a natural thing.

    I looked at him with my eyes wide open since I never expected him to say something like this.

    There was even a part of me that wondered if this wasn''t the real prime minister since he had never said anything like this before.

    The prime minister didn''t mind as he continued by saying, "I''ve already taken care of all the arrangements. You''ll be heading out in three days with the rest of the wyvern riders and you''ll be taking Joan with you."

    I just kept staring at him with my eyes wide open since I waspletely shocked by these words.

    No matter how I looked at it, it didn''t seem like something that the real prime minister would say.

    There was now a part of me that was wondering if he had betrayed me.

    There was a part of me that was wondering if he wanted me out of the way so he could take over the country.

    But that part of me didn''t remain for long since the prime minister said, "We need to take care of this before the matter with the Tide Empire. I hope that you will be able to take care of this quickly and settle it before anything else happens."

    The way that he said this was as if he had some kind of n.

    Thinking about it, I realized what he was trying to do.

    The real goal that he wanted to aplish was to take back the wyverns that we had given to the Midra Kingdom.

    That was a gamble that we had taken by giving them to the Midra Kingdom in the first ce.

    Even ten wyverns were considered an important resource, so it wasn''t as if we could leave them outside our country. Mainly because there was no telling what the other kingdoms would do to these wyverns.

    There was no doubt that they would target the wyverns while we were upied with the Tide

    Empire.

    So this was all to tie up loose ends before having to deal with the real enemy.

    Though only someone like the prime minister could consider dealing with the Midra Kingdom as tying up loose ends.

    Well, regardless of what happened, he was sending me and Joan to collect the wyverns. Whether they came back to us in the form of wyvern riders as part of the new Kite Kingdom after taking over the Midra Kingdom, or whether they came back to us as just simple wyverns after the Midra Kingdom was abandoned.

    That was the only reason why he was sending me.

    It was because Joan only listened to me, so there was no choice but to send me and Joan along if we wanted to bring the wyverns back.

    I shook my head and said with a sigh, "Will you not regret this choice?"

    The prime minister also said with a sigh, "I am a simple man, I cannot protect everyone. I can only do what I can to protect what is important to me."

    A simple nod came from me in response to this as I could sympathize with him.

 Chapter 902: A different Midra Kingdom

    Chapter 902: A different Midra Kingdom

    ?

    Three dayster, we were setting off.

    It was a total of a hundred wyvern riders that were sent with me to the Midra Kingdom.

    These hundred wyvern riders would be enough to raze the capital city of the Midra Kingdom, that was just how powerful they were. So it wasn''t as if this was a small force that we were sending to the Midra Kingdom.

    I was surprised that the prime minister was even sending this many wyvern riders.

    After all, the normal amount to send was just twenty wyvern riders which was already considered the equal of ten thousand soldiers.

    These hundred wyvern riders was equal to an army of fifty thousand being sent to another kingdom.

    One might even think that we were invading the Midra Kingdom with this line up.

    Along with them was Cecilia, Moon, and Veronica who insisted oning with me to protect me. All three of them seemed like they werepletely set on apanying me wherever I was going to go from now on.

    The prime minister knew that it was impossible to stop them since Ang was the one backing them, so he just let them do whatever they wanted. Or it was better to say that he just threw this problem to me since I was the only one that could deal with them.

    Though it would be hard to deal with them since they were so insistent on this in the first ce.

    So I just let theme along with me since this wasn''t something that was that dangerous. Though we were heading into a different kingdom, everything should be under our control. So there shouldn''t be anything that could threaten us.

    It would be hard to find something that could threaten a bunch of wyverns in the first ce. The moment that we arrived at the border, we realized that the Midra Kingdom was alreadypletely different from before.

    There were far less guards that were at the border in the first ce. This was far less than there should have been.

    It was almost as if there was ack of forces for the Midra Kingdom, as if there was something that was drawing all their forces away.

    It wasn''t hard to guess what it was, especially with how the remaining guards acted when they saw us arrive.

    Instead of seeing an invading force, it was almost as if they were seeing some kind of saviour. With the way that they treated us, it wasn''t a problem for us to make it through the border.

    It seemed that the Midra Kingdom really was desperate that they allowed us to pass through their borders so easily.

    Or was it the influence of the second prince?

    They didn''t even restrict our wyverns as we flew across thend. It was as if they wanted us to reach the capital as soon as possible.

    As we flew across thend of the Midra Kingdom, I had to admit that it was quite the sight. Though it couldn''t be considered a good thing that it was such a sight.

    In the past, when we travelled across the Midra Kingdom, it had at least seemed like and that was filled with vitality.

    It had seemed like a ce that was filled with the life of the people even though they had lost

    a war.

    But now...

    Thend seemed barren.

    It wasn''t that it waspletely dead, but it was like there was some kind of illness that was spreading across thisnd, bent on devouring everything that was in its path.

    This was and that was on the verge of death.

    It seemed like the Midra Kingdom was really on itsst leg. It seemed that it wouldn''t be long before the Midra Kingdom ran out of space.

    What would push them this far?

    The monsters scattered down below.

    Even though I was certain that the Midra Kingdom tried their best, it seemed that they weren''t able to keep the monsters at bay.

    In the end, they weren''t able to keep the monsters back and now they were rampaging in the countryside.

    Though the one thing to take note of was...ack of marks of fighting.

    There were traces of a fight all over, but there weren''t anyrge marks showing that somethingrge had joined the fray. There were no marks showing that the wyverns hade to destroy the monsters.

    It seemed that the nobles of the Midra Kingdom were still the same as always. The only people that they cared about was themselves.

    Though I was a bit surprised that the second prince didn''t send the wyverns out since he controlled them.

    I thought that he at least cared about the people of the Midra Kingdom since that was the impression that he gave off.

    Perhaps it was a part of his n, or perhaps there was something holding him back. Though it didn''t seem like the others had any pity for the people of the Midra Kingdom.

    It seemed like they saw them as part of the enemy.

    Shaking my head, I said with a sigh, "Will they still be the enemy if we take them over? The people are the people, a country is a country, don''t confuse the two. The people are innocent regardless of what the country does."

    Everyone was shocked to hear me say this, but they eventually reined themselves in.

    Since they had been chosen toe along, they had an idea of what was about to happen. Not

    a single one of them questioned what I said and just epted it.

    Though they did look at me with a strange look.

    After flying for a bit, we arrived at the capital of the Midra Kingdom.

    Unlike the rest of the country, it seemed like the capital hadn''t been affected as much. In fact,

    it even seemed like most of the soldiers were gathered in this ce.

    It seemed like the Midra Kingdom was till the same in certain aspects.

 Chapter 903: Lack of people

    Chapter 903: Lack of people

    ?

    When wended in the capital, there was a reaction from Joan.

    It seemed that she sensed that there were wyverns in this capital city, which was why she reacted.

    As I had expected, the wyverns that we gave to the Midra Kingdom were in the capital and weren''t deployed to any parts of the Midra Kingdom.

    It seemed like the royal family and the nobles were only interested in defending themselves.

    This really made my opinion of the second prince go down, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. After all, the second prince had sent that message, which meant that he most likely had some kind of n.

    He was the one that was in control of the wyverns, so if he was going along with them and keeping the wyverns in the capital, then he must have a reason for doing so.

    Whether it was to fool his own father or the nobles.

    That was what I chose to believe since I didn''t want to think of him as the other kind of person.

    The treatment that we received in the capital was the same as the treatment that we received at the border, though there was a bit of a difference. Instead of just leaving us be, they insisted on bringing us to the castle right away.

    It seemed that the Midra Kingdom was suffering quite a bit that they wanted us to deal with this situation as soon as possible.

    Well, it wasn''t as if this was a bad thing since we also wanted to see the king as soon as possible.

    It wasn''t to help them, but to gauge what the situation of the Midra Kingdom was.

    At the same time, I wanted to see the second prince as soon as I could to figure out just what his ns were.

    Though when we arrived at the castle, I was surprised to find that...there were many people who were missing.

    Compared to when we were herest time, there weren''t even half the people that were here. Many of the people who seemed to be a part of the military had disappeared from this throne room.

    It seemed that the situation in the Midra Kingdom was much worse than we thought. This was further entuated by the king of the Midra Kingdom.

    The moment that we stepped in, he said, "Thank you foring to our kingdom and providing aid in our time of need."

    The one that stepped forward was Klein who was technically the leader of our group. Since I was now the king, it wasn''t as if I was able toe and go as I pleased. That meant that instead of being the one that led the group, I was hidden as part of the group.

    I was given a special mask by the prime minister that would allow me to hide my face from most people, so there was no way that anyone would be able to recognize me.

    Klein just simply gave a nod to the king before asking, "May I ask where are the wyverns that we provided to your kingdomst time?"

    The king and most of the ministers revealed awkward looks when they heard this, but the words that came out of the king''s mouth seemed very natural as he said, "They are being deployed all over the kingdom. This is a crisis for our kingdom, so naturally we need to use every single resource that we have."

    "Is that so?" Klein wasn''t fooled at all since I had already told him that Joan had sensed the wyverns nearby.

    That meant that he knew that the Midra Kingdom''s king was lying right to his face and he didn''t seem to take that well. Though he didn''t call out the Midra Kingdom''s king in the end.

    "Then may I ask where your generals are? We wish to get a general idea of the situation in your kingdom before sending out our wyverns to deal with the monsters."

    The eyes of the king and the ministers all lit up when they heard this.

    They had been expecting this group to be much harder to convince to help them, but that didn''t seem to be the case. It even seemed like they were very willing to help them, which was a good sign for the Midra Kingdom.

    Especially since they had brought all of these wyverns with them.

    No one doubted the power of the wyverns since it was with just ten of these wyverns that they were able to secure thends around the capital.

    With the hundred wyverns that just arrived, they should be able to easily reim all thend that they lost.

    At the same time, since they were the ones that were offering to help, that meant that they didn''t have to pay them anything.

    The economy had suffered quite a bit because of the monsters, so it wasn''t as if they could really afford to pay unless they paid out of their pockets.

    Not a single one of these nobles wanted to do that.

    "Second prince,e forward."

    As soon as the king said this, the second prince came out from the back of the crowd where he had been waiting the entire time and gave a bow to the king.

    The king gave a satisfied nod before saying, "Go and help them with this matter. You have my permission to leave your other work for now and work with our allies here to solve the

    monster crisis in our kingdom."

    The second prince bowed his head and said, "Yes, your majesty."

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard this.

    It seemed that there really was ack of people in the Midra Kingdom that he was even willing

    to send the second prince right away.

    At the same time though, I could hear that there was a trace of hostility in the voice of the

    king...

    Had the second prince been caught while he was putting his ns in action?

    Well, regardless of what it was, it was better to get the information from the second prince.

 Chapter 904: Sincere show of power

    Chapter 904: Sincere show of power

    ?

    Once the king of the Midra Kingdom threw this matter over to the second prince, it didn''t seem like he cared anymore as he dismissed the court.

    The ministers also all left as if they were relieved in leaving this matter to the second prince. That went to show how much trust was with the second prince to handle this matter.

    Or it could be said that they just didn''t want to take care of this matter themselves, which was why they handed it all off to the second prince to handle.

    This was a demonstration of the attitude of those in charge of this Midra Kingdom.

    But the second prince didn''t seem to care either as he led us outside.

    When we were on the training field of the castle''s guards, he suddenly turned around to look at Klein and said with a bow of his head, "I sincerely apologize for my negligence that allowed this country to fall into a state like this. I have no words to show my deepest apologies, so I hope that you will ept my actions from now on as an apology."

    Klein was naturally taken aback when he saw this, but it wasn''t just him that was taken aback. Even I was taken aback, not to mention all of the other royal guards that were with us.

    They just didn''t believe that the second prince would suddenly bow his head like this.

    After a moment of silence, Klein went forward as if he was going to help the second prince up before realizing that this was inappropriate. So instead, he just said in an awkward voice, "Your highness, this isn''t really appropriate, is it?"

    The second prince didn''t raise his head as he said, "There''s no need to worry, there''s no one around who will see this other than us."

    Everyone was shocked to hear this before looking around the area, but we found that he was right.

    Even though we were out in the open, it didn''t seem like there was a single person that was here.

    And this was in a ce like the royal castle which should have been the busiest ce.

    After all, this was the center of the Midra Kingdom.

    Excluding therge number of servants that should have been in this ce, there would be many ministers, guards, and other people that would be moving around in this ce. There shouldn''t have been a ce where there was no one around, especially not such an open ce like this.

    This was clearly something that had been arranged by the second prince as a demonstration. As for what he was demonstrating...it was the power that he wielded in the Midra Kingdom. In a way, this was his way of showing that we should feel at ease about leaving this matter to him.

    I wasn''t the only one that realized this, the others all realized this and raised their guards a bit. However, Klein raised a hand for them to all calm down.

    Once he calmed them down, Klein looked at the second prince and asked, "Your highness, what is the meaning of this?"

    The second prince didn''t raise his head as he said, "This is my sincerity."

    Those were the four simple words that he said and it seemed like he stood by them, but as for what he meant by this...Klein really didn''t have a single clue.

    I was the only one that knew what he meant by this.

    He was referring to the deal that he made with me previously about turning over the Midra Kingdom to the Kite Kingdom.

    He wanted to show that he had the power to make it a reality, so that we should trust him to n what happened next.

    But there was a part of me that still hesitated over this.

    To be honest, this level of power and influence was actually beyond what both the prime minister and I had expected from the second prince.

    This was a level of power that even surpassed what I had seen in the game.

    In the end, it was a good thing that I had already figured out a way to talk to Klein without doing anything.

    This was a simple use of the wind magic that Moon possessed.

    That was why she had been by my side the entire time.

    "Tell him that you want to speak alone."

    Klein was surprised to hear this, but there was also a trace of relief that was on his face when he heard this. After all, he had no idea how he was supposed to respond to the second prince''s sudden statement, so he had been in a bind.

    Since he had his orders, Klein just simply said with a cough, "I understand your sincerity. Is there a ce where we can talk in private?"

    This time, it was the second prince''s turn to be surprised.

    He looked up a bit at Klein before fully standing up and giving a nod of agreement.

    After standing up, he gestured in a certain direction and said, "This way please."

    Klein gave a nod before looking at my group.

    I just simply started following behind Klein without a word, but the second prince slightly

    knitted his brows when he saw us moving over.

    With a cough, the second prince said, "Sir Klein, this is...?"

    He didn''t finish his sentence, but it was clear what he was implying with this.

    Klein just calmly said without any hesitation, "These are my trusted aides. It isn''t a problem for them toe along with us."

    Seeing that the second prince still had a trace of doubt on his face, Klein said, "You can even say that they are a representative of his majesty and the prime minister."

    At this, the second prince no longer hesitated and nodded in agreement to this, though there was a trace of surprise in his eyes.

    But he led us back into the castle and into a part that didn''t have any people before arriving at a secret study.

 Chapter 905: Itâ€™s not the time yet

    Chapter 905: It¡¯s not the time yet

    ?

    Once we arrived in the study, Klein moved to the side and stood there as if he was on guard.

    The others also moved to the side and prepared for anything to happen.

    The second prince couldn''t help being taken aback when he saw this, but then he looked at me who had sat down at the table that was in this room.

    The second prince was visibly confused, but that expression onlysted a few seconds before it seemed like he figured out what was happening.

    He came forward to sit down with me before asking, "This friend, may I ask who you are?"

    I just said with a smile, "It hasn''t been that long, have you already forgotten about me?" The second prince seemed a bit confused at first, but then there was a look of recognition and surprise that appeared on his face. He looked at me as if he was trying to confirm something before saying, "Your grace...No, it''s your majesty now, isn''t it? I never expected you toe personally to our Midra Kingdom."

    I gave a simple nod before taking off the mask and saying, "I had some business here, so I came. There''s nothing more you need to say."

    The second prince was surprised to hear what I said, but he was a smart person. He knew that since I didn''t want to talk about it, he shouldn''t keep pushing the matter.

    Instead, the second prince said, "Your majesty, I''lly out the n that I have prepared for your takeover of our Midra Kingdom."

    I gave a nod without saying anything since I had already expected this.

    What I didn''t expect was...

    "Simply put, it''s not the time for your majesty to act just yet."

    "Huh?" There was a surprised look on my face when I heard this since the secret letter had said somethingpletely different. That was the only reason that I came in the first ce. There was a part of me that felt a bit suspicious of the second prince once I heard this.

    It really felt like he wasying a trap for us with the way that he said this.

    The second prince could see the way that I was looking at him, so he said, "Your majesty, it isn''t that. It''s just that you''ve arrived much sooner than I expected..." There was a pause with an awkward expression before the second prince said, "There are some things that haven''t been prepared yet. I have to ask that you wait a bit longer to put this n in action. There are still a few more things that have to be taken care of before it happens."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the second prince before saying, "Then the wyverns, what was the point of keeping them in the capital this entire time?"

    The second prince was surprised to hear this question and there was another awkward look that appeared on his face, but he eventually said, "It was necessary."

    "Was it really?" I narrowed my eyes to ask him this without any hesitation.

    But this time, the second prince didn''t seem to hesitate either as he said, "It was absolutely necessary. Even if it meant sacrificing some of the people of this country, it was a necessary thing."

    I just kept looking him right in the eyes as he said this, but it didn''t seem like there was any hesitation in his eyes. Though I could see that there were traces of regret that were also there. He did feel sorry for the people that he was supposed to have sworn to protect, but...

    He epted that his decision had consequences and that they were unavoidable.

    That was the way that those at the top had to act if they wanted to save as many people as possible.

    Though it wasn''t as if I agreed with him keeping the wyverns in the capital just for the sake of fooling those nobles.

    "As long as you know the consequences of your actions. I hope that you will be able to make up for them in the future." I said with a sigh.

    The second prince had a determined look on his face as he gave a simple nod, but I could see the traces of regret that were still in his eyes.

    There was a silence that hung in the air as neither of us said anything while there was a heavy look on our faces.

    But eventually, the second prince broke the silence by saying, "Let me tell you the n."

    I looked up at him and that heavy look disappeared. A serious look reced it as I just gave a simple nod in response while waiting for him to speak.

    "The n is..."

    ---

    When it was all over, I had to admit that I was quite impressed by the second prince.

    I had already seen the effects that the second prince''s n had on the country and I could tell that it was indeed effective.

    Though there were still parts of the n that I didn''t agree with...

    "So for now, what you need us to do is y along and make it seem like everything is fine?" I asked the second prince.

    The second prince nodded before revealing a hesitant look.

    It was as if he wanted to say something, but he was hesitating on whether to say it or not.

    "Just say it. It doesn''t matter what you have to say." I didn''t hold back at all as I told him this. For now, since he was willing to go this far for this n, then I would treat him as one of our

    own.

    But the moment that he betrayed us...

    Well, for now, it didn''t seem like he would betray us.

    "Yes, yes." The second prince said with a bow of the head before slowly saying, "I heard that you were able to stop the monsters in your country..."

    I could guess what he wanted to say, so I just simply said, "We''ll head out tomorrow. Send someone with us so we can keep in contact and to guide us to the ces we need to go."

    The second prince''s eyes lit up when he heard this before he bowed his head and said, "Your majesty, I thank you on behalf of the citizens of the Midra Kingdom."

    I just waved my hand at him before saying, "They will be my citizens soon, so it''s only natural that I take care of them."

    I was looking at the second prince carefully as I said this.

    "Of course, your majesty is magnanimous." There wasn''t anything natural about the way that the second prince said this.

    It seemed that at the very least, he didn''t have any attachment to the entity that was the Midra Kingdom or his status as the second prince. Though he could just be hiding it deep

    down...for now, it didn''t seem like it would show itself.

    For now, it seemed like I should trust him to a certain extent.

    But I would never trust this second prince too much since there were just too many things that

    were suspicious about him.

    I would wait and see what his true colours were.

 Chapter 906: Another woman

    Chapter 906: Another woman

    ?

    When the next morning came, we all gathered at the wyvern fields in the capital.

    Since we had given wyverns to the Midra Kingdom, they had naturally prepared facilities to receive said wyverns.

    Though with how much space there was here, it was clear that the Midra Kingdom had greater ambitions.

    But for now, it didn''t seem like those ambitions would amount to anything.

    For now, they weren''t even able to save themselves from the monsters that they were currently facing. So before they solved this problem, there was no room for them to even think about raising even more wyverns.

    That gave them a ce for us to store our wyverns.

    At the same time, we were able to see the wyverns that were still here in the capital.

    Though they said that these wyverns had been deployed to different parts of the kingdom, this lie was easily seen through since this was the only ce for the wyverns to stay.

    That meant that this was the only ce that our wyverns and their wyverns could stay without causing any trouble.

    Though the excuse that they gave was that these wyverns had just returned from their mission and were resting.

    They didn''t even let us take these ten wyverns with us, that was how against taking these wyverns from the capital they were. The nobles and the king really only thought about their own safety.

    Though the second prince...

    Well putting that aside, I had Joan talk to those ten wyverns just in case.

    Even though they were obeying the orders of the ones that were assigned to ride them, that didn''t mean that they had any loyalty to them. These wyverns had only received orders from Joan to obey them, so they would betray them with an order from Joan.

    Joan had made sure of this when she talked to them during the night.

    It really seemed like the future of the Midra Kingdom was more and more bleak.

    They thought that they had bonded with these wyverns, but the reality was...

    For now, I didn''t care that we were leaving the wyverns here since this was just how it was. They were for the second prince to use however he wanted, whether that was to save the Midra Kingdom or destroy it.

    Though if he were to save the Midra Kingdom...

    Anyway, when we arrived, we found that there was someone waiting there for us.

    Well, it wasn''t just a single person that was waiting there for us.

    There was a group of people that were there waiting for us.

    Some of them I recognized from yesterday since they were people that had been in the throne room.

    These were the generals that remained in the Midra Kingdom.

    Though the reason that they came wasn''t toe with us...they were here to give us some information that their subordinates had obtained, as well as sending some of their subordinates with us.

    Even though they were generals, they weren''t brave generals at all.

    These were generals that cared the most about their own lives, so they would rather send people than go out onto the field themselves.

    These were the kind of nobles that were in the Midra Kingdom.

    It waspletely different from the generals that we faced in the war previously.

    Perhaps those brave generals had all fallen to the monsters, or perhaps the second prince had something to do with this.

    Regardless, it wasn''t something that I knew about.

    There was one subordinate in particr that I couldn''t help paying attention to.

    That was because unlike the others who were all trying to tter Klein, this one didn''t seem to care that much about him.

    Instead, this person made their way over to where I was standing with my guards.

    As they walked over, it didn''t seem like any of the others noticed this person walking over. It

    was like they were a shadow in broad daylight with the way that they went unnoticed.

    Once they came over, they gave a slight bow to me and then went to move to my side.

    But before they could...

    Shadow Five suddenly appeared.

    She had alsoe along on the orders of the prime minister and had been protecting me from the shadows with some of the other shadows.

    The moment that this person came over, she immediately appeared and ced a dagger at their throat. But even though Shadow Five had suddenly appeared like this, it didn''t seem like anyone noticed her.

    Everyone seemed more focused on Klein, so they didn''t care about these two.

    But that was also partly because they didn''t have much of a presence in the first ce.

    The person in the ck hood and clothes, so I couldn''t see their appearance.

    However, the moment that they spoke, they made their gender clear.

    It was a soft female voice that rang out that didn''t suit this person in the ck clothes.

    "I am here on the orders of the second prince." She said in a soft and calm voice.

    Shadow Five looked at me after hearing this as if she was asking for confirmation. Since this person knew to look for me and mentioned the second prince, she should be the

    one...

    So I gave a nod to Shadow Five and she finally backed down.

    That ck clothed person came to my side and just stood there in silence, which made all of

    us feel a bit awkward. It was just a good thing that she had a low presence in the first ce, so no one seemed to notice what happened here.

    But there was something that I couldn''t help giving a bitterugh over.

    "Why was it another woman?"

    The fourth prince in the past and now the second prince, they both seemed to have mistaken

    something...

    They all sent women to my side...

    It wasn''t that I was looking down on women, but it was almost as if they were trying to do

    something...

    Well, it wasn''t the same for the prime minister since there was something between him and

    Shadow Five.

    But the second prince...

    Was it the impression that I gave?

    Was it because I had all those wives?

 Chapter 907: Much easier

    Chapter 907: Much easier

    ?

    With our guides, we quickly made our way across thends of the Midra Kingdom. With the wyverns, we were able to reach our destination in no time at all.

    Though as we were flying by, there were quite a few scenes of disaster down below.

    There were monsters that were attacking the people of the Midra Kingdom and it seemed like a losing battle for them. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before they sumbed to the attacks of the monsters.

    But there wasn''t a single time where the soldiers of the Midra Kingdom that came with us asked us to stop and help them.

    There were times where my subordinates asked them about this, but they just said...

    "They''re fine. Everyone has their own way of dealing with the monster attacks, it''s not our business. Our business is to find the source of the monster attacks and save the entire kingdom. We cannot let ourselves be distracted by a few isted incidents."

    The way that they said this made it sound noble, but we knew what their real intentions were...

    They were afraid.

    They were scared that they might be caught up in the monster attacks if we were to go down and help these people.

    So they gave this excuse to stop us from going down.

    We certainly didn''t have a reason to help them since they were citizens of the Midra Kingdom, but it did leave a bad taste in our mouth to leave them behind like this.

    It was just that we had a role to y, so we couldn''t just interfere as we wanted.

    Just like the second prince, we had no choice but to leave these people to their own devices.

    Perhaps I was hypocritical for judging the second prince for this when I was doing the same, but it did feel different since there was a different reason for abandoning them.

    Or was that just me trying to make myself feel better?

    Regardless of what it was, we quickly made our way to the first location that was pointed out to us.

    This was a forest that was in the west of the Midra Kingdom.

    This forest was one of the gathering ces of the monsters that we had seen all over the Midra Kingdom, it was simr to the forest that we cleared back in our own kingdom.

    It was just that this time, there was no need for us to enter the forest and slowly make our way through it.

    That was because we had the wyverns.

    Though we did have to bring the wyverns down a bit so that I could sense the demon energy and find the way to the crystal.

    When we came down, it was easy to find the demon energy since it was so concentrated in this ce. It waspletely different from back in our kingdom where there were only wisps of demon energy here and there.

    The concentration of demon energy in this ce was almost terrifying.

    At the same time, there were far more monsters that popped out when they saw use down.

    There were still goblins that were here, but it wasn''t just goblins alone that tried to attack us. There were also different variants of goblins that appeared such as goblin shamans, goblin archers, goblin riders, and such. These variants of the normal goblins had different methods of attacking, so they were able to attack us even though we were in the air.

    Only it was still much easier for us to deal with these goblins and goblin variants.

    It only took a single st of the wyvern breath to destroy the attacks that the goblins sent at us. At the same time, the wyvern breath fell down on the groups of goblins down below.

    The goblins weren''t able to defend against the mes that fell on them, or at least the majority of them weren''t able to defend against the mes.

    The special variants were able to use their powers to avoid being too injured by the mes, but the others werepletely burnt to a crisp.

    In no time at all, there were only the charred corpses of goblins that were on the ground.

    Scattered around were a few variant goblins, but they were all injured to varying degrees. These variant goblins were no match for our wyverns that went down to pick them off individually.

    In no time at all, the variant goblins had beenpletely wiped out by the wyverns. However, there were more variant goblins that suddenly came out of the brush. This was another group of goblins that was drawn over by the sound of the fighting. The moment that they came out, they immediatelyunched their attacks.

    They didn''t know what the situation was, but they attacked the wyverns when they saw the charred corpses of the other goblins. Those charred corpses told them that these wyverns wouldn''t let them be.

    It was just that they still weren''t a match for the wyverns.

    The wyverns just simply had to move up in the air and then release their me breaths to burn

    the goblins to a crisp.

    From time to time, the wyverns didnd and clear out the mes that remained.

    After all, there was nothing to gain from burning down the forestpletely.

    In no time at all, this second group of goblins werepletely destroyed and there wasn''t a single goblin left.

    This was much easier than when we fought the goblins in our own kingdom.

    But it shouldn''t have been easier since there were variant goblins that appeared.

    It was only because we had the wyverns that it was much easier for us to wipe out the goblins.

    There was a part of me that felt bitter as I thought, "Why did we not just use the wyverns

    before?"

    Well, it was because we didn''t want to cause amotion and scare our citizens.

    That was the only reason why we didn''t move the wyverns before.

    But in the Midra Kingdom, there was no need to care about that.

 Chapter 908: Higher concentration

    Chapter 908: Higher concentration

    ?

    After wiping out the goblins, I quickly found the trial for us to follow.

    Though it was Klein who led us in the end since they thought that he was the leader.

    After fighting several more groups of goblins and wiping them all out, we arrived in a clearing.

    This clearing was just like the one that we had seen back in the Rund Forest.

    The trees had been cut down by something and moved out of the way, creating this artificial clearing.

    That meant that in the center of this clearing, there should be some kind of crystal buried in the ground.

    Once we arrived in this ce, the royal guards also seemed to recognize what this ce was. That wasn''t strange since they had gone with me back in our kingdom to clear out the locations that had increased monster activity.

    There wasn''t even a need to give them any orders for them to know what to do.

    Half of them jumped off the wyverns while the other half flew to the edges of the clearing on their wyverns to form a barricade. The half that jumped off pulled shovels out of the bags on the backs of their wyverns and started digging in the ground.

    They didn''t say a word as they started digging, which confused the people from the Midra Kingdom.

    They had been following us without a single word.

    Or it could be said that they weren''t able to say a single word after witnessing what happened with the goblins.

    The Midra Kingdom also had wyverns, but they had never seen this kind of power from them before. They were members of the army, so they had seen the wyverns in action and even then, they had never seen this kind of power from the wyverns.

    Was it special training or...had they given them weak wyverns?

    It wasn''t as if they could actually ask this question, so they could only watch as these people from the Kite Kingdom dug many holes in the ground.

    Finally, one of them couldn''t take it anymore and asked Klein, "Sir Klein, what is happening here?"

    Klein just ignored this person as he kept digging in the ground with the rest of his men, but then he suddenly said, "Stop!"

    Everyone immediately followed his order and stopped digging in the ground, though they did look a bit confused as to why he called for them to stop like this.

    Klein ignored these looks as he went over to one of the holes.

    He just stood there over the hole as if he was looking at something.

    With the way that he stood there and looked down, it was as if it was something important.

    It was just that no one knew that...he didn''t actually have any idea what he was looking at. The only reason that Klein was doing this was because he had received a secret wind message order. It just told him toe over to this hole and look down at it without saying anything else.

    So while this was happening, Klein was actually feeling very awkward standing there.

    But in the end...

    "Come over here and take a look." Klein suddenly turned around and waved at Zwein who was standing on the side.

    I wasn''t surprised at all by this and walked over slowly to the hole that he was standing in front of.

    During this time, I kept my attention on the reactions of the ones from the Midra Kingdom. As expected, they were filled with doubt towards what was happening, but it seemed like they were holding back because they were the ones that were being helped. However, it did draw attention to me since they were trying to figure out who I was that Klein was calling me over. I went over to the hole and then suddenly jumped in to everyone''s surprise. When I fell down into the hole, I couldn''t help being surprised as well.

    The concentration of demon energy that was in this hole waspletely different from anything that I felt before.

    There was no doubt that if the royal guards had kept digging, they would have released a burst of demon energy and been sted away by it. It was a good thing that I stopped them before that happened.

    However, that didn''t mean that I had a good way of taking care of this.

    After standing in the hole for a bit, I decided that there was no point in thinking too much about this and pointed my hand at the bottom of the hole.

    When I did, the demon energy that was in the hole started to drain away.

    Or it was better to say that the demon energy was being sucked away by something.

    There was this ck energy that was drained out of the ground and into my hand before disappearing without a trace.

    It was a good thing that this hole was quite deep that the people from the Midra Kingdom weren''t able to see anything, but Klein was able to see it since he was standing over the hole.

    Seeing the ck energy being drained out, he couldn''t help shaking his head and giving a sigh of admiration.

    It seems like his majesty really does have all kinds of abilities.

    The people from the Midra Kingdom misunderstood this and thought that something was

    wrong.

    After a moment of hesitation, one of them came forward to ask, "Sir Klein, is there a

    problem?"

    Klein was pulled out of his thoughts and raised his hand to stop this person from approaching before saying, "There''s no problem. Stand back for now as we handle this matter."

    That person from the Midra Kingdom stoppeding closer, but he still looked at the hole with a doubtful look as he said, "But what is happening? Can you please tell us what you''re

    doing?"

    The tone of his voice made it clear that these questions were aimed at one person specifically.

    Klein just calmly said, "We''re handling the matter, just leave..."

    Before he could finish speaking, there were sounds that came from the distance.

 Chapter 909: Hand it over

    Chapter 909: Hand it over

    ?

    Everyone turned to see that there were goblins that had appeared at the edge of this clearing. It wasn''t just a small group of goblins that appeared, it seemed like it was an entire army of goblins that appeared.

    There was even a Goblin General that was leading the way.

    Seeing this Goblin General, I couldn''t help thinking of what happened to our town in the past.

    Back then, we had suffered quite a bit at the hands of a Goblin General simr to this one. However, we were no longer the same people as before, we were much stronger than before.

    I could see Cecilia looking at me, as if she was asking for permission to fight this Goblin General.

    It seemed that she wanted to fight against this Goblin General because of what happened in the past.

    I had no objections to this since it would be a good way for her to gauge how strong she was now. Not to mention, there wouldn''t be any danger since there were the wyverns that were here.

    Once the goblin army made its way into the clearing, the wyverns started tearing into them. They couldn''t shoot their me breaths since we were in this very mmable clearing as well, so they could only swoop down and sweep out with their ws, cutting through goblin flesh like they were cutting through paper.

    The goblins posed no threat at all, but the people from the Midra Kingdom didn''t act this way.

    The moment that they saw that there were goblins, they immediately started running in the opposite direction and started hiding behind Klein and the others. All while doing this, they were saying to Klein, "Take care of the goblins!"

    They didn''t have any intentions of fighting and were leaving everything to Klein and the other royal guards.

    Klein just shook his head before giving a wave of his hand.

    A few of the royal guards who had shovels in their hands put those shovels away and jumped on the back of their wyverns. With Cecilia leading them, they charged right at the Goblin General and the army.

    I didn''t care about what was happening with the goblin army since I knew that Klein and the others would be able to take care of it.

    I turned my attention back to the ground in front of me and started sucking out even more of the demon energy.

    I had held back earlier just in case the Midra Kingdom peopleined, but there was no need for me to worry about that now.

    I could see them hiding in the distance.

    They werepletely distracted by the goblins that appeared, so they wouldn''t be able toin even if they wanted to.

    This was my opportunity to finish handling this crystal and swiping it before anyone could see anything.

    That was why I started draining the demon energy even faster.

    As the demon energy was drained out of the ground, the goblins started to act strangely.

    Some of the weaker goblins no longer seemed like they had no fear at all.

    As the other goblins were being wiped out around them, they started to show signs of fear and hesitation. They started looking around as if they were trying to find a way to escape.

    And finally...there were a few goblins that ran away.

    As soon as these goblins ran away, the formation of the goblin army copsed.

    There were gaps that formed that were immediately preyed upon by the wyverns, cutting even deeper into the goblin army.

    There was no way for the goblins to defend against this, so even more and more of them started to scatter because of it.

    It took no time at all for the goblins to bepletely routed, though there were more of them lying on the ground in pools of their own blood.

    As for the Goblin General, it was still locked inbat with Cecilia.

    It was currently bleeding all over its body and seemed like it would copse at any moment. Cecilia was just casually moving around the Goblin General, sometimes on her wyvern and sometimes on foot. She was able to dodge and weave all of the attacks of the Goblin General whilending her own attacks on it.

    Finally, the Goblin General wasn''t able to take it anymore and copsed on the ground.

    Cecilia had a proud look on her face as if she had aplished something great after taking down this Goblin General.

    But before all of this, I had finished draining the demon energy from the ground and had dug out the crystal. As soon as I found the crystal, I immediately swiped it and put it away in my Storage Ring.

    Once it was gone, I just acted like normal without missing a single beat.

    When it was all over, Klein turned back around to look at me.

    Seeing a nod from me, he reached his hand down to help me out of the hole before turning around to say, "Alright, we''re done here."

    I just casually made my way back over to where I had been positioned before.

    However...it didn''t seem like things would go that smoothly.

    "Wait."

    All of us were surprised by the person who suddenly said this.

    When we turned to look in the direction of the voice, we found that it was one of the people

    from the Midra Kingdom who said this.

    Klein didn''t say a thing as he just looked at this person with one brow raised, as if he was waiting to hear what this person had to say.

    However, that person didn''t seem like he had anything to say to Klein.

    Rather, he was looking at me and even walked in my direction before raising his hand to say, "Hand over what you swiped just now. That is an important item for our Midra Kingdom, we

    will not let you steal it from us."

    All eyes were on me after he said this.

    Then as if to push this matter, he said, "I saw you take something while everyone was fighting

    the goblins. There''s no use denying it."

    The expression on his face was as if he had caught someone in the act, like there was no way that anyone would be able to refute this.

    It was just that... things wouldn''t go his way.

 Chapter 910: Shove it

    Chapter 910: Shove it

    ?

    That person from the Midra Kingdom just stood there in silence with one hand raised and a smug look on his face, as if he had just won some kind of argument.

    However, there was no response from me as I just calmly looked at him.

    I thought that I had been quite sneaky in taking the crystal, but that didn''t seem to be the

    case.

    After thinking about it, I turned to look at the one that the second prince sent with us, but it didn''t seem like she was about to act. She just stood on the side and erased her presence, as if she didn''t want to draw any attention to herself.

    It was clear that she wasn''t nning on doing anything about this.

    I slightly knitted my brow seeing this, but I didn''t say anything in the end.

    That was because...that person seemed to have lost his patience.

    "Do you think that you would get away with this? You''re stealing an important piece of evidence from our Midra Kingdom, this is..."

    "Shut your mouth."

    To both the surprise of this person from the Midra Kingdom and me, Klein suddenly spoke.

    The tone of his voice wasn''t kind at all, as if he had lost his patience.

    That person from the Midra Kingdom slowly turned to look at Klein with that same surprised look on his face before slowly knitting his brows. With this frown on his face, he asked, "Sir Klein, can you repeat what you just said?"

    The way that he asked this had a trace of caution in it.

    After all, he was afraid of offending Klein who was here on behalf of the Kite Kingdom to help them. If he offended him and they decided not to help anymore, they wouldn''t be able to deal with the monsters without the power of the wyverns.

    If he were to cause this to happen, then there was no doubt that he would be considered a criminal.

    But he didn''t think that Klein would go that far either since Klein was here on behalf of another country.

    If he were to go too far, then it would mean that all rtions between their countries would be destroyed.

    Even if the Midra Kingdom was akin to a wounded beast, a cornered beast would still have ws and teeth.

    But to his surprise...

    Klein suddenly came forward and raised his fist to punch that man as he said, "I said shut your mouth, you fool!"

    That person wasn''t able to react at all since he never thought that Klein would go this far. So the only thing that he could do was let Klein punch him right in the face and send him flying through the air.

    When hended, there was a shocked look on his face as if he couldn''t believe what just happened.

    Klein didn''t seem to care at all about this person as he came over to Zwein''s side and stood in front of him, as if he was protecting him.

    There was a silence that lingered in the air as no one was able to react to this, but then the people from the Midra Kingdom immediately started toin. Since one of their own had been treated like this, they naturally wouldn''t take this lying down.

    "Sir Klein, what is the meaning of this?"

    "Sir Klein, do you know what you''ve just done?"

    "Sir Klein, we represent the Midra Kingdom. Do you really think that you can do whatever you want in our territory?"

    "Shut your mouths!" Klein didn''t show them any mercy as he told them to shut their mouths, but that seemed to rile them up even more. However, they quickly fell silent when they heard what he said next.

    "If you don''t shut your mouths now, then we''re leaving you here."

    All of them immediately shut their mouths and their eyes opened wide in fear upon hearing this.

    Leaving them here in the middle of a forest filled with monsters was a death sentence, so naturally they were filled with terror when they heard this. There was a part of them that didn''t think that Klein would actually do something like this since it would be considered an international incident, but it was better not to push him.

    Once they fell silent, Klein looked at the one who tried to use me and said, "You realize

    that we''re the ones that are here to help you, don''t you?"

    That person was stunned hearing this, but he slowly gave a nod when he saw the look that was on Klein''s face.

    This was not the time or ce to be trying to push him...

    "Then you understand what kind of attitude you should have towards us, right?"

    The way that Klein said this was so bare that all of them couldn''t help revealing ugly expressions. However, there wasn''t a single one of them that actually refuted this since they knew that this wasn''t the ce or time.

    If they really wanted to refute this, the only ce that they could was where they were safe and had people backing them.

    In the middle of nowhere like this, there was no way that they would be able to actually say or

    do anything.

    Seeing that they didn''t say anything, Klein continued by raising his fist again and then punching this person once more. He didn''t stop with a single punch as he rained his fists down at this person.

    Not a single other person from the Midra Kingdom did a thing when they saw this.

    They were trembling watching all of this, so it was impossible that they would actually do anything to help this person.

    Once he was done, Klein wiped the sweat off his forehead and turned to the others to say, "Now, is there anything else that you want to say?"

    All of them started trembling even more when they heard this, but they also quickly shook their heads.

    Klein didn''t care about their answers as he turned back to his subordinates to say, "Alright, let''s head back."

    As he walked past me, I gave him a thumbs up which he smiled in response to.

 Chapter 911: Where is it?

    Chapter 911: Where is it?

    ?

    After taking care of the crystal, we flew up to survey the scene and found that the goblins were scattering.

    We took care of a few groups of these goblins since they would have caused quite a bit of

    damage if they were allowed to roam the Midra Kingdom, but the regr goblins were left to be dealt with by the people of the surrounding area.

    We could have dealt with them as well, but...we just didn''t want to do it.

    Especially with the attitude that the people of the Midra Kingdom had.

    "Can''t we take care of the other goblins as well?"

    That was what they selfishly asked, but...

    "We''re tired from dealing with all of the goblins from before and we need to rest, so we''re heading back to the capital."

    They were shocked to hear this since they thought that we would go to another ce with arge concentration of monsters, but we didn''t care at all for that.

    Klein put his foot down on this matter and there was nothing that they could do since we were the ones that controlled the wyverns.

    They were more afraid that we would leave them behind more than anything else.

    So they had no choice but toe back to the capital with us.

    When we arrived in the capital, the people who received us were very surprised.

    It wasn''t just the guards that received us, there were many ministers who all came to see us. After all, they didn''t understand why we hade back after a single day...no, it wasn''t even a full day, it had only been half a day.

    They didn''t think that this was enough time to solve this problem.

    Klein just simply exined that we had cleared out one nest and we needed to rest now before we did anything else.

    The ministers didn''t refute this since they didn''t know the situation, so the only thing that they could do was look to the people that they sent to watch over us. Those people also couldn''t say anything and could only look awkward since they knew that we controlled all of the cards.

    In the end...

    "Understood, please let us prepare the rooms for you and your men, Sir Klein."

    They just seemed to give up on this matter, but it was clear by the look in their eyes that they wouldn''t really give up.

    What theycked right now was information, so they were just buying time to get the information that they needed. As for who they would get that information from, it was naturally the ones that they sent to watch over us.

    Klein didn''t care since he knew that they wouldn''t be able to do anything even if they got the information that they wanted.

    So we were assigned separate rooms.

    There was no fear in taking these rooms since there was no way that they would dare do anything to us.

    We were their only hope in cleaning up the mess that the monsters had made in their kingdom.

    At the same time, if they were to actually do something to us, there was no doubt that the wyverns would lose control. Once we were out of the picture, there would be no one to control the wyverns and they would destroy the capital.

    That was thest thing that these nobles who cared the most about their own lives would want.

    So they wouldn''t do anything that would turn us against them like this.

    Though to do some things under the surface was definitely possible.

    That was why Shadow Five pulled me aside when we were heading to dinner.

    I was confused why she pulled me aside, but she gave me something that was simr to the Detection Ward from the system. With this, we went back to the room that I was staying in.

    I was very confused why she was doing all of this and a bit afraid.

    After all, I knew the rtionship between the prime minister and her.

    He was my brother inw, so I wouldn''t do something like that to him.

    However, those fears were unnecessary.

    "Where is it? Why can''t I find it?"

    "Stop making a mess!"

    "Right, what will you do if they found out? We''ll all lose heads!"

    Those were the voices that wereing from my room.

    These were all female voices, which made it clear that they wereing from the maids of the castle.

    However, I was surprised that they were all gathered in my room like this.

    It was clear that they were searching for something in my room, it was just that I had no idea what they were looking for.

    Shadow Five looked at me and put her finger to her lip before moving closer to the door.

    I shook my head seeing this, but I still followed her over to listen in on what they were saying.

    When I poked my head through the door frame like Shadow Five did, I found that my room was aplete mess. Even though they should have been cleaning the room, they hadpletely torn it up looking for whatever they were looking for.

    This room looked like it had been hit by a tornado with how messy it was.

    But even then, the maids didn''t seem like they were about to stop.

    "Where is it? Where is it?"

    They even seemed like they were desperate as they searched the room.

    "They didn''t even tell us what it was that we''re looking for, they just said that it was some

    kind of crystal!"

    "They never told us how big it was either, how are we supposed to find something like this?

    They were aiming for the crystal that I picked up this morning.

    Since they couldn''t openly take it, they were going to take it in secret.

    It was too bad for them that they would never be able to find it since it was already in my

    Storage Ring.

    That meant that it was with me at all times.

    Shaking my head, I gestured to Shadow Five, "I''m leaving, you keep watching over them."

    She just gave a simple nod in response.

 Chapter 912: Still tired

    Chapter 912: Still tired

    ?

    When I arrived at the banquet, there were some people that asked me where I went since I didn''t show up with the others.

    These were people from the Midra Kingdom.

    They asked it in such a way that made it seem like they were concerned about me, but I knew that they were concerned about one thing.

    They were trying to keep me here so that the maids would be able to search my room while I was at this banquet. They wanted to keep me here as long as possible since they had no idea how long it would take the maids to find the thing that they wanted.

    It was just too bad for them that the maids would never find the thing that they wanted.

    Though it wasn''t as if I would tell them that.

    When the banquet was over, there was someone else who questioned me about this.

    Only this time, it wasn''t someone from the Midra Kingdom.

    It was Klein who noticed that I had been acting strange the entire time.

    "There were a few rats that I had to take care of."

    Klein raised a brow when he heard this, but he didn''t keep asking anything else since there were ears on the walls. This was not the ce to discuss this just in case it was something important, so he left this forter.

    The leaders of our group were nning on sneaking outter to have a private talk about what to do next after all.

    When we met in the gardenster that night, Klein was the first to ask, "What did I hear about these rats?"

    With a smile, I exined the situation to everyone.

    As they heard about what the maids did, all of them couldn''t help knitting their brows.

    At the end, I had to admit that I was quite impressed by the skills of the maids that they were able to clean up my room in time. What I had seen was like a tornado had hit my room, it was a bonafide disaster with how messy my room became.

    So I was very impressed that they had been able to clear everything by the time that I returned to the room.

    After a long silence, Klein said, "So it seems like they want to y games with us."

    The dark look on his face made it clear that he was displeased with the actions of the Midra Kingdom.

    It really looked like he wanted to kill someone, but he held himself back in the end.

    But even if he held himself back, that didn''t mean that he would simply let this matter go. This was a matter of life and death after all, so it couldn''t just be forgotten that easily. After a moment of silence, Klein said, "Your majesty, what should we do about this?" I shook my head with a sigh before saying, "Didn''t I tell you not to call me that?"

    Klein realized his mistake and wanted to correct himself, but I just waved my hand at him and said, "Forget it. I''ve already figured out what we should do in response to this, so I''ll be depending on you to put on a performance."

    Klein looked a bit surprised and a bit confused, but he still gave a nod in response.

    I stroked my chin for a bit before saying, "Now I wonder what the second prince will do."

    ...

    "Sir Klein, isn''t it time to take care of the monsters? You''ve already been resting for several days now."

    The ministers were anxious as they talked to Klein, but he didn''t seem like he cared at all. With the calm look that was on his face, it was as if he wasn''t concerned about this matter at all. With that calm look on his face, it was as if he didn''t even feel anything after hearing this. It was as if he waspletely detached from this matter.

    That made the ministers look even more anxious since the reports about the monsters had been pouring in from all over the country.

    It was clear that there was a big problem in their country and the one that they had hoped to rely on wasn''t doing anything.

    After theyined for a while, Klein said, "We''re still tired from the fight a few days ago. You have to know that we not only fought an army of goblins, we had to fight several variant goblins. Just a single variant goblin is enough to destroy a small town and we had to fight all those variants. Don''t you think that''s hard enough?"

    There was nothing that they could say in response to this since they recognized that what he said was true.

    They had heard everything from the people that they sent to watch over this group, so they knew that all of this was the truth.

    As such, it wasn''t as if they could ignore it.

    But that was only for normal soldiers.

    For these people that had wyverns, it shouldn''t be an issue for them to take down these goblins and variant goblins.

    There was a reason why wyverns were considered S Rank Monsters in the first ce.

    The main thing was that they were the ones that were asking for help and if the ones that they were asking for help from didn''t want to do anything, there was nothing that they could do

    about this.

    But it was very strange at the same time...

    They had been willing to help back then and had even proactively gone into action, so what

    had changed from that time?

    Why did they suddenly stop helping them like before?

    It didn''t seem to make any sense at all...

    I was watching all of this happen, but there was something else that was on my mind.

    It was the second prince.

    The second prince had asked us to help the people by getting rid of the monsters, so he should

    know that we stopped.

    I was curious what the second prince''s response to this would be.

 Chapter 913: Itâ€™s time

    Chapter 913: It¡¯s time

    ?

    It didn''t seem like the second prince had anything to say to this as he didn''t make himself seen for several more days.

    It was as if the second prince hadpletely disappeared from the capital during this time.

    He didn''t leave a single trace of himself and no one seemed to know where he went.

    But at the same time, it didn''t seem like anyone knew where he had gone.

    Was this because of his influence or was it because they were afraid of him?

    It was hard to tell at this point since I had interacted enough with the ministers of the Midra Kingdom to see that it was both of these things.

    It seemed that he inspired fear in those that were against him and he had great influence on those that were under him.

    From this, it wasn''t hard to tell what kind of person the second prince was.

    But that just made him harder to read...

    In the end, the second prince reappeared in the capital and called us to meet.

    It was through the one that he sent to my side that he called us and we were brought to the same study as before.

    The second prince was there waiting for us just like before.

    When we came in, the first thing that he did was...

    "Your majesty, I''m sorry for what my countrymen have done to you. I hope that you allow me to make up for this mistake."

    The second prince once again bowed his head when he said this.

    All of us were caught off guard since we never expected the second prince to open up with this.

    I had expected him to mention this since this was a pretty big matter, but I never thought that he would be this direct with it. I definitely didn''t expect him to suddenly apologize for them as well.

    Seeing him like this, there was an awkward look that was on my face for a while before I finally spoke.

    "Alright, get up. We can''t talk if you keep bowing your head like this." I said this with a sigh since I didn''t know what else to say in this situation.

    The second prince kept his head down for a bit, but he eventually lifted his head and sat down at the table before gesturing for me to do the same.

    Once we sat down, the second prince said, "Your majesty, I know that our Midra Kingdom has disappointed you, but I hope that you will not give up on our Midra Kingdom. I promise that I will do all that I can to redeem the Midra Kingdom in your eyes."

    I was even more confused when I heard this since I couldn''t recall ever saying that I would give up on the Midra Kingdom.

    Taking care of the Midra Kingdom was an important thing for us, so we would take it one way or another.

    But it seemed like the second prince had the wrong idea, so I said, "Who said that I would give up on the Midra Kingdom?"

    The second prince was surprised to hear this before looking at me with one brow raised and asking, "Is that true, your majesty?"

    I just said with a nod, "I''m looking forward to making the Midra Kingdom a part of our Kite Kingdom."

    The second prince let out a sigh of relief when he heard this.

    This was definitely a strange reaction from a member of a royal family that was just told that his kingdom would be taken over by another kingdom.

    However, that was the reaction that the second prince had.

    After that sigh of relief and patting his chest for a bit, the second prince said, "Your majesty, I am d that I have run around the country all this time preparing for everything. Hearing you say this, I''m certain that my decision was correct."

    We all had surprised looks when we heard this, but the second prince''s next words exined everything.

    "Your majesty, it''s time for you to act." The second prince said with a serious look on his face.

    I also revealed a serious look when I heard this before asking, "What do you mean? What is your n?"

    Until now, the second prince had never revealed a single part of his n and even now, he wasn''t telling us anything.

    If he didn''t tell us anything, how were we supposed to work with him?

    But the second prince...still didn''t tell us anything.

    "Your majesty, please just wait for my good news. Everything has been prepared, we just need your majesty to take over when the dust settles." The second prince said in a serious voice.

    I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this and there was a part of me that wanted to just say that I was leaving, but I stopped myself in the end as I remembered the main reason that we were here.

    We were here to take care of the Midra Kingdom in one way or another.

    So even if the second prince''s n failed or he nned on betraying us, that didn''t matter.

    We had already aplished what we needed to do.

    As long as we stayed near our wyverns, there was no way that they would be able to stop us from leaving. At the same time, I already had Joan give orders to the ten wyverns that we had given to the Midra Kingdom to follow us if anything happened.

    So we had already covered all of our bases.

    I just wanted to see what the second prince had in store, so...

    "Alright, when will it happen?" I said with a sigh.

    The second prince was surprised to hear this.

    It was obvious by the look on his face that he was expecting much more of a resistance from

    us.

    After gathering himself, the second prince said, "Tomorrow, it will all happen tomorrow. I hope that you will be ready to enter the throne room when the timees."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the second prince before giving a nod in response.

 Chapter 914: Invading army

    Chapter 914: Invading army

    ?

    The next morning came and there was nothing special that happened.

    It was the same thing where the ministers tried to convince Klein to move out again, but they were once again rejected.

    Even though it was very clear that they were frustrated, there was just nothing that they could do since we hade to help them. We were the ones that were offering our generosity, so there was nothing that they could say.

    But it was very clear that they were getting fed up at this rate.

    It was only a matter of time before they did something drastic.

    It was just too bad that they wouldn''t get that chance since everything was supposed to end today.

    Whether the second prince did anything or not, today was the day that everything woulde to an end.

    We would take the wyverns if things failed.

    As such, we spent the day taking care of the wyverns to make it seem like they were still resting.

    When the ministers saw this, they had no choice but to leave us to the wyverns since they couldn''t stop us from taking care of them. They could only hope that this was thest time that we needed to.

    As we were alone on the wyvern training field, Klein came over to talk to me.

    It seemed like a normal talk, but it was anything but normal.

    "Do you really think that he''ll act today? Or do you think that this is all one big trap?" Klein asked me.

    I just shook my head before saying, "I have no idea, but we''re ready regardless of what happens."

    Klein was about to nod in agreement, but he was interrupted by some people running over. We werepletely caught off guard since we didn''t expect them to appear in front of us like this, but it was the ministers who came running back.

    We were almost certain that they were here again to try and convince us to head out, but this wasn''t the case.

    Instead...

    "Sir Klein, you must help us! The second prince has gone mad and ising with a rebel army to take the capital! He has taken all of the wyverns, we need your help!"

    They didn''t hide anything from us, but that just went to show how desperate they were.

    We werepletely caught off guard when we heard this.

    After all, we never expected the second prince''s big move to be a coup.

    We thought that the second prince would be much more smooth with his big move, but he was doing something as crude as a coup d''etat with force...

    This really didn''t seem like the second prince.

    But if one thought about it, they would have realized that this was no ordinary coup d''etat.

    If it was a normal coup, would the ministers of the kingdom reallye looking for them for help?

    They were from a foreign country, so it wasn''t as if they would turn to them for help unless it was a final resort.

    That meant that whatever force that the second prince had gathered had the power to threaten them this much. It most likely even had the power to take over the entire kingdom without any effort.

    First were the ten wyverns that were set to be loyal to the second prince.

    But what else was there in the second prince''s army?

    Thinking about this, we decided to go and see what the second prince''s army was like, though the pretense that we epted it on was that we were going to stop the second prince''s army.

    Of course, there was no way that we would actually stop them since we wanted this to happen. They didn''t think that this was also the case since they were panicking, so we received information for free and were allowed to leave without any problems.

    When we left the city, we immediately saw the second prince''s army.

    I had to admit that it was indeed quite the army.

    It was one that I had never seen before.

    I couldn''t estimate it with just my eyes, but there were people that I could rely on for matters like this. There were those that were skilled in military matters like this and could give me advice.

    "Two hundred thousand... No, it''s at least three hundred thousand at a rough estimate." Klein said in a heavy voice.

    Three hundred thousand... That was more than anything that they sent at us during the war.

    With how many soldiers had been lost during the war, I really couldn''t believe that the second prince was able to raise an army of this size.

    Or rather, it was hard to believe that the Midra Kingdom had this many troops in the first

    ce.

    Not to mention that this wasn''t including the troops that were under themand of the

    king.

    There was surely a royal army that would be facing this rebel army formed by the second prince.

    It was hard to imagine just how people would die if there was a fight...

    As we came closer to the second prince''s army, there were wyverns that appeared in the air. These were wyverns that were separate from the wyverns that we brought with us.

    These were the ten wyverns that had been with the Midra Kingdom the entire time.

    Like the ministers said, these wyverns had gone with the second prince and joined the rebel

    army.

    When they approached, they didn''t attack us.

    It wasn''t just because it was a bad idea for them to attack us since we far outnumbered them.

    It was also because they didn''t have any hostility towards us and we didn''t have any hostility towards them.

    The leader of this group of ten wyverns waved at Klein and said, "The second prince invites you to his camp to discuss matters."

    Klein looked at me and I gave a nod in response.

    At this point, there was no point in hiding my identity, so I took charge of the group.

    I wanted to see just what the second prince was nning.

 Chapter 915: Super charisma

    Chapter 915: Super charisma

    ?

    The camp was much bigger than expected, but it also seemed a bit messy.

    Though it was a strange kind of messy...

    The reason it was messy was because there were different kinds of tents that were scattered all over the ce. It was as if these tents all came from different ces rather than from a single ce.

    It was as if it was a big mix of random things rather than one unified camp.

    Which was why it seemed messy.

    This was entuated even further when one looked closely at the armour that the soldiers were wearing.

    They all seemed to have different designs, as if they all came from different ces.

    It made the army seem like a hastily gathered army rather than a proper army.

    But that didn''t mean that they were sloppy.

    Even though they seemed messy because of the different equipment that they had, they still acted like a proper army. It was clear that these soldiers had all been well trained and had experiencedbat before.

    Once we arrived at the center of the camp where the main tent was, the second prince immediately came out to greet us.

    At the same time, there were many people in different styles of armour that came over to the main tent.

    These people seemed like they weremanders with the style of armour that they wore.

    These were sets of armour that clearly were not cheap.

    They were sets of armour that had been custom ordered and made for these people, so there was no doubt that they were very special.

    As such, these people shouldn''t be normal people.

    If one had to guess, they were most likely nobles of the Midra Kingdom.

    Realizing this, I started to have an idea of how the second prince had gathered thisrge army.

    Even if there was a royal army, a national army, and many knight orders, there were still many nobles all around the kingdom that had troops under them.

    These were small amounts of troopspared to the armies and knight orders, but added together....it was a ridiculous amount of troops. It was just because they were so scattered around the country that they were usually ignored.

    But now the second prince had gathered them all to form thisrge army like this.

    If anything, this was a show of just how much charisma the second prince had that he was able

    to convince all of them to bring their soldiers here like this.

    After all, it wasn''t anything simple that they were getting involved in.

    This was a coup against the royal family.

    This was not an easy decision for these smaller nobles that lived across the country.

    Just a single wrong move would mean death for not just them, but their entire family.

    So this wasn''t a decision that could be made that easily.

    Once the second prince brought us into the main tent, he started introducing everyone to me.

    As expected, these were nobles from all over the country.

    They didn''t really know why the second prince was introducing me to them, but they still went along with it.

    It seemed that they respected the second prince to such an extent that they didn''t ask questions when they were doubtful of something. There was clearly something that was almost abnormal about the way that they trusted the second prince.

    I didn''t really know what it was, but it didn''t seem like it was something that would be easy to figure out either.

    For now, I just chose to ignore it and see what else the second prince had in mind.

    Once he finished introducing the various nobles to me, the second prince said, "We will now head to the pce and depose of my father. I hope that you and your group wille with me for whates after."

    The way that he said this made it very clear what he was nning to do, but it also seemed a bit too simple with the way that he said it.

    Going to the pce, was it really that easy?

    Well, it was a bit easier since there were the wyverns that would allow them to head right to the castle, but...

    It didn''t seem like the royal guards that were there would allow the second prince in that easily.

    It was just that the way that the second prince said this was almost as if he was already confident that this would turn out the way that he wanted this to turn out. It was as if he could see them just letting him enter the castle without a single fight.

    This didn''t seem like a normal level of confidence that the second prince had.

    It was as if there was something that was backing this confidence that I didn''t know about.

    But it also didn''t seem like there was anyone that was nning on stopping him. Just where was he getting this confidence from?

    The second prince didn''t seem to wait as he left the tent and waved for us to follow him.

    We couldn''t do anything other than follow him since he was the one that was leading everyone here.

    It didn''t seem like any of the various nobles that were gathered here seemed like they were nning on stopping the second prince.

    It was almost as if this was what they were waiting for with the way that they went along with

    it.

    No matter how I looked at it, this seemed like a trap...

    It was almost as if we were being led into some kind of ambush...

    But was there anything that they could do against a hundred wyverns like this?

    Even if they had their own wyverns, the second prince should know that I would have done something to the ten wyverns just in case he betrayed me.

    So a smart person like him should know not to trust these wyverns to turn against me.

    I just couldn''t understand what the second prince was thinking...

    It just never crossed my mind that he might have really surrendered...

 Chapter 916: Strolling in

    Chapter 916: Strolling in

    ?

    Once we came out, the second prince brought us over to where the wyverns were waiting.

    It wasn''t just our wyverns that were waiting there, it was also the ten wyverns that I gave him that were waiting there as well.

    All of them had riders on them except for one.

    This one still had a saddle and it seemed like it was waiting for someone to get on it.

    It turned out that the one that was riding this wyvern was the second prince.

    He got on the wyvern like it was a natural thing.

    It was as if this was something that he had done many times before.

    Well, it wasn''t as if this was strange since being able to ride the wyvern was something that everyone wanted to do. I just never thought that the second prince would have been able to find the time to train in something like this.

    Riding a wyvern wasn''t as simple as it seemed and it was clear that he had trained quite a bit to reach the level that he was at.

    That was strange since the second prince seemed like he had been busy with not just his duties, but also this coup since it must have taken a lot of work to get all of these nobles together.

    It was hard to imagine that he had the time to train with the wyvern to reach this level of skill with it.

    Still, it seemed like he had and he was going to ride this wyvern alone toe with us. It didn''t seem like anyone cared that he wasing with us, it seemed like they all had confidence in the second prince to handle this matter.

    No matter how one looked at it, it almost seemed like it was too suspicious.

    Like they were expecting the second prince to lead us into some kind of trap...

    Well, regardless of what the second prince did, it didn''t seem like they would be able to do anything with our wyverns behind us.

    So we took off into the air on our wyverns.

    While we were flying through the sky, the second prince came over to Joan''s side with his wyvern and leaned over to say, "Your majesty, in a while, please follow my lead. I promise that I will turn this country over to you, please just allow me to handle this."

    This seemed even more suspicious no matter how one looked at it, but I just nodded in agreement.

    The second prince looked even more confident after hearing this.

    So we flew right to the capital to not just my surprise, but also everyone''s surprise.

    But that wasn''t the only surprise that we received.

    There was a bigger surprise that came when we arrived at the capital.

    One might think that the arrival of wyverns would put the city guards on guard, but it didn''t seem that way. With the way that the guards in the city acted, it was almost as if they were weing us into the city.

    Just a single look would be able to tell that there were more wyverns here than when we left.

    That should be enough to see that we were cooperating with the second prince and not working with the Midra Kingdom.

    That should be enough for them to attack us.

    But they didn''t...

    Not a single one of my group was able to understand why this was the case, but the second prince''s group acted like this was normal. The way that they acted was almost as if they thought that this was something expected.

    Of course, that didn''t mean that the city guards would be calm once wended.

    There was no doubt that they would attack us once we were on the ground and they could see that the second prince was with us.

    That was the worry that I had in mind as we came closer and closer to the ground.

    It was just that this wasn''t the reality that met me after Inded on the ground.

    Instead of raising their weapons when they saw the second prince, they just calmly greeted the second prince.

    "Your highness, wee back."

    The guards said this as they saluted the second prince.

    There wasn''t a single trace of hostility with these guards.

    It even seemed like they respected the second prince with the way that they acted.

    This really didn''t seem like the second prince was the rebel here...

    The second prince wasn''t surprised by any of this as he just gave a nod to the captain of the city guards before gesturing forward. As he did this, he looked at me to say, "Your majesty, shall we?"

    The way that he acted was as if he was going on a simple stroll rather than taking over a country.

    I couldn''t help looking at the second prince in silence for a few seconds, but I eventually nodded and followed him towards the pce.

    We just walked down the main street of the capital and headed to the pce.

    There were many ces where they could have stopped us, but it didn''t seem like a single person was nning to stop us. It even seemed like we were weed as the people hiding in their homes came out after seeing the second prince.

    With the way that they cheered for him, it was as if they were weing back a hero.

    I couldn''t help feeling more and more suspicious about all of this, but I didn''t do anything in the end.

    After all, Klein and the others were still flying above on their wyverns.

    The moment that anything happened, the wyverns would swoop down and bring us away

    from here.

    The moment that the second prince betrayed us, mes would rain down on him.

    So I wasn''t worried even if this was a trap.

    Just like this, we made our way to the gate of the castle and to my surprise again...the gates actually opened when we arrived.

 Chapter 917: Easily finished

    Chapter 917: Easily finished

    ?

    After the gates opened, there were people that were standing there waiting for us.

    These weren''t the nobles that acted as ministers for the kingdom.

    Rather, these were the servants and guards that worked in the castle.

    The moment that they opened the door, they all bowed to the second prince who was leading our group.

    The way that they acted around him made it clear that they all respected him and treated him as their superior. It was clear that they didn''t care at all about the king that was still in the throne room of this castle.

    The head butler of the castle came forward with his head bowed and said, "Your highness, we have all been waiting for your arrival. The traitor is currently waiting for you in the throne room along with his conspirators. They have no idea what is happening outside of their banquet."

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard this.

    It was indeed around time for lunch, but I never thought that those people would be holding a banquet instead of discussing what to do about the second prince''s coup.

    It seemed like they really werepletely useless, unlike the second prince...

    Or it could be that this was just a trap for me, so I stopped thinking about this and focused on the situation at hand.

    The second prince gave a calm nod before saying to the royal guards, "Prepare to arrest them."

    The royal guards nodded in agreement before heading off.

    The ones that were here were only the captains of the squads, the individual members of the royal guards were still scattered around the castle to resemble the semnce of normality.

    These captains headed off to gather their subordinates to surround the ones that were currently in the throne room.

    After he gave the orders to the royal guards, the second prince turned back to me and invited me to go in with him again, "Your majesty, please follow me. I''ll settle this matter now."

    The way that all of this happened really made it seem like it was some kind of trap, but I still followed them.

    After all, the wyverns were circling around in the sky above the castle and I held the Staff of Earth in my hand.

    I had slowly increased my mana pool and had learned how to use this thing without fainting, so it would be easy for me to use this Staff of Earth to escape.

    Though the others didn''t know what this staff was.

    With the butler leading the way, it took no time at all for us to arrive at the throne room.

    Though we did move at a leisurely pace as if we were strolling through the castle instead of being here to take over.

    The second prince even pointed out a few things that were in the castle as if he was introducing them to me. This made it seem even more like we were casually having a walk in the castle instead of what we were actually here to do...

    But I didn''t drop my guard for a single second while we were here.

    It was the same for Cecilia and the other royal guards who hade into the castle with me.

    Though they stayed a bit behind, they seemed like they were ready to act at any moment to protect me if something did happen.

    None of us dared to let our guard down for even an instant as we were still technically in enemy territory.

    It was just that the way that the second prince acted was very strange.

    This didn''t seem like normal behaviour no matter how one looked at it.

    When we arrived at the throne room, there were royal guards that were there waiting for us.

    These were clearly royal guards with the way that they were dressed in armour and had their weapons drawn.

    However, the moment that they saw the second prince, they immediately cleared the way for him. At the same time, they put away their weapons as if they were showing their respect to him.

    It seemed that everyone who was working in the castle was filled with respect for the second prince.

    Though that wasn''t strange with the reputation that the second prince had.

    Or at least that was the reputation that he had in the game.

    I wasn''t certain if he had the same reputation in this world that was based on the game.

    The second prince just casually nodded at those royal guards before heading into the throne room.

    The royal guards didn''t even try stopping us even though it was clear that we were apletely different group. It seemed that they had this much trust in the second prince that they didn''t question anything that he did.

    Once we entered the throne room, that was when our group was really surprised.

    That was because on the ground of the throne room were a bunch of caterpirs...

    No, it was a bunch of nobles who werepletely tied up in rope. At the same time, it seemed

    like their faces werepletely swollen from having been hit by something.

    With how swollen it was, it seemed that they had received quite the beating before they were tied up.

    But it didn''t seem like the nobles put up much of a resistance as none of the royal guards had a single bruise.

    That wasn''t the most shocking thing as in front of the throne was a royal caterpir.

    No, it was the king who still had the crown on his head that had also been tied up like the rest

    of the nobles. His face was also swollen showing that he had received a beating as well.

    Once the second prince came in, he immediately became the center of attention as everyone turned to look at him.

    They justpletely ignored us who came in with him.

    The tied up king narrowed his eyes to look at the second prince before saying, "So you''ve finally made your move."

 Chapter 918: Doing it personally

    Chapter 918: Doing it personally

    ?

    The way that he said this seemed like he wasn''t surprised to see the second prince doing this. The way that he said this made it seem like the second prince wasying a trap for us.

    So I couldn''t help clenching the Staff of Earth in my hand and the royal guards couldn''t help clenching their weapons.

    But that wasn''t what the king meant by this.

    The king continued by saying, "You''re initiating a coup at a time like this? Do you know how much turmoil this will put our citizens in? Do you know how many people will suffer as a result of your actions?"

    This didn''t seem like the king was working with the second prince toy a trap for us.

    It just seemed like the king had expected the second prince to lead a coup because he expected the second prince to try to seize power from him.

    Though we still didn''t let our guards down for even a second.

    "Ha!" The second prince suddenly gave a loudugh before saying, "When have you ever cared about the people of our kingdom? The only thing that you and your cronies have ever cared about were your own benefits."

    I could see that the royal guards of the Midra Kingdom all clenched their fists when they heard this.

    It was as if the second prince''s words deeply resonated with them.

    It seemed that the situation of the Midra Kingdom was even worse than I thought it was...

    But I still waited to see what would happen next.

    The king''s face twisted a bit when he heard this, but he still said, "Nonsense! Everything that we do is for the benefit of our great Midra Kingdom! I am the king, what I say is naturallyw!"

    His words made him seem like a tyrant that only cared about his authority, though that wasn''t a bad description of the Midra Kingdom''s king since that was what I had seen this whole time.

    The second prince seemed like he was toozy to respond to the king as he swept his gaze upon the nobles that had also been detained.

    The nobles had been silent as the king said all of this, but they had at least looked up as if they were showing their support for him.

    Though the moment that the second prince''s gaze fell on them, most of them suddenly looked down or looked away. It was as if they couldn''t endure the second prince''s gaze on them.

    Then the second prince suddenly said, "Even though I''ve given you all chances to change yourselves, you''ve chosen to remain the way that you are. You can''t me me for the choices that you''ve made."

    All of them trembled when they heard this.

    It was as if the second prince had already offered them a chance to switch sides, but they never took that chance.

    Though it didn''t really seem like the second prince cared what their responses were. He reached his hand out to one of the royal guards who presented arge axe to him. This was the kind of axe that was used in executions to cut people''s heads off.

    As the axe was being brought out, the royal guards made the king stand up and brought him over to stand in front of the second prince. Once he was there, they pushed him down so that he was on his knees in front of the second prince.

    They even pushed his head down so that it was right on the ground.

    During all of this, the king was screaming at the royal guards.

    "What do you think you''re doing to me? Let me go this instant!"

    His voice was filled with more and more panic as he screamed out.

    It was also at this time that he finally seemed to see me.

    They had been ignoring our group the entire time since the second prince had attracted all of their attention, but now that he was on the brink of death, the king was looking for any way out of this.

    That meant that his attention finally turned to me...or rather to Klein since he still believed that Klein led this group.

    "Sir Klein, if you save me, I swear that our Midra Kingdom will be a vassal state of your Kite Kingdom! Just save my life and I''ll give you the entire Midra Kingdom!"

    The way that he said this was as if he still believed that we were a neutral party.

    Though to be fair, that was the only thing that he could believe since anything else would mean his death.

    Klein didn''t say a single thing in response, he didn''t even move a single muscle as he stood there staring right back at the king.

    Seeing that Klein wasn''t moving, the king roared, "I knew it, you were all colluding with the second prince! What did he give you? I''ll double his price, no, I''ll triple it if you save me now!"

    But even then, none of us made a single move.

    After all, we still believed that this was a trap...

    Though it really didn''t seem like a trap with the way that the second prince, the king, and the other nobles were acting. It really seemed like a proper coup with how the situation was

    changing.

    The second prince had just been calmly standing over the king with the axe in hand, shaking his head and giving a sigh as if he was disappointed in the king.

    Then all of a sudden, he raised the axe in his hand above the head of the king.

    The de was just a few inches away from the king''s neck.

    He held it there as he said, "Father, this is the first and final thing that you''ve done for your people. As your son, I''ll personally send you on your way."

    "No! No! I don''t want to die!" The king screamed in a pitiful voice, but they fell onto deaf ears

    until...

    "Chop!"

 Chapter 919: All for your majesty

    Chapter 919: All for your majesty

    ?

    The king''s eyes were still wide open as his head was separated from the rest of his body.

    There was a look of disbelief in those wide open eyes, as if he couldn''t believe that the second prince would actually kill him.

    Even before they were king and prince, they were father and son.

    He didn''t believe that his own son would kill him like this...

    But the fact that the king''s head dropped to the ground with a ssh of blood was a fact that couldn''t be ignored. Everyone just stared in shock as the king''s head was on the ground, that was except for the second prince.

    Once he finished chopping off the head of the king, the second prince took a few seconds as if he was adjusting himself.

    Then he turned around to look at the nobles and gave a nod to the royal guards that were holding them.

    The royal guards came back to their senses when they saw this nod from the second prince. Even without an order from the second prince, the royal guards started to move.

    This time, they made the nobles stand up and forced them forward as if they were bringing them into position.

    The nobles had been dazed seeing the second prince chop off the king''s head, but they didn''t have the luxury to remain dazed when the royal guards started moving them. The moment that the royal guardsid their hands on the nobles, they knew that it was their turn after this.

    They knew that unless they did something, they would be the next ones on the chopping block.

    No, they were already on the chopping block.

    They would be the next ones with their heads severed.

    So they all started pleading with the second prince.

    There wasn''t a single person that cared about their pride as a noble at a time like this, the only thing that they cared about was their own life. They offered everything that they had in hopes of being spared.

    It was just too bad that the second prince didn''t show any signs of mercy.

    Once the first noble was ced in front of him...

    "Your majesty, I''ll give you my family fortune, just..."

    "Chop."

    A single motion was all that it took for this noble to lose his head.

    His mouth was still moving as if he wanted to say something, but there were no vocal cords to make any sound. His mouth just opened and closed like a dead fish, which was quite the appropriate way to describe how he looked.

    The other nobles started pleading even more when they saw this noble being executed, but it was just too bad that the second prince didn''t hear any of this.

    He brought the next noble up and...

    "Your majesty, my daughter is quite the beautiful girl...No, even my wife is a beautiful maturedy, if your majesty..."

    "Chop."

    Another chop and another noble''s head came flying off.

    It seemed that nothing that they said would move the second prince''s heart.

    The nobles that were at the end of the line realized this and they started looking around the room as if they were looking for something to save them.

    Their eyes turned to Klein who was standing there watching all of this happen with a stunned look on his face.

    There was a moment of silence before they started pleading with him.

    "Sir Klein, I wish to defect!"

    "Sir Klein, I will offer all my wealth to his majesty if you save me!"

    "Sir Klein, I..."

    They didn''t hesitate to offer everything that they had, but Klein didn''t fall for the bait.

    He just silently watched all of this happen.

    It wasn''t just him, but the entirety of our group that had been watching in silence.

    We had no idea what the second prince was nning, so we had been watching in silence to see just what he was going to do next.

    However, the second prince didn''t seem like he was nning to do anything other than execute the nobles.

    He just continued to cut the heads of the nobles off until there wasn''t a single one left.

    When thest one was executed, he turned the axe upside down in his hand and mmed it down into the ground. The moment that he did, the blood that was on the axe dripped down and formed arge pool on the ground.

    The second prince didn''t even seem to care that his pants and shoes were sshed by this blood.

    Instead, he turned to look at the head of the king that he had cut off.

    Taking a deep breath, the second prince went over to the king''s head and reached down towards it. He first reached for the eyes of the king that were still open and closed them before reaching up to take the crown off the head of the king.

    The second prince just stood there with the crown in his hand, looking down at it as if he was

    in a daze.

    When I saw this, I immediately tensed up.

    This was the moment that would decide everything.

    This was the moment where the second prince would reveal everything and then take the crown for himself.

    After all, he was in a situation where there was no one that would be able to stop him.

    I wasn''t the only one that thought that, as the rest of my guards all tightly gripped their weapons as if they were prepared to fight their way out of this.

    Then all of a sudden, the second prince turned to face us.

    That just made us even more tense, but we still waited to see what he was nning to do.

    With slow steps, the second prince walked over in our direction with the crown in hand.

    He didn''t bring it to his head and just slowly walked over.

    Once he was a few meters away, he suddenly fell to one knee and said, "To your new majesty, I offer the Midra Kingdom."

 Chapter 920: The biggest surprise

    Chapter 920: The biggest surprise

    ?

    I just had a stunned look on my face when I saw him do this.

    But I wasn''t the only one that was stunned by the second prince''s actions.

    No, it was everyone that was stunned by this.

    That included the royal guards of the Midra Kingdom that had uspletely surrounded. They seemed like they had no idea that the second prince would do something like this.

    There was a trace of unwillingness that was on their faces when they saw this, but they didn''t do anything in the end.

    It seemed that at the very least, they were loyal to the second prince.

    They seemed to abide with his decision even if it didn''t seem like they could ept it.

    The second prince didn''t seem to care about any of this as he slowly moved forward towards me even though he was kneeling on one knee. He was slowly shuffling over while he was still presenting the crown.

    It was as if he was almost pressuring me to take this crown from him.

    Seeing this, Klein and the others turned to me with confused looks as if they were asking me what they should do in this situation.

    Only...how was I supposed to answer that?

    I had no idea what was happening here either since I had been certain that the second prince would betray me. I had already been nning to raise the Staff of Earth and create a tunnel out of this ce for us, but it seemed that it wasn''t necessary...

    The second prince kepting closer and closer until he was right in front of me.

    He was still holding the crown up in front of him for me to take while also still holding his head down.

    At this point, he couldn''t be putting more pressure on me.

    I just looked down at the second prince as he did this, but it didn''t seem like he was nning on doing anything.

    In this situation...there was nothing else for me to do.

    All I could do was reach my hand out to take the crown from him, while also watching him carefully to see if he would do anything.

    The second prince didn''t move a single inch as I reached out for the crown.

    Even when I took it from him, the only thing that he did was bring his hand down as if he was relenting the crown to me.

    I slowly took this crown and lifted it up before putting it on my head.

    Only when it was on my head did the second prince suddenly stand up to say, "The Midra Kingdom is no more! We have officially been taken in by the Kite Kingdom and this is our new ruler!"

    He was facing the former Midra Kingdom royal guards and even gestured at me as if he was presenting me as he said this.

    At this point, there was no way that it could be a trap.

    It seemed that the second prince was sincere about handing over the Midra Kingdom.

    He had already gone too far for this to be a trap.

    Even if he were to take me out and take the throne of the Midra Kingdom, he would only be known as a tyrant ruler. After all, he had just personally executed the former king and several former nobles.

    Even if the only ones that knew this were the royal guards that were loyal to him, it would be impossible for this information to be kept hidden.

    So there was only one path left for the second prince.

    I really didn''t know what to say since I had assumed that the second prince had been trying to lead us into the trap the entire time.

    But now I realized that this was all because I didn''t trust him.

    If I trusted the second prince from the beginning, then I would have seen all of his actions as something elsepletely.

    Take the former fourth prince as an example.

    The things that he did were simr to what the second prince did, but he had the king on his side rather than against him.

    That was why the king passed down the throne to me peacefully.

    If it was the fourth prince, I would have trusted him regardless of what he did and would have gone along without any caution.

    It was only the second prince that I didn''t trust, which was why I had my guard up like this the entire time.

    Perhaps things would have gone much simpler if I had just trusted the second prince.

    Even now, the second prince was looking at me as if he was expecting something from me.

    It wasn''t as if he was expecting something evil from me, he was just expecting me to say a few words now that it was all over.

    With a cough, I said, "On behalf of my name and my authority as the ruler of the Kite Kingdom, we officially ept the surrender of the Midra Kingdom."

    Once again, everyone was filled with shock.

    The royal guards of the former Midra Kingdom were shocked because they never thought that

    I would be the king of the country that they were surrendering to.

    It seemed that the second prince hadn''t told them anything about this.

    It seemed that the second prince had kept all of this hidden and they had assumed that it would be the second prince taking the throne.

    Klein and the others were shocked since they never thought that I would actually ept this surrender from the second prince.

    Only the second prince looked at me with a smile as if he had expected this.

    But then I said, "For now, the former second prince will help me look over thends of the former Midra Kingdom as a regent until we can sort things out and bring thends of the Midra Kingdom under the rule of the Kite Kingdom."

    The former second prince was surprised by this, but he nodded as if he epted this

    appointment.

    Of course I wouldn''t allow him to just get away like this.

    I would work him to the bone for this.

 Chapter 921: Unwavering loyalty

    Chapter 921: Unwavering loyalty

    ?

    Six hours, that was all it took for the former second prince to quell the unrest in the former Midra Kingdom.

    When it was over, he even had mee to the balcony of the castle to announce that our kingdom was taking over the Midra Kingdom.

    There were many people that came to the ceremony that seemed unwilling to ept this, but it didn''t seem like they said a thing.

    I could see that it was all because it was the former second prince making this announcement that they chose to ept this. Though at the same time, it seemed like many of them wanted the second prince to take over as the new king instead.

    Their faces did look better when I announced that the former second prince would be the regent for the area, but it didn''t seem much better.

    Once that was over, the former second prince had his men take care of the rest before leading me to the royal study.

    The two of us sat down while the guards just stood on the side.

    The former second prince looked at me and we both agreed to let the guards leave, though Cecilia did stay behind.

    The former second prince raised a brow to question it before it seemed like he had remembered something. He looked at Cecilia for a few seconds before giving a nod as if agreeing to her being here.

    The three of us just sat there in silence for a bit before the former second prince started making some tea for all three of us.

    It was at that moment that I said, "Former second prince, no, Regent Andrew, do you want to tell me what your goal is now?"

    The former second prince, the one who was now known as Regent Andrew stopped when he heard this. However, he didn''t remain still for long as he continued making the tea.

    Only when he finished pouring the cups for all three of us did he sit back down.

    Even after sitting back down, he didn''t answer my question as he just casually took a sip of his

    tea.

    It was only after he put his cup down that he said, "I wish to serve you with unwavering loyalty, that is why I''ve put on this show."

    The way that he said this was as if he had no hesitation at all.

    It was as if he found that there wasn''t a single thing wrong with what he said, even though his words seemed like they were wrong in the first ce.

    After saying this, Andrew looked me right in the eyes as if he was waiting for my answer.

    My expression didn''t change as I looked at him, but then I suddenly gave augh before saying, "Is that really all that there is to it?"

    With a faint smile, Andrew said, "That is all there is to it."

    He looked at me with a serious look before saying, "I can see that you are someone special. With the way that you ended the war, the way that you built a rtionship with both the dwarves and the elves, the way that you tamed all of these wyverns, I can tell that you possess knowledge that no one else does."

    I couldn''t help feeling surprised, but I kept my face calm on the surface.

    Andrew didn''t seem to mind as he said, "I know that for someone like this, it''s better to join them or take care of them as soon as possible." A faint smile appeared on his lips again as he said, "I''ve chosen to join you."

    The way that he said this made his thoughts very clear, but there was something else that confused me.

    Slightly knitting my brows, I asked, "Why?"

    It seemed like a redundant question, but it was one that I had to ask.

    This time, Andrew didn''t answer right away.

    After a slight pause, he said, "All I want is the prosperity of my people. I know that my father and his cronies would never be able to do that, so I chose to side with your majesty."

    Then in a colder voice he said, "Of course, if your majesty strays down the wrong path..."

    He didn''t finish his words and there was no need for him to finish these words.

    Hearing him say this and seeing the way that he looked, I couldn''t help revealing a faint smile.

    That was because he reminded me of the former fourth prince.

    The game did set them as rivals, but it seemed that they were more simr than one thought.

    Both of them just wanted what was best for their people, it turned out.

    Well, this former second prince was a bit more extreme than the former fourth prince as he personally executed his own father and the nobles that once served him.

    But I could tell that this was something that he did to show his determination.

    Since that was the case...

    "Well, I don''t know anything about your unwavering loyalty, but I do understand your conviction. All I can say is that I won''t trust your so called unwavering loyalty, but I do trust your conviction to your people."

    Then in a colder voice, I said, "But if you ever cause harm to the people that I care about..."

    I didn''t finish my words just like Andrew had done earlier, but there was no need for me to finish these words in the first ce.

    Andrew revealed a smile when he heard this before bowing his head to say, "It is an honour to serve your majesty."

    I gave a nod before saying, "Before you put any of your ns in action, at least give me a rough outline. That is the only thing that I request from you."

    Andrew gave a slow nod in response with a faint smile on his lips.

    He might be more extreme than the former fourth prince, but the former fourth prince had mellowed out.

    So there was no reason why he shouldn''t be able to.

 Chapter 922: What did you just say?

    Chapter 922: What did you just say?

    ?

    Two dayster, we were all gathered in the throne room.

    Since most of the ministers of the former Midra Kingdom had been executed because of the former second prince, that meant that we had to get recements for them.

    The former second prince who was currently the regent was the one that picked them out.

    They were all nobles that had been scattered around the country, who had been ignored by the previous king because of theirck of wealth.

    For the previous king, the only ones that received positions were those that were able to afford bribes. As long as the bribes were big enough, they would receive a prestigious position in the capital.

    That was why there was so much corruption in the former Midra Kingdom''s government.

    Those people were greedy people who only cared about their own benefits, they didn''t care about the good of the people.

    That meant that they didn''t even have the skills to work in the positions that they held. This was the main reason why the former second prince had been so busy in the first ce.

    He had been the one that made up for all those ipetent people that had been in those positions.

    Naturally, it was impossible for him to do this all on his own since he was just one person. There were too many departments for him to take care of all on his own.

    So there were already people that were trained to take over the positions that had been emptied because of the executions.

    But these subordinates of the former second prince weren''t the ones that took these positions.

    These subordinates of the former second prince weren''t nobles, so they couldn''t take these positions.

    The noble caste were still in charge in this world, so it wasn''t as ifmoners could just take positions like this.

    That was why the ones that took these positions were nobles summoned from around the country.

    They were partly figureheads and they were partly department heads since they knew what they were doing. But in the end, it was the subordinates of the former second prince that would be doing most of the work required.

    This meeting that we were currently in was just for them to report to me what the current situation of the former Midra Kingdom was.

    Since my kingdom had taken over the Midra Kingdom, I should at least know what was happening in thesends.

    But for the most part, I was just bored.

    This wasn''t the kind of thing that I dealt with in the first ce, so it wasn''t as if I could make heads or tails of most of the things that they presented to me.

    I had some idea because of my modern era education, but there were just too many details for me to understand what was happening.

    Most of this would be left to the prime minister when he came out to supervise this ce.

    Since we had taken over, naturally a message had been sent to the prime minister who woulde here to supervise the takeover. He would work with the regent and organize how these people would fit into the departments that ran the Kite Kingdom.

    Though judging by the letter that the prime minister sent back, it didn''t seem like he was happy that I had revealed my identity when taking over.

    He stated that Klein was more than enough of a representative to ept this surrender and that there was no need for me to personally do it.

    But it wasn''t as if this was my idea.

    It was the regent''s idea to do this kind of handover since it seemed more official.

    One could say that this was the only trap of the regent''s that I had fallen for.

    It was already toote to regret it, so I could only ept what happened and move on.

    Though the consequences of my actions were a bit...

    Well, it was just sitting here and listening to their reports, so it wasn''t considered that bad of a punishment.

    It was just a bit boring since I had no idea what they were even talking about.

    After a certain point, it almost seemed like their words were blending together and I wasn''t really hearing anything that they were saying.

    At that point, I figured that I had sat there long enough that I could stand up and leave without a problem.

    But before I could...

    "New material has been detected. Host, please obtain a sample for the system."

    "Huh?" I was frozen the moment that I heard this.

    This was a voice that I hadn''t heard in a long time since it had acted like a dead fish this entire

    time.

    But there was no mistaking this voice since it was a voice that only I could hear.

    Not a single other person in this room reacted to this voice since they couldn''t hear it in the first ce.

    Even without that, it was a voice that I would never mistake since it was a unique voice that didn''t belong in this world.

    It was the mechanical voice of the system.

    I had to sit there in a daze for a few seconds to react to what the system had said, but then I quickly said, "What did you just say?"

    Everyone in the room was shocked to hear me suddenly speak up like this.

    I had been fairly silent the entire time, so they had just been going about their reports like it

    was normal.

    The one who was currently up there reading was someone from the department ofnd management who was reporting on the various resources of the kingdom.

    He didn''t think that he did anything wrong, so he was shocked to hear this and a bit afraid.

    The regent said, "Your majesty, if there''s a problem, we can..."

    I raised my hand to stop him before saying to the person reporting, "Just read back what you said earlier, I missed something."

    It seemed like everyone let out a sigh of relief when they heard this, but they didn''t let their

    guards down yet.

    "The ores that we have in abundance are iron ores, copper ores, void ores..."

    "Wait, what are these void ores?"

 Chapter 923: Void Ore

    Chapter 923: Void Ore

    ?

    "The Void Ores?" The person who was reporting had a confused look on his face when he heard this.

    I nodded before saying, "Tell me everything that you know about these Void Ores."

    Everyone in the room looked confused when they heard this, though it seemed like there were different reasons for the confusion.

    Klein and the others were confused since they didn''t know what these Void Ores were either.

    But the ones that came from the former Midra Kingdom were confused like they didn''t know what was special about these Void Ores. They were confused like I had asked them a question about something that everyone should know.

    It was the regent who took over exining what the Void Ores were.

    The Void Ore was a special ore that was found in the Midra Kingdom''snd and the reason it wasn''t as well known was because...

    "It has no use at all."

    The Void Ore was hard to break down and it seemed to be resistant to magic to a certain extent.

    Well, resistant was a bad way to put it since it was better to say that it directly absorbed magic or rather it absorbed mana out of the air.

    That meant that even natural fire that had traces of mana in it would be weakened because it would be absorbed by the Void Ore.

    Right now, the only reason that it was being mined was because of how hard it was. It was used in different ces as a type of paperweight rather than being used for anything proper.

    The few samples that were melted down with special mes were turned into special shields that were strong against magicians, but these things weren''t used for long either.

    After all, there were rumours that the Void Ore shields would explode.

    It wasn''t just a rumour actually.

    Since the regent was the former second prince, he had ess to records that no one else could ess. Those records showed that in the past, when they used one of the Void Ore shields too much, it suddenly exploded.

    No one understood why it exploded like that, but no one dared to use items made from Void Ore that easily since then.

    They were afraid that the same thing would happen where the Void Ore would explode like before.

    So all of the Void Ore shields that had been made before were stored in the royal treasury.

    It did take quite a bit of effort to make these Void Ore shields, so they were considered treasures.

    After hearing everything that the regent had to say about the Void Ore, I was filled with excitement.

    Though I did keep a calm look on my face and didn''t show any of the excitement that I felt. The more that I heard about this, the more certain of a guess that I had about the Void Ores. After all, it seemed like the only logical exnation for the properties of the Void Ores. But I didn''t let myself get too excited just in case I was wrong.

    If I let myself get too excited, then I would just be disappointing myself in the end.

    The system hadn''t said a single thing even though the regent had said all of this, so there was no way of confirming if what he said was real or not. At the same time, there was no way of confirming if my guess was correct or not.

    The only thing left for me to do now was...

    "Show me a sample of the Void Ore. I''m sure that you have a sample in the castle, right?"

    Everyone was once again surprised and confused when they heard this.

    They all looked at me with a strange look as if they couldn''t understand why I was so insistent about this Void Ore. But there wasn''t anyone that said anything since they didn''t have enough information to say anything.

    They just waited to see what would happen.

    The regent paused for a few seconds, but he eventually nodded in agreement before saying to everyone, "Then let''s adjourn the meeting here. We''lle back tomorrow and continue this meeting then."

    Then after that, he stood up and waved at me to follow him as he walked out of the room.

    Though they had been dismissed, it didn''t seem like anyone was nning to leave.

    They were all staring over at me as I stood up to follow the regent.

    At the same time, there were a few people that came along as if they wanted to see what would happen.

    There were Klein and a few other royal guards, as well as people from the former Midra Kingdom.

    All of them were higher ranked than the others, which was why they had been chosen as the representatives to follow me.

    I followed the regent without a word until we arrived at what seemed to be a storage room. However, this wasn''t just a simple storage room.

    The luxurious decorations on the door, the powerful guards that stood at the entrance, and all the different small things about this ce made it clear that this was a very special ce.

    This was the royal treasury.

    The regent just gave a simple nod to the guards that were at the door before saying, "Open the doors."

    The guards were surprised to hear this and to see us here, but they still followed the regent''s orders.

    When the doors opened, there was this sparkle that came out from inside.

    All of the things in this royal treasury were the precious items that had been stored by the former Midra Kingdom''s royal family over the years. Any one of these things would be considered a priceless treasure if they were taken out, but they were all gathered here. However, the regent just ignored all of this as he headed in a certain direction.

    Only when he reached a corner did he pick something up and turn around with it in his hand. "This is the Void Ore shield."

 Chapter 924: Energy conversion system

    Chapter 924: Energy conversion system

    ?

    The thing that he was presenting to me was this dark and round thing that seemed like a te rather than a shield.

    But since the regent was calling this thing a shield, then it should be the Void Ore shield that he mentioned earlier.

    Looking at this thing, it didn''t seem that special at all.

    However, I could tell that there was a strange feeling that wasing from it.

    I slowly took the shield from the regent and held it in my hands without saying a thing.

    Everyone looked at me with a strange look, but I just kept silent as I waited for a response from a certain something.

    Well, it wasn''t as if I wasn''t doing anything at all.

    I was also probing the Void Ore shield in my hand to see if there was anything special about it.

    I remembered the regent saying that this was an ore that could absorb mana, so I gathered some of my mana in my hand to see what would happen.

    As expected, the Void Ore shield in my hand started to absorb the mana that was gathered around my hands. It was absorbing it so fast that I had to quickly scatter that mana before itpletely drained me of all my mana.

    It seemed that the absorption power of this Void Ore was quite good that it was able to absorb all of this mana in an instant.

    After it absorbed this mana from me, I could also feel the mana that was gathered inside of it.

    It seemed that it had been empty after being left alone for so long, but now that it had absorbed some of my mana, I could feel the mana that wasing from inside of this Void Ore shield.

    It was only because my mana sensitivity was better than most people that I could tell that there was a capacity to this Void Ore shield.

    If I had to guess what happened before, they most likely overloaded the Void Ore shield that exploded.

    There was only a certain capacity that could be put into this Void Ore shield and if they tried to put more than that in, it would result in a burst of energy. Namely, it would result in an explosion that released all of the energy in one violent burst.

    But that did get me thinking...

    "If this thing can store mana, does that mean that it can also...?"

    I didn''t get a chance to finish this thought as the system suddenly gave a notification.

    "Special material has been found. New energy conversion system has been created. New products are avable to be produced."

    The moment that I heard this, I realized that my guess was correct.

    After all, the system has just created an energy conversion system for me, which meant that it was possible to store mana inside of this Void Ore.

    Though I was a bit confused why it created an energy conversion system.

    That was until I realized that even though there was a way to store mana in this Void Ore, that didn''t mean that there was a way to get mana out of it. So the system had to develop apletely new system to achieve this.

    What the system had just made was a battery.

    That was right, this Void Ore could be used to create a battery that stored mana and that mana could be used to power different things.

    As for what it would be used to power...

    Right now, there was only the new sex toy that the system had developed.

    However, since it was a battery, that meant that there were different things that it could be used in. As long as there was an energy conversion system and it was used to take power from the Void Ore, it could be used to power all kinds of things.

    With my ideas from the modern era, it would only be a matter of time before all kinds of things were created in this medieval magic world.

    Or at least that was what I thought until the system said, "Host, please do not arbitrarily raise the technological level of this world. The system will not allow its energy conversion system to be used in this manner."

    There was a bitter feeling that filled me when I heard this, but I could tell that there was no convincing the system.

    It was clear by the tone of the system''s voice that it would do all that it could to stop me. That included taking away this reward that I had just earned.

    If I tried anything with the Void Ore, it wouldn''t be surprising if the system took away the energy conversion system.

    Still, being able to get a new product from the system was already a good thing.

    Thest one was the dildo bat and it was now standard issue in our army.

    I''m certain that whatever this was now, it wouldn''t be worse than the dildo bats.

    The only thing that I had to do was arrange for the Void Ores to be sent back to my former territory where the factory was set up.

    As soon as the Void Ores were delivered there, I could start producing these new things.

    But even before that...

    "This Void Ore is exactly what I''m looking for. Where is the mine that this Void Ore came from?"

    The regent was surprised to hear this question from me before slightly knitting his brows as if he didn''t know how to answer this.

    It wasn''t strange that he didn''t know how to answer this since no one would have expected me to suddenly ask something like this.

    After a moment of silence, he said, "There''s a vein not far from the capital..."

    "Good! We''re going there now!" I said in an excited voice.

    Once again, no one knew how to react.

    But they didn''t get a choice in this matter since I was already leaving the royal treasury and

    heading to where the wyverns were.

    The only thing that everyone could do was follow me.

 Chapter 925: Sample

    Chapter 925: Sample

    ?

    With the wyverns, we made our way out of the capital city and to the ce where the mine

    was.

    There weren''t many people at this mine since there wasn''t a high demand for the Void Ores in the first ce.

    The only reason why there was even a mine set up here was because of the royal family.

    They didn''t want this resource to be wasted, so they were gathering it in hopes of finding some kind of use for it.

    So it didn''t matter that we showed up all of a sudden.

    Though the people that were working in the mines were freaked out when they saw the wyverns appear.

    Even though the second prince had received wyverns previously, the wyverns were rarely seen since they had been kept in the capital. The former king and his nobleckeys had kept the wyverns near them the entire time.

    They had treated these wyverns as their personal defense tools instead of things that could be used to defend the entire country.

    That was how the wyverns were wasted in the end.

    That was also why most people were terrified to see wyverns since they weren''t used to seeing them.

    It waspletely different from our kingdom where people were just used to seeing the wyverns flying around and they weren''t afraid of them anymore. Though it was a bad thing that they were curious about wyverns that they approached most wyverns that appeared.

    If it was a wyvern that wasn''t controlled by me that appeared, then it would cause arge disaster with the people of my kingdom approaching them.

    It could be said that they lost their natural fear and their natural defenses against wyverns with the way that they had been desensitized, but that was just how it was.

    Afternding at the mine, I didn''t even bother listening to what the foreman had to say as I said to the regent, "Get them to take out a sample for me."

    The regent had a bitter smile when he heard this, but he still said to the foreman, "Can you bring out some of the freshly mined Void Ores?"

    The foreman naturally knew who the regent was since he was the former second prince and this was a mine that was owned by the royal family, but he couldn''t help wondering who the personmanding the regent was.

    Seeing the way that the foreman looked over here, the regent said, "This is our new king." The foreman and all of the other miners were shocked to hear this, but then they quickly ran off to get the Void Ores that they were asked for.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the regent as if I could tell what he was trying to do, but I didn''t say anything after that.

    It didn''t take long for the foreman and the miners toe back since it was the regent that was asking this of them. When they came back, their hands were filled with Void Ores.

    It seemed that they had brought as many as they could carry.

    But when they came over, they just awkwardly stood there since they hadn''t thought about where to put these ores.

    The regent shook his head and pointed at the ground before saying with a sigh, "Just drop it on the ground."

    The foreman and the miners slowly nodded before dropping them down, but they looked like they still felt awkward and wanted to do something.

    I just ignored them as I went forward to pick up one of the Void Ores.

    This ore wasn''t refined yet, so there were still bits of stone that were attached to it.

    Even then, the moment that I picked it up, there was a notification from the system. "Yes." I silently said in my mind.

    When I said this, the Void Ore suddenly disappeared and the stones that were attached to it fell to the ground.

    This was done in front of everyone, so they were all shocked to see the Void Ore suddenly disappearing like this.

    Once again, I just ignored them all as I focused on the system notifications.

    "Void Ore sample has been obtained. The new product design has been released and a sample

    has been provided. Host, please take a close look at the new product sample."

    My eyes lit up the moment that I saw this notification.

    There was no hesitation at all as I opened up the system inventory and my eyes went right to the new thing that was added.

    After thinking about it, I closed my hand.

    When I opened it again, there was a small thing that was in it.

    In my other hand was a remote that was connected to this small thing.

    The small thing that had appeared in my hand was a little round thing that seemed like a bead, but it was longer than a normal round bead would be. At the same time, it was this strange pink colour that seemed out of ce.

    But there was a faint smile that appeared on my lips when I saw this thing since it was a staple in the world of sex toys.

    With the remote in my other hand, I turned the knob a bit.

    The moment that I turned it, the small bead that was in my hand started to vibrate.

    I didn''t keep testing this thing and put it back into the system inventory before turning to everyone who was looking at me with a strange look.

    Since I had my back to them all, they hadn''t seen what I had done and they hadn''t seen the thing that I took out.

    Once more, I ignored all of them as I turned to the regent and asked, "Can you send this to a ce for me each month? I need a set amount of this to be sent to that ce every month." The regent was surprised and confused to hear this, but he slowly gave a nod in response.

    I patted his shoulder with a smile on my face as I said, "Good."

    It seemed that I would be able to get a steady supply of these Void Ores.

 Chapter 926: Yelled at

    Chapter 926: Yelled at

    ?

    Another few days passed before the prime minister arrived.

    When he arrived, he came in arge group of carriages.

    Otherwise if he came on the wyverns, it wouldn''t have taken him more than two days toe even with therge group that he had brought with him.

    It was just that he couldn''t move all of those wyverns that easily since this was a tense situation.

    There was no doubt that the surrounding countries had already found out that the Midra Kingdom was being taken over by the Kite Kingdom. If there were many wyverns that were moved at this time, they would misunderstand this as the Kite Kingdom mobilizing their troops for an invasion.

    We had just finished a war, we couldn''t fight a second one that easily or our people would suffer.

    So the prime minister came in carriages.

    As soon as he arrived in the capital, there was argemotion that was stirred.

    The regent actually didn''t restrict the number of people that came to watch, so the streets werepletely crowded. There were waves of people that were on both sides of the street and there were even people that were on the rooftops.

    No matter how one looked at it, this seemed like a situation that was ripe with danger.

    It seemed like a perfect chance to assassinate someone.

    But that didn''t happen in the end.

    Since the regent nned for this, he naturally secured the whole area so that nothing like this could happen.

    When it was over, it seemed like the citizens of the former Midra Kingdom were cated about the fact that their kingdom was being taken over. It seemed like they understood that the new rulers wouldn''t be as bad as the old ones, so there was something to look forward to. It seemed that the regent had already thought of everything.

    It was just too bad that they never got to see the other side of the prime minister, a side that only a few people would be able to see.

    It was different from the usual calm and collected manner that he had.

    Though this was a side of him that even I rarely saw because he usually tolerated what I did quite a bit.

    "Your majesty, what do you think you''re doing?"

    Those were the first words that came out of the prime minister''s mouth when he saw me.

    He didn''t call me brother inw, he just simply called me your majesty in this cold voice.

    It was clear that he hadpletely lost his temper and that there was a lecture that was about toe.

    But since we were in front of everyone else...

    I just raised my hand and said with a smile, "Sorry, I didn''t follow the n."

    The prime minister waspletely taken aback when he heard this.

    He looked at me as if he didn''t know what to say, which gave him the time to realize the ce that we were in.

    It seemed that he had forgotten himself a bit in the rage that he felt over what I had done that The actually forgot where we were.

    Once he calmed himself down enough and realized this, the prime minister gave a cough before saying, "In the future, please inform me before you do anything."

    The two of us both felt strange when he heard this since it was a familiar scene.

    Though it was usually me saying this rather than the prime minister.

    But this wasn''t the only thing that the prime minister had for me.

    He came forward and leaned in to say, "The queens asked me to bring this letter for you."

    I trembled the moment that I heard this, but I took the letter that he offered me.

    I knew that even though I had avoided being yelled at by the prime minister, it was impossible to avoid this second scolding.

    There was no doubt that this second scolding would be much worse than the first one, but there was no one to me but myself for this.

    I was the one that went along with the former second prince''s n, so I could only live with the consequences of my actions.

    But that was forter.

    After this moment with the prime minister, I called him over to where everyone else was and introduced him to them.

    The one that I was the most concerned about was the regent, the former second prince.

    This former second prince and this former fourth prince, though they came from different countries, their reputations had been the same.

    They had both been known as people who were calcting and would do what needed to be done.

    Though based on what I had seen from the two of them, it seemed like the former second prince was more vicious than the former fourth prince.

    At least when it came to family, the former second prince didn''t show any mercy at all whereas the former fourth prince had just let someone else take care of it.

    I was worried that the two of them might suddenly fight against each other for power.

    As I watched with an anxious look, the two of them came up to each other after being introduced to each other. They just looked at each other for a bit as if they were sizing up the other side and then the prime minister and the regent reached out their hands at the same

    time.

    They both reached out only a single hand, but it didn''t seem like they were about to hit each

    other.

    Instead, they just grabbed each other''s hand and gave a shake.

    The way that they looked at each other was as if they had suddenly found a friend.

    It was as if they had connected on a deeper level, a level that didn''t need a single word.

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile seeing this, but at least it seemed like they were getting along.

 Chapter 927: Go do your job

    Chapter 927: Go do your job

    ?

    After meeting, the two of them didn''t waste any time at all.

    The regent had already prepared the room, while the prime minister had prepared the people. That was the reason why there were so many carriages in the first ce.

    This was the start of another reporting session where the regent''s subordinates gave different reports on the territory of the former Midra Kingdom.

    This was something that had happened with me a few days ago, but I had interrupted them when I heard about the Void Ore.

    Since then, I had been focused on different things that interested me instead of governing thend like the regent wanted me to. So there hadn''t been another reporting session like this since I had gotten the Void Ore.

    But it was different for the prime minister.

    He was the one that took care of most of my duties in the first ce, so it was only a given that

    he would be managing the territories of the former Midra Kingdom as well.

    For that, he would need to know the situation of these territories and he would need subordinates that he could trust.

    That was why he had brought all these people with him.

    They would be his hands and legs in these different departments that would help transition them to bing a part of the unified government.

    That didn''t mean that the prime minister was sacking anyone, he was just sending people to unite the two departments into one since this would all be thends of the Kite Kingdom from

    now on.

    In short, there was nothing for me to do since I wasn''t a part of this in the first ce.

    The only thing that I could do was sit there with a bored look on my face as the regent and the prime minister organized everything.

    But after a while, the prime minister turned to look at me and asked, "What are you still doing here?"

    I was very confused when I heard this.

    I didn''t understand what he meant by this and was even more confused with the tone of voice that he had.

    The way that he said it was almost as if he expected me to already know what I should be doing.

    But I had no idea what the prime minister expected of me.

    Seeing that I wasn''t moving, he said, "Go and take care of them already."

    "Take care of who?" I couldn''t help asking in a confused voice.

    The more that he pushed me, the more confused that I was.

    But it wasn''t as if we were in a rtionship where I wasn''t able to ask anything.

    So I just directly asked him what he wanted me to do.

    The prime minister looked at me with a surprised look for a bit.

    The way that he looked at me was almost as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. But after looking at me like this for a bit, he realized that I really didn''t know what he was talking about.

    So the prime minister lowered his voice and waved for me toe closer before saying, "The monsters are still active in this ce. Since they are active, naturally we have to do something about it since this will bend of our kingdom soon. You''re the only one that can deal with that, right?"

    I was surprised to hear this since I hadn''t even thought about this after taking over.

    We were supposed to take care of this problem, but we had stopped because of what happened with those that had been sent to watch over us. Because of them, we had been pretending that we were tired the entire time and had never taken care of these areas of increased monster activity.

    Though I was more surprised that the prime minister was actually agreeing to me going personally.

    Before this, he had been a strong opponent of me going personally to handle these matters. He had wanted me to send the royal guards to take care of this on my behalf instead of me going to handle this matter personally. Now he actually agreed to send me out to take care of this matter myself.

    It seemed that his opinion on this matter had changed.

    Though it still confused me why his opinion on this matter had changed.

    After a moment of silently looking at the prime minister, I figured out what it was.

    He epted the fact that there was no one else that was able to do the same thing that I could do. After everything that happened, the prime minister just epted that I had abilities that no one else could copy or match.

    There were things that could only be handled if I took care of them personally.

    As such, the prime minister decided to leave these matters to me.

    Well, this was the best decision that he could make since only I was able to take care of these things. Even if he wanted to leave this matter to someone else, I definitely wouldn''t have

    agreed to this.

    After all, I had already seen the concentration of demonic energy that these crystals

    contained.

    Even if he wanted to send someone else, there was no way that they would have been able to

    deal with these crystals.

    If something went wrong, they would all die.

    If things took a turn for the worst, there was a chance that they would be corrupted or the wyverns would be corrupted by the demonic energy.

    If a wyvern were to be corrupted by the demon energy, then it would be a disaster.

    So that was thest thing that could be allowed to happen.

    With a nod, I said, "Alright, then I''ll be taking Klein and the others."

    The prime minister gave a nod before saying, "Take care of everything."

    There was some kind of implication in his voice, as if he was worried about something else.

    I didn''t need to think to guess what he was implying, so I just gave another nod in response.

 Chapter 928: Variant monsters

    Chapter 928: Variant monsters

    ?

    With Klein and the other wyvern riders, we headed off right away.

    I left the meeting to the prime minister and the regent, though it wasn''t as if I would have gained anything from staying there.

    The only thing that was developing was a headache rather than knowledge.

    So it was a better use of my time to take out these ces that were filled with monsters instead.

    After all, I should be the only one that could handle this.

    Since we were going out again, that meant that we would need a guide to show us all of these ces.

    Instead of being followed by people who only wanted to watch over us, we were now being followed by people that actually wanted to help.

    That included the same dark clothed person that the former second prince sent before.

    This person was following us as a guide that would lead us to the different ces filled with monsters.

    The first ce that we arrived in was a canyon filled with orcs.

    This was a ce that had been blocked off since there were only so many entrances to this canyon in the first ce. So that meant the ones that were assigned here faced fighting that was quite intense.

    They would have to fight several times a day against the monsters that tried to escape this canyon.

    It was clear by their appearances that they had all suffered injuries to varying degrees fighting these monsters, but it didn''t seem like they were nning to give up. Even though they had been injured to this degree, it seemed like they were still willing to keep fighting for those that they protected.

    It seemed that even though the Midra Kingdom had terrible people at the top, there were still good people at the bottom.

    The country shouldn''t be judged just based on the people that were at the top, there were people that could be considered good at the bottom.

    As we arrived, there was amotion that came from the canyon itself.

    As soon as the soldiers heard this, they didn''t even bother greeting us as they armed themselves.

    It was clear that there were monsters that were trying to escape.

    So they were all arming up to face these monsters.

    It was just that...

    "Ah! They''re not just normal orcs! There are high orcs!"

    "It''s not just high orcs, there are also ck Orcs and Blood Orcs!"

    "There''s no way that we''ll be able to fight all of these orcs!"

    Themander gritted his teeth when he heard this, but he still raised his weapon and said, "It doesn''t matter! We just have to fight them for our families! Charge!"

    The soldiers hesitated a bit, but they still followed themander''s orders in the end.

    It seemed that these soldiers were quite brave, but I had already seen this during the war when I ughtered the Midra Kingdom army.

    But this time, there was no need for them to kill themselves like this.

    I waved my hand at Klein and he nodded back at me before saying, "Charge!"

    As soon as he gave this order, the wyverns dive bombed the orcs that were charging up from the valley. As they dive bombed the orcs, there were me breaths that were unleashed on these orcs.

    Different from when we fought in the forest, we used the me breaths without any hesitation here. This ce wasn''t a ce that was filled with things that could burn, the canyon was just filled with rocks and more rocks.

    So there was no reason for us not to use the wyvern me breaths.

    With the mes raining down, there was the smell of burnt pig that filled the air.

    Though there were some of these orcs that didn''t burn from the me breaths of the wyverns.

    These were the orc variants that were mentioned before.

    The ck Orcs and the Blood Orcs were variants for a reason, they had skin that was much thicker than the normal orcs and were able to resist the mes.

    Though it was impossible for them topletely resist the me breaths of the wyverns so they were still burnt to a certain extent.

    But the me breaths didn''tpletely rout them like with the other orcs.

    These ck Orcs and Blood Orcs continued charging, but all that meant was that they charged into the ws of the wyverns.

    There were wyverns that shot me breaths and there were wyverns that dived down with their ws.

    Even if their skin was thick enough to resist the mes of the wyverns, that didn''t mean that

    they were thick enough to resist the sharp talons of the wyverns.

    They were ripped apart before they could even realize what happened.

    With thebination of mes and ws, the orcs were all wiped out in no time.

    But even with the orcs gone, the soldiers didn''t let their guards down for a single second.

    They were looking at the wyverns as if we were the next enemy.

    In the end, it took the former second prince''s seal to convince them that we weren''t and the elite guard of the former second prince exined everything.

    Themander quickly bowed his head to me as he said, "Your majesty, I never thought that you would personallye to our rescue. This is..."

    He didn''t get a chance to keep going since I knew that he would just keep ttering me.

    I cut him off by asking, "The orc variants, how long has it been since they started showing

    up?"

    Themander was surprised to hear this question, but he answered with a bitter smile, "Today was the first day. If they showed up before this, there would have been no way for us

    to stop them."

    I gave a nod as if I agreed with him.

    I could see the soldiers that were here, so I knew that what he said was true.

    But that wasn''t a good thing either.

    It seemed that the monsters were changing into higher ranked variants and there were so

    many of them that they were evening out of their breeding grounds.

    Just how powerful would the monsters guarding the crystal be?

 Chapter 929: Sped up

    Chapter 929: Sped up

    ?

    Since there was the chance that there would be more variant monstersing out, I didn''t want to take any risks.

    This ce was now part of our kingdom since the former Midra Kingdom''s territory was now incorporated into the Kite Kingdom''s territory.

    So that meant that these people were our people and it was our duty to protect them.

    So I had Klein pick out ten wyvern riders to leave here.

    Ten would be enough to clear out the orcs even if there were variants.

    But it wasn''t just ten that we were leaving here.

    We also sent twenty other wyverns out to check the other entrances into the canyon.

    They would provide support if necessary, but their main task was to patrol the area around this canyon to see how many variant orcs there were.

    They didn''t understand why I gave them this order, but they would follow that order.

    The rest of us had the hard task of clearing out the valley and reaching the crystal that was buried somewhere here.

    After all, if we only took the crystal away, that wouldn''t get rid of the orcs.

    Instead, that would just cause them to leave the canyon en masse and swarm to the viges that were around the area. That would cause even more damage and that was something that we were trying to avoid.

    So we had to clear out some of the orcs that were in the valley.

    As we headed down, we found that there were far more orcs than expected.

    We never would have expected all of the orcs that were waiting for us inside of this canyon.

    It seemed like there were even more orcs than could fit in this ce, but they had built several camps all over the ce.

    They didn''t know we were here since we were watching them from above, but we could see everything about these camps.

    Including the fact that there were many variant orcs that were wandering around in these camps.

    It seemed like almost the entire camp was made of variant orcs.

    What we had seen before was just the peak of the iceberg, they were the ones that were too weak to remain in the canyon and had been forced out by the variant orcs that were still in the canyon.

    They weren''t even the strongest even though they were variant orcs.

    It seemed that the orcs in the canyon had developed much faster than anyone would have expected them to develop.

    It should have been only around a month since the monsters started showing increased activity and yet there were so many of these variant monsters already.

    It was almost as if their development was being sped up.

    If we hadn''t taken care of the crystals that were in our kingdom, would the same thing that happened here have happened in our kingdom?

    Would we have had to deal with the same thing as this?

    That was a thought that passed through my mind, but I quickly shook that away since it didn''t have anything to do with this situation.

    Even if that was the case, there was nothing to gain from thinking about it.

    Rather, it was better to focus on taking care of the orcs in front of us.

    So I gave a nod to Klein and he started the attack.

    Even if they were variant orcs, that didn''t mean that they were strong enough to ovee the me breaths of the wyverns.

    Not to mention that with the me breaths, we were basically able to trap the orcs in their camp.

    Their camp was made of wood since that was the extent of the building abilities of the orcs, even if they had evolved into variants.

    So the camp was easily lit on fire by the me breaths that rained down on the orcs.

    The orcs didn''t stand a chance at all as they were surrounded by the mes and burnt to a crisp.

    Though as variant orcs, they did have a certain amount of intelligence and tried to break free of the burning camp.

    There were some that gathered some of the weaker orcs to act as orc shields for them as they broke through the ming walls.

    It was just too bad that all of these orcs met the same fate.

    They were faced with the sharp talons that came right at them

    They didn''t stand a chance as they were ripped apart by the sharp talons and then left to burn to a crisp in the ming camp.

    When it was all over, there were only ashes that were left behind.

    None of us felt a single thing as we looked at the ashes that had been the orc camp in front of

    us.

    We all knew that if we had left them be, the orcs would have just harmed more people.

    it was better to kill them all than to leave them in a position where they could have harmed more people.

    We didn''t even bother cleaning up the camp since there was nothing to gain from that.

    Once we finished off this camp, we headed off in a certain direction.

    I was the one that was leading the group since I was the one that could sense the demonic

    energy.

    But along the way, we stopped to clear out several more camps.

    Even though there were variant orcs in all of these camps, it wasn''t hard for us to clear them

    out since we had the wyverns with us.

    The wyverns really were cheats in that the orcs couldn''t do a single thing against them.

    They were just too strong for the orcs to fight back against.

    So with these wyverns, we were able to clear out several more orc camps and thin out the herd of orcs in this canyon.

    Once we took the crystal, it should be easier for us to sweep through this canyon and wipe out

    the rest of them.

    As for the crystal, I was able to follow the trail to where it was buried.

 Chapter 930: Defending the crystal

    Chapter 930: Defending the crystal

    ?

    As we followed the trail, there was something that seemed off.

    It seemed that the closer we came to the source of the demonic energy, the more orcs that were along the way.

    Even though we had already expected orcs to be there, it was an abnormal increase.

    It was almost as if they had deliberately gathered in the path of the source of the demonic energy. It was almost as if they were spread out in a manner that would allow them to create walls on the path to the source of the demonic energy.

    That didn''t seem right since these orcs shouldn''t be smart enough for something like this. Especially with how they ran as soon as they encountered the wyverns.

    They were scattered like bowling pins in front of the might of the wyverns and they ran right away, with no intentions of staying in the burning camps to keep protecting this path.

    The way that they just scattered right away instead of standing to the end was as if they had been ordered to stay here, rather than choosing to stay here.

    It was as if there was something or someone that had told them to guard this ce.

    It was hard to tell what it was just based on the clues so far, but I could guess what it was. That guess was confirmed when we finally reached the source of the demonic energy.

    At this point, it was so dense that it was almost impossible to miss it.

    That was because there was a camp that was right above the area where the crystal was buried. At the same time, it seemed like the demonic energy was seeping right out of the ground up into the camp that was above it.

    From above, we could see that the camp was filled with different variant orcs that all seemed quite powerful.

    Each one seemed like they were stronger than the bosses of the camps that had been along the way.

    But that wasn''t the most surprising thing.

    The most surprising thing was that at the center of the camp, there was an orc that wasrger than the rest of the orcs sitting there. Atop thisrge orc''s head was a crown that seemed to be made of leaves and branches.

    Just a single nce was enough to tell that this should be the king of these orcs.

    It seemed that they had evolved enough that there was a king that even evolved.

    This was most likely the reason why the orcs had been stationed on the way to this ce.

    Was it because they could tell that staying in this ce filled with demonic energy would make them stronger?

    It seemed that was the case as the orcs were all gathered around the area where the demonic energy was the most concentrated.

    It was only when they had to go out into the surrounding area to gather materials that they left this area.

    When they could choose, they would always stay in the ce that had the highest concentration of demonic energy.

    They seemed to recognize that it did make them stronger to absorb this energy.

    But I also couldn''t help wondering if there was something about the crystal that naturally made the orcs want to protect it.

    This wasn''t the case with the other ones, but those ones didn''t have the same concentration of demonic energy in them. Perhaps it was only when they reached this level that it would instill a desire to protect in the monsters that were nurtured.

    It was a mystery since we had no idea what these crystals were in the first ce.

    "Your majesty, should we attack?"

    I was pulled out of my thoughts by Klein who suddenly asked this.

    After being pulled out of my thoughts, I said with a nod, "Yes, destroy them."

    With that order, Klein didn''t hesitate to give the order to attack.

    Since there were stronger variants and this was our target in the first ce, he took a different approach.

    Instead of diving down and wiping them out quickly, he had the wyverns form a circle formation around the camp before shooting their me breaths downwards.

    This created a circle of mes around the camp thatpletely boxed the orcs in.

    The orcs were gathered around the center of the camp, so it wasn''t hard for us to trap them in this camp in the first ce. With the way that they were gathered, it was almost as if they were asking to be trapped like this.

    However, the orcs didn''t seem as afraid of the mes as the other camps that we attacked. Since they were stronger variants, they had thicker hides than the other orcs that we killed.

    It was just that it was impossible for them to stop all of these wyverns that were around them.

    Orcs and wyverns, there was no need topare the two.

    If one me breath wasn''t enough to burn down an orc, then they would use two.

    If two wasn''t enough, then they would use four.

    The mes that surrounded the camp were enough to make them cautious enough that they didn''t scatter like cockroaches after the light was turned on. At the same time, it seemed that the Orc King was gathering them around it to protect something.

    It was where the demonic energy was the most concentrated, so this was most likely where the crystal was buried.

    The way that the Orc King acted waspletely different from the way that the orcs acted previously.

    The Orc King seemed like it was ready toy down its life to defend this crystal.

    It almost seemed like it cared more about the crystal that it did about its own life.

    The other orcs though were just staying because they were being suppressed by the power of

    the Orc King.

    It was the king of the orcs, so it had a natural suppression on them.

    That meant that it was easy for us to pick them off one by one with the me breaths and let the encroaching mespletely surround them.

 Chapter 931: Sudden transformation

    Chapter 931: Sudden transformation

    ?

    With the me breaths picking them off, the number of orcs started to decrease.

    It was only a matter of time before there were only a few orcs that were surrounding the king.

    All of them looked like they didn''t know what to do and the only reason that they hadn''t run off was because they had seen what had happened to those that ran off. They knew that there was nothing to gain from acting rashly like the others had done.

    There was no loyalty in their actions at all, they didn''t feel this kind of loyalty to the Orc King. They only cared about their own lives.

    However, that didn''t mean that they had all the time in the world to keep stalling like this.

    They were surrounded in mes and the mes kept approaching them since everything in the camp was mmable. The camp was made of sticks and stones and those sticks burned quite well since this was a dry area in the first ce.

    Even if they were variant orcs and had resistant hide, that didn''t mean that they would be able to stand in the mes forever.

    The Orc King hadn''t done anything this entire time because it was standing over where the crystal was.

    With the way that it closed its eyes and ignored everything, it was as if it didn''t care what was happening to the orcs that were around it.

    All of a sudden, the eyes of the Orc King opened and it let out a roar.

    This roar seemed to shake the entire area around it with how powerful it was.

    At the same time, there were ck lines that appeared on the skin of the Orc King. It was as if there was some kind of strange energy filling the Orc King''s body that was corrupting it.

    This strange energy also made the body of the Orc King swell up.

    It was like the muscles of the Orc King were about to burst with how they were swelling. With this sudden change, the Orc King had grown to one and half times its normal size. At the same time, it had turned into a burst of muscles.

    All of the orcs that had been around it couldn''t help being pushed back by the Orc King''s sudden change.

    They didn''t do anything even though the Orc King had suddenly changed like this and just looked at the Orc King in a daze, but that didn''t mean that the Orc King remained idle.

    The Orc King suddenly grabbed two of the orcs that were beside it by the head and then looked up into the sky.

    Klein and the others were surprised to see the Orc King looking up at them like this, but they found that the Orc King was looking at two specific wyverns.

    These were the ones that were the closest to the ground.

    Lifting up the two orcs in its hands, the Orc King suddenly swung its hands with the two orcs in them at the two wyverns.

    In the middle of its swing, the Orc King suddenly released the two orcs in its hands and sent the two orcs flying through the air at the wyverns that were flying there.

    The two wyverns and the two riders that were on the wyverns were all caught off guard by the sudden actions of the Orc King. But that didn''t mean that they didn''t have a way to deal with this sudden attack.

    The two wyverns just reached out with their ws and caught these orcs that had been thrown into the air.

    Holding these orcs in their ws, they didn''t hesitate to rip them apart.

    The orcs still weren''t able to react in time since they never expected the Orc King to throw them like this.

    So they weren''t even able to put up a fight as they were ripped in half by the wyverns.

    The Orc King didn''t seem to stop as it grabbed two more orcs around it.

    The orcs had been in a daze since they never expected the Orc King to grab them like this and they weren''t able to do a single thing. They could only let the Orc King just throw them like this at the wyverns.

    The wyverns were considered S Rank for a reason.

    It didn''t matter which ore the Orc King threw into the air, they were able to grab them and rip them apart.

    The orcs just had aggrieved looks on their faces as they died, as if they didn''t think that they deserved this death.

    After these four orcs were thrown into the air, the other orcs started to run in all directions. They didn''t even bother attacking the Orc King since they knew that they wouldn''t be able to win.

    So they didn''t care that they were surrounded by the mes like this and started running in all directions.

    Klein immediately reacted to this as he split up the wyverns.

    Half of them were shooting their me breaths at the orcs that were running away and the other half were shooting their me breaths at the Orc King.

    The Orc King had grabbed two more orcs before they were able to get far away from it, but the Orc King didn''t throw these two orcs at the wyverns. Instead, it swung the orcs in its hands at the plumes of mes that wereing at it.

    It was using the orcs that had been its subordinates as orc shields against these me breaths.

    The orcs had strong skin and even stronger bones, so the Orc King was able to block the me breaths with them. Though the burns on the bodies of these orcs used as shields made it clear that they were no longer alive.

    At this point, they were nothing more than tools used by the Orc King to block these me

    breaths.

    It seemed that this Orc King was harder to deal with than they thought, but that didn''t mean that they couldn''t deal with it.

    Simply put, they had the advantage of being able to fly in the air.

 Chapter 932: Strange crystal

    Chapter 932: Strange crystal

    ?

    From our position in the air, Klein was able to easily take care of the orcs that were running away while suppressing the Orc King.

    The Orc King was being shot at from different angles, so there was nothing that it could do other than suffer under the bombardment of these me breaths.

    It only took a few shots to destroy the shields that it was using, so there was nothing that it could do other than block the me breaths itself.

    The Orc King''s fists were covered in this strange ck energy as it swung at the me breaths.

    To our surprise, that ck energy actually helped it block these me breaths and it was able to punch through these mes.

    But Klein didn''t remain surprised for long as he said, "Keep shooting in turns. Don''t let it have a chance to recover at all."

    There was a reason why he was the captain, he wasn''t affected that easily.

    Even if the Orc King had a way to block it, it wasn''t as if this was something that it could do forever. At the same time, it only had two hands in the first ce.

    When the me breaths came from all directions, it was only able to block two of the attacks while the others hit it from behind, from the side, or even from the front when it blocked behind itself.

    However, there was always thisyer of ck energy that appeared above the Orc King''s skin whenever it was hit with these me breaths.

    Thisyer of ck energy seemed to be the sameyer of ck energy that appeared around its fists.

    At the same time, it was the same colour as the ck lines that had suddenly appeared all over its body when it transformed earlier.

    It was clear that whatever this ck energy was, it came from the same source as those ck lines.

    That meant that eventually it would run out.

    Once half the wyverns had taken care of the orcs that were running away, they focused their fire at the Orc King.

    Now that there was a full bombardmenting down at it, the Orc King just wasn''t able to fight back at all and was soon charred all over.

    Even if it had the ck energy still, it seemed like it was running out.

    It seemed that the ck lines on its skin were quickly disappearing, as if it was reverting back to the form that it had before.

    Klein didn''t let his guard down as he didn''t let anyone go down to confront the Orc King.

    Instead, he gave the order, "Keep firing until it''spletely turned to cinders!"

    So the wyverns and riders just kept flying there in the air shooting me breaths in turn.

    The Orc King was truly pitiful as there was nothing that it was able to do.

    It tried its best to resist the mes that wereing down at it, but there was nothing left for it to resist with. It had simply run out of steam...or rather it had run out of energy.

    The ck lines faded from the Orc King''s skin and it ran out of the ck energy, so all it could do was resist with its hide.

    It was able to take quite a few me breaths and it didn''t seem to move a single inch even though it was covered in burns.

    The way that it stood there made it clear that it was protecting something.

    It was just that it didn''t have the power to protect it.

    Eventually, the light in the eyes of the Orc King dimmed and it copsed on the ground.

    It was obvious that the Orc King was dead, but Klein...

    "Keep firing."

    He didn''t stop them from shooting at the Orc King''s corpse.

    It might seem like he was being overkill, but with the way that the Orc King had suddenly transformed just now, there was no telling what could happen.

    It wouldn''t be strange if the Orc King was just ying dead and suddenly stood up when they went tond.

    So Klein didn''t take any chances as they kept firing at the Orc King''s corpse.

    With the amount of mes thatnded on the Orc King''s corpse, it wasn''t able to resist at all as it was turned into ashes.

    Only when the ashes were blown away in the wind did Klein finally give the order to stop shooting.

    But that wasn''t the only thing that he wanted to turn to ashes.

    "Fire at the other corpses."

    Even though they had followed him for a long time, everyone couldn''t help looking at Klein

    with a strange look even though they still followed his orders.

    When it was all over, thend had turned ck, but there were no more corpses that were on the ground.

    Only then did Klein give the order for the wyverns tond.

    I gave him control of the battle, but I certainly didn''t expect Klein to go this far.

    Though I didn''t oppose his ideas since there was nothing wrong with being cautious.

    Once we came down, the first thing that I did was suck in the demonic energy that was around

    this area.

    There was no way that we would be able to do anything here with how concentrated the demonic energy was, so I absorbed all of the demonic energy that was in the air here.

    After that, I personally dug in the area where the demonic energy was the most concentrated. There was no way that they would be able to dig without causing a problem, so I had to do it personally.

    As I dug, I drained away the demonic energy that was seeping out of the hole.

    It really was too concentrated here that it was hard to dig without causing an explosion.

    Finally, the crystal was revealed.

    Though the moment that it was revealed, I couldn''t help looking at it with a strange look.

    This was a strange looking crystal.

 Chapter 933: They were here as well

    Chapter 933: They were here as well

    ?

    The crystal itself was the same as the other ones that we found, but it wasn''tpletely clear like the others.

    Even the one that we had obtained from the Midra Kingdom before didn''t look like this crystal.

    In the center of the crystal was this ck mass that seemed to be swirling around. With the way that it was moving, it seemed like some kind of ck cloud that was condensed in the center of this crystal.

    There was no real way to describe it, but it did seem like it was alive...

    Almost like some kind of worm that was crawling around inside of the crystal.

    After being stunned by this crystal, I grabbed it firmly in my hand and held it tight as I tried to absorb whatever was inside of the crystal.

    But I found that other than the demonic energy that was leaking out, there was no way to absorb the ck thing that was inside of this crystal. It almost seemed like this ck thing wasn''t just energy, but instead was some kind of matter.

    There was no way of getting to this ck thing since we couldn''t break the crystal in the first ce.

    At the same time, there was no telling what would happen if the ck thing inside of the crystal was released, so it wasn''t as if we wanted to even break the crystal.

    So the only thing that could be done was put this crystal in a special box and hope that it wouldn''t do anything. At the very least, it didn''t seem to be releasing any demonic energy after I drained it of the demonic energy that it had.

    But there was still that ck thing that was inside of the crystal.

    What had changed in just a little bit that there would be this kind of crystal formed?

    It wasn''t just that crystal alone, it was also the Orc King.

    Or rather the strange transformation that the Orc King did at the very end...

    It seemed that there were far more mysteries concerning this crystal than we thought.

    But for now...

    The fact that this happened here meant that it was impossible for the same thing to happen in the different parts of the former Midra Kingdom''snd.

    It was clear that the longer that this was put off, the more dangerous things became. While it was unknown just how things would develop, it was clear that they would keep developing unless they were taken care of.

    There was a bit of regret that filled us over not having dealt with this sooner.

    It was clear that if we had dealt with this before, then things wouldn''t have be as bad as this.

    But at the very least, we could still depend on the wyverns to clean up the mess.

    As long as we had the wyverns, we would be able to take care of any monsters that appeared regardless of what kind of monsters they were. Even if they were evolved variants of normal monsters, it should be easy to take care of them with the wyverns.

    Though the real problem was that the same thing with the Orc King happened with the other monsters.

    A Wolf King that was covered in ck energy appeared in one forest.

    A Goblin King that swelled up just like the Orc King appeared in another forest.

    There were all kinds of different bosses that seemed to be drawing on the power of the crystal that appeared.

    Though they were still no match for the wyverns that we brought with us.

    Klein just used the same tactic where he bombarded down all of the bosses that we faced.

    In the face of these me breaths, the bosses really weren''t able to do a single thing.

    They could only ept the baptism by fire before being turned to ashes.

    Each time that we finished off a boss, we would find the same thing.

    After draining the area of the demonic energy, we would find a crystal that seemed to have something inside of it. However, not all of the crystals had the same ck thing inside of it like the first crystal we found.

    There was this blue thing that was inside of the one that the Wolf King was guarding.

    There was a green thing inside of the one that the Goblin King was guarding.

    It really seemed like they changed based on what kind of monster was present, but that still didn''t exin what these things inside of these crystals were. It even added more confusion as none of us had a single idea what these crystals were.

    "Just what is going on here..." I couldn''t help muttering to myself as I held the crystals in my hand, looking at the strange coloured things inside of them.

    But I was interrupted by...

    "Your majesty, there are people that are here."

    Klein suddenly spoke up which had brought me out of my thoughts.

    I looked up at him and then followed his eyes to look at what he was looking at.

    I wasn''t surprised to see the things that were down there below us since we had already expected to find these things.

    During this time, we had already found clues that they would be here, so we weren''t surprised at all that they were here.

    Since we had already encountered them in our own territory, it was only natural that we would encounter them here.

    After all, they were the ones that were responsible for nting these crystals in the first ce.

    Down below us, hiding in the forest were a group of dark elves.

    These dark elves thought that they werepletely hidden, but they didn''t know that we were watching from above.

    This was thest ce that needed to be cleared out, so it was only natural that this was the ce that they would gather since there was someone removing the crystals.

    It was what had happened back then and it was happening now.

    "Make sure that you capture all of them." I calmly said to Klein. Klein just gave a simple nod in response.

 Chapter 934: Need some ores

    Chapter 934: Need some ores

    ?

    Half an hourter, all of the dark elves had been captured.

    They had been no match for us in the past, so of course they were no match for us now.

    The dark elves didn''t even know what was happening as they were suddenly descended on by the wyverns. When they realized where they were, they had been clutched in the talons of the wyverns and disarmed.

    They couldn''t fight back at all as their hands and feet were tied up by the knight that was hanging on the ws of the wyverns.

    So in no time at all, there were a bunch of tied up dark elves that were dropped on the ground.

    The only reason it had taken half an hour was because there was one dark elf that had managed to escape.

    It took half an hour to capture her since she ran quite fast.

    It seemed that there was a reason why she had been able to escape from the ws of the wyverns.

    But she was captured in the end since there was no way that she was able to outrun the ws of the wyverns. The wyverns were much faster and stronger than her, so it was only natural that she would be caught by them.

    Once all of the dark elves were captured, we didn''t waste any time.

    This was thest area where monsters gathered, so it was time to clear it out.

    The dark elves were left with ten knights with wyverns to be watched over, though it would be hard for them to escape in the first ce as they werepletely tied up. It was hard for them to even break free, let alone escape from this ce.

    With the other wyverns, we easily cleared the area where the monsters gathered.

    It was a bunch of ogres and one giant ogre that received the buff of the crystal.

    But with the wyverns, we easily burned them down just like before.

    When I obtained the crystal, I found that it was also the same, though this time there was this yellow thing inside of it.

    The strange thing was that no matter which crystal it was, there was never any that had the same coloured thing inside of it. It was as if all of these things inside had to be a different colour from each other.

    I didn''t think too much about it since there was something else that we needed to take care of. Once the crystal was obtained, I had the others pick up the dark elves and we headed back to the capital where the prime minister and regent were waiting for us.

    It had been over a week now, so I was sure that they would be wondering where we were.

    It was just too bad that this thought was wrong.

    They didn''t seem to care at all that we were gone as they were focused on organizing the territory of the former Midra Kingdom.

    The prime minister''s response when he saw us was...

    "Oh, you''re back."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I heard this from him, but I held that bitter feeling back.

    After all, if one looked at it from a different angle, it was basically them saying that they had enough faith in us that we would handle this without a problem. That was why they hadn''t been worried about us at all.

    "Yes, that has to be the reason." I said as if I was trying to convince myself.

    But there also wasn''t time to be bitter as there was something else that had to be done.

    "You''ve found dark elves?" The prime minister asked in a surprised voice.

    He was surprised since he didn''t think that we would be bringing them back, though he wasn''t surprised to hear that there were dark elves. It seemed like he had already expected this to be the case since there was a precedent.

    The regent was surprised though since he had no idea what was happening.

    Once it was exined to him, the regent had a deep look of thought on his face before asking, "So what do we do with them?"

    The prime minister revealed a strange look when he heard this before slowly turning to look at me.

    With the way that he looked at me, it was clear that there was some kind of implication.

    I could guess what he was thinking, but I didn''t say anything. Instead, there was a look of

    deep thought that was on my face as if I was considering something.

    Seeing this, no one said a thing as I was just deep in my thoughts.

    It was as if they were all waiting for me.

    It was as if they had confidence that I would be able to think of a solution.

    As for what I was thinking about...

    "Since I have the Void Ores now, I should be able to make the new things. But it''ll take some time before they can be transported there and then there''s the matter of transporting them back..."

    "No, since I''m the king, I should be able to be a bit willful. After all these are things that are needed to help my country."

    As this thought passed through my mind, I slowly came to a decision.

    "Throw them in the dungeon for now." I said all of a sudden.

    Everyone seemed surprised to hear me say this, but I wasn''t finished yet.

    "The Void Ore, I need a bunch of the Void Ore."

    They all looked at me with a strange look, but eventually the regent said, "Your majesty, what do you mean by that?"

    "I mean get a bunch of the Void Ores for me, I''m going to bring it somewhere with the

    wyverns."

    They looked at me with even more confused looks in the end, but I just simply said, "Trust me on this. I know what I''m doing."

    It took a while, but they eventually gathered the Void Ores for me and I headed off.

 Chapter 935: Speedy delivery

    Chapter 935: Speedy delivery

    ?

    As we were flying through the air with the Void Ores, the ones that hade with me all looked at me with strange looks.

    After all, they were all wyvern riders that were considered elites.

    They never thought that they would be used on a simple task such as delivering ores.

    It didn''t seem like a task that matched their status as wyvern riders.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that I was the king, then they most likely would have objected to this order.

    I just ignored all of them as I focused on delivering the Void Ores.

    Even though we had so many Void Ores, it wasn''t a problem for the wyverns at all. The wyverns were just too strong to be bothered by a simple load of Void Ores.

    That was how strong the wyverns were.

    I certainly didn''t expect the wyverns to be this capable at transporting goods.

    In the future, it might even be a good idea to use wyverns to transport other goods such as military goods. Or it might even be possible to have wyverns rece carriages and ships in transporting normal goods.

    Though it seemed very unlikely with how unwilling the riders of these wyverns seemed.

    Perhaps it might be possible if there were more wyverns, but it was impossible to keep up just by raising the wyverns alone.

    There were wyverns in other countries after all.

    It might be a bit hard to subdue them, but it wasn''t as if it was impossible to do that.

    It seemed like it was a matter that would be solved in time, it wasn''t something that could be solved in a day or two.

    For now, it was better to focus on what was happening in front of us.

    With the wyverns, it took no time at all to reach my town.

    Though it was certainly a surprise for the people of my town to see me again.

    Even before I was the king, I was already well known in the town.

    Once I became the king, I became even more famous in this town.

    It reached the point where everyone recognized me with just a single nce.

    This wasn''t a good thing though, especially since we arrived in a very conspicuous manner such asnding with wyverns.

    It took no time at all to draw in a crowd, but I needed space since I wanted to go to the factory as soon as possible.

    It was a good thing that Rose left someone very capable in charge.

    Nicole immediately came out and cleared everyone away with Jessica before they escorted me to the factory. Though I could see in the distance that there were some people that were following us.

    I knew that these people didn''t have any bad intentions since they were people from my town. These were people that had lived in the town even before I had be a baron.

    As for the reason why they were following us...

    Well, one could say that they were fans.

    They often talked with me when I was still the baron and slowly gained more and more respect for me. I didn''t know what Rose did while I was gone, but each time they were filled with more and more respect for me until they became obsessed fans.

    So that was why I wasn''t concerned when I saw them following us.

    Though I didn''t let them enter the factory.

    I didn''t even let the wyverns riders enter the factory, so there was no way that I would let these obsessed fans in.

    In the end, I entered the factory alone.

    I had the wyverns drop the Void Ores in the warehouse that was near the factory before using the Storage Ring to take the Void Ores and head in.

    If this wasn''t my territory, they definitely wouldn''t have allowed me to enter alone like this.

    However, since it was my territory, I had the final voice here.

    With that, I started production of the new item that was avable to be produced.

    The system onlycked the Void Ore, it had a store of all the other materials needed since we traded often with the Dwarven Kingdom. So even if this factory didn''t operate that often, it was still well stocked because I told them to stock it.

    With all of these materials, it took no time at all to produce the first product.

    As soon as it came out, I picked it up and held it up in my hands to take a closer look at this. After that came the testing of this first product.

    "Bzz."

    It did work, but it seemed like the quality of this item wasn''t as good as the one that the system gave me before.

    When Ipared the two, the material seemed like it was different.

    It was like how The Prator was better than the dildo bats that were produced afterwards. However, that didn''t mean that this product was bad, it just meant that it wasn''t as good as the one that the system gave.

    Regardless, these things would have their use just like the dildo bats.

    In that case, it was time to start mass production.

    With the Void Ores, I was able to create many of these products in just a single day.

    It didn''t take long before the inventory of the factory was filled and there was no space to produce more of them.

    So I quickly took out the ones that had been made and cleared out room before depositing more Void Ores in.

    Since I was here, I was going to mass produce these things.

    --

    When the next morning came.

    "It''s time to head back."

    That was the first thing that I said as I came out of the factory.

    There was someone posted here to watch over me, but most of the others had gone off to rest since I had stayed in the factory all night.

    Though it didn''t take long for them to gather and for us to head back to the Midra Kingdom''s capital again.

 Chapter 936: Interrogating once more

    Chapter 936: Interrogating once more

    ?

    When I arrived back in the capital, the prime minister and the regent werepletely caught off guard.

    "You''re already back?" The two of them both asked me this.

    In response to this, I just simply said, "I already got what I need, let''s go interrogate the dark elves."

    Both of them had skeptical looks on their faces when they heard this, but they didn''t stop me as I headed to the dungeon where the dark elves were being held.

    The only thing that they did was send away the guards that were in the dungeon at my request.

    They seemed unwilling to do this at first, but then they decided to agree when I called for Klein and a few of his royal guards. Though they looked at me with strange looks when they heard where I was heading.

    It was clear what they were thinking, but I ignored them as I headed into the dungeon.

    Once we reached the ce with the dark elves, I looked at the dark elves that were being held in the cells.

    All of them had defiant looks on their faces and it was clear that they were thinking of ways to escape.

    It waspletely different from the dark elves that we were holding in our dungeons.

    But that wasn''t strange since these dark elves hadn''t been touched since we captured them.

    It wasn''t strange that they didn''t feel any fear since they hadn''t been broken just yet. However, that didn''t mean that we would leave them be for long.

    We needed information from them and the best way to get that information was to break them.

    After looking at the dark elves, I used the same tactic as before as I went to one of the cells and looked at one of the female dark elves that were there.

    When this female dark elf saw me looking at her like this, she couldn''t help moving back a bit even though she was chained up. At the same time, one of the male dark elves came forward to block her as if he wanted to protect her.

    As soon as Klein and the others saw this, they looked at the two dark elves with looks of pity.

    The prime minister and the regent on the other hand had confused looks as they didn''t understand what was happening.

    I just ignored all of this as I looked at the female dark elf and said, "The two of you are a couple, right?"

    The two dark elves werepletely caught off guard when they heard this.

    This was certainly thest thing that they expected to hear based on the expression on their faces, but they didn''t say anything in the end. They knew that there was nothing to gain from saying anything, so they firmly closed their mouths.

    Though I didn''t really need an answer from them.

    The action that they took was more than enough of an answer for me to understand what the situation between them was.

    In that case...

    I looked at Klein and said, "Bring the two of them out and separate them. I think you know what to do."

    Klein and the other royal guards had strange looks on their faces, but they still nodded in agreement after hearing this.

    During all of this, they didn''t say a single word as if they were afraid of saying anything extra. They just dragged the two chained dark elves out of the cell and ced them in the center of the dungeon. The way that the two dark elves were ced was that they were standing in front of each other, but they were not allowed to reach each other.

    It seemed that they knew how to do this even better than I expected.

    Though that did make me think some strange things...

    Still, I tossed those thoughts out of my mind and focused on the two that were in front of me.

    The two dark elves both knew that something was about to happen, so they had been struggling to break free of their captors. It was just that they werepletely chained up and they were surrounded, so it wasn''t as if they could break free that easily.

    Once they had been brought to the center of the dungeon, I came forward to say, "Now, I would normally ask for your names, but since I''m in a bit of a rush, I don''t think that there''s a need. Though thinking about it, it really doesn''t seem like there is a need to know your names anyway."

    The way that I said this was very casual, but it was also taunting.

    The moment that the two dark elves heard this, they knew that whatever they had been chosen for was not a good thing. It seemed like they were about to be made an example in

    front of everyone.

    The two of them trembled after this thought passed through their minds, but then they forced themselves to reveal calm and firm looks.

    It was as if they had prepared themselves for death.

    It was just too bad that it wasn''t their death that I was looking for.

    "I''m sure that you can already guess what I want to ask you, so I won''t waste words." I said in the same calm voice before my eyes suddenly turned cold and I said, "Tell me what those crystals are and what you were doing in this ce, or else."

    The expressions of neither of the dark elves changed when they heard this.

    Instead, they had fearless looks in their eyes as they stared right at me.

    I could appreciate the determination that they had, but it wasn''t as if this was what I wanted

    to see in this situation.

    If they didn''t give me anything, I really had no choice...

    Seeing that they wouldn''t say anything, I gave a sigh before saying, "Alright, rip her clothes off."

    The dark elves had stunned looks on their faces as the hands of the royal guards holding the female dark elf went forward.

 Chapter 937: Vibrating bead

    Chapter 937: Vibrating bead

    ?

    The male dark elf reacted before the guards could rip off the female dark elf''s clothes.

    He started struggling against his captives and doing what he could do break free toe to the female dark elf''s aid.

    It was just too bad that he was too weak for that.

    These dark elves had been starving for over a day now, so they already had very little energy.

    Not to mention that these were the royal guards that were holding him.

    These were knights that were stronger than normal guards in the first ce, so it wasn''t as if he would be able to face off against them even if he was at full strength. Let alone when he was weakened from hunger and dehydration like this.

    It was like a child trying to break free from the grasps of an adult.

    They wouldn''t budge even when he started hurting himself from iling his limbs around.

    In the end, the guards had no choice but to push him down into the ground to stop him from iling, but they made sure that his head was up. They made sure that the head of the male dark elf could still look up at the female dark elf.

    When the male dark elf had started to struggle, the ones that were holding the female dark elf had stopped their hands from reaching toward her clothes. It was only after the male dark elf was subdued that they started reaching for her clothes again.

    The female dark elf had recovered from her daze and screamed, "What are you doing? If you want to shame me like this, just kill me!"

    At the same time, she was struggling in the same manner as the male dark elf.

    Only it was easier to subdue her since there were more guards that were around her holding her.

    The male dark elf only had two guards holding him, the female dark elf had four around her.

    Two of them had been standing on the side without doing anything, as if they were waiting for something.

    So the moment that the female dark elf started to struggle, the two of them came forward and grabbed her by the legs so that she couldn''t struggle anymore.

    With the four of them holding her in ce like that, the only thing that the female dark elf could do was scream and beg them to stop. However, none of them seemed to react at all to her words and the two holding her arms still reached out for her clothes.

    In one swift move, the two of them ripped the front of her clothes and revealed her body.

    This dark elf had a slender body, so her chest wasn''t that big, but she had curvy hips and a slender figure.

    "Ah!" The female dark elf screamed when her clothes were ripped off and she instinctively moved her hand forward to cover her body, but the guards firmly held her in ce.

    Seeing that she couldn''t cover her body, the only thing that she could do was turn to the guards and look at them with pleading eyes as if she was asking for them to spare her.

    But the guards acted like they were made of stone and didn''t react at all to her looking at them like this.

    Instead, they just looked at me and waited to see what I would do.

    I didn''t do anything as I looked down at the male dark elf whose eyes were wide open. They were so wide open that it almost seemed like he was about to start crying tears of blood at this rate.

    However, that was just the beginning.

    After letting the male dark elf suffer a bit, I finally stepped forward.

    During this time, I could see the strange looks that the regent and prime minister were giving

    me.

    The two of them had calm looks on their faces, but the looks in their eyes made it clear what they were thinking.

    Especially with the way that they looked at me.

    I just ignored them as I focused on the female dark elf.

    The female dark elf also turned her attention to me when she saw that the guards were all looking at her. At the same time, she couldn''t help trembling a bit when she saw that I was moving towards her.

    Since she knew that pleading with the guards didn''t work, she changed her tactic.

    "I promise that I''ll tell you what you want, just have them let me go."

    She could see that I was the one that was in charge here, so she started begging me instead.

    Though he looked like he wanted to kill me, the male dark elf on the ground was the same as he started begging me to let her go. He even said that he would take her ce and suffer the torture for her if I let her go.

    All of that just fell onto deaf ears.

    I slowly walked over which made them seem even more anxious, but I eventually stopped in front of the female dark elf and just calmly looked down.

    When she saw me looking down like this, the female dark elf felt the urge to cover her body once more, but she still couldn''t move her arms.

    After looking at her for a bit, I said, "There''s only one thing that I want to hear from you and I think that you already know what it is."

    Both the male and female dark elves shuddered when they heard this as if they knew what he was talking about, but neither of them said a thing.

    "I see, so you aren''t willing to say anything." I wasn''t surprised at all by their reaction since I figured that this was how they would react.

    The other dark elves had been bound by something and were unable to speak of this matter, so it only made sense that they were the same.

    After saying this, I pulled out the thing that I was waiting to use and pushed the remote to give them a little threat.

    In their eyes, they just saw a vibrating bead.

    In my eyes, it was their worst nightmare.

 Chapter 938: Let her enjoy it

    Chapter 938: Let her enjoy it

    ?

    Even though the two dark elves didn''t know what this thing was, they knew that I wouldn''t pull it out at this time for no reason.

    That meant that whatever this strange vibrating bead was, it was most likely going to be used on them.

    So the only thing that they could do was...

    "Please, don''t do this."

    There was nothing that they could do other than beg.

    But of course, the begging once again fell onto deaf ears.

    Seeing that I just ignored them, the male dark elf bit his lip and said, "I''ll give my life to you as long as you stop this. I promise that I''ll sacrifice myself to break the contract ced on us so I can tell you everything."

    I just shrugged as I said, "Then do it."

    The male dark elf was shocked when he heard this.

    He thought that I would at least be tempted by this, he never thought that I wouldn''t care at all.

    I just calmly looked at him to say, "Unless you can tell me anything useful, then perhaps it''s better if you die. After all, it''ll be hard for you to watch what happens next." There was an evil smile that appeared on my lips when I said this.

    The male dark elf waspletely shocked to hear this.

    After hearing this, there was no way that he could actually do what he said he would do.

    After all, there was on assurance that his lover would be safe after he killed himself trying to tell the truth.

    If he was going to sacrifice his life, he would at least need some kind of assurance.

    Just what was wrong with this person?

    Didn''t he even know the basic procedure?

    I just ignored him as I turned to look at the female dark elf.

    She was looking at me with a stunned look on her face as if she couldn''t believe what I was saying.

    I didn''t care as I went forward while saying, "Now, let''s begin. That is unless you have something to tell me." I paused for a bit as if I was waiting for her to say something.

    The female dark elf just looked at me with the same stunned look as if she didn''t know what to say.

    I gave a nod before saying, "I already guessed that this would be the case. Then let''s get started."

    With one hand holding the bead and one hand holding the remote, I moved the hand with the bead towards her chest.

    As I did this, the female dark elf looked at my hand with a strange and confused look. She didn''t seem to understand what was happening, but that didn''t mean that she was alright with me touching her.

    So she snapped out of her daze and said, "I can''t, you know that I can''t! If I try, then I''ll die! Is that what you want?"

    I said with a shrug, "Even if you die, your body can be made an example of."

    The female dark elf once again shuddered when she heard this.

    The way that she looked at mepletely changed.

    There was pure disdain and disgust in her eyes, but at the same time...they were filled with fear towards me. She realized that I was serious about this and that was what made her more afraid than disdainful.

    But there was nothing that she could say...

    Since that was the case, I just put the vibrator right up to her nipple and turned it on.

    "Eek! Ah..." She screamed in surprise at first at the vibrator being ced against her nipple like that, but then that slowly turned into a moan of pleasure.

    I just let it stay on light like this at first, but then I started turning the knob on the remote to make it vibrate faster.

    The female dark elf moaned, but she also seemed like she didn''t want this as she started struggling. Though there was no denying the liquid that was dripping down from between her legs...

    As this was happening, I looked at the male dark elf with a smile on my face to say, "So, do you feel like talking yet?"

    He didn''t seem to hear me at all as there was an ashen look on his face.

    He was looking at his lover with his mouth agape, like he had died on the inside and his soul had disappeared.

    Seeing that he wouldn''t say anything, I didn''t bother asking him another question.

    After all, this wasn''t a sprint, but rather a marathon.

    It might be different with the dildo bats, but these vibrators were things that needed time to y their real role.

    So I suddenly stopped the vibrator and pulled it away from the female dark elf''s nipple.

    She was gasping for breath at this point, but she also looked at the vibrator that was being taken away with a trace of longing and disappointment.

    I just ignored this as I looked at one of the guards on the side and said, "Bring that over." He gave a nod beforeing forward with some kind of roll of something.

    It was a roll of tape.

    Tape was certainly a strange thing to have in this medieval world, but it was only because it was based on a H-game that this tape was here in the first ce. After all, there were many scenes that would need tape, so they added it into this world even though it seemed out of

    ce.

    I took a bit of this tape and put the vibrator against it before bringing it forward towards the female dark elf.

    She had caught her breath at this point and she asked, "What are you doing?"

    I just looked at her with a smile as I said, "Well, since you seemed like you enjoyed it, I thought that I should let you enjoy it a bit longer. However, I''m not that free, so I''ll use this

    tape to take my ce."

    With those words, I taped the vibrator to her nipple and then turned it on.

 Chapter 939: Demonstration

    Chapter 939: Demonstration

    ?

    "Ah..." The moans came from the female dark elf once more the moment that the vibrator turned on.

    But this time, it wasn''t just a single vibrator that was used.

    With a wave of my hand, there were two more vibrators that appeared.

    On the ground, the male dark elf once more looked like his soul had left him and he was filled with despair. Though there was a part of him that seemed like it remained as he seemed to re at me with all his might.

    It was as if he really wanted to stab a sword right through my chest with the way that he was ring at me.

    However, I didn''t care at all as I took more of the tape that was offered to me and used it to stick the two vibrators that I pulled out onto the female dark elf.

    One of them went onto her other nipple while the other one went somewhere else.

    The strange thought that filled my mind as I went to put the second vibrator was... "This is going to hurt when it gets taken off."

    That was because the ce where I was putting the second vibrator was covered in hair.

    It seemed that this female dark elf had quite the bush down there.

    Though if one thought about it, since this was a medieval world, it wasn''t as if shaving was that simple of a thing to do.

    No...when I thought about it again, that shouldn''t be the case...

    Since it had something to do with hair down there, there should have been an easy fix to that. This was a world that was based on a H-game and being able to change hair down there was a part of it.

    So there should be an easy way to take care of hair down there and even make it grow in this world. It would be like how this world had tape even though tape seemed like it didn''t fit in the time period of this world.

    Perhaps it was magic?

    It was just that this female dark elf didn''t care about stuff like that...

    Then I realized that I might have be too desensitized to this that I was even thinking about this at a time like this. It seemed that I had really gotten used to doing things like this... Was it because of this world or was it because of me?

    I shook my head to throw those thoughts out since this wasn''t the kind of thing that I should be focused on at a time like this.

    This caused the people around me to misunderstand since they thought that I was entranced by the sight that was in front of me. I could see the way that they looked at me, especially the prime minister.

    I could even guess who he was nning to tell, but I would have a talk with himter.

    For now...

    I taped the second vibrator onto the clit of the female dark elf and just turned it to the max. "Ah!" The female dark elf said in a surprised voice before she started moaning in pleasure again.

    With the stimulusing from all three of these vibrators, she just wasn''t able to resist the pleasure at all. The look on her face made it very clear what she was feeling right now and that caused a look to appear on the face of the male dark elf.

    He looked like there were a thousand daggers stabbing into his heart.

    There were traces of blood that wereing out of the corner of his eyes as he looked up at the female dark elf.

    He could have turned away, but he didn''t seem like he wanted to turn away.

    It was as if he didn''t want to miss a single bit of this...

    Once I finished taping all three of the vibrators on, I just stood back and watched the female dark elf as the dam between her legs broke and she started pouring down her leg.

    The other dark elves that were in the cages all looked at her in shock, but there were some that averted their gaze.

    Instead, they looked at me with looks filled with hatred as if they really wanted to take me down.

    I just ignored all of them as I admired my work a bit before saying, "Since you don''t want to talk today, we''ll give you a chance to enjoy yourself."

    I turned to the guards and said, "Bring two chairs."

    They looked at me with confused looks, but they still brought out the chairs that I asked for.

    Since we were in the dungeon, these were the most basic wooden chairs that there could be, but that was good enough. Though if they didn''t have a backrest, then I would have had to ask for another chair.

    I pointed at the male dark elf and said, "Tie him up in one of them and then put them facing each other, but don''t put them too close together."

    The guards were still confused hearing this, but they still did what I told them to do.

    Once the male dark elf was chained to the chair, I had the other guards bring the female dark elf over. However, I had them put her in a strange positionpared to how the male dark elf was seated.

    She was sitting in the chair, but her legs were brought up so that her feet were on the chair, spreading her legs wide open for all to see. At the same time, her knees were brought up so that it pushed the vibrator right up against her nipple.

    With her legs like this, I took out more tape to wrap around her shin and thigh so that she was forced to remain in this position.

    Her arms were put behind the chair and chained so that she couldn''t move at all.

    At the same time, I pped a piece of tape on her mouth so that she wasn''t able to say a single thing. There were only the muffled sounds of her moans of pleasure that came through the

    tape.

    Once she was put in ce, everyone understood what was happening...

    A demonstration.

    A demonstration was being made of these two.

 Chapter 940: Put anything in me

    Chapter 940: Put anything in me

    ?

    After the two dark elves were ced in the center of this dungeon for all to see, I gave a satisfied nod.

    Then I looked at all of the dark elves that were in the cages, to which they all couldn''t help turning their gazes away. It was as if they were scared that they would attract my attention and would be the next ones to suffer this fate.

    However, I didn''t choose any of them.

    Instead, I just said, "Alright, we''ll let you think about it tonight. If there''s anything that you want to tell us tomorrow, then we''ll continue then. I hope that you all have a good night''s sleep and are ready for what wille tomorrow."

    All of the dark elves revealed terrified looks when they heard this.

    If this was what they faced today, then what would they face tomorrow?

    They couldn''t help trembling in fear at this, but I just didn''t care about what they were feeling.

    After all, I had aplished my goal by making an example of these two dark elves.

    With that, I waved my hand at the others and left this ce. Though there were a few guards that remained to tell the normal prison guards what to do with these two dark elves.

    As we were leaving, I could feel the looks that were piercing my back.

    These looks came from the regent and the prime minister.

    It was obvious that the two of them had questions that they wanted to ask me, but this wasn''t the time or ce for that. If they wanted to ask me anything, they had to at least wait until we were out of this dungeon.

    Which was exactly what they did.

    I knew that they would do this, so I quickly turned around and raised my hand as they spoke. "Your majesty..." That was all that the two of them could say before they were cut off by me.

    I looked at the two of them and said, "Just wait and see what the results are before you ask anything."

    The two of them just looked at me with narrowed eyes that made it hard to guess what they were thinking, but it was hard to hide the doubt that was on their faces.

    In the end, they just listened to me and waited for the next day toe.

    ...

    The next morning, the prime minister and regent both came looking for me early in the morning since they wanted to check on the prisoners. Even before it was the set time to meet, the two of them came to my room to find me.

    It seemed that they couldn''t wait any longer, so they wanted to go as soon as possible.

    I didn''t mind since I had already expected this, but I had confidence in my n.

    There wasn''t even a need to gather the guards since they had already been gathered by the prime minister and the regent.

    It seemed that they really couldn''t wait to see what happened.

    When we arrived in the dungeon, there was something that we immediately noticed.

    There was arge puddle that was on the ground and it surrounded the two chairs that were ced right in the center.

    Based on the sounds, it seemed like the puddle was still growing in size.

    To the side, I found that there was a bucket of water with a spoon in it and it seemed like it had been used recently.

    It seemed that the guards had been feeding the female dark elf water this entire time since they were afraid that she would dehydrate herself.

    After all, therge puddle that had formed hade from the female dark elf.

    Even now, there was still more liquid dripping down her leg and creating arger puddle on the ground.

    However, it didn''t seem like she cared at all as her eyes seemed to be rolled back in her head as if she had lost herself in the pleasure. Though it seemed like she was still conscious since we could still hear the muffled moansing from under the tape that was on her mouth.

    As for the male dark elf, his eyes werepletely bloodshot, but it didn''t seem like he was responsive at all.

    If it wasn''t for the slight movement of his chest, we would have thought that he was dead. But it seemed that he had lost consciousness with his eyes open in hisplicated feelings. This seemed like far more of a mess than they had expected, so the prime minister and the regent both looked at me as if they were ming me.

    I just ignored them as I went forward to the male dark elf and raised a hand to p him across the face.

    Everyone looked at me with a shocked look on their face, but that p had awakened the male dark elf.

    The moment that he saw me, he pounced right at me. It was just that he was still chained to the chair, so there was nothing that he could do as he was pulled back into the chair by the chains that held him.

    He looked like a mad dog with the way that he kept trying to attack me. He even went as far as trying to bite me with his mouth and roaring like a beast as he did so.

    It was as if he hadpletely lost his mind...

    But I just ignored him since he couldn''t reach me.

    The only thing that I needed was for him to be awake as I went over to the female dark elf.

    I pulled the tape from her mouth and the first thing that she said was...

    "Please, put something in me. I can''t take it anymore...Please, put anything in me!" It was as

    if she was desperately screaming this as she said this.

    It seemed like she had been pushed to the brink and had brokenpletely.

    But I didn''t respond to her.

    Instead, I looked at the other dark elves and said, "Well, it seems like they aren''t in any condition to respond. So how about all of you? Are you willing to say anything?"

    As I said this, I pulled out more vibrators that caused the dark elves in the cage to tremble.

 Chapter 941: Nothing gained

    Chapter 941: Nothing gained

    ?

    These vibrators were all the motivation that the dark elves needed to agree to whatever I asked of them.

    In the end, there was nothing that was gained since the dark elves didn''t know anything different from the ones that we had captured before. It seemed that they had only been restricted with the same contract as the dark elves that we captured previously.

    So even when holding them like this, they couldn''t give us anything new.

    However, they agreed to work with us to break the contract that was ced on them just like the other dark elves.

    This would be helpful since we could at least see that the dark elves came from what seemed to be different tribes.

    The prime minister and I remembered the clothes that the dark elves captured in our kingdom wore. The clothes that the dark elves captured in the Midra Kingdom werepletely different from those clothes.

    That should mean that they came from apletely different group.

    So there should be at least some kind of different information, it would just take some time to coordinate between the two groups.

    That would be left to the prime minister and regent.

    My job was done as soon as the dark elves broke.

    Well, there was still one more thing that I had to do.

    Since I was the one that broke them, I should at least be the one that took them out.

    That''s what I did with the other dark elves, so it should be the same this time.

    Though the main difference was that I didn''t even know the name of the two dark elves that I tortured this time. I had chosen not to ask them their names since I didn''t want to know their names, but that just made it seem a bit uncaring...

    Well, they were enemies of our kingdom in the first ce.

    It wasn''t as if I would grieve over these two dark elves.

    It was more of a conviction thing to take care of them with my own two hands.

    The prime minister looked at me with a strange look and said, "Your majesty, you don''t need to do this personally. There are others that can handle this matter for you."

    The regent on the other hand was silent as he watched and waited.

    It seemed that he was actually in favour of this, but that wasn''t strange in the first ce since the regent was someone that had executed his own father. He was someone that clearly approved of something like this.

    I just took the axe that was brought to me and went forward towards the two dark elves that were mumbling their own things.

    "More, give me more!"

    "I curse you! I curse you!"

    It was twopletely different things that they were mumbling, but it seemed like they werepletely obsessed with what they were saying. It was as if they didn''t notice a single thing around them, even though they had been put in the execution stand.

    I just walked right up behind them and lifted the axe up before bringing it down on the male dark elf.

    With how heavy the axe was, it was more the axe doing the work than me doing the work.

    It was a clean cut that separated the male dark elf''s head from his body, but when itnded on the ground...it was turned around so that the eyes were looking up. It hadnded in a position where those eyes were looking right up at me.

    They were wide open and bloodshot, as if they carried the grudges of his entire life.

    It was as if they wouldn''t forgive whoever he held his grudge against.

    I gave the axe that I held to one of the guards on the side and went forward to close the dark elf''s eyes before dropping the head into the basket.

    Then taking the axe back, I cut off the head of the female dark elf.

    Her final look waspletely different from the male dark elf.

    There was only emptiness in her eyes, as if she hadpletely given up.

    That was the difference between the two of them.

    Once it was over, I didn''t bother staying here any longer and left the clean up to the guards.

    I went back to the royal study with the prime minister and the regent to discuss our next

    move.

    "In the end, we''ve gained nothing."

    That was the first thing that the prime minister said after we sat down.

    Neither of us denied this since it was the truth.

    We already had dark elf captives that were under the same contract as these dark elves in the Kite Kingdom. As long as we kept working with them, we would have eventually figured out a way to break the contract.

    So there was no real need for these other dark elves.

    Still, it was better to have them than to not.

    At the same time...

    "We can''t say that we haven''t gained a single thing. After all, we''ve learned more about the crystals and what happens if they were left alone for a long time." I said in a serious voice.

    The prime minister and regent both looked at me with serious looks after hearing this before slowly nodding in agreement.

    They had already heard about what happened and had seen the crystals that had been brought

    back.

    When they saw these things, there was no denying what had happened.

    They naturally recognized that things were much more serious than it seemed.

    But at the same time, there was something else that they had to address.

    After all, it wasn''t just the Kite Kingdom and the Midra Kingdom that had to deal with the increased monster activity.

    Seeing that neither the prime minister and the regent said a thing, I asked, "What do we do about the other countries? Should we send help to them or leave them to their own devices?"

 Chapter 942: Bigger fish

    Chapter 942: Bigger fish

    ?

    The prime minister had no hesitation as he answered, "Why should we help them in the first ce?"

    The regent was silent, but the look on his face made it clear that he agreed with the prime minister.

    It seemed that neither of them had any intentions of helping those neighbouring countries that were also suffering the same fate as us.

    It seemed that they didn''t care what happened to those countries.

    I slightly knitted my brows hearing this, but I couldn''t help saying, "What if they can''t contain the problem and that problem spreads to our country?"

    The prime minister just calmly said, "We have our wyverns, it won''t be a problem."

    I couldn''t disagree with this since if this world was based on the H-game, there would be a certain level that the monsters would reach before they stopped growing. That was how the setting in the game was, but there were things that could change now that this game was the real world.

    It was possible that these monsters would keep growing until they reached a level that would be hard to stop even with wyverns.

    After all, I had never expected the dark energy to corrupt all those bosses like that...

    If they could make the bosses that strong, there was no telling what else the crystals could do...

    So it felt like it would be safer to take care of these monsters before that happened.

    It was just that there was the problem that these monsters were in the territory of other kingdoms and it wasn''t possible for us to go to those kingdoms.

    If we were to go to those kingdoms, all that would happen is that a war would start.

    They were different from the Midra Kingdom where we had already expanded our influence. They wouldn''t take the approach of these wyverns that kindly and would most likely fight it out with us.

    So in the end, it really seemed like there was nothing that we could do...

    The prime minister suddenly said, "Regardless, we have bigger fish to fry."

    The way that he said this was as if he could already guess what I was thinking, so he was saying this to distract me. However, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows when I heard what he said.

    After all, I was confused why he would say this.

    After waiting for a bit, the prime minister said, "We''ve heard back from the Tide Empire''s side."

    My brows immediately jumped up in surprise before I turned to look at the regent who was also with us.

    This was a matter that concerned our kingdom''s future.

    At the same time, the regent should be considered an outsider at this point.

    Maybe he might enter the inner circle in the future depending on how he acted, but this certainly wasn''t the time for it.

    The regent could see the way that I looked at him and he tactfully stood up to leave, but the prime minister raised his hand to stop him. He looked at the regent and shook his head before looking back at me with a firm look.

    I was certainly surprised to see the prime minister standing up for the regent like this, but since he did it with such conviction...

    "I never thought that you would be this close." I said with a faint smile.

    The prime minister also revealed a faint smile as he said, "Well, we have simr ideas, so it was quite easy to be friends. At the same time, we have our fair share of things that we have to deal with."

    The two of them were both looking at me when they said this.

    I didn''t like the way that they were looking at me.

    It was almost as if they were looking at me like I was some kind of troublemaker...

    Well, they didn''t keep looking at me like this for long as they went back to what we were talking about.

    The prime minister said with a more serious look, "In the future, I''m looking forward to leaving more of my matters to him and letting him act as my assistant."

    I was certainly surprised by the prime minister''s appraisal of the regent.

    Well, if he thought that he was trustworthy, then I would trust him.

    He was my brother inw after all.

    Once that was settled, the prime minister said, "It seems that our fears have been realized and that Viper really is rted to the royal family of the Tide Empire."

    The regent deeply knitted his brows when he heard this, but I was rather calm about this

    news.

    After all, didn''t that just mean that our n would be easier to put into action?

    No, I could tell that something was off based on the way that the prime minister was acting.

    It seemed that there was something else that was mixed into this news that was making him worry.

    Seeing the way that I looked at him, he knew that I could already guess that there was more. With a bitter smile and a shake of his head, the prime minister said, "As you''d expect, there is more."

    I wasn''t surprised since I figured that there would be more for the prime minister to be acting this way. So I just gave a simple nod in response to this and waited to see what else he had to

    say.

    The prime minister didn''t speak right away as if he was hesitating over something, but he eventually said, "There seems to be movement from the Tide Empire''s royal family. It seems like there is something that is going on behind the scenes that no one knows about. They just know that it''s big enough that the Tide Empire''s royal family has stopped seeing others these

    days."

    I slightly knitted my brows hearing this and thought about it before saying, "Then you''re saying that it''s rted to Ariel and the matter that she mentioned before?"

    The prime minister slowly nodded to confirm this.

    That made me knit my brows even more.

 Chapter 943: Private consultation

    Chapter 943: Private consultation

    ?

    The regent looked confused when he heard this, so he asked, "What are you talking about?" Even though the prime minister trusted him and told him a few things, that didn''t mean that he knew everything.

    He was very confused as he listened to them talking about this and he couldn''t hold back his curiosity anymore.

    I didn''t say anything as I was still deep in thought, but the prime minister turned to exin everything to the regent. Though I was surprised how little the prime minister held back when The told this story to the regent.

    It seemed that other than a few core things, he had basically told the regent everything.

    Did they really get that close in these few days?

    After the regent heard the whole thing, he just said, "What are you hesitating for? If you have the advantage, then you might as well take it."

    This time, it was my turn to be confused as I had no idea what the regent was referring to.

    But the prime minister suddenly revealed a smile after hearing this.

    He looked at the regent with that smile, almost as if he was appreciating the regent for saying something like this. It even seemed like he was saying, "So you were thinking the same thing as me."

    As for me, I just had no idea what they were thinking at all.

    The regent just looked right back at the prime minister with a smile on his face.

    After the two of them acted this way for a bit, it was my turn to say in a confused voice, "Alright, stop staring at each other like lovers already and tell me what you''re thinking."

    The two of them were a bit surprised to hear this and they looked at me with strange looks, but I didn''t say anything as I looked at them and waited for them to exin what they were talking about.

    The two of them were silent for a bit before the prime minister said, "Well, the advantage that we have is that we have Ariel, right?"

    The regent slowly nodded in agreement.

    I looked at them with one brow raised when I heard this, but then I slowly understood what they were talking about.

    They were nning on using Ariel to mess with the Tide Empire''s ns?

    While I didn''t know what kind of reaction she would have to this, it was obvious that it was unlikely that she would have a good reaction.

    After all, this would certainly be bad for the Merman Empire if we were to do anything.

    Still, it didn''t seem like it would hurt to ask her...

    So I just slowly gave a nod in the end to show that I agreed to this n.

    I could already guess how this was going to go.

    ...

    "Of course I''ll y along with you." Ariel said without any hesitation when we asked her about this.

    I waspletely caught off guard by this, but it didn''t seem like the prime minister and regent were surprised at all by her answer. It even looked like they had already expected her to say this with the smiles that were on their faces.

    I slightly knitted my brows before asking, "Won''t this be bad for the Merman Empire?"

    I had to admit that I felt strange asking this question.

    I should be thest person that cared about something like this, but I still felt like I had to ask this.

    Ariel looked at me with a surprised look like she wasn''t expecting me to ask this, but then she said with an unhappy look, "Who told them to try and interfere with my life like this? It''s clear that those dumb parents are nning to push this issue, so they can''t me me if I take some drastic action."

    I was even more surprised to hear this.

    Was she even the mermaid princess when she was saying something like this?

    It felt more like she was on our side rather than on the side of the Merman Empire.

    Ariel just ignored the way that I looked at her and turned to the prime minister to ask, "So are you nning on using that person that you captured before? The one that was rted to the Tide Empire''s royal family?"

    The prime minister slowly nodded in agreement.

    Ariel quickly said, "Then you should bring him to see my parents. That should be the easiest way to solve this matter."

    All three of us were surprised to hear this.

    Though I was more surprised by the fact that the prime minister and regent were surprised.

    It seemed that even they hadn''t gone as far as involving the king and queen of the Merman Empire in this matter. It seemed that they had only been nning on using Ariel to ruin the rtionship between the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire.

    Ariel didn''t care at all as she said, "All we have to do is tell my parents that this person offended me and it should make them hold it against the Tide Empire. I at least have this value in the hearts of my parents."

    All of us looked at her with even more shock.

    After all, we had been nning on using a more subtle method to handle this matter, but Ariel wanted to directly involve the king and queen of the Merman Empire...

    It didn''t seem right...

    I couldn''t help asking, "Are you sure that you want to do this? You should know what the consequences will be."

    Ariel just said with a happy smile, "It''s fine, you don''t know my parents as well as I do. I can tell you now that this will be the simplest way of handling this matter."

    None of us could say a thing since she made a very good point.

    It wasn''t as if we were close to the king and queen of the Merman Empire, so we couldn''t really say what they were like.

    In the end, the prime minister gave a slow nod as he said, "Alright, we''ll leave this matter to you."

 Chapter 944: To the Tide Empire

    Chapter 944: To the Tide Empire

    ?

    It turned out that I was destined to see this matter through to the end.

    We had made a decision to let Ariel bring Viper to see the Merman King and Queen, but it turned out that I was being dragged along as well.

    As for the reason...

    It was simply because I was the one that had made a contract with Ariel.

    This was an important matter in mermaid culture, so I was being brought along to report this matter to the Merman King and Queen.

    While this wasn''t something that was in the game, so I really couldn''tment on this, I didn''t think that she would lie about something this important. The one thing that I was worried about was how the Merman King and Queen would react to this matter.

    In the game, this event never happened.

    After spending some time with Ariel onnd, the yer would discover a plot in the Merman Empire and would find a way to go to the Merman Empire with Ariel. But that involved turning Ariel back into a mermaid and finding a way to go underwater.

    The matter of Ariel turning into a human was brought upter, but it was at the point where the yer would be friendly with the mermaids, so it was epted quite easily.

    If the matter of Ariel bing a human was revealed to the Merman King and Queen before the rtionship with the mermaids was built up...what kind of consequences would I be facing?

    But it wasn''t as if I could back down now since this was something that was rted to the safety of my country.

    Even if I didn''t want to go, I still had to go.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    In a worst case scenario, I would just be able to abandon my position as the king and escape to avoid the consequences falling on my kingdom.

    The former fourth prince and the current prime minister would be able to take the throne since it would have been his in the first ce.

    Though I seemed worried, Ariel didn''t seem worried at all.

    She just patted me on the shoulder and said, "We''re just going to see my parents, it''s not anything special."

    "Where are we going?" I couldn''t help asking.

    I had been so worried about meeting the Merman King and Queen that I hadpletely forgotten to ask about this. After all, it wasn''t as if we could just bring Viper and the wyverns under the sea.

    We were all currently flying on the wyverns, heading in a direction that Ariel pointed out.

    Ariel just said with a teasing smile, "Well, it''s a secret."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I heard this before I couldn''t help shaking my head.

    It really seemed like there was nothing that could be done against this mermaid princess. She really was someone that just did whatever she wanted to do...

    I even couldn''t help feeling a bit sorry for her parents, though I would never say that out loud.

    Eventually, there were some people that figured out where we were going.

    As those that were trained to ride wyverns, they had been trained on recognizing territory and reading maps. They would be in charge of scouting along with acting as main forces in the future, so it was easy for them to figure out where we were heading.

    "We''re heading for the territory of the Tide Empire." The royal guard who figured it out reported this to me.

    Even they hadn''t known where we were going since Ariel just gave a general direction.

    The moment that we figured out that we were heading to the Tide Empire, we all immediately stopped andnded in the forest beneath.

    Ariel, who had been enjoying the flight on the back of the wyverns, immediately felt the feeling of air rushing past her disappear. So she came off the wyvern and over to me to ask, "What''s wrong? Why did we suddenly stop?"

    "We''re heading to the Tide Empire?" I asked her without answering her question.

    Ariel''s brows raised in surprise when she heard this before she said with a smile, "So you figured it out?"

    The guards wanted to reach for their weapons, but I stopped them as I asked, "You want to tell me what''s going on?"

    Ariel gave a nod as she said, "Well, it is the Tide Empire, but it''s also not the Tide Empire." All of us looked at her with a confused look when we heard this.

    I looked at the royal guard that reported this matter and he gave me his map to look at.

    With the path that we were taking, it didn''t seem like we were heading to the center of the Tide Empire. It seemed like we were heading to the coast of the Tide Empire, which would make sense since we were going to see the Merman King and Queen.

    When Ariel saw this map, she also came over and looked at it for a bit.

    After looking at the map for a bit, she pointed at a spot that was in the middle of the ocean and said, "That is where we are heading."

    All of us looked at her with a brow raised, as if we were questioning her on this.

    Ariel just said with a smile, "It''s interesting to see your maps. It''spletely different from our maps."

    We looked at her with even more confused looks hearing this.

    Ariel just looked at the map with a smile for a bit longer before looking up to say, "There''s an ind there that only the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire know about."

    "Huh?" We all had surprised looks on our faces hearing this.

    Ariel continued by saying, "It''s a secret ce that we use to negotiate things when we need to meet with the Tide Empire."

    I looked at her with a strange look before saying, "Is it really alright for you to be telling us

    this?"

    Ariel just gave a simple nod as she said, "It doesn''t matter since we''ll be heading there anyway."

    I couldn''t help thinking that she was right.

 Chapter 945: Peace Island

    Chapter 945: Peace Ind

    ?

    Since we were traveling on the backs of wyverns, it wasn''t as if we could just fly right into the territory of the Tide Empire.

    The Tide Empire wasn''t an empty vase, they would immediately find out if we entered their territory with wyverns. Once they found out, there was no doubt that there would be many consequences for us.

    There was no doubt that they would be able to easily find out which country we came from.

    The Tide Empire was one of the four empires of the human race, so their informationwork couldn''t be looked down on.

    They would certainly be able to find us and take revenge for flying our wyverns into their territory.

    Though the territory of the kingdoms around the Tide Empire was a different story.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    It was because the kingdoms that were around the Tide Empire were nothing more than cannon fodder in the first ce. They were the first kingdoms that the Tide Empire had subdued as vassal kingdoms, but they hadn''t taken these kingdoms into their fold for a reason.

    The Tide Empire waspletely surrounded by these vassal kingdoms for a reason.

    It was because these vassal kingdoms were used as shields by the Tide Empire.

    That was the only reason why they still existed.

    Of course, since their only function was as a shield, they had been weakened by the Tide Empire to the point where they could barely function as a kingdom. They naturally didn''t have the capability to track as when we arrived in their kingdom.

    Using this kingdom, we were able to make it to the ocean and then it was a matter of flying to the ind that was in the middle of the ocean that Ariel pointed out.

    This ind was far enough from the Tide Empire that they wouldn''t send anyone to watch over it.

    ording to Ariel, other than the times that it was in use, it was mostly abandoned.

    Only by being abandoned would it not attract any attention at all, so that others wouldn''t notice it.

    When we arrived in the vicinity of the ind, we couldn''t help being surprised by it. First, there was the surprise that came from the fact that there actually was an ind.

    It wasn''t on the map, so of course we were skeptical of its existence.

    Second, we were surprised by the appearance of the ind.

    The ind didn''t seem like an ind that was used for peace talks, but rather it seemed like an ind that was abandoned. This seemed like an ind that didn''t have any facilities that could be used by people.

    It seemed like one of those natural inds that formed on the ocean that waspletely untouched by people.

    So much so that I couldn''t help asking Ariel, "Are you sure that this is the ce?"

    Ariel didn''t seem discouraged at all by my words, she didn''t even bother to answer as if she didn''t hear my words at all. Instead, she just looked at the ind for a bit before suddenly reaching into her chest.

    All of us were shocked to see her do this and we couldn''t help covering our eyes, though it wasn''t just me that peeked out from between my fingers to look at her. She was a beautiful red haired girl with a full figure, so it wasn''t as if she wasn''t attractive at all.

    Ariel just ignored all of this as she seemed to dig around in her cleavage for a bit, but then she suddenly pulled something out.

    It was a small m shell that she pulled out.

    It was the kind of shell that would normally be on the chest of a mermaid, but she was holding it in her hand like some kind of purse.

    That was because this thing was a purse in a sense.

    The moment that I saw this, I recognized what this thing was.

    It was something that was unique to the mermaids, but it was also simr to something that the elves had.

    This was simply the Storage Ring of the mermaids.

    This thing was known as the Storage Shell and it had the same function as the Storage Rings of the elves. It created a space inside of the shell that could hold things just like the Storage Rings could.

    After pulling out this Storage Shell, Ariel opened it up and dug around inside of the Storage Shell for a bit before pulling something out. It seemed like some kind of token, but looking closely, one could see that it was a sand dor that had something carved on it.

    At the same time, with my sensitivity to mana, I could tell that this wasn''t a normal sand dor.

    It seemed that this was some kind of magic item with the mana that was released from this sand dor.

    Ariel pulled this sand dor out of her Storage Shell and then raised it up in front of her before saying, "In the name of the mermaid princess, reveal yourself."

    Right after she said this, it was as if there was some kind of mist that cleared up in front of us. That mist spread out in front of us and soon revealed the true form of the ind.

    This wasn''t an abandoned ind at all, but rather a well developed ind with many different buildings ced together like some kind of town.

    This seemed more like a ce that would be used to negotiate between two countries.

    It seemed that the creators of this ce had put an illusion spell on this ind that hid its true appearance. Only when those with the proper items willed it would that illusion array disappear and the true form of the ind would show itself.

    Once she had cleared out the mist, Ariel gave a satisfied nod before turning to me to say, "Wee to Peace Ind."

    Peace Ind.

    Was it a name that really fit this ind where two powerful nations discussed matters that

    would decide the fate of smaller countries?

    Well, it wasn''t my ce toment on this.

 Chapter 946: Where is it?

    Chapter 946: Where is it?

    ?

    Once the illusion array had been released and the true form of the ind was revealed, Ariel had usnd in the main square of the ind.

    The facilities of the ind were built around this main square. With the way that everything was built, it was almost like a small town on the center of this ind.

    Afternding, we could see the buildings more clearly and it was a surprise to see how well designed these buildings were. They weren''t built with wood like most buildings would be in this medieval world, but rather they were all built with carved stone.

    With the construction technology of this world, it was certainly strange seeing a townpletely made from stone buildings.

    For most kingdoms, it was only the important facilities like castles and churches that were made of stone.

    It wasn''t easy carving stone with the technological level of this world after all.

    Even with magic, it was hard to do such a thing.

    So a town that waspletely made of stone was certainly a strange sight to behold.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    But at the same time, this just went to show the power of the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire that they could construct such a thing.

    This was the power of two of the two empires in the world.

    Afternding, it didn''t seem like Ariel had any hesitation as she jumped off the wyvern and headed into the town. With the way that she walked around here, it was as if she was already familiar with this ce.

    That wasn''t strange since she was the princess of the Merman Empire.

    She should have alreadye to this ce before in earlier negotiations with the Tide Empire. That was most likely why she even knew how to open up the illusion array from before.

    Though if she hade here before, didn''t that mean that she already had a way to be human?

    Why had she been so surprised by the legs that she gained after making that contract with me?

    It didn''t seem to make any sense at all.

    There was even a part of me that wondered if she was leading us into a trap...

    But that part of me quickly disappeared when I saw what she did next.

    Ariel went into one of the buildings near us without any hesitation. She even threw open the door with how quickly she went into the building.

    After entering the building, Ariel started throwing all kinds of things around as if she was searching for something. She even seemed to be muttering to herself, "Where is it? Where is that thing?"

    It seemed that I had been wrong about her.

    Even though she knew the way to open up the illusion array, that didn''t seem to mean that she had been here before. The reason why she had been sofortable jumping into the building like that was just because of her personality.

    I had already seen what kind of personality she had, so it wasn''t strange to see her acting this

    way.

    I didn''t get in her way since I didn''t know what she was searching for, but it seemed like she was quite determined to find whatever it was.

    After searching for a while, Ariel suddenly turned around and left this building.

    She went into the building next door and did the same thing where she threw all kinds of things out of the way.

    But looking back behind her, it seemed like she was leaving a trail of destruction with how messy things were left. She didn''t seem to care at all as she just continued to search for the thing that she was looking for.

    After five different buildings, it seemed like she finally found it.

    "Ah, here it is!"

    We all looked over in her direction when she shouted out and saw that she was holding a conch in her hand.

    This seemed like an ordinary conch, but I could tell that it was anything but ordinary since I could feel the magic fluctuationsing from it. It should be some kind of magic item, though I had no idea what kind of abilities it had.

    After pulling that conch out, Ariel just waved her hand at us with a smile on her face as she said, "Come on, let''s go and call them."

    "Call them?" All of us repeated with confused looks on our faces, but we still followed Ariel to the beach.

    She walked right up to the edge of the sand, standing where the waves were able to reach her feet. She had even taken off her shoes and socks to stand right in the waves, letting the water wash over her feet.

    She didn''t go too far that she was swept out by the waves though

    Once she was in the shallows, Ariel suddenly raised the conch and blew into it to let out a powerful toot.

    This sound spread out all around us and it seemed like it was resonating with the waves itself. She blew on the conch for a bit until she suddenly stopped and looked expectantly at the ocean in front of her.

    Only there wasn''t a single thing that appeared in the ocean in front of her.

    It was only Klein who had sharp eyes that said, "There are a few bubbles."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at where he was pointing and found that there were indeed a few bubbles that were there, but they soon disappeared as well and everything went silent again.

    As we were wondering what we should do, there was a sudden ssh as the water of the ocean burst upwards and there were several figures that came out.

    These figures jumped onto the beach and then pointed the tridents in their hands at Ariel who was standing there. Some of them also pointed their tridents at us, as if they were wary of us

    as well.

    Klein and the others went to draw their weapons, but I stopped them with a wave of my hand as I wanted to see what would happen.

    Ariel didn''t seem scared at all by the fact that tridents were pointed at her.

    She just looked at the one that seemed to be leading this group and said, "Sebastien, do you really not recognize me?"

    "Huh?" The one she called ''Sebastien'' was shocked to hear this, but then an even more shocked look appeared on his face as he said, "Princess, what are you doing here?!"

 Chapter 947: Doting parents (1)

    Chapter 947: Doting parents (1)

    ?

    As soon as Sebastien said the word ''princess'', all of the others who had been pointing their tridents forward suddenly shook in shock.

    All of them looked at Ariel before slow looks of recognition appeared on their faces.

    Even though Ariel now had human legs, it wasn''t as if they would fail to recognize her top half since her top half had never changed. Mermaids were humans from the waist up after all.

    After looking at Ariel for a bit, Sebastien suddenly said, "Princess, where have you been? We''ve been searching far and wide for you all this time!"

    Ariel just waved her hand casually before saying, "Don''t worry about that right now. Can you just go and call my parents? There''s something important that I want to discuss with them."

    Sebastien and the other merman soldiers all had strange looks on their faces, but he eventually nodded in agreement. Though he didn''t go back into the sea after agreeing to her request and rather came to her side as if he was protecting her.

    It was one of the other soldiers that went back into the ocean.

    When I looked closely at these soldiers that were now guarding Ariel, I was surprised to see that they actually had feet. Instead of having arge tailfin like Ariel did when I first met her, these people actually had human legs.

    If they could have human legs, then why did Ariel need me to form that contract with her in the first ce?

    It was the same for in the game, why did they put that kind of setting in?

    Was it because it seemed romantic, like in the Little Mermaid?

    I couldn''t help feeling that I really didn''t know this world as well as I thought I did as I found all kinds of different surprises the more that I explored this world. It really seemed like what I had encountered in the game was nothing more than the tip of the iceberg...

    Still, that knowledge from the game had given me quite the advantage in this world, so it wasn''t as if I couldin.

    It took around half an hour before the water burst once more and people appeared.

    During this, the soldiers that had been protecting Ariel hadn''t even let their guards down for even a second as they looked at us with wary looks. Even when Ariel tried to convince them that we weren''t bad people, Sebastien just wouldn''t ept this at all.

    Finally, there was arge group that appeared from the sea.

    When theynded, I saw that all of them had human legs...

    It seemed that the mermaids really did have a way to gain human legs.

    But it also wasn''t strange the more that I thought about it since they had built the facilities on this ind for a reason. If they couldn''t gain human legs toe up here and negotiate, then this ind was built for no reason.

    It seemed that the event with Ariel really was nothing more than the bad design of the game. After this group appeared, the first thing that happened was...

    There was arge man and a delicate and slender woman that came forward. The two of them immediately pushed aside Sebastien and his guards to head to Ariel''s side.

    Sebastien and his guards didn''t say a thing and just let themselves be pushed aside, which showed the authority that these two had.

    But there was nothing better than...

    "Mom, dad!" Ariel said in an emotional voice when she saw the two of them running over to her.

    As expected, these two were the Merman King and Queen.

    After the two of them pushed past the guards, the first thing that they did was grab Ariel and pull her into their arms.

    The beautiful and slender woman said, "My baby, where did you go all this time?"

    Therge man just simply cleared his throat and said, "Ahem, it doesn''t matter. It''s just good that you''re back."

    The two of them seemed like they didn''t care about a single thing other than their daughter. There were tears that appeared in the corner of Ariel''s eyes as she said, "Mom, dad..."

    But then she calmed herself down and said, "It''s all because you were trying to set me up with someone I didn''t know at all! Did you think that I wouldn''t find out about this?"

    The Merman King and Queen were surprised to hear this before the Merman Queen said, "Darling, who said that we would do that? We were just listening to what those people from the Tide Empire were saying, we never had any intention of epting this."

    The Merman King cleared his throat again before saying, "Ahem, if there''s anything that my precious baby doesn''t like, of course we won''t go through with it. All you have to do is tell us and we''ll never force you to do anything you don''t want to."

    Ariel was surprised to hear this as she slowly looked up at her parents, as if she was seeing if they were being serious or not.

    Seeing the way that they looked at her, she had no choice but to admit that they were indeed telling the truth.

    Though it didn''t seem like she was about to ept this that easily and give up on her n to be free.

    Ariel just slowly nodded before moving away from her parents.

    The two of them looked a bit disappointed when they saw her acting this way, but they didn''t force her to stay in their embrace. Instead, they just followed her as if they wanted to make sure that she was safe.

    Ariel walked back over to where we were standing and then said, "There''s something that I want to tell you."

    The moment that the two of them heard this, they immediately narrowed their eyes and looked at me.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    There was a bitter feeling that filled me when I saw this as I thought to myself...

    "Please, can you not say it like that?"

    Saying something like this to parents that were as doting as these two...it was a recipe for

    disaster!

 Chapter 948: Doting parents (2)

    Chapter 948: Doting parents (2)

    ?

    Ariel didn''t seem to care at all as she came over to my side and stood there firmly beside me. The way that she was standing, it was almost as if she was about to introduce me to her parents. Especially with the way that she had said what she said just now...

    But in the end, it wasn''t that.

    It was the other thing that we agreed on.

    She gave a nod to Klein who had a hesitant look on his face, but he still gave the order to the other royal guards when he saw the nod that I gave him.

    With that, Viper was led forward.

    He was tied up and his mouth was gagged, but the look on his face made it very obvious that he had no idea what was happening. He even looked like he wanted to break free of this ce as he kept looking around for a way to escape.

    Once he had been brought forward, Ariel suddenly said, "This man offended me, so I captured him and brought him..."

    Before she could finish, she was interrupted by a booming voice.

    "What? He dares offend my precious daughter!"

    "Execute him!" The Merman Queen quickly said right as soon as the Merman King''s voice fell.

    The Merman King didn''t hesitate at all as he suddenly pulled out a trident that was different from all of the other tridents that the guards wielded. This trident wasn''t different in the way that it was fancier than the other tridents.

    This trident was different in the way that it was made of a strange material that seemed to be much stronger than the material used for the other tridents.

    The Merman King''s trident also released magical fluctuations which showed that it wasn''t a normal trident, but also a magic item.

    Sebastien and the guards moved after the Merman King pulled out his trident.

    At first, I thought that they would stop him and hold him back, but...

    It turned out that they had no intentions of doing that at all. Instead, they actually drew their tridents along with the Merman King and turned to look at Viper as if they wanted to rip him apart with their bare hands.

    It seemed that it wasn''t just the Merman King and Queen alone who doted on Ariel, but also the rest of the royal mermaid guards.

    Perhaps the rest of the kingdom might even dote on her with how they were all acting...

    But now wasn''t the time to be thinking about that.

    I looked at Klein and the royal guards and they all gave sighs beforeing forward to stop the Merman King and the royal mermaid guards from tearing Viper apart. Though they didn''t draw their weapons since their intentions weren''t to start a war with the Merman Kingdom.

    Viper also moved behind them as if he was cowering behind them.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I had to admit that the Merman King and all of these royal mermaid guards charging forward like this did seem quite terrifying.

    It seemed like they didn''t care that Klein and the others hade forward to stop them. It even seemed like they would barrel right through Klein and the others if they needed to.

    But they didn''t get the chance to do that as Ariel suddenly stopped them.

    "Why are you cutting me off?!" She suddenly shouted which made the Merman King and the royal mermaid guards suddenly stop.

    Then narrowing her eyes to look at her father, she said, "I wasn''t done speaking yet, why are you making such a fuss?"

    The way that she looked at her father wasn''t the way that one should look at their father.

    But the Merman King didn''t dare speak back.

    He immediately put away his trident and backed down.

    The way that he looked waspletely different from how he had been acting before. He was like some kind of poor animal that had been cowed into submission with how he backed down under Ariel''s re.

    The other royal mermaid guards also put down their tridents and took a step back.

    The Merman Queen just gave a cough and raised her hand to mediate as she said, "Alright, let''s not get agitated. Let''s all calm down and talk this through."

    The way that she said this was as if she hadn''t been the one that shouted ''Execute him'' just

    now.

    Once all of them had calmed down, Ariel said, "Like I said before, he''s someone that has offended me. Normally, I would have cut him down on the spot for this."

    There was a pause from Ariel as she said this and it seemed like it was quite the well timed pause as...

    "He deserves death if he offends our little precious baby!"

    "That''s right!"

    The Merman King and Queen didn''t hold back at all.

    Though the royal mermaid guards didn''t say anything, it was clear by the look on their faces what they were thinking.

    After this outburst from them, Ariel continued by saying, "There is a problem with his identity though."

    Both the Merman King and Queen were surprised to hear this since they didn''t think that there was anyone that would force their daughter to hesitate over. After all, they knew what status their Merman Empire had in this world.

    Ariel looked at Viper and said, "This person seems to be someone from the Tide Empire''s royal family. He seems to be an illegitimate child from the Tide Empire''s royal family, but he is still rted to them."

    Both the Merman King and Queen slightly knitted their brows when they heard this.

    If it was any other ce, they wouldn''t care at all.

    It was just the Tide Empire that was different since they could be considered rtives...

    It was only the Tide Empire that they had to be considerate over...

    Or at least that was what Ariel thought, but that didn''t seem to be the case.

    "So what if they''re rted to the Tide Empire? I''ll make sure that they personally apologize

    to you!" The Merman King suddenly dered.

 Chapter 949: Doting parents (3)

    Chapter 949: Doting parents (3)

    ?

    This time, it was Ariel''s turn to be surprised.

    Even though she had been doted on by her parents, she didn''t think that they would

    completely ignore the consequences that this would pose to the Merman Kingdom just to support her.

    After the Merman King made this deration, the Merman Queen came forward to put a hand on Ariel''s shoulder to say, "Darling, it doesn''t matter who''s against you, we''ll always be on your side."

    Ariel looked even more surprised hearing this.

    Her mouth opened and closed a few times as if she didn''t know what to say.

    But her eyes eventually rxed and she looked at her parents with a touched look as she softly said, "Mom, dad...thank you."

    The Merman Queen tapped Ariel on the head before saying, "Silly girl, we''re your parents. Do you need to thank us? It''s our job to be on your side."

    The Merman King didn''t say anything, but he did give a strong nod to show his support.

    Even Sebastien and the other royal mermaid guards gave small nods of agreement to show their support for this.

    It was clear how much this royal couple loved their daughter, it was also clear how much the Merman Empire loved their princess. It almost seemed like they would do anything for her.

    A long silence followed this touching moment before Ariel gave a cough to clear her throat and say, "Then what should we do about him?"

    She was naturally referring to Viper who was still struggling and trying to break free.

    Viper''s eyes and ears weren''t blocked, so it wasn''t as if he couldn''t see and hear everything that was happening. He wasn''t a fool either, so he could tell what was about to happen to him. If he didn''t find a way out of this ce, the only fate that awaited him was death.

    So he was desperately struggling to break free from his bindings.

    It was too bad that he wasn''t strong enough to break free.

    All he did was embarrass himself by wriggling in ce as he tried to break free. That was even stopped by the royal guards who were by him hitting him on the back of the head.

    Both the Merman King and Queen narrowed their eyes to look at Viper.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Though they had made the deration that they didn''t care about the Tide Empire, that didn''t mean that they would just execute him on the spot. They had calmed down and they knew that their precious daughter was concerned about not just them, but also the entire Merman Kingdom.

    They couldn''t just ignore her feelings and still execute this idiot on the spot.

    So the only thing that they could do was think of a way to take care of this matter discreetly.

    After thinking for a bit, the Merman King asked, "How did he offend you?"

    Ariel narrowed her eyes to look at the Merman King when she heard this.

    The look in her eyes was anything but kind.

    Even the Merman Queen felt that there was something wrong with what her husband said and couldn''t help slightly knitting her brows.

    The Merman King quickly realized his mistake and waved his hand as he said, "No, no, it''s not like that. I need to know what happened so I can properly handle this matter and punish this b*stard for his crimes."

    Ariel just narrowed her eyes to look at the Merman King like she was judging him, but she eventually said, "He tried to hit on me and then even tried to touch me with his hands when I was walking about."

    The eyes of the Merman King and Queen immediately filled with mes of rage when they heard this.

    Even the royal mermaid guards red up when they heard this.

    They really looked like they wanted to shout for another execution with the way that they were acting.

    But they were able to hold themselves back in the end.

    The Merman King and Queen looked at Viper with cold eyes as he tried shaking his head and denying everything that Ariel had used him of. Only the way that he did it made him seem even more guilty.

    Well, even if he didn''t do this, the Merman King and Queen wouldn''t have believed him over their own daughter. So in the first ce, Viper''s fate had been sealed from the moment that she used him.

    After looking at him with those cold eyes for a bit, the Merman King said, "It''s a good thing that we''re here, aren''t we? That just means that we''ll be able to hold those Tide Empire b*stards responsible for what they''ve done."

    The Merman Queen gave a firm nod of agreement.

    The Merman King didn''t hesitate as he said, "For his crimes, we''ll cut off his tongue and arms so that he will never be able to do the same thing again."

    The royal mermaid guards moved forward towards Viper as if they were about to take him

    away.

    Klein looked at me as if he was asking for my permission, but I just gave a simple nod for them to let Viper go.

    After all, I could tell that there was a deliberate part of this punishment on the part of the Merman King.

    There was no need to cut off the tongue was there?

    Unless he could guess what Ariel wanted to do with Viper.

    If he knew and he was still going along with it, it seemed like we werepletely wrong about how much these two doted on their daughter. Or perhaps there was something happening behind the scenes when it came to the rtionship between the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire.

    Regardless of what it was, it wasn''t necessarily a bad thing for us.

    Viper kept struggling, but he was pulled away by Sebastien and the others for his punishment.

    I was pulled back from my thoughts when the Merman King suddenly asked, "So how did you get human legs?"

 Chapter 950: Meeting parents

    Chapter 950: Meeting parents

    ?

    When the Merman King asked this, the Merman Queen came forward and leaned down to look at Ariel''s legs.

    After looking at them for a bit, she said, "Right, how did you get these human legs?"

    It was as if they hadn''t noticed the fact that their daughter had been walking onnd like this the whole time.

    It seemed that they had been so worried about her that they didn''t have time to think about this. Though one would think that the first thing that they would notice was that their mermaid daughter was walking onnd like it was nothing, right?

    Ariel had an awkward look on her face when she heard them ask this.

    Seeing this, the two of them looked at each other with confused looks.

    The Merman Queen asked, "Did you notice any of the humanizing potions missing when we went to get some earlier? I don''t think that any of them were missing."

    The Merman King shook his head before saying, "We can ask when we get back, but there shouldn''t have been any missing."

    "Then does that mean that she got them from one of those sea witches?" A concerned look appeared on the Merman Queen''s face as she asked this. Then without even waiting for an answer from the Merman King, she went over to Ariel''s side and started looking carefully at her legs.

    She ran her hands up and down Ariel''s legs as if she was trying to see if there was anything wrong with them.

    The Merman King hesitated for a few seconds, but then he also came closer to Ariel to take a close look. He didn''t run his hands over her legs like the Merman Queen was doing, but it was clear that he was looking very carefully at her as if he was trying to see if there was anything wrong as well.

    Ariel just stood there with an awkward look on her face the entire time without saying a thing, as she let them just look at her legs like this.

    It seemed like she was hesitating on saying something with the way that she stood there. After a while, she looked at me as if she was asking me for help, but I really didn''t know what to say in this situation.

    After all, I didn''t even know what a humanizing potion was...

    Even though there was a part of the game that involved spending time in the Merman Empire, it had never shown the mermaidsing tond. They had spent all of their time in the water and never came ontond in the game.

    So I of course didn''t know what this humanizing potion was.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Though it wasn''t hard to guess based on the name and the way that they acted.

    After a long silence, Ariel saw that I wasn''t going to help, so she took a deep breath and said, "Mom, dad, I didn''t use a humanizing potion."

    The Merman King and Queen were both surprised to hear this as they looked up at her with confused looks. However, those confused looks quickly turned into looks of recognition and understanding as they looked back at Ariel.

    They looked carefully at her legs for a bit before looking over at our group.

    The way that they looked at us was as if they were scrutinizing us.

    It wasn''t a normal way of scrutinizing us, it was a way of looking at us as if they knew exactly what the situation was.

    It wasn''t strange since they were the Merman King and Queen, they must know more than normal mermaids did.

    Feeling this gaze, Klein and the others all turned away and moved away from me.

    With the way that they were acting, it was as if they didn''t want any part of this.

    This led to the Merman King and Queen to turn their gaze to me.

    It was clear that they knew that I was the one that was responsible for Ariel''s legs.

    Since they knew, it wasn''t as if I could hide it from them.

    Ariel could also see this, but she took a deep breath and said, "Mom, dad, I was the one that wanted to make a contract with him."

    The two of them immediately turned to look at Ariel with shocked looks beforeing forward to say, "Darling, how could you do something like that? You know that there are dangerous humans in the world, you can''t trust them that easily."

    The Merman King then moved away from Ariel and started moving towards me in an aggressive manner. He was quite therge man and he had his chest puffed out like he wanted to threaten me.

    I just had an awkward look on my face, but I didn''t back down when I saw the Merman King approaching.

    These were the consequences of my actions, so it wasn''t as if I could shirk them.

    Only it didn''te to pass.

    Ariel left the side of her mother and ran in front of her father to say, "What are you doing? He''s the one that was kind enough to help me and bring me all the way back here. If you want to hurt him, then you''ll have to go through me first!"

    Both the Merman King and Queen were shocked when they heard this.

    They looked at Ariel with that shocked gaze for a bit before slowly revealing a very strange look.

    They looked at her, then at me, and then back to Ariel.

    As they looked at her like this, they slowly gave a sigh and looked like they had aged by several years as their shoulders slumped down.

    Ariel just didn''t seem to care as she stood there in front of me like she was going to protect me

    until the end.

    Seeing them like this, I couldn''t help revealing a strange look as well.

    Why did this feel so strange?

    Well it was because it was like when a daughter brought her boyfriend home for the first time

    and she fought with the parents because of said boyfriend.

    Only there wasn''t such a rtionship between me and Ariel!

 Chapter 951: Always repay our debts

    Chapter 951: Always repay our debts

    ?

    There was a tense silence that hung in the air before the Merman King and Queen finally let out sighs and just took a step back to give Ariel and me space.

    It was only then that Ariel put her arms down, but she didn''t move away from me.

    She just stood there in front of me as if she was protecting me.

    But the only thought that was on my mind was...

    "Can you please not involve me in this family drama?"

    I wasn''t even part of that family, so how could I be included in this family drama in the first ce?

    I didn''t want the Merman King and Queen to have the wrong idea about me...

    Though if they didn''t have the wrong idea, the right idea didn''t seem that good either. After all, the reason that I had approached Ariel in the first ce was because I wanted to use her as a defensive measure against the Tide Empire.

    I didn''t approach her for a good reason in the first ce.

    Of course, I wouldn''t say that out loud.

    After another silence, the Merman King just said, "Alright, let''s not talk about that for now." He turned to look at the Merman Queen and she nodded beforeing forward to ask Ariel, "What kind of contract did you sign? Is it the old pact or the new pact?"

    "Which one?" Ariel had a confused look on her face when she heard this.

    It was the same for me since there was no such thing in the game either...

    Both the Merman King and Queen knitted their brows when they heard this, but the Merman Queen kept asking, "Yes, which one did you make?"

    Ariel was still confused, but she slowly said, "I just used the one that I read about before. The one where if we exchange flesh, we''ll be able to take the form of each other."

    The Merman King and Queen both had ugly expressions when they heard this.

    It seemed that we had chosen the worst of the two options...

    But that wasn''t what I thought since this was the kind of thing that was easily broken in the game.

    In the game, all we had to do was travel to the territory of the sea witches and do a quest to break the contract. It was actually quite the simple quest that it didn''t seem like it would be a problem to do.

    After all, this was just how it was in the game or else the yer wouldn''t be able to ess the Merman Kingdom.

    With a cough, I said, "Isn''t it easy to solve this problem with the help of the sea witches?"

    Both the Merman King and Queen immediately red at me.

    Even Ariel was looking at me with a strange look when I made this suggestion.

    After a long and awkward silence, the Merman King finally said in a slow and deliberate voice, "You want to cooperate with the sea witches?"

    I slowly gave a nod even though I felt strange about the way that he asked me this. "There''s a reason why we banished those sea witches from our Merman Empire in the first ce!" The Merman King suddenly roared which made me take a step back in surprise.

    I waspletely caught off guard by how intense the reaction of the Merman King was.

    It seemed like he thought that this was something that absolutely couldn''t be epted which was just strange to me.

    In the game, there was no problem for the yer to travel between the Merman Empire and the territory of the sea witches. It was something that was easily done after the territory of the sea witches was unlocked on the map.

    Even if there were a few things in the lore of the game that talked about the bad rtionship between the Merman Empire and the sea witches, it didn''t seem bad enough that there would be such an intense reaction.

    It really didn''t seem to make sense at all...

    Or at least that was the case for a person like me who had knowledge from the game.

    As I slowly thought about it, I figured that this wasn''t the case for the people that lived in this world.

    It seemed that this was another one of those ces where there was a disconnect between this world and the world in the game. This piece of lore seemed much more important than it did in the game.

    Ariel stepped forward and pulled me aside before giving me a lecture on the sea witches.

    It seemed that the history between the Merman Empire and the sea witches was much deeper than I thought. With the way that she was exining it, I could understand why the Merman King had such an intense reaction.

    But the problem was that the help of the sea witches really was the easiest way to solve this issue.

    This didn''t seem like it would be a viable option, so I guess we could see what other methods there were.

    It wasn''t that important right now.

    The Merman King and Queen seemed like they had a few more things to say about the sea witches, but they eventually calmed down once they finished their rant.

    After they calmed down, they turned to see the royal mermaid guards who wereing back to report.

    They went forward close to the Merman King and Queen so that they could report without us hearing what they had to say.

    The Merman King gave a nod in response before saying, "Go and contact the Tide Empire. Tell them toe here so we can talk about this."

    The royal mermaid guards nodded before heading off to follow his orders.

    The Merman King was silent for a bit before turning to me to say, "Human, remember that we will always repay our debts."

    Then without waiting, he turned and took the Merman Queen''s hand before heading towards the buildings. It seemed like they were nning to stay here for the night.

    But as he was leaving, he stumbled when he heard...n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    "Dad, his name''s Zwein!"

 Chapter 952: Man to man

    Chapter 952: Man to man

    ?

    The sun quickly set and soon it was night time.

    Before the sun had set, we saw what happened to Viper in the end.

    They had been very efficient with their work, cutting off both his arms and his tongue without much blood. It seemed that they had used mes to sear off the wounds that had been left behind so that he wouldn''t die from blood loss or infection.

    The sight of Viper justying there without any arms and eyes that werepletely dim created a very sorry sight.

    One might even feel sorry for him if they didn''t know what he had done before.

    But we wouldn''t feel that way since we knew the full extent of his crimes.

    After the sun set, I headed out to the beach.

    This was without a doubt a very proper beach resort that was constructed as a ce for the Tide Empire and Merman Empire to negotiate. Since it was a proper beach resort and it had been a long time since I had a vacation, I took full advantage of this trip to walk on the beach at night.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It would only have been better if I had been able to bring my wives along, but not everything could be perfect.

    With the moon high up in the sky and the waves crashing on the beach, it really created a perfect mood.

    At the same time, I was able to convince Klein and the others to not follow me. Though it wasn''t easy since they were guards that were supposed to protect me in the first ce.

    Still, I was able to convince them to rest and rx as well.

    With the mood that this ce set, it really seemed like it would be one of those scenarios where I would meet a beauty on the beach.

    As I walked along, I even saw a figure that was just sitting there under the moon on the beach.

    It really seemed like I would be having an encounter...but it wasn''t the kind of encounter that I thought it would be.

    Instead, it was apletely different kind of encounter.

    When I came closer, I found that the figure was getting bigger and bigger until it was even bigger than me. As I came closer, I was able to see with the light of the moon that this was arge man who was sitting there on the beach.

    Once I came close enough, I found that it was the Merman King sitting there.

    With the way that he was sitting there, it seemed like he was thinking about something.

    I didn''t want to disturb him, so I turned around to leave. Only when I did, his voice suddenly rang out, "What are you sneaking off for? Come and sit, let''s have a talk."

    When he said this, there was no way that I could just leave.

    There was a bitter smile that was on my face at first, but that disappeared when I turned around and went over to sit down beside the Merman King. He didn''t seem to notice at all, he didn''t even seem to care that I sat down beside him as he kept staring out at the ocean.

    There was an awkward silence that lingered in the air as we just sat there.

    It didn''t seem like the Merman King was going to talk and there really wasn''t anything that I could say.

    But after a long silence, he finally said, "Thank you."

    I was confused at first since I didn''t know what he was thanking me for, but I slowly understood why he was thanking me.

    It was because of Ariel.

    She had run off on her own and there was no telling what would have happened to her if I hadn''t found her. While she was a powerful princess of the Merman Empire, that didn''t mean that she would be able to handle everything that was onnd.

    If I hadn''t found her, there would have been terrible things that could have happened to her.

    At the very least, I didn''t do anything too bad other than making that contract with her.

    I slowly turned to look at the Merman King who just sat there staring out at the ocean without even looking at me.

    After another long silence, I said, "Well, I didn''t do it out of the kindness of my heart."

    The Merman King gave a slow nod without saying anything.

    It didn''t seem like he would me me, which was why I had chosen to confess in the first ce. I knew that a rtionship was something that had to be built from both sides, it wasn''t something that could be built if one side was lying to the other.

    Honesty was the best policy when showing sincerity.

    There was another long silence that hung there in the air, but I didn''t mind since this let me see another side of the Merman King.

    I had only ever seen the doting parent side of him, but it seemed like there was the calm and collected ruler side of him.

    Though it was only natural that there was this side of him in the first ce, or else he wouldn''t have been able to rule over arge empire like the Merman Empire.

    The two of us sat in silence like this for a bit before he suddenly stood up.

    As he stood up, he said, "Regardless of what happened in the past, if you dare have any intentions towards my daughter..."

    He didn''t finish his sentence, he didn''t even look at me as he turned around to walk away. The Merman King just left me with this as he left.

    There was a bitter smile that was on my face as a part of me regretted not having the chance to exin, but it didn''t matter since there was no need for these kinds of words in man to man talks like this.

    There were chances in the future and this was our first time learning from each other.

    I''m sure that I will be able to clear this misunderstanding in the future.

 Chapter 953: What could it be?

    Chapter 953: What could it be?

    ?

    "What is this?" A voice suddenly roared out.

    All those that had been in the throne room couldn''t help flinching when they heard this voice roaring out. They all looked like they would rather be anywhere else, but their positions

    didn''t allow them to leave.

    That was because they were all ministers of the Tide Empire.

    If it was anywhere else, these people would receive the best treatment because of their status.

    It was only here that they had no choice but to cower.

    That was because the one that was in front of them was the one that ruled the Tide Empire, the Tide Emperor.

    After asking this question, the Tide Emperor just looked at the ministers that were standing there silently in front of him.

    As they felt his gaze sweep over them, they all lowered their heads. It was as if they were a bunch of naughty kids that were trying to avoid being chosen by the teacher.

    The Tide Emperor looked even more disappointed when he saw them acting this way, but he didn''t say anything as he just gave a simple snort.

    Instead, the Tide Emperor turned to look at the one that brought the letter and said, "Well, what do they want this time?"

    The way that he said this was very guarded, as if he was afraid of what the letter would say. After all, this was a letter from a very special ce, a ce that even he as the emperor of the Tide Empire needed to be wary of.

    It was from the Merman Empire, the reason why the Tide Empire had be one of the strongest human empires.

    The messenger slowly opened the letter and said, "The letter is a letter asking for a meeting with your majesty."

    The Tide Emperor slightly knitted his brows when he heard this.

    This was certainly not what he had expected, but this wasn''t necessarily a bad thing.

    After all, there had been talks about a royal engagement with the princess of the Merman Empire. If they were just asking for a meeting, didn''t that mean that they were nning to move forward with this?

    Though the Tide Emperor couldn''t help feeling that something was off since this was a very short notice letter. It seemed unnatural how they suddenly asked for a meeting like this.

    It didn''t seem like there was a need to rush like this since they had already been discussing this a long time.

    Something must have happened in the Merman Empire for them to suddenly send a letter like this.

    That was what the Tide Emperor was worried about.

    However, it wasn''t as if he could just ignore this invitation to a meeting.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    If he were to do that, it would be like looking down on the Merman Empire. For the Tide Empire, their rtionship with the Merman Empire was the most important thing.

    If their rtionship with the Merman Empire was ever destroyed, then it was almost certain that they would lose their power on the continent. Once that happened, it would mean that their Tide Empire would be attacked by the other three empires and torn apart.

    That was just how it was with human greed.

    So there was nothing that the Tide Emperor could do other than go along with this. After thinking about it for a bit, the Tide Emperor said, "Where''s the crown prince?" "Royal father, your son is here." A handsome looking young man with blue hair stepped forward and bowed slightly as he said this.

    When the Tide Emperor saw this handsome looking blue haired young man, he gave a satisfied nod. The way that he looked at him waspletely different from the way that he had looked at the ministers just now.

    It was clear by the way that he looked at him how the Tide Emperor thought of this crown prince.

    At least the ministers couldn''tpare to the position that the crown prince had in his heart. After looking at him with a look of approval for a bit, the Tide Emperor said, "Prepare to head to Peace Ind with me. You will meet the Merman Princess with me."

    When the crown prince heard that, his eyes lit up.

    He had seen a picture of the Merman Princess before and there was nothing for him toin about. The moment that he saw the picture, he had actually fallen in love with her.

    Since he was going to meet the princess, there was no doubt that this would be about his engagement which filled him with even more joy.

    The crown prince bowed his head even more as he said, "Yes, royal father. Your son will follow you wherever and whenever."

    The Tide Emperor slightly knitted his brows hearing this, but he chose to ignore it in the end.

    Instead, the Tide Emperor turned his eyes back onto the ministers and said, "Prepare the guards and the gifts for the Merman Empire." He narrowed his eyes before saying, "If there''s even a single mistake..."

    All of the ministers gulped when they heard this, but they quickly said with bowed heads, "Yes, your majesty. We will not make a single mistake."

    The Tide Emperor narrowed his eyes even more, but he eventually just waved his hand.

    Seeing this, the ministers all left the throne room while letting out sighs.

    The looks on their faces was as if they had been pardoned from an execution.

    The only one that looked excited was the crown prince who seemed to be lost in some kind of fantasy.

    Once the Tide Emperor was alone in the throne room, he looked again at the letter that had been presented to him. He looked at it carefully as if he was trying to figure something out.

    After a long silence, the Tide Emperor couldn''t help saying to himself, "Just what could it be? What do they want that they would send this message all of a sudden?"

 Chapter 954: My fair goddess

    Chapter 954: My fair goddess

    ?

    Two dayster, the ship carrying the Tide Emperor and his group arrived on Peace Ind.

    When they arrived, they found that the Merman King and the others from the Merman Empire were waiting for them.

    Though they were surprised to see the full group of royal mermaid guards that were behind them.

    This seemed different from the other meetings that they had before.

    It seemed like they were here to fight rather than to have a peaceful meeting.

    The Tide Emperor and his group couldn''t help feeling a bit worried when they saw the Merman Empire group like this, but that worry was soon dispelled after theynded and disembarked from the ship.

    The Merman King came forward with a smile as he said, "It''s good to see you again!" The Tide Emperor immediately revealed a smile as well as he took the outstretched hand offered by the Merman King as he said, "You as well!"

    Though the two of them were smiling, the smile never really reached their eyes.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    This was normal for both of them since they were rulers of their nation and hiding their emotions like this was necessary. Even if there was a good rtionship between their nations, it wasn''t as if that couldn''t change at any moment.

    That was just how politics went.

    The two of them exchanged a few simple greetings before the Merman King invited the Tide Emperor''s group onto the ind.

    Though there was no real need to be invited, the Tide Emperor acted as if he didn''t mind this at all. He was more than fine with letting the Merman King act as the host since he was the one that invited them here in the first ce.

    The Tide Emperor wanted to go along with this to see what the Merman King was nning.

    However, there was one thing that made him knit his brows.

    He didn''t catch sight of the Mermaid Princess, Ariel.

    She was supposed to be the other party that was involved in today''s matter, so it was strange that he didn''t see her at all. She should have been here for this meeting since it involved her.

    So he couldn''t help feeling strange not seeing her.

    As for whether he would recognize her or not...

    Since she was supposed to be the Tide Empire''s daughter inw, he naturally had someone find a painting of her so that they would be able to recognize her right away.

    That was why the Tide Emperor was certain that Ariel wasn''t here.

    If she wasn''t here, then where was she?

    It turned out that he was just thinking too much.

    When they arrived at the buildings, they found that there was a group waiting for them. Among this group was a beautiful youngdy with bright red hair, it was so bright that it was hard to miss her.

    This was Ariel.

    Seeing this, the Tide Emperor let out a secret sigh of relief as he realized that he was just thinking too much about this.

    The rtionship between the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire had existed for several centuries now, it wasn''t something that could be broken that easily. So even if they had rushed to invite them over, it certainly wasn''t anything bad.

    Perhaps it was an internal matter for the Merman Empire?

    Regardless of what it was, it didn''t seem like there were any downsides for them.

    As for the blue haired crown prince, his eyes lit up the moment that he saw Ariel.

    It was as if everything around him had disappeared and she was the only thing that he could

    see

    Unfortunately for him, this wasn''t a mutual feeling.

    Ariel wasn''t even looking at him, she wasn''t even looking at the Tide Empire group.

    She was currently yawning as if she was bored of all of this.

    But even then, the blue haired crown prince still found her cute.

    Once they arrived, the Merman Queen came forward to greet the Tide Emperor as well.

    The Tide Emperor responded in kind with a smile on his face.

    The others also started exchanging greetings, showing that they were quite close with one another.

    There was nothing that seemed off.

    But the crown prince didn''t seem to care about any of this as his eyes were still on Ariel.

    He reached behind him and pulled out a bouquet of roses that he had been hiding the entire time. With how perfect they were, it seemed like he had put in quite a bit of effort to make sure that they were properly preserved.

    With a confident smile on his face, he moved towards Ariel with the flowers at the ready.

    Once he came over, the crown prince fell to one knee and raised the flowers in front of him to present to Ariel as he said, "Oh, my fair goddess. I present these humble flowers to you in hopes of receiving one nce of your beautiful eyes."

    The way that he said this was very smooth and coupled with his handsome looks, he might have been able to fool some normal girls.

    Only...

    "What are these for? Can you eat them?" Ariel said with a tilt of her head.

    The smile on the crown prince''s lips twitched when he heard this.

    He had to look at Ariel again as if he was trying to figure out if she was being serious or not, but Ariel just looked at him with the same confused look. When he saw her looking at him like this, he couldn''t help feeling that she looked cute.

    At the same time, he didn''t think that she was doing this on purpose, so it wasn''t as if he

    could me her.

    But in reality...she was doing it on purpose.

    She was purposefully acting like she didn''t understand what he was saying, ying the fool

    so to say.

    After all, the best way to counter those slick yboys who were confident in their actions was to act the fool to throw them off.

 Chapter 955: Someone you might know

    Chapter 955: Someone you might know

    ?

    n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The Merman King and Queen bothughed on the inside.

    They knew that this was their daughter''s special move which she had already used on many bachelors in their Merman Empire, so they knew that this was effective.

    This was further proven by the crown prince who looked like he had no idea what he was supposed to do now.

    The Tide Emperor showed a trace of disapproval for the crown prince for the first time.

    At a time like this, he was faltering.

    This wasn''t like the crown prince that he raised, but he also didn''t say anything as he watched what would happen. This was a matter between the crown prince and Ariel, so it wasn''t as if he could just butt in if he wanted.

    The crown prince actually didn''t have a backup n since he had been confident that this would work.

    He had gone in with the full confidence that he would be able to make Ariel his, but in the end...he was just left there with a dumb look on his face.

    This was a stark contrast from the normal confident and handsome crown prince.

    If there were any of his fans that could see him now, they certainly would have been disheartened.

    This was why they said love was blind.

    The crown prince was blind when it came to his own love and didn''t care even though he had been made a fool of.

    It was just that Ariel was already done with him and had moved aside so that he could no longer talk to her.

    The Tide Emperor could only reveal an awkward look as he stood there with the Meman King and Queen. The situation didn''t look good for him or the crown prince, but at least they were here to discuss this matter.

    So the Tide Emperor said, "Shall we go in and talk?"

    The Merman King and Queen had onest look at the crown prince who was standing there like a fool before nodding in agreement and leading the way in.

    The room that they sat down in was a room that had already been prepared for them, so there were refreshments that were already waiting for them.

    The Tide Emperor didn''t hesitate at all as he sat down at one side of the table.

    When the Merman King and Queen sat down as well, the Tide Emperor asked, "Your

    majesties, was there a need to call this urgent meeting? I''m sure that this was something that we could have discussed at leisure, there was no need to rush this, right?"

    He didn''t have a ming tone as he said this, he just had a curious tone which showed that there were no ill intentions behind his words.

    Only, the Merman King and Queen didn''t seem to be on the same page.

    The Merman King said, "Of course there was a need to call this meeting. There''s something important that I want to discuss with you."

    "Huh?" The Tide Emperor couldn''t hide the surprise and confusion that appeared on his face.

    But that expression didn''tst long as he forced himself to calm down.

    While he was curious what they wanted to discuss, he didn''t let himself show it since he couldn''t give up that information. If they were to misunderstand because of his reaction, then that would be bad for the Tide Empire.

    This was a skill that one trained when one became a ruler.

    One couldn''t react easily or else one might be misunderstood.

    So he forced himself to keep calm as he asked, "What important matter?"

    The Merman King didn''t exin what he meant by this as he looked at the Tide Emperor with slightly narrowed eyes.

    When the Tide Emperor saw this, he couldn''t help feeling more and more confused.

    He just didn''t understand what the Merman King was doing looking at him like this.

    The Tide Emperor tried to think about what this could all be about, but he just couldn''t think of a single thing. It didn''t seem like his Tide Empire had done anything to the Merman Empire.

    Seeing that the Merman King wouldn''t say anything, the Tide Emperor finally couldn''t take it anymore as he shook his head and said, "I have no idea what you mean."

    Since he couldn''t figure out what was happening, he decided not to beat around the bush.

    With the rtionship that was between the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire, there was nothing to gain from beating around the bush.

    The Merman King didn''t answer the doubts of the Tide Emperor right away. Instead, he turned to look at one of the royal mermaid guards who gave a nod back and left the room. The Tide Emperor was as confused as usual, but he waited to see what this would be.

    When the royal mermaid guard came back, he wasn''t alone.

    He was leading someone by some kind of rope that was attached to that person''s neck.

    But that wasn''t the thing that attracted their attention when they saw this person. The thing that attracted their attention right away was the fact that this person had their eyes blindfolded, was missing their arms, and seemed to be unable to speak. The group from the Tide Empire just couldn''t understand why this person was brought in for them to see. However, after this person was brought in, the Merman King just calmly looked at them and said, "I think that this is someone that you might know."

    "Huh?" The entire Tide Empire group was shocked and confused when they heard this.

    There wasn''t a single person that recognized the one that had been brought in.

    Even if that person wasplete, they wouldn''t have recognized him because they had never seen this person in their life.

    The Tide Emperor deeply knitted his brows when he came back to his senses.

    He didn''t believe that the Merman King would do something like this for no reason, so did that mean that this person was somehow rted to the Tide Empire?

 Chapter 956: How do you want to settle this?

    Chapter 956: How do you want to settle this?

    ?

    No, it didn''t matter if this person was rted to the Tide Empire or not.

    The reason that the Merman King brought out this person must mean that he was nning on using this person to negotiate something with them.

    The Tide Emperor had no idea what he would want to negotiate, but he knew that it wouldn''t be a good thing.

    It would never be a good thing if someone was pulled out like this.

    But why?

    Why did the Merman King suddenly do something that would clearly hurt the rtionship between them?

    Did something happen that the Merman Empire didn''t hesitate to break their rtionship like this?

    The Tide Emperor was deeply bothered by this since the link to the Merman Empire was the greatest thing that the Tide Empire was relying on. While they wouldn''t lose everything that they had if they lost that connection to the Merman Empire, it would still hurt them very much to lose that connection.

    So that was the worst case scenario that had to be prevented at all cost.

    Only...who was this person?

    There wasn''t a single member of the Tide Empire group who recognized the person that had been brought out.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    All of them even started to wonder if this was some kind of trap that was set up by the Merman Empire to get something from them.

    After a long silence, the Tide Emperor slowly shook his head to say, "I have no idea who this person is." Then after a pause, he added, "Has this person offended you in some way, your majesty?"

    The Merman King calmly looked at the Tide Emperor as if he was scrutinizing him.

    The Tide Emperor could see this, so he calmly looked right back at the Merman King as if he was proving his innocence.

    The Merman King suddenly said, "He''s someone who caused trouble to my daughter."

    The entire Tide Empire group took a cold breath when they heard this.

    Since they had dealings with the Merman Empire, they naturally knew some things about the Merman Empire. The most famous rumour of all from the Merman Empire was...the

    dotingness of the Merman King towards his daughter.

    This was something that everyone in the Merman Empire knew, but at the same time, it wasn''t as if they didn''t understand. The love for the princess in the Merman Empire was something that was widespread.

    Everyone loved Ariel and would fiercely protect her, so there was no one that dared to provoke the Merman Empire''s princess in the Tide Empire.

    This was someone that they had made sure to recognize so that they wouldn''t identally offend her. This was someone that had been put on the top of the danger list just because of how they treated her.

    They couldn''t believe that someone would dare to offend her.

    However, the Tide Emperor wasn''t just willing to ept this usation without a fight.

    With slightly knitted brows, the Tide Emperor said, "Your majesty, this is not someone that I recognize, so how can you say that they are from the Tide Empire? Are you trying to me us for something that we haven''t done?"

    This time, it was the Merman King''s turn to knit his brows.

    He looked at the Tide Emperor and said, "Are you trying to deny responsibility for this matter?"

    The Tide Emperor couldn''t help being taken aback by the way that the Merman King said this.

    It was almost as if he had concrete proof that this person was rted to them.

    The Tide Emperor didn''t dare say too much, so he said, "If there is responsibility, we will ept it. But you cannot me us for something that isn''t rted to us."

    The Merman King gave a nod before reaching his hand out towards one of the royal mermaid guards.

    That guard handed over some papers that the Merman King took before he threw them on the table in front of him. Throwing these papers down, the Merman King said, "This one is an illegitimate child of your Tide Empire''s royal family and you want to deny all responsibility?" The Tide Emperor and the rest of his ministers were all shocked to hear this.

    He quickly picked up the paper that had been thrown onto the table and looked through them with his ministers.

    As they read through these reports, the looks on their faces became uglier and uglier.

    That was because these reports had clearly stated who Viper was and how he was rted to the Tide Empire.

    He was the son of one of the dukes of the Tide Empire, who was also the former second prince. When the crown prince took over as the emperor of the Tide Empire, that former second prince had be the duke.

    Viper was one of the sons that he had with a maid and that had been sent away because the duke didn''t want anything to do with him. Though the duke had already had plenty of illegitimate children with other maids before.

    It was just that these illegitimate children had never caused a mess like Viper had.

    With those ugly looks on their faces, the Tide Emperor and the ministers slowly looked up at Viper.

    When the Tide Emperor looked closer at Viper, he could see traces of his brother in Viper''s face. He hadn''t looked at Viper closely before, but now that he did... he could clearly tell that this person was rted to his brother.

    As such, he really was rted to the Tide Empire''s royal family.

    This was a very big international incident!

    Seeing the way that the Tide Emperor and his ministers looked at Viper, the Merman King could tell that they were seeing the resemnce between him and the duke.

    There was no denying the ims anymore, so there was no need for him to hold back

    anymore.

    The Merman King pped his hand down on the table and shouted, "How do you want to

    settle this?"

 Chapter 957: Off the table

    Chapter 957: Off the table

    ?

    The entire group from the Tide Empire trembled when they heard this.

    Even though the Merman King was asking them this question, it wasn''t as if they had an answer for him. After all, there wasn''t a single one of them who had expected things to go this way.

    Even if the Tide Emperor had expected something to go wrong, that didn''t mean that he had expected all of this.

    There was no way that any of them would have expected this since they didn''t even know of Viper''s existence.

    So the only thing that they could do now was try to figure out what happened and how to minimize the damage.

    To them, Viper''s life meant nothing.

    To them, it was better for them if Viper died as soon as possible so that the anger of the Merman Empire was appeased.

    Since it was his fault that this mess was created, his death would be the solution to the problem.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Though it wasn''t as if they could just kill him in front of the Merman King and the rest of the group from the Merman Empire. If they were to do that, then it would be seen as an act of aggression.

    So the only thing that the Tide Emperor could do was...

    "I apologize for whatever mess this fool has caused. I hope that you will ept my sincere apologies so we can discuss what to do next." The Tide Emperor even lowered his head as he said this.

    That was the only thing that he could do in this situation.

    Since he was the emperor, the one that had the highest status, he could only offer his head. Well, it wasn''t his head that was being offered, but rather his face.

    He would take this humiliation to apologize to the Merman Empire so that they could put this matter behind them.

    The ministers were all surprised by this, but they quickly bowed their heads as well.

    Since the emperor had already bowed his head, then what was stopping them from bowing their heads.

    It was only the crown prince who just awkwardly stood there without bowing his head.

    His eyes were on Ariel who was standing on the side watching all of this.

    The reason why he didn''t want to bow was because Ariel was here.

    This was the girl that he loved, so he didn''t want to embarrass himself in front of her. He didn''t want to bow his head and put himself down like that, but he had no choice in the end.

    Especially when the Tide Emperor sent a re in his direction.

    It was almost as if the Tide Emperor was saying, "Bow or die."

    So the crown prince had no choice but to bow his head to the Merman King along with the rest.

    The ministers all gave sighs seeing this, but they didn''t say a thing.

    After all, they knew that this was a matter that was far beyond any of them.

    After sincerely bowing his head for a bit, the Tide Emperor looked back up at Viper and said, "If possible, I hope that you will allow us to take him back so we can properly punish him."

    There was a cold tone in his voice that also had a trace of anger to it.

    It was clear that if Viper were tond in the Tide Emperor''s hands, there wouldn''t be a good ending for him.

    That made Viper give a rare reaction as he revealed a trace of fear, but then the same despondent look appeared on his face.

    The Merman King shook his head as he said, "No, we will be the ones that will punish him," The firm tone of his voice made it clear that he would broker no argument.

    The Tide Emperor was a bit surprised to hear this, but he didn''t push the issue as he just said with a nod, "As you wish. You are the ones that he has offended, so it is your right to handle him however you wish to handle him."

    Then after a moment of hesitation, he said in a slow voice with an awkward cough, "As for the other matter that we''ve discussed before..."

    "There''s nothing to discuss." The Merman King cut him off right away.

    The Tide Emperor was shocked to hear how resolute the Merman King was, but he didn''t give up as easily this time. After all, this was a very important issue for his Tide Empire.

    It had been a long time since the royal families of the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire had been connected, not since the progenitor of the Tide Empire had there been a connection like this between them.

    So even before the matter of the rtionship with the Merman Empire, what the Tide Emperor was worried about was the decline in mermaid blood in the veins of the citizens.

    At this rate, it would only be a matter of time before all the mermaid blood was diluted and they became normal humans.

    If the Tide Empire lost the only thing that they could rely on topete with the other human empires, then it would only be a matter of time before they were destroyed.

    Though it wasn''t as if they could go against the Merman Empire and force them to marry into their Tide Empire.

    So this time, the Tide Emperor said, "I''m sure that this is just an unrted matter, there''s no need for us to allow this fool to sour the rtionship between our two empires."

    Then turning to the crown prince, he said, "This isn''t something that us elders should be interfering with in the first ce. This is a matter between the younger generation, so I think that we should let them decide."

    This was the only way that the Tide Emperor could argue since he couldn''t force them to allow the engagement.

    He believed that the crown prince would be able to win the heart of the mermaid princess,

    Ariel.

    It was just that...

 Chapter 958: Warm face to a cold butt

    Chapter 958: Warm face to a cold butt

    ?

    The crown prince''s eyes lit up when he heard this.

    He wasn''t a fool, he could tell that based on the way that the talks were going, it seemed like it was very likely that the engagement would have been cancelled.

    So he could also tell that his father was trying to figure out a way to keep this engagement.

    As for the method, he was very confident in the method used.

    The crown prince was very confident in his own abilities after all, he considered himself a very eligible bachelor. This was true whether it was in the Tide Empire or outside of the Tide Empire.

    So if he was given a chance, he would surely be able to seduce Ariel.

    The Merman King didn''t say anything, but that was because he knew that it was impossible to use words to convince these people. The best way to convince them was to let them y their tricks and then shut them down.

    After all, he was certain that his daughter wouldn''t fall for this fool of a crown prince.

    After what he saw, he knew that this crown prince was thest kind of person that his daughter would fall for.

    Seeing that the Merman King didn''t say anything, the crown prince took this as a silent agreement and moved forward to approach Ariel who had been sitting on the side the entire time. She didn''t say anything, it didn''t even seem like she had been listening the entire time even though this matter was about her.

    But she did notice the crown prince approaching her, so she narrowed her eyes to look at him. The crown prince took this as a good sign.

    He took this as her showing her interest in him, which made him reveal a confident smile.

    It was just that by doing this, he actually hurt his own impression in her mind.

    He made himself seem like a fool in her eyes.

    "What an idiot, why is he smiling all on his own?" Ariel thought to herself.

    That''s right, he had been reduced to aplete idiot in her mind all because of this confident smile.

    However, that confidence that the crown prince was riding on made him stand there in front of her with that same smile that made him appear a fool in her eyes. He was just standing there as if he was allowing her to get a good look at him.

    Not knowing that by doing this, he was reducing himself to an idiot.

    After seeing that Ariel wasn''t saying anything, the crown prince couldn''t help feeling that something was off. It was just that this fool was filled with confidence in himself that he didn''t think that it was something that he could have done wrong.

    His first thought was...

    "It seems like she''s quite the shy girl, isn''t she?"

    Then his second thought was...

    "Well, if she''s a shy girl, I guess I have no choice but to make the first move."

    There wasn''t a single second where he thought that she was acting this way because she didn''t like him.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    That was just how confident he was in himself.

    With an even wider smile on his face, the crown prince came forward and said, "Miss Ariel, if possible, may I invite you for a walk on the beach?"

    "No thank you." Ariel said right to his smiling face without any hesitation.

    The moment that he heard this, the smile on the crown prince''s face froze before it slowly faded away. His eyes slowly started to fill with shock as he just looked right at Ariel, as if he couldn''t believe what he had just heard.

    Ariel didn''t care about the way that he looked at her.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that this was a meeting between the Tide Empire and the Merman Empire, she would have already left the room without a single care.

    There was an awkward silence that just hung there in the air as the crown prince didn''t know what to do next. After all, this was a situation that he had never encountered before.

    It was already rare for him to take the initiative to invite a girl, but for her to reject him like this...

    It really was the first time.

    After a long awkward silence, the crown prince gave an embarrassed cough to adjust himself before saying, "Yes, it is a bit cold outside today, so how about we go rx by the fire in the

    lounge?"

    "Can you not hear me? I''m not interested." Once again, Ariel didn''t mince her words as she directly rejected him.

    The crown prince looked even more shocked after hearing this.

    He just looked at her like he felt that there was something wrong with her.

    Ariel didn''t even bother looking at him after she rejected him as she looked around for something, anything more interesting than the crown prince.

    The crown prince didn''t know how to feel.

    After all, he had never experienced the situation of sticking a warm face onto a cold butt before. It was always him who had ignored people, it had never been the other way around...

    So now that it was happening to him, he just didn''t know how to act.

    As if to save him from his embarrassment, the Merman King said with a cough, "It seems that she''s not interested. I think that we can just forget this matter."

    The Tide Emperor had a shocked look at first before slowly knitting his brows.

    The look on his face made it clear that there were more things that he wanted to say, but there wasn''t anything that he could say in the end.

    After all, the situation had already been embarrassing enough, so it would only make it worse if he said anything.

    Regardless of what he said, it didn''t seem like there would be any progress today.

    So the Tide Emperor just had to suck it up and say, "It seems like we won''t be able to reach an agreement today. How about we discuss this another day?"

    The Merman King just gave a simple nod without saying anything, but the look in his eyes said more than enough.

 Chapter 959: Cleansing

    Chapter 959: Cleansing

    ?

    The Tide Empire''s group couldn''t just leave right away since that would be too discourteous. The only thing that they could do was wait for a bit before leaving.

    At the same time, it wasn''t as if they could just remain silent while waiting to leave, so they discussed a few simple matters with the Merman King.

    Since the Tide Empire was close to the Merman Empire, there were some things that they had to discuss with each other in terms of the cooperation between them. There were some simple matters such as trade routes that had to be discussed, though it wasn''t necessary for the rulers to discuss it in person like this.

    Most of these matters would usually be discussed in letters sent between the two empires.

    It was just that there was nothing else that the Tide Empire group could discuss with the Merman Empire group during this time. They had already experienced the feeling of sticking a hot face into a cold butt, so it was awkward for them to say anything else.

    They could only keep the topic on official matters that both sides could talk about.

    Once it was over, they didn''t hesitate to leave, though they did make sure to say their farewells properly to the Merman Empire group.

    Once the Tide Empire group was back on their ship and sailing back to the maind, the Tide Emperor''s face immediately fell. He had a very ugly look on his face as he remembered everything that had happened in the meeting on Peace Ind.

    Though he was filled with anger, there wasn''t a ce that he could vent this anger on.

    Or at least there wasn''t until an idiot suddenly came forward as a sacrifice.

    "Royal father, what should we do about the matter of the engagement?" The crown prince said in an anxious voice.

    He had been filled with worry since the meeting ended because the engagement that he had been looking forward to was nowpletely off the table. With the way that things looked, it seemed like he wouldn''t have a chance to bring it up.

    So the only thing that he could do was raise this matter to the Tide Emperor in hopes that he would help with his prestige.

    It was just that even the Tide Emperor couldn''t do anything at this moment and bringing it up would just make him angrier since he would remember everything that happened.

    The crown prince normally wouldn''t make this mistake, but he hadpletely lost his self control because of the anxiety that he felt.

    It was often said that beautiful women were the downfall of powerful men and this was the case with the crown prince.

    He had beenpletely enthralled in Ariel that he had turned into an idiot.

    The normal crown prince wouldn''t act like this, but the current crown prince wasn''t the normal crown prince.

    "Is that the only thing that you can think of?!" The Tide Emperor pped the crown prince across the face to everyone''s shock.

    The one that was the most shocked was naturally the crown prince since this had never happened before. As far as he could remember, he had never seen his father acting this way towards him, let alone raising his hand to p him.

    The crown prince was immediately filled with an aggrieved feeling.

    The Tide Emperor didn''t care what the crown prince felt as he took several deep breaths before calming himself down. That one p had allowed him to vent some of the anger that was in his heart, so he was able to calm himself a bit now.

    After taking several deep breaths, the Tide Emperor was able to calm himself enough to think clearly again.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    He looked at the crown prince and calmly said, "Think for yourself what mistakes you''ve made. If you can''t think this through, then don''t bother appearing in front of me again."

    This was the second time that the Tide Emperor had felt disappointed in the crown prince. Who would have thought that both of these times would happen on the same day?

    The crown prince was shocked to hear this, but he quickly lowered his head and gave a simple nod. That p had calmed him down as well and he was thinking clearly.

    Once the crown prince left, the Tide Emperor looked at the ministers that were all standing there with their heads down.

    There was another displeased look that appeared in his eyes, but he still said, "When we get back, find all of those b*stards that my brother has sired. I want to make sure that this doesn''t happen again, so we''ll be cleansing that line."

    The ministers were shocked to hear this since the emperor had never cared about this before.

    After all, those illegitimate children spreading through their empire was actually helping them since the mermaid bloodline was being spread across the country.

    But thinking of the situation caused by Viper, they knew that this was a smart move.

    It really was surprising that nothing like this had happened before with howx their control

    of these illegitimate children was, which sent a chill down their spines.

    After this thought passed through their minds, the ministers all lowered their heads and said, "Yes, your majesty. We will not make a mistake and perform this task perfectly."

    The Tide Emperor gave a nod before waving his hand as if he was dismissing them.

    ...

    "Did you see the look on their faces? It looked like they swallowed a bunch of shit!" The Merman Kingughed as he said this.

    Ariel nodded in agreement before saying, "Right, right, did you also see that crown prince? He really looked like an idiot."

    "Humph, how could someone like that be worthy of my daughter?" The Merman King said in

    a fierce voice.

    Seeing them act this way, there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face.

    They werepletely different from the serious mermaids that had met with the Tide Emperor earlier.

    But I didn''t dislike this side of them.

    Compared to those nobles that were stuck up and arrogant, knowing that they could act like this was definitely better than having to deal with those kinds of nobles.

 Chapter 960: Glowing beach

    Chapter 960: Glowing beach

    ?

    Once the matter with the Tide Empire had been settled, there was no longer a reason for us to stay here any longer.

    However, we didn''t leave right away since Ariel wanted a few days with her parents.

    Since there was no way to solve the issue of her human legs, Ariel would being back with us to spend time in our kingdom as a royal guest. So it was perfectly fine to let her spend some time with her parents before she left for our kingdom.

    At the same time, it was a chance for us since we could build up a rtionship with the Merman Empire.

    The rtionship that the Tide Empire had with the Merman Empire had allowed it to be one of the four human empires.

    So one couldn''t look down on the Merman Empire.

    Especially since they were the only ones that ruled under the ocean.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    That meant that the Merman Empire had a vast quantity of resources at their disposal that humans didn''t know about. The humans had no idea just how strong the Merman Empire was.

    Well, I had an idea since I had my knowledge from the game, but it wasn''t as if I knew everything about the Merman Empire.

    So even I couldn''t look down on them.

    It was a good thing that the Merman King and Queen were easy to get along with.

    After the initial misunderstanding was cleared by our man to man talk, it was much easier to talk to the two of them.

    They behavedpletely differently from the other royals.

    They didn''t have the same arrogance that other royals had.

    It must be the difference in environment that caused them to behave differently from the other royals.

    Simply put, it was most likely because there was nopetition fornd with the Merman Empire.

    Most royals would develop that kind of arrogance because of their need to show off against the other royal families that would threaten them. So they would develop this kind of guarded and arrogant personality.

    But since the Merman Empire didn''t have such a threat, the royal family of the Merman Empire developed more freely as they interacted more with their people, rather than with other royals.

    They were grounded rulers who saw themselves as one of the people that lived in the country, rather than rulers that were chosen by god to rule over theirnds.

    So they were much easier to interact withpared to other royals.

    While we were able to be closer, we weren''t able to strike any deals in the end.

    It wasn''t that they weren''t willing to cooperate with us, it was just that there wasn''t anything that we had that could entice them intoing all the way to our territory to trade with us. While we had a river that was connected to the ocean, the problem was that our kingdom was quite far ind so it was inconvenient for the mermaids toe that far.

    At the same time, they would be able to obtain the things that they wanted from the Tide Empire which was much closer and had more variety than a small kingdom like ours.

    So there were no benefits to the Merman Empire toe that far just to trade with us.

    I fully understood what their reasoning was, so I didn''t push the issue.

    Just like this, a week passed where we got to know the people from the Merman Empire.

    Klein and the others seemed to have gotten quite close to the mermaid royal guards during this time.

    From time to time, I could see them ying sumo with each other.

    The mermaid royal guards had the same strong legs that Ariel had since they were also mermen that had transformed into humans. So they were quite skilled when it came to sumo even if they didn''t know the rules.

    But Klein and the others had practice and the techniques that I showed them, so they were able to put up a good fight.

    I even saw the Merman King down at the sumo rings from time to time...

    It seemed that the mermen really were enthralled by the sport of sumo.

    However, it wasn''t as if that was a bad thing.

    It was a good bonding experience after all.

    On this final day, we went down to the beachte at night.

    It was the Merman King and Queen who had called us out thiste, so we had no idea what was happening. Though we didn''t think that they would set a trap for us after all this time spent together.

    When we arrived at the beach, we were shocked by the sight.

    The beach was covered in glowing things thatpletely lit it up.

    It was like the beach itself was glowing with the way that these things were spread out.

    Ariel happily exined, "It''s the Glowing Seaweed!"

    Then she ran down to the beach and happily ran through the glowing things that were there.

    I looked at the Merman King and Queen with a confused look and they exined what this

    was.

    The seaweed that was there was a special kind of seaweed that was found under the ocean that glowed because of the nutrients that they absorbed. It was just that they didn''t have any

    nutritional value that most things left them alone.

    When it was time, they would be swallowed by the waves and sent to the beach, like what was happening now.

    It was a sight that many mermen and mermaids liked to watch.

    Based on this exnation, it was very easy to draw aparison.

    Fireflies.

    This was the equivalent of watching fireflies for the mermaids.

    The glowing seaweed spread out across the beach certainly was a beautiful sight, though it

    was a bit hard for humans to appreciate since it was just seaweed.

    This was most likely a cultural thing between mermaids and humans.

    But that wasn''t the thing that I was the most concerned about.

    "New material detected."

 Chapter 961: Another new item

    Chapter 961: Another new item

    ?

    I waspletely caught off guard when I heard this notification, but then I couldn''t help revealing a confused look.

    After all, it didn''t seem like there was anything that could be used to make sex toys here.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The only thing that was on the beach was the glowing seaweed and no matter how I looked at it, it really didn''t seem like the glowing seaweed would be the thing that the system was referring to.

    However, the system soon proved me wrong.

    It was indeed the seaweed that the system was referring to.

    "Please collect a sample of the Glowing Seaweed."

    When the system put it that clearly, it was impossible for me to misunderstand.

    It turned out that the new material that the system found was indeed the seaweed that was scattered on the beach in front of us.

    It was just that I really couldn''t understand what kind of sex toy could be made from this. Since it was glowing...could it be that the system wanted to extract the fluorescent properties of the seaweed and inject that into the other sex toys?

    That was the only possible thing that I could think of as I looked at the Glowing Seaweed.

    In the end, I went forward to head down to the beach as well to the surprise of everyone. The one that was the most pleasantly surprised at Ariel who was running among the glowing seaweed.

    When she saw me heading down, she waved her hand at me and said, "Come and join me!"

    The Merman King slightly knitted his brows as he turned to look at me after she said this, but Ariel didn''t seem to care at all.

    However, I also ignored her as I headed towards the closest piece of Glowing Seaweed near

    me.

    Once I was there, I reached down and picked it up.

    There was this strange slimy feeling that wasing from the Glowing Seaweed that wasn''t reallyfortable to touch.

    Then when I moved that piece of seaweed from one hand to the other, I found that there was this strange effect where the glow of the seaweed seemed to be sticking to the first hand.

    It seemed that whatever it was that was making the seaweed glow was stuck to the surface of the seaweed.

    That meant that anything that was touching it would have a bit of the glow infused to it. Though it didn''t seem like there was much that was transferred from the seaweed. It seemed that whatever was covering the seaweed was just a small part of it, so there wasn''t much to transfer over to other things that made contact with it.

    After feeling it for a bit, the only thing that I could think of was...

    "Normal."

    This was apletely normal piece of seaweed, it really didn''t seem like there was anything special about it. Let alone having a property that was special enough that it could be turned into a sex toy.

    So I was starting to feel doubt towards the system...

    Still, since the system had requested this thing, the only thing that I could do was give the seaweed to the system.

    I turned around so that no one was able to see what I was doing before letting the system take it from me. If I hadn''t turned around, they might have been surprised by the seaweed suddenly disappearing from my hand.

    Once it was gone, I waited to see what the system would have to say about this thing.

    The system didn''t seem to react at all after receiving the Glowing Seaweed which made me feel quite awkward.

    Seeing that I was just standing there without moving, Ariel came over and leaned in to ask, "What''s wrong? Did you sprain your leg because you''re not used to walking on sand?"

    There was an awkward look that appeared on my face when I heard this, but I didn''t answer. Ariel acted as if she got the hint and came forward to help me while saying, "It''s not that big of a deal, there''s plenty of people that aren''t used to this."

    It was strange for her to say this when she hadn''t had human legs for long, but she was actually saying it to me which made me feel awkward.

    But before I could say anything in response, the system once again gave me a notification. "New blueprint has been drawn up and a new sample has been prepared. Please ept them."

    I didn''t hesitate to look at the things that had been released, but there was a feeling of surprise that filled me the moment that I saw the things that the system had released. That was because these things certainly didn''t seem like...

    "System, are you sure that this is what you meant to release? Is this even considered a sex toy?"

    "Host, this is an important apanying tool. Please do not look down on this item."

    "Eh..." That was all I could say as I looked at the blueprint and sample that the system released.

    After all, this wasn''t technically a sex toy.

    As I was dazed from looking at these things, Ariel suddenly tapped me on the forehead before saying, "Are you alright?"

    I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard this before saying, "I''m fine, I''m just thinking about something."

    She raised one brow to look at me before saying, "Alright, it seems like you''re fine if you can still act tough like this."

    Then without a single care, she ran off again to run among the pieces of glowing seaweed.

    I took a deep breath before revealing a smile when I saw her like this.

    For now, I would forget about the item that the system gave me and enjoy the scenery in front

    of me.

    In the morning, I should have a clear mind and be able to figure out what to do with the new item that the system released.

 Chapter 962: This is amazing!

    Chapter 962: This is amazing!

    ?

    When the morning came and I pulled out the new item, I just couldn''t figure out what to do with it.

    I held it and tested it with my hands, but it just didn''t seem like it was anything special.

    I really didn''t understand why the system would give me something like this.

    Even the vibrators had their use, but this item...

    While I was lost in thought, the door suddenly opened and a voice rang out, "What are you still waiting for? It''s time to go."

    I was pulled out of my thoughts and looked up to see Ariel standing there.

    She had a frown on her face at first when she saw me sitting there on the couch, looking like I waszing around. But then when she came closer and saw what was on my hand, she couldn''t help being surprised.

    Looking at the thing on my hand, she slowly asked, "What is this?"

    There was an awkward look that appeared on my face as I was trying to figure out how to exin this.

    However, it seemed that it was unnecessary as Ariel came forward to touch the thing that was wrapped around my hand. After touching it, she moved her hand away and rubbed her fingers together as if she was testing this thing.

    There was a strange look that was on her face as she looked at the thing that was on her hand. There was even more awkwardness that appeared on my face when I saw her doing this. After all, it really was strange to see a girl doing something like this...

    I didn''t get to say anything in the end as Ariel''s face suddenly lit up as she said, "This is amazing!"

    With how loud she shouted, it attracted the attention of the people outside.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    The one that ran in right away was the Merman King.

    As soon as he came in, he went to Ariel''s side and raised the trident that was in his hand as if he was ready to fight. At the same time, I could see that he was looking at me out of the corner of his eyes as if he didn''t trust me.

    A trace of bitterness filled me as I raised my hand to show that I didn''t know anything. Once the Merman King and the other mermaid royal guards had confirmed that there was nothing dangerous in here, the Merman King turned back to Ariel to ask, "Darling, what''s wrong?"

    "Dad, take a look at this." Ariel excitedly thrust her hand in front of the Merman King''s face.

    There was an awkward look that appeared on his face as he didn''t think that a young girl should be acting like this, but then he narrowed his eyes to look at the thing that was on the hand that had been thrusted in front of his face.

    "This is..." The Merman King said to himself before slowly raising his hand towards her hand.

    With one finger, he scooped a bit of the stuff that was on Ariel''s hand and then rubbed his index finger against his thumb as if he was testing the thing that he scooped from her hand.

    After rubbing his fingers together a few times, his expression suddenly became just as excited as Ariel''s as he said, "This is amazing!"

    The mermaid royal guards were all surprised and confused by the Merman King''s reaction, but they didn''t say anything as they looked closely on the thing on the Merman King''s fingers.

    Once the Merman King finished testing it, he turned to Ariel to ask, "Where did you get this thing?"

    Ariel turned to point at my hand that was still up that was covered in the stuff that she scooped up.

    The Merman King''s eyes immediately turned to me and came forward to look at my hand. Then he did the same thing as Ariel as he scooped up a bit of it with his index finger.

    With that on his hand, he started to do the same thing as Ariel as he rubbed his fingers together to test it.

    The Merman King''s expression changed several times as he tested this thing. Then all of a sudden, he brought his hand down to his leg before revealing a bitter smile as he realized something.

    He turned back to look at me with a serious look before asking, "Do you have more of this stuff?"

    I waspletely caught off guard by this question as I never thought that the mermaids would be so taken by it.

    After a moment to catch myself, I slowly nodded and shook my head before saying, "Yes and no. I have a way to produce this thing, but I don''t have a steady supply of the materials needed to make it, so I can''t say that I have a lot of this."

    "Then if you have enough materials?" The Merman King slowly asked.

    I gave a simple nod as I said, "As long as I have enough materials, then I should be able to mass produce it."

    "Good!" The Merman King loudly said as he pped his leg. Then he calmed down again as he said, "How much of this do you have left?"

    I was once again surprised, but I took out one of the sample bottles that the system gave me that was already a third of the way down.

    The Merman King didn''t hesitate to take this bottle from me before saying to the rest of the mermen, "Let''s go and test this thing!"

    All of them nodded in agreement as they dragged me out. It seemed that they were nning to head down to the ocean.

    I had no idea what they were nning to do, but it seemed like they were all excited about

    something.

    I just looked at this group of mermen with a strange look as I thought to myself...

    "Just what are they nning to do with this bottle of lube?"

 Chapter 963: Speed swimming and moisturizing

    Chapter 963: Speed swimming and moisturizing

    ?

    Once we were on the beach, the mermen immediately pulled out some bottles that had liquid in them.

    This was something that I immediately recognized since they had been using these things over the past few days.

    The moment that they drank it, their legs started to transform.

    It didn''t take long before they regained their tails.

    These were the humanizing potions.

    Drinking it would give a mermaid legs and then drinking it a second time would reverse the effect. This was a potion that was carefully developed by the potion experts of the Merman Empire, a task that wasn''t easy at all.

    The reason for developing this potion was to interact with the humans onnd.

    Of course, the mermaids weren''t foolish enough to believe that just because they ruled the oceans, they would be able to wipe out any who dared to oppose them. They understood that different races had different strengths and didn''t dare ck in terms of preparation.

    So they developed this potion so they could react to any situation that happened. Otherwise, the contracts that could turn mermaids into humans were more than enough.

    After they turned themselves back into mermen, the mermaid royal guards and the Merman King jumped into the ocean.

    They didn''t dive right into the depths of the ocean right away and instead floated there on the surface. With the way that they floated there, it almost made them seem human since they had their lower halves under the water.

    However, that wasn''t the end of it.

    After diving into the water, the Merman King took out the bottle of lube that I handed him. He opened up the cap and then tapped the opening of the bottle.

    After he tapped the opening, the liquid inside seemed to stir as if responding to his touch. As it stirred, the liquid suddenly started forming a bubble that just floated there in the air inside of the bottle.

    It floated there for a bit beforeing out like it was being guided by the Merman King''s finger.

    The bubble of liquid floated for a bit beforeing out of the bottle and just floating there in the air.

    With the control of the Merman King''s finger, that bubble floated over to the Merman King''s tail before suddenly splitting apart. The liquid that formed this bubble spread in such a way that it coated the tail of the Merman King.

    The way that he did it made sure that he didn''t miss a single inch of his tail, so that it waspletely covered in the lube.

    Seeing this, I could guess that this was the water magic of the mermaids.

    However, I had no idea why he was lubing up his tail like this...

    It didn''t seem to make any sense at all...

    The other mermen did the same thing as they used their own water magic to draw out balls of lube to coat their tails.

    As this was happening, I could see that the tails that they had lubed up seemed to form ayer of protection against the water. It seemed that they were using their water magic to ensure that the lube didn''t get washed away by the water which was very strange.

    What was the point of using magic to do all of this?

    It seemed like a waste of mana in my eyes...

    But the Merman King and the other mermen just continued doing this until all of their tails had been lubed up. With the lube surrounding their tails like this, they suddenly started charging forward.

    It seemed like they were going in groups as they swam through the water.

    With the way that they moved like this, it was almost as if they were racing each other.

    I was even more confused when I saw them like this, but it didn''t seem like they were bothered at all by the way that I looked at them. They all had excited looks on their faces as if they had discovered something new.

    When I looked closely, I could see that they were controlling the lube with their water magic so that only a bit of it made contact with the water at a time. Like this, they would be able to keep using the lube for a while as they swam through the water.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The lube reduced the friction that their tail made with the water, which allowed them to go much faster.

    At first, they didn''t seem to move that fast, but that turned out to just be them adjusting to the feeling of using the lube.

    After a while, they started shooting through the water at speeds that were hard to follow with the naked eye. It took a bit of effort to keep up with the mermen shooting through the water.

    However, this was a good demonstration of the power that the mermaids had when it came to aquaticbat.

    There was no one that would be able to face these rockets in the water.

    "What are you doing?" There was a voice that came from the beach that caught all of us off guard.

    When I turned around, I saw that the Merman Queen was standing there with her arms at her waist and a disapproving look on her face.

    The Merman King came out of the water with an awkward look before saying, "We''re just testing out this new product that we got from Zwein."

    After saying this, he took the bottle of lube that had almost beenpletely used up and presented it to the Merman Queen.

    She narrowed her eyes to look at the Merman King before taking it and using it for herself. Of course, she transformed back into her mermaid form before using the lube.

    The moment that she lubed up her tail, her eyes immediately lit up as she touched the scales on her tail.

    "This is amazing! The moisturizing effect is unlike anything I''ve used before!" The Merman Queen shouted out in a shocked voice as she touched her tail.

    After she finished testing it, she immediately looked at me like a hunter looking prey which sent a shudder down my back.

 Chapter 964: Trade deal (1)

    Chapter 964: Trade deal (1)

    ?

    There was an awkward smile that appeared on my face as I didn''t know what to say, but the Merman Queen didn''t hold back at all.

    She just said with the same smile that didn''t reach her eyes, "I think you should know what I want."

    She had already heard the Merman King exining the situation, so she knew that it would be possible to obtain more of this lube.

    The Merman King also had an awkward look on his face at first, but then he quickly calmed down and revealed a serious look befitting of his position. He was the king of the Merman Empire, so of course he would be able to change his aura just like that.

    I shook my head with a bitter smile seeing the two of them like this, but I still said, "Then let''s go sit and discuss this."

    They nodded in agreement before heading back to the main town.

    During this, Klein and the others hade over to see what was happening.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They had been waiting for us the entire time since we were supposed to be heading back to our kingdom, but we never showed up.

    When they came over, I waved at Klein and exined the situation to him before following the Merman King and Queen back.

    When we arrived, I found that they had already had the maid prepare some snacks and tea, as if they were prepared for a long meeting. It seemed that they were very serious about obtaining this lube.

    Once I sat down, the Merman Queen didn''t hold back at all as she said, "What do you need to make this trade deal work? I''m very interested in this lube that you have."

    I was surprised since I never thought that the Merman Empire would be this interested in it. However, thinking about what I saw, I could see the importance of this thing to the Merman Empire.

    For the guards and soldiers, they would be able to use this lube to make themselves stronger. And as for the Merman Queen...I saw the terrifying look that was in her eyes.

    I knew better than to get between a woman and her cosmetic products.

    However, I really didn''t know that the lube had this kind of moisturizing effect in the first ce.

    It seemed strange that the lube would have a moisturizing effect to begin with.

    "This is a special effect that was brought out because of thebination of ingredients used to make the lube."

    I was caught off guard by the exnation that the system suddenly offered, but seeing the additional information that was also given to me by the system, I understood what the system was talking about. At the same time, I had to say that I was impressed by the system''s thoroughness.

    There were scientific reports that studied the different interaction between the ingredients used to make the lube.

    It seemed that the system had put in quite the effort to study it before releasing it.

    But that didn''t solve the problem that was at hand.

    With a cough, I said, "Yes, but I have to state that without the ingredients needed, I won''t be able to mass produce this product."

    The Merman Queen gave a nod before saying with the same smile that didn''t reach her eyes, "Yes, I am aware of this. So tell me, what ingredients do you need?"

    I pulled out one of the pieces of the Glowing Seaweed that I had saved fromst night before saying, "This is the only one that we can''t get onnd. Without this, it won''t be possible to mass produce the lube. The problem is that we can''t get this Glowing Seaweed where I''ve put my factory to mass produce this, so I can''t do anything."

    "We can take care of that." The Merman Queen said without any hesitation.

    I waspletely caught off guard hearing this, but it seemed like she didn''t want to talk about this at all.

    Instead, the Merman Queen continued pushing by saying, "We''ll transport the goods that you need, all we need to know is if you''re willing to trade the goods."

    I was once again caught off guard when I heard this.

    I never thought that the Merman Queen would actually offer to transport the Glowing Seaweed to our kingdom.

    I didn''t have to ask to know how they would do it since there was a river that was connected to

    the ocean running through our kingdom. This was the river that Ariel took to arrive at our kingdom in the first ce, which showed that it was certainly possible toe to our kingdom with that river.

    It was just that I couldn''t believe that she wanted this thing this much.

    After thinking about it for a bit, I slowly gave a nod as I said, "As long as there is a supply of Glowing Seaweed, it should be possible for me to supply this lube."

    The Merman Queen''s face lit up when she heard this, but I quickly added, "However, you''ll still need to trade for it."

    The Merman King slightly knitted his brows when he heard this before asking, "We still need to pay even though we''re supplying the ingredients?"

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face as I said, "It''s not the Glowing Seaweed alone that''s needed to make this lube, there are other ingredients that are also used. Otherwise, you would have been able to make this lube all on your own, right?"

    The Merman King and Queen looked at each other for a bit before turning back to nod in agreement.

    That was fair.

    The Merman Empire indeed had been trying to make new lubes and it wasn''t as if they hadn''t tested the Glowing Seaweed before. However, they had never been able to achieve the same effect, so there had to be other things added to the Glowing Seaweed.

    As they were nodding, I added, "I also have to mention that the product mass produced will

    be inferior to the one that you''ve already tested."

    This time, the Merman King and Queen deeply knitted their brows.

 Chapter 965: Trade deal (2)

    Chapter 965: Trade deal (2)

    ?

    I wasn''t surprised that they would have this expression on their face when I said this.

    After all, the way that I had done this was almost like I was cheating them.

    Of course, I couldn''t just make this deal without telling them this and there was a reason for me telling them this.

    That was because the sample that the system gave me was the high end product version of the product that it could produce. Just like how the dildo bats werepletely different from The Prator.

    They hadn''t given me the chance to exin this before, so it wasn''t as if I was lying to them.

    So before they could say anything, I exined, "The one that you used before is a high end version that used very special ingredients to make, it''s different from the mass produced versions that only uses normal ingredients."

    The Merman King and Queen still had their brows knitted, but the Merman King asked, "How much of a decrease will it be?"

    It seemed that they were still interested in the lube which was a good thing.

    After all, this would open up trade between the Merman Empire and our kingdom which

    would no doubt help our kingdom. At the same time, it would be equal to forming a

    rtionship with the Merman Empire.

    While it wasn''t certain how far the Merman Empire would go to help us, at least they wouldn''tpletely ignore us if we had this rtionship between us.

    So it would always be a good thing.

    Now it all depended on how I could convince them to ept the lower grade product.

    "50%." I said without any hesitation.

    The Merman King raised a brow at first, but then he said, "You''re saying that it''s at least 50% as effective as the one that you let us test before?"

    I gave a simple nod in response.

    Hearing this, the Merman King stroked his chin as if he was considering it.

    But before he coulde to a decision, there was someone else that had a question to ask. "What about the moisturizing effect?" The Merman Queen asked in a serious voice.

    The way that she looked at me, it was as if she wouldn''t let me off if I gave her an answer that she wasn''t satisfied with.

    With an awkward smile, I said, "It has the same moisturizing effect as the high grade product."

    The Merman Queen narrowed her eyes to look at me as she said, "Is that so?"

    The tone of her voice and the way that she looked at me made it clear that she didn''t seem to believe this.

    Of course, I didn''t me her for not believing it.

    I definitely didn''t make it easy for her to believe me.

    After a moment of silence, I said, "The main ingredient that provides that moisturizing effect is the Glowing Seaweed. As long as the mass produced products have the Glowing Seaweed in it, it will have the same moisturizing effect."

    I looked right into the Merman Queen''s narrowed eyes as I said this.

    Her expression didn''t change as she looked at me right in the eyes.

    With the way that she was looking at me, it was clear that she was trying to see through me to see if I was lying or not. So the only thing that I could do was keep a calm look on my face and look right back at her.

    After a long silence, the Merman Queen gave a slow nod as she said, "We didn''t discover anything special about the Glowing Seaweed, but that doesn''t mean that you humans can''t discover anything special about it. You''ve done many things that surprise us already after all."

    After saying that, the Merman Queen turned to look at the Merman King to say, "You can arrange the trade deal then. There''s still some surplus from the trades with the Tide Empire, so you can use some of that to trade with them."

    The Merman King was shocked to hear this, but then he revealed an understanding look when he saw the way that the Merman Queen looked at him.

    Or it was better to say that she was looking at the bottle that was left in his hand.

    This was the only bit that was left before they could trade for more lube, so...

    Without a word, he just handed it over to the Merman Queen.

    She looked at him with the same smile that didn''t reach her eyes which sent a chill down the Merman King''s spine.

    Then he said with a sigh, "Let''s talk about how we''re going to trade this."

    I gave a simple nod since I had seen the smile on the Merman Queen''s face as well, so I could guess what the Merman King was facing.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The two of us quickly discussed this matter and he quickly agreed since the price was much lower than he thought it would be. It was even cheaper than the lube that was produced in the Merman Empire.

    "Should I sell it for more then?" I couldn''t help teasing.

    However, all that happened was the Merman Queen red at the two of us.

    I knew better than to push the issue, so we quickly settled the price of the trade deal.

    I then said, "I''ve already grabbed some samples, so I''ll make some products to sell for the first trade. When your groupes to transport the Glowing Seaweed, I''ll send that batch to

    you."

    The Merman King and Queen nodded when hearing this, but this wasn''t the end of this matter.

    The Merman Queen had something else that she wanted to address.

    She pointed at the bottle that she was holding and said, "This won''t be enough to cover those

    few days. I''m sure that you know what I''m talking about."

    There was a tinge of pain that filled my heart since what she was trying to extort from me was

    the high end product that the system gave me.

    It was not something that was made easily or cheaply, so I wanted to keep it to myself.

    But I knew better than to get between a woman and her cosmetics...

    So in the end, I meekly handed over another bottle.

    The Merman Queen took it with a smile on her face that had no guilt at all.

 Chapter 966: Trade deal (3)

    Chapter 966: Trade deal (3)

    ?

    Once that trade deal was settled, it was time for us to depart.

    Since we had handled it so quickly, it was still morning when we finished and there was plenty of time to depart.

    The Merman Queen had gotten what she wanted, so there were no objections from her. But from the way that she was looking at the Glowing Seaweed on the beach and at the mermaid royal guards, I could guess what she was thinking.

    When she was distracted by this and as we were heading to the wyverns, the Merman King leaned in to ask, "The high end product, what would it take to make that?"

    If it was before, then I wouldn''t have been able to answer this question.

    But it was different now.

    The recipes for the high end products had unlocked when I unlocked three products.

    That meant that if I wanted, I could even make another one of The Prator.

    Though when seeing the materials needed to make one of them, I really couldn''t help shedding a tear.

    If it was anyone else, they wouldn''t be able to recognize these things since they were high grade materials. These could be considered legendary materials in this world, so they were very hard to obtain.

    Most normal people would have never even heard of them.

    It was only because I had my knowledge from the game that I knew what these things were in the first ce.

    Since he was asking, then I had no reason not to tell him.

    Especially since I was afraid that he might ask for some more of it.

    If he knew how expensive and rare this was, then it might make him too guilty to ask for more of it.

    When I was done listing the ingredients, the Merman King was looking at me with shock. His expression changed a few times, but eventually he looked at me as if he was asking if this was real or not.

    I just gave a simple nod in return.

    There was aplicated look that appeared on his face before he said, "Thank you for not telling her."

    I just gave another simple nod in return.

    I wanted my rtionship with the Merman Empire to be a good one, so of course I wouldn''t do anything that would put them on the spot.

    Though there was a part of me that was worried about something...

    "Don''t even think about touching my daughter." The Merman King suddenly said.

    I let out an inner sigh of relief when I heard this.

    That was what I was worried about.

    He might have felt guilty enough to push his daughter onto me, but it seemed like he was still

    a doting parent as ever. It didn''t seem like he wouldn''t crumple that easily, which was a good thing for me.

    I had no intention of going after Ariel after all.

    Mermaids were beautiful, but I wasn''t interested in going after one that had so much baggage.

    There was no doubt that I would be caught up in not just the politics of the Merman Empire, but also the Tide Empire if I were to get involved with her. After all, she was a person that was important to both empires.

    If I were to get involved in any way...

    After this small interlude, we got onto our wyverns and headed off.

    Though it was awkward with how the Merman Empire royal family kept shouting at each other to say their goodbyes. Even Ariel was waving and crying as she said goodbye to her parents.

    But thinking about it, it wasn''t strange.

    After all, it had been a long time since she had been home,

    It was unknown how long it took her toe to our kingdom from the ocean in the first ce, so it was possible that she had been away from home for a long time. Then because of the contract that she made, she wasn''t able to return home until it was broken, which meant that she was spending even more time away from home.

    So it was understandable that she was acting this way.

    But eventually we left the range of the ind and headed back.

    As soon as we were out of range, I looked at Ariel and was about to say something.

    Only...I found that it was unnecessary.

    It only took a second for her to recover from her stupor and reveal a smile again as she happily rode on the back of a wyvern.

    With how quickly she recovered, it didn''t seem like she had been bothered by this at all. It was as if she had been faking for the sake of her parents...

    Still, it was better if she was like this rather than actually sad.

    No, I could tell that she was just enduring it.

    It seemed that she was quite the strong girl.

    ...

    A few dayster, we arrived back in the former territories of the Midra Kingdom.

    This was where the prime minister was since he still hadn''t finished organizing the takeover,

    so this was where we agreed to return.

    When we arrived, they immediately came out to see us.

    The first thing that the prime minister asked was, "Well, how is it?"

    I said with a simple nod, "It''s taken care of."

    The regent let out a sigh of relief before revealing a smile, but the prime minister didn''t say a

    thing as he narrowed his eyes to look at me.

    After looking at me for a bit, he said, "This isn''t it, is it? What else happened?"

    There was a faint smile that appeared on my face when I heard this.

    I looked at the prime minister and said, "You always could read me. You''re right, this isn''t it."

    The prime minister knitted his brows, but he didn''t say anything as he waited for me to say

    what I had to say.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    "They''ll be visiting us soon." I said with the same smile.

    "Huh?" The prime minister and the regent revealed shocked looks.

 Chapter 967: Welcoming the mermaids

    Chapter 967: Weing the mermaids

    ?

    A week passed after we came back from Peace Ind.

    During that time, I had left the matter of the Midra Kingdom''s takeoverpletely to the prime minister and the regent.

    After all, there was something else that I had to do during this time.

    Something that was much more important.

    I immediately brought the Glowing Seaweed that I brought back with me to the factory, but that wasn''t the only thing that was needed to make the lube. I had to go find Haley and get her to collect another bunch of materials for me.

    Unlike the vibrator and the dildo bat, the lube wasn''t made with the ores, so the ores that were gathered before weren''t useful to me. I had her get a bunch of herbs that would be used to make the lube.

    With the reach that herpany had in the kingdom, it was easy for her to gather the things that I needed.

    At the same time, it was easy for her to quickly transport the items to our territory where the factory was.

    I had to spend most of my time in the factory loading up everything so that it would start producing. But it worked out in the end and I was able to produce the lube that was needed.

    Which was a good thing since Ariel told us that the group from the Merman Empire was about to arrive soon.

    It turned out that there was another reason why Ariel hadn''t been bothered by her prolonged departure from the Merman Empire.

    She had been given a special magic item that allowed her to maintain contact with the Merman Empire.

    It was a special conch that allowed her to talk to the other conch that it was connected to.

    I never thought that the Merman Empire had something like this and I had even wanted to ask Ariel if there were more of these, but she told me that there weren''t.

    This was a special relic that the Merman Empire had that they only had a single pair of.

    That just went to show how much Ariel was doted on in the Merman Empire.

    They were even willing to hand her this one of a kind relic.

    But it was a good thing that she had this since we had no idea when the Merman Empire would have arrived.

    We thought that they would send a message through the normal method, but that didn''t seem to work since they were mermaids in the first ce. It would be hard for them toe onnd just to send a message and then continue swimming down the river.

    So it was a good thing that they gave her this conch.

    With it, we were able to find out exactly when they would arrive and we were able to prepare for their arrival.

    Everyone had rushed over to wee them, though it was certainly strange that we were preparing this weing ceremony by the side of a river.

    With the things that were set up, it almost seemed like some kind of event on the river.

    But we were here to wee the Merman Empire delegation.

    As we were waiting, we suddenly saw the river start to bubble.

    It was only a few bubbles at first, but it soon quickly started to bubble like it was being boiled by something. The spot that was bubbling continued to bubble for a bit until it suddenly started to open up.

    The water spread to both sides and something was revealed.

    It was the Merman Empire delegation that came out of the water, though it was only their top halves that appeared. They were still in their mermaid forms, so it wasn''t as if they coulde out of the water just yet.

    The water had blocked their appearance when they came out of the water, but once the water fell to the side and their appearances were revealed...I was shocked to see who it was.

    Ariel was the one that broke the silence by asking, "What are you two doing here?"

    The rest of the mermaids all had awkward looks on their faces and turned their heads away from her while the ones that she was addressing looked at her with smiles on their faces. One of them suddenly said, "Darling, of course we woulde. We missed you."

    "That''s right." The other one said with a strong nod.

    The two that she had been talking to were the Merman King and Queen.

    They were the rulers of the Merman Empire, the ones that were the least likely ones that should have been here, but here they were.

    Looking at the two of them smiling at her like this, Ariel put her hand on her forehead and shook her head as she said, "If you''re here, what will happen to the Merman Empire?"n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    "Your big brother is there. He''s already at that age and we should give him a chance to be on the throne for when he takes over."

    Ariel looked at the two of them for a bit before slowly nodding in agreement.

    But then she said, "No, even if he''s there, you shouldn''t be leaving the Merman Empire that easily. What if something happens to you two?"

    "Did you hear that, honey? Our little darling is worried about us." The Merman Queen said in a touched voice.

    "Um, it seems like she has grown in her time onnd." The Merman King said with a nod. Ariel just shook her head like her head hurt before turning to me to say, "I''m sorry for my parents."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my lips, but I gave a nod before turning to the royal mermaid couple to say, "How about youe onnd first and then we can talk? I''m sure that it must be weird talking to us like that."

    The Merman King and Queen nodded in agreement before pulling out the humanizing

    potions.

    It was like this that we made our first contact with the mermaids.

 Chapter 968: Showing the product

    Chapter 968: Showing the product

    ?

    Once the Merman Empire group was onnd, we started our weing ceremony.

    This was something that we had been nning for a while since we wanted it to be perfect and it had taken quite a bit of time, but...

    It didn''t seem like they were interested at all.

    "Let''s not bother with this. We already know each other, so there''s no need for us to get to know each other again with this kind of ceremony." The Merman Queen didn''t hold back at all as she said this.

    The look in her eyes were a bit scary as she said this, almost as if there was something else that she wanted to do.

    Since she was saying all this, it wasn''t as if we could just continue the weing ceremony since it was for them. If they didn''t want to do it, then we had no choice but to head back to the capital.

    As we were heading to the wyverns, the Merman King came over and said, "Sorry about that." I was surprised to hear him apologizing, but he quickly exined why she was in such a rush. It turned out that the Merman Queen had bragged about the lube to her friends and they had all wanted some for themselves.

    One thing that I was surprised by was that the Merman Queen was quite the caring person as she didn''t hoard the lube that I gave her. It turned out that she gave some to the people that she was close to that wanted the lube.

    It seemed that the royal family of the Merman Empire were quite caring towards the people that were close to them.

    Completely different from the royal families of the human countries.

    This wasn''t a bad thing since it meant that it should be easier to work with them than to work with the other human countries, but at the same time... It meant that there was a risk of falling for traps since they were trusting.

    Still, if it was that bad, they wouldn''t have been able to build up the Merman Empire to where it was now.

    So they were clearlypetent... No, not justpetent, but exceptional rulers who could be trusted to work with.

    Since she had given away the supply that I gave her, I understood why she was so anxious to go see the products.

    It wasn''t that she wasn''t interested in our weing ceremony, it was just that she was much more interested in securing the moisturizer that she hade for. It could even be said that she was desperate to get it since she had run out of her supplies.

    Perhaps if she didn''t run out, she might have been more willing to wait for the product toe to her.

    Perhaps the Merman King and Queen might not havee if it wasn''t for the Merman Queen running out.

    Or that was what I thought until I saw the look that was on the Merman King''s face.

    No, they hadn''t juste for the products alone.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They also came because they missed their daughter.

    When we brought them over to the wyverns, I exined, "We have the products that were made with the batch of Glowing Seaweed that I brought back stored in a warehouse in the capital. We''ll bring you there now so you can take a look at them."

    The Merman King and Queen nodded in agreement before looking at the wyverns with strange looks.

    Seeing them look at the wyverns like this, I asked, "Is there a problem?"

    I didn''t know if the mermaids had a problem with riding on wyverns, but since Ariel had already ridden on the back of them and had enjoyed it, I figured that it would be alright.

    However, the Merman King and Queen were from a different generation, so perhaps it was different for them.

    The two of them looked at the wyverns for a bit before the Merman King turned to me with a smile to say, "It''s not that there''s a problem, it''s just that we never thought that we would have the chance to ride on wyverns like this."

    The Merman Queen added, "That''s right. We''ll be going from the deep sea to the open skies, it really is exciting."

    The way that she said this reminded me of a certain someone else.

    It seemed that they really were Ariel''s parents as they even acted the same when seeing the wyverns.

    After getting them all on the wyverns, we headed off to the capital.

    There were screams that came from the back of the wyverns, but they weren''t screams of fear. Rather, there were excited screams of joy that came from the back of these wyverns as they enjoyed the feeling of flying through the sky.

    The Merman King and Queen acted the same way as Ariel did when she rode on the back of the wyverns for the first time. They were walking around on the back of the wyverns, putting the riders that controlled the wyverns in a hard position as they had to make sure that they didn''t fall.

    These were royal guests, so we had to treat them as best as we could.

    That meant letting them do what they wanted.

    In the end, there were no idents as we arrived in the capital, but it looked like the hearts of the wyvern riders were about to jump out of their chests. It really looked like they were all about to have heart attacks with how afraid they had been on the way back.

    Once wended, the Merman Queen immediately came to me and said, "Where is it?"

    I didn''t even need to ask to know what she was referring to. There was only one thing that could make her act this way in the first ce.

    So with a shake of the head and a bitter smile, I led the way to the warehouse that I had used to store the lube that was produced.

 Chapter 969: This isâ€¦!

    Chapter 969: This is¡­!

    ?

    This wasn''t a big warehouse which made the Merman Queen seem a bit disappointed, so I had to say, "There wasn''t much material that could be brought back in the first ce, so there was only so much that could be made."

    The Merman Queen looked at me for a bit before slowly nodding in agreement.

    However, the way that she looked at me made it clear that there was something else that she was waiting for me to say.

    With a bitter smile, I shook my head to say, "The batch that you''ve brought should have much more ingredients, so we should be able to make much more for you to take back next time youe to deliver ingredients."

    The Merman Queen gave a satisfied nod upon hearing this before pushing the door of the warehouse open.

    It seemed like she really was impatient to see the lube.

    Though there was a trace of doubt that was on her face as well.

    She wanted to see if the lube really had the same moisturizing effect as the one that I had given her before.

    I knew that if it didn''t, then there would be hell to pay, but I was confident in the system''s reports. It had given me very detailed reports on this matter, so I believed that the system''s reports were correct.

    After the warehouse door was pushed open, the shelves filled with lube inside of the warehouse were revealed.

    There weren''t that many shelves since with the amount of Glowing Seaweed that I brought back, it was only enough to make around a few hundred bottles of this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It actually took quite a surprising amount of Glowing Seaweed to make this lube, it didn''t even take that much of the other materials to make a bottle. It seemed that most of the lube was made up of the Glowing Seaweed.

    That was most likely why the system had only triggered when I obtained the Glowing Seaweed.

    The Merman Queen slightly knitted her brows when she saw this, as if she was dissatisfied with what she was seeing. It was clear that she wasn''t happy about the amount, but she still epted it and went forward to take a look at the lube.

    She picked one of the bottles up and then turned around as if she wanted to use it.

    But when the Merman Queen turned around, she realized that there was something wrong. It was that she couldn''t actually use it since she didn''t have a tail anymore.

    She was onnd and had taken the humanizing position, so there were only a pair of human legs under her right now.

    Narrowing her eyes, she turned to me and said, "Let''s go back to the river on the wyverns. I want to test this out right now."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I heard this, but I said, "There''s no need to do that, we have prepared a ce for you to test the product already."

    The Merman Queen was surprised to hear this, but then she found that it was quite reasonable. After all, they knew that she was here to test the product in the first ce, so of course they would have prepared a ce.

    So with a nod, the Merman Queen said, "Alright, lead the way."

    As if they had received a cue, the other merman also came forward and picked up a few bottles of lube as well.

    It seemed that they were also nning on running their own tests.

    From the way that the Merman King looked away slightly, I could guess that he was the one that had given the signal to the others toe forward to take the lube.

    It seemed that he also wanted to test the lube, but he didn''t dare say it out loud in front of his wife.

    In that case, I would just turn a blind eye.

    With a smile and a nod, I said, "Alright, please follow me."

    The Merman Queen took one look at the others who were gathering up the lube. When she did, they suddenly froze as if they thought that being still meant that she wouldn''t see them.

    But the Merman Queen didn''t care about them as she turned back and started following me. The rest of the mermen let out a sigh of relief before bringing the bottles of lube along. After walking for a while, they heard the sound of water sshing, which made them realize that they were close.

    Only when they saw what was waiting for them, they immediately knitted their brows.

    "This is a bit too small, isn''t it?" The Merman Queen said right after seeing the pool that we had prepared.

    There was an awkward look on my face when I heard this since this was the biggest pool that we could prepare and it was called small by the Merman Queen.

    Though if onepared the pool to the ocean that they normally swam in, then it would be considered small.

    No, even withoutparing the pool to the ocean, they would have something topare the pool to. They most likely had encountered some kind of pool that the Tide Empire had built for them before.

    The Tide Empire was one of the four empires of human society for a reason.

    The resources that they had at their disposal far surpassed the resources that would be avable to a small kingdom like ours.

    So I''m sure that they would be able to build pools that were much bigger than this.

    We just couldn''tpare.

    After making thisment, the Merman Queen still pulled out the humanizing potion and went into the pool to test the lube.

    Once she did this, the Merman King and the other mermaid royal guards did the same thing.

    After entering the pool, they used the same water magic to pull out a bubble of lube that they used to surround their tail.

    When they put their tails covered in lube into the pool...

    "This effect, this is...!"

 Chapter 970: We want more!

    Chapter 970: We want more!

    ?

    The Merman King and the other mermaid royal guards were swimming back and forth inside of the pool.

    The Merman Queen called Ariel over to rub her tail along with her.

    The two of them had astonished looks on their faces as they rubbed her tail.

    It seemed that these customers were quite satisfied with the products that I showed them.

    It seemed that there wouldn''t be any problems in having them as repeat customers in the future.

    But it turned out that I had underestimated how much they liked the product.

    The Merman King and his mermaid royal guards kept swimming in the pool for a bit before they were satisfied. Or rather, it was better to say that they had no choice but to stop because the Merman Queen was finished admiring the lube''s moisturizing effect on her tail.

    She had red at the Merman King and the others, forcing them toe out of the pool.

    Since they had been swimming for a bit, it was already time for lunch.

    But that wasn''t the reason why she was ring at them.

    Because the pool was so small, the sshing from their tails actually went all the way to her and ruined her mood while she was admiring the moisturizing effect that the lube had on her tail.

    She had endured all this time because she could tell that they were doing something important, but eventually she got tired of watching them have fun.

    So she cut their fun short with that re of hers.

    Once that re came out, the Merman King and the mermaid royal guards had no choice but to pack it up.

    But they also did have satisfied expressions on their faces.

    Since we had been expecting to host the group from the Merman Empire for a bit, we had naturally prepared lunch for them as well.

    Though since we didn''t know what the mermaids liked other than a few suggestions from Ariel, we had to improvise. They were royals of the Merman Empire and the mermaid royal guards, so it wasn''t as if we could just use anything to entertain them.

    As such, I brought out a few tricks from my past life.

    I enjoyed reading recipes in my free time since I lived alone and cooked for myself, though it couldn''tpare to the passion that I had for H-games.

    The dish that I was bringing out today was specially prepared for the mermaids.

    "Raw fish?"

    "No, it''s not just raw fish. There seems to be some kind of liquid drizzled on the fish." "Is that oil?"

    The mermaids were surprised by the dish, though they weren''t surprised that it was raw fish. Since they lived under the sea, eating fish raw was something that they were already used to. They were more surprised by the fact that there was oil drizzled on the raw fish.

    What would oil on raw fish do?

    It wasn''t as if the oil had that strong of a taste in the first ce.

    So they were all confused by the dish, but at the same time, they were certainly curious since it was a take on raw fish that they had never seen before.

    But curiosity didn''t mean that they had the courage to try it.

    Many of them looked at the dish with a strange look since they didn''t think that it would be good and they didn''t raise their forks towards it.

    In the end, it was Ariel who went before everyone else.

    Since she had been living here, it had been a while since she had raw fish. So even if there was this strangeyer of oil drizzled on it, she still wanted to give it a try.

    After putting it in her mouth, all of the mermaids watched her carefully to see her reaction. When she chewed on it, Ariel suddenly lowered her head which made all of them worried that it tasted bad. But then all of a sudden, Ariel raised her head and said, "Delicious!"

    She didn''t hesitate to take a second bite of the carpio.

    The others looked at each other before they also started digging in.

    They were all surprised by the taste of it, but it didn''t seem like they were dissatisfied with it

    as they kept putting more and more of the carpio into their mouths.

    "This taste...it''s a boldness that we''ve never tasted with normal raw fish before."

    "There''s also this faint acidic taste to it..."

    "No, it''s a citrus taste. It''s one of those fruits from thend that we tried before."

    With the way that they were going, it didn''t take long for them to finish off the tes that had been brought in by the maids.

    As they looked at the empty tes in front of them, they couldn''t help rubbing their stomachs as if they still hadn''t had their fill.

    The Merman King was the one that took the lead by saying, "We want more!"

    I gave a nod to the maids who had been standing around with awkward looks on their faces.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They were supposed to be preparing for the next course, so they didn''t expect the guests to suddenly ask for another serving of the same course. But since they had received permission from me, they went off to get another serving of the carpio.

    I had made sure that there were other servings since I knew that they would want more of this.

    It was a dish that wasn''t from this world, so of course they would be entranced by it.

    It was no wonder it was passed down to the modern times in my previous world.

    As they headed off, the Merman Queen suddenly said, "That''s right, we want more."

    I just said with a smile, "The maids are already preparing the new portions, if you just wait a bit, they''ll be back..."

    Before I could finish, the Merman Queen cut me off by saying, "I didn''t mean the food."

    The way that she looked at me with narrowed eyes made it clear what she was saying.

    I also calmed myself before looking at her with a serious look.

 Chapter 971: A much deeper relationship

    Chapter 971: A much deeper rtionship

    ?

    When she put it like that, it wasn''t hard to understand what she meant by this.

    However, it wasn''t as if I could just agree to this without hearing her terms first.

    Even if it was beneficial to our kingdom to ept this deal, that didn''t mean that we could just ept everything that was presented to us. There were other things that had to be considered since there was only so much that we could undertake.

    After looking at her with this serious look for a bit, I asked, "How much more do you want?"

    The Merman Queen didn''t answer this question right away as she revealed a look as if she was considering this.

    After silently thinking for a bit, she suddenly turned to the Merman King instead of answering my question to say, "Honey, the budget that we already agreed on before setting off..."

    The Merman King had a surprised look on his face even though her voice trailed off.

    That look of surprise only grew when he heard what she said next.

    "I want you to double it." The Merman Queen suddenly said.

    The Merman King didn''t say anything as he just looked at her as if he was confirming that she had indeed said this.

    Only when he had confirmed this did he say, "Are you sure about that?"

    It wasn''t that he was doubting her, it was just that he really couldn''t believe that his wife had said this.

    Before they hade, they had already discussed what they were going to do.

    The Merman Queen had been very clear just how much she wanted to spend and she wasn''t willing to spend a single copper more. The Merman King knew this and had been nning on firmly following this.

    Only now she was breaking her own determination by telling him the new budget that she was willing to spend.

    There was a trace of bitterness that filled the Merman King as he thought to himself, "Why aren''t you keeping your own word?"

    But there wasn''t the courage to actually say this thought out loud.

    Even if he had ten times the courage that he currently had, he still wouldn''t have dared to say this out loud.

    So the only thing that he could say was, "Yes, yes."

    In a sense, he really was a perfect example of a man who was whipped by his wife.

    The Merman Queen gave a satisfied nod before turning back to me.

    The Merman King also turned to look at me before stating the price that he was prepared to offer.

    I was certainly taken aback by how much they were willing to buy since it was much more than

    I had expected, but that didn''t mean that I wasn''t capable of supplying that much.

    The only problem was that it would take some time before we were able to get the materials for that much.

    It wasn''t just the Glowing Seaweed that was needed, there were other ingredients that were also needed.

    This time, I was able to rely on Haley''s connections, but the next time...

    Unless we could find steady suppliers, then it would be a problem trying to get enough materials to craft everything that they wanted.

    I was thinking about rejecting them or getting them to decrease their order, but Haley suddenly said, "That''s not a problem at all."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I looked at her with a surprised look when I heard this, but she looked at me with a confident smile on her face.

    I didn''t know where this confidence of hers came from, but since she was confident enough to make this statement, I guess that I shouldn''t doubt her. Since she had the confidence to take this deal, then I was sure that she must have a way to handle this order.

    It was onlyter that I found out that she had already found suppliers for the materials needed.

    After that incident of me suddenly asking her to find these supplies, she had already guessed that something like this would happen and had quickly found suppliers for the materials that I needed.

    So even if we were to ept an order that was twice as big as the one that they offered, we would have no problem fulfilling it.

    As such, it was actually a very good deal for our kingdom since the profit on this lube was quite good.

    But the most important thing was that this created a rtionship with the Merman Empire. There was no telling what would happen in the future, but a rtionship with the Merman Empire would without a doubt help our kingdom. Whether it was on the surface or under the surface, the influence of the Merman Empire couldn''t be underestimated.

    It was what had allowed the Tide Empire to reach their current position.

    The Merman King and Queen were surprised to hear Haley say this before looking at me as if they were waiting for a confirmation from me.

    Even if they hade all this way, it wasn''t as if they knew everything about our kingdom.

    I just gave a simple nod and introduced Haley to the Merman King and Queen. Even though I had introduced Haley earlier, I had left out a few things about her that I didn''t feel was necessary to tell them. But now that she was taking the initiative to participate in this matter, I told them everything about Haley.

    Once they knew that she was from our kingdom''s financial department and was in charge of trade, they treated herpletely differently.

    They saw her as the one to solidify this deal with and treated me as nothing more than a

    figurehead.

    There was a trace of bitterness that filled me when I saw them like this, but it wasn''t as if they

    were wrong.

    At the same time, it seemed like the Merman Queen was the one that stepped up for the other side as she started listing off different things.

    It seemed that the Merman King was the same, though he was a bit better than me since he had his moments.

 Chapter 972: Interspecies relationship

    Chapter 972: Interspecies rtionship

    ?

    When it was over, the two of them both had satisfied looks on their faces showing that they had gotten what they wanted.

    Once we saw this, both the Merman King and I let out sighs of relief.

    We had been sitting there listening to them the entire time, but there were just too many technical terms that it had been hard to understand what they were talking about.

    The only thing that I really understood was the price that they settled on.

    It was actually a bit lower than the one that I quoted in the first ce, but that was only because there were other conditions that were added into this. Along with the Glowing Seaweed, there would now be other things sent by the Merman Empire.

    These would be things that would be used to trade for the lube.

    These were precious products from the Merman Empire such as pearls and such that normally wouldn''t be seen above the ocean. That made them very precious and valuable among humans.

    However, there were plenty of these things that were found under the ocean which meant that they had no value at all to the Merman Empire. They were things that were considered trash in the Merman Empire.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if the Merman King and Queen didn''t know the value of these items in human society. They had their connection to the Tide Empire and had trades with them, so they knew how expensive these things could be.

    It was just that it would take a lot of time and effort to turn these things into money.

    It wasn''t as if they werecking in money, what they needed more of was the lube that they were trading for.

    So instead of spending all that effort to turn their trash into money, it was easier for them to just take this cheaper price to exchange for the lube.

    In their eyes, the lube was worth more.

    It was all about what an item was worth to each party.

    After the deal was set, the mood was much more rxed.

    The other mermen had just been so focused on eating that they didn''t care about the negotiations that were happening. They trusted their king and queen to take care of everything after all.

    And once this matter was set, the Merman King and Queen had more time to look around the table.

    When they had arrived, they had been so focused on the lube that they hadn''t noticed a certain thing before this. But now that they had settled the matter of the lube, they realized that...

    "A dwarf and an elf?" The Merman King and Queen were surprised to see Moon and Elsa sitting at the table with us.

    The mermaid royal guards were also surprised to hear this as they had been focused on other things before this as well. When they looked up, there was the oil from the carpio that was on their lips which made them look quite strange.

    Both Moon and Elsa had been sitting at the table the entire time, though they had been sitting on the other end since there wasn''t much for them to do here. But they were still at the table, so the group from the Merman Empire group should have been able to see them the entire time.

    After the Merman King and Queen said this, there was an awkward silence that hung in the air. The way that they looked at Moon and Elsa, it was as if they didn''t know what to say.

    It was almost as if there was some kind of awkward history that was between them.

    The Merman King eventually said with a sigh, "It''s been a long time since our races have had a chance tomunicate with each other. Thest time that this happened was during the racial wars."

    Both Moon and Elsa nodded, though they seemed a bit hesitant.

    That was because they had never lived through the racial wars.

    The only things that they had heard about this were from the stories that had been passed down through their race.

    Though through those stories, they knew why the Merman Empire group acted awkward. After another long silence, the Merman King said, "Though I wasn''t the one that ruled over the Merman Empire during that time, I do want to apologize to you on behalf of the mermen on how the racial wars ended."

    This time, it was Elsa and Moon that had awkward looks on their faces.

    After all, it wasn''t as if they could represent their races to ept this.

    But at the same time, it wasn''t as if they could just ignore what the Merman King was saying.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So there was another awkward silence that lingered in the air before Elsa said, "Forget it. It''s not something that we can talk about here since neither of us has the authority to ept this. At the same time, this is something that happened a long time ago, so there''s nothing that can be done now."

    Moon just gave a simple nod to show her agreement.

    The Merman King and Queen gave an awkward nod before falling silent again.

    It seemed that something had happened between the mermaids, the dwarves, and the elves in

    the past.

    It seemed that it was rted to the racial wars of ancient times.

    Since they were all from other races, it was most likely that they had once been allies that had their alliance broken because of something.

    Once they had finished with this, the Merman King and Queen turned to look at me as if they had a question to ask me, but they didn''t know how to ask me.

    But seeing the way that they looked at me, I could guess what they were thinking.

    I introduced both Moon and Elsa as my wives.

    The Merman King and Queen were surprised to hear this since they had never heard anything

    like this before.

    Elves and dwarves choosing to marry a human...this was just too rare.

    Not to mention marrying the king of a human country.

 Chapter 973: On guard

    Chapter 973: On guard

    ?

    After they looked at Moon and Elsa with surprised looks, the two of them turned to look at me with a strange look.

    Seeing them look at me like this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit confused and a bit strange.

    After all, the way that they looked at me was as if they were on guard against something.

    Was it because there was some kind of unknown grudge between the mermaids, dwarves, and elves that they were looking at me like this?

    If that was the case, then it would affect our future cooperation...

    The game didn''t go this far since it was an open world game in the first ce, there were just too many things for the creators of the game to think about, so there were some parts that had been left nk. There was supposed to be an AI that filled in the gaps of the game, but people didn''t really pay attention to those things since the lore wasn''t rted to thepletion

    status.

    It was just extra that was added on for fun.

    That meant that I didn''t actually have any knowledge that would help me in this situation.

    So I didn''t know why they were looking at me like this.

    But more than their personal rtionship to me, the more important thing was the Merman Empire''s rtionship with my kingdom.

    So even if I felt awkward, I still asked, "Is something wrong?"

    The two of them looked at me for a bit before the Merman King said, "It seems that you''ve made quite a few rtions."

    The Merman Queen nodded in agreement.

    This just made me even more confused, but I also felt like there was something that I understood from them acting this way.

    So I said, "I might have rtions with them, but I assure you that it will not affect our future rtions."

    That made both the Merman King and Queen knit their brows before turning to look at Ariel who was still on the side stuffing her face with dessert. She hadpletely forgotten about her parents and was just lost in the dessert that had been prepared.

    Since this was a special meal, I had taught them how to make pudding and that was what was being served to everyone.

    It seemed that she liked it quite a bit based on how she was happily shoving it into her face. After the Merman King and Queen looked at Ariel for a bit, they turned back to look at me with a strange look.

    I was even more confused seeing them act this way since I couldn''t figure out what they were thinking. It seemed like it was rted to Ariel...so could it be that they didn''t want to keep Ariel in a ce where there were elves and dwarves?

    This time, I wouldn''t back down that easily.

    After all, even if I wanted to build a rtionship with the Merman Empire, that didn''t mean that I would give up my current rtionship with the dwarves and elves. I wasn''t someone that would throw away the people that I was already close to just for someone new.

    So even if they were to say something, I wouldn''t cut off my rtionship with the dwarves and elves.

    The rtionship with the elves and dwarves was just as important as the rtionship with the Merman Empire after all.

    So I took a deep breath to calm myself down before saying, "It doesn''t matter what happened in the past, all that matters is the future."

    The Merman King and Queen knitted their brows even more before the Merman King said, "You can''t have our daughter."

    "I assure that we will..." I had been in the middle of saying something when the Merman King spoke.

    I looked at him with a shocked look when I heard this as I almost couldn''t understand what he was trying to say.

    The serious look on his face was as if he wasn''t going to back down, but we weren''t even talking about the same thing at this point. He was talking about somethingpletely different, something that I didn''t even think of.

    I just looked at him in shock as if I couldn''t believe what he was saying.

    The Merman King''s expression didn''t change as he looked right at me with this serious look on his face.

    After a long silence, I finally asked, "What did you say?"

    "You heard what I said." The Merman King said with the same serious look and tone.

    I just shook my head with a bitter smile after hearing this before saying, "I don''t think we''re talking about the same things. I think we''re onpletely different pages right now."

    The Merman King raised a brow hearing this, but then he had the same serious look as if he wouldn''t be fooled by me.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    I raised my hand to say, "No, no, I''m not interested in your daughter at all."

    He raised a brow once more as he said, "Even though you have so many wives from different races? You''re telling me that you''re not interested in my daughter at all? Especially when you just said to me that you want to build more rtions?"

    "That was what you''re referring to?" I finally couldn''t take it anymore and let this slip.

    The Merman King and Queen were surprised to hear this, but then they looked like they wouldn''t be fooled by me again as they just looked at me with serious looks on their faces.

    I turned to look at the others as if I was asking for their help, but it seemed that everyone was

    ignoring me.

    The one that caused this mess was the one that was the most upied with eating.

    It was as if she didn''t care at all that her parents were causing this mess.

    But when I looked at her, it was as if they caught me as the Merman King and Queen started questioning me again.

    So the only thing that I could do was exin to them that it wasn''t what they thought.

 Chapter 974: Movement of the empire (1)

    Chapter 974: Movement of the empire (1)

    ?

    The Merman Empire group stayed for a week before heading back.

    As they left, they all looked at me with guarded looks as if they still didn''t trust me.

    At the same time, it seemed that the Merman Queen was saying something private to Ariel while looking at me from time to time.

    It was clear that she was telling her to be careful of me.

    I had been able to convince them that their worries weren''t founded, but it seemed like they didn''t want to take any chances at all. They had even deployed a few of the mermaid royal guards to stay here onnd to watch over Ariel.

    Though the excuse that they gave was that they were here to help her.

    It made sense since those members of the mermaid royal guards were female in the first ce. They seemed more like maids rather than royal guards, but there was no mistaking the aura that they released.

    One was able to easily tell that they were skilled with the dangerous aura that they released. There was no doubt that they would be able to protect Ariel if something happened.

    Though I certainly didn''t like the way that they looked at me.

    It was hard to miss it since they released this feeling when they looked at me.

    The feeling that they released definitely wasn''t good. It was as if they would hurt me if they had a chance.

    I was sure that it was because the Merman King and Queen had given them this order...

    Though it certainly wasn''t a good feeling.

    Once it was over, all that was left was for the next shipment of Glowing Seaweed toe.

    Before that, it was time to go back to running the country.

    Though it seemed that the prime minister had something to discuss with me.

    Once the Merman Empire group was gone, the prime minister pulled me away as if there was something that he wanted to talk about. There was no one else that was allowed toe with us, even the regent was left behind.

    During this time, it seemed that the prime minister and the regent had gotten even closer and it didn''t seem like there was anything that they hid from each other.

    With how close they were, I had even wondered if they were...butt buddies.

    But of course, I would never say that out loud.

    So for the prime minister to leave the regent behind to talk to me, I was certain that he had something important to talk about.

    Once we were in the study, the prime minister sat down with a heavy look on his face.

    I raised a brow as I looked at him, but I still sat down in front of him and waited to see what he had to say.

    The prime minister just sat there in silence with that heavy look on his face, as if he was thinking about something. He didn''t seem like he was nning on saying anything with the way that he sat there.

    I just took this chance to go and get some tea for myself, but he spoke before I could pour the tea.

    "We have a big problem." The prime minister said with the same serious look on his face. I didn''t say anything since I already knew that this was the case. After all, he wouldn''t have brought me here and done all of this if this wasn''t the case.

    I just continued pouring the tea, one for myself and one for him before pushing that cup to him and saying, "Well, what is it? There''s nothing to gain from worrying ourselves, so let''s talk and see if we cane up with a solution."

    The prime minister didn''t pick up the cup of tea that I ced in front of him as he just looked at me with knitted brows. After seeing that I was sipping the tea, he picked it up and chugged it down in one breath before saying, "It''s the empire, they are making a move."

    I put the tea down and looked at him before saying with a nod, "Which empire?"

    There were many empires in this world, so this alone wasn''t enough.

    There were four human empires, but there were also empires that belonged to different races as well. So just saying that an empire was making a move wasn''t nearly enough for me to understand what the situation was.

    I was waiting for him to exin more.

    The prime minister saw the way that I was looking at him, so he said, "The Holy Empire wants to make a move."

    I gave a nod in response before revealing a thoughtful look.

    The Holy Empire was one of the human empires and what they depended on was the power of religion. It could be said that they were one of the highest powers when it came to religion in this world, but that was mainly because they gathered the most followers.

    The humans had the advantage of being able to reproduce quickly, which gave them arge poption.

    The number of followers gave the Holy Empire more power as it gathered more faith, which pleased the gods.

    That was why the Holy Empire was able to use powerful holy magic with the blessing of the gods. That was also what the Holy Empire relied on to be one of the four empires of the

    human race.

    The headquarters of the religion of the priest from my town was also in the Holy Empire. That was just how influential the Holy Empire was when it came to religion in this world.

    After thinking about it, I suddenly said, "Is it the monsters?"

    The prime minister was surprised to hear this, but then he gave a simple nod of agreement. After that, he reached under the table and pulled out a folder that he ced on the table. It seemed that he had been prepared.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

 Chapter 975: Movement of the empire (2)

    Chapter 975: Movement of the empire (2)

    ?

    After taking out the folder, the prime minister pulled out a few maps from the pile of documents inside and ced them on the table.

    I looked at the maps that he took out and found that they were maps of different countries. At the same time, there seemed to be different X marks that were ced on these different maps as if they were marking different locations.

    I looked at the prime minister and raised a brow, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for him to exin.

    He didn''t say anything as he kept pulling out more sheets of paper.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    It seemed like there was more that he needed to say before he told me what was happening.

    I peeked at the sheets of paper that he pulled out and it seemed that they were reports.

    It was hard to read what was written with how densely the reports were written, so I just waited to see what he had to say.

    But I did see a few key words.

    Troops of the Holy Empire were spotted.

    It seemed that the Holy Empire had indeed moved troops in response to the monster waves that were happening. However, that was to be expected since this was a great opportunity for them.

    Religion relied on its followers and without followers, a religion didn''t have any power.

    So for the Holy Empire, the most important thing was to gain more followers.

    The monster wave had pushed the people of the various kingdoms into despair, so it was the best opportunity for the Holy Empire to provide hope for them. With this hope, it would convince these people to be followers of the Holy Empire''s religion.

    That was most likely the main reason why the Holy Empire was intervening.

    Of course, this wasn''t just based on these facts alone.

    This was also based on what happened in the game.

    The plot of the game was that the demons had caused the monster waves and then the Holy Empire interfered. However, it was just a device of the designers to get the Holy Empire involved in the plot of the game by having them interfere.

    The Holy Empire came in and took advantage of the situation to gain more followers, but that also opened up the Holy Empire to the world.

    After all, the Holy Empire was a ce where normal people wouldn''t be able to enter.

    It was the peak of religion in this world, the ce where the highest ranking members of each religion gathered. It wasn''t a ce that could be entered easily regardless of what one''s status was.

    But with the influx of refugees because of the monster waves, the Holy Empire''s borders had rxed and there were more people that were allowed to enter the Holy Empire. That was how the protagonist of the game was allowed to enter the Holy Empire regardless of status.

    Whether they were allowed to stay or not after entering the Holy Empire all depended on their further actions.

    Of course, that didn''t mean a thing to me since I didn''t have a problem entering the Holy Empire in the first ce.

    I was the king of a country and I had a close rtionship with the priest from my town who had already reported the matter of the Mark of God back to the headquarters of his religion. If

    I really wanted to go to the Holy Empire, it was an easy matter for me.

    As for why the game wanted to open up the Holy Empire...

    Nuns.

    That was the only thing that needed to be said.

    Unlike in my past world, since this world was based on a H-game, the nuns followed a different set of rules.

    Namely, they didn''t need to remain virgins like in my past life.

    They were allowed to have sex if they wanted to, but there were strict rules about that.

    They couldn''t just do it freely, they could only do it with one that they received god''s blessing with.

    So it was hard to actually get a nun just like in my past life, but it wasn''t impossible and it wasn''t immoral.

    That was the reason why the Holy Empire was introduced.

    Nuns really were one of the things that men couldn''t resist...

    While I was lost in my thoughts, the prime minister had finished arranging everything that he wanted to take out. After cing the pieces of paper on the table, he said with a cough, "These are the movements that the Holy Empire has made so far. It seems like they''re starting from the countries around them, but they''re also moving towards us."

    The prime minister slightly knitted his brows as he said this before looking up at me.

    The way that he looked at me, I could guess what he was trying to say.

    We had found a way to deal with the monster waves on our own, but that would without a doubt draw the suspicion of the Holy Empire. After all, they would think that we would be rted to the demons in some way since we were able to stop the monster waves.

    Or they would think that we would have some kind of special relic that would suppress the powers of the demons.

    Regardless of what it was, it would certainly make them suspicious of us.

    It would make them want to confront us so that we would be forced to hand over whatever we used to deal with the monster waves.

    After a moment of silence, I just gave a simple nod before saying, "Let theme, I have a way to deal with them."

    The prime minister raised a brow after hearing this, but he slowly gave a nod in response.

    He didn''t know what I was nning on doing, but he just epted it.

    That was the trust that was between us.

    "Other than that, it seems like the other empires are also making their moves."

 Chapter 976: Movement of the empire (3)

    Chapter 976: Movement of the empire (3)

    ?

    This time, I slightly knitted my brows.

    After all, this was not something that I knew.

    I only knew about the Holy Empire moving during this time, so I actually didn''t know anything about the other three empires moving. After all, it was only the Holy Empire that was introduced.

    Even if one could be a noble at this point in the game, one would never be high enough to receive information about the other three empires.

    So it just wasn''t information that was avable in the game.

    After a moment of silence, I gave a nod to the prime minister, as if telling him to give me the information.

    The prime minister put away a few pieces of paper before pushing the rest of them towards

    me.

    I looked down at them, but there really was just too much detail that it made my brain spin trying to read it all. After looking at it for a bit, I looked at him to say, "Just give me the summary."

    The prime minister nodded before taking these back and handing over a few maps instead. Looking down at these maps, I waited for him to give his exnation.

    The marks on the maps were where the troops of the various empires had been seen.

    It seemed like they were also moving to take in refugees so that the Holy Empire couldn''t take them all, but they couldn''t move as openly as the Holy Empire. The Holy Empire had the umbre of religion to move under, the other empires couldn''t just take people without causing conflict.

    After all, abducting people from their kingdoms would be hard to exin no matter what excuse they gave.

    Even if it was in the name of taking in refugees.

    So the only thing that they could do was send out troops to areas around them to help those countries.

    The excuse that they gave was that they were preventing the monsters from reaching their own territories. They would be sending out troops to quell the monsters in the surrounding area and helping those afflicted by the monster waves.

    Namely, they would be taking refugees back to their territory.

    So that was how they were making their move.

    "Hmm, it doesn''t seem like they''re encroaching on our territory. The only one that seems to be approaching us is the Holy Empire..." I said in a thoughtful voice while stroking my chin and looking down at the map in front of me.

    The prime minister nodded, but then he said, "Still, we have to watch over them."

    The way that he suddenly fell silent and the look on his face, it was as if he was hesitating over something.

    I looked at him and said with a nod, "You can say what you want to say."

    The prime minister revealed a slightly bitter smile, but he still said in the end, "It''s the Tide Empire, they were the ones that moved first."

    I slightly knitted my brows hearing this as I didn''t understand what he meant by this at first, but then I started to understand what he meant.

    Simply put, he was saying that this might be rted to us.

    Or rather, it was rted to our actions with the Merman Empire.

    The Tide Empire might be acting because of what we had done with the Merman Empire. They might be acting because we had interfered with their engagement with the Merman Empire.

    After thinking about it, I slowly shook my head to show that I didn''t know.

    I really didn''t know anything about this since this wasn''t something that was mentioned in the game.

    It was unknown what the other three empires had been doing during this time period in the game since it had never been mentioned in the game. Or even if it was, it wasn''t information that the yer would be able to ess.

    So I honestly had no way of confirming or denying this.

    The prime minister knitted his brows when he saw this, but then he just gave a simple nod before starting to point out a few more things.

    It seemed that it wasn''t just the empires that were acting, but also the other human kingdoms.

    Even if there were four empires that were at the peak of human society, that didn''t mean that there weren''t other kingdoms that could also act. There were other kingdoms that had power that were only second to the empires.

    They were kingdoms that could also rule over other kingdoms, but they were still weaker than the empires. They were only strong enough that if five of them worked together, they would be able to take down a single empire.

    But there were only ten of these kingdoms in the first ce.

    The human race was one where strife between different groups wasmon.

    There were many humans and there were all kinds of personalities.

    There were greedy humans just as there were kind humans and those greedy humans sat at the peak of humanity.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So it was only inevitable that they would want more.

    However, it didn''t seem like any of them were nning on messing with us.

    The wyverns that we owned were arge threat to most other kingdoms, so there was no reason for them to offend us. Most of them weren''t willing to fight us unless they had no other choice.

    It was only the empires that had enough power to ignore the wyverns that we controlled.

    "Is there a way for us to get some refugees as well?"

    I suddenly asked the prime minister.

    At this, he revealed a faint smile before saying, "Well, the kingdoms around us have quite a few people that are escaping. If they were toe to our borders, we have no reason to deny

    them."

    I understood the power that came with poption, so for us to get some refugees was also a good idea.

    It seemed like the prime minister also understood this and since he said that he was already taking care of it, there was nothing for me to worry about.

 Chapter 977: Will of god (1)

    Chapter 977: Will of god (1)

    ?

    As the prime minister expected, there was a group that arrived in our kingdom.

    They weren''t an aggressive group per say since they were a group of priests and nuns, but that didn''t mean that they weren''t here for a reason.

    For our kingdom, it could even be considered a negative reason.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It could even be said that they were here for ill intentions.

    After all, there was a very specific reason that they were here.

    They were traveling as a group of priests and nuns, but the way that they traveled waspletely different from normal priests and nuns. These people were traveling in luxurious carriages that werepletely different from the humble carriages that most priests and nuns traveled in.

    It was clear that these people cared more about certain things...

    As for the religion that they came from, it was one of therge religions of the Holy Empire, but it wasn''t the same one as the priest from my town. This was a different religion, but one that had a very strict requirement on followers.

    The followers had to be human.

    That was because the god that they worshiped was the God of Humans, Zeno.

    Since they were the religion that worshiped the God of Humans, they naturally had a high position in the human dominated Holy Empire.

    But their greed really was a bit too much.

    When the priests came out, I even saw the different pieces of jewelry that adorned them. It seemed like they didn''t want to leave a single part of their body unadorned by this jewelry with how much they were wearing.

    They seemed like walking jewelry stands more than anything.

    It was clear what their priorities werepared to other things.

    At the same time...the nuns were walking a bit too close to the priests.

    They were almost touching each other with how close they were.

    It seemed like the rtionship between the nuns and the priests weren''t normal either.

    These people really didn''t seem like priests and nuns at all.

    Even the priests of our capital that came out to wee this group from the Holy Empire couldn''t help knitting their brows when they saw them. Other than the ones from the same religion that worshiped the God of Humans that was.

    This group...they didn''t have the same amount of jewelry, but there wasn''t ack of jewelry on them either.

    After the priests and nuns came forward, the first thing that the head of this group did was say, "Where is your king? Have hime forward and present the gift."

    Both the prime minister and I couldn''t help knitting our brows when we heard this.

    We had no idea what to expect when greeting this group from the Holy Empire, but this certainly wasn''t what we had been expecting. After all, no one would think that someone from the Holy Empire would open with this.

    Still, it wasn''t as if we were nning on offending them, so I went forward with the prime minister.

    When they saw using over, they slightly knitted their brows since they saw that we didn''t bring anything else with us. They even looked like they were slightly annoyed with the way that we weed them.

    That made us knit our brows as well, but we forced ourselves to show them a smile as we greeted them.

    "Wee to our kingdom. If there''s anything that we can help you with, please don''t hesitate to ask." I said with a smile on my face.

    When the priest leading this group heard this, he looked at me with a trace of disdain in his eyes before reaching his hand out as if he was waiting for something.

    Both the prime minister and I looked down at this open hand that was using its fingers to gesture to us.

    There was no mistaking what the intentions of this priest were, but we didn''t do anything. We hadn''t prepared anything and it wasn''t as if we wanted to give anything to this priest. Just based on the way that this priest and his group arrived, it didn''t seem like they were anything good. If possible, we wanted to have as little interaction with them as possible... Seeing that we didn''t do anything, the priest fully knitted his brows this time and revealed a displeased look. He just looked down at his hand as if he was waiting for something again, but then he looked up at us and said with a cough, "I wonder if there are any donations that these gentlemen want to make to our great Zeno."

    The prime minister and I once again knitted our brows hearing this.

    We didn''t hide it this time as we looked right at the priest.

    It really seemed like there was no end to his greed, but it wasn''t as if we could just offend him.

    So after a moment of silence, I looked up at the priest and said, "Unfortunately, we weren''t able to prepare anything since we didn''t know that you would be arriving today. Perhaps another day, we can arrange a donation to your great church."

    The priest once again revealed a displeased look, but he didn''t lose his temper.

    He just slowly took back his hand and said, "I see..."

    It seemed like he was stalling as if he was waiting for us to change our mind.

    The same could be said about the other priests that were with them.

    However, we just remained firm in our determination not to give them anything.

    In the end, the priest said with a sigh, "Then we''ll have to see about next time."

    Though he said it in a regretful manner, it was clear by the look in his eyes that he wouldn''t let this matter go.

    As expected, they really didn''te with good intentions.

    After he finished saying this, the priest revealed a more serious look before saying, "Well,

    then let''s get to the main topic. I''m here today on some business in the will of god."

 Chapter 978: Will of god (2)

    Chapter 978: Will of god (2)

    ?

    Both the prime minister and I once again knitted our brows when we heard this, but we didn''t say a thing as we waited to see what the priest had to say.

    The priest didn''t mind this at all as he started showing his re.

    He first raised his hands up and then acted like he was giving a revtion as he said, "The great monster wave is upon us, but we humans shall get through this together as a united race. As such, we all need to do our part as part of the human race."

    Once he said this, he lowered his arms and his head to look at me before saying, "Since you are all a part of the human race, it is only natural that you all do your parts. It is the will of the great Zeno."

    The way that he said this was almost as if he was making some kind of deration.

    It was as if he didn''t care about our opinion, only the will of the great Zeno seemed to matter. After he said this, the priest just looked at us as if he was waiting for us to do something. However, we didn''t do a single thing as we calmly looked at him, as if we were waiting for him to say what he was here for.

    The priest slightly knitted his brows and a trace of displeasure appeared on his eyes when he saw this, but he calmed himself down right away and said, "You have suffered the attacks of the monster waves as well, right?"

    We didn''t know what he was nning by saying this, but we still nodded in agreement.

    With that kind smile that was on his face, it seemed like he was apletely different person from before.

    He seemed like a priest that truly cared about the masses, rather than the greedy person that he had been before.

    After he saw us nod, the priest then said, "I''ve heard that you''ve been able to find a way to stop the monster waves. Is that true?"

    Both the prime minister and I didn''t seem surprised to hear this.

    We actually looked like we had already been expecting this.

    But then again, it was only normal that they would know about this.

    It was such arge matter that it was impossible to hide. Even if we wanted to stop them, it would be impossible for us to silence everyone in the kingdom.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    So all we could do was let this information spread.

    After he said this, I just simply gave him a nod to show agreement.

    The priest''s eyes lit up when he saw this before he said, "Then it is only natural that you share this method with us. We are working for the greater good of the human race and as part of the human race, it''s only natural that you share this method with us."

    The other priests and nuns nodded in agreement before cheering for the priest.

    "For the human race! For the great Zeno!"

    Though they acted like they were acting for the greater good, it was easy to see just on whose behalf they were acting on. It was clear that they only wanted to take this supposed method from us for their own gain.

    Without even waiting for us to respond, the priest suddenly came forward and raised his hand in front of him to say, "Hand it over and we''ll take care of it."

    He stopped his act and just bluntly stated what he wanted.

    However, all that met this request was silence.

    The two of us just looked at him with calm looks on our faces, but neither of us seemed like we were about to do anything.

    When the priest saw this, he couldn''t help knitting his brows.

    This time, he didn''t bother hiding his displeasure as he looked at the two of us.

    Seeing that we still didn''t say anything, the priest finally couldn''t take it anymore and said, "Are you going against the will of the great Zeno? Are you saying that you will not cooperate with us for the good of the human race?"

    All of the priests and nuns revealed displeased looks when they heard this.

    The best way to piss off those from a religion would be to insult their religion.

    For these people that heard that their religion wouldn''t be supported, they would naturally be offended.

    But this was beyond that.

    These were greedy people that weren''t having their greed fulfilled, so they were angry for apletely different reason.

    As such, they were very displeased with the two of us who had refused them.

    Even though they threatened us like this, we didn''t act flustered at all since we had already expected them to act this way.

    I just calmly looked at the priest before saying, "Of course not, we would never do that." The priest still had the same displeased look on his face, but he didn''t say anything as he waited for me to exin.

    I calmly raised my hand in front of him and showed him the Mark of God.

    The priest looked confused at first, but then he slowly narrowed his eyes to look at the mark that had appeared. It was as if he recognized something, but at the same time, it seemed like he was having trouble recognizing this thing.

    He just stared at the mark on my hand in silence for a while, not saying a single thing. After holding it up for a bit, I said, "Though I want to, it isn''t as if I can just give this up."

    The priest narrowed his eyes to look at the mark on my hand before saying, "You''re saying that this is what you used against the monsters?"

    I didn''t confirm or deny this as I calmly looked back at the priest.

    But after a while, the priest finally said, "I don''t believe such a thing. Bring out the real item that you used to repel the monster waves!"

 Chapter 979: Will of god (3)

    Chapter 979: Will of god (3)

    ?

    The priests and nuns that followed the head priest all started shouting and demanding that the real item be handed over.

    It seemed that these people really didn''t have any patience at all.

    At the same time, it seemed that they were used to bullying their way into getting what they wanted.

    The head priest looked at me for a bit before suddenly saying in a condemning voice, "Do you understand what it means to go against the will of the great..."

    Before he could finish, there was a sudden boom that came for the sky.

    All of the priests and nuns looked up at the sky in shock when they heard this boom, but then they looked like they were inspired by it. The head priest looked like the winds were in his sails as he suddenly revealed a wide smile.

    He looked back down at me and said, "Do you see? This is what you deserve for going against the great Zeno! As long as you bow down and offer the item like you should, then you''ll be spared his wrath!"

    He raised his hand as he said this, as if he wasmanding the gods to smite me.

    But I didn''t say anything as I slightly knitted my brows.

    That was because I could feel a strange heating from my hand. It wasn''t a strong heat, but there was a bit of heat that wasing from my hand after the booming in the sky rang out.

    I looked down to see that there was a faint lighting from the mark on my hand.

    This was not something that had happened before, so I had no idea what was happening. However, based on the feeling that wasing from my hand, I could tell that there was something happening with the Mark of God.

    After a long silence, when the head priest saw that I wasn''t saying a single thing and even seemed like I was ignoring him, he was enraged. He pointed his finger at me and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.

    It was just that he didn''t get a chance to say anything as the booming from the sky rang out again.

    This time, there was even a sh of lightning that followed.

    The head priest wasn''t scared or surprised seeing this, his eyes even lit up when he saw the lightning gathering in the sky. It was as if he was seeing a revtion from his god with the look on his face.

    As he saw the lightning gathering, the head priest continued by saying, "Now feel the power of..."

    He didn''t get to finish those words.

    "Crack!"

    Before he could finish what he had been about to say, there was a bolt of lightning that cut through the sky and fell down towards the ground. It was like the punishment of the gods that fell from the heavens.

    It was just that it didn''t fall on the person that one would expect it to fall on.

    Instead of falling down on me, the bolt of lightning suddenly fell down on the head priest. "Ah!" The head priest screamed out in pain, but that scream of pain didn''tst long as he couldn''t keep forming words. His eyes rolled back in their sockets as he lost consciousness. There was even smoke that wasing from the head priest as the lightning coursed through him. In no time at all, his skin had been turned dark and it seemed like he was a charred pig more than anything.

    The worst part of it all was that his jewelry had melted on his skin and was now attached to him.

    The head priest after being struck by lightning truly created a pitiful sight.

    But there was no one to me other than himself.

    These were the consequences of his own actions.

    Once the bolt of lightning finished striking the head priest, there was only silence that filled the air. The only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of sizzlinging from the burnt skin of the head priest.

    He justid there on the ground like a burnt pig, unable to do a thing.

    After that long silence, the priests and nuns from the same group as the head priest suddenly shouted, "How dare you use your ck arts to ambush our head priest!"

    One moment, they treated this lightning as divine lightning and the next, they were calling it ck arts.

    It seemed that there really was no consistency for them at all.

    However, that didn''t matter since there was nothing that they could do about this.

    Or rather, when they tried to do something...

    "Crack!"

    There was another boom of thunder that rang out.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It seemed that as long as they tried to threaten me, the thunder would start booming and lightning would start gathering.

    No matter how one looked at it, it seemed that this phenomenon was rted to me.

    Or rather, I could tell that it was rted to the Mark of God that was on my hand. After all, it was only when the thunder and lightning appeared that the Mark of God heated up. It seemed that it was reacting in response to the thunder and lightning that appeared whenever this group tried to do anything.

    Finally, one of the priests couldn''t take it anymore and pulled out what seemed to be a staff, but there was also a sharp head to it. It seemed that this priest was skilled at using this staff that was shaped like a spear to attack people.

    He was charging right at me, but it didn''t seem like he would get to me as the royal guards came forward.

    It was just that before he could reach me, there was a bolt of lightning that came down on

    him.

    He was turned into the same charred mess as the head priest.

    "Now that''s the real will of a god."

 Chapter 980: Will of god (4)

    Chapter 980: Will of god (4)

    ?

    When this voice rang out, everyone turned to look in the direction that this voice came from. To our surprise, there was a group that was walking over in the robes of the clergy, but we didn''t recognize them at all.

    The one who was leading them was a kind looking old man and it was clear that he was the one who had spoken. After he spoke, he came forward to look at the other priests and nuns who were standing there in a daze.

    The way that he looked at them was filled with disdain.

    Once he was done looking at them, he gave a nod to one of the cloaked figures behind him and said, "Take these idiots away. Make sure that those in charge of the Zeno Religion understand what these idiots have done."

    The cloaked figure nodded before taking off the cloak.

    Everyone was shocked to see this cloaked figure after he took off his cloak because he was wearing a magnificent set of armour. This was pure white armour that clearly wasn''t normal

    armour.

    This seemed like armour that only those knights of the highest rank could own.

    It wasn''t just this single knight who came forward, but also the other cloaked figures who took off their cloaks toe forward. It was a group of knights that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

    All of them came forward to surround the priests and nuns, but the priests and nuns wouldn''t go that easily.

    "Don''t you dare touch us! Do you know who you''re offending!?" The priest that took over for the head priest shouted this.

    However, the knights didn''t seem worried at all as they continued to surround this group. They even pulled out their weapons to show that they weren''t ying at all.

    The priests and nuns all took a step back, but there was nowhere for them to go since they were surrounded by the knights. All they could do was huddle up and pull out some staffs as if they wanted to protect themselves.

    It was just too bad that the knights were well trained and easily disarmed them.

    In no time at all, the group of priests and nuns were all subdued by the knights and taken away.

    I couldn''t help being surprised since I never thought that someone would show up and do something like this, but they didn''t seem to have any ill intentions. At the same time, anyone that could show up with knights of this level clearly wasn''t anyone normal.

    After the priests and nuns had been taken care of, the kind looking old man turned to look at me with a smile on his face.

    I could tell that this smile wasn''t actually directed at me, but rather at the mark that was on my hand.

    It seemed that he was quite pleased to see this mark on my hand.

    There was no mistaking that he recognized this mark and it even seemed that he was quite familiar with this mark with the way that he was looking at it.

    After looking at it for a bit, the kind looking old man suddenly said, "It truly is the will of the gods that we have met you. I would like to introduce myself, your majesty, if you do not mind."

    This waspletely different from how the head priest of the Zeno Religion acted.

    Since it didn''t seem like he had any ill intentions, I gave a simple nod in response to see what his ns were.

    The kind looking old man said with a smile, "I am the pope of the Solista Religion." "Huh?" The prime minister and I were both shocked to hear this.

    After all, there wasn''t anyone in this world that didn''t recognize the Solista Religion. The Solista Religion was also the religion that the priest in my town came from. Even though the Zeno Religion had many followers among the humans, there were more followers of the Solista Religion since their followers weren''t just humans. Solista was a god that was worshipped by many different races, so there were far more followers than the Zeno Religion.

    The Solista Religion was considered one of the top three religions in the Holy Empire, so the power that they controlled wasn''t weak. At the same time, the pope of said Solista Religion should be considered one of the most influential people in the Holy Empire.

    Even if he wasn''t exactly on the same level as the Merman King in terms of title, the pope could be considered to have the same level of power.

    After introducing himself, the pope suddenly came forward towards me.

    That put me in an awkward position since I couldn''t exactly just step away because that would surely offend the pope. So the only thing that I could do was stand there and wait to see what he wanted to do.

    The pope didn''t mind this at all as he came forward to take my hand.

    He brought my hand up in front of his face and looked at the mark that was glowing on the back of my hand carefully.

    I was surprised to see that that mark was still glowing after the priests of the Zeno Religion had been struck by the divine punishment. But when I looked at it closely, I found that it was a different glow.

    There wasn''t the same heating from my hand, but rather it seemed like this glow was from the resonance of the pope''s holy power. There was this holy energy that was around the pope''s hand as he held my hand which created this resonance effect.

    After looking at this mark on my hand for a bit, the pope suddenly lowered his head and said, "This truly is the will of the gods to deliver one with the Mark of God at a time like this."

    The rest of his group who had been silently standing there suddenly fell to their knees and started praying.

    The awkward thing was that they were all praying in my direction, as if they were praying ton/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    me...

 Chapter 981: Saint

    Chapter 981: Saint

    ?

    I didn''t know what to say when I saw all of them praying to me like this.

    In fact, it put me in a very awkward situation since this was a public ce.

    It would be impossible to keep such a thing a secret, even if I was the king of this kingdom. There were just too many people here that authority wouldn''t be enough to keep things a secret.

    In the end, the only thing that I could do was give a cough and say, "How about we go to a different ce and talk about this?"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I really wanted to usher them to a more private ce, but I couldn''t do that considering the other side''s status.

    To my surprise, the pope looked up at me with that kind smile of his and shook his head before saying, "There''s no need to hide this. It is a matter that should be spread to the world."

    I really wanted to curse him out when I heard this.

    After all, what he was doing now wasn''t helping me, but rather hurting me!

    If everyone were to learn of this, there was no doubt that there would be many people that would be interested in taking this Mark of God from me. Or at the very least, they would try to find some way to kidnap me so that they would be able to experiment on me.

    Regardless of what their intentions were, it was more likely that they would be bad than good.

    So I wanted to keep this Mark of God hidden for as long as possible.

    Only it didn''t seem possible now with how the pope was announcing it.

    By tomorrow, the rumours would spread and it would be known all over the kingdom.

    In the week, it should spread to the other kingdoms and soon spread even to the empires... It seemed that there would only be problemsing for me.

    But the pope didn''t seem like he cared about this at all as he continued holding my hand and admiring the Mark of God that was there.

    It was only after he admired it for a bit that he suddenly looked up and said, "Your majesty, I wish to confer upon you the title of saint. Will you ept it?"

    I was shocked to hear this before deeply knitting my brows.

    While I had no idea what the title of saint would give me, there was no doubt that there would be more trouble than benefits that came from it. So it was a title that I didn''t want to ept at all.

    Since I didn''t want it, I didn''t hold back as I said, "No."

    This time, the pope actually looked surprised.

    The look on his face was as if he had been fully expecting me to ept this without a single trace of hesitation, so when I rejected him like this, he couldn''t help beingpletely shocked.

    It was the same for the other priests who had been praying to me this whole time.

    All of them looked at me with shocked and confused looks as if they couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    After a while, the pope said with the same kind smile, "Your majesty, I think that you''ve mistaken something. It is a great honour to be chosen as a saint, this is an honour that hasn''t been bestowed in many centuries."

    "I understand what it means to be a saint, but I also understand the disadvantages thate with it. As such, I would prefer to turn down this saint title." I said without any hesitation.

    The pope was once again surprised, but he didn''t seem shocked this time.

    When I put it like this, the pope could naturally understand what I meant and what I was worried about. Even though I acted this way, the pope didn''t seem to panic as his expression changed to once again reveal a smile.

    With that kind smile on his face, he said, "Your majesty, I''m sure that you must be worried about the possible consequences thate from this title, but you don''t need to worry. We will do all that we can to help you. In fact, you can evene to our Holy Empire and be the saint of our Solista Religion. As long as you are in the Holy Empire, there''s no one who will be able to do anything to you."

    I shook my head once more as I said, "I have a family and a kingdom here to care for and you''re telling me to abandon it all?"

    The kind smile on the pope''s face froze when he heard this.

    It seemed that even though he didn''t intend to act hostile, the arrogance that came from being the pope naturally came out.

    He had been the pope of the Solista Religion for a long time and he had naturally been affected by his position, which had built up this arrogance in him. He felt that there was nothing greater than serving the gods, which was why he assumed that King Zwein would just give up the throne to be the saint.

    Now that he had refused, it put him in an awkward position.

    After all, it wasn''t as if he could force him to take the position of saint.

    Doing that would just hurt the position of saint and the rtionship between the Solista Religion and the one with the Mark of God.

    The priests all had awkward looks as well since they were high ranking bishops of the Solista Religion that hade with the pope. They suffered the same problem in that they had been naturally affected by the arrogance that came with being in thisrge religion.

    After another awkward silence, the pope suddenly said, "Your majesty, is it possible for us to talk in private?"

    I shook my head before saying, "Thank you foring today, but I think that it''s time for you to leave."

    Now he wanted to talk in private?

    Only when he was in a bad situation did he want to talk in private, he didn''t care about my situation at all.

    As such, it didn''t seem like there was a need to cooperate with them.

 Chapter 982: Asking for a favour

    Chapter 982: Asking for a favour

    ?

    The pope and the priests all looked at me in shock when they heard this.

    They looked like they couldn''t believe that I was asking them to leave like this.

    The knights that had been watching while surrounding the priests from the Zeno Religion all knitted their brows when they heard this. With the way that they were looking over, it really seemed like they wanted to step forward to say something.

    But before they could do anything, the pope suddenly raised his hand to stop them.

    The pope didn''t even look at the knights as he continued to look at me for a bit before saying, "Your majesty, I think that there''s been some kind of misunderstanding. I know that anything that I try to say today will result in further misunderstandings, so let''s end this matter here. I hope that we will be able to have another talk on this matter another day."

    With that, the pope gave a bow and then turned to leave.

    He waved his hand at the knights and priests who all had different expressions on their faces, but they still followed him in the end.

    They all just put on their cloaks and walked into the streets before disappearing without a trace.

    It seemed strange how they had disappeared, but it didn''t matter since I didn''t want to talk to them in the first ce.

    Right now, there was something else that I had to do first.

    "Let''s go back and talk." I said to the prime minister.

    He looked at me with a strange look at first, but then he nodded in agreement and we headed back to the castle.

    It was just that this matter wasn''t over yet.

    ...

    "Your majesty, there is a guest looking for you."

    I was surprised by this maid suddenlying in with this message since I wasn''t expecting to see anyone today. At the same time, I had even told the people in the castle that I didn''t want to see anyone after yesterday''s matter.

    They shouldn''t have allowed anyone into the castle today.

    So I couldn''t help being surprised by this maid saying that someone wanted to see me.

    I didn''t say anything as I looked at the maid with one brow raised.

    The maids of the castle were well trained, so she immediately understood why I was looking at her like this.

    With a bow, the maid said, "We tried to stop him, but he said that he was a personal friend of yours. At the same time, this person said that they had once been your mentor."

    A friend and a mentor?

    I couldn''t think of anyone that fit this description at first, but then there was a person that came to mind.

    It was someone that I hadn''t seen in a while now since I had be busy with running this country, but it was certainly someone that could qualify as a friend and a mentor.

    Only I didn''t think that he woulde all this way just to see me.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    He was someone who had been content with his life in the countryside, running that church.

    So there must be a reason for him toe all this way.

    After thinking about it for a bit, I looked back up at the maid who had been silently and nervously standing there. With a nod, I said, "Let hime and see me."

    The maid seemed to let out a sigh of relief when she heard this before lowering her head to say, "Yes, your majesty."

    In no time at all, there was someone who was led to my study.

    When this person came in, I immediately recognized them.

    Even if I hadn''t seen them in a while, this wasn''t a person that I would forget that easily since we had spent quite a bit of time together.

    He was the one that had even taught me about the Mark of God in the first ce.

    However, there wasn''t a smile that was on my face when I saw hime in.

    Rather, he was the one that walked in with an awkward smile on his face.

    Once the maid led the priest from my previous territory in, I gave a wave of my hand to send her off. She didn''t hesitate at all since she could feel the tension that was in the air, so she disappeared in no time.

    When it was just the two of us left in the room, the priest suddenly said, "Your majesty, it''s been a long time. I..."

    Before he could continue, I suddenly raised my hand to cut him off before saying, "There''s no need for that kind of small talk. I know that you''re here for a reason, so just tell me what you want."

    The priest wasn''t offended at all when he heard this.

    He knew that even though I was being brief, I was doing it on his behalf.

    While it didn''t seem like I was doing it on his behalf, I really was doing it to spare him the fate of having to make small talk and work his way up. I knew what kind of personality he had, it really wasn''t suited for this.

    There was even a trace of gratitude that appeared in his eyes as he looked at me before he said, "Your majesty, I hope that you will do a favour for me."

    A look of surprise appeared on my face since this certainly wasn''t what I expected him to say, but I just gave a nod as I said, "What is the favour?"

    "I hope that you will meet with the pope." There was an awkward look on the priest''s face when he said this.

    He didn''t need to exin what he meant by this since there was only one person that he could

    be referring to.

    It was the kind looking old man from yesterday.

    I never thought that he would bring the priest from my former territory over just for this...

    But I still said, "Alright, since it''s a favour for you."

    The priest gave me a grateful nod.

    I did owe quite a bit to him after all.

 Chapter 983: Saint once more (1)

    Chapter 983: Saint once more (1)

    ?

    It didn''t take long for the pope and his group to arrive again.

    During this time, I also had the maid bring over the prime minister and the regent.

    If I was going to face them, naturally I would have my people with me as well.

    All of us gathered in one of the meeting rooms of the castle. Since it was a castle, naturally there would be ces to receive important guests, which was what this room was for.

    After we were all seated, the pope was the one that began by saying, "Your majesty, thank you for meeting us. I apologize for the misunderstandingst time, I hope that we can clear that up this time."

    I slightly knitted my brows, but it didn''t seem like there was any hostility in his words.

    It didn''t seem like he was rubbing it in, it seemed like he was sincere.

    But it did rub me the wrong way that he said this...

    For now, I suppressed that annoyed feeling and focused on the group that was in front of me. It was the pope and two priests, but there were also a few knights that were waiting outside. It was unknown whether this was because they were simply being cautious since it was the pope or if it was because they had other intentions. Though with the wyverns that were posted in the castle, it wasn''t as if they would get far if they were to try anything.

    After a moment of silence, I gave a simple nod before saying, "I don''t think that there''s a misunderstanding. I have already stated that I have no intentions of epting this saint title and following you to the Holy Empire. If there''s anything else that you wish to discuss, then please feel free to bring it up now."

    The two priests on the side slightly knitted their brows, but the pope just raised his hand to stop them before turning back to say with a smile, "Your majesty, like I''ve said, there''s been a misunderstanding. There''s no need for you to follow us back to the Holy Empire even if you do ept the saint title."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    This time, I was surprised.

    The way that he put it before made it seem like my only option after epting the title of saint was to follow them back to the Holy Empire to act as their saint.

    Now he was saying that it was a misunderstanding.

    The pope could see the look on my face, so he quickly exined, "Your majesty, like I said before, there was a misunderstanding. I misspoke because of my excitement, which caused your majesty to have this misunderstanding."

    I raised a brow in skepticism when I heard this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for the pope to exin.

    There was a trace of relief on the pope''s face as he revealed a smile and said, "Your majesty, I only suggested that you follow us back to the Holy Empire for your own safety. You should know what kind of position receiving the title of saint gives, but it also puts one in danger because there are always people with ill intentions in the world. The Holy Empire has the greatest holy knights, so it''s also the safest ce for your majesty."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the pope after he said this, but the look on his face seemed like he was sincere about his words.

    However, that didn''t mean that I wouldn''t just foolishly believe him.

    There was no doubt that other than this, there was also the desire to keep them in the palm of their hands.

    He was someone who held a Mark of God on his hand, this was a mark that came directly from the god that they believed in. There was no doubt that this was a very important thing for these religious people.

    It was something that they might even risk their lives to obtain.

    So even if they acted calmly, it was clear that they wanted to obtain him.

    After looking at the pope for a bit, I calmly said, "Even if there is a misunderstanding, you can''t say that these aren''t your intentions at all, right?"

    The pope calmly looked at me before suddenly giving a nod.

    I was certainly surprised that he would be this direct, even going as far as looking at me with a smile on his face.

    The way that he looked at me was as if there was nothing that he had to hide, even though it was clear that he had his own intentions.

    So after looking at him for a bit, I said, "Then can you say that you didn''t have any intentions in announcing to the world that you wanted to give me the title of saint? Can you say that you didn''t have any other intentions in announcing this Mark of God to everyone?"

    The pope looked calm, but I could see that there was a twitching from his lips.

    It seemed that I had indeed struck the heart of the matter with these words.

    After a tense moment of silence, the pope said, "Your majesty, I wish to say..."

    I didn''t give him that chance as I suddenly raised my hand to cut him off. After cutting him off, I said, "I don''t care what you wish to say since you''ve already made your intentions clear. As such, I feel that there''s no need for us to discuss this matter at all."

    The pope had a surprised look on his face as he never thought that I would reject him this simply.

    But to me, I knew that there was no way that we could cooperate if this was how he was going

    to act.

    He was one of those people that acted kind on the surface, but stabbed people in the back.

    If I were to associate with this kind of person, it was unknown when he would sell me and make me count his profits.

 Chapter 984: Saint once more (2)

    Chapter 984: Saint once more (2)

    ?

    The priests on the side looked angry hearing these words and were about to stand up to say something, but the pope raised his hand to stop them.

    For the first time, the smile had disappeared from his face.

    Instead, it seemed like he was gritting his teeth and thinking about something.

    The priests fell silent seeing this and waited for the pope to speak.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him for a bit, but then I suddenly stood up and said, "If there is nothing else, I think we can end this matter here. I still have some other things to attend to."

    I didn''t actually have anything else to do, but I knew that there was nothing good about giving the pope time to think. Just giving him this meeting was already enough to repay my favour to the priest from my town, so there was no need to give them more.

    After I stood up, the prime minister and the regent stood up as well.

    I could see the way that they were looking at me, but they didn''t say anything as we turned to leave.

    But before we could leave, the pope suddenly said, "Your majesty, please wait."

    I didn''t n on stopping, but he suddenly stood up and grabbed my hand.

    I narrowed my eyes and turned back to look at the pope who was holding me.

    It didn''t seem like he was nning to let go, so I prepared to say something.

    But before I could, he said, "Your majesty, I think that there''s no need for us to beat around the bush. Let us bothy our cards on the table."

    I narrowed my eyes even more when I heard this.

    Still, I said, "What do you have to offer then?"

    While I wasn''t nning on actually epting anything that they had to offer, I knew that it was impossible for the pope to leave matters here that easily.

    So the only thing that I could do was listen to what he had to say and then reject him.

    The pope didn''t answer right away as he looked at me with a strange look.

    But eventually, he said with a bitter smile, "I apologize for what I have done. I hope that we can move past this and work with each other in the future."

    Even though he waited for me to say something, I didn''t say anything in response to this. I just calmly looked at the pope and waited to see what else he had to say.

    The pope slightly knitted his brows seeing this, but he still continued by saying, "Your majesty, I feel that we still have some value to you. After all, the title of saint is not an empty one and there are benefits thate from it."

    "Even if there are benefits thate from it, I don''t want to be backstabbed the ones that I''m working with." I bluntly said to him without any hesitation.

    The priests didn''t seem like they felt any guilt about this, rather they seemed like they were a bit annoyed with the way that I was speaking. However, since the pope didn''t do anything, there wasn''t anything that they could do.

    The pope gave a nod to acknowledge this before saying, "But we can give you knowledge and resources that youck. As long as you''re willing to cooperate with us, we''ll give them to your kingdom and never ask for them back."

    "Ha, like it would be that easy."

    "We''ll give you a sacred relic." The pope suddenly said.

    The two priests looked at the pope in shock when they heard this.

    That actually made me a bit interested since thest one that I received was the staff from the dwarves. After using it, I knew just how powerful these relics were and how valuable they could be.

    So there was a part of me that was moved by the mention of a relic.

    Only I was moved for a second before shaking my head and saying, "That just puts a bigger target on my back. Will your nation really hand over a relic without a single sound? There''s no doubt that it would draw even more attention to me so that we have no choice but to rely on you further. It seems like you''re really looking down on us."

    After shaking my head, I turned around and said, "It really seems like there''s nothing else to discuss. I had hoped for more, but I can only say that I''m disappointed."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Especially since they were from the same religion as the priest from my town.

    I thought that they would at least have some kind of integrity, but it didn''t seem like this was the case.

    Since the pope wouldn''t let go, I pulled my hand away.

    However, I found that he was quite strong even with his old age and it was hard for me to pull away at first. It was only after pulling several times that I was able to pull my hand out of his grip.

    The pope gritted his teeth once more and said, "We''ll give you our Holy Empire''s support. No one will dare provoke you as long as you have our Holy Empire''s support."

    "All that will do is make us fall under the Holy Empire if we ept. When the timees, you will be able to do whatever you want behind the scenes to slowly weaken my country and take over. If you do that, there''s nothing that I can do to stop you if you want to do anything to me." I said without even bothering to turn back.

    It seemed that old ginger really was the spiciest.

    This pope was a sly old man who kepting up with tricks on the fly to try and get me to fall under them.

    It was just too bad that I wasn''t that easy to fool.

    No matter what tricks he used, I wouldn''t fall for them.

 Chapter 985: Private discussions (1)

    Chapter 985: Private discussions (1)

    ?

    "They won''t stop."

    I looked at the prime minister after he said this and slowly gave a nod in response since I knew that he was right.

    Seeing this, the prime minister continued by saying, "What do we do then?"

    I just simply gave a shrug as I said, "There''s nothing that we can do about them right now." "Huh?" Both the regent and the prime minister were surprised when they heard this.

    Shaking my head, I said with a sigh, "That''s the problem with those religious people, even if you try to reason with them, it doesn''t mean that they''ll see reason that easily since they have their faith. So even if we were to try anything, it''s unlikely that they would listen to what we have to say."

    Then after a pause, I added, "Not to mention, the amount of power and resources that they have far outss our own. Even if we wanted to do something, it would be hard for us to do anything. It is more likely that we would be overwhelmed by the power of the Holy Empire before anything could happen."

    Both the prime minister and regent knitted their brows when they heard this, but neither of them denied what I said since they knew that I was right.

    There was a reason why the Holy Empire was considered one of the four empires of the human

    race.

    Religion was one of the biggest ways to gather people and the Holy Empire had been gathering power for many centuries now, so they couldn''t be looked down on.

    If anything, it could be said that they were the ones that were in danger because they had offended one of the biggest religions in the Holy Empire. This was a religion that had arge control over the ruling of the Holy Empire, so there were many things that they could do. Seeing the worried looks on the faces of the prime minister and the regent, I said with a reassuring smile, "There''s no need to worry, they won''t do anything."

    Both the prime minister and the regent looked at me with doubtful and confused looks.

    I wasn''t surprised by this as I calmly said, "If they were nning on using those forceful methods in the first ce, they wouldn''t havee for a meeting. They would have just directly acted against us and tried to suppress our country to take me away."

    There was still a trace of doubt on the faces of the prime minister and the regent, but they eventually nodded in agreement since they could see the reason in my words.

    They were people that were well versed in politics, so they knew what kind of tricks one could use to achieve their goals in situations like this.

    They knew that I was right about the Solista Religion being able to use these political moves to achieve their goals.

    Especially since the one that was leading the group was the pope of their religion.

    With the power that he wielded in the Holy Empire, it should have been easy for him to achieve this goal.

    But why didn''t they do that?

    "It''s because they can''t take back a saint that isn''t willing to go with them. A saint can only show its value when they follow them willingly. Forcing a saint to go along would actually hurt them more than anything." I said in a calm voice.

    The prime minister and regent once again revealed confused looks.

    The two of them were people that were more focused on things in this world, rather than believing in the heavens. So when it came to the faith of people, they weren''t as well versed as me who came from a modern world where religion had greatly developed.

    I just said, "Simply put, there''s too much risk using a saint that won''t obey since there''s no telling what they will do."

    Then after a pause, I added, "At the same time, it isn''t as if the gods don''t exist. The gods know if someone encroaches on those that they bless, so they will send down heavenly punishment. Such as the lightning bolts that fell down."

    The prime minister and the regent revealed strange looks when they heard this, but the looks on their faces made it clear that they were thinking about what they had seen yesterday.

    The lightning bolts falling down from the skies had left quite the impression.

    I might not have believed that the lightning bolts were heavenly punishment myself if it wasn''t for the fact that I had met the gods when I received this Mark of God.

    After a moment of silence, the prime minister just simply asked, "What do we do then?" This was one of the times that he was out of his depth since he wasn''t someone who was familiar with religious people in the first ce.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    He really had no idea what to do since he was out of his depth here.

    This was not something that he was familiar with, so the only thing that the prime minister could do was hope that the king would know what to do.

    I just looked at him for a bit before slowly shaking my head and saying, "There''s not much that we can do right now."

    Both of them knitted their brows when they heard this, but I just said with a shrug, "Even if we wanted to do anything, there isn''t anything that we can really do since they are the Holy Empire."

    The prime minister and regent sighed in response to this.

    But I added, "Of course, that doesn''t mean that we can let our guard down. There''s no doubt that there will be other things that they will be nning to do in the future. I''m not surprised if they are already discussing this matter right now."

    ...

    On the other side...

    "Your grace, should we send someone to kidnap that man? If the other religions find out about the Mark of God on him..."

 Chapter 986: Private discussions (2)

    Chapter 986: Private discussions (2)

    ?

    "Are you an idiot?"

    The priest who asked that question was shocked to hear the pope''s response.

    He didn''t think that he was wrong in asking that, but the pope looked like he was aplete idiot for asking something like this.

    Even though he felt a bit aggrieved, he didn''t say anything in response.

    But the other priests couldn''t hold back as they said, "Your grace, we feel that this is a good idea. With the power that our Holy Empire holds, we should be able to easily take back this ''saint'' of ours."

    Though they called him saint, the tone of their voice made it clear that there were some misgivings towards him.

    The pope narrowed his eyes to look at them before saying, "Are you trying to betray our holy lord?"

    All of the priests were shocked when they heard this, but they also quickly recovered from their shock when they saw the way that the pope looked at them and quickly shook their heads to deny this.

    The pope narrowed his eyes even more to look at them before saying, "Using force against the saint, didn''t you already see what happened to those fools from the Zeno Religion? If we were to do the same thing, we would receive the same divine retribution from our holy lord. How is this any different from betraying our faith?"

    All of the priests had awkward looks on their faces after hearing this.

    They had been a bit too consumed by their rage that they had forgotten about what they had seen earlier.

    However, once the pope reminded them of this, they had no way of denying that he was right. If they were to move against the saint with force, there was no doubt that they would be struck with the same divine intervention.

    When that time came, it would be hard to say if their Solista Religion would still have any face left.

    Being hit by the divine retribution of the holy lord they worshipped?

    That was no different to being pped.

    So they knew that they wouldn''t be able to use force on the saint with the Mark of God.

    "But what should we do?" One of the priests said in a voice that made it seem like he was reluctant to give up.

    The pope''s expression became more gentle when he heard this.

    It was as if he was happy to see that his fellow priests were finally willing to see the light and change the way that they thought.

    The pope gave a nod as he said, "Of course we''re not giving up, but the one thing that we must never use is force." His expression turned stern again as he looked at the priests in front of him.

    It was only when they nodded in agreement that he continued by saying, "For now, we can only move behind the scenes to use some other methods to convince the saint to follow us. I''m certain that we will be able to convince the saint of the greater good in time."

    The pope didn''t even seem to care that he had been given the cold shoulder earlier.

    This really was a case of sticking a warm face to a cold butt.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    After hearing him say this, the priests around him looked at him with strange looks, but there was one consistency between them. All of them had traces of doubt on their faces as they looked at the pope.

    It was clear that none of them believed that his ns would work...but they just didn''t say it out loud.

    The pope didn''t care about the reaction of the priests as he had a look of thought on his face. It was as if he was already thinking of different things that they could do.

    But then all of a sudden, he turned to look at one of the priests that was in the carriage and said, "I''m sorry for putting you in this situation. I didn''t want to do things like this, but there''s nothing that can be done."

    The one that he talked to was the priest from Zwein''s former territory, the one that had gotten them the meeting in the first ce.

    The priest gave a sigh when he heard this before saying, "I''m afraid that it will be harder for me to help you in the future. This has already created a rift in my rtionship with his

    majesty."

    The pope gave an understanding nod before saying, "We will not put you on the spot in the future. I hope that you will be able to rebuild your rtionship with his majesty in time."

    The priest gave a nod, but he didn''t say anything.

    "What about the other religions?" One of the other priests couldn''t help suddenly asking this.

    The pope gave a shrug before saying, "It''s inevitable that they will find out about this."

    "Shouldn''t we stop them?" The same priest asked.

    The pope shook his head as he said, "Can we even stop them? Even if we tried, there''s no way that we could seal everyone''s mouth."

    There was a trace of regret that appeared on his face as he said this.

    He had revealed the Mark of God to put pressure on Zwein to get him toe back with them, but he never thought that it would bite him in the butt. Now that everyone knew and their saint had refused toe with them, there was no doubt that the other religions would make

    their move.

    For these religions, the Mark of God was the most enticing thing.

    After a moment of silence, the pope said, "Send out some people to ensure the safety of the saint, but don''t do anything else. Put the word out to the surrounding churches to help the saint with anything that he needs and try to leave a good impression on him."

    After saying this, he fell silent as if he was thinking about something.

    Then in a soft voice, he said, "I really regret my actions..."

 Chapter 987: Letâ€™s crush them

    Chapter 987: Let¡¯s crush them

    ?

    There was a calm that came after the visit from the Holy Empire.

    Everyone knew that this was nothing more than the calm before the storm, but when the storm came, it didn''te in the form that everyone thought that it woulde in.

    Instead of the Holy Empire initiating it, it was our kingdom that initiated it.

    That was because everyone else was just too busy dealing with the monster waves.

    So instead of theming to us, we were the ones that came for them.

    As for who ''them'' was, it was the kingdoms that were around our kingdom.

    After some time, the former Midra Kingdom had basically been folded into our kingdom. It seemed that most of the people of the former Midra Kingdom were very happy that they had been taken over since the nobles of the former Midra Kingdoms had oppressed them quite a bit.

    Now that they were free from the oppression of the Midra Kingdom nobles, the people of the former Midra Kingdom thrived.

    At the same time, they were happy because we gave them plenty of food when they had been starving from the monster waves.

    After raiding the stores of the Midra Kingdom nobles, we actually had plenty of food for not just the people of the Midra Kingdom, but also our kingdom. This had alleviated a lot of the pressure that we had been feeling and wouldst until the prime minister''s n came to fruition.

    At the same time, since the Midra Kingdom''s territory had been incorporated into our kingdom, there was no longer a need for the position of regent.

    But that didn''t mean that the former second prince of the Midra Kingdom was abandoned.

    The prime minister took the former second prince under him and named him one of the chancellors of the kingdom. Though he had this new title, his actual job was to be the prime minster''s assistant.

    The former second prince didn''t mind that since the two of them seemed to get along quite well.

    But in light of all this happening, I called the prime minister and the new chancellor of the left into my study.

    "Let''s crush the surrounding kingdoms." I said to the two of them as they looked at me with curious looks like they were asking me what was happening.

    As soon as my voice fell, both of them had shocked looks on their faces.

    They looked at me with narrowed eyes for a moment as if they were trying to figure out if I was being serious or not, but I just looked at them with a calm look on my face.

    After a long silence, the prime minister asked, "Why?"

    It was a single word, but the meaning behind this word was very clear.

    There were a myriad of questions that he was asking me at the same time, but he shortened it all into a single word.

    It was the faith that he had in me that I would understand just from this single word.

    I looked at him without answering for a bit before suddenly saying, "Because the time is right, because we won''t get another chance like this."

    The two of them knitted their brows once more before the prime minister asked, "Why now of all time? I already said that we should have done this when the monster waves first started, so why are you deciding to do this now?"

    I raised a brow to look at him without saying a thing.

    The prime minister knitted his brows upon seeing this before saying, "Is the Holy Empire that much of a threat?"

    I shook my head before saying, "It''s not just the Holy Empire, I want to make sure that everything is fine before the other empires make their move. It would have been fine to do things in the dark while the other empires weren''t aware, but the Holy Empire moving will make them aware. We shouldn''t underestimate the empires, so we need to strengthen ourselves while we can."

    The prime minister bit his lip when he heard this, but he slowly gave a nod of agreement.

    But he didn''t ept it right away since there was something else that he had to confirm before epting.

    "Even if we take down those three kingdoms, there''s still the problem of taking care of them. If we try to do it with our current supplies, it will be impossible to care for all of the new citizens."

    I shook my head and said, "There''s no need to use our supplies."n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    The prime minister knitted his brows when he heard this before looking at me with a serious look to say, "You''re abandoning them?"

    I could see the clear disappointed look that was in his eyes as he said this.

    It was as if he couldn''t believe what I said.

    The chancellor also looked at me with the same look on his face.

    I knew that these people cared deeply for the citizens and even if they were still currently citizens of another kingdom, they still cared for these people since they would be our citizens in the future.

    So if I were to really abandon them, they would feel that I had betrayed their trust.

    But I had nned for everything.

    "There''s no need for us to take care of them with our own supplies. There''s plenty of supplies in their kingdom to take care of them, but the nobles are too corrupt to share them in the first

    ce."

    Both the prime minister and the chancellor knitted their brows even more when they heard

    this.

    They looked at me like this for a bit before saying, "Are you sure about that?"

    It wasn''t that they were questioning me, it was just that they didn''t feel that this would be the case with how bad the monster waves were in the surrounding kingdoms.

    But I had one thing in my name that I had confidence in.

    My knowledge from the game.

 Chapter 988: Ride at dawn

    Chapter 988: Ride at dawn

    ?

    Armed with that knowledge, I knew that there were stashes being kept by the noble families hidden all over.

    Those stashes had things such as food and money, which could easily be used to feed and take care of the citizens of the kingdoms that we took over.

    The nobles could have done it themselves, but they were corrupt nobles.

    Though thinking about it, it was certainly strange that all of the nobles in the surrounding countries were corrupt nobles. This was something that was kept from the game world since this was the plot device that was used to make it easier for the main character to take down the surrounding kingdoms in one of the quests.

    The location of the stashes were also rewards from ying that quest line.

    That was why I knew that we would be able to stabilize the surrounding kingdoms.

    In a way, this could be considered doing the quest now by taking over these three kingdoms. Even the rewards were the same...

    It really was a strange feeling, but I didn''t let myself be bothered by that feeling for long since there were more important things to take care of.

    Based on the expression that was on the faces of the two of them, I knew that they would need one final push.

    "There''s a mountain filled with beasts in the Beirut Kingdom. This is a mountain that they considered a taboo zone, but for us with the wyverns..." I didn''t finish these words, but the meaning was clear.

    The eyes of the prime minister and the chancellor lit up when they heard this since they could already see the value of this ce.

    But there was still one more knife that I wanted to drive into their hearts.

    "There''s a mountain that''s said to house some wyverns in the Vikal Kingdom."

    There was no need to exin further with this as both the prime minister and the chancellor immediately had shocked looks on their faces.

    The two of them looked at me with narrowed eyes for a bit, but I just calmly looked back at them with a smile on my face.

    After a long silence, the prime minister said with a bitter smile, "It turned out that you already nned everything."

    With the same smile on my face, I said, "I didn''t n everything. I still need you toe up with a n to attack and take over all three of the kingdoms at once."

    "Oh is that all?" The prime minister said in a casual voice before revealing a smile to say, "You left us the easy part, didn''t you?"

    The chancellor also revealed a faint smile when he heard this, but he didn''t deny what the prime minister said. After all, in their minds, the two of them actually saw this as an easy job since the kingdoms that they were targeting had already been weakened by the monster

    waves.

    With the wyverns that they possessed, it really was an easy matter of invading these countries.

    At the same time, since all of the other countries were experiencing monster waves as well, it would be hard for them to denounce them.

    Once they organized themselves, they would have a kingdom that would have more than double their current territory.

    While they wouldn''t bring them up to the same level as the empires, that was still enough for them to reach the same level as the kingdoms that were only second to the empires.

    So the empires wouldn''t be able to move that easily against them unless they worked together to take the Kite Kingdom down, but no one believed that the empires would move together.

    They had been against each other for so many years now that it seemed like it was impossible for them to ever work together.

    So as long as they were able to take down the three kingdoms fast enough, there wouldn''t be a problem...

    Well, there would be problems down the line, but there were no foreseeable problems.

    "How are you going to take it?" I couldn''t help asking the prime minister and chancellor when I saw the look on their faces.

    The two of them were pulled out of their thoughts and they looked at me with serious looks before asking, "Do you want the truth?"

    There was a trace of bitterness that appeared in my smile after hearing this, but I still gave a nod in response.

    The prime minister just simply said, "We''ll send everything."

    The chancellor nodded in agreement as he said, "This will be a show."

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit sorry for the nobles of the three kingdoms after hearing this, but this was just how it was.

    As for me, there was a letter that I should send.

    ...

    It took a week to gather everyone and move them to the locations that they needed to be moved.

    After organizing everything, we had even folded the army of the former Midra Kingdom into ourmand structure.

    They were actually happy to join us since they hadn''t been receiving their dues.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Instead of serving a master that didn''t pay them, they were happy to serve one that paid them quite well.

    In addition, we even offered pensions for those that were injured in battle, which made them even more loyal. Knowing that their families would be taken care of even after their deaths, they had less worries in their hearts when fighting.

    And knowing that they would be protecting the people that they cared about, this gave them

    more drive to fight.

    So that made them loyal to us.

    In front of the castle were Klein and the other royal guards.

    They looked quite inspiring with their wyverns lined up behind them.

    Out of the over a thousand wyverns that had been tamed, there were over half of them that

    were here.

    The rest of them had already set off.

    In total, we were using over nine hundred wyverns for this invasion n.

    The only ones that didn''t go were those that were too young to fight.

    Seeing them stand in front of me like this, I couldn''t help being impressed by how far we had

    come.

    So I just said in a few simple words, "Good fortune to you."

    All of them nodded in agreement before riding off under the dawning sun.

 Chapter 989: Intermission - Day in the life of *Rose* (1)

    Chapter 989: Intermission - Day in the life of *Rose* (1)

    ?

    Going a few days back...

    I knew that once this was all over, there was no way that I would be able to rx since there would be a lot of work to do.

    Taking over three countries definitely wouldn''t be an easy matter to settle, so it would take a long time and a lot of hard work to finish this task.

    So before that, I wanted to have some fun with my wives.

    Though the kind of fun that I wanted to have was a bit on the deviant side.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    One morning, I suddenly pulled out a few of the vibrators and said, "I want to..."

    ...

    "Miss Rose, here are the documents that you wanted." A fair blonde haireddy with a pair of sses walked in with a stack of papers.

    This was Rose''s assistant in the capital, Belle.

    She was the one that worked the most closely with Rose after she came to the capital, so it could be said that she was one of the people that knew her best.

    After putting down the stack of papers, she couldn''t help asking, "Miss Rose, is there something wrong?"

    The moment that she came in, it was as if she could tell that there was something wrong with this Miss Rose that she served.

    This Miss Rose was one of the wives of the king, but even before that, she was someone that had won Belle''s respect. She hade into the department of interior affairs and had cleaned it up without missing a single thing.

    She hade in and without using the authority of the king, she had found all of the corrupt ministers and the proof of their corruption, allowing her to rightfully dismiss them all.

    Then after that, she took control of the department to create miracles in the kingdom.

    There were many that praised their department of interior affairs for all the things that they had done to improve their lives.

    That was why Belle admired this superior of hers.

    That was why Belle paid very close attention to this superior of hers and could see the minute changes in her expression.

    It was why she could tell that Miss Rose was different today.

    She would have usually said something as soon as she came in since she had this ability to know who was here even before they came in.

    Only today, Miss Rose didn''t say anything even though she came over to her desk.

    It was almost as if she was distracted by something...but there didn''t seem to be anything that was on her desk. So it didn''t seem like there should have been anything that would have distracted her.

    Rose slowly turned to look at Belle after hearing this before shaking her head to say, "No, I''m...fine."

    Though she said that she was fine, Belle had a look on her face that showed that she didn''t believe her at all.

    After all, the Miss Rose that she knew would have never stopped in the middle of her words like this.

    When she looked closer, it even seemed like there was a hint of red that was on Miss Rose''s face. It was almost as if she had some kind of cold...

    As this thought passed through her mind, Belle suddenly panicked and went forward to help support her beloved Miss Rose. But the moment that Rose saw Belleing forward, she suddenly raised her hand to stop her.

    "Stop, just stay there." Rose said in a firm voice.

    There was a disappointed look on Belle''s face when she heard this, but she still listened to Rose as she stood where she had been standing before.

    The look of disappointment quickly disappeared as Belle said, "Miss Rose, if you''re sick, you should just take the rest of the day off. There''s no need for you to push yourself, there isn''t much that you need to do today."

    Though she said this, it was a lie.

    It wasn''t an exaggeration to say that Rose had taken care of half of the work that they had to do all on her own. If she really couldn''t work today, it would mean that their department would fall far behind.

    But it would all be meaningless if Rose copsed, so it was better to be behind than to have something happen to her.

    In a way, this could be considered a training experience for the new hires in the department. However, Rose just firmly shook her head and said, "No."

    There was nothing that Belle could do if Rose refused to rest since she was her subordinate. So Bellepletely changed her mind and nned on staying with Rose the entire day. Rose naturally could see the thoughts that passed through Belle''s mind and that was thest thing that she wanted, so she said, "Alright, I''ll cancel my meetings and just work on the documents in my office. You don''t have to stay with me, I''ll be fine since I''ll be in the castle the entire time."

    Belle still had a worried look on her face, but she just gave a simple nod in the end.

    Belle knew that this was already a bigpromise on Rose''s part and she knew that it wouldn''t be good to be greedy.

    So she went forward to the stack of papers that she had ced on Rose''s desk and said, "Miss Rose, these are the items for today, but you don''t have to finish all of them if you''re not

    feeling well."

    She had been nning on taking some of the papers that she had ced on the desk and distributing it to the others.

    But Rose suddenly stood up and ced a hand on top of hers to stop her before saying, "I''m telling you that I''m fine. Just leave these things and go take care of your matters."

    Belle still had a worried look, but seeing that Rose was this insistent...

    Though before she could leave, Rose''s legs suddenly gave out from under her.

 Chapter 990: Intermission - Day in the life of *Rose* (2)

    Chapter 990: Intermission - Day in the life of *Rose* (2)

    ?

    Before Rose fell to the ground, she was able to grab the desk and stabilize herself.

    But it was as fact that her legs gave out from under her which made Belle immediately go forward as if she wanted to support her.

    Only she didn''t get to touch Rose as Rose dodged out of the way of Belle''s hands.

    There was a hurt look that appeared on Belle''s face when she saw this, but that look quickly disappeared as she said, "Miss Rose, you have to rest! You can''t keep going like this, you''ll copse at this rate!"

    Rose revealed a bitter smile when she heard this, but she didn''t refuse as she reached her hand out towards Belle.

    Belle was surprised at first, but then she quickly understood what Rose was asking her for and her eyes lit up.

    She went forward to take Rose''s hand and helped her over to the chair.

    Though she held Rose''s hand, she was also careful not to touch Rose''s body since that was what had made her dodge earlier.

    Holding Rose''s hand like this, she was able to get her to sit down in the chair once more. However, Belle didn''t leave matters as they were as she said, "Miss Rose, you should rest."

    She said it in a firm voice like she wasn''t to be argued with.

    Rose just gave a simple nod before saying, "I''ll just sit here and take care of these things." She pointed at the stack of paper on the desk when she said this.

    Belle shook her head and said, "No, you have to rest properly. You can''t force yourself like this."

    Once Rose was sitting, she raised her hand to stop Belle before narrowing her eyes to say in a serious voice, "I''m in the castle where people can help me if something happens. It doesn''t matter if I take care of these documents. Also, I can''t leave since there might be something thates up."

    Belle bit her lip and wanted to steel her heart, but she couldn''t do it when she saw the way that Rose looked at her.

    Though...there was a part of her that felt a bit weak in the knees when she saw her idol looking at her like this... That was a part of her that she would never say out loud or else she was certain that she would receive strange looks.

    After looking at Rose for a bit, Belle finally said, "Please take care of yourself."

    Rose''s serious look melted into a smile that made Belle''s heart skip a beat before she said, "I''ll be fine. Go and take care of your own things."

    Belle looked hesitant at first, but then Rose suddenly said, "Stop dawdling and go!"

    Belle was caught off guard when she heard this, but she could have sworn that Rose''s face was a bit red when she said this.

    In the end, she could only exit the office and leave Rose alone.

    Rose didn''t seem to react at first after Belle left, but after a minute of silence...she suddenly fell onto the desk in front of her. She couldn''t hold it together as her breathing started going faster and there was a strong blush that appeared on her face.

    As she heaved like this, her ample chest kept going up and down on the table, pushing her up and down as well.

    With the red face that she had and the traces of sweat on her face, the scene that she painted was quite something. If there was a man here, they certainly wouldn''t have been able to endure and would have attacked her.

    Perhaps even Belle might have attacked her if she was still here.

    That was why Rose would never show this side of her to anyone other than her man.

    "That bully, he keeps turning it on at the worst times..." Rose couldn''t help muttering to herself.

    The way that she said this waspletely different from the way that she had spoken earlier.

    She was a strict supervisor earlier, but now...she was speaking like a woman.

    After a minute of catching her breath like this, Rose''s hand couldn''t help moving down.

    She looked around first to make sure that there was no one around before bringing her hand in between her legs. However, she didn''t do anything as she just touched herself in between her legs as if she was making sure that there was something that was still there.

    When she did, there was a sudden buzzing that came from there that made Rose start to breathe heavy again.

    This was the cause of her strange actions earlier.

    When she had been in a daze, it was because she had been trying to control herself in front of her subordinate.

    When her legs gave out from under her, it was because she wasn''t used to the thing between her legs suddenly turning on.

    When she was breathing heavily just like now, it was because she just couldn''t control herself. "That man...he really is asking for it." Rose muttered to herself as she breathed heavily.

    The look in her eyes was as if she was nning on doing something.

    The thing that was in between her legs was the vibrator that her husband had brought out this morning at breakfast and had insisted that she put in between her legs.

    Rose had no idea what he was nning at first, but aftering to her office, she knew exactly what his n was. That was because the moment that she arrived, it suddenly started to vibrate while it was still inside of her.

    That had almost caused her to fall when she had been in the doorway.

    Though she was a bit surprised that he had timed it perfectly to surprise her like this.

    Once the vibrating had stopped, she muttered to herself, "If it wasn''t for him telling me to stay in public all day..."n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    Then in a more seductive voice, she said, "I''m going to teach him a lesson tonight."

 Chapter 991: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (1)

    Chapter 991: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (1)

    ?

    "Boss, there''s another order here."

    The door to Haley''s office opened when this voice rang out and there were several people that came in with stacks of papers in their hands.

    They were surprised to see Haley just seemingly staring off into space, but the one that led this group of people holding papers said, "Boss, you can''t just ck off because there''s a big dealing. It just means that there''s a lot of things that we have to prepare before that big deal happens."

    Haley seemed to snap out of her daze when she heard what he said before saying, "I''m not cking off, I''m just thinking about something."

    After saying this, she stood up and moved towards the group that had brought the stack of papers in.

    Looking at the stack of papers for a bit, she asked, "Kevin, why are there some orders missing?"

    The one that she was talking to was the leader of this group, he was the one that had been with her since her first store. He had climbed his way up over the years and currently he was the manager of the store that she was in.

    Shaking his head, Kevin said with a sigh, "Everyone can sense what ising, so there are less people buying. They are all waiting for the dust to settle before they make amitment."

    Haley didn''t me him as she just nodded in agreement.

    But after looking at the stack of papers for a bit, she said, "They''ll regret it when the timees...eep!"

    "Huh?" All of the people who were carrying stacks of paper looked at Haley in shock when they heard this sound.

    However, Haley had already made her face go nk and acted as if nothing happened.

    With how it seemed like nothing had changed, they couldn''t help feeling that they had heard wrong.

    After all, it didn''t seem like anything happened...

    But it was hard for them to forget the sound that they just heard.

    It really seemed like Haley had made a sound just now...

    In the end, it was Kevin who said, "Do you want to go and take a look at the store now?"

    He knew what she was thinking since he had worked with her for so long.

    He knew better than these staff members that had only been working here for a while that the sound that they heard earlier wasn''t false. They had indeed heard this sound from Haley.

    Though the reason why she made that sound... he had no idea.

    It wasn''t his ce to ask about it, he just had to do his job.

    But Kevin was surprised to find that Haley didn''t agree right away.

    Instead of agreeing right away like she normally did, she just stood there in silence as if she was thinking about something. And since the boss didn''t say anything, it wasn''t as if anyone else dared to say anything.

    There was this awkward silence that filled the air.

    Or there would have been this awkward silence if not for...

    "Bzzt..."

    It was very faint, but it sounded like there was something that was vibrating...

    They didn''t know where it wasing from since it was too faint to tell where the source of it was, but they could hear this thing vibrating.

    It was only when that vibrating sound stopped that Haley said, "Alright, let''s go and take a look."

    Everyone had strange looks on their faces when they heard this since they could tell that Haley only spoke when this strange vibrating sound stopped. It was almost as if Haley had something to do with this vibrating sound.

    But no one dared to say a thing since she was their boss in the end.

    At the same time, Kevin had already shot a re at them to keep them silent.

    He didn''t know what was happening either, but he knew that this was a private matter for Haley. After all, this was something that she and her husband were doing...

    He knew all about the strange things that they liked to do since he had been the one that had been left in charge of getting things for Haley...such as certain outfits for the bedroom.

    So he didn''t question it and just did his job.

    As for the other staff members, they should do the same thing.

    Haley walked slowly as if she was thinking about something, but Kevin who was familiar with her could tell that she was walking slowly not because she was lost in thought. Rather, she was walking slowly because it seemed like there was something happening with her legs... Regardless of what it was, it wasn''t his ce to talk about it.

    Their group came out to the front of the store.

    Though Haley had said that business was down, it really didn''t seem like it with how popr this store was.

    This was the new store that they had opened up in the capital recently.

    With the promotions and the reputation that Haley had, it was impossible for their opening to beckluster. There were so many people that it was impossible to find any free space in the

    store.

    But most of these people seemed like they weremoners.

    It didn''t seem like there were any nobles among them.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    That was because the nobles disdained lining up and crowding in the store like this.

    That was what the stack of papers that Kevin and the other staff members brought in were.

    These were the orders from the nobles that they would need to fulfill.

    However, that didn''t mean that there weren''t any nobles at all.

    There were still nobles that came and the reason for that was...

    "Miss Haley, it really is a lovely day. I thought that I wouldn''t have the chance to see your beautiful face."

    A smiling chubby middle aged man walked over with two guards by his side.

    There were nobles like this that tried to get any advantage that they could.

 Chapter 992: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (2)

    Chapter 992: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (2)

    ?

    This noble was one of the barons of the capital, one of those that had distinguished himself in the war against the four kingdoms.

    So he received this baron title when the war was over and resided in the capital since he was still a knight.

    But after being a noble for a while, this once brave knight had beenpletely corrupted by the lifestyle of the nobles.

    As shown by how his figure hadpletely changed.

    Once he had a six pack...now he only had a single pack.

    But it wasn''t just his lifestyle that had changed, it was also his greed that had been stoked.

    As such, this baron was now even eyeing one of the queens.

    As soon as he hadid his eyes on Haley, he had immediately fallen in love with her.

    At the same time, there was the idea that as long as he was able to convince her to cheat with him, then it would be possible for him to climb. Having one of the queens as his backer and lover was no doubt the best way to climb thedder of nobility.

    That was why this baron was here even though this store was filled withmoners.

    Though the look in his eyes...it was as if he couldn''t see himself failing.

    Perhaps that might have been true once upon a time when he was still an active knight, but now that he had fallen to the vices of being a noble...

    It was hard to call him handsome anymore.

    His once long flowing hair had almostpletely fallen out on top, so there was now an empty dome where his hair had been. He had be the perfect example of a balding middle aged man.

    His clothes might be expensive, but he was wearing clothes that were big enough to be considered a poncho.

    So there was nothing about him that seemed attractive at all.

    But that didn''t stop him from feeling confident in himself since he had once been regarded as a dream lover by many women.

    That was why he was confident that he would be able to win over Haley''s heart.

    Especially when the king was greedy enough to leave behind such a beautiful woman to run a store on her own. It was clear that he was just using her for her money and didn''t love her at all.

    That would make it easy for this baron to win her heart.

    When Haley heard this voice though, there was a disgusted look that appeared in her eyes. Even if she didn''t show it on her face, it was clear that she didn''t want to talk to this person. She even looked at Kevin as if she wanted him to deal with this person instead, but he just shook his head.

    It wasn''t that this baron had a high status, it was just that they couldn''t ignore the nobles at a time like this.

    If they were going to ignore the nobles, it might be hard for their business since the nobles would be looking for benefits. They would be trying to save their money for when whatever was about to happen was over.

    While they didn''t know it was an invasion, it was impossible for the nobles to miss that something was happening in the kingdom.

    That was why there were less orders.

    There would have been even fewer orders if not for the reputation that they had already built.

    So at this time, they couldn''t just ignore the nobles.

    Since Kevin wasn''t willing to help him, Haley had no choice but to turn to the baron and say with a smile, "Sir Baron, it''s an honour to have you grace our business. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

    "Of course it''s to see you, Miss Haley." The baron said with a wide smile, but that smile on his face actually made him look uglier since he was quite ugly to begin with.

    It sent a chill down Haley''s spine, though she was able to hide it in the end.

    By all right, a lowly noble like this baron shouldn''t have the right to call Haley ''Miss Haley'', he should have called her your majesty. However, Haley allowed the visitors of her store to address her like this.

    This was one of the rules that had been put in her store and she made sure to enforce it since she didn''t want to disconnect from the people.

    That was whymoners liked shopping here.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    It was also why nobles liked shopping here since this was one of the only ces where they could address one of the queen''s casually. It was also one of the few ces where they would have a chance to contact the royal family freely.

    So it was not only a ce to gather rtionships, but also information from the royal family.

    Haley forced herself to stay calm.

    It was a good thing that the thing in between her legs had stopped during this time.

    That was because there was someone else who was suffering in her ce.

    This person''s legs had suddenly gone out from under them in front of her trusted

    subordinate.

    Once she calmed herself, Haley said to the baron, "Sir Baron, if there''s nothing else, I still have some other things to take care of. So if you will excuse me..."

    Before she could turn to leave, the baron suddenly came forward and raised his hand to wag a finger in front of her before saying, "Che, che, it''s not that simple Miss Haley. I have some important business that I have to discuss with you today."

    Then in a lower voice, he said, "Of course, I hope that I will be able to discuss this important business in private."

    Haley didn''t seem like she wanted to, but she eventually nodded in agreement and started heading to the back.

    But as they were heading into the back, her face turned a bit red and she suddenly went...

    "Ah..."

 Chapter 993: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (3)

    Chapter 993: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (3)

    ?

    Everyone suddenly stopped and looked at Haley.

    This time, she wasn''t able to hide it as her face was still red.

    Kevin was the one that came forward to ask, "Miss, are you alright?"

    Haley didn''t answer at first as she took a moment to adjust herself before saying, "I''m fine. My leg just cramped a bit."

    Kevin raised a brow as if he didn''t believe this, but since they were in front of outsiders, he didn''t question it in the end. He just gave a simple nod before taking the lead from Haley and leading the way to the back.

    On the side, the baron''s eyes lit up.

    After all, he thought that this was a sign that he was about to seed.

    He thought that Haley was reacting like this because of him.

    There was a smile that appeared on the baron''s face as he watched her walking in front of him. The way that her hips swayed as she walked, he couldn''t help being entranced to the point that he didn''t even notice that they had arrived.

    This was a room in the back of the store that was used for making deals with people, so there were two couches and a table in the room.

    Once they were in the room, both Haley and the baron sat down, but there were others that were in the room as well to the baron''s displeasure.

    Haley didn''t care about how the baron felt and just calmly asked, "Sir Baron, what is it that you have to discuss with me?"

    She didn''t even bother serving tea or any other pleasantries, showing that she wanted to get him out of here as soon as possible. It was clear that Haley didn''t want him to remain here for a single second longer.

    However, the baron didn''t seem to care about any of this.

    Instead, the baron turned his attention to something else.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at Kevin and the other two staff members that were also in the room before saying, "Miss Haley, I thought that we would have a chance to talk in private. I never thought that you would bring all these people in with you."

    Haley naturally wouldn''t get in a room with this baron alone, so she just said, "They are my assistants. They are here to provide assistance if there''s anything that we need, so you don''t need to mind them."

    The baron still looked displeased, but there was nothing that he could say since this wasn''t his territory in the first ce. Even if he wanted to say something, it would all depend on the owner of this ce and the owner of this ce had already spoken.

    So instead, the baron just took a moment to calm himself before saying, "I''ve heard that there were some things that were about to happen, which is why all those fools are making their moves."

    There was a sly look that appeared on his face that made Haley want to directly punch him in the face when she saw it, but she was able to hold herself back from doing so.

    With a stiff smile, Haley said, "I have no idea what you mean."

    The baron wasn''t surprised to hear this, but it also confirmed that there was indeed something happening. The reason that he had said what he said before was to test Haley to see if he could get any information from her.

    But it didn''t give him enough information, so he wanted to keep going.

    "Miss Haley, I want to say that I''m quite the connected person. If there''s anyone to work with, I would be the best choice." He gave his best smile when he said this, but that just made Haley feel disgusted when she saw it.

    However, she kept her calm as she said, "There''s no need for that right now."

    "Hmm." The baron said in a thoughtful voice before saying, "Then in the future, there''s a chance to cooperate deeper?"

    Haley narrowed her eyes to look at him, but she eventually gave a nod.

    While she was disgusted by the person, she didn''t deny the fact that he might have his uses. After all, this baron was someone that was quite connected when it came to other nobles.

    The baron''s eyes lit up when he heard this before he looked at Kevin and the other staff before saying, "I think that you should leave now. There''s something private that I want to discuss with Miss Haley."

    Kevin knitted his brows when he heard this, but he didn''t get to say a thing as Haley suddenly stood up.

    She didn''t seem to care about the way that the baron looked, so she just simply walked towards the door and said, "I''ll leave you with Kevin for now. He''s my trusted assistant, so if there''s anything that you want, you can talk to him about it."

    The baron deeply knitted his brows when he heard this, but Haley didn''t seem to care at all about this.

    Instead, Kevin was the one that took the lead by sitting down where Haley had been sitting before.

    When he sat down, he couldn''t help feeling that the seat was a bit moist...

    It was strange since Haley had been sitting here just now, so there should be no reason that it was moist like this...

    When Kevin was distracted by this, the baron suddenly made his move.

    He reached his hand out and grabbed Haley''s wrist as he said, "I don''t think we''re done here. I

    want to talk to you alone and no one else, so please sit back down."

    Haley didn''t say anything as her face suddenly turned red.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Her legs seemed to shake a bit as her face turned red like this.

    She couldn''t help herself as she suddenly raised her hand to cover her mouth, as if she was holding something back.

    The baron was shocked to see this, but it didn''t take long before a smile appeared on his face.

 Chapter 994: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (4)

    Chapter 994: Intermission - Day in the life of *Haley* (4)

    ?

    With that smile on his face, the baron suddenly pulled on Haley''s hand which made her move a bit closer to him.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    After pulling her closer, the baron said, "Miss Haley, if you wanted such a thing, you didn''t need to y like this. I''m more than willing to go along if that''s what you want."

    As he said this, the baron looked closely at Haley''s face and his smile became wider.

    When he grabbed her hand, her face had turned even more red and it seemed like she was breathing heavily.

    The baron never thought that a simple move like this would have this kind of effect.

    It made him remember the days when he was still a handsome young knight and there were many girls who followed him all day. Of course, it had been a long time since this had

    happened, so he was happy to see it happen today.

    It seemed like he hadn''t lost his touch.

    Even though it had been a long time since any women had reacted like this to him. Filled with confidence, the baron raised his hand as if he was about to touch Haley''s chest. When Kevin and the other subordinates saw this, they knew that something was wrong, so they went forward as if they were about to stop him. It was just that the guards of the baron went forward as well to stop them.

    They could see what the baron was nning to do and if the baron was sessful, there was no doubt that it would be good for them as well since it would increase his influence.

    In that case, it was best if they helped him.

    So the two guards went forward to stop Kevin and the staff members from approaching.

    These guards were soldiers that had once served under the baron when he was a knight, so they hadbat experience.

    It wasn''t possible for Kevin and the staff members to get past them quickly.

    The baron didn''t seem to care about any of this as his hand greedily reached out for Haley''s chest while a lewd smile appeared on his face.

    But before he could reach her, Haley suddenly brought her other hand down to grab the hand that had been reaching for her. This was the hand that had been covering her mouth, so her face could be seen clearly now.

    The blush, the slight trace of drool on the side of her lip, and the soft panting...

    All of this really stirred the baron''s heart and he felt like he couldn''t control himself anymore.

    Still, he said with a smile, "Miss Haley, if you want to do something like that, I don''t think that this is the appropriate ce. I think that we should send the rest of these people out..." Before he could finish his words, the baron found that he was flying through the air. He didn''t even understand what was happening as he was suddenly lifted off the couch. Even his field of view had been changed so that he was seeing everything upside down. When hended, he was shocked to find that he had mmed into the table. At the same time, this table wasn''t able to hold out under his weight and copsed because of the baron mming down on it.

    When it was over, the table had been shattered and the baron was justying there in a pile of wooden scraps.

    Haley was standing over him with a cold look on her face, though it was still a bit red from before.

    After throwing the baron, everyone in the room suddenly froze as they looked at her in shock. The silence was broken when Haley said, "What do you think you''re doing?"

    Of course, these words weren''t for the baron, but rather for Kevin.

    When he heard this, he snapped out of his daze and went out to call for the guards.

    In less than two minutes, there were armed guards that suddenly came into the room and surrounded the baron and his guards.

    When they had these swords in their faces, the baron and his guards had no choice but to surrender.

    However, the baron didn''t seem convinced as he said, "Miss Haley, this was the beginning of our beautiful rtionship, what is the meaning of this?"

    Haley looked disgusted when she heard this before saying, "Daring to touch the woman of the king, he really has no shame. Take him away and try him on the crime of treason."

    The guards didn''t hesitate to bring the baron and his guards out, but during that time, the baron kept shouting about how he would rise in power by winning her favour. He even dered his love for her like it would change anything.

    That just caused the guards to stuff a cloth in his mouth to gag him.

    When they were taken away, Kevin looked at Haley with a strange look before asking, "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

    Haley looked at him and simply shook her head without saying anything.

    Kevin shook his head and said with a sigh, "If you two want to do things, do it in your bedroom. Stop doing things like this in public or else you''ll be putting yourself in danger."

    Without even waiting for a response from her, he walked out.

    Perhaps he was the only one that could say this without facing Haley''s wrath since he had followed her for so long.

    Haley pouted her lips, but she didn''t chase after him or say anything in response.

    She just said to herself, "He''s the one that wanted me toe out in public and he''s the one that wanted to do this."

    If it wasn''t for the self defense training that she had done with Cecilia, she really didn''t know what would have happened today.

    But right now, there was this burning feeling that surpassed all of that...it wasing from between her legs...

    She would make him pay tonight.

 Chapter 995: Intermission - Day in the life of *Cecilia* (1)

    Chapter 995: Intermission - Day in the life of *Cecilia* (1)

    ?

    "Is that all that you have!"

    This was the shouting that came from behind Cecilia as she participated in the royal guards'' regr training.

    It was just that she was much more sluggishpared to normal.

    Even though she tried her best, it seemed like there was something that made her move much more sluggish than usual.

    So Klein had no choice but to push her even though she should technically be above him as one of the queens.

    Though he never really had this problem before since she had always been able to keep up with them when they trained. In fact, she was one of the top performers in their training, which was why he had never worried about her before.

    But today...

    It seemed like there was something that was making her move much more slowly than usual.

    At the same time, it seemed like she was covering up much more than usual.

    When the run was finally over, Klein gave everyone some time to rest as he talked to Cecilia alone.

    Looking at how much she covered herself up, he couldn''t help asking, "Is something wrong? Do you have a cold? Is that why you''re covering yourself up so much?"

    Cecilia didn''t say anything in response to this which made Klein knit his brows, but then he said, "If you''re sick, then you should just take the rest of the day off."

    The way that he said this wasn''t as if he was suggesting it, but rather it was almost as if he was ordering her to go since it was clear that she wasn''t able to keep up. If she were to stay, all that would happen is that she would be a disturbance to the others.

    So it was better if she let right now instead of staying to train with them.

    But in the end, Cecilia said, "I''m fine."

    Klein raised a brow to show that he was surprised that she was so insistent even though he gave an order, but he didn''t get to say anything else.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    That was because there was someone who suddenly appeared that created amotion.

    Hearing thismotion, the two of them turned to see that the royal guards were all gathered around even though they should have been on break.

    Looking past the crowd, they saw the person that caused thismotion.

    "Your majesty!" Klein said when he saw this person.

    Cecilia''s only reaction was a bitter smile, but that bitterness in her smile quickly disappeared as she came over with Klein.

    Aftering over, Klein asked, "Your majesty, why are you here?"

    I just calmly said with a smile, "I''m here for somest minute inspections before the invasion. I hope that you will show me that you are all prepared for what is about toe."

    A serious look immediately appeared on Klein''s face when he heard this before he gave a simple nod and turned to the royal guards.

    All of them immediately stood at attention upon seeing this, including Cecilia.

    Though she did sneak a peek at me as she walked by.

    I just looked back at her with a smile, but I could see the trace of fear that was in her eyes.

    Of course, I didn''t do anything while she was still like this.

    There were plenty of other opportunities.

    After getting them all to stand at attention, Klein suddenly said, "Let''s begin our drills!"

    At that, all of the royal guards suddenly picked up their weapons and lined up in front of a row of dummies.

    The weapons that they picked up were all strange looking weapons.

    They weren''t the normal swords andnces that one might expect, rather they were strange weapons that had a round blunt head at the end.

    They weren''t purple, but rather they were carved out of wood.

    These were practice dildo bats that had been made by the dwarves that were simr to the real dildo bats that I gave them, but the difference was that they didn''t have the same destructiveness as the real dildo bats.

    That was the reason they were used for practice.

    After all, the real dildo bats had the prating effect which would ruin the dummies that they trained with.

    So they had no choice but to get these wooden practice dildo bats made.

    With these wooden practice dildo bats, they were able to get a better grasp of how to swing them. It seemed like they hade far from when they just swung the bats around like swords.

    They actually looked like they knew how to use these dildo bats...though it was still strange seeing a bunch of knights wielding dildo bats even if they did know how to use them.

    However, this wasn''t what I was actually here for.

    After watching them swing those bats at the dummies for a bit, I said, "It seems like you''ve learned how to use the weapons that I''ve given you."

    Klein said with an affirmative nod, "We worked hard to master the weapons that you gave us..." Then shaking his head, he said, "Though it will still take some time to use them properly as a group."

    After saying this, he turned back to the royal guards and was about to give another order, but he didn''t get to give that order in the end.

    "I want to see them spar with each other for a bit." I suddenly spoke.

    Klein was caught off guard hearing this and he slowly turned back to look at me as if he was trying to figure out what I was nning, but it didn''t seem like he was able to see through me as he looked at me with a confused look.

    After a while, he said, "Why?"

    I just calmly said, "I want to see how well they''ve adapted with the dildo bats and the best way is to test it on a human, right?"

    Klein narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he was trying to see through me again, but I just calmly looked back at him with a smile on my face.

    In the end, he had no choice but to follow this suggestion.

    While he was giving his orders, I turned to look at Cecilia with a smile on my face.

 Chapter 996: Intermission - Day in the life of *Cecilia* (2)

    Chapter 996: Intermission - Day in the life of *Cecilia* (2)

    ?

    Once Klein had finished giving his orders, everyone paired up with each other to spar.

    There were some that were sparring in groups and there were some that were sparring in pairs.

    It seemed like Klein wanted to show me everything that they were capable of.

    As expected of the reliable captain of the royal guards.

    It was just that I wasn''t here to watch this kind of thing in the first ce.

    The reason that I hade was simply because of Cecilia.

    So while Klein had organized all of the others to spar with each other, I didn''t really pay any attention to how their sparring was going. Rather, my attention waspletely on Cecilia and the one that she was sparring with.

    The one that Klein organized to spar with Cecilia was one of the female knights that I didn''t know the names of.

    There were many members of the royal guards, so it wasn''t as if I would know all the names of the royal guards in the first ce.

    After they had been arranged to spar, the two of them got in position and faced each other with their weapons raised in front of them.

    It seemed like the two of them were quite evenly matched with the way that they went blow for blow.

    With the way that they were swinging the wooden dildo bats, it seemed that they had worked hard to master the way of fighting with it. At the same time, Cecilia seemed like she was much stronger than before in terms of physical power.

    It seemed that training with the royal guards had really helped her be stronger.

    Only...this wasn''t the reason why I was here.

    After watching them for a bit, I suddenly put my hand in my pocket and used my thumb to turn something on.

    As soon as this button was turned, there was an immediate reaction from Cecilia.

    When she was about to sh with the wooden dildo bat of the female knight she was facing, her foot suddenly stumbled and she wasn''t able to withstand the swing that came at her.

    With her foot slipping like this, her stance was broken and she was pushed back by the wooden dildo bat that was swung at her.

    But in the end, she was able to regain her footing without a problem because of her training. Regaining her footing had allowed her to withstand the attack that came at her, but it still put her in a bad position.

    The female knight that she was facing waspletely caught off guard by the fact that Cecilia''s foot had slipped like this and she stopped attacking since she wasn''t sure if she should continue.

    Cecilia was about to continue the spar, but she didn''t get a chance to do so since...

    Everyone''s attention had been drawn by her sudden slip up like this, they stopped their own fights as they looked in her direction to see what had happened.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    But that gave them a sight thatpletely caught them off guard.

    That was because...Cecilia''s chest had started to shake.

    She had been wearing tight clothes today, but that wasn''t enough to hold them in as they started bouncing up and down.

    It seemed like it was bouncing up and down on its own, it didn''t seem like she was doing anything that caused them to bounce up and down like this.

    Cecilia was shocked by her own chest bouncing like this before quickly reaching her hands out to grab her chest to stop them. It was just that they were shaking a bit too much for her to stop thempletely.

    All of the men who saw this had their chins drop and they couldn''t believe what they were seeing.

    But that wasn''t the end of it.

    As her chest bounced up and down like this, Cecilia''s face even started turning red and she started breathing a bit more heavily.

    With her beautiful looks, there were many people that were immediately enticed by this. Even some of the female knights couldn''t help being enticed by Cecilia''s appearance. Though they all looked away quickly when they remembered who was here.

    If they were to look at Cecilia like this in the presence of that person, there was no doubt that they would be punished.

    So after taking onest peek, everyone quickly turned away and pretended like they didn''t see a thing.

    It was only when thest pair of eyes turned away that the bouncing finally stopped. Cecilia''s face was still red and she was still breathing hard, but she was at least able to start calming down.

    Or at least that was what she thought was going to happen, but then her face turned red again and she started breathing heavily once more.

    This time, it seemed like there was something in between her legs as her legs started to

    tremble.

    The female knight that she was sparring with was at aplete loss on what to do, so the only thing that she could do was turn away even though they were sparring.

    In a real spar, turning away from the enemy was the best way to lose that fight.

    But in this situation, that female knight really had no choice but to look away.

    In the end, Cecilia''s torture stopped when someone suddenly gave a cough from behind me.

    I turned to see Klein standing there with a disappointed look on his face. Looking at me with this disappointed look, he said, "Your majesty, if you''re just here to y around, can you please leave? We''re still making our preparations for the invasion."

    I had an awkward smile on my face when I heard this as I couldn''t figure out how he had figured out it was me doing all of this.

    But I had seen what I wanted to see, so Iplied and turned the knob on the remote to turn it off.

    As I was leaving, Klein said in a softer voice, "Your majesty, please keep such things in the bedroom. You really are making it hard for them..."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I heard this, but I didn''t say anything

    in response.

 Chapter 997: Lining up

    Chapter 997: Lining up

    ?

    When night fell, I was waiting in our room in the castle for my wives toe back.

    I had to admit that I had quite a bit of fun teasing them during the day. It waspletely different from how it was usually where I would be the one on the receiving end.

    However, I knew that pushing them like this would have its consequences.

    While they were willing to go along with me, that didn''t mean that they would be able to keep acting forever. It was impossible for them to change the way that they originally were.

    So once the act was over, I would get my just desserts.

    But before that...

    "Creak."

    The sound of the door opening rang out and I turned to see my wives walking in.

    All seven of them had strange looks on their faces.

    It seemed like they were calm as they approached me, but there was this strange chill that ran down my back. At the same time, when I looked closely into their eyes, it almost seemed like there was this strange me that was burning in them.

    It was as if...they were driven by something and I was the target of that drive.

    As they approached, the chill that ran down my spine became stronger and stronger.

    There was a strong feeling of wanting to get out of there, but I held myself back in the end and just waited to see what they were nning to do.

    Once they came over, they didn''t surround me like I thought they would.

    Instead, they actually lined up in front of me like I told them to do this morning.

    My instructions for them were to put in the vibrators that I gave them and then spend the entire day in public. I had made sure to emphasize that they were to stay in public for as long as possible, but they could go to private ces if they couldn''t stay in public.

    So they should have been spending quite a bit of time in public with those vibrators in them.

    Not to mention that I had been turning them on from time to time, which would make it even worse.

    Though in the end, it seemed that several people that were close to us were able to figure out what was happening. I had even been warned by Klein about doing this kind of thing.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    After they finished lining up in front of me, I waited to see what they would do, but it didn''t seem like they would do anything. They just stood there in front of me as if they were waiting for me to say something.

    There was a long silence that lingered in the air before I gave a gulp and said, "Well, let''s see how it went."

    As soon as they heard this, all of them started taking off their clothes.

    They didn''t seem hesitant at all about taking off their clothes, they even seemed like they were in a rush to take them off.

    I could see that the fire that was burning in their eyes seemed to have be stronger as they were taking off their clothes. It was as if taking off these clothes had actually incited them.

    I was even more shocked to find...

    They werepletely drenched.

    When they took off their clothes, I was shocked to find just how drenched their legs were. It was as if they had been dripping the entire time and now their legs were justpletely soaked.

    It was amazing that they didn''t leave a trail of liquid behind them with how much they were dripping.

    But I had to admire my work as I looked at them.

    I had put vibrators inside all of them, but there were a few that I had customized.

    Rose wasn''t as daring when it came to this, so I just put a single one in her.

    Haley was more daring, so I put one inside of her pussy and one inside of her ass.

    As for the masochist Cecilia...

    She was covered in them.

    There was a reason why her chest had started shaking earlier, that was all because she had two vibrators that were taped to her chest.

    It was also the reason that she had worn those tight clothes in the first ce, or else she wouldn''t have been able to hide the ones that were taped to her chest.

    In her pussy and ass were two vibrators each.

    She really didn''t hold back at all when it came to letting me torture her.

    There was no one that took as many vibrators as her.

    But this also created a very beautiful scene that I had only seen in AVS in my past life.

    The scene of a womanpletely covered in vibrators really wasn''t something that could be seen often. It was such a rare scene that I had no choice but to take a second look at her.

    In the end though, I went over to Rose and reached down in between her legs.

    She didn''t move at all as I reached into her pussy and pulled the vibrator out, though I could hear a soft moaning from her the moment that it came out of her.

    I didn''t say anything as I tossed the wet vibrator to the side and moved to the next one.

    One by one, I pulled the vibrator out of each of them and they all moaned the moment that I pulled them out.

    Though in Cecilia''s case, she did more than just a little moaning.

    Since she had more than everyone else, it actually took a while to take everything off.

    The one that was the hardest were the ones that were taped to her nipples since the tape had dried and it was hard to peel it off.

    For a masochist like her, this was the perfect kind of pleasure.

    Once I had finished taking out all the vibrators, I moved back over to the bed and sat down

    before saying with a smile, "Well, I think that was a good appetizer. Shall we move onto the main dish?"

    But...Rose suddenly said, "We''re not done yet."

 Chapter 998: Your turn

    Chapter 998: Your turn

    ?

    I was caught off guard when she said this, but I just looked at her as if I was waiting to see what she would say.

    Rose went over to one of the vibrators that had been dropped on the floor and picked it up beforeing over to me. Then she reached her hand out as if she was waiting for me to give her something.

    I was confused at first, but I eventually pulled out the remote for this one vibrator and put it in her hand.

    I didn''t know what she was nning to do with this, but I was certainly interested to see.

    That was my mistake...

    Rose looked at me in silence for a bit before raising the vibrator in front of her and calmly saying, "Now it''s your turn."

    I looked at her with a confused look on my face as if I didn''t understand the words that wereing out of her mouth.

    That was simply because I really didn''t understand what she was saying.

    It wasn''t that I didn''t understand the individual words that came out of her mouth, I was still able to recognize those words since I had an understanding of thenguage. It was just that when she put these words together, I had no idea what she was talking about.

    What did she mean by my ''turn''?

    With a gulp, I asked, "What are you nning on doing?"

    A faint smile appeared on Rose''s lips as she asked, "What do you think I mean by that?"

    I couldn''t help giving another gulp after hearing this.

    She couldn''t have made it more clear what she was nning to do by saying this and that sent a chill down my spine.

    "What, why are you doing this?" I stuttered out.

    Rose just looked at me with the same smile on her face as she said, "Well, we got to experience how this thing feels. It feels like it would be a pity if you didn''t get to experience how it feels."

    After she said this, my other wives also came forward after grabbing a few vibrators for themselves. They walked up andpletely surrounded me, as if they weren''t nning on letting me escape.

    "Oh crap." That was the only thing that passed through my mind when I saw them all surround me like this.

    But I kept a calm look on my face as I said, "Is there a need for that? I made these things for your pleasure, so it isn''t right if I use it for myself."

    "That''s not a problem, wepletely agree with you using it." Ang suddenly said to the nods of the other wives.

    It seemed that they weren''t nning on letting me get away no matter what I said...

    I really didn''t know what to say in response to this.

    While I was still dazed like this, all of them raised their hands as if they were waiting for something from me.

    I just looked at them reaching their hands out towards me like this with a bitter smile on my face.

    In the end, I had no choice but to pull out the other remotes and hand them over to them. After taking the remotes, they first tested out the remotes to see how they worked before looking back at me with a look on their face as if they were waiting for something from me. There was a silence that lingered in the air before Rose said, "It''s time for you to take off your clothes as well. It''s only fair that you take off your clothes as well."

    All of them nodded in agreement to this.

    A wry smile appeared on my lips when I saw the way that they were looking at me.

    With them surrounding me like this, if the genders were reversed, this really would have been a very dangerous scene.

    Though it wasn''t any less dangerous with the way that they looked at me...

    It seemed like they weren''t nning on stopping.

    In front of their intense gazes, I had no choice but to take off my clothes.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Giving this kind of striptease to my wives really was a strange feeling, but they were my wives after all.

    When I was naked, all of them suddenly came forward and pushed me down on the bed.

    There was a look of protest that was on my face, but it didn''t seem like they cared at all as they grabbed my arms and legs. They pulled my arms and legs so that I was spread out across the bed.

    Then with the clothes that I had taken off, they tied me so that I wasn''t able to move at all.

    Only when I was like this did theye all around me with the vibrators in hand.

    The smiles on their faces were as if they were about to do something bad.

    Then without waiting for a response from me, they brought their vibrators forward.

    I was right to be worried.

    There were two vibrators that were ced on my nipples and there were two vibrators that were pressed up against my dick. That was the first wave that they used against me.

    It seemed as if they were testing how they could use these vibrators with how they slowly using them against me.

    But the stimtion that came from having these vibrators in these sensitive parts was hard to resist. Especially since I had never had these kinds of vibrators used on me before.

    I couldn''t hold back as they kept stimting me like this until I finally came. When I shot my load, I couldn''t say a thing as they had also gagged me with my clothes.

    So the only warning that they received was a twitch from my dick before my load was shot upwards and sprayed all over them. They had been teasing me with the vibrators, so they were right up against my dick when I came.

    When it was over, my wives were covered in my cum.

    But it didn''t seem like they were displeased with this as they started licking the cum off each

    other.

    When it was over, Rose looked at me with an evil smile before reaching out as if she was going to turn me around.

    "Let''s see how it feels if it goes inside of you."

    My eyes opened up wide in fear, but then they quickly filled with a strange look as something

    was inserted.

 Chapter 999: Dots in the sky (1)

    Chapter 999: Dots in the sky (1)

    ?

    "Where''s that damn maid!" A voice suddenly roared out through the empty room. After this voice roared out, there was a woman in a maid dress that came forward.

    When she came forward, she had a fearful look on her face. However, she still respectfully went over to the side of the one who called for her and said, "Your majesty, do you have anymands?"

    The one she called ''your majesty'' looked at her and said, "You arete."

    The maid trembled the moment that she heard this and she lowered her head, but she didn''t dare say anything.

    The king just looked at her for a bit before saying, "Bring in the next one, I''m tired of this one already. Go and arrange for this one to be sent out. It will be dealt with the same way as usual."

    The maid trembled when she heard this, but she quickly said with a nod, "Yes, your majesty." The king that said this didn''t seem to care at all about her reaction as he put on his clothes and started walking out of the room. But as he passed by her, his eyes suddenly turned to look at her body which made the maid tremble in fear.

    In the end, he just turned away without saying a single thing as if his attention was taken by something else.

    The maid let out an internal sigh of relief as she slowly turned to look into the bedroom that the king hade out of.

    There was red that covered the bedroom.

    This was the red that could onlye from blood.

    At the same time, the way that the blood was scattered through the room was anything but normal. It was as if the blood had been thrown all over the room at an angle, like something had flicked it at that angle.

    There were also several tools that were ced on the wall that were dripping with blood. As for where this blood came from...

    There was a very ugly scene that was on the bed.

    There was a figure that was lying on the bed, but to call it a human was a bit too much at this point.

    It had already been abused to the point where there wasn''t a single trace of intact flesh on this ''person''. The eyes that could still be seen werepletely dim as if they were just waiting for death.

    The maid felt pity for this person, but that was the only thing that she felt.

    After all, she knew that if she were to do anything else, it would be her who would be on the bed next...

    The only thing that she could do was clean the room and prepare the next sacrifice. As well as praying that the next one chosen wouldn''t be her...

    After the king left the bedroom, the first thing that he did was head to the throne room. There was no care in his actions, it was as if he was just doing it because he had to do it.

    He didn''t even bother changing out of the clothes that he had been in and when he walked into the throne room, he gave a yawn without even bothering covering his mouth.

    He did all of this even though there were ministers and generals that were waiting for him to hold their morning court meeting.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The ministers and generals weren''t surprised to see the king acting this way since this was how he had always acted.

    In fact, many of them even wanted to see him act this way since it was easy for them to manipte him if he was like this.

    This was just how their Darius Kingdom was.

    The king had only taken the throne because the violent session war had wiped out the rest of the candidates. The subjects had gone too far and had pushed all of the other viable

    candidates to their death, which only left their current king to take over.

    The current king wasn''t even a member of the royal family to begin with.

    He was a forgotten member of a branch family that had engaged in his own vices in his territory, which was why he still engaged in these vices after bing the king.

    When he sat down on the throne, the king looked at the ministers and generals before waving his hand to say, "Discuss it amongst yourselves."

    As soon as he said this, he leaned back on his throne and even seemed like he was going to take a nap.

    None of the ministers and generals minded this since this was how it always was.

    The ministers and generals would discuss matters between themselves while the king just sat there and watched. The king didn''t really have any power, but he was a figurehead that kept them from ripping each other apart.

    He was the figurehead that kept the semnce of society in the Darius Kingdom.

    It didn''t take long before the ministers and generals started discussing the important matters of the Darius Kingdom amongst themselves.

    The king seemed like he waspletely bored until one topic was brought up.

    The monster waves.

    "There are several parts of the kingdom that are currently suffering from the monster waves. It seems that at this rate, we''ll lose at least 50% of the poption before we can subdue them." One of the ministers reported.

    All of the others revealed heavy looks when they heard this.

    Losing half their poption would be a disastrous blow to the Darius Kingdom, but they didn''t have any solutions to solve this problem.

    It wasn''t that they didn''t have the soldiers to deal with them, it was just that they didn''t want to risk their own soldiers for this matter.

    These soldiers were the power that they used to maintain their positions, so they didn''t want to lose them.

    As the room fell into a silence, the king suddenly said, "Do something about this, I don''t want to lose my toys!"

 Chapter 1000: Dots in the sky (2)

    Chapter 1000: Dots in the sky (2)

    ?

    The ministers and generals all had disappointed looks on their faces when they heard the king say this, but they didn''t say anything since they knew that this was the kind of king that they put on the throne.

    He was nothing more than their scapegoat.

    After thinking about it, one of the ministers suggested, "Your majesty, we should move the royal army to create blockades around the areas affected by the monster waves. That will minimize the damage and allow us to push back the monsters."

    All of the ministers and generals narrowed their eyes to look at the one that had made this suggestion.

    It was as if they were looking at a shrew with the way that they stared at them.

    That was because this was indeed the case.

    The royal army was still the army that was under the king.

    Even if they split the power of the country between them, they still needed this one royal army to scare off the other countries from attacking them.

    It was to give the feeling that they were unified, even if they were in a power struggle with each other.

    So if any of these ministers or generals wanted to move the royal army, they wouldn''t be able to move the entire army since they would be hindered by the others that were in this room. They would only be able to move a single part of the army and would be stopped if they tried to move the entire army.

    But that wasn''t the case for the king.

    If he moved the entire army, then it would be moved since he was still the king.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if they didn''t have their ways to stop him if they didn''t want it moved.

    In this case, it would be a good thing for the king to move the army to deal with the monster

    waves.

    The royal army was a shared power, so it wasn''t as if any of them would be personally affected if something happened to them. At the same time, the royal army was certainly much stronger than their private armies since it was the army that represented the might of their nation.

    So this would be the best tool to deal with those monsters.

    But the most important thing of all is that...the king would receive the me if anything went wrong.

    That was why they were all looking at that one minister who made the suggestion like he was a shrew.

    They all knew that this was his one goal.

    He was nning on letting the king act as their scapegoat in this matter.

    If the royal army failed in dealing with the monster waves, the king would be the one med by the people and the other lesser nobles. If anything were to happen, the king would be the one that would have to bear the consequences.

    At the same time, they would be able to raise their own reputations by sending out their troops to deal with the monsters once they had been weakened by the royal army.

    So there was nothing for them to lose in making this suggestion.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at the minister who made this suggestion, almost as if he was sizing this minister up.

    Only all of the ministers and generals knew that this wasn''t the case.

    "If I do this, will it keep those monsters away from my toys?"

    The minister gave a nod in response as he said, "Your majesty, this will ensure that all of your toys will be protected."

    The king gave a p and said with a smile, "Then let it be done."n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    He didn''t care about the country at all, he just cared about his own vices.

    As long as it was confirmed that his own interest would be protected, the king wouldn''t care about a single thing and agree to anything that they suggested to him.

    That was just the kind of king that he was.

    As soon as the king gave this order, the ministers quickly drafted up a decree for the king to sign.

    Before he could sign it though...

    "Your majesty! There''s somethinging!" There was a soldier that suddenly ran into the throne room.

    All of the ministers and generals red at this soldier when he came in since he had interrupted them right as they were about to get the king to send out the royal army, but they didn''t say anything as they waited for the soldier to speak.

    After all, there wasn''t a single soldier that didn''t know how important their morning court session was.

    Unless they had a death wish, they wouldn''t interrupt the court like this.

    So something must have happened for the soldier to act like this.

    The king had been about to sign, but he narrowed his eyes to look at the soldier before saying in an irritated voice, "What is it?"

    He thought that he would be able to go back and y with the new toy arranged for him since court was over, but now there was someone who was interrupting his pleasure time.

    So of course he was irritated that this soldier had interrupted them.

    The soldier had an awkward look in his eyes before saying with a serious expression, "Your majesty, there are these dots in the sky that are approaching the capital at high speeds. We don''t know what they are, but they seem to being right for the capital."

    "Dots in the sky?" The king repeated in a confused voice before suddenly roaring in anger, "Those are called birds, you idiot! Don''t bother me with simple things like this!"

    Though the king acted this way, the ministers and generals didn''t act the same.

    They knew that the soldiers that they trained weren''t fools, so they wouldn''t report such a simple matter...

    It seemed like they had to consider this more deeply.

    "Your majesty..." One of the ministers started to say, but they were interrupted by...

    "Boom!"

 Chapter 1001: Dots in the sky (3)

    Chapter 1001: Dots in the sky (3)

    ?

    Right after the sound of that explosion, the entire castle seemed to shake.

    All of the ministers and generals only cared about their own safety, not a single one of them cared about the safety of the king.

    The king also didn''t give a single trace of care about the safety of his ministers and generals, he just cared about his own safety as well.

    He even went as far as hiding behind the throne after therge explosion rang out.

    It was only after the echoes started to disappear and the castle stopped shaking that people slowly came out from their hiding ces to see what was happening.

    The king was the first to speak as he shouted from behind his throne, "Protect me! Protect me! My life is the most important!"

    The king''s voice had been filled with a trace of annoyance and that was because he had actually been abandoned by his ministers and generals. He had been annoyed that none of them hade over to protect him with their lives like good subordinates.

    Of course, the ministers and generals wouldn''t sacrifice their lives to protect this scapegoat king of theirs.

    They all believed that their lives were more important than this scapegoat king of theirs that they were only keeping on the throne for convenience.

    While the king continued screaming for people toe and protect him, one of the generals looked at the soldier and said, "Go and find out what happened."

    The soldier had a scared look, but he still went off in the end.

    But he didn''t get a chance to find out as another soldier came over to report, "Your majesty, there''s been an attack on the capital!"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    All of the ministers and generals knitted their brows when they heard this.

    None of them had thought the same thing as the king, they didn''t believe that the dots in the skies were just simple birds. They knew that there had to be something else for those dots to appear in the sky like that.

    "What is the damage?" The same general as before immediately roared out, covering up the king''s cries to evacuate him.

    The soldier was taken aback by this, but he quickly reported, "All four gates of the capital have been destroyed. At the same time, there are countlessrge shadows that are circling in the clouds above the capital. We are unsure what theserge shadows are, but we are certain that they are enemies."

    "Of course they''re enemies if they''ve destroyed the gates!" The general roared at the soldier which made him shrink back. However, the general quickly calmed himself down and said, "Where are our troops?"

    The soldier had an awkward look as he said, "The troops are all outside of the capital currently. They had been deployed to watch out for the monsters that were approaching."

    "Then none of them stopped the flying creatures?" The general roared.

    "They couldn''t stop them, we didn''t see them until it was toote." The soldier reported with another awkward look on his face.

    The general deeply knitted his brows when he heard this.

    All of them had sent their troops out to protect their own properties against the monsters since they never thought that such a thing would happen. The capital of their kingdom was one of the most well defended ces with elite soldiers from the royal army, so how could such a thing happen?

    "It must be the wyverns of the Kite Kingdom!" The king suddenly shouted. Everyone looked at the king with strange looks before shaking their heads.

    Not a single one of them seemed like they believed the king when he said this.

    After all, they all believed that the Kite Kingdom would keep the treaty that they had signed. If the Kite Kingdom ignored the treaty that they signed at a time like this where monster waves were attacking the human race, there was no doubt that they would receive bacsh from the other kingdoms.

    So they didn''t think that the Kite Kingdom would be foolish enough to do something like this at this time.

    But if it wasn''t the wyverns of the Kite Kingdom, they really couldn''t think of anything that could have caused this kind of destruction...

    Unless it was a new kind of monster?

    Had the monsters evolved far enough that they were able to wield this kind of destructive power?

    As this thought passed through their minds, there were many of these senior officials of the Darius Kingdom that started considering their options.

    The one that most of them were keen on epting was to submit themselves to one of the empires.

    They knew that the empires had been moving because of the monster waves, but they had chosen not to ept their help since they didn''t want the influence of the empires in theirnd.

    But now it seemed like they didn''t have a choice.

    Seeing that not a single one of them was listening to him, the king roared, "Go and fight them! Repel these invaders and protect mynds! That is your job as my subordinates! Don''t let themy a single hand on my toys!"

    All of the ministers and generals looked at the king with disappointed looks when they heard this.

    This was one of the disadvantages of having a scapegoat as their king.

    When things came down to it, they couldn''t rely on him to get them through a crisis.

    At the same time, since they had divided the power between them, it meant that they wouldn''t be able to provide a unified response.

    It was so bad that many of them were already considering how they would be able to escape with just their families.

    It was too bad that they didn''t get a chance to execute any of this.

    There was this whistling sound that suddenly rang out through the air that confused most of

    them, but then there was a...

    "Boom!"

 Chapter 1002: Dots in the sky (4)

    Chapter 1002: Dots in the sky (4)

    ?

    There were mes and dust that suddenly filled this room.

    Regardless of if they were a minister or a general, they just were not able to stand up straight as this explosion rocked the room.

    All of them were knocked back by the force of the explosion and they fell to the ground.

    The king was the one that suffered the brunt of it since the explosion came from behind him. He had been hiding behind the throne, but he had been looking at the ministers and generals while he was screaming at them. Since the explosion came from right behind him, that meant that the force of the explosion pushed him right up against the throne.

    At the same time, the mes just mmed right into him.

    Unlike the others that could let the mes blow past, since he was stuck against the throne, he actually acted against a wall for the mes. That meant that all of the mes that would have blown past him and only given him slight burns were now being mmed right into his body. When it was over, the burns that were on his back were very hard to look at.

    The eyes of the king had rolled back in their sockets and it seemed like he had lost consciousness.

    It was hard to even tell if he was still alive.

    If it wasn''t for the slight movementing from his chest, most of the ministers and generals would have thought that he was already dead.

    But that was the least of their worries as there was now a hole that was in this throne room.

    The hole hade from whatever had created that explosion.

    There were even still small mes that were on the edge of this hole that were still burning

    away.

    But there didn''t seem to be anything that was outside of the hole.

    It seemed like the only thing that they could see was the capital outside of the castle.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Just why would they suddenly attack the castle like this?

    After a moment of silence, there were a few generals and ministers that started moving towards the hole.

    While this seemed dangerous, they knew that this was the least dangerous ce.

    After all, this was the ce that had just been attacked, so there was no meaning in attacking the same ce a second time. If they were going to attack the castle again, they would naturally not attack the same ce as before.

    There wouldn''t be anything else for them to destroy.

    So they were nning on using this gap to discover the identity of the enemies.

    But before they could peek their heads out, they suddenly felt a gust of wind hitting them. The wind wasn''t strong enough that it would blow them all back, but it was certainly not a weak gust of wind either.

    Enduring this, they found that there was something that seemed to be approaching the hole in the castle wall.

    Though it was still far away, the wind that came from the pping of their wings was already this strong. It was more than enough to show just how powerful this creature that was approaching the hole in the wall was.

    But the ministers and generals still endured to look out the hole in the wall to see exactly what was happening outside the castle.

    When they looked out, they found thoserge shadows that were in the clouds that the soldier had mentioned before. Only when they looked at it closely, they were able to see the outlines properly now.

    Wyverns.

    It was a bunch of wyverns.

    When they saw this, all of them couldn''t help thinking about what the king had said previously.

    "It must be the wyverns of the Kite Kingdom!"

    Perhaps there was some truth in his words...

    After being dazed for a bit, they finally saw that the creature that had been approaching the hole was finally close enough for them to see it clearly.

    It was indeed a wyvern and there seemed to be someone on its back.

    The generals and ministers immediately moved away from the hole as they could see that the wyvern that was approaching the hole seemed like it was about tond.

    To avoid being crushed by the wyvern as itnded, all of them quickly moved away from the hole.

    When the wyvernnded, there was a loud sound, but it didn''t seem like there was anything else that was going to happen. Well, other than therge gust of wind that suddenly blew through the room that put out all of the mes that were left.

    When the dust raised by the gust of wind settled, the appearance of the wyvern was revealed.

    Terrifying.

    That was the only thought that passed through the minds of the ministers and generals when they saw this wyvern.

    There were also soldiers that came when they heard this, but not a single one of them was able to keep their courage in the face of this wyvern. All of them stood there in a daze when they faced this wyvern.

    There was a long silence that hung in this room until a voice finally said, "Where is your

    king?"

    All of the ministers and generals revealed awkward looks when they heard this before looking at the burnt body of the king that was just lying against the throne.

    The one that spoke poked their head out from the wyvern and followed the gazes of the ministers and generals until he saw the burnt king lying there.

    After taking a moment to process this, the person asked, "Is this your king?"

    All of the ministers and generals had bitter smiles on their faces as they slowly nodded in agreement.

    There was another silence that hung in the air before the wyvern rider said, "Well, it doesn''t matter."

    He turned back to look at the ministers and generals before saying, "We are here to invade

    your country."

 Chapter 1003: Dots in the sky (5)

    Chapter 1003: Dots in the sky (5)

    ?

    All of the ministers and generals could only let their chins drop in shock when they heard this.

    They could already guess that this was the case, but hearing it for themselves really was a different feeling.

    But at the same time, they couldn''t help feeling a bit of injustice.

    After all, these wyverns shouldn''t have appeared here at a time like this.

    In the end, one of the ministers stepped forward and said, "Do you know what the consequences of invading our country at a time like this means? This is a time of danger for all humans and you''re invading a human country. Do you really think that you..."

    Before he could finish, the w of the wyvern fell down on him and crushed him into the ground. There was a burst of blood that suddenly came from under the wyvern w and then there was nothing else.

    All of the ministers and generals trembled when they felt this.

    Some of them had felt a trace of hope when they saw the minister standing out like that, but now that trace of hope had been crushed.

    They knew that they were not a match for this wyvern, even if they were to fight together.

    Even the generals who had fought in many battles wouldn''t be able to face this terrifying creature. Not to mention that there were still a bunch more of these wyverns that were flying outside.

    If they were to attack all at once, they would be able to blow up the castle with their me breaths.

    When that time came, there would be no way that they would be able to escape from this ce.

    But there was still one thing that confused all of them.

    What gave them the courage to invade at a time like this?

    They even went as far as moving the wyverns that were supposed to keep the stronger countries at bay...

    In the end, the prime minister had no choice but to step forward to say, "We surrender."

    This was after looking around at all of the ministers and generals and making sure that they would all agree to this. But in this situation, it didn''t matter if they didn''t agree to this.

    There just wasn''t a single thing that any of them could do to stop it.

    So the only thing that they could do was ept this.

    But before they could ratify the terms of surrender, the king suddenly woke up.

    "Don''t you dare!"

    When the king roared out, it was as if there was a guttural roar that wasing from him. Whether that was because he was engulfed in rage or whether it was because the burns had damaged his vocal cords, his roar didn''t sound human at this point.

    It was almost like the roar of a wild beast.

    "You think that you can take mynd and my toys away from me? This is my kingdom and I''ll never give it up even in death!"

    "Death?" The wyvern rider suddenly asked in a cold voice.

    Then with a simple pat of the wyvern''s back and a few hand gestures, the wyvern suddenly started to move forward.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The king that had been burnt wasn''t able to move at all even though he could see the danger that wasing at him. All he could do was roar out in an attempt to scare off the approaching wyvern.

    "Do you know what you are doing? Do you think that you''ll get away with this! If you dare touch a single hair on my body, do you know what the empires will do to you?"

    The wyvern rider didn''t seem to care at all as he directed the wyvern forward.

    The ministers and generals looked at the king like they wanted him to shut his mouth, but he didn''t seem to notice a single one of them as he kept shouting out his threats.

    When the wyvern finally stopped right in front of the king, it gave him a false confidence that he had scared the wyvern rider with his words, which made him even more arrogant with his words to the dismay of the ministers and generals.

    All of them just wanted him to shut up at this point, but he continued roaring at the wyvern rider even though he held no power.

    Finally, the wyvern rider said in a cold voice, "Is that so? Have you ever taken a look at the country outside of your castle?"

    The king was caught off guard when he heard this before suddenly saying, "Is there a need to care about those toys? They live their lives and then get used by me, nothing more, nothing less. That is my right as the ki..."

    Before he could finish saying the word ''king'', he suddenly felt something heavy fall down on him.

    Even in his final moments, he never expected that the wyvern rider would suddenlymand his wyvern to stomp down on him like this.

    He still had a look on his face as if he didn''t think that he would ever die.

    But in the end, that was all crushed into mush by the foot of this wyvern.

    When it was over, the wyvern rider looked down at where the king had been with a disgusted look on his face without saying a thing.

    After a long silence, he looked up at the ministers and generals again, but the look on his face wasn''t any better than before. He still looked at them as if he was disgusted by them.

    The ministers and generals felt a chill run down their spines when they saw the wyvern rider look at them before they quickly bowed their heads.

    It was a kind of instinctive reaction to prevent themselves from being killed.

    In the end, the wyvern rider said with a sigh, "Prepare the surrender document and sign it.

    Once that is over, we''ll send our people over to organize all of you."

    The ministers and generals all let out sighs when they heard this.

    While they had no idea what would being for them, they at least knew that it was important that they survived.

    As long as they survive now, anything could happen in the future.

 Chapter 1004: Dots in the sky (6)

    Chapter 1004: Dots in the sky (6)

    ?

    "What is happening outside?" The king of the Beirut Kingdom mmed his fist down on the armrest of his throne as he roared out like this.

    All of the ministers trembled when they heard this and lowered their heads as if they were afraid of being called on to answer.

    But the king of the Beirut Kingdom just wouldn''t let them off as he swept his eyes across the ministers and generals gathered in front of him.

    Finally, his eyes fell onto one of the older ministers that were here and he said, "Prime minister, exin the situation to me!"

    The prime minister gave a gulp before saying, "Your majesty, the people have taken up arms in revolt..."

    "I know that!" The king roared out before calming down a bit to say, "Tell me why this is happening!"

    The prime minister had a difficult look on his face at first before saying, "It''s because of the sudden appearances of those dots in the sky."

    "Dots in the sky..." The king slowly said before saying, "Just call them what they are, they are invaders! But you still have to exin why the Kite Kingdom would suddenly invade us at a time like this! Not only did we have a temporary peace treaty, there''s also the fact that there''s the monster waves happening! Why would they invade!"

    The prime minister revealed a bitter look when he heard this.

    The king was asking him, but who was he supposed to ask to get the answers to these questions?

    He didn''t know what was happening either.

    Early in the morning, the soldiers at the borders had reported dots in the sky and then in the middle of the morning, there were attacks that happened at the various key military points in their Beirut Kingdom.

    All of their troops had been thrown into chaos because of this sudden attack and there was no way that they would be able to regroup their troops that quickly.

    The attack was very calcted and hadpletely knocked out theirmunicationwork.

    Then to everyone''s surprise, themoners suddenly looted these military installments and armed themselves. Right now, themoners were even making their way to surround the

    capital.

    They were currently facing a crisis that they had never faced since the formation of their kingdom.

    Not a single person could understand why themoners would act this way.

    That was because...not a single one of them knew just how corrupt each of them were.

    In the relief efforts for those that were affected by the monster waves, there were bits of it that were being embezzled at every level. All of them thought that they were smart to only take a little bit from the total, but all those little bits added up.

    When the relief supplies finally reached themoners, it wasn''t even a tenth of what the total should have been.

    Resentment built up in the lower ss until it finally boiled over and exploded in this uprising.

    Themoners armed themselves and were prepared to overthrow the upper ss that had let them suffer.

    The upper ss that didn''t know that their greed had been the cause of this.

    "What can we do to stop them?" The king finally suppressed his rage and calmly asked this question.

    Even though he wished that he could rip apart his ministers that had let things degrade to this level, he knew that he couldn''t really do that right now. What was more important was using them to find a way to solve the problem that they faced.

    If they didn''te up with a problem, it wouldn''t be just their positions that they lost.

    If they didn''t solve this problem, they would even lose their heads.

    So instead of being angry, it was better toe up with a solution.

    But there were no solutions that the ministers and generals could give.

    None of them wanted to take out their trump cards since they were saving them to use to protect themselves.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They were all waiting to use these trump cards when things went wrong and they had to escape the capital. None of them wanted to use them to deal with themoners that were rising up against the kingdom.

    But the pressure was on them to give a solution...

    "The minister of interior affairs has a warehouse filled with mercenaries and supplies to the west of the city!" One of the ministers suddenly shouted out.

    The minister of interior affairs that had been exposed like this immediately revealed a look of rage when he heard this before saying, "How dare you! The minister of finance is hiding..." With one of them starting to spill on the others, all of them started to spill on each other.

    It seemed that all of them wanted the other ministers and generals to act instead of themselves, which meant that they spilled all the previous information that they gathered. The king was in shock when he heard all of this.

    After all, he never thought that his subordinates would be hiding this much from him.

    He thought that he had a good idea of what his subordinates were doing, but now he realized that he didn''t seem to know a single thing about his subordinates. It seemed that they had been hiding themselves much deeper than he thought.

    But right now, that didn''t matter.

    The most important thing right now was figuring out how to deal with thosemoners that were rising up against them.

    mming his fist down on the armrest once more, the king said, "Enough! That''s enough arguing now! What''s important is dealing with the problem in front of us!"

    After saying this, he swept his eyes across the ministers and generals that were in front of him before saying, "Prepare all the troops that you have. If you dare hold back anything, know that my wrath will not be light."

    All of the ministers and generals gave a gulp before nodding in agreement.

    "Boom!"

 Chapter 1005: Dots in the sky (7)

    Chapter 1005: Dots in the sky (7)

    ?

    "Captain, what is happening down there? Why are the citizens suddenly rising up like this?" One of the wyvern riders asked Erina as they all watched what was happening down below.

    Erina was the one that was in charge of this group of wyvern riders that hade to settle the Beirut Kingdom.

    After watching in silence for a bit, Erina just shook her head to show that she didn''t know what was happening either.

    Even though they already knew from the briefing that the Beirut Kingdom was filled with corruption, they didn''t think that it was bad enough that the citizens would suddenly rise up like this.

    Not to mention, it was at an extent that was far beyond a normal uprising.

    It was at the level where almost every citizen that could fight in the country was rising up against the ruling ss.

    This didn''t seem like a normal level of corruption and resentment that was building up under the surface of the Beirut Kingdom.

    Still, that didn''t mean that they couldn''t use this for themselves.

    As long as they channeled the anger that the citizens of the Beirut Kingdom felt in the right manner, then they would be able to use this to their advantage.

    Namely when the various nobles tried to put down the rebellion of the citizens, the wyverns would arrive in time to send a st of mes at the troops of the nobles. It wasn''t just a single st of me thatnded on the troops of the nobles though, there were multiple me breaths thatnded down on the troops of the nobles.

    It didn''t take long before the troops of the nobles were engulfed in mes.

    They just couldn''t do a thing against the mes that rained down on them and then they were hit by the armed citizens that charged them.

    There was nowhere for them to run and there was no time for them to surrender.

    The soldiers of the nobles weren''t able to do a single thing as they werepletely overwhelmed by the armed citizens.

    Most times, the nobles were even burnt to a crisp by the mes of the wyverns.

    It was easy for them to find these nobles since they dressed themselves up as targets.

    The nobles had their pride and arrogance, dressing in shy armour even though they were on the battlefield. They just wouldn''t let themselves be looked down on by anyone, even if it made them a bigger target.

    That was the downfall for these nobles since they were easily picked off by the wyverns.

    Erina only sent a few wyverns to each of the battles that were spread across thend since it was impossible for them to guide everyone to the final battle.

    As for where that final battle was...

    It was naturally the fight for the capital and to take down the king.

    They made sure to aid all the rebellions that were happening in a straight path to the capital so that they could herd the citizens to the capital. Though they were doing this, it didn''t mean that they would be abandoning them in the fight for the capital.

    If they needed help, they would provide it.

    Namely, Erina had the wyverns blow up the four gates to the capital.

    After the armed citizens had arrived in the capital, they quickly surrounded it.

    There weren''t enough of them at first, but as more and more of them arrived, they soonpletely surrounded the capital in a sea of people. There were so many of them that the soldiers that had been guarding the walls were terrified.

    At first, there were still some that peeked out and tried to attack the citizens that were gathering.

    However, they soon learned their lesson as wyverns would attack whoever tried to attack the citizens.

    So the only thing that they could do was stay behind the walls of the capital and have confidence in them. These walls and gates of the capital were all very thick and strong, so they weren''t easily busted.

    They were relying on this to keep the rebelling citizens outside.

    But as more and more of these rebelling citizens gathered, the troops of the capital couldn''t help feeling more and more worried. After all, there seemed to be no end to the number of armed citizens that were gathering.

    At this point, they werepletely outnumbered by the number of armed citizens that were outside of the gates.

    It reached the point where even if they were untrained citizens, they still posed a threat to them since they were fully armed with proper weapons and armour.

    If they were to breach the gates, there was no doubt that they would have a hard fight on their hands.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Not to mention that they could still see the wyverns that were circling above.

    If they were to try and shoot these armed citizens with bows, they wouldn''t be as afraid since they would be able to whittle down the numbers. The problem with that was that the wyverns that were circling around above their heads werepletely preventing them from doing this.

    If any of them tried to shoot, they would find themselves at the receiving end of an attack from the wyverns.

    So there wasn''t a single thing that they could do as they watched the armed citizens gather.

    "Captain, we should send out a group of cavalry to lead a charge. Cavalry will be able to outmaneuver these civilians and scatter them. At the same time, they will be able to attack from unexpected ces as long as they are outside the city." One of the guards suddenly suggested this.

    All of the guards looked at the captain as they waited for his response.

    Though based on their expressions, it seemed like they wanted to join that group.

    That was because being in the group of cavalry that charged outside meant that they wouldn''t

    be trapped in the city.

    When the time came, it would be easier for them to escape if they needed to.

    "This..." The captain had just spoken when...

    "Boom!"

 Chapter 1006: Dots in the sky (8)

    Chapter 1006: Dots in the sky (8)

    ?

    "What happened? What is that sound?!" The king shouted after the echos and the trembling had stopped.

    Though when he shouted like this, everyone could hear the trace of worry that was in his voice.

    Not a single person was mistaken, they all knew that this sound wouldn''t be a good sign.

    But no one was able to answer this question as they were all in the same situation as the king. They had been in this throne room the entire time for the meeting, so they had no idea what was happening outside.

    It was then that several soldiers suddenly ran in to say, "Your majesty, the gates have been breached!"

    "What do you mean by that?" The king roared out once more.

    The soldier shrinked back at first, but then they reported, "The wyverns have destroyed the gates of the capital with their me breaths and now there are swarms of the rebels surging into the capital."

    "What are the guards doing?!" The king mmed his fist down as he roared out this time.

    It really seemed like he hadpletely lost his patience and he just couldn''t take the idiots that he was working with.

    This time, the soldiers all seemed to hesitate to answer his question.

    But under the gaze that he cast on them, they had no choice but to answer.

    "They have surrendered." The soldiers said in somber voices.

    The king was shocked to hear this, so shocked that his ragepletely left him.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    He no longer had the same enraged look on his face, but rather there was a careful look of thought instead. As well, there seemed to be a trace of fear in his eyes that was hidden under everything.

    It seemed that the king finally realized the situation that he was in and he knew that being angry wouldn''t be any use.

    If he were to get out of this situation, then he would have to think of a way out of this castle. After all, with all of the guards of the capital surrendering, there was no doubt that this castle would be targeted next. The one with the biggest target on his head would naturally be him, who was the king of this country.

    He would be the one that everyone med for all the problems with this kingdom.

    He couldn''t even trust the ministers and generals that were in this room since he knew that they wouldn''t hesitate to sell him out if it meant that they would be able to live.

    That was the reason why they had kept all their trump cards hidden the entire time.

    The king could even see that there were a few people with sharp minds that were looking at him with dangerous looks. They tried to hide it, but the king had sat on the throne for this long for a reason, he wasn''t a fool that would miss these looks.

    He knew what the signs were and how to avoid them to keep himself on the throne.

    But what was important now wasn''t actually the throne, but his own life.

    With a snap of his fingers, there were several cloaked figures that appeared around the throne.

    The ministers and generals were all shocked to see this, but they didn''t say anything as they could see that the king was calm about all of this. With the way that he acted, it was almost as if he was the one that had summoned them in the first ce.

    That was because he was.

    This was a secret death squad that the king had trained from elites in the royal guards. It could be said that this was the strongest group of fighters in the entire Beirut Kingdom.

    As for why the king was summoning them now...

    It was obvious that he was doing it to get himself out of the castle.

    The ministers and generals all deeply knitted their brows after oveing the shock that they felt. They knew that if they let the king go like this, there was nothing good that was waiting for them.

    If they wanted a chance to survive, they either had to go with him or they had to find a way to take down this group to capture the king.

    They preferred the former option rather than thetter.

    "Your majesty, I have a secret passage that will lead out of the capital. There is a warehouse with supplies waiting outside of the capital." One of the ministers suddenly said this.

    The other ministers and generals all red at this minister, but they didn''t waste any time cursing him out since they knew that it would be useless. Even if they cursed him out, it wouldn''t help their own case.

    So the only thing that they could do was start giving their own offers to the king.

    As long as the king epted to take them along with them, that was all that they needed.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at the ministers and generals, but it didn''t seem like he was surprised to hear them saying all of this. It was as if he had already expected this and was currently considering who had the best offer.

    The king didn''t seem worried even though the rebels were storming the capital, that was because he knew that it would take some time for them to reach the castle.

    Right now, the most important thing was choosing the best people to help him.

    In the end, the king chose several ministers and generals that would give him the best resources to aid his escape from the capital.

    After picking them, the king had the cloaked figures clear the way for him to leave with the ones that he chose.

    The other ministers and generals knew that they had been abandoned and even wanted to force their way into their group.

    But they just weren''t a match for the cloaked figures at all.

    As the king thought that he was free to leave...

    "Boom!"

 Chapter 1007: Dots in the sky (9)

    Chapter 1007: Dots in the sky (9)

    ?

    When the mes and dust cleared, the king, the ministers, and the generals found that they were in a throne room that waspletely filled with holes.

    The walls had many different holes punched through them and judging by the mes that were there, it seemed that they had been caused by some kind of me attack.

    It was as if several fireballsnded on the castle, creating these explosions.

    The king and his subordinates didn''t even have to guess to know what had caused these explosions.

    It was the me breaths from the wyverns.

    They thought that the wyverns were just circling around the capital, but now it seemed like they were finally attacking.

    There really wasn''t anything that they could do against these wyverns since they weren''t equipped to deal with them. Unless they had special tools and powerful magicians, they wouldn''t be able to deal with these wyverns at all.

    So the king realized that there was nothing that they could do except run.

    Only he didn''t understand why the wyverns would suddenly attack the castle like this... That was until some royal guards came in to say, "The castle has been surrounded!"

    The faces of the king and his subordinates all became ugly when they heard this.

    After all, this basically was cutting off their escape route.

    Even if there were secret routes out of the castle, there was no doubt that they would be discovered if they tried to escape. There was no way that they would be able to avoid the wyverns that were circling outside.

    That was right, what the king was worried about wasn''t the uprising citizens, but rather the wyverns that were outside.

    Based on everything that had happened, it was clear that whoever was in charge of the wyverns had the idea of directing the rebelling civilians.

    They were using them to put pressure on the ones that were in the castle.

    After all, if they were to ughter them, then they would be the ones that would suffer since these were citizens of their own country. This was not a decision that they could make that easily since every citizen lost would be one less citizen of their country.

    They were not resources that could be regained that easily.

    So it wasn''t as if they could arbitrarily ughter all the people that were gathered outside. Not to mention that the wyverns wouldn''t allow such a thing to happen in the first ce.

    If they were to try anything like that, there was no doubt that the wyverns would intervene like they would now.

    At the same time, there was no doubt that the ones thatmanded the wyverns would have also found their secret passages.

    It really seemed like all their routes were blocked...

    The king gritted his teeth before slowly walking over to one of the holes in the wall.

    This might seem like a dumb idea since the wyverns were still flying around outside, but that wasn''t the case.

    After all, if he were to stay here and do nothing, then the only thing that was waiting for him was being captured by the rebelling citizens.

    If he didn''t go to the hole and try to negotiate with the wyvern riders, then all that''s waiting for him was death. If he tried to negotiate with them and figure out a way to surrender, then at least he would survive.

    At this point, his throne wasn''t important.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The only thing that was important was his own life.

    The ones that now controlled his life were circling around the castle with their wyverns.

    So the king had no choice but to negotiate with them.

    Aftering to the hole in the wall, he could see that there were many wyverns that were currently flying there in the skies around the castle. It seemed like the skies werepletely filled with them and they hadpletely locked down the castle.

    It was as if there was no way for him to run no matter where he went.

    So the king just stood there, as if he was waiting for something to happen.

    After a minute, one of the wyverns that had been flying there in the sky suddenly starteding down. After flying down, that wyvern came in front of the castle where the king was standing and just floated there.

    The king narrowed his eyes to look at the wyvern rider before saying, "Are you the one that is in charge of these wyverns? I wish to surrender and hand over my throne!"

    The king said this without any hesitation, showing just what kind of resolve that he hade

    to.

    This was indeed the best choice for him in this situation since there was nothing else that he could do at this point.

    If he didn''t surrender now, then all that was waiting for him was being torn apart by the rebelling citizens below.

    But it didn''t seem like the wyvern rider was about to say anything.

    After a long silence, Erina finally said, "We don''t need it."

    "Huh?" The king was shocked to hear this as he couldn''t understand what Erina meant by this.

    However, Erina quickly showed what she meant with her actions.

    With a tap of her wyvern''s back, it suddenly moved forward.

    The king was still dazed as he couldn''t understand what was happening, so he wasn''t able to react in time to the wyvern suddenly grabbing him with its ws.

    Then before the king could put up a struggle, he was lifted off the ground and into the air.

    As he dangled in the air, he said in a voice filled with fear, "What, what are you doing?" Erina didn''t say a thing as she had the wyvern fly down to the crowd.

    When the crowd noticed what the wyvern was carrying, all of them started pointing and roaring at the king.

    Then with a single tap of the wyvern''s back, the ws loosened and the king started to fall.

    Even as he fell, he never thought that this would be his end.

    In the end, this was how the second kingdom fell.

 Chapter 1008: Dots in the sky (10)

    Chapter 1008: Dots in the sky (10)

    ?

    "So it''s finally happening?"

    "Yes, they were spotted at the border and are currentlying closer and closer to the -capital."

    There was a heavy mood that hung in this throne room as everyone had grim looks on their faces.

    But in the end, the one that was sitting on the throne said, "There''s nothing that we can do, right? None of the countries that we asked for help are responding?"

    After a long silence, the ministers and generals all nodded in agreement.

    The king of the Vikal Kingdom looked up and gave a sigh after seeing this.

    Their Vikal Kingdom hadsted for several centuries now and had been waging war on and off against the Kite Kingdom all this time. They had never been able to gain the advantage over the Kite Kingdom, but they had never been at a disadvantage either.

    They had been able to maintain the equilibrium between their kingdoms for all these years.

    But now...

    The king never thought that it would be in his hands that the Vikal Kingdom would fall like this.

    However, he knew that they had no other choice.

    Since the united war against the Kite Kingdom, their Vikal Kingdom forces had been greatly weakened. It was all that they could do to even defend their borders against the other kingdoms.

    Then when the monster waves came, it was only because all the other kingdoms had also been hit with the monster waves that they had been able to defend themselves.

    Everyone was weakened to the same extent that they were only worried about defending themselves.

    But it didn''t seem to be the case with the Kite Kingdom.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    The spies that they had sent had told them that the Kite Kingdom had found a way to deal with the monster waves and they had also subdued the Midra Kingdom. They had doubled their territory by taking the Midra Kingdom under them.

    So the Vikal Kingdom knew that it was only a matter of time before they were attacked.

    They had hoped that the threat of the empires would be enough to stop them, but it seemed that they did not care that this was a crisis for the human race.

    The Vikal Kingdom could only ept what happened and surrender.

    While there were some that still didn''t want to ept this, they had no choice since they had decided as a whole to surrender to the Kite Kingdom.

    "Your majesty..." Some of the ministers and generals said in emotional voices.

    The king looked back down at them and said with a sigh, "I know what you are thinking, but this is my duty. There is no way that they will allow the king of a defeated kingdom to live since that is only fuel for rebellion. I can only hope that my head will be enough to deter them from cutting off anyone else''s head."

    The ministers and generals all looked even more emotional after this, but they couldn''t say anything since they could see the determination that was in the king''s eyes.

    They knew that he had already made up his mind, so there was nothing that they could say to convince him otherwise.

    The throne room fell into a somber mood as no one was able to say a thing.

    In the end, that somber silence was broken by a soldier who ran in to report, "They have been spotted approaching the capital. They will be here soon."

    The king stood up after hearing this and said with a heavy look, "Let''s go and wee our invaders."

    The minister and generals all looked at him with sad looks, but there was nothing that they could say.

    So the only thing that they could do was march out of the castle.

    As they walked through the streets, the citizens were shocked to see this procession.

    They didn''t hear anything about this kind of procession, so they had no idea what was going

    on.

    As the king and his men walked through the streets, there were more and more people that were gathered. However, they weren''t able to cause amotion since there were royal guards that were keeping the peace.

    Once the king reached the gates, he had the royal guards keep the citizens back so that nothing could approach the gate.

    They just looked into the sky in the distance, looking at the dots that were there in the sky that were approaching the capital. These were the wyverns that had been sent by the Kite Kingdom to attack them.

    Even though they could see the wyverns approaching, they didn''t put up any resistance at all. Once they were close enough to see, there was amotion that came from the citizens. They had no idea that the wyverns were approaching the capital and now that they saw them, they all started to panic as if they were afraid of getting caught up in the fight.

    It was when they saw them that they realized what was happening.

    The king and all these important officials were here to deal with these approaching wyverns.

    So starting with one person, it was a tide of people that quickly started moving away from the

    gate.

    They were all afraid that they would be caught up in the fight when it started.

    As they watched the wyverns approach, one of the ministers couldn''t help saying, "Your majesty, there must be a better way. We can''t just watch you sacrifice yourself like this."

    The king had a bitter smile on his face as he turned to look at his ministers before saying, "This is the only way."

    The definite tone to his voice made the ministers all fall silent as they couldn''t say anything to refute this.

    If they had a better suggestion, they would have already made it.

    So they could only stand there in silence as the wyverns approached.

    Once they approached, the wyverns didn''t start attacking right away.

    One of the wyverns flew down to the gate where the king and his men were standing, as if they

    were seeing what they were doing.

    Once they came down, the king said, "We wish to surrender."

 Chapter 1009: Dots in the sky (11)

    Chapter 1009: Dots in the sky (11)

    ?

    Half an hourter, there were many wyverns that were gathered around the gate.

    All of them seemed like they were on guard just in case anything happened, but there was nothing that happened.

    In fact, the ones that were on the city walls had terrified looks on their faces.

    Though it would have been strange if they weren''t scared of being surrounded by wyverns like this.

    At first, it was only a single wyvern that came down, but after the king made his surrender deration, there were other wyverns that came down as well.

    Now, all of the wyvern riders were looking at the king with strange looks as if they couldn''t believe that he would just surrender like this. After all, there was no reason for the king to suddenly surrender like this.

    It seemed like a trap no matter how they looked at it.

    The one that jumped off his wyvern toe forward to talk to the king was Klein.

    Since he was the captain of the royal guards, he had been given fullmand of this operation to take down the three kingdoms. He should have been in the centralmand center watching over everything, but this situation was too strange that he had no choice but toe out.

    After jumping down, he narrowed his eyes to look at the king as if he was keeping a close eye on him.

    Then he said, "You want to surrender?"

    The way that he said this had a bit of a provocation to it, but there was also a bit of a confused tone to his voice since he really had no idea why he would surrender like this.

    The king nodded in agreement before saying, "Our Vikal Kingdom stands no chance in front of the might of your wyverns. The only way for our Vikal Kingdom to get out of this with little casualties is to surrender."

    Klein raised a brow when he heard this, but he slowly gave a nod.

    As for why he wasn''t surprised...

    Beforeing here, there was someone that had told him a few things, so he was prepared to hear this.

    Still, that didn''t stop him from feeling confused.

    In the end, since the king didn''t seem to be ying any tricks, he waved his hand at the one that was still riding his wyvern.

    This was one of the clerks that he had brought along with him at the request of that person that had prepared him. This clerk carefully came down from the wyvern''s back beforeing over to stand in between them.

    The king had his head down to show his submission, but he couldn''t help looking at the clerk as the clerk pulled something out.

    The clerk pulled out a piece of paper that he held in front of him, putting it right in between the king and Klein.

    Klein didn''t take this piece of paper as he said to the king, "These are the terms of surrender. As long as you sign this, you will no longer be the king and our kingdom will officially bring you into our fold."

    The king wasn''t surprised to hear this, he was just surprised that they had prepared such a thing so quickly.

    Still, he had no intentions of rejecting such a thing since he had already been nning on submitting to the Kite Kingdom. The king just calmly took the piece of paper from the clerk and looked it over.

    After he was done reading, he looked up at Klein with a look of shock.

    Giving a gulp, the king asked, "Is this really the contract?"

    Klein just gave a calm nod in response without saying anything.

    The king had to look down again at the contract and make sure that he wasn''t mistaken.

    The ministers and generals all misunderstood this action from the king and soon... "Your majesty! You don''t have to worry about us! We''ll fight them to the end!" One of the generals suddenly shouted before pulling out a hidden dagger.

    With the way that he acted, it really seemed like he wanted to fight to hisst breath against the wyvern riders.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    But before anyone could do anything, the king suddenly went forward to p the dagger out of his hand to the shock of the general.

    The general just looked at the king and said, "Your majesty, we..."

    The king ignored him as he turned back to Klein to say, "Sir Envoy, I apologize for my subordinate. I hope that you will not misunderstand our intention to surrender."

    Klein hadn''t made a single move even though he saw the general pulling out his weapon. There was even a faint smile that was on his face when he saw this, which the king misunderstood.

    The king picked up the dagger and pointed it at himself as he said, "Sir Envoy, please allow me to make up for the mistake of my subordinate."

    But before he could do anything drastic, Klein said, "It''s fine, it''s clear that he''s loyal to you, which is why he acted that way. This is a kind of loyalty that I can appreciate."

    Then his voice became colder as he said, "Of course, it''s not something that will be tolerated a second time."

    The king quickly nodded in agreement before throwing the dagger away.

    Then before any of his subordinates could say anything, he quickly raised the contract in front of them while saying, "Take a look at this first."

    The ones that were in front saw the contract first and the moment that they read it, all of them had shocked looks on their faces as they said, "This is...this is...this is too favourable to us!"

    The others behind them were confused when they heard this, but they quickly understood what the ones in front were talking about.

    The contract wasn''t one of absolute surrender, but rather conditional surrender.

    It wasn''t even one that would humiliate their Vikal Kingdom.

    It seemed that the Kite Kingdom was serious about integrating the Vikal Kingdom into their

    territory.

    It seemed that there was nothing for them to worry about.

    With that, the third kingdom fell.

 Chapter 1010: Organizing the land

    Chapter 1010: Organizing thend

    ?

    When I read the report that was handed to me, a surprised look appeared on my face. After all, I never thought that this was how the invasion would have gone.

    One was directly blown up with the might of the wyverns.

    One had a rebellion incited with the power of the wyverns.

    And thest one directly surrendered in the face of the wyverns.

    In the end, it was the power of the wyverns that had convinced them to surrender.

    This was something that we had been capable of doing since we tamed the wyverns, but we never did it before since we didn''t have the resources to organize thends. But it waspletely different now that we had organized our own territory and had incorporated the people of the Midra Kingdom.

    With the chancellor and the prime minister taking the lead, there were many different officials that were being sent to the different kingdoms to organize them after they had fallen to our Kite Kingdom.

    Though in reality, there were only two kingdoms that needed to be organized.

    The Vikal Kingdom surrendering on their own meant that we were able to take over from the existing group that was in power, which meant that most of the things that they used to govern could be used by us.

    Most of the ministers and generals could even be used by us since the Vikal Kingdom wasn''t a corrupted mess like the other two kingdoms.

    The Vikal Kingdom was the only kingdom that had been properly governed, so it was easy to just install the people that were already in the positions of power in the same positions.

    They were capable of doing their jobs, so there was no reason not to use them.

    Even the king was being used by the prime minister and the chancellor as an advisor to run the Vikal Kingdom.

    It seemed thatter on, he would be given an official title and would be allowed to stay in government.

    I was shocked by the suggestion that the prime minister and the chancellor made back when we heard that the Vikal Kingdom wanted to surrender.

    They had drawn up a new agreement in just fifteen minutes before sending it out to the frontline, that was just how much they valued the surrender of the Vikal Kingdom.

    Though in hindsight, it seemed like their boldness had paid off.

    After all, it saved us quite a bit of work when it came to reorganizing the Vikal Kingdom.

    Though I was even more surprised by how generous they were with the treatment of the Vikal Kingdom''s king.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    As for the Beirut Kingdom and the Darius Kingdom, those two ces were aplete mess. First, those ces were just filled with corruption, so most of the existing people couldn''t be used. Even if they could be used, there was no telling if they weren''t susceptible to being corrupted in the future since that was the environment that they used to work in.

    Second, those ces were like chickens with their heads cut off since all of their leaders were basically disposed of.

    They had to be organized quickly, or the countries would fall into chaos.

    So it was a lot of work deploying the necessary workers to start organizing and calming the people down.

    The main part of that was done by the wyverns.

    The Darius Kingdom was just aplete mess since it was a full invasion of the capital. The citizens didn''t want to wee these people that they regarded as invaders, but they had no choice in the end since the wyverns were there.

    But because it was a hostile takeover, there had to be more wyverns deployed in that ce to keep the peace.

    Most of the wyverns that had been sent to the Vikal Kingdom had been deployed to the Darius Kingdom to keep the peace, only a few were left in the Vikal Kingdom just in case anything happened.

    As for the Beirut Kingdom, that was a strange situation...

    It wasn''t that more wyverns were needed, even some of the wyverns that had been sent to the Beirut Kingdom had been moved to the Darius Kingdom to keep the peace.

    That was because the people who had taken part in the rebellion saw the wyverns as saviours of their kingdom.

    Especially the one wyvern that had grabbed the king out of the castle and dropped him to the rebels.

    Because of that, they even saw Erina as some kind of saintess.

    It really was a strange part of the report that I had to double check, but it seemed that this was indeed true.

    It seemed that these people who had been forced into these situations really came up with strange justifications.

    So it could be said that the wyverns kept the peace, but they didn''t have to use force to keep it. Just by keeping the wyverns there, the people felt that they were protected by their saviours and epted everything that Erina said.

    In some ways, it was smoother to take over the Beirut Kingdom than it was to take over the Vikal Kingdom.

    The only problem was that there was no one capable of governing it there.

    That was why the prime minister and the chancellor still had to send people to those two kingdoms.

    After reading through the reports, I put them down and gave a sigh before saying, "Did you expect this to happen?"

    The chancellor and prime minister who had been waiting for me to finish reading the reports both revealed bitter smiles before shaking their heads.

    They certainly never expected this to happen when they ordered the wyverns to invade the surrounding kingdoms, but in a way...this was for the better.

    Because they didn''t expect it, it gave them surprises that were pleasant surprises.

    They had thought that the invasions would have all gone the same way as the Darius Kingdom''s invasion, so they had been prepared for a headache in dealing with the aftermath.

    Though this was a headache, it was still better than what they had been prepared to deal with. So in the end, it could be said that this had turned out well.

 Chapter 1011: New resources

    Chapter 1011: New resources

    ?

    Two weeks, that was how long it took for the prime minister and the chancellor to organize the newnds that we had conquered.

    Though to say that they had been organized was a bit of a stretch.

    That was because there were still parts of the Darius Kingdom that were still a bit chaotic, but that wasn''t because there weren''t people there to organize thends.

    It was because the people there were still causing a bit of a problem.

    It would take a while before they calmed down, whether by using words or force.

    Still, that was just how it was.

    The meeting that they pulled me into today was about summarizing all of the newnds that we had gained. They had put together a report of all of the newnds that we had conquered and all of the resources that were on it.

    Though I trusted them to manage it, they still insisted that I hear about this since I was the king.

    When the meeting came, I couldn''t help teasing them, "It must have been fun going around to all those different ces while I was stuck in the castle."

    There was a bit of bitterness that was in my voice as I said this.

    That was because I had been stuck in the castle doing all of the things that the prime minister and the chancellor would have done. They were the ones that insisted on going out to arrange the newnds, so I was the one that was stuck for the past two weeks going over the paperwork.

    Though I had Ang and the former king''s help, it still wasn''t something that I wanted to be doing.

    The two of them looked at me with smiles on their faces before the prime minister said, "Your majesty, you''re too important to go out to these ces yourself. You have to take care of yourself."

    Though it seemed like he was showing concern, it was clear that he and the chancellor were rubbing it in.

    That was because usually I was the one that ran off and stuck them with the paperwork like this.

    They must feel good that the shoe was on the other foot for once.

    The others that were in the room just watched all of this withplicated looks.

    It wasn''t because they found this strange, but rather because they didn''t know how to feel about this.

    That was because the people that had been gathered by the prime minister and the chancellor weren''t from our Kite Kingdom or the former Midra Kingdom. All of these were the people that had been chosen from the three other kingdoms.

    These were people that had been chosen to take up positions of power.

    That included the former king of the Vikal Kingdom who was also sitting there with an awkward look on his face.

    He had fully expected to be executed, but now he was being pulled into a meeting with the king and the upper echelon of the Kite Kingdom. This definitely wasn''t what he had expected to happen when he surrendered to the Kite Kingdom.

    He had been certain that he would be executed since that was just the normal way that things went when a kingdom was captured.

    The circumstances that he was currently in really were strange.

    Once we finished arguing with each other, I sat down and said, "Alright, what do you have to present to me?"

    As soon as they heard this, both the prime minister and the chancellor revealed serious looks. They went to the front of the room where the presentation stage was and then pulled out an entire map that they hung on the wall.

    I was surprised that they had prepared an entire map for this, but it did help with the visualization.

    After they pulled out the map, they started summarizing the different parts of the three kingdoms that we had conquered.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The first thing that they presented was naturally the results of their hard work.

    They pointed out the parts that they had already stabilized and the parts of the new territory that still needed to be worked on still. These were all things that I knew since I had been receiving their reports during this time.

    Nothing that they told me was new, so it wasn''t as if there was anything that I needed to say.

    This report was mostly to introduce the various people that they had brought back with them. These were the people that had been put into the positions where they would be managing things, so they were the ones doing the hard work in the future.

    They just needed to meet me so that we could properly establish the rtionship between us.

    That was what the prime minister and the chancellor felt was appropriate, so I just went along with it.

    Finally, they came to the thing that I considered the most important.

    The different resources that were found in the new territory.

    This was the most important thing for me since I wanted to see if there was anything in the newnds that we were conquering that I could use. Last time it was the Void Ore from the former Midra Kingdom.

    I was wondering if there was anything from these three kingdoms that I would be able to give to the system to create new items.

    As expected, the resources that were contained within thesends didn''t disappoint. Though I didn''t know if the system would want them just based on what the prime minister and the chancellor were saying. I would have to see these things myself to see if they would be

    useful or not.

    So I cut them off and asked, "Do you have samples of all these things?"

    The prime minister and chancellor were surprised to hear me say this, but they slowly nodded their heads to show that there were indeed samples prepared.

    I expected this since I knew that people as capable as the two of them wouldn''t possibly miss something like this.

    So we headed off to the warehouse that had been filled with these things.

 Chapter 1012: Taboo zone

    Chapter 1012: Taboo zone

    ?

    "I want information on this ce." I suddenly said to the prime minister and chancellor after returning to the meeting room.

    The others had been patiently waiting for us, but they were caught off guard by my sudden request.

    Some of them even had strange looks on their faces when they saw where I was pointing on the map.

    That was because they came from the kingdom that was near the ce that I was pointing, so they were familiar with the ce that I was referring to. Only, none of them could understand why I was pointing to that ce.

    After all, that ce was considered a taboo zone for them.

    The prime minister and chancellor also had confused looks on their faces as they didn''t understand why I would suddenly ask about this ce.

    But in the end, the prime minister said, "It''s a taboo zone on the border of the Vikal Kingdom known as the Land of Giants. It''s a ce where a small tribe of giants has settled and a ce that is left alone because of said tribe of giants."

    After a pause, he looked at me with narrowed eyes and asked, "What are you nning to do?" He didn''t even bother waiting until we were in private to ask this, he asked this in front of everyone because he wanted to use them to pressure me.

    If he had asked me in private, I might have made some kind of excuse that would have stopped him from asking any further. But since we were in front of everyone, I had to at least give him a proper answer.

    That was why he had done this.

    I understood, so I said, "Now that we''ve taken over all of the surrounding countries and made our kingdom much stronger, there is no doubt that we will pose a threat to the giants. It''s only a matter of time before theye at us, either with words or with force."

    Then after a pause, I continued by saying, "Though in the case of the giants, it''s more likely that they will use force rather than words."

    Everyone had serious looks on their faces when they heard this.

    Eventually, the group from the Vikal Kingdom slowly nodded in agreement.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The Land of Giants was on the border between the Vikal Kingdom and another kingdom, so they were the ones that knew the giants best after being neighbours with them for so long. They knew that the giants weren''t as keen on using negotiation when they could solve matters with force.

    Or rather, it was better to say that their method of negotiating was with force.

    So it would be unlikely that they woulde to build a rtionship with the new Kite Kingdom.

    It was very likely that they would even start harassing the borders of the new Kite Kingdom just to show that they weren''t to be provoked. They would be waiting for us to send someone to talk to them so they would have the upper hand.

    That was also why the prime minister was against this.

    But first...

    "Just what exactly are you nning on doing?" The prime minister asked with knitted brows. The way that he looked at me was almost as if he was looking at a troublemaker.

    Though with everything that he had been through, I guess that he deserved the right to look at me like this. I had put him through quite a bit of trouble before this after all.

    But this time, I was doing this to solve the problem.

    "It''s very simple." A faint smile appeared on my face when I said this, "All I have to do is go and talk to them. I have a way of dealing with them."

    The others in the room looked at me with strange looks that had doubt in them when they heard this, but the prime minister and chancellor just narrowed their eyes to look at me as if they were sizing me up.

    After a long silence, the prime minister asked, "Is it like the wyverns?"

    At this, everyone''s expression changed.

    They all looked much more serious as they looked at me.

    There were even a few of them that looked like they really wanted to hear more about this. After all, the wyverns were the only reason that the Kite Kingdom was able to invade all of the other kingdoms. Naturally they wanted some information on how I had tamed the wyverns.

    Though they wouldn''t be able to do much with this information, it would at least make them feel a bit better.

    I just gave a small nod as I said, "It''s something simr."

    The prime minister narrowed his eyes even more to look at me before slowly shaking his head, "Unless you exin to me what you''re nning to do, I won''t agree to this. It''spletely different from before, you are now the king of this kingdom, we can''t let you put yourself at risk."

    Though there were some people that looked like they wanted to hear my n, they still nodded in agreement to the prime minister.

    They recognized I was the king of the kingdom, so they had to at least show this kind of

    loyalty.

    But it was clear by the look in their eyes that they thought that whatever n I had was certainly worth trying.

    Even the chancellor seemed like he thought this.

    The only reason that he didn''t say anything was because of the look that was on the prime minister''s face.

    This was a look that waspletely different from the usual calm and collected prime

    minister.

    This was the look of someone who clearly was letting his emotions affect his thoughts.

    But that wasn''t strange since I was his brother inw.

    I slowly shook my head in the end before saying, "I''m the only one that can do this, so there''s

    no other choice."

    "No." The prime minister said in a firm voice.

    It seemed like neither side was about to back down.

 Chapter 1013: Bedroom talk

    Chapter 1013: Bedroom talk

    ?

    The meeting ended without a resolution in the end.

    Neither side was willing to back down, so there was nothing to resolve.

    Unless they were willing to take a step back ande to apromise, it wasn''t as if they would be able to solve this matter.

    So all that happened was that everyone was dismissed with a worried heart.

    All that they were told was that there would be another meeting held tomorrow, so they would have toe back and see the conclusion then. But that meant that everyone would have a hard time sleeping tonight since they wouldn''t be able to calm their hearts.

    I was even affected by this, but it was in a different way.

    Normally, that brother inw of mine would agree to most of the things that I proposed.

    But this time, it seemed like he wouldn''t budge at all.

    It was as if he had suddenly changed how he acted around me, which confused me, but mainly it annoyed me since he became like a mother. He was like a mother with the way that he nagged me to drop this matter.

    I really didn''t understand why he had changed like this.

    Since I was still annoyed when I came back to our bedroom, my wives could naturally see how I was feeling. There really was no way for me to hide my feelings from them, they could see through me with a single look.

    The one that came forward to talk to me was Ang.

    "I heard what happened at the meeting today." She said in a calm voice.

    But hearing what she said, I couldn''t help revealing an annoyed look as I remembered what happened earlier.

    Though I was annoyed, that didn''t mean that I took it out on Ang since I knew that it wasn''t her fault.

    With a sigh, I said, "I just don''t understand why he''s suddenly changed like that. The way that he used to be, he was even bolder than me and he used me as a tool in his ns many times. I don''t understand why he''s suddenly so conservative."

    There was a wry smile that appeared on Ang''s face when she heard this before she said, "Well, it just means that he''s worried about you. It''s not a bad thing that he''s worried about you."

    I didn''t say anything at first, but then I suddenly shook my head and said with a sigh, "It''s just that it feels that he doesn''t trust me anymore. It''s almost as if we''ve lost the bond that we''ve had before."

    That was the thing that really annoyed me the most about this entire situation.

    I wouldn''t have minded if the prime minister was against this if he clearly stated what he was worried about, but he just kept rejecting my idea without giving me a reason. It was as if he was personallying after me with the way that he kept rejecting the idea.

    That was what hurt me the most.

    That was why I felt that he hadpletely changed.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Ang was silent for a bit before she revealed an awkward look.

    I was surprised to see this, but I didn''t say anything as I waited for her to speak.

    "It''s actually my fault." She said in an awkward voice.

    "Huh?" I was very confused by why she would say something like this, but then I said, "No, it''s not your fault. How could it be your fault?"

    Ang just shook her head with the same awkward smile that had now be a bit wry before saying, "It''s because there''s something that I''ve been keeping from you?"

    A surprised look appeared on my face first, but then I immediately revealed a serious look and narrowed my eyes to look at her.

    I knew that she wouldn''t say something like this lightly, so it seemed that something had really happened.

    But I couldn''t think of what she could be hiding from me.

    After a long silence, Ang said with a sigh, "It''s just that he''s keeping a secret for me that I haven''t been able to find the time to talk to you about."

    I was even more confused, but I still waited for her to exin.

    With another sigh, Ang said, "It''s because I''m pregnant."

    I just looked at her in shock after hearing this, it was as if I couldn''t believe what I was hearing.

    After all, I certainly wasn''t prepared to hear this.

    We had been doing our business in bed during this time, but I never thought that she would be pregnant all of a sudden.

    After making this confession, Ang said, "My brother knew and that''s why he was worried. He was worried that with the child on the way, it would be bad if you were in danger and the child was left without a father. That''s why he''s been acting this way."

    All of the confusion that I felt was dispelled when I heard this and I finally understood why the prime minister...No, I finally understood why Noah had been acting that way.

    But that still didn''t mean that he had to act that way...

    No, I knew what kind of person he was.

    He was someone that cared about his family and the people of the kingdom, which made him different from the other princes. He was someone that had even been willing to be executed as a traitor just to save this kingdom, so what he was doing now was just a small matter.

    Shaking my head, I said with a sigh, "I guess I didn''t think about his feelings."

    But then I looked at Ang with a look of me as I said, "Why didn''t you tell me sooner?"

    Ang had a bitter smile while saying, "It''s just that you''ve all been so busytely and I just found out, so I didn''t have the time to talk to you about it." Then with a sigh, she said, "My brother only found out because the royal doctor reported to him. It seemed that he had already given the royal doctor the order to report to him if anything happened to me. He really is going too far..."

    I shook my head with a bitter smile, but I could definitely see this happening since I knew what kind of personality he had.

    It seemed that we still had something else to discuss tomorrow.

 Chapter 1014: Talk between men

    Chapter 1014: Talk between men

    ?

    There was a tense mood that was in the air when I walked into the meeting room.

    I saw that the prime minister and the chancellor had arrived early, but they weren''t the only

    ones.

    In fact, almost everyone had arrived early.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The only one that came at the normal time was...me.

    Based on the looks on their faces, it seemed like most of them had a rough night.

    I could guess why they all looked like this since it was most likely rted to me and the prime minister. The way that we parted the meetingst night was certainly enough to make them all worried about how things would go.

    So that was why they were all looking at me when I walked into the room.

    The one exception to this was the prime minister who had his head turned as if he was ignoring me.

    Sitting beside him with an awkward look on his face was the chancellor who looked like he wanted to smooth things over, but he didn''t know what to do.

    Seeing them like this, I couldn''t help shaking my head with a bitter smile.

    Then in front of everyone, I walked towards the prime minister.

    All of them looked at me with a tense look on their faces as if they were scared of what I was doing, but I just ignored all of them as I walked over to the prime minister.

    The chancellor also looked at me as if he was urging me to make amends, but I ignored him as well as I said, "Let''s go and talk in private."

    The prime minister slowly turned and looked at me with a surprised look since he didn''t expect me to call him out like this, but then he said, "Is there anything that we need to talk in private about?"

    The way that he said this was as if he wasn''t interested in talking in private with me.

    That was most likely because he thought that I wanted to convince him in private about this matter, which was why he was saying this in front of everyone. He wanted to make sure that they would all listen to what was said, even if it did make them feel awkward.

    It seemed that this was his determination.

    But I just shook my head and said, "It''s not about this, I want to talk about a private matter."

    "Private matter?" The prime minister repeated before slightly knitting his brows to show that he was confused.

    He didn''t seem to understand what I had to talk to him in private about, but in the end...he chose toe with me.

    That was because the prime minister had seen the look in his eyes.

    He could tell that he had something serious to talk to him about.

    Once the two of us were in the study, I looked at him and said, "So you know?"

    The prime minister raised one brow to show his confusion before asking, "Know? Know what?"

    "What do you think I''m talking about? I''m talking about Ang." I said in a casual voice. This time, the prime minister knitted his brows as he looked at me, as if he didn''t expect me to suddenly say something like this. However, I just calmly looked at him and said, "Noah, it''s fine if you know. You are the uncle after all."

    The prime minister...Noah was surprised to hear me addressing him by his name in an intimate manner.

    But then he knitted his brows again as he said, "Since you know, I think that you should understand why I''m doing this."

    I just calmly nodded in response to this before saying, "I''m not ming you for doing this since I can understand why you would do something like this, I''m just hurt that you''re going behind my back to do something like this. I thought that you would at least trust me enough to talk to me like a man about this instead of putting on that show."

    Noah revealed an awkward look after hearing this before saying, "Well, you didn''t know about it and it wasn''t as if I could just tell you straight since Ang hadn''t told you anything..."

    The awkward way that he said this waspletely different from how he normally acted, but it was clear that he had put a lot of thought into this.

    It seemed that he really was trying his best to show his care towards me and Ang.

    But that wasn''t what I wanted.

    "I understand how you feel, but this isn''t like you at all. Where''s the daring fourth prince who once put everyone in danger for his ns? Where''s the fourth prince who was even bold enough to n a coup of the country for his goals?" I said in a way that almost seemed like I was provoking him.

    Noah knitted his brows once more when he heard this.

    After looking at me in silence for a bit, he slowly said with a sigh, "Things are different now. You even have a child on the way, we can''t keep acting the same way as before. There are people that we have responsibilities towards, so I can''t let you put yourself at risk like that."

    There was a serious look on my face as I said, "I understand how you feel, but does that mean that you don''t trust me anymore? Haven''t I shown you with all the different things that I''ve done that there''s more to me than meets the eye?"

    Noah knitted his brows even more when he heard this before saying with another sigh, "If you told me what you were nning, then I could discuss it with you and n things out. You''re the one that doesn''t seem to trust me."

    I calmly looked at him as I said, "If I could tell you, I would have told you. There are things that I can''t control in this world. It isn''t that I don''t trust you, it''s just that I really can''t tell you."

    Noah just narrowed his eyes to look at me without saying anything.

    After a long silence, he finally said with a sigh, "Then why are you doing all of this?"

 Chapter 1015: A family

    Chapter 1015: A family

    ?

    "Because I''ve found a family." That was the answer that I gave in a calm voice.

    Noah just looked at me with a dazed look, almost as if he couldn''t understand what I was saying.

    He just looked at me like this for a bit before his expression slowly changed.

    With the way that he looked at me, it was as if he couldn''t see through me. It was as if he had manyplicated feelings that he couldn''t put in words, which was why he looked at me like this.

    Seeing the expression on his face, I could guess what he was thinking.

    So I calmly said, "I''ll do what I can to protect my family, just like you."

    Noah''s expression became even moreplicated when he heard this. He just looked at me in silence like this for a bit before suddenly giving a sigh.

    After another pause, he asked, "Is there a need for you to put yourself in danger like this though?"

    The expression that he had this time was one of sadness.

    The way that he looked at me, it was almost as if he was hurt.

    I didn''t understand why he would look at me like this at first, but then I slowly started to understand.

    That was because it was simr to how I had felt about him before.

    It was the basic issue of trust.

    Just like how I thought that he didn''t trust me, it seemed like he also thought that I didn''t trust him. He thought that I didn''t leave these matters to him because I didn''t trust him to take care of these things.

    While I thought that he didn''t trust me to take care of these matters with my own ns. So it was a case of both of us misunderstanding what the intentions of the other side were. Taking a deep breath, I just directly said, "It isn''t that I don''t trust you."

    Noah looked at me with a surprised look before knitting his brows as if he was waiting to hear what I had to say.

    I just looked right at him as I said, "It''s just that this is something that only I can do." Noah''s brows didn''t rx when he heard this, he even looked at me as if he didn''t believe this.

    I didn''t mind the way that he looked at me as I said, "This is something that only I can do because I''m the only one that knows the special details about the giants. If someone else were to follow my n, there''s no telling what would happen because they wouldn''t know the intricacies of the giant race. They wouldn''t be able to adapt if something were to happen, which is arge part of my n in the first ce."

    "Can''t you just write it all down?" Noah slowly asked.

    I shook my head before saying, "This isn''t something that can be written down, it''s something that has to be experienced to be understood."

    "You have experience with the giants?" The way that he said this made it very clear what he was implying, but I just calmly looked at him with a faint smile on my face after hearing this.

    There was no need for me to say anything, the smile on my face was more than enough to give him an answer.

    Noah still had his brows knitted for a while, but then all of a sudden, he rxed his brows and said, "Alright, I understand."

    Since the beginning, he knew that this brother inw of his had his secrets. Even before he became his brother inw, there were many things that he hadn''t been able to see through with him.

    He wasn''t willing to share these secrets, not because he didn''t trust him.

    If he didn''t trust him, he wouldn''t have said all of this.

    This brother inw of his...he had a very strange background.

    He had only found that this brother inw of his had been a ve that had been sold to Rose''s husband as a sex ve, but there was nothing before that. It was as if before he was sold as a ve, his entire history had been nk.

    For someone to have a history that even he couldn''t investigate with the entire force of the Kite Kingdom''s intelligencework, there was no doubt that there was something very special about his past.

    The people that had erased his past were not people that could be messed with...

    Taking a deep breath, Noah gave a slight nod as he said, "Alright, I''ll trust you for now. But I hope that you will keep your promise and keep yourself safe. You have a family that is waiting for you..."

    After his voice trailed off for a bit, he suddenly broke the silence by saying, "If you do anything to hurt my sister, I promise that I won''t let you off even if you die."

    There was a smile that crept onto my face after hearing this.

    I looked at him and then patted him on the shoulder before saying, "Don''t worry, you are my family. If I can help it, I will never do anything that will hurt you."n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Noah looked deep into my eyes for a few seconds before slowly giving a nod.

    With that, the matter of me heading to the Land of Giants was settled.

    But there was still something that I had to talk about with him.

    "So you ordered the royal doctor to report to you if they discovered anything wrong with your sister?" I suddenly asked Noah this.

    There was an awkward look on his face as he said, "I was just worried about her..."

    This really was different from the past fourth prince who did this kind of shameless thing without any hesitation.

    But it meant that he was different from the fourth prince of the past.

    He was no longer restrained by his position and had to act the part of the viin.

    He was free to be the real him.

    "Well, she''s not happy about it." I said in a teasing voice.

    Noah trembled the moment that he heard this before saying in a shaky voice, "Then you

    mean..."

    I just gave a simple nod in response.

    "Brother inw, please help me." Noah said without any hesitation, but I shook my head just

    as resolutely.

    I wouldn''t get in the middle of this, I still wanted to live.

 Chapter 1016: Not stopping until weâ€™re drunk!

    Chapter 1016: Not stopping until we¡¯re drunk!

    ?

    "I''m sorry." I apologized to Rose as she was leaving the room.

    Rose just shook her head with a smile on her face as she said, "There''s nothing to apologize about, I understand. You were the same with my family, so how could I ask for more?"

    I had a grateful look on my face when she said this.

    As for what I was apologizing for...

    It was that I was about to have a private family dinner with Ang, the former king, and Noah.

    This seemed like I was excluding them, but really this was because there was something important that we had to tell the former king. That was why I wanted it to just be the four of us, instead of including Rose and the other wives.

    It wasn''t that I didn''t value them, it was just that this was a special asion for this former royal family.

    It was a good thing that they understood and respected this decision of mine.

    When the former king arrived, he was certainly surprised and a bit confused why I suddenly invited him to dinner like this. At the same time, it even seemed like he was a bit suspicious of why I invited him.

    Suspicious wasn''t the right word to describe it, it was more that he was on guard.

    As for what he was on guard against...

    Well, it was simply because he didn''t want me throwing more of my work to him like I''ve been doing for a while now.

    But even if he looked at me in this way, that didn''t stop us from enjoying dinner together as a family.

    We didn''t break the news to him right away and instead just enjoyed the time as a family first.

    It was only when we were halfway through the meal that I suddenly said, "Father inw, there''s something that I want to talk to you about."

    The former king slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but he slowly gave a nod in response and looked at me as if he was waiting to hear what I had to say.

    I didn''t say it right away as I turned to take Ang''s hand and shared a look with her first.

    The two of us looking at each other like this made the former king raise a brow as if he was doubtful of something, but he went back to the same look as before in the end.

    Once we finished our moment, I turned back to the former king to say, "Father inw, I want to tell you that Ang is pregnant."

    The former king''s chin dropped the moment that he heard this.

    It took him more than a minute toe back to his senses and when he did, the expression on his face changed many times. It was almost as if he was having a stroke with how much his face was twitching, but we knew that it was just because of the different emotions that he was feeling at this moment.

    Finally, the former king stood up from his seat and walked over to us with the same changing expression on his face.

    When he reached Ang''s side, he bent down and asked, "Is it true?"

    Ang just looked up at him with a tear in her eye and a smile on her lips as she gave a small nod.

    The former king''s eyes teared up as well when he saw this before suddenly taking her hand and patting it as he said, "That''s great! I''ve been waiting for this day for a long time!"

    It seemed that his emotions got the better of him and he wasn''t able to control the volume of his voice, but it was understandable since this was how any father would act in this situation. The daughter that he cared for had married a man that he approved of and now they were having their own children, it was certainly a happy ending no matter how one looked at it. The former king started asking a bunch of questions about how the baby was and how long she had been pregnant, which Ang slowly answered.

    When he was finally satisfied with this, he suddenly turned to Noah and said, "Now if only we can get this one married." Right as soon as his voice fell, he gave a sigh as if he was disappointed about something.

    Ang just nodded in agreement after hearing this and saying, "Sometimes I even wonder if he''s..."

    The way that her voice trailed off made it very clear what she was implying.

    Noah just revealed an awkward look when he heard this before shooting a gaze at me as if he was asking for help.

    But when he did this, I could feel the chill that wasing from Ang.

    I knew that she was doing this on purpose, this was her way of getting back at Noah for the matter with the royal doctor. So if I were to help at this time, there was no doubt that her fury would also turn to me.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    In this scenario...the only thing that I could do was pray for Noah.

    Since I didn''t say anything the former king and Ang continued to harass Noah about the fact that he wasn''t married. They harassed him about the fact that he had never even shown any interest in women before.

    In the end, he finally couldn''t take it anymore and said, "It''s not as if I don''t have my own ideas, it''s just that I''m too busy right now."

    At this, the former king and Ang both revealed interested looks before they started peppering him with more questions.

    Hearing them go at him like this, Noah knew that he had made a mistake and let his emotions get the better of him.

    Though the real reason was...he had been drinking.

    He had been sipping his wine to avoid the question, but that had backfired on him.

    The former king also knew this, so he said, "Let''s go, we''re not stopping until we''re drunk!"

    Part of this was just to tease his son, but the bigger part of it was that he was happy that his daughter was pregnant and he was about to be a grandfather.

    Since that was the case, I was happy to go along with him.

 Chapter 1017: Secret weapon

    Chapter 1017: Secret weapon

    ?

    My head hurt the next morning when I woke up.

    That was because I had gotten quite drunkst night because of the former king.

    He really lived up to the promise of not letting anyone go until we were dead drunkst night, but that just went to show how happy he was about the news that he received.

    I could only remember fragments ofst night because of how drunk I was. However, at a certain point, the former king had even started trying toe up with names for the child even though it was still months before it would be born.

    By the time that he had finally fell asleep, there was a list of names that had already been written down.

    Turning to the side, I could see that list that we hade up with.

    By the end of it, the writing became more and more illegible. It was clear that we were less and less able to write the more drunk we became.

    Though I had a headache from my hangover, I had no choice but to get up and take care of something today.

    As I was about to get up, Moon suddenly came over to my side and stopped me.

    I raised a brow to look at her as if I was asking her what she was doing, but she didn''t say anything as she raised her hand. She brought that hand up to my head and just ced it on the side of my head.

    I had no idea what she was doing, but I could feel a warm feelinging from her hand.

    From the corner of my eyes, I could see that her hand seemed to be glowing green as if she was using some kind of magic.

    If I had to guess, it was some kind of healing spell since I could feel the aching in my head reducing.

    I looked at her with a grateful look when I felt this, but there was a voice that said...

    "You should just leave him be."

    I looked over to see Rose and the others standing there with their arms crossed. The looks on their faces made it clear that they were unhappy with me.

    My mind quickly turned as I tried to figure out what happened and based on their messy clothing, it seemed that I had turned into quite a beastst night. With the way that their legs seemed a bit weak, it seemed that we had gone for quite a bitst night.

    It was no wonder they were unhappy with me.

    But what Zwein didn''t know was that they weren''t actually all that unhappy, they were actually quite pleased with what happenedst night.

    It was just that it was a matter of pride, so it wasn''t as if they could admit that to his face.

    They had to at least pretend that they were angry.

    I just shook my head and said, "Thank you for taking care of mest night."

    They all nodded and gave soft sounds of acknowledgement before heading off. All of them were in important positions, so they were quite busy.

    Moon also finished casting her spell on my head and then headed off as well.

    As I watched them leave, I couldn''t help thinking to myself, "I really am blessed with good women."

    Only when I shifted myself to get out of the bed, I found that there was something strangeing from beneath me. It seemed like there was something that I was sitting on with the feeling that came from below.

    When I shifted over, I found that there was a vibrator under me.

    It had been right under my butt...

    I couldn''t help trembling as I thought to myself, "Just what happenedst night?"

    Thest time that they tried to use the vibrator on me, I had been able to convince them to stop by pleasuring them until they forgot about it. But this time...

    I had to touch my butt to see if there was any diforting from it, but it didn''t seem like there was anything wrong with it.

    I felt a bit of relief, but it wasn''t enough to dispel the worry that was inside of me since this vibrator was under me and it was dangerously close to my butt. It wouldn''t appear in that ce for no reason...

    It was just that I couldn''t think of what happenedst night.

    I was too drunk to remember...

    I couldn''t help worrying about whether I still had my precious virginity down there, but there was nothing that I could really do about it since it wasn''t as if I could ask my wives about what happenedst night.

    Even if I were to ask, I think that it would have been unlikely that they would have answered with the way that they had been acting this morning.

    In the end, I had no choice but to stop thinking about this matter even if it lingered in the back of my mind.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Instead, I focused on what I had to do this morning.

    When the maid came in with my clothes and breakfast, I asked, "Are the wyverns ready?" She said with a nod, "Everything is ready and they are waiting for you out in the courtyard." After hearing that, I gave a nod to her in response and started stuffing my face.

    I couldn''t even bother finishing the rest of the breakfast as I headed down into the courtyard.

    It wasn''t that the breakfast was bad or I had anything against the maid, it was just that there was something more important that I had to do.

    When I came down the courtyard, I saw the wyverns that were all loaded up with different bags that contained materials.

    All of these were requested by me and our destination was my former territory where the factory was.

    That was because these were the resources that had been collected from the three kingdoms that we subdued.

    I wanted to make some secret weapons before heading out to the Land of Giants.

    There was no telling what would happen after all.

 Chapter 1018: To the Land of Giants

    Chapter 1018: To the Land of Giants

    ?

    A week after deciding the trip to the Land of Giants, it was finally time for us to set off.

    The head of the group was naturally me since it was my idea to go there in the first ce. At the same time, I was the one that insisted on going because only I knew what to do with the giants.

    The ones that were assigned to help me this time were Shaka and Klein.

    Klein was obvious since he was the captain of the royal guards and the job of the royal guards was to protect the king and the royal family. If I was going to a dangerous ce, he and the other royal guards would naturally being along as my guards.

    Shaka wasing along since he was someone that was familiar with the way that I worked.

    He was someone that could go along with the things that I did better than others since he was used to the twists that I normally brought out. But at the same time, I knew that the prime minister had sent him along to keep me in line just in case things went wrong.

    Since Shaka had been with me for a long time, it could be said that we were quite close.

    He was someone that I respected and would listen to if things went wrong.

    After all, once I became the king, I had learned about his true identity.

    He really was a legendary person in our kingdom, but it seemed like he had gotten tired of living that kind of life and wanted to protect the kingdom from the shadows. That was why he joined Shadow Garden in the first ce.

    Along with the royal guards were also a group that had been assigned to me by the prime minister.

    These were people that were skilled in the logistic side of running a government that he had personally trained. These were people that could handle the paperwork issue if anything came up and would be able to help as diplomats when the time came.

    They were the antithesis to the brute force that was the royal guards.

    There was no doubt that this group was certainly useful and I knew that the prime minister would suffer without them.

    They were a group that he had trained to help him run the government, they were his skilled arms and legs. So by sending them with me, it was clear that he was crippling himself during this time.

    But he still did it without hesitation since he knew that this was where they would best serve their use.

    I was grateful to him for this.

    After we all gathered, I looked over the group in front of me and said, "When we arrive in the Land of Giants, I hope that all of you will follow my orders precisely. There''s no telling what will happen when we arrive in the territory of the giants."

    Then after a pause, I said, "But if anything goes wrong, I hope that you will use your own judgement and prioritize your own lives. I''ll do my best, but I also want you to do your best toe back alive."

    Everyone had determined looks after hearing this before giving firm nods of agreement. Seeing the fired up looks in their eyes, I knew that there was nothing else that I had to say. Turning around, I just waved my hand at them as I said, "Let''s head out then."

    All of us boarded the wyverns after I said this.

    The diplomats had to share wyverns with the royal guards since they weren''t trained as wyvern riders and didn''t have their own wyverns.

    Our group headed out of the capital under everyone''s gaze and then quickly headed in the direction of the former Vikal Kingdom.

    There was nothing that stopped us at what used to be the border of the Vikal Kingdom and the Kite Kingdom. There was still a border there since there were still things that the prime minister and chancellor needed to control, but it was quite the rxed border since we were supposed to be a united country now.

    Though no one would be crazy enough to stop wyverns.

    Some of the people there were former soldiers of the Vikal Kingdom, so they were afraid when they saw us pass.

    I could see the looks on their faces.

    They looked at us as if they were afraid that we were here to once again invade them.

    Though there was no need since we had already finished invading them and had even taken over their kingdom.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So in the end, we just moved past the border and reached the other border.

    This border was the border of the former Vikal Kingdom and was right next to the Land of Giants, but we didn''t go past that border today.

    Instead, wended in one of the towns near that border and prepared to head there tomorrow morning.

    It was better to go in the morning than in the afternoon like this since it would give us an entire day to deal with anything that happened instead of just a short period of time.

    Only that meant that we had to deal with the noble that was in charge of this town.

    We came on the back of wyverns, so it was impossible for them to just ignore us and it wasn''t as if we could just ignore them since they were nobles of the new Kite Kingdom.

    It was only after a long banquet that I was able to reach the balcony of the room that they prepared for me.

    This hotel was the tallest hotel in the town, so I was able to see quite far by standing on the balcony.

    Standing there, I looked in the direction of the Land of Giants with aplicated look.

    Though I had shown a confident front, I was actually quite worried about what was toe. "Tomorrow..." I said with a sigh to myself.

 Chapter 1019: Giant tribes

    Chapter 1019: Giant tribes

    ?

    When the morning came, we just ignored the noble''s offer to show us around the town and the surrounding area.

    It seemed like he wanted to try and keep us here a bit longer, but he was terrified of the royal guards that were here.

    If he were to try anything, all that would happen is that he would be dragged away by the royal guards.

    The noble in charge of this town wasn''t a fool, he knew that there was a new government being built up and it wouldn''t be good to be on the bad side of the new ruler.

    So we were able to leave early in the morning and head to the borders.

    At the borders, the troops that were watching the Land of Giants didn''t dare stop us since we were flying through on the backs of wyverns. There wasn''t even a proper station to pass through since there was no rtions with the giants in the first ce.

    The giants were one of the races that didn''t have interactions with the human race, so there wasn''t a need to build a station that would allow ess between the two regions.

    The only thing that was needed at the border of the Vikal Kingdom was a wall to watch for the attacks of the giants.

    Though I was looking at the walls from above, I could tell that they were quiterge since I had theparison of the people that were on it. With how small they were when they stood on these walls, it was easy to estimate just how tall the walls were.

    Seeing the wall lining the border, I really couldn''t help thinking of a certain series from my past life that was quite popr.

    It also had something to do with three walls and the giants that lived outside those walls attacking humans, though it wasn''t the same as the current situation.

    It really was a strangeparison to think of...but I focused my mind after being distracted for a few seconds after seeing this wall.

    Once I was focused, I turned my attention to thend beneath us.

    These were thends that the giants lived in, this was the Land of Giants.

    It was and that was filled with forests as far as the eyes could see.

    With how overgrown the forest under us was, it was almost as if this was and that was untouched by humans. Though in a sense, that really was the best way to describe thend that was under us since it was the territory of the giants.

    Giants didn''t have the same level of civilization as humans because of their long lifespans and low poption, so they still lived in tribes. These tribes were what we were looking for.

    In the game, the tribes were randomly distributed across the map, so there was no clue from the game that would tell me where the giants were. The only thing that we could do was rely on our ability to fly to survey the forest that was under us until we found one of the giant tribes.

    The giants didn''t really have a governing structure among them either.

    Even though they were in tribes, there was little interaction between the different tribes of giants since they didn''t need to interact with each other as much.

    The only time that the giants interacted with each other was when they needed something from each other.

    In those cases, several tribes woulde together to create a market where they would trade with each other.

    Other than that, there was really no structure of governing when it came to the giants.

    So there was no way to convince one ruler to make the giants friendly to the humans.

    The only thing that we could do was convince the tribes one by one until most of them were friendly to humans. Once that happened, there shouldn''t be anything to worry about when it came to this Land of Giants.

    Only it was hard to convince them one by one like that.

    The best way to convince them was the market that the giants gathered together.

    This was also what had been in the game.

    The way to befriend the giants was to offer them goods that they wanted at the market and slowly raise their affection until one was able to befriend them. When that time came, there were even giant women that could be wooed.

    Though to actually have sex with those giant women, one would need a special potion that would turn one into a giant temporarily.

    It was a potion that was quite hard to find at first, butter on it was easy to obtain regrly once one found the supplier.

    That was just how the game was designed since the developers didn''t want yers to constantly go through a hard grind for a function that they unlocked.

    After flying around for a bit, Shaka suddenly said, "It seems like there''s some smokeing from over there."

    All of us looked in the direction that he was pointing in, but we really didn''t see the smoke that he was talking about. Still, I trusted Shaka and had the rest of the wyverns fly in the direction that he was pointing in.

    It was only after we flew in that direction for a bit that we finally saw what he was referring to.

    It was faint, but there was indeed smoke that wasing from a spot in the forest.

    I couldn''t help looking at Shaka and asking, "How good are your eyes that you were able to see the smoke from this far away?"

    He just looked at me with a smile without saying anything.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I shook my head and said with a sigh, "Let''s get closer and see if it''s what we''re looking for. If it is, then we''llnd and talk to them."

    Everyone had a tense look on their faces after hearing this, but no one objected to this.

 Chapter 1020: First contact

    Chapter 1020: First contact

    ?

    From above, we were able to see exactly what the source of the smoke was.

    With how big the giants were, it was easy to see them.

    At the same time, it meant that the things that they built were also quite big.

    The fire that they lit was already as big as a house and would have certainly been considered a weapon in the human world. But for these giants, it was just a normal fire that they were gathered around.

    Based on the clothes that these giants wore and the weapons that they used, they seemed to

    be a group of hunters that were out hunting for food. Looking to the side of this group, I could also see that there were somerge animals that were there.

    Normal human hunters would go for things like deers and rabbits, but for these giant hunters...

    Deers and rabbits were nothing more than a morsel for giants, so it wasn''t as if they could fill themselves with these things.

    The things that these giant hunters hunted were much more wild than the things that human hunters hunted.

    These were creatures that I had expected to see sinceing to this magic fantasy world. The giants hunted things like giant boars, giant snakes, and all kinds of giant creatures. These were clearly magic beasts that were also considered monsters in human society.

    If these things appeared in thends controlled by humans, they would immediately be killed out by adventurers hired by the human nobles. So there was no way that these magic creatures would appear in thends of the humans.

    After all, most humans were quite weakpared to normal monsters, so they couldn''t just live alongside them.

    For these giants that were strong since they were born, they could easily live with these magic beasts and even use them as food.

    That was just the difference between races.

    Though they were just a few hunters, I wasn''t disappointed after finding them.

    Rather, I felt that this was better than finding a tribe of giants.

    Finding a few hunters was the better way to make first contact since they were easier to approach than a tribe of giants.

    The tribe was even harder because that was where their children were.

    Any race was defensive of their young since they represented the future of their race, so they wouldn''t allow other races to approach the ce where their youths were that easily.

    After making sure that there was nothing else around, I had Klein and Shaka follow me while having the rest of the royal guardsnd nearby.

    I didn''t want to bring everyone down since it wouldn''t be good if we all went down, the giants might misunderstand that we were there to attack them rather than to talk. But it wasn''t as if we could go down without the wyverns at all since that would just make them think that they could take us easily.

    If they thought that, there was no telling what they would do.

    When we descended, the giants naturally saw us since it was hard to descend quietly on the back of a wyvern.

    The moment that the giants noticed us, they all pulled out their weapons.

    That was the natural first reaction when one saw a wyvern descend, so I wasn''t worried about this.

    They also seemed to be cautious as they didn''t attack even though they had pulled out their weapons.

    With the tense way that they stood there, it was as if they wanted to see what was happening that would make these wyverns suddenly approach them like this.

    Even if they were giants, wyverns were not creatures that they could fight that easily.

    When we got closer, the giants could naturally see the three of us on the back of the three wyverns which made them reveal confused looks since they didn''t think that humans would be able to control wyverns.

    That made them even more cautious and even more curious about the three of us thatnded.

    When we were about tond, one of the giants said in a booming voice, "Who are you and why are you on ournd?"

    This was an expected question, so I didn''t panic when I heard this.

    Though it was indeed an experience hearing the booming voices of these giants.

    The giants were over twenty meters tall, evenrger than the wyverns that we rode...

    Well, that was except for Joan that I was sitting on since she was the Wyvern Queen, thergest out of all the wyverns. Though she was only a bit taller than the giants in the first ce.

    With theirrge size, it was only natural that their vocal chords were also much bigger, which made their voices very loud.

    Taking a deep breath, I said, "We are human merchants who have lost our way. Are you interested in perusing our wares?"

    The giants were all taken aback when they heard this.

    Not only were they surprised by the fact that I didn''t seem scared of them at all, they were

    even more surprised by the fact that I was trying to sell them things.

    It had been a long time since humans hade to theirnd and there certainly had never

    been a human that rode on the back of a wyvern to visit them.

    So they couldn''t help being curious of this human who was so bold.

    But that didn''t mean that they let their guards down.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    After a moment of silence, the giant said, "Even if you''re lost, do you really think that you should be trading with us?"

    Though he didn''t say it clearly, it was obvious what he was implying.

    But I didn''t panic at all as I looked up at the giant and said with a smile, "A customer is a customer. As long as you''re willing to buy from me, that''s enough."

    There was a tense silence that hung in the air before the giant suddenly burst into a booming

    laugh.

    Afterughing for a bit, the giant said, "It''s been a while since I''ve seen a bold human like you."

 Chapter 1021: A strange love

    Chapter 1021: A strange love

    ?

    Once that giant startedughing, the other giants seemed more rxed with us.

    Though they did still keep their guards up against the wyverns that we were riding on.

    It seemed that they were ready to make a move if our wyverns were to do anything.

    Still, once the giant thatughed broke the ice, it seemed that they were more willing to talk to us.

    "What are you selling?" One of the younger giants suddenly asked while the other giant was stillughing.

    At this, the giant that seemed to be the leader stoppedughing and turned to look at me.

    With the way that they were looking at me, it seemed like they were wondering where I was keeping the goods that I was nning on trading. After all, there didn''t seem to be a single thing that was on Joan and it didn''t even seem like I had a bag to store my items.

    I just raised my hand and pulled out a crystal from my Storage Ring.

    The giants were surprised to see this before the older giant whoughed before who was also older than the others and seemed to be the leader of this group said, "A Storage Ring, that''s a strange thing to have. I never thought that the elves would actually be close enough to a human to give them one of their special Storage Rings."

    I didn''t say anything as I looked up at the giant with a smile on my face.

    The giants looked at mepletely differently after their leader said this.

    The way that they were looking at me seemed like they were less suspicious of me and seemed curious about who I really was. After all, the elves were famous for not getting along with humans in the first ce.

    The only reason that they traded with the humans was because there were some things that they needed that only the humans had.

    If it wasn''t for this, then they certainly wouldn''t have traded with the humans.

    But a Storage Ring was apletely different story since a Storage Ring was a very special item for the elves.

    Unless they were forced to, it was unlikely that they would give one up.

    However, the fact that I was able to use the Storage Ring meant that I had obtained it willingly and the elves had even taught me how to use it.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    That had apletely different meaning.

    If I was a human that could be trusted by elves, then that meant that I wasn''t the same as the other humans.

    After taking out the crystal, I gently injected my mana into it.

    The moment that I did, it started to glow.

    The giants narrowed their eyes a bit when they saw the crystal start to glow, but then their eyes opened wide when they heard the sound that wasing from it.

    "This is..." The giant leader said in a shocked voice that trailed off.

    All of the giants seemed like they were shocked when they heard the voice that came from it.

    That was because after the crystal lit up, there was this beautiful singing that came from the crystal.

    This beautiful singing hadpletely entranced the giants when they heard it.

    With the way that they stood there in a daze, it was as if they only heard the singinging from the glowing crystal and nothing else.

    That was because these giants actually had a very strange love.

    It was that even though they lived in this kind of tribal society and seemed like backwards people, they had a great appreciation for the arts.

    Perhaps it was because of the society that they lived in that they had this great appreciation for the arts.

    Perhaps it was because this was something that they weren''t able to make themselves that they appreciated those that could make it.

    It was mainly because of their size that they weren''t able to use fine things like instruments to create music. But even if they weren''t able to create it, that didn''t mean that they weren''t able to appreciate it.

    That was why giants had a far greater love for the arts than most other races even though it didn''t seem to suit them as a race. At the same time, because of how much they loved it, they had quite refined tastes and could be quite picky on the things that they liked and disliked. It was a good thing that I had chosen the best of the best to trade with them. Mermaids were famous for their beautiful singing, it was even so beautiful that they were able to drown sailors by manipting them with their singing to crash their ships on rocks. That was why they were known as the sirens of the sea.

    That was also why I had chosen Ariel as the one that was recorded.

    This recording crystal was one of the special materials that came from the Darius Kingdom. It was a special crystal that was able to record sounds as long as a bit of mana was injected. Though it sounded easy, it actually wasn''t since the one recording had to constantly control the mana that was going into the crystal to allow it to keep recording.

    That was why it wasn''t used for anything before.

    But I knew the cheat for this since this was one of the minigames in the game.

    It was easy for me to find the right frequency and record Ariel''s singing with this crystal.

    Once it was recorded, all that it required was a bit of mana to yback the sound.

    This could even be achieved with a magic stone, but I was doing it myself right now to make the giants feel that it was even more mystical.

    When the song came to an end, the giants didn''t hesitate at all.

    "We''ll take it. Come back to our tribe and we''ll discuss the price." The giant leader said right

    away.

    The other giant hunters all nodded in agreement to this.

    A faint smile appeared on my lips when I heard this before I nodded in agreement.

 Chapter 1022: Harakka Tribe

    Chapter 1022: Harakka Tribe

    ?

    I could see the way that Shaka and Klein were looking at me, but I justpletely ignored them.

    But before we could head to the giant tribe, there was something else that I had to do.

    I suddenly raised my hand and said, "Let me call the others out first."n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The giants were surprised to hear this, but they were even more surprised to find that they werepletely surrounded by wyverns in less than a minute.

    Now, they werepletely surrounded and outnumbered by the wyverns.

    If they were to fight, there was no doubt that the wyverns would be able to wipe them out.

    At the same time, they could see that there were humans that were riding on the backs of these wyverns. That made it very clear that these wyverns were from the same group as these three in front of them.

    The giant leader didn''t say anything as he narrowed his eyes to look at me.

    I just calmly looked right into the eyes of the giant leader and said, "Even if I''m bold, that doesn''t mean that I''m reckless. It''s only normal to keep some people back when you''re meeting someone new for the first time. If something happens, they will be able to help us, right?"

    The giant leader didn''t say anything as he calmly looked back into my eyes.

    But in the end, he said, "Alright, I won''t call you bold or reckless." Then as a smile crept onto his lips, he said, "I''ll just call you crazy."

    I didn''t say anything as a smile appeared on my lips as well.

    The two of us looked at each other for a bit before he turned around and waved his hand to say, "Alright, follow us. We''ll take you back to our tribe."

    The other giants looked like they had a bit of hesitation and doubt, but they listened to the leader of the hunter group in the end. It seemed that his prestige among this group was high enough that they would listen to his words even if they had their doubts about this decision. So with the giant leader leading the way, we were brought back to their tribe.

    Though with the difference in size, we had to fly on the backs of the wyverns just to keep up with them.

    The giants were able to traverserge areas ofnd with just a single step, so it wasn''t as if they would be able to keep up with them on foot. As such, the wyverns were flying behind the giants near the ground.

    This really created a terrifying scene where it seemed like we were forcing the giants to lead the way.

    That was also what the guards of the vige saw the moment that we arrived at the giant tribe.

    "Enemy attack!"

    That was the first thing that we heard as soon as we saw the vige.

    It was a good thing that the voices of the giants were loud so that we heard this right away and the leader of the hunters went forward to stop them.

    It took a while for him to calm the guards down, but the deciding factor was the crystal that I had shown the hunters before. When they heard Ariel''s voiceing from it, they fell into the same daze as the hunters had before.

    Even the hunters were in a bit of a daze even though this was their second time hearing it. After the song ended, the guards at the vige seemed much calmer than before.

    The leader of the hunters said, "I''ll personally guarantee them, so let them in."

    The captain of the guards looked at the leader of the hunters with a strange look for a bit before finally saying with a sigh, "Olmir, watch over them carefully and make sure that they don''t get in any trouble."

    Though he said it like this, it didn''t seem like he really meant it which showed just how much he trusted the leader of the hunters.

    Olmir, the leader of the hunters, gave a slight nod before waving at us to follow him into the tribe.

    Like this, we were able to gain ess to the Harakka Tribe, which was what this tribe of giants was known as.

    Of course, there were still problems even though we had gained ess.

    Even though we had the guarantee of someone like Olmir, it didn''t seem like the others trusted us yet. Most of the giants seemed like they were watching us from afar and it even seemed like they were keeping their children away from us.

    I could see one of the mothers pulling her child inside even though he clearly wanted to keep ying.

    But there was nothing that we could do about that since we were outsiders that were let into the tribe. It wasn''t as if they would suddenly trust us just because we had the guarantee of Olmir.

    We didn''t let this bother us as we looked around the giant vige.

    There were few ounts of giant viges in the records of the human world since it was rare to be allowed into giant viges. The few ounts that were written were from those that had escaped after being captured by giants.

    Though it wasn''t the fault of the giants that they were captured, it was their own fault for trespassing on thend of giants in the first ce.

    The written records could never be the same as seeing things for our own eyes.

    Giant.

    That was the one word that came to mind when seeing this vige.

    After all, this was a vige that giants lived in, so of course they would build it to the scale that they would be able to live in itfortably. That meant thatpared to a human vige, the size waspletely different.

    Just the amount ofnd that this vige took up alone was already bigger than most towns and could even reach the size of human cities.

    That was just the difference in scale between humans and giants.

 Chapter 1023: Junior chief

    Chapter 1023: Junior chief

    ?

    "Uncle, what do you think you''re doing?"

    This voice that rang out pulled us out of our thoughts and we turned to see a younger giant walking over.

    He didn''t seem to be as tall as the other giants, just standing at around fifteen meters.

    He seemed to be one of the younger giants of the tribe. But at the same time, it was clear that this younger giant was also one of the respected ones in the tribe.

    What I could hear from a few people was ''junior chief''.

    If I had to guess, this should be the son of the chief of this Harakka Tribe.

    But it was also surprising to hear this son of the chief call Olmir ''uncle''.

    As expected, Olmir''s status in this Harakka Tribe really wasn''t normal.

    "Nephew, you should know that not all humans are the same. Just like how there are all kinds of good and bad giants, you shouldn''t judge a book by its cover." Olmir wasn''t afraid of the junior chief at all as he said this.

    The one that was called the junior chief knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "Do you not remember what happened when I was a child? When those humans tried to invade our territory?"

    I wasn''t the only one that was surprised to hear this, everyone else in my group was all surprised to hear this.

    After all, we had never heard of humans trying to invade the Land of Giants from the Vikal Kingdom. As far as we knew, the Vikal Kingdom had never tried to take a step into the Land of Giants since they were afraid of this ce and the giants that lived here.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that they shared a border with the Land of Giants, they wouldn''t want a single thing to do with this ce.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So it shouldn''t be the Vikal Kingdom that they were talking about.

    Only we couldn''t help wondering who would be crazy enough to attack a ce like the Land of Giants.

    If the giants were truly angered, then it would only result in a disaster.

    There was a reason why the giants were allowed to live in this ce, there was a reason why they were a race that even the four empires didn''t mess with.

    There were powerful giants that didn''t want anything to do with the world that hid themselves away. However, if their race was ever in danger, that was when they woulde out and fight for the glory of the giant race.

    So that was why no one dared to provoke the giants and invade theirnd.

    But now it seemed like there was someone that actually did something this stupid...

    After thinking about it, I figured out who it was.

    It wasn''t because of any information that I obtained from the Vikal Kingdom or even my own kingdom that I knew this. It was all because of the information that I had from the game.

    On the other side of the Land of Giants, there was another human kingdom.

    Well, there were five human kingdoms that were around the Land of Giants which just went to show how big this piece ofnd was. Though thinking about it, it was only normal that the giants would need thisrge area ofnd.

    The other kingdom on the other side was different from the Vikal Kingdom.

    The kingdom on the other side was one of the third rate kingdoms of human society.

    Comparing it, if the Kite Kingdom and the Vikal Kingdom were considered the beginner vige, this kingdom on the other side was considered the next area to explore after the beginner zone.

    That kingdom was a warmongering one that had been trying to expand their borders, but that wasn''t the reason why I knew this.

    It was because there was a quest.

    Later in the timeline of the game, that kingdom began attacking the Land of Giants again in an attempt to get the giants under them.

    The quest for the yer was to stop them with the giants and that would allow the yer to recruit giants to their army if they desired.

    That was how I could figure out which kingdom it was that attacked the giants.

    Olmir went forward to pat the junior chief on the shoulder before saying, "The hatred is too strong in your heart. How will you lead your people in the future if all you can think about is hatred? Sometimes you must see both sides of the coin to understand that there are good and bad people in this world."

    There was a resistant look that was on the face of the junior chief, but Olmir didn''t mind at all as he turned back around to look at me.

    He waved his hand at me before saying, "Come and meet my nephew."

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face and the others in my group looked at me with worried looks, but I gave them a look to show them that it was fine before heading over. Once I came over, Olmir patted the junior chief on the shoulder again before saying, "This is my nephew Alidus, he is the son of my brother, the chief of our tribe and one day will be the future leader of our tribe."

    The way that he said this was almost in a meaningful manner, as if he was implying something.

    I knew what he was talking about so I just gave a simple greeting to him...or at least that was what I had been nning on doing until I realized something.

    That name Alidus...

    It seemed very familiar...

    Right!

    That was the name of one of the special giant hero units that could be recruited in the game!

    This was one of the most special units that could be recruited, one that wielded the power of the ancient giants.

    Though judging by how he looked now, it didn''t seem like he had this power yet.

 Chapter 1024: Chief of the Harakka Tribe

    Chapter 1024: Chief of the Harakka Tribe

    ?

    With a smile on my face, I said, "It''s a pleasure to meet the junior chief of the Harakka Tribe." Then I reached my hand out even though it seemed strange for a human to reach a hand out towards a giant.

    Alidus just stood there looking at me with a strange look without taking my hand in the end.

    There was an awkward silence that lingered in the air before someone said, "This idiot son of mine."

    Then before anyone could react, there was someone that suddenly walked over and pped Alidus on the back of the head. However, even though he had been pped on the back of the head, it didn''t seem like he was going toin about it.

    There was only one person that could do such a thing to the son of the chief.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It was naturally the father, the chief of the tribe.

    "Brother, you didn''t have to p him on the back of the head like that." Olmir spoke up for his nephew, but...

    "Brother, you''ve always been too kind to him. I know that you want him to realize these things on his own, but that''s caused him to stray down the wrong path. Sometimes you need a bit of force to bring him back to the right path." The chief said without any hesitation.

    It seemed that the two brothers really were different when it came to how they taught children, which showed the different personalities that they had.

    But even then, it seemed like the rtionship between them was quite good.

    After the two of them talked about Alidus for a bit, the chief looked at me and said, "I''ve heard about you. I''m Olos, chief of this tribe."

    The way that he said this was very curt, which aligned with the personality that he had shown. But even if what he said was curt, that didn''t mean that he had said it in a disrespectful manner.

    This was just the way that he spoke and the personality that he had, so it wasn''t as if he was insulting them.

    Rather, this was his own way of showing his respect.

    So I didn''t mind his curt manner of speaking and just said with a smile, "It''s an honour to meet you Chief Olos. I am Zwein and this is my group of merchants. We''re here to trade with you if you''re willing to ept us."

    Olos gave a nod in response before saying, "I''ve already seen the things that you''ve brought, so I''m fine with my people trading with you for them. However, I hope that you will have your discretion when trading with my people."

    His voice turned a bit cold when he said this, but I didn''t mind it at all.

    I knew that he was just doing his part as the chief by threatening me to look out for his people, so of course I wouldn''t mind at all. As a king, I understood the responsibility that a leader had towards his people, so I knew that there was nothing wrong with this.

    But what Olos said next caught me off guard.

    "Alidus, you will help these humans with everything that they need to set up their stand. If they require anything, you will help them with everything that you have. If I hear that you''ve ignored this task, you can be sure that there will be hell to pay."

    After saying this, he didn''t even bother looking back as he started walking away.

    Olmir had a faint smile on his face when he heard this, but then he patted Alidus on the shoulder before saying, "Work hard, nephew. Your father expects great things from you this time."

    Alidus clearly had a confused and unwilling look on his face, but there was nothing that he could say when both his father and uncle had said this. At this point, there was only one path forward for him.

    As for me, I waspletely caught off guard by their actions.

    After all, by all right, giants shouldn''t care about humans at all.

    It couldn''t be said that giants hated humans, it was just that they didn''t want any interaction with humans at all. That was because in their minds, humans were greedy creatures that only cared about their own profits.

    That was the general idea that most of the other races had about humans after the race wars.

    So it was strange that they would have such an opinion of a human and would ept us trading in their tribe that easily.

    These two brothers must have had some kind of experience in the past that would make them think this way.

    There was no doubt that there was a deeper secret to all of this.

    But that wasn''t important now.

    Not to mention that I wouldn''t even be able to get them to tell me that story if I wanted to. This would certainly be a private thing for them, so it wasn''t as if they would share this that easily.

    Instead, I turned to look at Alidus who still had an unwilling look on his face.

    It was clear that he didn''t want anything to do with us, but there was nothing that he could do since he had received an order. He would be punished if he didn''t follow this order, so he had no choice in the matter.

    After a long silence, Alidus turned around and waved his hand at us before saying, "Come and follow me. I''ll find a stall for you in the market and you can sell your goods there."

    Then he suddenly paused and looked at the wyverns before saying, "The wyverns can''t alle into the vige with us. Some of you will have to stay outside for now since we won''t be able to support all of you."

    This was expected since wyverns were dangerous even for giants.

    It wasn''t as if they would allow them to enter the vige that easily.

    All that was required were a few of us, so most of the others went outside the vige to set up

    a camp for us.

    The rest of us followed Alidus to the market of this vige of giants.

 Chapter 1025: Missing child

    Chapter 1025: Missing child

    ?

    There wasn''t a single word that was spoken by Alidus as we headed to the market.

    With the look on his face, it didn''t seem like he was interested in saying a single thing to us. It seemed like the only thing that he wanted to do was fulfill the order that he had been given and he wanted to interact with us as little as possible.

    Though that wasn''t what I wanted.

    This was a future hero unit, one of the most powerful units that could be recruited in the game.

    I knew for sure that he would be a powerful person in the future, so he was someone that I definitely wanted on my side. Though that seemed like it would be hard to do since he didn''t want anything to do with me.

    Still, that didn''t mean that I was nning on giving up.

    It was all about looking for an opportunity to talk to him and break the ice.

    I didn''t find a single opportunity even though we made our way over to the market where there were several stalls that were open.

    Instead of buying things with currency, it seemed that most of the people here were just here to trade items.

    The vige of giants was quite big, but there were only so many giants living in this tribe. Based on a general nce, it seemed like there were around a thousand giants that were living here.

    All of them had their own families and their own lives, even if they lived together. Everyone had their own things to do and they all had their needs, so they would trade the things that they produced for other things that others produced.

    It was a trade based market rather than a market that used currency to buy goods.

    Most of the people selling seemed like they didn''t have any experience trading at all and were just running the stalls to sell off some of their extra items.

    If there was anyone that really needed anything, it seemed that there was a special stall that was set up for this purpose.

    This stall was run by the chief and they seemed to recognize Alidus, the junior chief when he walked by. This was a general store stall that would have the shared goods of the tribe that others could exchange items from.

    This really was a primitive market, but it was also a good ce for us to start since most of this market was about building rtionships.

    Most of the giants that wandered the market seemed more interested in talking to each other than actually buying goods. In a way, this was a ce where the giants came to mingle with each other.

    So this was also a good ce to start making a good impression on the giants.

    Only...we didn''t get a chance to set up a stall before something happened.

    Alidus led us over to the general store stall and asked for a few things that would help us set up a stall. It seemed that this general store stall was also the stall that was in charge of the market, so they had all the things that would be needed to set up a stall.

    At the same time, it seemed like they were the ones that were in charge of assigning positions to people who wanted to set up stalls.

    While this was happening, there was a loud and distressed female voice that said, "Has anyone seen Zaag?"

    Everyone immediately turned in the direction of this voice when it rang out, we also turned in that direction to see what was happening.

    We saw a crying female giant who ran into the market while looking all over the ce as if she was looking for something.

    When they saw her like this, there were many giants that went over as they all seemed to know each other.

    Alidus also knitted his brows before walking over.

    I knew that something must have happened, so I had Joan walk over as well.

    When we came closer, we heard the voices of the giants around the crying giant woman.

    "Are you sure that he''s gone?"

    "You haven''t seen him since this afternoon?"

    "Someone, go find the other kids and ask them what happened."

    From thesements, it wasn''t hard to figure out what had happened.

    This crying giant woman was most likely the mother of the one that she was looking for who she called Zaag. This was most likely one of the children of the giant vige who had gotten into trouble and now couldn''t be found.

    When Alidus came over, many of the giants looked to him for help.

    It seemed that he held quite the position in the vige and was quite trusted by the giants that lived here.

    After listening to them for a bit, he asked the one that came back from asking the children, "What happened? Did they say anything?"

    That one giant who ran off to ask the children had an ugly look on his face as he said, "It seems that he went into the forest on his own. They were ying a game and they dared him to go into the forest to find a flower..."

    The crying giant woman looked like she wanted to charge into the forest after she heard this, but the other giants quickly stopped her from doing so.

    While they lived in these forests, it was actually quite the dangerous ce if they weren''t equipped for it. Most of the normal giants wouldn''t go into the forest if they didn''t have a reason to do so.

    So they could only turn to Alidus to take control of the situation.

    Alidus deeply knitted his brows when he heard this and to my surprise, he turned to look at me

    as if he was struggling over something.

    After being confused for a bit, I realized what it was.

    It was because of the order that he had been given by his father, the chief.

    He was supposed to be helping us set up this stall, so it wasn''t as if he could run off into then/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    forest to look for that missing child.

    That was why it seemed like he was struggling with a dilemma.

 Chapter 1026: Let us help

    Chapter 1026: Let us help

    ?

    In the end, Alidus said with a sigh, "Wait for the hunters to arrive, they will be able to track him and find him. It''s better than all of us going out into the forest together and creating argemotion to search for him. After all, there''s no telling what kind of beasts could stir if we were to all go into the forest at once."

    The giants slowly nodded in agreement since they couldn''t deny the things that Alidus was saying.

    However, it seemed like they didn''t fully agree with this.

    With the looks in their eyes, it even seemed like they were disappointed with what he said.

    It was as if they didn''t think that he was acting the way that he would normally act, so they were disappointed in him.

    But they didn''t say anything in the end since that was the prestige that he had in this giant vige. At the same time, he was the junior chief of their tribe, so they had to leave this matter to him.

    Alidus looked like he wasn''t satisfied with this ending either, but it also seemed like there was nothing that he could do about this.

    It was as if his hands were tied.

    When he turned back around, it seemed like he was about to tell me to follow him back to the market.

    However, before he could say this, I said, "Let''s go and find that child."

    Aldius was caught off guard by me saying this all of a sudden, but he quickly knitted his brows and shook his head. The look on his face made it clear that he didn''t seem to trust me at all.

    Then he said with the same look on his face, "There''s no need for you to get involved in this matter. This is our own private matter."

    "How long will it take for the hunters toe back?" I asked without a care for what he said.

    Alidus was once again caught off guard when I said this, but then he slowly said, "They just separated after the hunt, so it''ll be a while before we can get them together." Then in a softer voice, it was as if he was talking to himself as he said, "But if we don''t have them tracking the child, it''s unlikely that we will even be able to find him."

    With my sharper senses, I heard what he said.

    So I said, "Then let us help you."

    Alidus looked at me with narrowed eyes as if he still didn''t trust me, but it also seemed like he was wavering.

    Seeing that he was wavering, I said, "This is rted to running the stall."

    A confused look appeared on his face when he heard this, so I exined, "If everyone''s worried like this, who would want to trade with us? So the only thing that we can do is solve everyone''s worries so that they can trade with us without any worries."

    Alidus didn''t know what to think as he looked at me.

    There was a strange look on his face as he silently stared at me, but eventually his expression rxed a bit as he said, "Then I''ll thank you on behalf of everyone."

    It seemed like there had been a great struggle that had passed inside of him, but eventually he decided to trust me and let us help with finding the child. After all, the safety of the child was the most important thing right now and they couldn''t waste time like this.

    It was a fact that it would be much easier to find the child with the help of the wyverns.

    At the same time, it would be more dangerous for the child if they dyed any longer.

    The first twenty four hours were the most important when it came to a child going missing. Any longer than that, there was no telling what could happen to the child.

    There really wasn''t any time to waste at all.

    I didn''t waste any time either since I understood the urgency of the situation.

    Once that was decided, we immediately headed back to where the rest of the wyverns were waiting.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if we could all go since it was certain that they would have the wrong idea if we all suddenly flew away into the forest like this. At the very least, the rest of them had to wait until Olmir came with the rest of the giant hunters to go with them.

    So the group that we chose was just me, Shaka, and Klein.

    Klein wasing as the muscle and Shaka wasing along as the tracker.

    Shaka had experience in the military, so he was quite the tracker.

    He wasn''t actually any worse than the giant hunters.

    In fact, his experience might have even made him better than the giant hunters.

    As for Alidus'' team, he brought along a few subordinates of his that would help us search the

    area.

    They weren''t that useful when it came to tracking, but at least they knew the area around the vige since they had worked as guards before. They had patrolled the area and knew what was around the area which certainly would help.

    With Alidus leading the way, it wasn''t a problem for us to leave the vige.

    Even though we were humans, the mother of the lost giant child came forward and said with tears in her eyes, "Please, please find my child."

    I just gave her a simple nod and said, "We''ll do what we can."

    Alidus nodded in agreement without saying anything.

    After all, we knew that it was impossible to promise anything.

    If we promised anything and something were to happen, it would be on us for giving her false

    hope.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    This was just how things were in this world, it was impossible for guarantee anything...

    But at the very least...

    I took a deep breath and said in a firm voice, "We''ll do everything that we can."

    This was different from what I said before.

    Instead, it seemed more like a promise rather than just perfunctory words.

    All of the giants looked at me differently after they heard this, but I just ignored this as I

    looked right at the mother of the lost child.

    She just gave a slight nod in the end.

 Chapter 1027: Mobbed

    Chapter 1027: Mobbed

    ?

    Once we were out of the vige, Shaka immediately demonstrated his abilities.

    Based on what the children had said, we went to the ce where Zaag, the giant child had snuck out of the vige. It was a hole in the makeshift wall of the vige, which was big enough for a child to sneak out of.

    From that ce, he was able to find all kinds of tracks that led that way for us.

    Only we could only go as fast as Shaka could find these tracks.

    Without the tracks, we wouldn''t know which way to go after all, so we could only wait for him to find the tracks.

    At least it was a bit faster than wandering around aimlessly.

    As we headed deeper into the forest, Alidus slowly began to knit his brows as if something was wrong.

    "What is it?" I asked him after seeing him reveal this expression for a while.

    Alidus slowly turned to look at me and there was a look that appeared on his face as if he was hesitant to speak. But after looking at me for a bit, he said, "This isn''t the way to the flower fields. It seems like he''s gone off course since he''s never been out of the vige on his own before..."

    His voice trailed off at the end and I knew that there was something else that he wasn''t telling

    me.

    "What is it?" Without any hesitation, I asked this question.

    Alidus looked at me with a bitter smile on his face before saying, "The ce that he''s gone off course to is a dangerous ce even for us. It seems like this will be much more dangerous than we thought."

    As he said this, the way that he looked at me was starting to change.

    The way that he looked at me waspletely different from the ways that he looked at me before.

    It was as if he didn''t want me to be here.

    The way that he looked at me wasn''t as if he didn''t want me to be here because he didn''t trust me or our group of humans, the reason that he didn''t want me to be here was because he didn''t want me to be in danger.

    But since I had alreadye this far, it wasn''t as if I would back down now.

    So I calmly looked at him and said, "It''ll be safer if we work together. Not to mention, we can''t just go back now and abandon that child, can we?"

    The way that I said this was very serious which showed the conviction that I had towards this matter.

    Alidus looked at me with a surprised look at first, but then the look on his face became serious.

    With that serious look on his face, he looked right at me as if he was trying to see through me. Perhaps there was still a part of him that was wondering how serious I was about all of this.

    As such, I didn''t back down as I looked right at Alidus with the same calm and serious look on my face.

    After a long silence, he finally said with a sigh, "Alright, we''ll keep going. But if there''s danger, you should leave as soon as you can on your wyverns."

    I gave a simple nod, but he quickly said, "Don''t just give a nod, give me your word that you''ll fly the child out of there with your wyverns if it gets dangerous."n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I was surprised to hear this.

    But after looking at him for a bit, I gave a slow nod this time.

    It was different from us abandoning him, he was saying that if things became dangerous, he would sacrifice himself to save the child.

    I just couldn''t deny this kind of conviction.

    While we had been talking, Shaka had been following the trail the entire time.

    But all of a sudden, he stopped moving and turned back to say, "He''s right in front."

    As soon as we heard this, all of us immediately fell silent and looked in front of us to see if we could find a trace of the giant child. But with how thick the forest was in front of us, we weren''t able to find a single thing.

    However, since Shaka said that the giant child was in front, I trusted him.

    In a soft voice, I asked, "Are there any other tracks in the surrounding area?"

    The giants all paid close attention to how Shaka would answer this question.

    After all, they were clearly afraid of something that seemed to be in this area, so they cared about this very much.

    Shaka just shook his head before saying, "I''ve only found the tracks of the child, there aren''t any other tracks in the surrounding area."

    The giants let out sighs of relief, but they didn''t let their guards down.

    Alidus just said, "Go up in the air and provide air support if necessary. We''ll go andfort the child and bring him back with us."

    This seemed like the best n, so I just nodded and then flew into the air with Klein and Shaka.

    As we flew there in the air, we watched as Alidus and the other giants moved forward.

    Before they found the child, we saw him first.

    He was curled up at the bottom of a tree with his head in between his legs.

    It seemed that he waspletely terrified with the way that he was just sitting there.

    We watched as Alidus'' group made their way over to the child sitting under the tree and it didn''t seem like anything was going to happen.

    That was until there was a loud rustling sound that came from the surrounding area.

    It was loud because there were several different bushes that suddenly started to shake at the same time.

    It was clear that it wasn''t just one thing that was there.

    It seemed that whatever was out there had been waiting the entire time, using the giant child

    as bait.

    In an instant, Alidus'' group waspletely surrounded.

 Chapter 1028: Great Wolves

    Chapter 1028: Great Wolves

    ?

    Without even waiting for a response from Alidus'' group, I immediately gave an order. "Burn the bushes!"

    There was a second of hesitation from Klein and Shaka when they heard this, but then they followed my orders.

    The three of us turned our wyverns in different directions before releasing me breaths that fell down on the bushes that were around the giants. These were the same bushes that had rustled earlier and were still moving.

    When the me breaths fell down on these bushes, they immediately caught on fire, but there were things that jumped out of these bushes. They jumped out even before the mesnded on them to set them aze.

    After jumping out, we were able to see what these things were.

    Wolves.

    It was a pack of wolves that had surrounded the giants.

    But we didn''t continue our attack as we had the wyvernsnd down near the giants.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    When Alidus saw using down, he immediately picked the giant child off the ground and lifted him up as if he wanted to hand this child to me.

    I looked at him with one brow raised, but I didn''t take the giant child.

    Sure it would have been easy for me to have Joan pick up the giant and carry him away, but I didn''t think the situation was bad enough for that just yet.

    Instead, I had the wyvernsnd and said, "Why are you giving up that easily?"

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on Alidus'' face when he heard this before he said, "These wolves aren''t normal, they are Great Wolves that are even led by a Great Wolf King."

    Great Wolves...

    I was certainly surprised when I heard this since I knew what Great Wolves were. They were S Rank Monsters that were far more dangerous than normal monsters. That was because the Great Wolves possessed something that other monsters didn''t. Great Wolves had powerful bodies that normal monsters had and they had the ability to use magic spells that normal monsters didn''t have. They were a special type of magic beast that was on apletely different level from normal monsters.

    That was why they were S Rank Monsters just like the wyverns.

    But even if that was the case, it wasn''t as if I was afraid of them.

    I knew something that most people in this world didn''t know about.

    Great Wolves did have the ability to use magic spells to attack, but that was only because of a special feature of their bodies that allowed them to gather mana into spells.

    I knew of a way to disrupt that.

    It was a good thing that I had set those bushes on fire earlier or else they would have already shot their spells at us.

    I suddenly said, "Shoot more mes and light more of the trees on fire. Make sure that they are trees that are spread out so the me doesn''t spread. Try to create as much smoke as possible."

    Shaka and Klein were both shocked to hear this, but they still followed my orders.

    Alidus on the other hand said, "What are you doing?"

    I didn''t answer as I gave my orders to Joan as well.

    In no time at all, we werepletely surrounded in mes. With the way that the mes surrounded us, it seemed like we didn''t have a single chance of escaping this ce.

    At the same time, the smokepletely filled the air and it seemed like we would be choked out because of it.

    But the Great Wolves also moved back and gave us room because of the mes that were around us.

    They also didn''t start shooting their magic spells to attack us like Great Wolves should have done.

    That was because they couldn''t shoot their spells.

    If they were to try, then they would end up choking on the smoke that filled the air. That was because the Great Wolves howled to cast their spells. If they didn''t howl, then they wouldn''t be able to gather mana to cast the spells with.

    That was why I had the wyverns burn the trees around us, just so they couldn''t howl.

    The reason that the Great Wolves had to howl was because of the special organ that was inside of their necks. This was an organ that other creatures didn''t have, but it was one that made the Great Wolves sensitive to mana, which gave them the ability to cast magic spells.

    Since it was in their throats, that meant that the only way for them to control mana with that special organ was to howl.

    The smoke hadpletely sealed off their magic.

    Alidus wasn''t a fool, he could see what effect the smoke had on the Great Wolves. Though the mes did technically trap them like this, it had also stopped the Great Wolves from using their magic spells to attack them. The magic spells of the Great Wolves would have been the biggest problem since they would have been suppressed by these long range attacks from the Great Wolves.

    The fact that they weren''t casting their spells was a great help to them.

    But that still didn''t mean that they had a way out of this ce.

    After making sure that the Great Wolves couldn''t cast their spells, I looked to Alidus and said, "Do you know why they gathered like this?"

    Alidus narrowed his eyes to look at the Great Wolves before saying, "They are special monsters and have their own intelligence. At the same time, they have their king who is more intelligent than the others."

    Alidus paused to look at Zaag, the giant child who was still curled up and said, "They most likely used him as bait so that we would be drawn here."

    There was a bitter look that appeared on his face when he said this.

    "So you''re saying that this is all of them?"

    Alidus was surprised by this question, but then he gave a nod in response.

    "Then I have a way out of here." I suddenly said.

 Chapter 1029: Mimicking beasts

    Chapter 1029: Mimicking beasts

    ?

    There was only a second of hesitation this time before Alidus nodded in agreement.

    He didn''t even seem to bother asking what the n was, he just directly nodded in agreement which showed the trust that he had.

    It was only after showing my understanding of the Great Wolves that Alidus had formed this kind of trust in me.

    After all, the Great Wolves had tormented the giants for a long time with their magic spells. The giants would never have a proper way to fight them since the magic spells would always destroy the arrows that they fired at them.

    For the longest time, the giant hunters had been suppressed by the magic spell attacks of the Great Wolves, so they hadn''t been able to do anything about these Great Wolves.

    With how smart they were and how these Great Wolves sometimes attacked the giants, it was almost as if they were the ones that were being hunted by the Great Wolves.

    That had created arge hatred between the giants and the Great Wolves.

    One that helped increase the trust between Alidus and us.

    Since he agreed, I didn''t waste any time in exining my n.

    There was a surprised look on Alidus'' face at first, but then he gave a determined nod before saying, "Let me take the vanguard."

    I was surprised since I thought that he would have us do it since it was safer that way, but it seemed that he didn''t care about safety. It seemed that he sincerely wanted to work with us on this matter.

    In that case...

    I just simply gave a nod in response and then had Joan pick up the curled up giant child. Zaag was surprised to be picked up like this and when he looked up at Joan, he seemed like he was even more terrified. The look on his face was as if he thought that he was being carried off as a piece of prey that was about to be eaten by the predator.

    But he was just too scared to act even though he was being carried off.

    Though it didn''t really seem like he was prey since he was quite tall.

    Even if Zaag was a child, he was still a giant which meant that he was already much taller than normal humans at seven to eight meters tall. It was only because he was being carried by the wyvern that he seemed small.

    No one really would think that he was prey.

    When we saw him acting this way, we couldn''t help revealing smiles.

    This was a child that had snuck out because he had been dared by hispanions and now he was afraid of a wyvern picking him up.

    It really didn''t seem like this kid had a good mentality.

    He was too easily swayed by others.

    Still Alidus said, "Don''t worry, they are carrying you to safety."

    When Zaag saw that it was Alidus who said this, he did calm down a bit.

    Though there was still a worried look on his face when he saw the wolves and mes that surrounded them.

    Afterforting Zaag, Alidus turned to look at the wolves that were in front of him and took a deep breath to say, "I''m sorry for getting you caught up in this."

    The one that he said this to were the giants that hade with him.

    But they didn''t seem to mind as they all looked at him with smiles on their faces and one of them said, "We''re used to it."

    Alidus also revealed a smile when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything else.

    There was nothing else for him to say, all he could do now was lead his men into battle. Before he charged forward though, he couldn''t help looking up at the wyverns that were flying above them once more. The way that he looked at the wyvern was strange, it was different from how he had looked at the wyverns before.

    The way that Alidus was looking at the wyvern now was almost as if he was analyzing it.

    It was as if he was trying to take a closer look at theposition of the wyvern''s body.

    Then after looking at the wyvern, he suddenly charged forward.

    Instead of swinging with his club like the other wyverns did, Alidus suddenly pped his hands down.

    The way that he did this almost seemed familiar...

    After he pped his hands down, he actually flew into the air.

    Part of it was because of the pping of his hands and the other half was just him jumping into the air.

    This put him high up above the Great Wolves in front of him, putting him much higher than he would have been if he had jumped alone. It seemed that the arms pping had helped him fly up even higher than normal.

    It was almost like how wyverns pped their wings to fly.

    Once he reached a certain height, Alidus suddenly changed the direction he was facing so he was aiming right at the Great Wolf in front of him. Then with a p of his arms, he shot forward at that Great Wolf.

    It was at a speed that the Great Wolf wasn''t able to keep up with, so it couldn''t stop Alidus asn/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    he suddenly turned in the air and sent a flying kick at the Great Wolf.

    With the added speed, the kick was even more powerful than usual.

    The Great Wolf was picked off the ground and sent flying through the air as a result of this kick.

    But that wasn''t the end of it.

    As he had been flying through the air, Alidus had been keeping a close eye on the Great Wolves in front of him just like he had been staring at the wyvern earlier.

    Then when hended, he suddenly fell to all four limbs and looked like a beast as he stared at the Great Wolves that were around him.

 Chapter 1030: Together

    Chapter 1030: Together

    ?

    I couldn''t help being surprised as I watched Alidus fight.

    It wasn''t because of the strength that he demonstrated, it was because of the way that he fought.

    That was because I knew what technique he was using that was giving him this kind of strength.

    I just never thought that he would be able to use this technique at a time like this.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The technique where he was mimicking beasts that he used was something that was rted to the inheritance of the ancient giants. It was a technique that was only handed down to certain giants of the giant race, it was a technique that could only be used by certain giants that possessed the body for it.

    It wasn''t about strength alone, it was also about flexibility since that was needed to mimic the actions of certain beasts.

    This was a powerful fighting technique that was considered one of the best techniques among the giants.

    At the same time, this was the technique that elevated Alidus to the status of hero unit.

    That was why it was surprising to see that he was already using it.

    Though my sharp eyes were able to tell that he wasn''t using it to its full potential. He seemed to be using it to only mimic basic actions and wasn''t using it to fully mimic the actions of the beasts.

    It was as if he didn''t have a full grasp of this technique yet.

    Though this was only because I had seen the CGs in the game that I was able to recognize this. If it wasn''t for that and the information from Alidus'' hero unit, I wouldn''t have had any idea what was happening.

    Though it seemed like he was overwhelming the Great Wolves, that didn''tst long.

    The Great Wolves seemed to see through what Alidus was doing, so they eventually were able to avoid the attacks that he sent at them.

    The momentum that Alidus had built up slowed down as the Great Wolves started avoiding his attacks, but it didn''t seem like they had adapted to the point where they were able to fight back yet.

    It seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the Great Wolves would be able to stop the charge of the giants.

    Alidus deeply knitted his brows when he saw this, but he didn''t stop as he continued attacking the Great Wolves.

    At the same time, he said, "I''m sorry for dragging you guys into this."

    The giants that had been following him all revealed sad smiles, but there wasn''t a single trace of regret in their eyes.

    They knew that they would be in danger if they charged out like this.

    They knew that this was a gamble to see if they could break through the Great Wolves that were surrounding them, so they naturally wouldn''t feel regretful over the fact that they weren''t able to break through in the end.

    They knew how unlikely it was that they would be able to break through.

    At the very least, they were able to get the child out.

    Alidus saw the way that they looked at him and gritted his teeth before preparing to go all out against the Great Wolves. It was almost as if he was nning on going out in a ze of glory by taking out as many of them as he could before they got him.

    Luckily for him, he didn''t get to go out in this ze of glory.

    Instead, there was a different ze that suddenly appeared.

    There were me breaths that fell down on the Great Wolves that suddenly lit them on fire.

    The Great Wolves had beenpletely distracted by Alidus who had been attacking them the entire time that they didn''t notice these me breaths until it was toote. It was only when their fur was on fire that they noticed the me breaths.

    It was already toote for them to stop this and the ones that were hit head on were thrown through the air.

    When theynded, they didn''t move at all as they were being enveloped by the mes.

    These Great Wolves just couldn''t do a thing as their bodies were burning up.

    With these Great Wolves pushed out of the way, there was a gap that was created in the line of the Great Wolves that had surrounded the giants.

    Alidus had beenpletely caught off guard by the me breath that had fallen down, but he quickly reacted as he realized what it was.

    From above, I shouted, "Break through together!"

    Alidus didn''t waste any time at all in waving at the giants who all formed a single line and with him leading the way, they charged at the line of Great Wolves in front of them.

    The Great Wolves were about to sh with them, but they found that there were more me breaths that suddenly fell down on them.

    The Great Wolves had no choice but to move away from Alidus and the giants to avoid the me breaths.

    With the mes lighting up the trees and bushes in the surrounding area, the Great Wolves weren''t even able to use their magic spells to attack. After all, we had gotten quite far away from the area where the giant child had been hiding, where the wolves had set their traps. So this area didn''t have much smoke until we lit the trees and bushes once more. With our two groups working together, one pushing the Great Wolves away from the ground and one firing me breaths to suppress the Great Wolves, we were able to lose them in the end.

    It seemed that the Great Wolves saw that it wasn''t worth it to keep chasing which was why they suddenly stopped chasing.

    However, we didn''t dare stop for a single second as we continued running away from where the Great Wolves had been chasing from.

    It was only when we left that far behind us that we stopped running.

 Chapter 1031: Going back

    Chapter 1031: Going back

    ?

    Once we were away from the Great Wolves and caught our breath, Alidus looked at me and asked, "Where''s the child?"

    After all, the whole reason that we hade all this way was to rescue the giant child that had been trapped by the Great Wolves. Right now, Joan didn''t have that child in her ws, so Alidus was worried about where the child was.

    "The hunters came and we left the child to them beforeing back. They wanted toe and help, but I told them to stay since they didn''t know what the situation was and they wouldn''t have been able to do anything." Then with a sigh, I said, "It was a good thing that your uncle was leading them or else they wouldn''t have listened."

    A faint smile appeared on Alidus'' face when he heard this as he could imagine what had happened.

    But since the child was safe, then that meant that they had aplished everything that they had set out to aplish.

    At the same time, they hadn''t taken a single casualty even though they had been surrounded by the Great Wolves.

    Alidus knew that it wasn''t because of him or any of the other giants that this was the case, it was all because of the one that was riding atop the wyvern right now. It was the human that he looked down on the entire time.

    After a long silence, Alidus said, "There really are all kinds of humans out there."

    I just gave a simple nod before turning around and saying, "Let''s go back now."

    Alidus gave a nod, but then he was confused when he saw the direction that I was heading in. "Where are you going?" Alidus couldn''t help asking.

    I looked back at him and said, "Who said that we''re going back to the vige already? There''s a good chance waiting for us now that all of the Great Wolves are away from their nest. This is the perfect chance for us to get some revenge on them."

    Alidus was even more confused when he heard this, but that didn''t stop him from following

    me.

    Though after moving a bit, I suddenly stopped and turned back to look at Alidus to say, "Do you know the way to the nest of the Great Wolves?"

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on his lips, but he eventually nodded in agreement and went forward to lead the way.

    Though he had no idea what was happening, he still went along with it because he wanted to see just what I had nned.

    With Alidus leading the way, we soon arrived at the area where the Great Wolves lived. This was a ce that wasn''t far from where we had been attacked.

    It seemed that the Great Wolves hadid the ambush not far away from their home, but it still took them far enough that they weren''t here at the nest. We could even see the smoke that was still in the distance.

    Once we arrived, Alidus immediately asked, "What are you nning on doing here?"

    I didn''t answer the question as I looked around the area where the nest was.

    It was a forest hollow that was well shaded and surrounded on both sides, which made it a very secure location.

    At the center, there were still a few wolves that were walking around, but these wolves seemed smaller than the other wolves that we fought against previously. At the same time, it seemed that there were also children that were wandering around.

    These were most likely the mothers and children of this Great Wolf pack.

    Alidus was just as confused as he stood there watching over the pack with me, but he didn''t say anything as he waited to see what I would do.

    While watching them, I noticed that one of the mothers suddenly picked up their child and was moving away from the hollow.

    The moment that I saw this, that was when I made my move.

    I followed that mother wolf away from the hollow, but I also made sure to be far enough that the mother wolf wouldn''t notice me.

    After following that mother wolf for a bit, we arrived at a hole that was away from the hollow.

    It seemed like this was where they dumped their trash and everything with how many bones were scattered here.

    Standing over the hole, the mother wolf didn''t hesitate at all to drop the wolf cub into the hole.

    The wolf cub cried out in shock and fear when it was dropped like this, but the mother wolf justpletely ignored the wolf cub as it fell into the hole. The mother didn''t turn back even once after dropping the wolf cub in, as if she didn''t care about the wolf cub at all.

    The cries of the wolf cub slowly faded, as if it was getting weaker and weaker.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I didn''t do anything at first as I just watched all of this happen.

    But once the wolf mother was gone and the wolf cub''s cries became weaker, I went over to the hole and looked down at the wolf cub that was there.

    Now that I came closer to the hole, I could see what was inside more clearly.

    It wasn''t just this single wolf cub that had been dropped in this hole, there were other wolf cubs that were lying there. But other than this wolf cub that had just been dropped into the hole, the others didn''t seem to be moving at all.

    "I''m heading down." I suddenly said to Alidus.

    Alidus knitted his brows again, but he didn''t stop me as he watched to see what I would do.

    I flew down into the hole with Joan and then jumped off to look at the unmoving wolf cubs. The one that had been dropped into the hole looked at me with narrowed eyes and wanted to snarl at me, but it suddenly stopped when it felt Joan''s breath fall down on it.

    I looked at them for a bit before reaching out towards the wolf cub.

 Chapter 1032: Raising them

    Chapter 1032: Raising them

    ?

    The wolf cub looked like it wanted to bite my hand as I reached it out towards it, but then it stopped.

    The nose of the wolf cub suddenly twitched as if it smelled something.

    Then as if it had been subdued, it lowered its head and allowed my hand to touch it. It didn''t seem like it was enjoying the feeling at first, but then it was slowly subdued as I stroked its fur.

    It eventually even started to give a sound that was simr to a cat''s purr, as if it enjoyed the feeling of me petting it.

    A smile appeared on my face when I saw this before I reached out to pick up the wolf cub.

    But even though it was a wolf cub, it was still a Great Wolf.

    Great Wolves were much bigger than normal wolves, so just this Great Wolf cub was already almost as big as me. Some of the other wolf cubs that were down here were already old enough that they were as big as me.

    They didn''t seem as big to the giants, but for a normal human like me...

    It was hard for me to pick up the wolf cub and if I hadn''t trained my body, then it would have been impossible. But because I had been building up muscle during the past while, I managed to avoid embarrassing myself as I picked up the wolf cub.

    After picking it up, I handed it over to Joan who put it on her back.

    The wolf cub seemed a bit unwilling to separate even though it had just bonded, but it eventually settled down when it was on Joan''s back.

    I went around looking at the other wolf cubs and found that most of them were indeed dead. They had been left here for a long time without anyone to care for them, so it was hard for them to survive in this condition.

    But I found that there were three more wolf cubs that were still alive.

    I did the same thing with these three wolf cubs, though they found it harder to resist since they were much weaker than the wolf cub that had just been dropped into this hole.

    In the end, we carried those four wolf cubs onto the back of Joan and headed off.

    When I came out of the hole, Alidus looked at me with a strange look.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Even if he was confused about what I was specifically nning to do, he could at least guess what I was nning to do. At the same time, there was something that he had to ask for the safety of his tribe.

    "Are you really nning on taking them back?" He said in a voice that had a strange tone.

    It was almost as if he wasn''t sure what to make of this situation.

    I just gave a simple nod before saying, "It''s not a problem, I''ll be able to take care of them."

    He didn''t say anything as he just looked at me with one raised brow. Though there was a change in his eyes now that he had received a confirmation for the doubt that had been on his mind.

    He had confirmed that I was indeed nning on raising these Great Wolf cubs.

    Seeing the doubt that he looked at me with, I pointed at Joan and said, "I think that''s more than enough proof. I''ve tamed things that are much worse than these Great Wolf cubs."

    Alidus had gotten so used to seeing Joan and the others that he had almost forgotten that they were wyverns.

    But looking at Joan and the other two wyverns, he realized that I was right.

    If I was even able to tame the wyverns, then I should certainly be capable of taming these Great Wolves.

    But there was still something that he had to say.

    "You can bring them back, but you have to make sure that they don''t hurt anyone." Even if he knew that I would be able to suppress them, he had to at least say this for the sake of the tribe.

    I gave a simple nod before saying, "I will need some help from your tribe to raise them. I''ll need your help obtaining a few things that will help nurture them." Then after a pause, I said, "Of course, I''ll pay a proper price for these things."

    Alidus slowly gave a nod before saying, "As long as you pay, you''re free to trade with whoever is willing to trade with you." After thinking for a bit, he suddenly added, "I''ll help speak up for you as well."

    I could tell that his impression of me had changed which made a smile appear on my lips, but I still said, "I was hoping more for the help of the chief."

    Alidus slightly knitted his brows upon hearing this before slowly saying, "The chief has no reason to help you with this. At best, you can trade for the items you need."

    I shook my head as I said, "You''re thinking too short term. You should think about the future."

    Alidus was a bit confused and just looked at me with a raised brow as if he was waiting for me to exin.

    I pointed at the four wolf cubs and said, "There are two males and two females here. Once they grow up and breed, there will be plenty of wolf cubs to train and raise. I''m sure that the chief will be interested in these cubs."

    Alidus knitted his brows once more, but there was a look of deep thought that was on his face instead.

    After all, he could recognize the advantage that woulde from taming these Great Wolves. These Great Wolves were the enemies of their tribe and constantly terrorized them, but if they were to tame them and use the Great Wolves to fight back...

    That really would be a satisfying feeling.

    Alidus could clearly see the advantages of this trade, but he didn''t lose control of himself in

    the end.

    "I''ll bring this up with my father and uncle, it''ll be up to them to decide what to do."

    I just gave a simple nod without saying anything.

    That alone was enough to create a working rtionship with the giants, I could build on that.

 Chapter 1033: Making a deal with the chief

    Chapter 1033: Making a deal with the chief

    ?

    "Look, it moved!"

    "They''re eating it right up."

    "Let''s go and y!"

    The kids of the giant vige really took to the Great Wolf cubs much faster than the adults, but that was just because of a difference in bias.

    For the adults, they had the experience of having to face the Great Wolves for a long time and it wasn''t something that could be forgotten that easily.

    So for those adults, it was hard for them to ept the Great Wolf cubs.

    But seeing that Alidus didn''t say anything and the fact that the Great Wolf cubs seemed well behaved, they didn''t say anything in the end. Though they didn''t let their kids get too close to the Great Wolf cubs even though they wanted to y with them.

    The main reason why they were starting to let down their guards was the fact that the Great Wolf cubs were smallpared to the giants, so they were considered quite cute.

    It was like how humans viewed puppies.

    Cuteness was a great way to make people let down their guards.

    After all, it was hard to imagine that a cute thing would be dangerous.

    I had no problem leaving them there since I knew that they wouldn''t cause any trouble at all as long as Joan was here in the vige. That was the main reason why I had been able to tame them that easily.

    Wolves followed pack order and once the pack order was established, they would give their loyalty to the leader of the pack.

    Joan was much more powerful than normal wyverns, which was why she was also stronger than normal Great Wolves. The only one that might be able to match her was the Great Wolf King who led the pack, but it wasn''t certain since I had used quite a few things to buff her.

    It all depended on how much of its bloodline the Great Wolf King could draw out.

    After all, the Great Wolves were rted to the great Fenrirs which were considered legendary beasts.

    Just like how wyverns were a degraded version of True Dragons.

    If they could tap into the bloodline of the Fenrir, then it would be a very dangerous beast.

    It would surpass just the S Ranking and would even reach the SS Rank.

    But that didn''t matter to me since I wasn''t nning on having Joan fight the Great Wolf King. There was nothing for me to gain from attacking the Great Wolves, I only fought them before to save the giant child.

    Since there was no problem with the Great Wolf cubs, I went with Alidus to meet with his father and uncle.

    The vige chief and the head hunter were waiting inside of thergest building in the vige, which also served as the gathering ce for the vige. However, this building waspletely cleared of all people except for two others.

    It was Zaag, the lost giant child and his mother.

    When they saw us, the mother immediately came forward to my surprise. Even if she wasn''t a warrior, she was still a giant and would be able to crush me at will.

    It was a good thing that I was on Joan, so she wasn''t able to do that in the end.

    Honestly, if it wasn''t for Joan, then it really would have been hard for me to walk around the giant vige. It was just too big for a human like me, it was designed for giants after all.

    But with Joan, I was able to move around quite easily.

    After the mother calmed down, she realized the mistake that she made and awkwardly said, "I''m sorry about that."

    I waved my hand as I said, "It''s fine. It was your child who was in danger, so I''m sure that you were emotional as a mother. There''s nothing to worry about."

    The mother looked at me with another grateful look before reaching out to grab Zaag''s head and making him bow before saying, "Say thank you to the big brother who saved you."

    Zaag''s eyes made it clear that he didn''t think that the words ''big brother'' was suitable considering the difference in size, but he still listened to his mother and thanked me.

    I would have patted him on the head if it wasn''t for the size difference, so I just said with a smile, "Don''t run off again next time."

    After the matter with the mother and child was settled, it was only me, Alidus, his father, and his uncle left in the room.

    Once they were gone, the chief said, "Thank you for helping us. If it wasn''t for you, we don''t know what would have happened."

    Once again, I acted humble as I said, "It''s alright, I just did what I should have done."

    There were smiles that appeared on the faces of the three giants, but there were clearly different emotions behind them.

    After a moment of silence, the chief had a more serious look on his face as he said, "I''ve heard that you want to sell us the Great Wolf cubs."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    With a simple nod, I said, "I won''t have anything for you right away, but after some time, we''ll be able to sell some cubs to you. I''m sure that you can see the value of raising these Great Wolves."

    The chief knitted his brows a bit as if he was thinking about it, but he eventually gave a nod to show that he did indeed see the value. Only, there was still something that he seemed like he wanted to ask.

    "Can you guarantee that they won''t attack anyone?" He said in a stern voice.

    It was clear that he was looking out for the safety of his people if he were to ept this deal. Only, this wasn''t something that I could guarantee.

    Instead, I just looked right into his eyes and said, "As long as you treat them properly, they will not attack anyone. They are living creatures too after all."

    The chief and I locked gazes for a bit before he once again slowly nodded in agreement.

    He was about to reach his hand out, but then it seemed like he remembered something as he revealed an awkward smile.

    So instead, the chief said, "Then I''ll be looking forward to working with you."

    I nodded in agreement to this.

 Chapter 1034: Coming clean

    Chapter 1034: Coming clean

    ?

    This might seem like the end of the discussion, but there was something else that I wanted to bring up.

    After all, after everything that had happened, it could be said that I had the trust of these

    three who were at the top of this tribe.

    Since I had their trust, that meant that I should be able toe clean.

    "Actually, there''s something else that I want to discuss with the three of you." I suddenly spoke up.

    The three of them looked at me with confused looks, but they didn''t say anything as they waited to see what I had to say.

    "There''s something that I have to confess."

    All three of them looked even more confused when they heard this and there was even a trace of wariness that appeared in their eyes.

    "Other thaning to sell you things, I''vee here for something else. I am the new king of the human kingdom that borders this Land of Giants." I said in a calm voice, even though the words that I said were shocking.

    As expected, all three of them immediately knitted their brows after hearing this.

    But then, olos and Olmir both narrowed their eyes to look at me.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The way that they looked at me was as if they were scrutinizing me, as if they were trying to see through me.

    It was only Alidus who looked at me in a daze as if he couldn''t believe what he heard.

    The way that he looked at me was as if he was a puppy that had just been lied to.

    After a long silence, Olos finally said, "You must have a reason for admitting this now, right?"

    I gave a calm nod before saying, "I want to meet with all of the giant tribes that are near the border with the human kingdom, the former Vikal Kingdom."

    I said human kingdom first since I didn''t think they would care about the name of that ce enough to remember it and as expected, they didn''t react to the name of the Vikal Kingdom at all.

    It seemed that they only knew it as thends of the humans.

    Alidus suddenly burst in by saying, "We trusted you and you repay our trust with this?"

    His voice seemed like he felt like he had beenpletely betrayed.

    Before I could say anything, Olos suddenly said, "This isn''t that."

    The way that he said this was as if he was defending me even though it did sound like I had ulterior motives.

    After speaking up for me, Olos turned back to look at me as he said, "If he wanted to hurt us, he wouldn''t have done things like this. He has no reason to say any of this, the only reason that he did is because he sincerely wishes to cooperate with us."

    Alidus didn''t say anything, but the look on his face made it seem like he didn''t believe this. Olos didn''t mind as he continued by saying, "Only, just how far do you want to go?"

    "I want to befriend the giant tribes by the border. I know that it''s impossible to convince the entire giant race, I just want to open up trade deals between our races so we can startmunicating. At the very least, I want to make it so we don''t have to fight or worry about each other." I said with full sincerity.

    Olos didn''t say anything as he turned to look at Olmir.

    Olmir had been silent the entire time since he left this matter to Olos, but seeing Olos look over, he gave a slight nod as if he was showing his approval.

    At that, Olos said, "We can bring you to the market, but you''ll have to talk to them yourself. We won''t be able to help you in any way when ites to the other giant tribes."

    This was what I already expected, so I gave a simple nod in response.

    Then to my surprise, Olos suddenly revealed a smile before saying, "You already know quite a bit about us giants, don''t you? You knew about the market, which is why you came as a merchant. You also knew that we don''t have a single ruler among us and are split in tribes, which is why you targeted the market."

    The way that he said this was as if he was implying something.

    I looked right at him before nodding with a smile and saying, "That''s right, I do know quite a bit about giants, but it isn''t in the way that you might think. I just want us to respect each other and the only way to do that is to learn more about each other. Only if we understand each other can we fully respect each other."

    Once again, I said this with full sincerity.

    That was the only thing that I could do in this situation.

    Olos and Olmir didn''t say a thing as they looked at me in silence.

    There were expressionless looks on their faces as if they were judging me.

    But eventually, both of them suddenly revealed smiles and nodded in agreement.

    Olmir then added, "This is something that we learned a long time ago, but it''s rare to find humans like you in human society. Let alone those with actual power."

    Olos nodded as he said, "Humans that are in power always seem to let that power go to their heads, but you seem different."

    I just gave a shrug before saying, "Who knows, I just obtained this power. Perhaps I''ll let it go to my head in the future."

    The two of them didn''t say anything as they just looked at me for a bit, but then they suddenly broke out inughter as if they had heard a funny joke.

    Iughed along with the two of them without a single care.

    The only one that wasn''t in the same mood as the rest of us was Alidus who stood on the side with a bitter look on his face.

 Chapter 1035: Follow him

    Chapter 1035: Follow him

    ?

    After we finishedughing, Olos suddenly turned to look at Alidus to everyone''s surprise. Looking at him, Olos suddenly said with a serious look, "You have your worries?"

    Alidus was even more caught off guard when he heard this and it seemed like he wanted to deny this at first, but then he suddenly gave a nod when he saw the way that his father looked at him.

    Olos didn''t seem to mind that Alidus was being honest like this and even seemed to encourage him to speak his mind.

    With Olos encouraging him like this, Alidus turned to look at me before saying, "You lied to us in the end."

    I was surprised that he would say this right to my face in front of his father and uncle like this, but I didn''t do anything as I just simply nodded to confirm this.

    I was also curious about what he was nning to say.

    At the very least, it didn''t seem like he had any ill intentions towards me when he said this. He just seemed like he was a bit angry about the fact that I hadn''t been truthful.

    After another silence, Alidus took a deep breath and said, "I know that you have your own reasons for doing this, but you should know that the human race has done many things to our giant race since ancient times. It is not easy for us to ept humans, which is why we iste ourselves in the first ce."

    Then in a softer voice, he said, "I didn''t think that even you would lie to us..."

    There was a trace of bitterness that filled me when I heard this since the way that he said this was almost as if he was a scorned lover or something like that.

    I most certainly did not swing that way!

    But after he gathered himself, he said, "I know that you are different from the other humans at the very least, or that is what I want to believe."

    Then turning to Olos, he said, "Chief, I wish to follow them for a while to observe them. I know that you assigned me to help them set up their stall so that I could see that not all humans are the same and I understand, but I want to go with them to the market so I can observe them further."

    Olos was surprised by this proposal from Alidus.

    Even if he had thought that Alidus had something that he wanted, this was thest thing that he had expected from him.

    But there was a look of pride that appeared in his eyes after a while as he looked at Alidus.

    Even if he had been caught off guard by the sudden proposal that Alidus made, this was the kind of thinking that he wanted to see from him. He wanted his son to have more experience and to not just take things at face value.

    Olos looked over at Olmir who looked back at him with a smile on his face before giving a nod. Only then did Olos turn back to Alidus to say, "You''re old enough to make your own decisions now. If you think that this is for the best, then you''re free to make this decision."

    Then all of a sudden, he went to the side and picked up a club that was ced there. Raising this club in front of him, he looked at it as if he was reminiscing about something. After looking like that for a bit, Olos came back with the club and presented it to Alidus. This time, it was Alidus'' turn to be surprised since he never expected Olos to give him this club.

    "Father, what are you doing?" Alidus said in a surprised voice.

    "Just take it." Olos said without any hesitation.

    Alidus had a moved look on his face when he heard this before slowly reaching out to take the club from Olos.

    I had no idea what was happening at first, but then I started to recognize the club that Olos gave Alidus. It was something that I had seen in the game as well since it was Alidus'' special weapon.

    It seemed that this unique weapon was one that was inherited from his father.

    The two of them remained in their own little world for a bit until the touching moment came to an end.

    Alidus turned back to look at me and with a look that almost seemed like he was challenging me, he said, "It''s fine if Ie with you to the market, right?"

    I just looked at him and revealed a wide smile before saying, "Of course you cane with us. We would be d to have you."

    These were my sincere feelings, but it wasn''t for the same reason that Alidus wanted to follow us.

    Rather, it was for a more personal reason that I wanted him to follow us.

    Since I had knowledge from the game, I knew what Alidus would be in the future. I had even seen traces of this when we were fighting the Great Wolves earlier, so I knew that he would certainly be a hero unit in the future.

    Though I had no idea what his breakthrough would be.

    Still, that alone was enough to make me want to keep him by my side.

    A future hero unit was without a doubt a very good asset to have, not to mention that he was the junior chief of the Harakka Tribe. Someone like this would certainly be a great asset to not just me, but the entire Kite Kingdom.

    He might be the one that would help us get giant troops in the future.

    So now that I''ve found him, I wasn''t nning on letting him go.

    It was best if he could follow me forever.

    The way that I looked at Alidus made him feel ufortable and he looked at me as if he was

    saying...n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    "I don''t swing that way!"

    I don''t swing that way either! It''s not what you think!

 Chapter 1036: Giant market

    Chapter 1036: Giant market

    ?

    Three dayster, we followed a group of giants into the forest.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Today was the day that the giant tribes of the surrounding area would be hosting their big market.

    This was the ce where the giants traded with each other, but also socialized and shared news about the different tribes. This was the ce where we would be able to meet the giants from all the different tribes.

    There was no doubt that there would be a lot of giants in this ce.

    That was why my group looked worried.

    Even though they had gotten used to life in the Harakka Tribe, they couldn''t help feeling nervous now that we were heading to the giant market.

    This was a ce that was on apletely different scale from the Harakka Tribe.

    It would have at least five times the number of giants that had been at the Harakka Tribe. After all, this market was a gathering of over twenty different tribes that were in the area.

    Though ording to Alidus, it seemed that most of the tribes were smaller than the Harakka Tribe.

    It seemed that the Harakka Tribe was one of the biggest tribes in the area and there were only a few tribes that could match them.

    Of course, it was unknown if this was just bragging on his part or if this was an urate judgement of the surrounding tribes, but that didn''t really matter. The only thing that really mattered was building a rtionship with those tribes and convincing them to trade with us humans.

    With that rtionship, we would be able to develop a peace between humans and giants. Only it seemed like it would be hard with how nervous my group was.

    "Is there a need to be this nervous? We''re just meeting a few more giants." I asked them in a sincere voice.

    "A few more?" Shaka and Klein, who were closest to me, repeated in skeptical voices.

    I simply gave a nod in response.

    The two of them just looked at me in silence for a bit before shaking their heads and giving sighs.

    "You''re the only one that can think like that." Shaka said after shaking his head for a bit. Klein gave a nod in agreement.

    I didn''t really like the way that the two of them said this, but there also wasn''t a way for me to refute it since I had to admit that they were right. I was the only one that had extra knowledge of this world, so the things that I did were anything but normal.

    As for the other members of our group, it seemed that they didn''t even hear what I had said.

    They all seemed like they were focusing on something, as if they were preparing themselves for the fight of their lives.

    When they were like this, my attempt at trying to calm them down didn''t work at all.

    So all I could do was give a sigh and go back to petting Terry, the Great Wolf cub that I brought with me.

    The other Great Wolf cubs were being taken care of back at the giant tribe by a few members of our group. Those few members of our group had looked like they had won the lottery by being chosen to stay at the Harakka Tribe.

    Even the ones that came with us looked at them with envy, even if they still followed me in the end.

    As for why Terry followed me along...

    Terry was the one that we watch be thrown into the hole, the one that I had subdued first. Perhaps it was because I was the one that showed up right after his mother abandoned him that he formed some kind of special connection with me. It seemed that he wasn''t willing to leave my side at all.

    Not that I minded since he was quitefortable to lean against.

    The soft fur of the Great Wolves really was a special kind of luxury.

    It wasn''t something that could be enjoyed that easily since Great Wolves were hard to hunt. Only by taming a Great Wolf like this would one be able to enjoy the feeling of the Great Wolf fur.

    After patting him on the head a bit, Terry gave a soft trilling sound as if he was enjoying it.

    Like this, we continued following the giants until Alidus suddenly stopped.

    We didn''t need to ask why he had suddenly stopped like this since we could hear the soundsing from in front of us.

    "I got some fine quality fur for trade here!"

    "Clubs for sale! Quality clubs made from the finest wood!"

    "We have hair essories carved from the softest bone, it''ll make you look gorgeous in the eyes of your lover!"

    The sounds of people trying to sell their goods came from in front of us. Adding in the fact that giants had loud voices in the first ce, these sounds seemed to boom through the air.

    If one wasn''t prepared, they certainly would have been caught off guard by these voices. They were so loud that one might have even thought that they were being attacked rather than being sold things.

    The voices were loud enough to wake up the other members of our group who had been in a daze just now.

    But that didn''t mean that they were any less nervous because of this.

    They looked even more nervous when they realized that they were about to face all of the giants at the giant market.

    However, they also quickly revealed calm looks on their faces.

    As expected of the royal guards and the helpers trained by the prime minister.

    They certainly were on apletely different level.

    Alidus had waited a bit, but when he saw that all of us were ready, he pushed aside the brush

    that was in front of us and revealed the scene of the giant market in front of us.

    Only before we could enjoy it, there was a voice that said, "If it isn''t little Alidus!"

 Chapter 1037: Korin Tribe

    Chapter 1037: Korin Tribe

    ?

    We all turned in the direction that voice came from.

    Standing there was another group of giants and the one leading them was a giant who seemed to be a bit chubby with a smug smile on his face. The way that he looked over here was as if he felt superior towards our group.

    As for the one that his attention was on, naturally that was Alidus.

    I could see Alidus slightly knit his brows when he saw this group, but then he acted as if he couldn''t see that person at all.

    He just turned around and waved at us as he said, "Come, let''s go in and see if we can find you a spot to set up your stall."

    Though he was ignoring them, the slightly chubby giant didn''t seem to mind this at all based on the expression on his face. Though when it came to his actions, that spoke differently as he moved forward with his group to block our group.

    They moved forward so that they were standing right in front of us, as if they wouldn''t let us pass.

    As he stood there, the slightly chubby giant said, "Little Alidus, you''ll make us sad if you ignore your old friends like this."

    He spoke as if he was friends with Alidus, but it was clear by the tone of his voice that they were anything but that. It seemed like this slightly chubby giant came from a tribe that seemed to have some kind of antagonistic rtionship with the Harakka Tribe.

    Once again, Alidus acted like he didn''t hear this slightly chubby giant at all.

    The slightly chubby giant seemed to be about to say something when his eyes suddenly turned to us.

    Before this, it was as if he hadn''t seen us at all.

    But once he noticed us, he immediately knitted his brows as he looked at us specifically.

    He wasn''t looking at the giants from the Harakka Tribe, he was looking at our group sitting on the back of our wyverns, meaning he was only looking at us humans.

    The look on his face didn''t seem like he wanted to be friends with us.

    After looking at us for a bit, the slightly chubby giant suddenly raised his voice as he said, "What do you think you''re doing? Bringing humans to a ce like this? Do you know what you''ve done?"

    The slightly chubby giant raised his hand to give a signal and the giants behind him seemed like they wanted to do something.

    As soon as this happened, Klein and Shaka were about to move forward as if they wanted to protect me. But before that could happen, Alidus suddenly pulled out the club that he received from Olos and pointed it at them.

    As he pointed the club at them, Alidus said, "Who said that you can do anything to them? These are friends of the Harakka Tribe that were invited to participate in the giant market today. If you touch them, that means that you are going against our Harakka Tribe. I don''t think that your Korin Tribe would want something like that, right?"

    The slightly chubby giant''s group were all surprised to hear this.

    Aftering back from their surprised state, they narrowed their eyes to look at Alidus as if they were trying to see if he was being serious or not.

    However, Alidus didn''t back down even though they were all looking at him.

    He just calmly pointed the club that he was holding at the ones from the Korin Tribe as he called them.

    The slightly chubby giant narrowed his eyes even more before saying, "Alidus, you know better than anyone what kind of race the humans are and here you are defending them? Do you know what kind of offense this is to the giant race?"

    There seemed to be some people that nodded in agreement in the crowd that had gathered because of themotion, but most of the giants that had gathered seemed curious about what was happening.

    It seemed that anti-human sentiment did run deep in the giant race, but it also seemed that it wasn''t a sentiment that was shared by the entire giant race. It seemed that there were only certain giants that felt this way towards humans.

    While it was impossible to guess why they felt this way, it was still a fact that they didn''t feel kindly towards humans.

    This would certainly be detrimental to our cause, but at least it seemed that those with bad feelings towards humans made up the minority. As long as they weren''t the majority, then there was still some breathing room.

    Alidus didn''t seem to flinch at all in front of the slightly chubby giant''s usatory words at all.

    He just looked right back at him with a calm and serious look as he simply said, "These are friends of our Harakka Tribe. If you go against them, then you go against us."n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It seemed that he wouldn''t back down in this matter no matter what the slightly chubby giant would say.

    The slightly chubby giant could also see this, so he decided to change his tactic.

    Instead of threatening Alidus, the slightly chubby giant turned to look at me.

    It seemed like he could tell that I was the leader of the human group since I was on the wyvern that was at the head of this group.

    He narrowed his eyes to look at me as if he was judging me before suddenly saying in a threatening voice, "Human, do you think that this is a ce for you? This is thend of our giant race and you are nothing more than an intruder. If you don''t leave now, you will regret this."

    I just looked right at him with the same calm look that Alidus had before saying, "We are here because we were invited by our friends, the Harakka Tribe. It doesn''t matter what you say, we will stand by our friends."

    The slightly chubby giant looked at me with a taken aback look while Alidus looked at me with a slightly touched look.

 Chapter 1038: Canâ€™t be friends with everyone

    Chapter 1038: Can¡¯t be friends with everyone

    ?

    There was a silence that hung in the air as no one said anything.

    The situation had degraded into a staringpetition with the way that we all looked at each other.

    However, even though the situation had be like this, I didn''t back down at all.

    After all, I knew that this would be important for how things developed from here on out.

    If I were to show any weakness, there was no doubt that they would pounce on that and take advantage of this. If I didn''t show that we had the strength to back the stance that we were showing, then they would look down on us and this would never work.

    But most importantly of all, I knew that it was impossible to be friends with everyone. It was like trying to please everyone in the world, that was something that was impossible. There were many different people in this world who all had different opinions about things. To change all of their minds was something that was impossible since one could never please everyone.

    It was inevitable that people would have different opinions and the sooner that one epted that, the sooner one would be able to move forward.

    I was a realist, so I knew that I wouldn''t be able to please everyone in the giant race.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if I needed to do that since the giant race was split up into tribes in the first ce. They didn''t have a single central ruler, each tribe looked after themselves.

    So as long as I was able to befriend most of the tribes, that would be enough.

    It seemed that the anti-human sentiments wasn''t that dominant among the giant tribes, so it seemed like I didn''t have to befriend this Korin Tribe.

    It was better to focus on the Harakka Tribe that I had already befriended since there would be more to gain from that.

    Of course, there were my personal feelings as well.

    I liked how I was treated by the Harakka Tribe better than how the Korin Tribe was treating

    me.

    After that long silence, the slightly chubby giant suddenly gave a snort and turned to everyone to say, "Do you see how this human looks down on us? He thinks that just because we''re giants, he can do whatever he wants. That''s typical of a human!"

    There were some giants that reacted when this slightly chubby giant said this, but the rest of them didn''t seem to care.

    It seemed that they weren''t riled up by his words.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It seemed that most of them could see through his actions and weren''t interested in being used by him.

    So they just ignored him when he said this.

    Though the ones that did react did outnumber our group and it didn''t seem like the ones that were standing on the side were nning on doing anything other than watching. Even if they didn''t hate humans, that didn''t mean that they would step up for a human that they knew nothing about.

    It seemed like this matter would turn into a fight which was thest thing that I wanted.

    Humans fighting giants, even if there were the giants of the Harakka Tribe helping us, there was no doubt that this would be a bad look. If this was spread to the other giant tribes in the Land of Giants, then it would only hurt my ns to befriend the giants.

    But it didn''t seem like we had a choice.

    Taking a deep breath, I patted Joan to give her a sign to prepare to fight if there was a need to. The other wyvern riders also made their preparations as they prepared to fight the Korin Tribe group.

    But before that could happen...

    "What do you think you''re doing, Dorian?" There was a loud voice that rang out that was normal for a giant, but this was different from the normal rough voices of the giants.

    It was the softer voice of a female, but even among female giants, this voice was more beautiful.

    It was like the singing of an oriole.

    When everyone turned to look in the direction of the voice, they were surprised.

    Giants looked just like humans, only they were much taller than normal humans.

    But that meant that the aesthetic sense of giants was simr to humans and vice versa. This was a beautiful giant girl who was standing there with her arms crossed as she looked at the two groups who seemed like they were about to fight. Though the one that she was looking at the most was the slightly chubby giant who was leading the group from the Korin Tribe.

    When the slightly chubby giant whose name seemed to be Dorian saw this, he couldn''t help giving a slight tremble. Then in a slow voice, he asked, "Isra, what are you doing? Don''t get in the way of this."

    The beautiful giant girl who was called Isra shook her head and said with a sigh, "Who says that humans can''te to trade in our market? This is a ce where everyone is free to trade whatever they want to trade, that was the reason why our ancestors set this ce up in the first ce. This is not the ce where your Korin Tribe has the final say, this is a ce where all tribes make a decision."

    Dorian deeply knitted his brows when he heard this, but he didn''t say anything to refute this.

    Based on the way that he looked at this beautiful giant girl named Isra, it seemed like he had feelings for her. As such, it didn''t seem like he wanted to do anything that would make her have a bad impression of him.

    After a long silence, Dorian finally raised his hand and...waved it at the ones that followed him before saying, "We''re leaving."

    It seemed like he didn''t want to fight in front of the girl that he loved.

    That was how this fight was settled.

 Chapter 1039: Childhood friend

    Chapter 1039: Childhood friend

    ?

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Once the matter had been settled, it seemed like everyone lost interest in us.

    Though there were still a few people that looked over with interested looks, that was because we were a group of humans in a giant market. The others seemed to lose interest since they didn''t think that we had anything valuable that they would want.

    Though there was one group that seemed like they were still interested in us.

    After Dorian and the Korin Tribe group left, Isra led her group over.

    When she came over, Alidus looked at her with a smile as he said, "Thank you for your help."

    Isra just waved her hand with a smile of her own as she said, "It''s fine, we''re childhood friends after all. We should help each other when we can." Though she said this, the smile slowly disappeared from her face as she slowly said, "Though it''s the same with him..."

    At the end of her words, she let out a sigh that seemed to be filled with emotion.

    Hearing this, Alidus also let out a sigh.

    It was almost as if he was rted to whatever she was talking about.

    It seemed that the rtionship between the three of them wasn''t as simple as it seemed on the surface. It seemed that there was a deeper rtionship between the three of them that I didn''t know about.

    Though it wasn''t really my ce to ask about this since I was an outsider.

    So I just waited for the two of them to finish the moment between them.

    But while I was waiting for them to finish, I couldn''t help feeling that Isra seemed simr.

    It was almost as if I had seen her somewhere before even though I clearly had no memories of ever meeting a giant like her before.

    Only the more that I looked at her, the more that I felt that I had indeed seen her before. As I kept looking at her, I slowly started to realize where I had seen her before.

    I had indeed never met her in this world, but there was a ce where I had seen her before.

    It was a ce that no one else in this world would have seen since it wasn''t from this world. It was the game that this world was based on.

    That was where I had seen Isra before.

    But it wasn''t just any ce that I had Isra before, it was beside Alidus that I had seen her.

    That was because she was supposed to be Alidus'' wife.

    The backstory for Alidus was that he had fought over her with another childhood friend of his that he had a falling out with at some point. Based on that, that Dorian should have been that other childhood friend.

    It seemed that their falling out wasn''t something that happened all of a sudden. It seemed like this was the kind of falling out that came from a difference in opinion. At the same time, it seemed like it was a falling out because of their different positions.

    After all, based on how the two different tribes had looked at each other, it was clear that there weren''t any good feelings between them.

    Something must have happened between their two tribes...

    Once Alidus and Isra finished with their shared moment, Alidus finally thought to introduce

    us.

    "These are the human traders that came to our Harakka Tribe recently. Our tribe couldn''t take all of their goods and they wanted to trade with as many tribes as possible, so we brought them here."

    Alidus didn''t mention the human kingdom and the fact that I was a king at all. After all, this wasn''t a simple thing to exin to the other giants in the first ce.

    Isra didn''t ask any questions about that and just asked, "What kind of goods are you selling?"

    There was a faint smile that appeared on my lips when I heard this. This was what I was waiting for, the chance to show off my goods.

    I knew that they would be hooked with just one taste.

    With a smile that almost seemed sly, I said, "Let me give you a demonstration."

    With that, I took out the voice recording crystal and started ying it. Though this time, it took a bit more mana since I deliberately raised the volume so that everyone would be able to hear.

    There were quite a few giants that had been eavesdropping and looked over with interested looks after hearing what Alidus said.

    The moment that Ariel''s voice rang out through the air, the giants were all stunned. They froze there with dazed looks on their faces, almost as if they couldn''t believe what they were

    hearing.

    They had never heard a voice that was as beautiful as this before.

    Even when the song was over, there was no one that said a single thing as they just stood there in a daze.

    It was as if they couldn''t recover from what they had just heard.

    After a long silence, Isra finally said, "I understand why the Harakka Tribe wasn''t able to afford everything. These really are high grade goods that are worth a high price."

    The other giants around her slowly nodded in agreement.

    Even though this wouldn''t be good for them to admit this since the humans would raise the price after hearing this admission, they just couldn''t deny that this was a beautiful song.

    It was in their nature to not lie about things that they admired.

    If they were to say that it wasn''t worth it, it would be going against their conscience and they wouldn''t do something like that.

    Since they admitted this, I didn''t make it hard for them as I gave a nod to the others in my

    group.

    They came forward and started showing the other giants the goods that we had.

    All of the giants had pleasantly surprised looks on their faces when they heard the prices that we were selling these things for. It was much cheaper than they thought that it was worth.

    There were even some that argued that it was worth more.

    But at least we had broken the ice and started trading with the giants.

 Chapter 1040: Cute

    Chapter 1040: Cute

    ?

    While everyone was off trading with the giants, I was still with Alidus and Isra.

    From the information that Alidus provided in secret, I learned that the Harakka Tribe and the Korin Tribe that Dorian was from were thergest tribes in the surrounding areas.

    Then following that was the Vale Tribe that Isra came from.

    There were some other tribes that were a bit smaller than the Vale Tribe, but most of them didn''t align themselves with any other tribes.

    There were a few that aligned themselves with the Korin Tribe and the Harakka Tribe, which was why some giants helped the Korin Tribe earlier.

    The reason why the ones that aligned with the Harakka Tribe didn''t do anything was because Alidus had been defending us. Defending humans was not something that they could be a part of since it was not something that was looked favourably among giants.

    Especially since they didn''t know anything about the humans that were being defended.

    Leaving the other giants to the others of my group, I focused my attention on Isra.

    If I could convince her to ally with us, then it would guarantee that our Kite Kingdom would be able to have peace with the giants.

    With the Harakka Tribe and the Vale Tribe on our side, the Korin Tribe wouldn''t be able to do anything even if the other tribes supported them.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Not to mention that we were getting the support of the other tribes at the same time with the goods that we traded them.

    "You really are something,ing into thend of the giant race like this. Even if you were confident in your goods, it isn''t something that can be done that easily. This kind of courage really is rare to see in a human." Isra said in a voice filled with admiration.

    This was after Alidus told her a little more about how I hade to this Land of Giants.

    Namely, the story that Olmir, his uncle told him.

    Which was the story of when I first met Olmir.

    I just said with an awkward smile, "It isn''t anything special. I just found an opportunity and I seized it. Nothing more, nothing less."

    Isra shook her head before saying, "It''s not like that at all. Just the fact that you took this chance is already amazing enough."

    I couldn''t help feeling even more awkward and a bit confused after hearing this.

    After all, the way that Isra said this seemed strange.

    She said this in a voice that seemed to be filled with admiration, even more so than she should have had for me. After all, I was just a normal human and nothing special.

    Even if she admired me for being bold enough toe here, it shouldn''t reach this level.

    The way that she said this was almost as if she was...

    Well, I didn''t even want to think about that possibility since that was a bad possibility for me. Instead, I tried to change the topic by asking, "Is there anything that you like from our wares? If your Vale Tribe is interested in anything, I can offer them to you at a special price. After all, a friend of my friend is my friend as well."

    I made sure to sh her a smile as I said this.

    After all, the body that I was currently in was a very handsome one, which was how I had obtained all of those wives of mine.

    Using this handsomeness to my advantage was definitely not a bad thing.

    But to my surprise, Isra suddenly turned away from me.

    It was almost as if she couldn''t look right at me with the way that she turned away.

    There was a bad feeling that filled me when I saw her act this way.

    That was interrupted when I heard a howling from behind me.

    I turned around to see that it was Terry who was calling out from Joan''s arms.

    It had been silent for a while now since it was in an unfamiliar ce, but now it couldn''t take it anymore and called out for me.

    I let out an internal sigh of relief when I heard this.

    Terry''s howl hade at just the right time for me.

    I had been thinking about how to get out of this situation, but I hadn''t been able to think of a single thing. As such, Terry''s howl gave me the perfect excuse to move away from this awkward situation and see what he wanted.

    This gave me the chance to avoid confronting Isra on why she was acting this way.

    Terry was easy to handle since he just seemed like he was lonely because he was in an unfamiliar ce and surrounded by giants like this. All it took was a few pats to the head for him to calm down.

    After calming Terry down, I turned back and said, "I''m sorry about that. I just caught this Great Wolf cub and it isn''t properly trained yet. I hope that you will not mind this."

    "Cute." Isra suddenly said in a voice that seemed like she was trying to say this to herself, but she had identally said it too loudly that everyone heard her.

    The giants from the Vale Tribe had awkward looks on their faces, but it didn''t seem like they were surprised by what she said. It even seemed like they were used to seeing her say things like this.

    As for Alidus, there was a faint smile that appeared on his lips.

    I was confused why she was acting like this at first, but then I patted Terry again before saying with a smile, "He''s cute isn''t he? But it''s only when he''s a child that he''s cute, he''ll look much more ferocious in the future."

    "That isn''t what I meant." Isra said with a shake of her head that made me even more confused.

    Seeing this, Alidus waved his hand for me toe closer to him.

 Chapter 1041: Unintentional NTR

    Chapter 1041: Unintentional NTR

    ?

    After going over to Alidus'' side, he leaned in and said, "It''s the face, Isra has always been attracted to a pretty face."

    I looked up at him with a confused look on my face as I just couldn''t understand what he was saying.

    It wasn''t that I didn''t understand the words that came out of his mouth, it was that I just couldn''t understand why he was saying these things to me.

    Or rather, there was a bad feeling that filled me when he said these things...

    Seeing the way that I looked at him, Alidus calmly said, "You should have already seen the way that she looked at you. This isn''t necessarily a bad thing, it can be considered a way to move forward with building a better rtionship between humans and giants."

    My face twisted and I looked at Alidus with a strange look after hearing this.

    "This is your future wife!" I really wanted to shout at him, but I knew that it wouldn''t be any use if I were to do this. This was the future in the game and a future that was far off, so there was no way that he would ever believe me.

    But there was a part of this that I found strange.

    Since they did marry in the future, that meant that there should be some kind of rtionship between the two of them. It wouldn''t be strange if there was some kind of feeling between them right now.

    So that made what he said even more strange...

    After looking at him for a bit, I finally couldn''t help slowly asking, "Isn''t she your childhood friend? Are you sure about this?"

    There was a bitter smile that shed in Alidus'' face before quickly disappearing.

    Then with a calmer smile, he said, "Since she''s my childhood friend, I naturally have a good understanding of what kind of person she is. You can trust me when I say that there''s no mistaking it, she''s definitely interested in you."

    I felt even more strange when I heard him say this, but it wasn''t the same kind of strange feeling as before.

    It almost felt like there was something more to what Alidus was saying.

    At the same time, it also felt like there was something that he seemed to be hiding from me.

    It was as if he was trying to push some kind of burden onto me...

    I really didn''t understand why he would be doing something like this, especially since it was his childhood friend.

    Though there was a part of me that did have an idea since I could tell that there was something different about the way that he spoke.

    No, even if there was something different, it wasn''t as if this was something that I could just do. To steal a wife from a friend like this, it definitely wouldn''t be the right thing to do. Not to mention that it wouldn''t even work since I was a human and she was a giant.

    Even if there were giant transformation potions in this world, it wasn''t as if it was something that could be obtained that easily. At the same time, it wasn''t as if it would solve all problems since it was only a temporary transformation.

    There would still be arge size difference in the first ce.

    Shaking my head, I said, "I don''t think that something like this would be appropriate. Let''s not talk about this anymore."

    But to my surprise, Alidus shook his head before saying, "No, no, you don''t know her like I do. Once Isra sets her mind on something, she won''t back down that easily. It''ll be easier if you decide what you want to do now instead of having to sufferter on because of your indecision."

    I waspletely taken aback when I heard this.

    I raised a brow and just looked at Alidus with a strange look, but he didn''t seem to flinch at all as he looked at me with a serious look on his face. The way that he looked at me, it was as if he firmly believed what he said.

    I just didn''t know what to feel about this.

    It seemed like he wasn''t nning on giving up on pushing this wife of his on me.

    I really didn''t know what to say in the face of this.

    It really was a strange feeling having someone push their future wife on me.

    I didn''t want to NTR a friend after all, even if it was identally!

    Still, there was nothing that could be done right now. After all, there was no telling what Isra thought even if Alidus was convinced of what he thought she was thinking.

    To think too much about this would be pointless, so I just shook my head and said with a sigh, "Let''s not talk about this right now. If you want to talk about it, how about we don''t do it in front of the person in question?"

    Alidus trembled when he heard this before looking like he had suddenly realized something.

    He took a peek back at Isra who was just standing there waiting for us before turning back to give a nod in response.

    With that, the two of us went back over to where everyone else was.

    Isra suddenly came forward and asked with a smile, "What were you talking about?"

    Both Alidus and I trembled when we saw this smile since we could see that there was something strange about that smile. The way that she smiled was almost as if there was some kind of hidden implication behind that smile.

    With a gulp, I said, "We were just talking about some private matters about trading at the market. Nothing else."

    I tried to keep it short, but I couldn''t help stalling a bit.

    Isra narrowed her eyes to look at us before suddenly saying with a smile, "Oh, I see."

    It seemed simple what she said, but I could tell that there was something off.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It seemed that Alidus was right about her...

 Chapter 1042: Rewards of trading

    Chapter 1042: Rewards of trading

    ?

    After talking with Isra for a bit, she finally left us alone as she went off to the stall of her own tribe.

    The Vale Tribe had sent them because there were some things that needed to be traded, so she had some things to take care of.

    It was a good thing that she was distracted or else I really wouldn''t have been able to get away from her.

    I could see that Alidus was thinking the same thing as he also let out a sigh of relief when he saw Isra leaving.

    Once we were freed, we went over to the stall that had been set up by Klein and the others. They had been trading with the other giants the entire time, so they should have reaped quite a few rewards.

    But it turned out that we hadn''t even been able to sell everything that we had.

    It wasn''t because the giants didn''t want to buy them, it was simply because the giants weren''t able to afford them. However, that also wasn''t because the giants were poor, it was just that they put a high price on these items. The price that they put on them was even higher than the price that we wanted to put, so we couldn''t just bring it down after they gave their price.

    As such, they didn''t have enough money to buy everything that we wanted to sell.

    It was a good thing that this giant market wouldst several days, so there was no problem in selling these thingster.

    The giants that came to the market would return to their tribes every night since the market wasn''t that far away for them. A round trip wouldn''t even take half a day, so it was no problem for them tomute back and forth from their tribes.

    Though if this was in the human territory, the trek would take at least a week.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    That was just the difference between humans and giants.

    After going back to their tribes, they would be able to get more money and buy the things that we had to sell.

    So there was no need to worry that we wouldn''t be able to sell everything.

    As for the items that we had obtained from selling these items that we brought, they really were quite the haul.

    Since the giants didn''t have a currency, they traded items for the items that they wanted.

    The things that the giants traded were all things that couldn''t be obtained in the human territory or would be hard to obtain in the human territory. These were things that could only be obtained by the giants, but were regarded as normal goods for them.

    In fact, some of them had even felt bad about trading these things when they offered it for our goods.

    It was simr to how the mermaids viewed pearls as worthless.

    Only the things that the giants saw as worthless would be considered priceless among humans because there was no source for it.

    These were things like high quality leathers, high quality monster bones, and all kinds of other high quality monster materials.

    At the same time, there were ores and herbs that couldn''t be found in the human territory since it required arge amount of mana to grow. It was only in a ce like the giants'' territory with all these monsters that naturally exuded mana that these things could appear. That was why these things were all considered very rare.

    In fact, it could almost be considered us taking advantage of the giants by trading simple art for these precious items. Or at least that was from the point of view of a human.

    "Your majesty, if we can continue these trades..."

    One of the prime minister''s assistants said this in an excited voice, but I didn''t need him to tell me this.

    What they didn''t know was that I could analyze these goods even better than them since I had my knowledge from the game.

    I knew just how much these things were worth, but it wasn''t as if trading between territories was a thing that was done in the game since there was instant teleportation through warp points. If that was allowed, then the entire economy of the game would have been ruined.

    Still, now that the game had be a real world and there were no longer warp points, we were able to sell things back and forth between different countries. If these items were sold to other human countries, then there was no doubt that we would earn a huge profit.

    Even if we didn''t sell them, we would still have a use for them since there was a reason why these items were so sought after.

    They could be used to make different items and we had some of the best craftsmen in the entire world since there were dwarves in my former territory.

    As such, it would be extremely beneficial for us to keep up this trade.

    "There''s still tomorrow to look forward to. Don''t lose yourself because of these short term gains." I said in a serious voice.

    The assistant was caught off guard when he heard this, but he quickly nodded in agreement before looking at me with a look of admiration.

    The others had heard this as well and also looked at me in admiration.

    But these weren''t just empty words.

    There was a reason why I said these words in the first ce, it was rted to the knowledge that I had from the game.

    I knew that there were more amazing things that the giants possessed, so it all depended on what they would bring back after reporting this to their tribes. It would all depend on how much they wanted the things that we were trading.

    Since the market was over for the day, we headed back to the Harakka Tribe.

    There was still something that I wanted to do with the Great Wolf cubs that were there.

 Chapter 1043: Supplements

    Chapter 1043: Supplements

    ?

    The Great Wolf cubs seemed tired when we came back, but they immediately perked up the moment that they saw me.

    It seemed that they had imprinted on me after I saved them, which is why they were so enthusiastic about seeing me. It was almost as if they regarded me as their parent with the way that they showed affection towards me.

    Of course, this wasn''t a bad thing.

    Though it did make me a bit hesitant about giving them awayter...

    Perhaps there was no need to give away this first batch of Great Wolves since they would be used as breeding wolves. Perhaps it was better to keep these Great Wolf cubs by my side instead.

    Or rather, it would be better to give them to my wives for some extra protection.

    Wolves were loyal and these Great Wolves were certainly powerful with their ability to cast spells. If they were to stay by my wives'' side, then they would certainly be safe if anything unexpected happened.

    But for now, the important thing was checking how they were doing.

    They had been very weak yesterday when we brought them back from the Great Wolf den. They had recovered a bitst night after we fed them something, but they were still weak from their days of starvation.

    One of the female wolf cubs had been extremely weak from her period of malnutrition.

    However, it seemed like they were doing much better today.

    With the help of the Harakka Tribe, I had been able to find some supplements that work great for these Great Wolves and it seemed like they had mostly recovered from their ordeal. They had been a bit listless in the morning, but it seemed like they were doing much better at night.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It seemed that they had recovered most of their energy and seemed much stronger.

    Even the weakest female cub was running around like it was nothing.

    Once they had their fill of fun, they went back to their nest and split off.

    Without me interfering at all, they had split off into their own couples.

    There had been two males and two female wolves, but I had been worried that they would follow the pack rules where the alpha would have all the males. I had been worried that they would fight over the female wolves and I would need to separate them.

    But it seemed that this worry wasn''t necessary.

    Terry split off with the weakest female cub while the other two got together.

    It seemed that the weakest female cub remembered when Terry warmed her upst night when she was at her weakest and now wouldn''t leave Terry alone.

    The other two wolves seemed to recognize this, so they just got together with each other instead of disturbing the two of them.

    I was very happy to see that they decided their own pairings without me having to interfere. This would make things much easier in the future when they had their own cubs.

    Though having only two sets of parents would result in some inbreeding...

    Thinking about this, I made a proposal to Alidus.

    "Can you go back and bring some more Great Wolf cubs back another time? I don''t want to have inbreeding, so it''s better if we can bring in some fresh blood from time to time."

    Alidus slightly knitted his brows when he heard this before saying, "You know how dangerous it is to do that. Unless..."

    He didn''t finish what he said and just looked at me with a meaningful look.

    I fully understood what he meant by this, so I responded with a nod, "We don''t have to do it now. We can do it in the future when Ie back to trade with your tribe again."

    At this, Alidus gave a nod in response to show that he agreed to this.

    He didn''t mind this request at all since he knew that getting the Great Wolf cubs wasn''t a dangerous thing since the Great Wolves were actually abandoning these cubs.

    He had actually felt sorry for the Great Wolf cubs that were abandoned in that hole, so there was a part of him that wanted to help them if he could.

    Though Alidus knew that it was impossible to save all of the Great Wolf cubs, it wasn''t as if he would insist on saving every one that they found. They would only try to save the ones that they could.

    With that settled, it seemed that the problem of the future of this wolf pack was solved.

    Inbreeding would lead to an unhealthy pack, so that was thest thing that I wanted since I wanted to make these Great Wolves powerful so they could be battlepanions in the future just like the wyverns.

    After that matter was settled, I looked at Alidus and asked, "Did you get what I asked for?" Alidus gave a nod before taking the bag off his back and dropping it in front of me.

    I was almost pushed back by the gust of wind that was generated by this bag since this was a bag for a giant, but I was able to stand my ground. After the bag settled, I went forward and pulled out the things that were inside of the bag.

    Seeing these things, there was a smile that appeared on my lips.

    These were the items that I had requested from the Harakka Tribe while I was gone at the giant market.

    These items weren''t just normal items, they were special supplements that I could use to help the Great Wolves develop their bodies.

    If they were fed these supplements, they would be much stronger than they were now.

    They might even be stronger than the Great Wolves that were their parents.

    Just like how I fed Joan those supplements that made her the Wyvern Queen.

    But I made sure to take it slow since there was no telling what would happen if they became

    too strong.

    I had to make sure that they were still weaker than Joan to maintain the pack order so they didn''t go crazy.

    Still, that didn''t mean that they would be weak after eating these supplements.

    Putting the supplements in front of the Great Wolf cubs, I said with a smile, "Eat and grow stronger."

 Chapter 1044: Leave her alone

    Chapter 1044: Leave her alone

    ?

    When I checked on the Great Wolves the next morning, it was hard to call them cubs anymore with how big they had gotten.

    Though mentally...they were still the same age as before.

    But when it came to their size, they were much bigger than before.

    They were taller than me, even the weakest female cub had been able to reach a height where she was taller than me.

    That was how much they grew in a single day just from the supplements.

    The giants were all surprised by this, but the children didn''t seem to mind at all as they went forward to y with the Great Wolves still. Since they had the mentality of children, the Great Wolves happily yed with the children, though they did turn back to look at me as if they were asking if it was alright.

    I didn''t mind at all since it was a good way to train them to be friendly to giants and humans in the future.

    Though I didn''t stay to watch them y.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Since I didn''t stay, Terry stopped ying and ran after me as if he wanted to follow me around.

    I had already expected this, so I wanted to have Joan pick Terry up.

    Only I realized that this didn''t seem appropriate with Terry''s current size.

    Terry had gotten a bit big, so it would be awkward for Joan to carry him around. So all he could do was follow behind Joan as we set off.

    There was a moment where he had wanted to give me a ride like Joan did, but she immediately shut him down.

    With the way that she suppressed him, it was as if she was saying that she was the only one that I could ride.

    I had to take a moment to calm the two of them down before we were able to set off.

    As for our destination, it was naturally the giant market again.

    Today was the second day of the giant market and the day where all of the giant tribes would have been informed of the goods that we had. That meant that there would be far more items brought to trade with us today.

    I was looking forward to seeing what the giant tribes would bring to trade with us.

    The things from yesterday were already priceless enough, so I was a bit expectant of what they would bring today.

    It didn''t take long for us to arrive at the giant market, but we were caught off guard since there was someone who was waiting at the entrance of the giant market.

    With the way that they stood there, it was as if this person had been waiting here for a while

    now.

    If it was anyone else, we wouldn''t be that concerned about them waiting here.

    It was because we recognized this person that we were surprised to see them waiting there.

    It was Isra and the Vale Tribe

    She stood there looking a bit bashful and a bit distracted as if she was thinking about something.

    With the way that she stood there, it was almost as if...

    There was a bitter look that was on my face and it didn''t help when Alidus shot a meaningful look at me.

    I really wanted to shout at him, "That''s your future wife there!"

    But of course, I held myself back in the end.

    Since she was blocking the entrance to the giant market, we had no choice but to pass by her if we wanted to enter.

    There was a part of me that wanted to turn around and just leave, but we had to go to the market in the end.

    When Isra saw using forward, her eyes immediately fell onto me before turning away. I could see that there was a faint blush that was on her face as she turned away which made my heart sink.

    After an awkward silence, Isra came back to her senses and said, "Good morning to you. I''ve talked to my father and we''ve brought quite a few things to trade for your items today."

    It seemed like she was back to talking normally which honestly made me feel relieved.

    After calming myself down, I said, "We always wee your business."

    I had been about to smile before realizing what hade of that smile yesterday, so there was an awkward moment where my lips just seemed to stop mid smile. I stood there with an awkward look on my face after saying this.

    To my surprise, it didn''t seem like Isra minded this.

    The way that she looked at me, it was almost as if she had seen something that she hadn''t expected and she was happy about that.

    It really made my heart drop when I saw her like this...

    So the only thing that I could think of to distract her was...

    I gestured with my fingers and Terry gave a howl to get my attention.

    This was one of the things that I had taught Terry yesterday since I had expected this

    situation.

    Once he barked, I turned back and walked over to Terry''s side as if I was checking on him.

    But to my surprise, Isra came over as well to take a proper look at Terry.

    After looking at him for a bit, she said, "He really has grown since yesterday. Do Great Wolves really grow that quickly?"

    Since it was a normal conversation, I let out an internal sigh of relief before going to answer

    her.

    Only before I was able to answer her, there was someone that suddenly cut in.

    "Don''t you talk to her! She isn''t someone that a human like you can talk to! Leave her alone

    this instant!"

    This voice came from behind us and it was a familiar voice.

    The moment that I heard it, there was a slightly chubby figure that appeared in my mind.

    Then when I turned around, that slightly chubby figure appeared in front of me.

    It was Dorian, the junior chief of the Korin Tribe from yesterday.

 Chapter 1045: Breakdown

    Chapter 1045: Breakdown

    ?

    Of course, it wasn''t just him alone. Naturally he was being followed by the other giants from the Korin Tribe.

    All of them seemed like they were ready to fight at any moment with the way that they wielded their weapons.

    At the same time, the ones from the Harakka Tribe also pulled out their weapons as if they were prepared to fight.

    Alidus had a serious look on his face as he looked at Dorian, but Dorian didn''t seem to care about this at all. It seemed like Dorian''s attention waspletely on me just because Isra was standing close to me.

    It seemed like the feelings that he had for her were much deeper than I thought that he would react like this.

    With the way that he looked at me, it was almost as if he was prepared to go all out against

    me.

    But even if he looked like this, it wasn''t as if I would back down.

    I wasn''t the kind of person to back down just because I was being threatened like this and if I were to back down, there was no doubt that it would have the opposite effect. At a time like this, if I were to show weakness, there was no doubt that he would exploit it and be even more arrogant.

    So the only thing that could be done was...

    "First, are you qualified to say something like this?" I said in a cold voice as I narrowed my eyes to look at him.

    Dorian wanted to say something, but I cut him off by saying, "You''re treating her like she is your property. Do you really have the final say in this matter?"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Dorian''s face twisted when he heard this, but it was clear that he had been affected by these words as he slowly turned to look at Isra. When he saw that she was looking at him with a cold look, he quickly started to stutter.

    "I didn''t mean it like that. I was just...I was just trying to protect you from these greedy and vile humans." Dorian tried to exin his actions, but the expression on Isra''s face didn''t change in the face of his exnation.

    She just listened to him with the same cold look on her face.

    When his voice finally sputtered out, she said, "Is that really all that you have to say?"

    Dorian was shocked and confused as he couldn''t understand what she was trying to imply with these words. He didn''t know what to say as she just looked at him with those cold eyes.

    In the end, Isra gave a disappointed sigh before saying, "It seems like you really have changed."

    Dorian''s face twisted when he heard this, but there were no words that he could say to refute this.

    I suddenly said, "She was waiting for an apology."

    Dorian was caught off guard by these words, but he didn''t dismiss them right away as he looked at Isra as if he was gauging her reaction.

    When he saw her expression rx a bit, he realized that these words were correct.

    After thinking about it, Dorian justpletely ignored me and bowed his head to Isra as he said, "I''m sorry for the way that I talked. I didn''t think about your feelings when I said those words. I shouldn''t have said them in a way that made it seem like you were my belonging."

    Isra narrowed her eyes to look at Dorian after he ''apologized'' before suddenly shaking her head and giving another disappointed sigh.

    Dorian''s face twisted when he saw this before he quickly turned back to me and said in an enraged voice, "You dare trick me! I''ll kill you!"

    It seemed that he hadpletely lost his sense of control in his rage.

    The apology that Isra really wanted was an apology to me.

    That was what I was trying to remind Dorian of.

    However, it seemed like Isra treated me quite well if this was the way that she reacted to Dorian''s apology.

    It could be seen why he hadpletely lost control of himself like this.

    A man would always find it hard to ept when they saw the woman that they loved treating another man this well.

    It wasn''t just a matter of pride, it was a matter of the heart.

    Matters of the heart made one irrational sometimes.

    Once he lost control of himself like this, Dorian pulled out his weapon and looked like he wanted to charge at me. He brought his club up and looked like he wanted to swing it down at

    me.

    But before he could do that, Alidus had alreadye forward to bring his club up to stop Dorian from attacking.

    Their two clubs shed in the air and there was a powerful gust of wind that was released. At the same time, I could sense faint traces of mana being released from this sh.

    It seemed like it wasn''t just Alidus'' weapon that was special, it seemed like even Dorian''s weapon was special.

    As expected of the junior chiefs of the tworgest tribes in the area.

    After the sh, Dorian looked at Alidus and said, "What are you doing? I don''t have a bone to pick with you."

    The way that he said this was almost as if he was trying to pressure Alidus to back down. However, there was no hesitation in Alidus'' voice as he said, "You''re trying to attack the guest of our Harakka Tribe, do you really think that I would just let you do that?"

    Dorian narrowed his eyes to look at Alidus before saying, "Do you really want to escte this? Do you know what will happen if you keep trying to protect these humans like this?"

    Alidus didn''t seem threatened at all as he calmly said, "You''re the one that''s pushing the issue. It''s not as if I want to do this either."

    The two of them just coldly looked at each other.

    With the tense atmosphere, it was as if the rtionship between them was about to break

    down.

    It was almost as if a civil war was about to happen among the giants.

 Chapter 1046: Invitation

    Chapter 1046: Invitation

    ?

    In the end, it was Dorian who backed down first.

    That was because Isra said, "That''s enough out of the two of you. Are you really going to push this issue that far?"

    If it was Alidus, Dorian wouldn''t have listened.

    Since it was Isra, then it waspletely different.

    Dorian narrowed his eyes to look at Alidus one more time before withdrawing the club in his hand. Then with a wave of his hand at the other giants of the Korin Tribe, he said, "We''re leaving."

    The other giants of the Korin Tribe almost seemed disappointed when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything as they followed Dorian.

    It seemed like they were no longer interested in the giant market with the way that they were leaving.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Though I could see Dorian casting a nce back at me.

    No matter how one looked at it, this matter clearly wasn''t over.

    This was just a temporary truce and there was still something that was brewing under the surface. There was no doubt that Dorian wouldn''t let this matter end like this, he was sure to make some kind of moveter.

    As for what he was nning to do...

    For now, it was better to improve our rtionship with the other giant tribes.

    If they really wanted to do something, having a good rtionship with the other giant tribes would certainly be a good shield. Even if the Korin Tribe was one of the bigger tribes, it didn''t matter if the rest of the tribes all sided with the Harakka Tribe which was just as big as them.

    The first one that I moved on was...

    With a smile, I said to Isra, "Thank you for standing up for me."

    Isra looked a bit dazed when she saw me smiling at her like this, but then she pushed back a strand of hair behind her ear as she said, "It''s nothing. I just couldn''t watch him acting that way as his childhood friend."

    At the end of her words, it seemed like she was a bit disappointed with something as she turned in the direction that Dorian walked off in.

    But she didn''t let that bother her for long as she turned back to say, "If he does anything in the future, you cane look for me. I''ll set him straight."

    There was an awkward feeling that filled the air as she said this.

    With the way that she said this, it was almost as if she was adding more oil to the fire...

    But in the end, she didn''t push the issue as Isra changed the topic.

    She looked like she was thinking about something before saying, "If you have time, how about youe and visit our Vale Tribe? My father said that he was quite interested in you when I mentioned youst night."

    At this, Alidus gave me a knowing gaze as if he was saying, "I told you so."

    But to his surprise, I said with a nod, "Alright, how far away is the Vale Tribe from the Harakka Tribe?"

    Isra was also surprised since she didn''t expect me to ask this question, but then she quickly replied, "It''s not that far at all. After all, I could be childhood friends with that musclehead, so it''s close enough that we could see each other quite often when we were kids."

    Alidus scowled at her when she called him this, but he didn''t say anything else.

    That was enough to show the rtionship between the two of them.

    After giving a nod, I turned to Alidus and asked, "Then is there time to head to the Vale Tribe after the giant market? Can we go there and then head back to the Harakka Tribe afterwards?" Alidus was surprised to hear this, but then he said with a strong nod, "That''s not a problem at all. It''s definitely close enough that we can make the trip even in the dark."

    Then after a pause, he added in a meaningful way, "Though if you want to stay overnight at the Vale Tribe, that is perfectly fine with us as well. After all, we''re quite close with the Vale Tribe."

    Isra scowled at Alidus when he said this, but then she turned back to look at me as if she was waiting for my response.

    I just calmly said, "We''re just greeting one of our business partners. I''m sure that it won''t take too long."

    There was a trace of disappointment that shed in Isra''s eyes when she heard this, but then she said with a nod, "Of course, my father has been looking forward to meeting you."

    I turned to her with a smile and said with a nod, "I look forward to meeting him too." With that, it was settled that we would be heading to the Vale Tribe after the giant market. Isra followed our group into the market since we would be showing off our goods and she had been sent to buy some of our goods as well.

    The rest of my group went to set up the stall and show off the goods that we had shown off yesterday.

    The giants had all gone back and gotten things to trade with us today, so there was quite a bit of a ruckus as they all wanted to buy our goods.

    It seemed that the sh with Dorian and the Korin Tribe didn''t seem to affect our business as they still traded with us. It was as if they weren''t afraid of the implications that trading with us might have with the Korin Tribe.

    That was because there were the Harakka Tribe and the Vale Tribe seemingly on our side.

    The other giants weren''t fools, they could see who had the advantage right now.

    As such, they didn''t fear trading with us.

    While this was happening, Alidus suddenly asked me, "What are you nning?"

    The way that he asked this waspletely different from the way that he acted before.

    He was much more serious now that we were talking alone,pared to how yful he had been earlier.

    I just looked at him with a smile without saying anything.

 Chapter 1047: Vale Tribe

    Chapter 1047: Vale Tribe

    ?

    When the giant market was over, I was certainly surprised by how much the giants from the different tribes took out for our goods.

    It seemed that they didn''t hold back at all when it came to fighting over the items that we sold.

    The things that they offered were much better than the things that they brought yesterday, but that was only natural since they had gone back specifically to get these things. These were special items that their tribes had taken out to trade for our goods, so it would be strange if they were bad.

    With these items, we were able to sell all of the things that we brought out.

    The giants seemed disappointed because of this.

    Their hearts had been captured by these goods and now that it was gone, they couldn''t help feeling an emptiness in their hearts.

    But that emptiness was filled when one of the aides said, "We''re sold out for the day, but we''ll bring new things over tomorrow."

    All of the giants were surprised since they were under the impression that these goods were the only ones that were avable. However, that wasn''t the case since we had split up our goods in batches to sell.

    This was the best way to slowly build up our rtionship with the giants and to maximize profits.

    The giants from the different tribes were all happy about this and promised that they woulde back tomorrow to buy. But at the same time, they looked at each other as if they werepetitors.

    In a sense, they were since they would bepeting over the goods that we brought tomorrow.

    Still, it wasn''t as if this was a bad thing since that would just make them raise the prices.

    As a merchant, high prices were what I wanted to see.

    After the giant market ended, there was Isra and the Vale Tribe group who was waiting for us outside of the giant market.

    With the way that they stood there, it was as if they were afraid that we would run away. They were there as if they were prepared to chase us down if we were to leave without them. It really caused a bitter feeling to fill me, but I didn''t let it bother me for long.

    Though I could do without the way that Alidus was looking at me.

    It was clear that he was implying something with the way that he looked at me, but I justpletely ignored him as I looked at the Vale Tribe group in front of us. Especially Isra who seemed to be looking at me the entire time.

    I really never thought that she would look at me like this in just two days, but it seemed like she wasn''t nning on giving up.

    It really made me helpless since I didn''t know what to do with her.

    But for now, it was time to focus on meeting the Vale Tribe.

    With Isra''s group leading the way, we quickly made our way to the Vale Tribe.

    The way back was simr to the way that we came when we came to the giant market for the first half, but it was different for the second half.

    It was basically taking a different fork in the road on the way home.

    That was just how close the Vale Tribe was to the Harakka Tribe.

    It didn''t take us long to reach the Vale Tribe, we had even arrived before the sun could set.

    When we arrived, I could immediately see the difference between the Vale Tribe and the Harakka Tribe.

    It was still arge vige since it was a vige for giants, butpared to the Harakka Tribe... It wasn''t even half the size of the Harakka Tribe. At the same time, it seemed like there were far fewer giants that were wandering around the camp.

    When they saw us approaching, I could see that the guards that came out to greet us didn''t even match half of the guards around the Harakka Tribe.

    That was a clear indication of what it meant to be one of the biggest tribes in the area.

    It was clear that there was a difference in numbers.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Isra raised her hand for us to stop before heading forward to meet the guards.

    It only took a few seconds of exining before the guards lowered their weapons. The looks on their faces showed that they had already been expecting us.

    Once Isra finished talking to the guards, she came back to say with a smile, "Let''s go in, my father is already waiting for us."

    This was expected since we had agreed toe to the Vale Tribe in the morning, so there was no doubt that Isra would have sent a messenger back to inform them of our arrival. It wasn''t strange that they would be expecting us, it was just strange that...

    The way that the giants looked at us, it seemed like they were quite receptive to our arrival.

    It even seemed like they were d to see us arriving at their tribe.

    This was certainly strange since we were a group of humans that were visiting a tribe of giants.

    This was by no means a normal thing and not something that most giants weed.

    So it was certainly strange seeing them like this.

    After entering the Vale Tribe, the way that we were weed was even more strange.

    Unlike when we first arrived in the Harakka Tribe, the children and women didn''t seem to be afraid of us. They were even standing outside their houses openly staring at us.

    It was as if they weren''t afraid of us at all and were curious about us.

    There was a strange feeling that filled me when I saw them like this, but it wasn''t a bad

    feeling.

    After all, this showed that they were slowly getting used to seeing us humans and were even curious of us.

    This meant that we were slowly building a rtionship with the giants.

    "Who wants to take my daughter from me?"

 Chapter 1048: Want to act? Itâ€™s too late!

    Chapter 1048: Want to act? It¡¯s toote!

    ?

    All of us were caught off guard by this voice suddenly booming through the air.

    Even the other giants were surprised to hear this voice, though the looks on their faces showed that they were surprised by the words and not the voice itself. It seemed like they recognized this voice and knew who was speaking.

    When we turned to look in the direction that the voice came from, there was a giant that wasrger than the other giants with a white beard standing there.

    This was a giant that stood at twenty five meters tall, five meters taller than the usual twenty meters that giants were.

    With his height and his muscles, it was clear that he was a powerful warrior.

    Though with his white beard, it also showed that the passage of time was not kind to him.

    With how everyone looked at him, it was clear that this person held a high position in the Vale Tribe. With the way that his prestige hung on him and how everyone respected him, there was only one identity that this person could have.

    He was the chief of the Vale Tribe and Isra''s father.

    That meant that the words that he said just now...were most likely for me.

    After a moment of silence, I could even see the chief of the Vale Tribe turning to look at me.

    He just ignored the rest of the humans sitting on the backs of the wyverns and turned his gaze to look at me.

    I was wondering how he recognized me, but then I figured it out by the way that he looked at

    me.

    As the father of Isra, he naturally knew what kind of preference his daughter had in men. Comparing me to the others in my party was definitely not aparison since my appearance was far beyond what the others could match to.

    So it was easy to pick me out in this crowd of humans, especially since humans and giants had the same sense of aesthetics.

    It didn''t take long for the other humans to realize this as well and there were bitter smiles that appeared on their faces.

    Even if they weren''t as handsome as me, they couldn''t be considered that bad either.

    So it felt strange for them to bepletely ignored like this.

    But they swallowed these feelings as they turned to look at me.

    Everyone slowly turned to look at me as if they were waiting for my response.

    However, I wasn''t the one that responded in the end.

    With the silence that persisted, it became more and more awkward until a certain person couldn''t take it anymore. This person was the one that broke the awkward silence in the end.

    "What do you think you''re doing?" That person said in a cold voice.

    When the chief of the Vale Tribe heard this, he was a bit caught off guard since he didn''t think that this person would be the one that spoke.

    After a moment of awkwardly opening and closing his mouth, he said, "I was just trying to look out for you, my baby girl. I don''t want you to be bullied by anyone."

    "Humph, you want to act like a parent now? It''s toote for that!" Isra said with a snort before turning her head away.

    I was certainly surprised by the way that she treated her own father.

    I thought that the rtionship between the two of them was good based on the way that she had talked about him before, but now it seemed like it wasn''t that good...n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    "It''s not what you think."

    I was surprised to hear this whispering from beside me.

    When I looked over at him, I saw that Alidus wasn''t even looking at me as his eyes were on the two of them.

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on the chief''s face as he said, "Baby girl, what do you mean by pretending? I''m your father, there''s nothing to pretend."

    Isra suddenly turned back to shake her head before saying, "You''ve already said that I can be with whoever I want, you can''t take that back now. I''ve already decided on what I want, so you can''t act like a parent now and oppose it."

    The bitterness grew on the face of the chief as he said, "No matter what, I still have to take care of you."

    It seemed that this wasn''t an actual fight, but rather an argument between daughter and father.

    This even showed how close the two of them were since one couldn''t have this kind of argument unless they were close to each other.

    The two of them continued to argue without a care, as if they didn''t even notice that we were here. It seemed that the two of them wouldn''t stop arguing unless they settled this matter.

    But before they could go too far, there was someone that stopped them.

    "What do you think you''re doing in front of the guests?"

    There was a female voice that didn''t lose out to Isra''s that suddenly cut through their arguing.

    Though it was soft, the moment that it rang out, both the chief and Isra stopped arguing.

    The two of them looked away with awkward and guilty expressions, but they didn''t say anything to defend themselves.

    Seeing this, the one that spoke shook her head before turning to me to say with a smile, "Wee to our Vale Tribe. How about we go and sit down first before we start talking?"

    I gave a nod in response without even asking who she was.

    The person that could reign in both the chief of the Vale Tribe and Isra was no doubt someone special.

    But just looking at her made it clear who she was.

    That was because she was an older version of Isra, but she wasn''t old enough to look like her mother. She looked more like an older sister than a mother.

    Still, there was no doubt that she was Isra''s mother and the wife of the chief with the way that they feared her.

 Chapter 1049: Real chief

    Chapter 1049: Real chief

    ?

    With Isra''s mother leading the way, we headed into the main building of the vige.

    Though I still had to remain on Joan''s back since this ce was just too big for us as humans to navigate.

    When we arrived, they removed the chair and Joan sat down on her own while I remained on her, so it seemed like I was sitting at the table.

    The others all sat down in the seats that had been prepared for them.

    After sitting down, Isra''s mother said, "It''s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Vanne and this is my husband Dragan, as well as the chief of our Vale Tribe."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    When he was introduced, Isra''s father crossed his arms in front of himself and stuck his head out as if he was trying to make himself seem as important as possible.

    It was just that this was all undermined when Isra said, "He''s just acting tough."

    There was an awkward look that appeared on Dragan''s face when he heard this, but it seemed like he was too caring of a father to scold his daughter. So all he did was say, "Can''t you let me act as a chief once in a while?"

    "Humph." Isra just turned her head with a snort, not answering the question that her father asked her.

    That left a bitter smile on Dragan''s face.

    Vanne suddenly said, "The two of you, stop that. We''re in front of guests, you shouldn''t be acting this way."

    Unlike her father, Isra actedpletely differently in front of her mother.

    When it was her mother scolding her, Isra immediately lowered her head like a child who had been caught doing something bad. She couldn''t keep up the same way that she had been

    acting when it was her father trying to show off.

    Dragan also didn''t seem to take advantage of this.

    Even though his wife was speaking up for him, it seemed like he was more on his daughter''s side than his wife''s side.

    As for why he was on his daughter''s side...

    Well, it was very simple to understand after seeing what Vanne was capable of.

    Ignoring the way that the two of them acted, Vanne just turned to me with a smile before saying, "I''m sorry that you had to see us embarrassing ourselves like this."

    I was surprised to hear her say something like this to me, but I quickly waved my hand and said, "No, no, it just shows how close they really are that they can banter like this."

    Vanne slowly gave a nod before bringing one hand to her cheek and saying with a sigh, "Maybe, but I really do wish that sometime there was someone to keep my daughter in check. I was hoping that if she settled down, she might be much more gentle."

    There was a clear point to these words.

    It was clear that she was implying something with them and that something included me.

    It was with these words that I realized what she was capable of.

    From the very beginning, it seemed that she had been leading all of us with her words.

    As for how I recognized this...

    It was because she was just like Rose who always seemed to be leading people on with her words. Rose was someone that always had deep thoughts and ns, so most of the words that she said were actually calcted.

    They were said in a way that they would lead someone on.

    But it was different since Rose was someone who could be considered mine. She was someone that was in love with me, so she didn''t have any reason to harm me.

    As for Vanne, she was someone who wasn''t rted to me.

    So there shouldn''t be any hesitation in using her words to lead me on like this.

    Especially since I could tell that there was something that she wanted.

    There was a blush that appeared on Isra''s face after she heard this and she lowered her head as if she was embarrassed by this.

    Though Dragan seemed like he wanted to say something, he was immediately silenced by the look that Vanne gave him.

    It was clear who was the real leader of the Vale Tribe just based on this.

    After sorting out theplicated feelings that filled my heart, I said, "I think that she''s still a bit too young for things like that."

    Vanne shook her head and said with another sigh, "She''s not that young anymore. She''s been like this for so long that all the other boys don''t dare approach her, I really don''t know what to do with her."

    Though she said this as if she was exasperated with her daughter, the look that she cast in my direction made it clear what she was really thinking.

    Even if I wanted to pretend like I didn''t see it, it was impossible to ignore her when she looked at me like this.

    There was an awkward silence that filled the air after she said this.

    In the end, I said with a cough, "I don''t think that this is the right ce to discuss this, especially in front of the one that''s involved."

    "Is that so?" Vanne said while narrowing her eyes to look at me.

    I just turned away slightly when I saw her looking at me like this.

    But in the end, it wasn''t as I could just remain silent, so I still said, "I''m here visiting the Vale Tribe today because I wanted to be closer friends with you all."

    I just changed the topic right away since I knew that there was nothing for me to gain from continuing the topic that she wanted to talk about.

    Vanne narrowed her eyes even more to look at me before suddenly saying with a smile, "And we''re happy to have you. I hope that we can be much closer in the future."

    I let out a secret sigh of relief when I heard this knowing that she wasn''t going to push this, but I also knew that it wasn''t as if she would give up that easily.

    I couldn''t help wondering what her next ns were...

 Chapter 1050: Being stalked

    Chapter 1050: Being stalked

    ?

    This visit to the Vale Tribe was just a courtesy visit this time.

    It was our first time meeting the chief and the real chief of the Vale Tribe, so it wasn''t as if the rtionship was going to be much deeper than this.

    Other than introducing ourselves, we also agreed to bring more goods from human society to trade with them in the future. Like this, it could be said that we had signed a deal to sell our goods to them.

    That was a good starting point.

    After this was settled, it was time to head back to the Harakka Tribe.

    As we were heading back, it really seemed like Isra wanted to follow us back.

    The way that she said this was as if she wasing with us to deepen our rtionship, but her father didn''t seem like he approved of this.

    In the end, her mother was the one that stopped it by saying, "It''s toote for you to go with them. You''ll see them tomorrow, so there''s no need for you to be acting like this."

    Isra seemed disappointed, but since it was her mother saying this...

    She looked at me with a wistful look as if she wanted to follow me, but I was d that her mother stepped in to stop her.

    "Though I didn''t like the way that she looked at me when she did it...

    For now, it was important that they didn''t follow us because there was something that we had to take care of and it was best if no one from the Vale Tribe was with us.

    It was a problem, but if we made too much of a big deal of this matter, then it wouldn''t be good for us.

    After all, there was nothing to gain from making too big of a deal of this matter.

    Once we got far enough away from the Vale Tribe, I suddenly turned to Alidus to say, "We''re being followed."

    He slightly knitted his brows when he heard this, but then he slowly gave a nod as if he already knew this.

    I was surprised by this, but I didn''t think too much about it.

    As a future hero unit, there was no doubt of his abilities.

    If he couldn''t do something as small as this, then he wouldn''t be able to be a hero unit in the future.

    Hero units werepletely different from normal units after all.

    As for how I knew, it was naturally Shaka who picked up the traces of the people that were stalking us.

    They had been following us since the market, but we knew that they wouldn''t do anything. After all, it seemed that they were wary of the Vale Tribe and didn''t want to get them caught up in this matter.

    So that was why it seemed like they were nning to attack now that we had left the Vale Tribe.

    As for where they would attack...

    Alidus and Shaka came to the same conclusion.

    There was a dark patch of forest on the way back to the Harakka Tribe, which was where they would most likely ambush us. This was a ce that was hidden from view and the trees helped with the sound istion, so it really was the perfect ce for an ambush.

    But before we went into that ce, we naturally came up with a n first.

    Entering the ambush of the enemy was one thing, but doing so without a n would be equal to sending ourselves to the ughter.

    Only when we finisheding up with our n did we head into the ambush spot.

    Once we entered the spot, I suddenly turned around and said, "Are you going toe out or not?"

    Everyone suddenly stopped, but they didn''t look surprised to hear this.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    Naturally we had told everyone about what was happening, it wasn''t as if we would let them be surprised by this.

    There was a silence that hung in the air before the sounds of rustling could be heard.

    Even though they were giants, they had hidden themselves quite well. It was obvious that

    they had been trained on this matter and they had been trained quite well.

    Once they appeared, they immediately split up into two groups.

    One of the groups suddenly came for Alidus'' group of giants and the other group went for our group of wyverns.

    The way that they split up like this made it very clear that they also had a n that they were following. However, we weren''t surprised when we saw them acting like this since we had already expected this.

    Neither of our sides went to help each other since this was what we agreed on.

    We would face the enemy alone and go along with their n so we could see just what they were nning to do.

    The group of giants that attacked us had weapons that were different from the group that attacked Alidus'' group.

    The weapons that they had were far more dangerous.

    They had ded weapons like swords and spears whereas the group that attacked Alidus'' group had nothing more than blunt weapons.

    It seemed that they were trying to kill us while keeping Alidus'' group alive.

    Rather, it even seemed like they were doing nothing more than trying to stall Alidus'' group.

    It seemed strange why they would have such a grudge against our group, but it was made clear what was happening when we saw who Alidus was fighting.

    Alidus was holding himself back to go along with the n, but the person in front of him seemed capable of restraining him.

    It was all because of the weapon that he used.

    The weapon that Alidus had was a special magic weapon that was given to him by his father, so to match that required a special weapon.

    This was one that had been seen earlier at the giant market and had been used to sh with

    Alidus.

    The identity of this group was Dorian and those from the Korin Tribe.

 Chapter 1051: Letting go

    Chapter 1051: Letting go

    ?

    Dorian himself was leading the group that was fighting against Alidus'' group.

    While I had no idea what his ns were in attacking us like this, it seemed that he must have made up his mind to attack someone that was with a group of giants like this.

    If it was discovered that he did this, then there was no doubt that his reputation among the giants would drop.

    At the same time, there might even be a civil war happening between their tribes because of this.

    So there was no way that he could allow himself or his people to be seen through.

    That was why they were dressed in all ck clothes and they even had masks covering up their faces.

    With Dorian leading his group, he was able to stop Alidus from doing anything to them. Though at the same time, part of that was because Alidus was holding back to see what we could find from this ambush.

    As they attacked us, we easily dodged out of the way of their attacks with the mobility of our wyverns.

    That was why we had the confidence to escape this ambush if things went wrong.

    But then again, it wasn''t as if they didn''t think of the mobility of the wyverns when they thought about ambushing us. They should have thought of some way to deal with the wyverns.

    Only it didn''t seem like they were nning anything.

    That was why we didn''t fly off with the wyverns even though we were being surrounded by them.

    There was a chance that this was what they were waiting for.

    There was a chance that they had put some kind of trap up there for us.

    However, it really didn''t seem like there was anything that they had nned.

    With the way that they were going, it really seemed like they had no n at all.

    It seemed like they were just nning on using brute force to take us down.

    Was that because they were confident in their power or was it because they didn''t know what the wyverns were capable of?

    In any case, it shouldn''t be that they were so ipetent that they couldn''t think of a single n to deal with a group of humans riding on wyverns. The wings were there, so something like that would have been obvious...

    The giants just kept surrounding us and attacking with their weapons, but we easily dodged out of the way of their attacks.

    With the way that they were attacking, it didn''t seem like they had any training at all.

    It was almost as if it was a group of kids that were attacking us...

    As this thought passed through my mind, I couldn''t help thinking of something else.

    Perhaps this was their n all along.

    Now that I thought about it, it seemed that this group hade out after the other group came forward to stop Alidus'' group. It was almost as if the other group had ushered this group forward so they could fight us.

    If that was the case...

    Perhaps I had given Dorian too little credit...

    I thought that he was a fool who only knew how to lose his temper and use his tribe''s power to suppress others, but it seemed that this wasn''t all that he was about. It seemed that he wasn''t someone who waspletely brainless and was worthy of being a junior chief just like Alidus.

    Though if he wasn''t, then he wouldn''t have been able topete for Isra against Alidus in the first ce.

    It seemed that his n was to use us to take care of these giants that were currently surrounding us.

    These giants were nothing more than sacrificialmbs.

    They were most likely the kids that had biases against humans, which was why they would attack us in the first ce.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Since the Korin Tribe was known for their stance against humans, it should be easy for him to recruit kids like this to his side.

    Since they were kids, they naturally didn''t know how to fight properly which was what was happening now.

    What Dorian was hoping to happen was that we would perceive these kids as a bigger threat than they actually were and use too much force against them. If we identally killed one of these kids, it would have been easy for them to pin the me on us and create arge incident. Once that happened, they could even turn this matter on Alidus and the Harakka Tribe who had brought us here in the first ce.

    In short, he was setting us up so that he could use a borrowed knife to kill us.

    If we turned all the giant tribes in the area around us by killing a single giant, then it would mean that everything we had done so far would be meaningless. At the same time, it would mean that we wouldn''t be able to build up a rtionship with the giants again.

    Once something was broken, it was hard to repair it.

    After realizing this, I knew immediately what to do.

    Since there was nothing else to learn from them, all that was left was taking care of them.

    With that, I said, "Beat them up and subdue them."

    Klein and the others were surprised to hear this so soon, but they didn''t hesitate to follow the orders since they knew that this was what was going to happen eventually.

    It didn''t matter if it happened a bit sooner.

    Commanding the wyverns, they easily knocked all of the weapons out of the hands of the

    giants that were around them and then knocked them to the ground.

    These giants seemed shocked that they were overpowered like this all of a sudden.

    Then there were looks of fear that appeared in their eyes.

    Seeing this, I said in a cold voice, "Scram."

    The giants didn''t need more encouragement than this to stand up and run.

    They didn''t even turn back as they ran away.

    Just like this, we let these giants go.

 Chapter 1052: Acting out a play

    Chapter 1052: Acting out a y

    ?

    Once the giants that were around us ran, the other group of giants that were fighting Alidus'' group didn''t stay.

    They knew that they wouldn''t be able to face all of us attacking them at the same time, so they didn''t dare stay here to be surrounded by all of us at once. They immediately pushed back Alidus'' group all at once before turning to run away.

    Though before they ran, the leader of the group turned to look at Alidus with a strange look.

    It was aplicated kind of look and at the same time, it was a look that seemed like he was unwilling to leave this matter be like this.

    Still, there was nothing that could be done and they had no choice but to run.

    Alidus raised his hand to stop the Harakka Tribe giants from chasing after their attackers.

    After stopping them, he came over to me and asked, "Is this the right thing to do?"

    There was doubt in his voice as if he didn''t know what was right or wrong. It seemed like he wasn''t sure if it was the right thing to let them go like that.

    Though it seemed that his doubt wasing from something different.

    It wasn''t his logic that his doubt came from, but rather his emotions.

    It seemed that he still saw Dorian as his childhood friend, rather than as an enemy. That was why there was a part of him that was relieved to see him pull back like this.

    It wasn''t hard for me to see this from his eyes, but there was another reason why I said my next words.

    "It was the right thing."

    Alidus still looked at me with a doubtful gaze as if he didn''t believe me when I said this.

    However, it wasn''t as if I didn''t have anything to back these words.

    "It would have been impossible for us to capture them, they would have fought to the end and might have even fought to their deaths. You should know best since you know what kind of people they were."

    Alidus seemed to waver a bit when he heard this, but it still seemed like he didn''t fully believe

    me.

    Instead of continuing to try to convince him, I instead said, "How about you help me put on a y instead?"

    "Huh?" Alidus asked in a confused voice when he heard this.

    I didn''t say anything as I just nodded with a smile.

    He kept looking at me with that same confused look for a bit before he finally asked, "What kind of y?"

    "Well, you should know that this won''t be the end of this. At this rate, it will only be a matter of time before they do something drastic, which wouldn''t be good for us. So before that, don''t you think that we should do something to take care of them?" A sly smile appeared on my face as I said this.

    Alidus just looked at me in silence for a bit before suddenly saying, "You know that you look like a viin right now, right?"

    There was a surprised look that appeared on my face when I heard this, but then I said, "Sometimes we have to act like a viin, don''t we?"

    Alidus just silently looked at me for a bit before slowly nodding in agreement.

    Although there were still some misgivings in his expression.

    It was as if he didn''t fully agree with this.

    I wasn''t surprised to see him look like this since I would be feeling the same way if I didn''t have any information as well.

    The one thing that I knew that he cared about was...n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    "We won''t do anything to harm him, the only thing that we will do is make sure that they won''t be able to do anything against us." There was a serious look on my face as I said this.

    Alidus just silently stared at me for a bit longer as if he was trying to make sure that I was serious.

    Seeing the way that I looked right into his eyes, he slowly gave a nod and asked, "What is the n?"

    "Before I tell you, let''s go take a look at the surrounding area. There are some things that I want to see before I tell you the n." I turned to head to the surrounding area without even waiting for a response from him.

    Alidus looked at me with a strange look, but he still followed me to look at the surrounding

    area.

    While we were looking around, I slowly exined the n to him.

    When he heard the n, his expression slowly changed.

    It was a surprised look at first, but then it turned into a look of shock.

    Then it turned into a frown.

    Finally, it turned into a look of eptance.

    "Perhaps this really is the best way..." Alidus said in a wistful voice.

    However, he then turned back to me and said in a serious voice, "But this is only a temporary solution. It won''t be able to stop them forever, you should know that."

    I gave a simple nod before saying, "That is all that we need right now. Once we reach a certain point, there won''t be anything that they can do to change things."

    Then in a more serious voice, I said, "Once it reaches that point, there will be other things that we have to look out for."

    Alidus raised a brow when he heard this, but then he looked back at me with a serious look as

    well.

    The two of us looked at each other like this for a bit before we suddenly both gave sighs. After fighting together like this, it could be said that the rtionship was better than before.

    One did say that fighting did make people grow closer.

    It certainly did make us closer to the point where we were able to share thoughts.

    Thoughts about how what we were trying to aplish was an uphill battle.

 Chapter 1053: As if nothing happened

    Chapter 1053: As if nothing happened

    ?

    After returning to the Harakka Tribe, people naturally questioned why some of us were injured, but we didn''t tell them anything.

    It was Alidus who stopped Olos and Olmir from questioning us even though they had concerned looks on their faces.

    Since it was Alidus that did it, they treated it as if nothing happened.

    But Olos did say to Alidus, "If there''s anything that you need help with, I''m here for you."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It was the kind of thing that a father would say to a son when they respected their independence, but they still wanted to show that they supported them. They would be there to help if there was anything that they needed.

    Alidus gave a simple nod in response, but he didn''t say anything.

    Since that was the case, both Olos and Olmir left matters as they were.

    But what Alidus didn''t know was that after he left, Olmir turned to his brother and said, "It seems like he really has grown up."

    There was a bittersweet smile that appeared on Olos'' lips as he looked in the direction that Alidus walked off in before slowly giving a nod.

    For now, the only thing that we were waiting for was to see how Dorian and the Korin Tribe would act. For that, we would have to go to the market tomorrow and see what they would do.

    ...

    When morning came, we headed off early even though the giant market wouldn''t start this early.

    We wanted to get there early and see if they were preparing to do anything.

    There were very few giants that were here when we arrived and that didn''t include Dorian or his group from the Korin Tribe.

    It seemed that they hadn''t arrived yet.

    The few giants that did arrive early had their eyes light up when they saw us and most of them approached us as they wanted to take this advantage to talk to us before the market started.

    As for what they were trying to aplish...

    Naturally they wanted to make some behind the door deals.

    They wanted to see if they could get some items for the cheap before everyone else arrived.

    There was nothing to lose from doing something like this.

    But we weren''t in the mood to take care of this.

    I left this matter to the aides while keeping watch to see if Dorian and the Korin Tribe would

    come.

    Only it didn''t seem like they wereing.

    Time passed and the sun moved through the sky, it eventually became time to start the giant market and the Korin Tribe group still hadn''t arrived yet. Though most of the other tribes had already arrived.

    They were all gathered around us as if they were waiting for us to start selling our goods.

    I didn''t care as I left all of this to the aides like before.

    Alidus and I just kept watch to see when the Korin Tribe would appear.

    But before they did, Isra and the Vale Tribe came.

    Unlike the others who just ignored us and went for the stall that the aides set up, she came over to look at us with a strange look before asking, "What''s wrong with the two of you? You''re acting strange today."

    It was a fact that we were acting strange, but we were keeping this matter from Isra and the Vale Tribe.

    So I just said, "Nothing, we just have nothing to do while we wait for them to sell everything."

    Isra raised a brow to look at us, but she didn''t say anything in the end.

    Part of that was because the ones that we had been waiting for had arrived.

    It was Dorian who was leading them and the Korin Tribe walked right into the giant market as

    if nothing was wrong. They didn''t even look in our directions, as if they didn''t notice us.

    Or it was better to say that they werepletely ignoring us.

    It was as if they were pretending that we weren''t there at all.

    This was the opposite of what we had been expecting.

    I had thought that he would try to pin some of the me on us since there were injuries on the giants that we had chased off. With just a few words, it should have been easy for him to spread a rumour that we had attacked them.

    But it seemed like he waspletely ignoring us.

    It really seemed like they were pretending that nothing had happened at all.

    Dorian and the Korin Tribe didn''t even bother looking in our direction as they walked into the giant market. They naturally didn''t stop at our stall since they had never traded with us and walked deeper into the market as if they were looking for something.

    But all they did was walk around and look at the different stalls without buying anything.

    I looked at Alidus and he looked at me.

    We could both see what the other person was thinking, but neither of us said it out loud. Isra looked at us with one brow raised again before saying, "You two really are acting strange. It''s almost as if there''s something going on between the two of you."

    "It''s nothing." I said in a calm voice before turning away from the Korin Tribe group.

    Not everyone had arrived yet, so it wasn''t the time for us to do what we were nning to do.

    Alidus also moved away as if he was going to browse the stalls, but it was clear that he was going to follow the Korin Tribe group. It was as if he wanted to make sure that they didn''t leave the giant market.

    Time passed and more and more giants showed up, but we could see that there were some people that were missing.

    Some of the groups that were close to the Korin Tribe before didn''t seem to show up with all of their members.

    It seemed that some of their members were missing for various reasons.

    It wasn''t hard to guess what those reasons were.

 Chapter 1054: Offering a reward

    Chapter 1054: Offering a reward

    ?

    Once most of the tribes had gathered in the giant market, that was when we suddenly made

    our move.

    It was also when most of our stock had been sold and when everyone seemed like they were about to pack up.

    We knew that this was the perfect time to make the announcement that we had to make.

    "I want to get everyone''s attention for something."

    I said this with the help of a magic crystal that amplified my voice so that everyone in the giant market was able to hear me.

    They were surprised to hear me say this, but they all turned to look at me to see what was happening. That included those that didn''t seem to have a good impression of humans, including the Korin Tribe.

    When Dorian looked over, he narrowed his eyes as if he was trying to figure out what was happening.

    It was clear that he didn''t think that this was a normal matter.

    It was clear that he was suspicious that something was about to happen.

    Once I got everyone''s attention, I suddenly said, "There''s something that I want to announce. I have a reward that I want to offer everyone."

    The giants that were looking at me all had confused looks on their faces when they heard this, but there were quite a few giants that seemed interested in what I had to say. Or rather, it was better to say that they were interested in the reward that I mentioned.

    This was because of the items that we had been selling the past few days.

    They had no doubt that these items were rted to the reward that I mentioned.

    After a pause, I gave a nod to the aides behind me and they took out a statue for everyone to

    see.

    Though this was a statue that was as tall as me and considered arge statue for humans, it was nothing more than a statuette for the giants. However, that didn''t mean that they weren''t interested in this thing.

    This was something that we hadn''t sold yet since we had been nning on using this for the final day to attract everyone''s attention.

    But it was more important that we used it for this matter.

    It would certainly help us get more attention than anything else that we could have offered.

    After taking out this statue, the eyes of many of the giants lit up.

    That was because this was a beautiful statue that was unlike anything that we had offered before. It piqued the interests of these giants that loved art and many of them wanted this statue.

    They looked at each other as if they were wary of each other, as if they were prepared topete for this statue like this was an auction.

    But then there were people that remembered what I had said before about this being offered as a reward. They realized that I must have some kind of favour that I wanted from them in return for this statue, which made them more wary.

    A favour that a human asked...it certainly wouldn''t be easy for them to fulfill...

    At the very least, they could hear what I had to say.

    It was only after seeing this change to the expressions of the giants that I continued speaking.

    "It''s a very simple matter that we need your help with."

    After saying this, I waved Alidus over and he came to my side before I said, "Both the Harakka Tribe and I wish to ask everyone if they have any information about what happened in the nearby forest yesterday."

    Many of the giants revealed confused looks when they heard this as they didn''t understand what I meant by this.

    Even though they were confused, I didn''t say anything as I waited for them to react.

    Or it was better to say that I was looking at Dorian and the Korin Tribe to see how they would react.

    There were a few reactions from Dorian''s followers, but Dorian''s only reaction was to slightly narrow his eyes as he looked in this direction. It seemed that he wouldn''t drop his guard that easily.

    After looking at him for a bit, I said, "There was an ident that happened in the nearby forest yesterday and it seems to be rted to the Harakka Tribe, so we wish to get everyone''s help in figuring out what happened. If anyone can provide information that will lead to this problem being solved, they will receive this statue."

    There were many people that slightly knitted their brows when they heard this, but that didn''t mean that they lost their enthusiasm. These giants that slightly knitted their brows still looked at the statue with glowing eyes as if they wanted to take this statue for themselves.

    It was clear that even if this sounded difficult, they didn''t n on giving up.

    Especially since they heard that the Harakka Tribe was involved as well.

    Seeing Alidus step forward was the best way to confirm this.

    The Harakka Tribe was one of the biggest tribes in the area, so it would never be bad to build a rtionship with them.

    Once everyone understood what the favour I was asking them was, it seemed that they agreed to it as they promised that they would bring any information that they had to us when they

    could.

    With how many there were making this promise, it was certainly quite the scene.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    If anyone was responsible for the ident, they would certainly be feeling the pressure from this situation.

    Which was what was happening with Dorian and the Korin Tribe.

    The Korin Tribe members looked a bit worried seeing this and they looked like they wanted to ask Dorian something, but he didn''t even look back at them as his narrowed eyes swept over

    the crowd.

    It was as if he was thinking about something.

    But the look in his eyes made it clear that he was also feeling pressure from this.

    It would have been easy to expose him, but we needed him to y his part for now.

 Chapter 1055: Searching in the night

    Chapter 1055: Searching in the night

    ?

    "Did you find anything yet?"

    "There''s nothing here. I haven''t seen a single thing yet."

    There were two voices that rang out through the night, but it wasn''t just two people that were here.

    There were many different people that were here, looking through this area as if they were looking for something. Even though they had been searching for a while, it seemed that they hadn''t been able to find a single thing.

    It was as if this ce just didn''t have what they were looking for.

    Finally, the leader of the group waved his hand for everyone toe over.

    All of them had grim looks in their eyes when they walked over and that was all that could be seen. That was because all of them were wearing dark masks on their faces that hid their true identities.

    Just the fact that they were doing this in the middle of the night was already enough to tell that they were doing this in secret.

    As for why they were doing this...

    The area that they were currently searching in was the same ce where the humans and the group from the Harakka Tribe had been ambushed yesterday. It was in this ce that they had been attacked by the unknown assant.

    However, it wasn''t as if this group was here to search for clues that would find who the attackers were.

    It seemed that they were here to find anything that could be traced to the attacker, but they weren''t here to use it to redeem a reward. They were here to get rid of it so that no one would be able to identify the attackers.

    It was just that it didn''t seem like they were able to find anything.

    After they all gathered together, the leader said, "We aren''t going to find anything here. Did you see who was here earlier?"

    The others that were gathered around the leader had helpless looks in their eyes, but one of them eventually spoke.

    "There were just too many of them, we couldn''t track them all."

    The leader had a dark look in his eyes after he heard this which made all the others turn away awkwardly. But even if he looked at them like this, it wasn''t as if they had anything for him. So the only thing that followed was silence.

    There was an awkward silence that hung in the air as the leader just looked at all of them with narrowed eyes.

    They knew why he was looking at them like this, but there really wasn''t anything that they could do.

    In the end, the leader said with a sigh, "Just go and find all those that you can. If they show any signs of having a clue, then find a way to get that clue from them. I don''t care what you have to do, just get it done."

    The others looked like they had been pardoned when they heard this as they immediately headed off with nods.

    When he was alone, the leader put his head in his hand and shook his head as he said, "This is bad, this is very bad. I really don''t know what to say to the junior chief..."

    Then without another word, he also disappeared from the same spot.

    It was just that he had never noticed that there were people that had been watching them the entire time.

    In the hand of one of the people who had been watching them was a crystal that had been pointed in their direction. There seemed to be a trace of mana that wasing from that crystal which showed that it had been active just now.

    It was only after the leader left that the trace of mana disappeared from this crystal as if it had been shut down.

    Standing beside the person who was holding this crystal was a giant who suddenly asked, "Did you get everything?"

    When I heard this, I turned over and gave a simple nod in response.

    The giant that was standing beside me was Alidus.

    The two of us had been silently watching these giants who had been wearing these dark clothes search this area. We had already been expecting them toe to this ce after what had happened in the market today.

    That was why we had been watching them from the side the entire time.

    "Was this really necessary?" Alidus suddenly asked me.

    I looked at him and slowly gave a nod before saying, "If we don''t do this much, it''s possible that they will think of a way toe back from this. It''s only if we have this evidence that they won''t be able to do anything."

    Alidus had a look on his face that seemed like he didn''t agree with this, but he didn''t say anything else in the end.

    It was as if he was silently agreeing since he had alreadymitted to this.

    In that case, it was better to just go with this n until the end.

    I took onest look in the direction that this group had headed off in before saying, "Let''s go,

    there''s still other things that we have to prepare for tonight."

    Alidus gave a casual nod before following behind me.

    After all, there was still quite a bit that we had to take care of before this was all over.

    --

    When morning came, the giants all came back to the giant market, but they all had different expressions on their faces.

    There were some that looked excited, there were some that looked depressed, and there were some that had neutral looks on their faces.

    The ones that looked excited were looking around as if they were waiting for something to

    happen.

    The ones that looked depressed just sat on the side and watched as if they weren''t involved in

    the matter.

    And the ones that had neutral looks...n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They just stood there as if this didn''t involve them, but the looks deep in their eyes said

    otherwise.

 Chapter 1056: Watch out

    Chapter 1056: Watch out

    ?

    No one did anything until we arrived in the giant market.

    The moment that we arrived, everyone''s attention turned to us.

    After all, we were the ones that had caused this mood to fill the giant market in the first ce, so it wasn''t strange that everyone would suddenly turn their attention to us like this.

    We were the only ones that could bring this matter to a close.

    The giants that had excited looks immediately came forward when they saw us arrive at the market.

    They were the ones that had found things that they wanted to present to us, which was why they immediately came forward and presented the things that they had.

    It was just too bad that none of them were actually anything useful.

    The things that they presented were just random things that they found that they thought were rted to this matter, but they weren''t rted to it at all. They were just random things that had been found on the side of the forest.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So there was nothing that they could im in the end.

    All of them walked away with depressed looks that matched the others that had depressed looks earlier.

    It was just that when those that looked depressed earlier saw the change in these giants they instead looked excited. It was as if they hadpletely swapped with the way that their expressions changed.

    They had been depressed since they hadn''t found anything and they had been worried that they wouldn''t be able to im the prize. They had been worried that someone else would take the prize from them.

    But now that no one had taken the prize, that meant that they still had a chance.

    That was why they had excited looks again.

    Though when it came to being relieved, there was no one that was as relieved as the ones that had neutral looks on their faces.

    They had worried looks in their eyes at first, but those worried looks soon disappeared when they saw that not a single person had anything. It seemed that there weren''t any clues that were found that might implicate anyone.

    That was why they were relieved.

    Though they didn''t let their guards down.

    They knew that this matter wouldn''t be over that easily.

    Even if no one imed the reward this time, that didn''t mean that they would give up that easily. It was clear by the looks on the faces of the other giants here they were still nning on searching for clues.

    It seemed like they wanted to pursue this matter a bit longer.

    Until the hype of this matter dies down, there is no way that they would be able to let their guard down. They could only wait until everyone lost interest in this matter before going back to normal.

    Or at least that was what those people thought.

    I wouldn''t let things end like this.

    After everyone had finished showing off their things, I suddenly came forward and said, "I want to show something to everyone."

    Just saying this was enough to catch their attention since I was already the center of attention in the first ce.

    Once their attention was on me, I raised a crystal and inserted my mana into it.

    The moment that I did this, there was an image that appeared in front of me.

    While I was doing this, Alidus had pulled out arge white cloth that he hung on a tree in front of me.

    With thisrge white cloth there, it formed a screen for the projection to appear on.

    The scene was dark, but people could see a few things moving in the dark forest.

    This was the scene fromst night.

    These were the giants in dark clothes and masks that had been searching around in the forest.

    After showing everyone this, I said, "I was out on a strollst night and I saw these suspicious individuals. I took out my image recording crystal and took a video of what had happened so that I can give everyone a warning."

    In a more serious voice and turning my gaze slightly, I said, "It seems that there have been some suspicious individuals wandering around the areately. I hope that everyone will watch out for them and won''t put themselves in danger."

    As for who I was looking at...

    It wasn''t any in particr, but the direction that I was looking at had a group that had neutral looks on their faces.

    When everyone heard this, they all knitted their brows.

    After all, not a single giant here had expected to be shown this kind of thing.

    They didn''t think that anyone would do something like this, which made them all surprised.

    But they weren''t fools and understood what I was trying to tell them with this video.

    With this, the trap had been set.

    The reason why I did all of this was topletely trap Dorian and those from the Korin Tribe.

    They were still able to act because people weren''t aware of them and the things that they were doing. However, once they were shown this video, the others would understand what kind of things Dorian and those from the Korin Tribe had been doing.

    Once they knew, they would keep a close eye out for them.

    With all of these people looking out for them, it would be impossible for Dorian and the Korin

    Tribe to act.

    They would have no choice but toy low during this time and not attract any attention.

    That would mean that they wouldn''t be able to do anything to us.

    That was my n all along.

    I just needed to stall for some time without starting a civil war.

    As long as I could build up the rtionship with the other giant tribes, it wouldn''t be toote

    to take care of Dorian and the Korin Tribe.

    Though the video was a bit extra.

    Just the reward and everyone looking out for them should have been enough, but this video

    tipped the scale.

    It made it so that they would have no choice but toy low.

    But pushing them this far was not what Alidus wanted.

    Still, he had no choice but to ept it since I had already done it.

 Chapter 1057: Heading home

    Chapter 1057: Heading home

    ?

    n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    With everyone on guard against these dark figures in the night, there was nothing that could be done on the side of Dorian and the Korin Tribe.

    They didn''t evene to the remaining days of the giant market.

    It was as if they were too embarrassed or too cautious toe, just in case anything else happened.

    That allowed us to sell the rest of our goods without their interference.

    It could be said that it had finally be peaceful.

    Only the peace was a bit boring.

    There was nothing for me and Alidus to do since it was just selling the goods, so we were just bored watching it all happen.

    It was a good thing that there was nothing else left once the giant market was over.

    Once all of the goods were sold, it was time for us to head back to our kingdom.

    After all, we had already aplished our goal of creating a route to selling goods to the giants. All that was left was going back and getting the goods to trade with the giants.

    Though there were some people that were sad to see us leave.

    The one that seemed to be the most affected by this was Isra.

    She didn''t seem like she wanted us to leave, or rather there was someone that she didn''t want to see leave.

    At this point, I had already made it clear that I was already married to them, but it didn''t seem like that mattered to them. It didn''t even matter to her that I was married to several different wives.

    That was just the effect that the game world had on this world.

    But at the same time, it seemed like her eyes lit up when she heard that I had a wife who was an elf and dwarf.

    That meant that if I was willing to ept an elf and a dwarf, who were from another race, there was a chance that I would ept someone else from another race...

    It really seemed like she wanted to follow, but there was someone that stopped her in the end.

    It seemed like even if her mother supported this, she wouldn''t allow her to leave the Land of Giants yet. It seemed that this was the bottom like that she had set for Isra.

    Otherwise, she might have actually followed me back to the human kingdom...

    If it was her father, she might not have listened to him.

    But since it was Isra''s mother who stopped her, she had no choice but to listen.

    The only thing that turned out to be a problem was...

    "I''ming with you." Alidus said when we told them that we would be leaving soon.

    I waspletely caught off guard by this, but I was even more caught off guard by the fact that the chief Olos had approved of this. It seemed like he wasn''t just approving of this because of Alidus, but rather he was approving of the idea of giants making contact with humans.

    I had already thought that it was strange how epting Olos and Olmir were, but it seemed that they had much deeper thoughts than I thought.

    Having Aliduse to the Kite Kingdom was an idea that I had, it was just that I didn''t n on having hime so early. There were things that had to be prepared before giants came to the human world, so I wasn''t expecting him to want toe so soon.

    The problem was that I couldn''t refuse himing with us back to the Kite Kingdom. Perhaps I could have refused if they weren''t as epting of us, but now that we had created a deep rtionship with the Harakka Tribe, it was hard for me to refuse him.

    "Why do you want toe?" I couldn''t help asking Alidus after hearing his intent.

    I certainly never thought that someone like him who had been so against humans in the past would want to go to the human world like this.

    When we first arrived, he was someone who didn''t want anything to do with us.

    But now, he even wanted toe to the human world.

    It really was hard to imagine what had changed.

    "I want to see it with my own eyes." That was the answer that Alidus gave.

    I could see Olos and Olmir looking at Alidus with looks of approval after he said this.

    However, I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows.

    That was because these words just made it harder for me to say no.

    In fact, it really seemed like they were all putting pressure on me to say yes to bringing Alidus with us back to the human world.

    But thinking about it, it wasn''t as if it was a bad idea.

    The only thing that would be a problem was how to exin this to the prime minister and the chancellor.

    There was no doubt that they would have a few choice words for me because of this decision. After all, they would be the ones that would have to deal with this matter.

    In the end, I decided that I would just take the scolding.

    There was no doubt that the two of them would be able to figure out a way to handle this

    matter.

    They knew me long enough that they would be able to adapt.

    That was what I was certain of.

    That didn''t mean that I didn''t feel sorry towards them for putting them through this.

    It was just the faith that I had in their abilities.

    The onest thing to handle were the Great Wolf cubs, who weren''t really cubs anymore since they had grown during this time.

    It was just a good thing that they were still small enough for the wyverns to carry or else it really might have been hard to transport them.

    With that, we set off back to the Kite Kingdom with everything that we had gained from the Land of Giants.

 Chapter 1058: Invasion

    Chapter 1058: Invasion

    ?

    "Are you serious?" That was the prime minister''s reaction when I came into the study.

    I didn''t even need to ask him what he was talking about as I already knew what he was referring to.

    There was only one thing that he could be referring to in this situation, so it wasn''t hard to figure out what he was talking about.

    It could only be all of the things that I brought back from my trip to the Land of Giants, but more so Alidus than the Great Wolves. The Great Wolves were easier to ept since there was the experience with the wyverns.

    The prime minister could easily see the value of the Great Wolves, just like with the value of the wyverns.

    In the future, the Great Wolves would be a powerful resource for our kingdom.

    It was just the fact that I brought Alidus back that he was angry.

    Aftering across the border, Alidus was naturally surrounded by the soldiers of our kingdom. Even if there were a group of wyverns escorting him, it didn''t seem like they let down their guards against him.

    That was because he was the unknown and people were afraid of the unknown.

    So naturally they couldn''t ept him that easily.

    In the end, I was able to use my position to get him all the way to the capital of our Kite Kingdom.

    Since we had wyverns, there were many gates and facilities that were built at the size of the wyverns for him to use. Though it almost made it seem like he was something that was being treated just like the wyverns, like he was a creature that was being tamed.

    At the same time, it was a bit smaller than him since it was built for the wyverns. Since he was bigger than the wyverns, then it was a bit cramped for him.

    Still, at least there was a ce for him to stay for now.

    As for me, right now I was trapped in this room with the prime minister and the chancellor. The chancellor was even at the door to make sure that I didn''t escape.

    Though the room that they trapped me in was my royal study.

    In the end, I said with a bitter smile, "I didn''t expect him toe with me so early either, but it wasn''t as if I could say no."

    "You didn''t have to say no, there were ways for you to send a message back so we could prepare for it, right? You were just trying to avoid me, weren''t you?" The prime minister said while ring at me with narrowed eyes.

    I couldn''t help turning away when I saw him looking at me like this since it was a fact that I was avoiding him.

    It was certainly possible to send a message ahead of time, especially since we had the mobility of the wyverns. The aides that he sent with me even advised that I do this so that the prime minister would be prepared for the surprise I had.

    But I stopped them because I wanted to dy it as long as I could.

    So in the end, these were the consequences of my own actions.

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, the prime minister eventually said with a sigh, "Alright, it''s already happened, so it''s something that can''t be changed. In that case, we should just look to the future."

    Even though it seemed like he was about to forgive me, I didn''t buy it that easily.

    I knew that the prime minister wouldn''t ept something like this that easily and wouldn''t forgive that easily, so there must be something elseing.

    As expected, there was a catch to this.

    "You''ll be in charge of handling everything rted to the Land of Giants." The prime minister said in a decisive voice, as if there was no room for discussion.

    While this didn''t seem bad to an outsider, I knew what he really meant by this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    He meant that in the future, I would be in charge of everything rted to the Land of Giants.

    That meant that anything that was rted to the Land of Giants, I would have to handle.

    The paperwork, the distribution of goods, and all the small stuff woulde to me. There was no doubt that it would be a lot of work and it was something that the prime minister had handled before, but now...

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face when I heard this, but I just gave a simple nod in response.

    After all, this was a punishment for what I had done and it was even considered a light punishment out of all the things that he could have done.

    So it was better to just ept this.

    "There''s an invasion!"

    Before any of us could continue speaking, there was a loud voice that suddenly rang out.

    We were caught off guard by the soldier that suddenly came into the room.

    But then we immediately reacted to what he said.

    "What invasion?" The prime minister immediately asked in a calm voice.

    The soldier had been in a panic at first, but hearing the voice of the prime minister, he calmed down to say, "There is a wave of undead that is approaching our borders. It''s not just our borders that are being attacked, but also the borders of several other countries that were being attacked at the same time."

    "Where did theye from?" The prime minister calmly asked.

    The soldier said with a shake of his head, "We don''t know. They just suddenly appeared and started moving on our border, so we have no idea where they came from."

    The prime minister knitted his brows after hearing this before saying, "Get the royal guards to move. I know that they must be tired after what happened, but try to find the least tired ones to go and provide support at the border. All they have to do is ensure that the undead don''t cross into ournd."

 Chapter 1059: No idea

    Chapter 1059: No idea

    ?

    The soldier hesitated for a second after hearing this, but then he ran off to ry the order. Without any hesitation, the prime minister and the chancellor pulled out a map.

    This was a map that I wasn''t even aware of that was in this study.

    But then again, they used this study much more than I did, so it was only natural that they knew about things hidden here that I didn''t know about.

    After pulling out the map, they quickly spread it out on the table in front of us.

    As expected, it was a map of the country.

    From what the soldier had reported earlier, they were able to easily point out the location where the undead were gathered. This was the border of where the Darius Kingdom had once been.

    As for where they wereing from...

    It was a wastnd.

    This was a wastnd because this was a kingdom that had fallen from a natural disaster and there was nothing that had taken its ce yet. It was a buffer zone between the Darius Kingdom and another kingdom.

    They didn''t know if the undead were also attacking the other kingdom on the other side or if the undead came from that other kingdom.

    "What do you think this is?" The prime minister suddenly looked up after a moment of silence at me and asked this question.

    Both the prime minister and the chancellor had confused looks on their faces the entire time as they looked at the map which showed that they had no idea what was happening.

    When that was the case, they usually turned to me for advice since I would suddenly pull out advice that they didn''t expect.

    Normally I might have an exnation since there were things from the game that I could use to supplement knowledge, but this was not one of those cases. For once, I didn''t have any idea what this was since there wasn''t an event like this in the game.

    After the monster waves, there were other events that happened, but this was not one of them.

    It was actually even too early for the other events to happen since the monster wave event should have still been happening. It was supposed to let the yer level up for a while so they could deal with theter events, which was why itsted quite a while.

    So there shouldn''t have been anything happening during this time.

    After thinking for a bit, I slowly shook my head and said, "I don''t know. I really don''t know anything about this."

    The prime minister knitted his brows and looked at me after hearing this, but seeing the way that I looked at him, he just gave a simple nod in the end.

    He understood that I wasn''t an omnipotent being that could solve all problems.

    I had my limits too.

    In that case, it was better not to think too much about it and think of a solution for this problem.

    But even if I didn''t have an idea of why there was this undead horde that appeared all of a sudden, that didn''t mean that I didn''t have any idea of what the undead were.

    That was because I had encountered the undead before.

    We had met the undead before and I had gotten the Orb of the Dead from that demon after defeating them. This was an item that could be used to create and control undead, which meant that it was certainly rted to the current undead wave that was attacking us.

    But it also didn''t make sense since they were already using the monsters to attack the humans.

    Why would they be using two things at the same time?

    Or was it just targeted at our kingdom since we had stopped the undead and monster waves before?

    Were they doing this because they couldn''t get anything done with the monster waves?

    If that was the case, then that was certainly an effect of my interference in this world... After a long silence, the prime minister just said with a sigh, "For now, we''ll focus on keeping back the undead. It''s a good thing that we have our wyverns that can burn the undead away or else we would sufferrge losses just to deal with them."

    The chancellor nodded in agreement to this, but I was still deep in thought.

    There was a thought that was on my mind and it was slowly bing an idea.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    "I think I have a way to deal with them." I suddenly said out loud, to the surprise of the prime minister and the chancellor.

    When he recovered from his surprise, the prime minister narrowed his eyes to look at me to say, "Are you sure about this? How certain are you that it will work?"

    There was an awkward look that appeared on my face as I said, "I''m not certain that it will work, but I can at least give it a try. If it does work, it might give us an advantage. If it doesn''t work, there''s nothing to lose from it."

    The prime minister didn''t seem convinced when he heard this.

    He continued looking at me as if he was pressuring me to say what I was thinking.

    I wasn''t certain if he would agree to it, which was why I was hesitating to say it, but eventually I told him my n.

    To my surprise, both the prime minister and the chancellor didn''t seem like they were against this n. In fact, both of them seemed like they were for the n that I had just proposed. "If we do this, we might offend some of the religions..." The prime minister slowly said this. The chancellor nodded before saying, "But this is a big advantage if we can aplish this." Eventually, the prime minister and chancellor turned back to me to say, "Alright, we can try this out. However, if there is any danger, you must retreat immediately."

    I gave a quick nod in response.

    After all, it wasn''t as if I was nning on risking my life for this problem that could be easily solved with other methods.

 Chapter 1060: Control (1)

    Chapter 1060: Control (1)

    ?

    "You should go back. This isn''t the ce for you." I said to the giant standing beside the walls that I was on.

    Alidus looked forward at the undead that were in the distance before saying, "I said that I was following you, so I''ll follow you. Not to mention, I''ll be able to help if things go wrong."

    I had no doubt of this, but that wasn''t the problem.

    With a sigh, I said, "This is a matter for our Kite Kingdom, you should have stayed in the capital and left this matter to us. There''s no need for you toe all this way and put yourself in danger like this."

    But Alidus just shook his head and said, "I said that I was here to follow you and that''s what I''m doing."

    I gave another sigh without saying anything else.

    I knew that there was no point talking to him when he was like this.

    We had already tried to convince him of this, but he still came along.

    It wasn''t as if we could just use force to stop him from following us since he was here as a guest. Not to mention, it wasn''t as if we would actually want to hurt Alidus.

    So the only thing that we could do was let hime along even though we tried talking him out of it.

    Still, there was a small part of me that was touched because of his words.

    I turned my attention back to the horde of undead that was approaching this station that was at the border. There was a wall here because this was where one of the main roads into the former Darius Kingdom was.

    It was strange that the undead were heading for here instead of just crossing at any point in the border, but it seemed that they were heading in this direction specifically.

    If I had to guess, it was most likely because they sensed that there was arge number of living people that were here. They were guards that were stationed at this border to watch the road.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    All of them seemed terrified at this moment when they looked at the undead, but it didn''t seem like they were panicking.

    That was because there were wyverns here.

    With the wyverns standing guard, things shouldn''t go too badly.

    With the wyverns here, it shouldn''t be a problem for them to run if things did go wrong.

    After staring at the undead for a bit, I raised the orb that was in my hand.

    Looking down at this orb for a bit, I suddenly closed my eyes and focused as if I was trying to sense the energy of the orb.

    While I was doing this, there was a reaction that came from the orb. There were wisps of dark energy that seemed toe from the orb as I stood there with my eyes closed.

    But then they disappeared when I suddenly opened my eyes.

    I didn''t say a single thing as I looked out at the undead that were in front of us with narrowed eyes.

    After a long silence, I suddenly said, "I''m going out for a bit."

    Everyone that was around me was shocked when they heard this before they said, "We''reing with you!"

    That was because all of them were here to guard me.

    Since I hade all this way, naturally the prime minister and the chancellor assigned guards for me.

    Half of the royal guards were sent along even though they were tired from our trip to the Land of Giants.

    It would have been more if not for the fact that they were needed in other ces to deal with monsters. They had been away long enough that they couldn''t be allowed to go anywhere else, so they could only send half of the royal guards toe with me.

    But I just shook my head and said, "I''ll be going on Joan and I''ll be flying above them, so there''s no need. If there are too many of you, I won''t be able to do what I want to do."

    "As long as you promise that you''ll stay in the sky and won''t engage them." Klein said in a serious voice.

    If it was before, he wouldn''t have spoken to me like this.

    But now it seemed like he was talking to me like he was my babysitter.

    I didn''t mind this at all, it was even a sign that we had gotten much closer.

    Though I''m sure that he would certainlyin if he had the chance to do so.

    Still, his conditions were fine since I wasn''t nning on attacking them in the first ce. There was something that I was nning to do and I needed to get closer to be able to do it. After seeing that I agreed, Klein saddled up with a sigh.

    It seemed that he was going toe along whether I allowed it or not, but this was fine. As long as it was a small group, it didn''t matter if a few of them came along.

    Of course, Alidus was out even though he tried toe along.

    He only settled down when I told him that he would be in the way.

    Once we set off, we flew up into the sky above the undead horde, but we didn''t go down to engage them. I had Joan fly up above the undead horde as if we were looking down on them. The others just looked at me with confused looks on their faces as if they couldn''t understand what I was doing.

    I didn''t mind the way that they looked at me as I continued looking down at the undead that were below, but there was something that appeared in my hand during this time.

    There was an orb that appeared that I held up in front of me.

    While I was doing this, there were wisps of dark energy that came from the orb.

    It didn''t seem like anything was happening until all of a sudden...

    There were undead that started attacking the other undead.

 Chapter 1061: Control (2)

    Chapter 1061: Control (2)

    ?

    When the undead started attacking each other, it didn''t seem like they were holding back at all.

    The undead that were attacking the other undead went all out against the ones that they were attacking. It was as if they wouldn''t stop unless their bodies werepletely destroyed.

    As such, the other undead around them had no choice but to fight back with all their might as well.

    But the moment that these undead were destroyed, it seemed like there were more undead that took their ce. It seemed like there was some kind of disease that was affecting these undead as it spread through them.

    Though it would be strange if the undead could catch a disease in the first ce.

    Klein and the others just looked down in shock as more and more of the undead started attacking the other undead.

    This didn''t seem like a simple betrayal since in the first ce, undead didn''t have the will to betray their horde in the first ce. It wasn''t as if the undead had minds of their own, they were nothing more than walking corpses that followed another''s will.

    So for them to start attacking the other undead around them, it meant that there must be something causing this.

    Klein and the others watching just had confused looks slowly appear on their faces as they watched all of this. They just couldn''t figure out what was happening with the undead that was causing this.

    That was until they suddenly thought of something.

    Everyone immediately turned to look at me, but I just ignored all of them as I focused on the undead under us.

    During this whole time, I was holding an orb in my hand and pointed it forward.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    There were still wisps of dark energying from that orb.

    They slowly figured that it was their king that had done something.

    After all, there had to be a reason why he wanted toe here in the first ce.

    That was right.

    I was the one that was controlling those undead to attack the other undead.

    What I was doing this with was the Orb of the Dead that I was holding in my hand.

    In the past, I wouldn''t have been able to use this Orb of the Dead properly since I had ack of mana. However, since getting this Staff of Earth and slowly training my mana up every day, I was finally able to use this Orb of the Dead properly.

    The only problem was that I wasn''t able to send the energy of the Orb of the Dead that far. That was why I had wanted toe out over the undead horde in the first ce.

    I couldn''t spread the dark energy of the Orb of the Dead all the way over here from atop the walls, so I had to fly out here so I could use the Orb of the Dead on this undead horde.

    Once I could control these undead, it was a simple matter giving them orders to attack the undead around them.

    They were all enemies and threats to our kingdom, so there was no need to hold back at all when it came to dealing with these undead. It was better if they destroyed each other in the end.

    That was why I didn''t care as I had the undead that I controlled destroy themselves as they attacked the other undead.

    After controlling quite a few of them, I had the time to take a breather.

    With a sigh, I said, "Watch over them to see if there are any strange movements. I''m going to catch my breath and regain some of my mana before I start on the rest of them."

    Klein and the others looked at me with strange looks, but they still nodded in agreement.

    It was strange for them to receive acknowledgement for their guesses, but they were professional soldiers in the first ce.

    Once they received the order, they would suppress their personal feelings and carry out their order. Especially since they could see that what I was doing was having an effect.

    After watching the undead fight each other for a bit, Klein asked, "Should we provide cover fire from the sky for the undead?"

    I was surprised to hear him say this, but I looked at him with a trace of admiration in my eyes.

    I knew why he was suggesting this, but I also knew that it wouldn''t be good to do this right

    now.

    After all, there was no telling how the undead would react if we provoked them.

    They had ignored us as we flew over them and they were busy dealing with the other undead that were attacking them. So if we suddenly drew their attention to us, it was unknown what they would do.

    The controlling the undead n was already working, so there was no need to push our luck.

    With a shake of my head, I said, "There''s no need to push them right now. We have no idea what these undead are capable of since we have no idea where they came from in the first ce. For now, let''s just use this safe method to whittle them down before deciding if we should attack as well."

    Klein narrowed his eyes to look down again before slowly nodding in agreement.

    After a few minutes, I had caught my breath and regained a bit of mana.

    Since that was the case, I brought up the Orb of the Dead once more and prepared to control more of the undead.

    As the wisps of dark energy were leaking out of the Orb of the Dead, I couldn''t help deeply knitting my brows.

    That was because there was a strange reactioning from the dark energy that only I could feel.

    "Defend!" I suddenly shouted, but it was already a bit toote as there was a spear of bones that suddenly flew through the sky towards where we were flying.

 Chapter 1062: Lich (1)

    Chapter 1062: Lich (1)

    ?

    Before the bone spear could hit anyone, Klein reacted.

    He had his wyvern fly forward and then suddenly started to spin to everyone''s surprise.

    But it turned out that he had a n.

    With the spin, his wyvern was able to redirect the bone spear that was flying at them with a spinning sh of its ws. It seemed that it was quite used to doing this, which showed that Klein had been doing some training on his own.

    Though there was blood that came from the wyvern''s w after shing at the bone spear, which showed how strong the bone spear was.

    Whatever had shot this bone spear wasn''t weak.

    After taking care of this spear, Klein immediately said, "Retreat."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    There was no hesitation in his voice and there was no room for arguing either.

    The way that he said this was almost as if he was giving amand, but when it came to this situation, he was more than qualified to give amand even if it was to me who was the king.

    He was the captain of the royal guards and the one that was in charge of our safety, so in a dangerous situation, he would be the one to take charge.

    Only...

    It didn''t seem like the other side was nning on letting us go that easily.

    "It''s toote." I said with a sigh.

    That was because with the Orb of the Dead, I was able to sense the fluctuations that wereing from in front of us. That was how I had been able to detect the bone spear that flew through the air.

    At the same time, it was how I was able to tell that there were several more that wereing in our direction.

    But this time, the other royal guards were able to react and we were able to fly out of the way of the bone spears without a problem. At the same time, there were a few fire breaths that wereunched in the direction that the bone spears came from.

    The undead that were in the direction that the me breaths were heading suddenly stirred.

    It was strange seeing them move, but they grouped together and formed a wall right in front of the me breaths. They grabbed onto each other and formed a wall of the undead just like that.

    This wall shouldn''t have been strong enough to block the me breaths, but it was able to stop it in the end.

    It seemed that there was some kind of strange dark energy that filled the gaps of that wall. But this strange dark energy didn''t just fill the gaps, it also seemed to strengthen the undead that formed the wall.

    This was simr to the dark energy that was released by the Orb of the Dead.

    It was clear that whatever this dark energy was, it was being used to control the undead.

    After blocking the me breaths, the undead started moving in a strange way.

    They didn''t let go of each other and just moved forward as a single mass.

    With the way that they were moving, it was almost as if they werepletely connected to each other. It was as if they were working with a single mind, rather than as individuals.

    It really was a strange sight to behold.

    It was even stranger when they suddenly started to rise up.

    As they had moved across the undead horde, there were more and more undead that were pulled into therge mass that was this group of undead. The more that were pulled into the mass, the bigger that thisrge mass became.

    Eventually, it reached a size that was more than triple what it had been in the beginning.

    After it started rising, the undead also started to separate a bit.

    It wasn''t that theypletely separated from each other, it was just that there were undead that were no longer grouped up together. It seemed that they were forming five different groups of undead that were connected to a single mass.

    A hand, that was what they were forming.

    This hand made of the undead reached up into the sky and grabbed out at the wyverns that were flying there.

    However, it wasn''t as if this undead hand would be able to grab us.

    After all, it was moving so slow that it wasn''t a challenge to dodge out of the way at all.

    But this just went to show that there was someone who was in full control of the undead.

    If we were able to find that person, then we would be able to figure out why this undead horde was marching on our kingdom.

    "We''re retreating." Klein said once more.

    It seemed that even though he was curious about who the one attacking our kingdom was, he wasn''t about to risk all of our lives just to get this information. At the end of the day, he was still the captain of the royal guards and he had his duty.

    There were more bone spikes that flew through the air and the undead horde tried to chase after us while we ran away, but the mobility of the wyverns easily allowed us to dodge

    everything.

    It was only when we approached the walls that their attacks seemed to slow.

    It seemed that there was a certain line that they weren''t willing to cross just yet.

    But at the same time, there was an icy voice that rang out, "You''re running already? You''re

    the ones that tried to challenge my authority and you''re running like rats?"

    This voice was a voice that seemed to be filled with the essence of death.

    It was a voice that seemed like it could take one''s soul just from listening to it.

    Looking in the distance, we saw where this voice wasing from.

    There was arge skeleton that was different from the rest of the undead standing among the horde.

    A lich.

    It was a lich.

 Chapter 1063: Lich (2)

    Chapter 1063: Lich (2)

    ?

    We were all shocked to see this lich since not a single one of us had expected this undead horde to be led by a lich.

    An undead horde that was on its own waspletely different from an undead horde that was controlled by a lich after all.

    An undead horde that had a lich at its helm was not a headless chicken, it was a dangerous force that they had to be careful around. Just like how the undead had formed that hand and had tried to grab at the wyverns earlier.

    With the lich holding the fort in this undead horde, it was unknown what kind of things they could do.

    It was really different when the undead horde had a brain controlling them.

    The lich was a S Ranked Monster that was on the same level as the wyvern, but the danger that liches presented was more at the SS Rank. A single SS Rank would be enough to destroy smaller kingdoms.

    Perhaps the Kite Kingdom in the past would have fallen to a SS Ranked Monster as well, but it was different since we had the wyvern riders now.

    With the wyverns, we could at least put up a fight against an undead horde that was led by a lich.

    Though it would certainly be a hard fought battle.

    Seeing that no one was responding to it, the lich suddenly said, "Humans, know the despair that I bring. You can try to steal control of the undead from me, but you will never seed. When the timees, we will bring you into our fold."

    Without waiting for a response, the lich disappeared back into the undead horde.

    Once it hid its power and blended into the undead horde, it was hard for us to find it since there were many other skeletons that were in that undead horde.

    Just by appearance alone, it was impossible for us to find the lich.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The undead horde didn''t seem to approach and instead took a few steps back as if they were setting up camp.

    It seemed that even though the lich had said those words, it was still wary of us.

    That was why it was setting up camp away from the wall instead of attacking us right away.

    The lich was smart enough to be wary of the power of the wyverns.

    The wyverns couldn''t be looked down on, so the lich had no choice but to be careful.

    But this caution went both ways.

    Just the fact that this lich appeared meant that it would be much harder for us to deal with this undead horde.

    "Where did this liche from?" Klein asked the question that was on everyone''s mind.

    Everyone looked at each other with bitter looks on their faces since none of us were able to answer this question.

    However, that didn''t matter right now.

    Aftering back from our shock, the first thing that we did was calm down the guards that were on the walls. The lich hade close enough that all of the guards on the walls had been able to see the true form of the lich.

    At the same time, they had heard the lich''s voice and felt the pressure that came from the lich, so they knew just how powerful this thing was.

    They naturally had the urge to abandon this post and gather a greater force to take down this undead horde that was being led by this lich.

    But Klein showed his leadership skills at this moment by calming down all of these guards and ensuring them that everything would be alright. Though the main way that he did this was showing me off to everyone.

    Everyone here at the border had heard of my aplishments, so they were assured that I was here.

    I had no choice but to act out the part of the powerful king.

    Though I knew that I was just as helpless as them in this situation.

    After all, I didn''t have any information from the game that could help me here.

    Once the guards calmed down, I waited for Klein to tell me to leave this ce.

    However...

    "You can''t leave now. We have to stay here and fight, we can''t let this lich get any further into our territory." Klein said with a serious look on his face.

    I was caught off guard by his words, but then I realized that I had been wrong about Klein.

    Even if he did nag me most of the time, that didn''t mean that he was doing it because he wanted to. He was only doing it because it was the right thing to do from his position as the captain of the royal guards.

    But this time, it was not the ce for him to back down.

    He realized that we needed to take down this lich and to do that, we needed the power of the wyverns. Even if the wyvern riders were getting better at controlling their wyverns, that didn''t mean that they were able to control the wyverns better than me, who had tamed them all.

    With Joan, I could make the wyverns do things that they wouldn''t be willing to do normally. However, that wasn''t the only thing that Klein wanted from me.

    "You''re the only one that can find that lich with that orb of yours. You can find it, right?" Klein suddenly asked.

    I was caught off guard by this question since I didn''t even think of this. I was surprised that Klein had even noticed this small detail.

    Taking out the Orb of the Dead, I held it up and closed my eyes for a bit before opening them to say, "It''s faint, but I can feel traces of the lich''s power through the orb. I would need to get closer or it needs to reveal its power for me to find it better."

    Klein just gave a simple nod as he said, "That''s already enough. We should be able to take care of that lich with this."

    I also gave a nod in response, but there was an uncertain look in my eyes.

 Chapter 1064: Small moves

    Chapter 1064: Small moves

    ?

    In the end, it was decided that we would watch over the undead horde to see what they would do next.

    But at the same time, we were also waiting for reinforcements.

    It was decided that we would send a message to the prime minister and see what he would n to do. Though it was strongly advised that reinforcements be sent because of what we had found.

    The lich was not something that could be looked down on.

    It would increase our chances to win if the other wyverns were dispatched here as well.

    As for Alidus, there was no need to say anything.

    Since it was a crisis, naturally he was called upon to help as well.

    He didn''t even say a thing as he started staring down the undead while polishing his club, as if he was already prepared for battle. That wasn''t strange though since it wasn''t as if the undead were wee by the giants.

    Most living races couldn''t stand the undead after all.

    Even with all of this, I couldn''t help feeling that it wasn''t enough.

    I really felt like there was something else that I should do to turn this situation around.

    That was all because of a certain thing that I had.

    As long as I had this thing, I should be able to do something since it was a thing that would affect the entire undead horde.

    I was naturally talking about the Orb of the Dead.

    As I stood there on the walls looking at the undead horde, I held the Orb of the Dead in my hand.

    There were guards that were standing beside me and they had urged me to go rest for what was toe, but I just didn''t listen to them at all. So all they could do was stand guard and watch over me as I stood on the wall.

    These were royal guards, so they were already used to the random things that I did to a certain extent.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Only this was different from the rest of the things that I did.

    I was just standing there quietly, which freaked them out a bit.

    But the reason for that was because I was using the Orb of the Dead to test the undead horde that was in front of me. Or it was better to say that I was testing the limits of what I could do with the Orb of the Dead.

    If I tried pushing too hard, all that would happen is that there would be a warning from the lich. It was only a small warning in terms of the dark energy of the Orb of the Dead being disrupted by the power of the lich.

    However, that was more than enough for me to know that I shouldn''t try pushing the lich any further. After all, pushing the lich into a corner would only put us in a bad spot if it suddenly decided to attack us.

    So I pulled back every time the lich gave a warning.

    Though I could tell that the lich was getting annoyed since the maniptions were getting more and more fierce.

    It was like I was a little fly that kept buzzing around in its space and that just annoyed it. After testing with the Orb of the Dead for a while, there was a smile that appeared on my lips.

    When they saw the smile that was on my face, the guards couldn''t help feeling a chill run down their spines.

    After apanying for a while, these royal guards had developed a kind of intuition for things like this. They were able to get a kind of sixth sense about things like this.

    So they knew that I had something in mind.

    I didn''t care about the way that they looked at me as I just said, "Get Klein for me, there''s something that I need to discuss with him."

    Since Klein had taken charge here, he was regarded as themander of the defense.

    With the new information that I obtained, I naturally had to report it to him.

    After a while, Klein came up with a confused look on his face.

    He didn''t have a single idea why I was calling him and if it wasn''t for the fact that I was the king, he most likely wouldn''t havee. But at the same time, one could tell that he was curious about what I had to say.

    After all, the things that I''ve done in the past were definitely shocking enough that he would be willing to take a risk.

    When he heard what I had to say, Klein looked at me with a shocked and confused look.

    It took him a while to recover from this shocked look, but then he slowly asked, "Are you sure that this is possible?"

    With an affirmative nod, I said, "As long as they are only small movements, the lich won''t be able to do anything."

    There was a look of deep thought that appeared on Klein''s face after hearing this.

    I didn''t disrupt him since I knew that he was thinking about how to use this to our advantage. After a while, Klein suddenly said, "Alright, then we''ll use this. How long will it take and how long will itst?"

    "It won''t take long and it''llst as long as we need it."

    There was a smile that appeared on Klein''s face when he heard this before he said, "Good, very good. It seems like it''ll be easier to survive with this."

    I gave a nod at first, but then said in a serious voice, "Don''t look down on the lich. There''s no telling what else it will do."

    Klein gave a slow nod before saying with a sigh, "Nothing has been the same since you''ve taken over. There''s always all these different things popping up here and there."

    Perhaps another king wouldn''t want to hear this from his subjects, but I didn''t mind it since it was a show of how close we were.

    But there was a bitter smile that appeared on my face as well since I couldn''t deny what he

    said.

 Chapter 1065: Golems

    Chapter 1065: Golems

    ?

    Three days passed with the two sides just ring at each other like this.

    It didn''t seem like the lich was nning to do anything and as long as it remained inactive, that was actually a good thing for us.

    The longer that it stayed like this, the more time that I would have to do what I was nning to do.

    Other than eating and sleeping, I spent most of my time with the Orb of the Dead in my hand.

    There was no doubt that all of this dark energy being channeled by me wasn''t doing my body any good, but it wasn''t as if I could stop now. This would be an important thing for our fight against the lichter, so it wasn''t as if I could stop.

    On the fourth day, that was when there was finally movement that came from the undead horde.

    The undead horde that had remained still during these past few days finally started to move.

    When they started to move, they didn''t hold back at all.

    The horde suddenly started to charge at the wall without any warning.

    If it wasn''t for the guards that were watching from the wall, we would have missed this sudden change from the undead horde. But since they were watching, we were immediately alerted of the change with the undead horde and everyone rushed up to fight.

    As for the royal guards, they all mounted their wyverns and took to the sky.

    The wyverns were the biggest support that we had, so they had to be used wisely.

    As such, they were being sent into the sky to shoot their me breaths down at the horde that instantly turned the undead on the ground into ashes.

    Only as they were flying through the air, all of the wyverns were being cautious.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They didn''t dare get too close to the ground and they even alternated who fired their me breaths down at the undead. They didn''t dare fire their me breaths all at once, as if they were wary of something.

    They were scared of the possibility that there would be bone spears that would suddenly fly through the air at them and catch them off guard.

    They were afraid of the lich that was hiding inside of the undead horde.

    The lich was strong enough to threaten the wyverns after all, so they didn''t dare be careless without sight of the lich.

    So even if the wyverns were providing cover fire, the undead horde were still able to make their way closer to the wall. There were just too many of them that the mes weren''t able to burn them all.

    The ones that were behind the ones that were being burnt were able to use them as protection while they approached the walls.

    As such, the undead horde were eventually able to reach the walls.

    It was just that it didn''t seem like they were able to do anything while they were in front of this wall. The undead weren''t strong enough to break through the walls and the ones on the wall were shooting down at the undead, which stopped them from climbing.

    All at the same time, the me breaths were still falling down on the undead from above.

    With the way that they were trapped here, it really seemed like they werembs to the ughter.

    It didn''t seem like the undead would be able to do anything.

    "It wouldn''t just send its puppets forward to die like this, there must be some kind of n." I said to myself as I watched the undead horde throwing themselves at the wall like this without care.

    I was watching from above on Joan''s back, but Joan was the only one that wasn''t attacking.

    In fact, Klein had forbidden Joan from attacking.

    She only had a single mission which was to keep me safe.

    Watching the undead horde from above, I knew that there was something wrong with the way that they were acting. It was just that I couldn''t put my finger on what exactly was wrong...

    That was until there was movement that came from the undead horde.

    It was the second line of undead that reached the wall that this movement came from.

    The first line had already been killed by the me breaths and the arrows that fell down from above. They had beenpletely used as bait for all of the attacks that came at them.

    When the second line of undead reached the wall, there were some gaps that suddenly appeared among them. These gaps weren''t just simple gaps, but holes that had been created to allow certain things to move out from behind the undead.

    The undead had beenpletely surrounding these things and had been keeping them hidden the entire time.

    These wererge masses of undead flesh that suddenly appeared from behind the other undead.

    These were hulking things that seemed like they were tanks that were filled with power. The moment that I saw them, I immediately recognized what these things were. Golems, these were golems.

    They were a higher form of undead that could be created by liches, but I never thought that the lich would have taken this time to prepare them. After all, while golems were powerful, they also took a lot of energy to form.

    I never thought that the lich would waste this mana just to summon these liches.

    But in this kind of battle, the golems really did make the perfect soldiers.

    They were the best troops to have when trying to destroy a wall like this.

    One golem made their way forward and smashed its fist right into the wall.

    The wall held for now, but there were cracks that formed in the wall which showed just how strong that single blow from the golem was.

    If these golems were left alone to wail on the wall, there was no doubt that this wall would

    break very quickly.

    Something had to be done about these golems.

 Chapter 1066: Exposed early

    Chapter 1066: Exposed early

    ?

    Aftering back from the surprise of those golems suddenly appearing like this, Klein quickly gave the order to attack.

    The wyverns stopped using their breaths on the rest of the undead horde and started focusing the firepower on the golems.

    It was just that these me breaths never reached the golems.

    Before they could reach them, there was more movement from the undead horde.

    Just like a few days ago, the undead started gathering together in one mass. Only this time, they didn''te together in the form of a hand.

    This time, they formed a wall over the golems that were at the wall.

    These were walls thatpletely blocked the me breaths that fell down at the golems. With how thick the walls were, not a single bit of the mes reached the golems in the end.

    It seemed that the lich didn''t care about the undead at all, as long as these golems were safe.

    It seemed that the lich only cared about destroying the walls with these golems.

    That just went to show how intelligent this lich was.

    After all, without the walls, there was no doubt that we would be at a disadvantage.

    First, there was therge number difference.

    Second, there was the difference in fear of death.

    The undead didn''t have a fear of death since they were undead in the first ce, but the same couldn''t be said of the guards that were on the walls. They were living beings, so they naturally feared death.

    Third, if there was nothing stopping them, there was a difference in strength between the guards and the undead.

    The undead were strengthened by the dark magic of the lich, so they were stronger than the average person.

    The average person would find it hard just to face a single undead, let alone a horde that even had golems in them.

    Without the wall, the guards would bepletely overrun by the undead horde that was here. So we couldn''t allow the golems to break down the walls.

    It was just that no matter how the wyverns fired the me breaths down at the golems, it never reached since there were always walls of undead that formed to protect the golems. It seemed that everything that we could do was considered useless against these walls.

    Unless we went down, it didn''t seem like it was likely that we would be able to take care of these golems.

    But the moment that we went down, that would mean that we would fall into the trap of the lich.

    The lich must know that we wouldn''t be able to take care of the golems without bringing the wyverns down. The wyverns were the things that the lich was the most wary of since they posed the greatest danger to the lich.

    The wyverns were strong enough to even hurt the lich since they were both S Ranked Monsters.

    That was why it was using this strategy to bring down the wyverns.

    A wyvern that was grounded was only half as strong since the main power of the wyvern came from their mobility that came from their ability to fly.

    If they didn''t have this mobility, there was no doubt that they would be easy pickings for the undead.

    That was why we couldn''t bring the wyverns down to deal with the golems.

    But at this rate, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the walls were destroyed by the golems.

    When that time came...

    Klein gritted his teeth when he saw the way that the undead formed walls to protect the golems.

    He could hear the soundsing from below even if the walls of undead blocked his field of view. He knew that time was ticking down and he had no choice but to make a decision.

    It was just that he had no idea what the right decision was.

    "Boom!"

    With one more sound hitting deep into his heart, Klein finally came to a decision.

    "Half, we''ll split ourselves into half."

    Everyone trembled when they heard this, but there wasn''t a single person that had a confused look on their face. Every single one of them knew exactly what he was nning to do by dividing them in half like this.

    What Klein was basically saying was that he was asking for half of them to volunteer to sacrifice themselves.

    They would be the ones that would have to go down and deal with the golems while the rest provided support from above. Though the ones that went down would no doubt fall into the trap of the lich.

    They would have to deal with whatever the lich was nning and possibly even die from falling to the trap.

    But doing this was the only way to ensure that the wall was safe.

    Everyone had grim looks on their faces after this since no one wanted to die.

    However, they also knew that they had to choose half of them to go down in the end or they would all die.

    One by one, it seemed like they were about to volunteer for the task.

    Before they could do that though, I suddenly said, "There''s no need for that."

    Klein looked at me with a serious look.

    It wasn''t as if he couldn''t understand where I wasing from, but he knew that this was the only way.

    "This isn''t the only way." I said this as if I could guess what Klein was thinking, which surprised him.

    Though it wasn''t that hard to figure out what he was thinking with the look on his face.

    After saying this, I said, "We''ll just expose what we''ve been doing in the past three days." Klein deeply knitted his brows when he heard this before shaking his head to say, "It''s toon/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    early for..."

    Before he could finish, I cut him off by saying, "You''re forgetting what the real important

    thing is."

    "Real important thing?" Klein asked in a confused voice.

    With a nod, I said, "The wyverns, the wyverns are the things that matter the most to our kingdom and to this battle."

    There was a look on Klein''s face as if he was slowly being enlightened.

 Chapter 1067: Suddenly switching sides

    Chapter 1067: Suddenly switching sides

    ?

    After a few seconds of this, Klein gave a firm nod.

    The look on his face was as if he was reflecting on his mistakes.

    It seemed that he finally realized the errors of his way and learned to change because of them.

    What Klein realized was that the wyverns were the true trump cards of their Kite Kingdom, so they had to be preserved when they could be. Even if they had to sacrifice other things, it would be best if they could preserve the wyverns.

    As for this other trump card, it was not something that was easy to keep after the fight with the undead horde.

    So it was better to use this than to sacrifice the lives of the wyverns and the wyvern riders.

    Aftering to a decision, Klein looked at me with a serious look and said, "Tell us when you''re ready, we''ll work with you."

    Though he was the one that was in charge of this mission, he had no choice but to concedemand to me at this time since I was the only one that couldmand everyone properly for this.

    That was because I was the only one that could use this trump card of ours.

    With a nod, I took out the Orb of the Dead.

    The moment that the Orb of the Dead appeared, it seemed like there was a disruption that appeared in the flow of the dark energy that was controlling the undead. It was almost as if there was something that temporarily caused that dark energy to stop flowing.

    However, that disruption onlysted a second before it disappeared without a trace.

    If one didn''t pay close attention, they wouldn''t have even noticed that the disruption had been there.

    It was just that if one was controlling the undead, there was no doubt that they would notice that there was this slight disruption. They would even want to find what this disruption was that had made them lose control for a second.

    As for how I was able to do this...

    Well, I had been working with the Orb of the Dead for three days straight.

    All this practice paid off and my control over the Orb of the Dead was much greater than before.

    It was easy for me to do something like this now.

    But that wasn''t what I was nning to do.

    Even if I could disrupt the undead horde for a second, it wasn''t as if this would give us any benefits. Even if I were to do it longer, the lich would surely do what he could to fight back and I wouldn''t be able to win against him.

    The reason I took out this Orb of the Dead was to use it for the trump card that I had prepared.

    It was rted to the Orb of the Dead after all.

    After a moment of concentrating, there was something strange that happened with the undead horde.

    There were a few undead that suddenly started moving in a strange manner before they suddenly...grabbed the golem and started pulling the golem back.

    The golems were about to hit the walls, but they were stopped by the undead.

    Well, it was impossible for the undead topletely stop the golems, but they were still able to prevent the golems from doing further harm to the wall. The punches of the golems weren''t strong enough to damage the walls with the undead stopping them.

    At the same time, there were a few undead that were inside of the walls that started to move.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    With these undead out of the way, the walls suddenly copsed.

    Before the undead could regroup themselves, the me breaths already fell down.

    The moment that the undead wall copsed, Klein had already given the order to fire. That was because they had already been expecting this wall to copse.

    They already knew what I had been doing during this time, so they had expected the movements of the undead. That was why there was no hesitation at all to shoot the me breaths.

    Even if the golems wererge masses of undead flesh, that didn''t mean that they were thick enough to resist the powerful burning mes of the wyverns.

    They were able to block the mes for a few seconds, but it was only a matter of time before they were melted by the mes that fell down on them.

    The mespletely enveloped the golems and soon they disappeared as ashes. Seeing this, the guards on the walls were stunned for a few seconds before they broke out in cheers. They had been in despair at the fact that the golems had been damaging the walls, but now that the golems had been taken care of, they were naturally relieved and wanted to

    celebrate.

    Only that celebration was quickly cut short by a cold voice that said, "You dare y these little tricks with me?"

    The cold voice was the voice of the lich that had been silent the entire time.

    The anger that was in the voice of the lich was very clear.

    It seemed that it was angered that someone had stepped on its domain and was using its undead against it. That made the lichpletely lose its temper and it was now nning on

    going all out.

    The undead stirred with the lich''s anger and seemed to be even more agitated as a result.

    But that wasn''t the only thing that happened.

    There was a wave of dark energy that suddenly came from the undead horde.

    It seemed to be concentrated on the center of the undead horde that hadn''t reached the walls

    yet.

    It was as if there was something biging.

    Klein and the others knew that this would happen if we used the undead against the lich, so he had been waiting with the other wyvern riders for this.

    When they saw this stirring from the undead horde, they immediately concentrated their me breaths at where the dark energy was gathering.

    "Boom!"

 Chapter 1068: Death Knight

    Chapter 1068: Death Knight

    ?

    There was an explosion that urred because of the concentrated fire of the me breaths of all these wyverns hitting at the same time.

    However, when one looked at it closely, the mes of the explosion seemed strange.

    That was because the mes didn''t seem to be spread out evenly.

    With the way that the mes moved, it was almost as if they were heading in a single direction. It was almost as if they were being pushed by something to go in a single direction.

    When the mes disappeared and the dust settled, the results were shown.

    As one thought, the mes had been stopped by something.

    It seemed that there was some kind of force that stopped the mes from moving forward and had sent it all flying back. That was evident by the burn marks that were on the ground.

    It was just that it was a bit hard to imagine what was strong enough to blow back the mes of the me breaths like this.

    The power of the wyverns wasn''t weak, so to do something like this...

    It meant that the opposite side must have had considerable power.

    Was this the lich or was it something else?

    After all, it didn''t feel like this was something that the lich could have done.

    Especially since there was a gash on the ground near where the burn marks were.

    It was as if there was something that had shed through the mes and sent them back like this, though they had no idea what had this kind of power.

    That was until they saw what was at the center of the flowing dark energy.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    As expected, it wasn''t a lich.

    "Death Knight." I said out loud, almost as if I was saying it to myself.

    This time, it didn''t seem like Klein and the other royal guards recognized this thing.

    The lich was a moremon monster that had be infamous because of the damage that liches had done in the past. The Death Knight wasn''t as famous since it wasn''t as if every lich was able to summon a Death Knight.

    As the name suggested, a Death Knight was an undead knight that was summoned by the lich.

    It was a powerful undead that was almost on par with a normal lich, though it was ssified as only a S Rank Monster since it didn''t have the same intelligence as the lich.

    It was only able to follow the orders of the lich because of thisck of intelligence.

    But that didn''t mean that the Death Knight was weaker than the lich.

    In some cases, the Death Knight was without a doubt stronger than a lich.

    Especially when it came to closebat, it was hard to find an undead monster that could match a Death Knight.

    The lich hade fully prepared to attack us.

    Not only did it prepare the golems, it had also prepared this Death Knight.

    Since they didn''t recognize it, Klein and the other royal knights didn''t know what to do about this Death Knight. They didn''t know what kind of attacks it had or even what its specialty was.

    So they didn''t dare make any rash moves.

    Instead, they turned to me as if they were waiting for me to give them instructions or even some kind of information about the Death Knight.

    I didn''t know what to say either since I didn''t think that we would be able to fight this Death Knight. Especially since it was in the middle of the undead horde like this.

    The other specialty of the Death Knight was that I was able to act as amander for the other undead.

    While it didn''t have the same intelligence that a lich would have, the Death Knight would still have enough intelligence that it would be able to serve as amander for the other undead. The Death Knight even demonstrated this by raising its sword to point at us.

    When it did, there were undead that suddenly started picking up parts of their deceasedpanions. These were parts of their deceasedpanions that had dropped lifelessly after they had been taken care of by the guards on the walls.

    But these parts weren''t weak since they were parts of the undead monsters that had died.

    As undead monsters, their bodies had been strengthened by the dark energy that raised them, which meant that these parts were stronger than normal corpse parts.

    As such, they actually made quite good weapons.

    But that wasn''t the only thing that happened.

    With the Death Knight leading them, the entire group seemed to change.

    That was because they were absorbing these parts into them.

    The parts that they picked up transformed to fit their bodies, taking the shape of weapons and

    armour.

    It didn''t take long before the undead transformed into proper undead soldiers that were armed.

    The most terrifying thing was that they had bows now.

    Before this, the undead didn''t have ranged attacks at all.

    Now...

    The bows that were formed were quickly drawn and pointed forward. The problem was that they weren''t aiming at us on the wyverns, but they were aimed at the walls.

    The Death Knight was a propermander and it recognized that it wouldn''t be able to take down the wyverns with the bows alone. So that was why it targeted the one that it could take down with the bows.

    Those were the soldiers that were on the walls.

    When the soldiers on the walls saw this, all of them had terrified looks on their faces.

    Some of them were able to draw their bows as if they were about to fire back, but most of them stood there stunned as they didn''t know what to do.

    "Swish!"

    The arrows suddenly flew through the air as the bowstrings were released.

    There was a rain of arrows that was set to fall down atop the walls.

    It seemed like the soldiers had nowhere to run because of this.

 Chapter 1069: Combined attack (1)

    Chapter 1069: Combined attack (1)

    ?

    me breaths suddenly came down from the sky and created a barrier in front of the wall. With the mes forming this barrier, the arrows weren''t able to reach the soldiers on the walls. They were turned to ashes before they could reach the soldiers that were on the wall.

    When the soldiers on the wall saw this, they let out sighs of relief, but they didn''t dare let their guards down.

    After all, they knew that it wouldn''t end just like this.

    There was no doubt that there would be even more attacks aimed at themter on.

    So they immediately pulled out their bows and prepared to shoot back at the enemies.

    At the same time, there were several shields that were pulled out.

    Though they didn''t know how effective these shields would be, it at least gave them a sense of security to have them rather than not having them.

    At least they could possibly block the arrows with these shields.

    What had sent those mes down were half of the wyverns that had been sent back by Klein. He didn''t hesitate at all to split their group in half to ensure that the soldiers on the walls were safe.

    But that was what the Death Knight wanted him to do.

    The moment that half of the wyverns left, the undead immediately changed their target.

    The undead with the bows suddenly raised those bows up to target the wyverns that were still flying above the undead horde.

    It seemed that the Death Knight knew that it would be hard to face the wyverns as a whole, which was why it had used that distraction to send half the wyverns back to the wall.

    Though it was also clear that the Death Knight really hadn''t expected this much of a reaction.

    With half of the wyverns gone, it was harder for the wyverns that were left flying over the horde to stop these attacks from the undead.

    Klein gave the order to fire the me breaths down to intercept the attacks.

    This was a two pronged attack where the mes burned the arrows flying up andnded on the undead down below, but this was not something that could be sustained for long.

    The me breaths required energy to keep firing and it was not something that could be continuously fired down at the undead down below.

    The wyverns were living creatures and would eventually run out of energy.

    So it was only a matter of time before they ran out of a way to defend against the arrows that the undead shot up at them. It was only a matter of time before the arrows of the undead would reach them.

    The other wyverns at the wall wanted to go back to support Klein''s group, but they found that they weren''t able to do so. The moment that they moved, some of the undead turned the bows back at the wall.

    It seemed that they were threatening the soldiers that were there to keep the wyverns at the wall.

    It seemed that the moment that the wyverns tried to leave the wall, the undead would attack the soldiers and force them back.

    The Death Knight really was quite the strategist, hitting them right where it hurt.

    So there was nothing that they could do as they watched Klein''s group defend against the undead arrows.

    Klein realized that there was nothing that they could do from their position and it was best if they retreated. But if they were to retreat now, all that would happen is that the undead would surge at the walls.

    If they gave up their position now, they wouldn''t be able to reim it and would be run down by the undead.

    It was all about what he was willing to give up at this point...

    Seeing that he was hesitating, I said, "There''s no point in risking our lives. If we''re still alive, at least we can think of a n to deal with them. If we die, it''s all over."

    Klein still had an unwilling look on his face, but he eventually nodded in agreement.

    As amander, it was hard for him to ept that he had been forced back by the Death Knight. But as amander, he also knew when he had been beaten.

    So there was no choice but to give the order.

    "Fall..."

    It was just that before he could give the order, there was a loud sound that came from the wall.

    When we turned to look at the wall, we found the source of the noise.

    It was someone who had jumped out from behind the wall that made this noise.

    However, not just anyone would have been able to make this loud noise simply by jumping out from behind the wall.

    It was only someone that had a veryrge size that would be able to do this.

    There was only one person that could do this.

    The one that had done this was Alidus.

    After jumping out from behind the wall, Alidus raised his club and gave a roar before charging forward.

    He was so big that the undead under him weren''t able to do a thing as they were crushed under his feet. At the same time, it seemed like there was some kind of barrier that appeared around him as he charged forward that stopped the weapons of the undead.

    It was as if he was being protected by some kind of invisible force.

    Seeing him charge out like this, all of us had ugly looks on our faces.

    Klein looked at me as if he was asking me what we should do, but I didn''t hesitate at all as I said, "Support him."

    While I didn''t know what he was nning, I knew that Alidus wouldn''t just run out without a n. I didn''t think that he was a fool like that based on what I''ve seen from him.

    So he must have a reason for charging out like this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The only thing that we can do is support him for now.

 Chapter 1070: Combined attack (2)

    Chapter 1070: Combined attack (2)

    ?

    When I gave the order, Klein didn''t hesitate as he gave his own order.

    "Fire the mes breaths around him, clear out the undead and create a path for him."

    The royal guards also didn''t hesitate when they received this order.

    They had been well trained, so they immediately reacted when they received an order from a superior.

    me breaths rained down on the undead around Alidus, but he didn''t seem surprised at all. Instead, he just continued charging straight forward in the same direction that he had been charging in before.

    He was charging right at the Death Knight.

    It seemed that he was nning on going all out against the Death Knight with the way that he was charging at it.

    Was he just confident or was he just foolish?

    That was the thought that passed through my mind when I saw him charging at the Death Knight like this.

    After all, the way that the Death Knight had stopped all those me breaths with a single sh was still on mind. It was a brilliant disy of might, one that couldn''t be forgotten that easily.

    With this kind of might, it wasn''t hard to imagine what would be needed to take down this Death Knight.

    So it was hard to imagine that Alidus would be able to do anything to this Death Knight. But it didn''t matter what they believed.

    For now, all that mattered was observing what Alidus was nning to do and clearing the path for him.

    With Alidus'' size, he easily made his way across the battlefield with the path that had been created for him. It took no time at all for him to arrive in front of the Death Knight, but the Death Knight had been waiting for him.

    The Death Knight had its sword raised as if it was prepared and all of a sudden, it shed out with that sword.

    The same thing happened where there was an almost visible sh that cut through the air. The pressure of this sh was immense, especially since there were traces of dark energy that followed this sh.

    It was clear that this wasn''t just a normal sh, it was a sh that utilized the dark energy that was a part of the undead horde.

    This sh cut through the air and was aimed right at Alidus.

    It seemed like this sh was about to cut right through Alidus with the way that it was flying out, but...

    Alidus didn''t seem to show any fear on his face when he saw this shing at him. Instead, it almost seemed like he was excited as he raised the club that he had in his hand.

    It seemed like he was about to face that sh head on.

    As he raised the club, there was a faint blue light that appeared around it.

    This was simr to how the sh of the Death Knight had traces of the dark energy in it.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    After the faint blue light finished gathering, Alidus swung his club down at the sh in front of him.

    There was a moment of bnce between the two forces as neither side was able to break through, but in the end, it was Alidus'' club that was able to break through the sh and shatter it apart.

    With the momentum of the club swing, he was able to approach the Death Knight even faster. Though the Death Knight had the face of a skeleton, it was still clear that there were traces of surprise on its face from having its sh shattered like this.

    However, the Death Knight did not remain idle for long as it raised its sword once more and prepared to attack again.

    Even though its attack had been stopped, it didn''t seem discouraged.

    Alidus didn''t seem to mind this either as more faint blue glow gathered around his club.

    "They''re even." I muttered under my breath.

    I had been able to see the flow of mana because of my developed senses and I could see that when they shed, the mana had cancelled each other out. It only seemed like Alidus was stronger because there was a constant flow of mana to his club, rather than a single burst of mana like with the sh.

    That was why he was able to keep pushing forward like this.

    But once he reached the Death Knight and fought directly with it, it was hard to tell who would win.

    Klein and the others were still clearing the path for Alidus, so there wasn''t anything else that they could do.

    The only one that was free was me who was sitting on Joan.

    Joan was different from all of the other wyverns because of the amount of supplements that I gave her. That meant that she was stronger than any other wyvern that was in our army.

    She was more than a match for the Death Knight if she were to fight it.

    It was just that Klein hadn''t allowed me to go down with her.

    But in this situation, it seemed like it was the only choice.

    At the same time, I would be the only one that could stop the lich if it came to it...

    So aftering to a decision, I didn''t wait for anyone to say anything as I patted Joan.

    Joan followed this order from me and dived down at the Death Knight.

    "Your majesty, don''t!" Klein shouted to no avail.

    He wasn''t even able to follow me or send people after me since they were still dealing with

    the undead.

    Alidus was able to make his way over to the Death Knight and he swung his blue glowing club right down at the Death Knight.

    The Death Knight didn''t show any fear at all as it swung its sword up to meet the club.

    There was a shockwave that was released when the two weapons met that pushed back all of the undead around them.

    But before Alidus could make his next move, he heard somethinging from above.

    "Move out of the way!"

    Alidus was caught off guard, but he still moved out of the way when he heard this voice since

    he recognized it.

    It was my voice.

    Once he moved out of the way, mes suddenly passed by him and hit the Death Knight head on,pletely engulfing it in mes.

 Chapter 1071: Combined attack (3)

    Chapter 1071: Combined attack (3)

    ?

    When the mes disappeared, the Death Knight appeared again.

    Only this time, the Death Knight lookedpletely different from before.

    There were burns that were all over the Death Knight''s body and it seemed like bits of its bones had been burnt to ashes.

    Unlike before where it was able to use a sh to sweep away the mes, the Death Knight had been hit head on with the mes this time and hadn''t been able to stop it.

    That meant that the mes had burnt the Death Knight directly, which caused quite a bit of damage.

    Though it had to be known that not just any mes could do this kind of damage to the Death Knight. Even if it hadn''t defended against the mes, the natural defenses of its body were not weak.

    Only mes that were at a certain level would be able to hurt it in the first ce.

    That was the level that Joan''s mes were at.

    The supplements that were given to Joan had its use after all.

    But the injuries that the Death Knight had suffered didn''tst for long. There was a reason why it was a high ranked undead in the first ce.

    As long as it had the dark energy, it would be able to heal itself.

    That dark energy flowed to the parts of the Death Knight that had been burned away by the mes and started repairing it. The parts of its body that had been whittled away by the mes were renewed by this dark energy.

    The dark energy even seemed to create bone seemingly out of nowhere. Though if one looked closely at the feet of the Death Knight, they would be able to see the bones from the other undead flowing into the Death Knight.

    It seemed that it was regenerating from the bodies of the other undead.

    After recovering, the first thing that the Death Knight did was try to find what had shot the mes at it. The fiery red glow in its eyes made it seem like the Death Knight wanted revenge for what happened.

    It was just that the Death Knight didn''t get this chance.

    The wyvern wasn''t the only thing attacking it, there was something else that had been attacking it the entire time.

    While the Death Knight was looking up, Alidus was already swinging his club at the Death Knight''s head.

    The Death Knight being distracted caused it to be hit right in the head.

    Alidus hadn''t held back at all with that swing of his and it created a crack in the head of the Death Knight, but that wasn''t enough to take it down. There was a dark energy that appeared around the Death Knight''s head after its head was cracked.

    This dark energy started healing the Death Knight while also seemingly attacking Alidus'' club.

    It seemed like it was invading the blue light of the club, as if it was about to corrode it. Alidus had no choice but to pull back when he saw this as he was worried that his club would be damaged by the dark energy.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    But even though its head was cracked, it didn''t stop the Death Knight like it would have stopped a normal person. The Death Knight was an undead and it wasn''t limited by the same limitations as normal humans.

    It was able to fight even if it suffered injuries that might have been considered fatal for humans.

    As such, it raised its sword while its head was still healing itself.

    It really seemed like the Death Knight was about to cut Alidus down, but it didn''t get the chance.

    It was smushed into the ground by arge wyvern w that suddenly fell down from the sky. The wyvern w smashed it right into the ground and there were cracking sounds that came from it.

    When the wyvern w came up, it revealed that a few of the Death Knight''s ribs had been cracked from the impact.

    The Death Knight had a swirl of dark energy around it at this point, which was doing all that it could to try and heal the Death Knight. But it was also clear at this point that the Death Knight had been quite injured as its injuries finally affected its movement.

    It became slower than before, as if it wasn''t able to move properly.

    It seemed like the damage that it was taking really was taking a toll on it.

    Just like this, we continued attacking it.

    Klein and the others up top were shooting down me breaths to deter the undead froming forward to help the Death Knight.

    With all of us working together, it seemed like the Death Knight was getting more and more hurt. More and more of the Death Knight''s bones were being cracked from our attacks.

    At this rate, it seemed like a matter of time before the Death Knight fell.

    The Death Knight didn''t go out without a struggle as it attempted to fight back, but it just wasn''t able to retaliate when we ganged up on it like this. It almost seemed like we were bullying it with the way that we surrounded it like this.

    Of course, that wasn''t true since it was still a dangerous Death Knight.

    If it was allowed to retaliate, there was no doubt that it would have been dangerous for us.

    Finally after a long while, it seemed like the Death Knight had run out of steam.

    It seemed like the Death Knight was ready to be taken down with a final blow.

    Both me and Alidus didn''t hesitate at all as we attacked at the same time.

    It was just that while Alidus was able tond the final blow and turn the Death Knight''s skull into dust with his club, Joan and I weren''t able to reach the Death Knight.

    That was because there was this of dark energy that suddenly came up from the ground that surrounded us.

 Chapter 1072: Dark energy corruption

    Chapter 1072: Dark energy corruption

    ?

    This of dark energy quickly rose into the air before closing around the two of us.

    This was arge thatpletely surrounded us, trapping us as soon as it closed in like

    this.

    The dark energy that made up the was powerful, it was clear that it was from a very powerful source.

    As for what could release this kind of dark energy...I could only think of one thing.

    "Pa, pa, pa." A p rang out before a cold voice said, "You truly worked hard, didn''t you? It''s just too bad that you fell right into my trap."

    The voice was too unique to mistake who it was.

    It was the lich that had been hiding the entire time.

    After saying this, the lich slowly appeared from the center of the undead horde and showed itself to everyone.

    At the same time, it almost seemed like there was a smug look that was on the lich''s face. It was as if it had thought that it had won.

    Though it wasn''t strange that it was thinking this.

    With that same smug look on its face, it said, "People always let their guards down when they''ve figured that they''ve won and you are the same. You justpletely let your guard down as soon as you took down my Death Knight, but you never expected me to make this kind of move, right?"

    The way that the lich spoke, it was almost as if it was giving an evil monologue...

    The lich didn''t seem to care about the way that we looked at it as it continued, "Now that you''re trapped like this, it seems like it''ll be hard for you to break free. Now that you''re trapped like this, the only thing you can do is wait and watch as I ughter the rest of you." The lich''s tone suddenly changed as it said, "I''m sure that you must be thinking that you''ll be able to find a way to break out as long as you stall for enough time. But did you ever think that I might be stalling for time myself? Haven''t you thought that I might be giving this boring monologue for a certain reason as well?"

    As soon as the lich said this, I deeply knitted my brows.

    I had indeed been thinking this since I had been trying to find the weak spot of this dark energy to have Joan break through it, but I never thought that the lich would have such thoughts.

    That meant that there was another reason for this.

    It was just that it was already toote to tell Joan not to touch this.

    Not to mention, even if I wanted her not to touch the, it wasn''t possible with how small the was in the first ce. It wasn''t as if she could spread her wings and fly in this tiny space, just spreading her wings would have made her touch the.

    So there was nothing that could be done about this, all I could do was see what the effects of touching this was.

    "Ao." Joan gave a soft cry of pain all of a sudden that caught me off guard.

    I immediately looked at her and without a word, she pointed out the area that pained her.

    I quickly went over to the area and saw that there was a dark spot on her body.

    This wasn''t a natural dark spot, this was a spot that seemed like it had been corrupted by something. This dark spot was the same colour as the dark energy that was around them. It was clear that it was rted to this dark energy.

    "Ha, ha, ha! Now you see it!" The lich said in a confident voice before going into a monologue once more.

    "This isn''t just to trap you, but also to corrupt your wyvern. I will turn her into my zombie and when the timees, no one will be able to go against me!" The lich said in an almost hysterical voice while stillughing.

    This was the mostmon thing that viins did when they thought that victory was at hand. They would let this go to their head and would spill all the beans on their ns.

    But it wasn''t as if we could actually do anything to the lich right now.

    I ignored it and looked down at Joan to ask, "How much power do you still have left?"

    She looked at me before shaking her head and raising a few fingers.

    70%.

    That was what she was trying to say with these seven ws raised.

    But I could also tell that the corruption that was entering her body was spreading and it wouldn''t be long before she wouldn''t be able to resist it any longer.

    I could guess that this dark energy was the lich''s final move, so it must have put quite a bit

    of energy into this. This was not a that would be destroyed that easily, especially since it was already corrupting Joan.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It didn''t seem like we would be able to break free of this ce before she was corrupted by the dark energy.

    At the same time, it didn''t seem like the others would be able to help us.

    The undead had started surging after the dark energy appeared and had been keeping Klein and the others back. Even Alidus with his special magic weapon wasn''t able to smash through all of the undead that surged forward.

    There was even a part of me that wondered if the lich had sacrificed that Death Knight just to lure us in here.

    After all, if the undead could fight like this from the beginning, they would have been able to stop us from reaching the Death Knight. They would have even been able to fight with the Death Knight to take us down.

    Was this how highly the lich viewed Joan and how much it wanted to corrupt her?

 Chapter 1073: Purifying earth

    Chapter 1073: Purifying earth

    ?

    At this rate, it really seemed like there was nothing but death waiting for me and Joan...

    But it didn''t seem like there was a way to break out of this dark energy with our powers alone.

    So the only thing that could be done was to try everything at my disposal.

    The first thing that came to mind was The Prator.

    Since it had a 99.9% pration chance, it should be able to shatter this dark energy without a problem.

    It was just that when I tried it, I found that the dark energy just repaired itself without a problem.

    Even if The Prator shattered the dark energy, it wasn''t as if it wouldpletely destroy it. It would only create a temporary hole in the dark energy that was far from being enough to let us escape from it.

    As long as the lich kept providing the dark energy to the, it would keep repairing itself. So it wasn''t as if we could stop the lich from providing energy to the dark energy from here.

    It really seemed like there was no other option than to give up...

    But I didn''t want to give up since I still had things to live for. I couldn''t give up since I still had people to return to.

    So after a bit of regret, the only thing that I could do was pull out the one thing that I hadn''t tried yet.

    When I pulled it out, I pointed it forward at the lich.

    The moment that I pointed this thing forward, the ground that was under the lich started to

    move.

    This movement continued for a bit until the earth that was under the lich suddenly came upwards. The dirt that was being lifted started to form tendrils that wrapped around the lich andpletely surrounded it.

    The lich didn''t seem to resist since it could tell that these tendrils of earth weren''t that strong to begin with.

    In terms of magic control, it was like a child trying to face an adult.

    In its eyes, it thought that it would be able to easily break free from this simple magic trick.

    But the lich''s eyes soon flickered as it realized that it wasn''t as simple as it thought that it would be.

    Even though the lich tried breaking free of the earth tendrils that were binding it, it found that it wasn''t able to do a single thing. It wasn''t even able to break free when it tried using its magic.

    The dark energy that leaked out from the lich seemed like it was being absorbed by the tendrils of earth... No, it was better to say that the dark energy seemed to be purified by the tendrils of earth that wrapped around the lich.

    It was as if just making contact with the tendrils of earth was enough to erase the dark energy from this world.

    With these tendrils of earth suppressing the lich, it was as if it wasn''t able to do anything. At the same time, it seemed like the undead were bing sluggish because of the tendrils of earth that were suppressing the lich''s dark energy.

    The lich''s purple me eyes glowed as it looked at me and said in a shocked voice, "What did you do?"

    I didn''t know what to say either since I never thought that these tendrils of earth would have this kind of effect. I was just desperate and wanted to try anything to see if I could stop the lich.

    This Staff of Earth was the only thing that I had that could reach the lich while I was trapped in this of dark energy like this.

    But I slowly started to realize what it was.

    The Staff of Earth was a divine artifact in the first ce, it was something that could only be used by someone who possessed arge amount of mana and had the Mark of God. So it was something that could only be used by those that had the approval of a god.

    Since this Staff of Earth was a divine artifact, it naturally was something that was filled with divine energy as well.

    The undead were creatures that went against the natural order of things toe back to life after they died. Their greatest weakness was holy magic, or at the very least, they were weak against things that were rted to the divine.

    That meant that even if I was just using the Staff of Earth to control the dirt that was under it, just the fact that I used the Staff of Earth which was a divine artifact meant that there was divine energy that was being imbued into the dirt that I was controlling.

    This divine energy was what was suppressing the lich''s power.

    "That staff..." The lich wasn''t a fool.

    It was an undead monster that had lived for a long time and it naturally had the wisdom to match its age. Just based on its magical senses, it was able to tell that the staff that I was holding was anything but normal.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    As such, it knew that I was the one that was causing this suppression to it.

    The lich raised its hand as if it was about to do something else, but I immediately stopped it. Since it already had the divine earth tendrils suppressing it, it wasn''t able to gather its power as fast as I could. So before it could make a move, there were more earth tendrils that suddenly came out of the ground to grab the lich and suppress it even more.

    "This isn''t a permanent solution." I said to myself as I looked at the earth tendrils that were around the lich.

    Though the ones that I just applied seemed normal, the same couldn''t be said about the ones that were applied before.

    The ones that had been applied before seemed to have been dyed a bit ck because of the dark energy the lich released.

    It seemed like there was a limit to the earth tendrils that I created.

    They only had so much divine energy to purify the lich''s dark energy with.

 Chapter 1074: Ganging up

    Chapter 1074: Ganging up

    ?

    Since I knew that I had the power to suppress the dark energy of the lich, I didn''t hold back at all.

    There wouldn''t be a second chance if I were to let this chance go now.

    It was now or never while the lich had been caught off guard.

    So raising the staff, I gathered more earth tendrils. Only this time, I didn''t gather them around the lich, but rather around the of dark energy that the lich had put around us.

    The moment that the earth tendrils made contact with the of dark energy, the same thing happened where the dark energy was immediately purified by the earth tendrils. Even if the tried to restore itself while it was being purified, it just wasn''t a match for the divine energy that was contained within the earth tendril.

    At the same time, I wrapped Joan in the earth tendril as well.

    Joan was surprised, I had patted her to calm her down and let her know that it was alright.

    The other reason why she rxed again was because she could feel the pain disappearing from her body.

    It wasn''t that she was being numbed, it was that the corrupted spots of her body were being cured by the earth tendrils. Just like how the earth tendrils had purified the of dark energy, it did the same with the ck spots that were all over Joan''s body.

    Even if the dark energy had entered Joan''s body, it didn''t seem to matter as the divine energy inside of the earth tendrils were still able to purify the dark energy from her.

    Eventually, Joan was able to recover from the corruption that the lich had put in her.

    At this time, it seemed like the earth tendrils around the lich were losing their power and it seemed like it was about to break free. It was just too bad for the lich that I was already prepared for this as I surrounded it with even more earth tendrils.

    At the same time, I could see that everyone was slowly pushing back the undead.

    I had been waiting for all of them to push back the undead that was attacking them so that we could do it together.

    "Attack all together! Don''t hold anything back! We need to destroy this lich or it''ll never end!" I shouted out loud all of a sudden.

    Klein''s group and Alidus were all caught off guard by me suddenly shouting this, but that onlysted for a second as they suddenly stopped holding back.

    They had been holding back a bit of their strength since they didn''t know if they would need that bit of strength to escape. But since I gave them the order, they decided not to hold back anymore and go all out with me.

    "Die!" All of them shouted as they released their attacks.

    First it was the me breaths from the wyverns that rained down on the lich.

    Then it was Alidus who swung his club from afar at the lich, which created a blue wave of energy that flew out in front of him. It seemed that he had been holding back this special attack the whole time, even when facing the Death Knight.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    When all of that was over, the lich was revealed with a crack on its skull.

    Though the lich wasn''t able to move or use its dark energy to cast its spells, it was still surrounded by ayer of that dark energy. Thatyer of dark energy was a natural form of protection for the lich that stopped the attacks for it.

    But the fact that there was a crack on its skull showed that these attacks did have an effect.

    "Keep going!" I shouted as I raised even more earth tendrils from the ground to surround the lich.

    Though as I did this, I could feel myself feeling a bit faint.

    The Staff of Earth still had a terrible mileage...

    "You...You...You lower creatures! You dare use these tricks and gang up on me!" The lich roared in an enraged voice.

    When it was put in a helpless situation like this, it hadpletely lost its temper and wanted to rampage. The problem was that the tendrils of earth that were filled with divine energy that surrounded it waspletely suppressing the lich.

    It seemed that no matter what it tried, it wasn''t able to break free.

    It really wasn''t able to do anything but defend itself.

    Klein and the others had hesitated a bit when they heard the lich roar out like this since they were worried that it might try something, but seeing that its bark was much worse than its bite, they knew that this lich wasn''t able to do anything.

    That spurred them on even more as they started releasing all kinds of different attacks at the lich.

    With the way that the lich was surrounded, it really seemed like we were ganging up on something helpless.

    But one shouldn''t forget that this was a powerful lich.

    If it wasn''t for the divine powers of a god that was supporting us, then it would have been impossible for us to suppress the lich like this.

    So even if the Staff of Earth had terrible mileage, I was grateful that I had this staff at this time.

    It was the only thing that could suppress the lich and the only thing that could be depended on to take this lich down.

    The lich''s roars slowly became weaker and weaker as the purple light in its eyes dimmed.

    It really seemed like it was losing more and more of its power as the dark energy around it faded and there were more and more cracks that were forming on the lich''s bones.

    It seemed like at this rate, it was a matter of time before the lich died.

    The lich also knew this, so it couldn''t help saying in a voice filled with aggrievement, "How could this be? How could I have been stopped by lowly humans?!"

 Chapter 1075: Fusion

    Chapter 1075: Fusion

    ?

    Even if the lichined in an aggrieved voice, it wasn''t as if it was able to do anything. That was because it had beenpletely suppressed by everything that was thrown at it.

    The dark energy that surrounded it became weaker and weaker until itpletely disappeared and once that happened, the lich had no more defenses left against the attacks that were raining down on it.

    With the attacks shattering the bone that made up the lich''s body, it really wasn''t able to do a single thing against the attacks that rained down on it.

    So the lich was taken out by thebination of everyone''s might and a bit of divine intervention.

    The moment that the lich copsed, it seemed that the undead horde froze as if they had lost the one thing that was connecting them. It was as if the brain for the undead horde was suddenly cut off and they weren''t able to do a single thing.

    But at the same time, I fell down onto my four limbs on Joan''s back.

    Using the power of the Staff of Earth had drained me, so I was close to running out of energypletely.

    Only before I could let myself fall unconscious, there was something else that I had to do first.

    I tapped Joan on the back and pointed forward at where the lich had fallen. She seemed hesitant as if she didn''t want to approach it, but she still went over when I patted her on the back again.

    When Joan went over, the others also came over to where the lich was and formed a defensive line.

    When Klein came down, I could feel his re on me.

    There were clearly some choice words that he had for me, but he didn''t say them now since we were still in the middle of the undead horde. Only there was no doubt that he would make these words clear to me once we headed back.

    There was a small part of me that didn''t want to go back seeing him like this...

    Still, there was a reason why I hade over to the lich''s remains.

    I could sense that there was still a trace of dark energying from the lich, so I knew that there was something that was still there. It was possible that the lich would have some way of preserving its life, so I wanted to make sure that it was dead before leaving.

    I didn''t let go of the Staff of Earth as I approached the lich''s remains, but it turned out that there was no need to be this worried.

    That was because where the dust from the lich''s bones were was an orb.

    The moment that I saw this orb, I immediately recognized what this orb was.

    It was another Orb of the Dead.

    It was almost exactly the same as the one that I possessed, but it seemed that this one was a bit bigger. At the same time, it seemed that there was a darker form of energy inside of this Orb of the Dead.

    This Orb of the Dead was most likely one that had been nurtured by the lich.

    The lich was a master of that dark energy, so it was only natural that this Orb of the Dead would have a greater concentration of dark energy inside of it. With the amount of dark energy that the lich had demonstrated, it wasn''t surprising if there was a terrifying concentration of dark energy inside of this Orb of the Dead.

    It might even be something that would be dangerous to approach...

    Or that was what everyone thought until I suddenly started moving forward towards this thing.

    As I went towards it, there was a bitter smile that was on my face.

    It wasn''t that I wanted to move towards this Orb of the Dead since I knew that this thing was dangerous. It was that there was something that was pulling me towards this Orb of the Dead unwillingly.

    It was my own Orb of the Dead that was pulling me towards it.

    With the way that it was pulling me, it was as if there was something about the lich''s Orb of the Dead that was drawing in my Orb of the Dead.

    The others narrowed their eyes, but they didn''t say anything as they moved in closer as well to cover me.

    Even if the undead horde seemed like they weren''t nning to do anything and even seemed like they were a bit lost, there was no telling when that would change. If they let their guards down and were caught unaware by the undead horde, then it would be dangerous.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    But it didn''t seem like the undead horde were nning on doing anything.

    After I came over to the lich''s Orb of the Dead, the pull from my Orb of the Dead seemed to be even stronger.

    It was as if it would stop at nothing to reach the lich''s Orb of the Dead.

    With it acting like this, I had no choice but to pull out the Orb of the Dead and see what it wanted.

    The moment that I pulled it out, there was a strong pull that came from it as it moved towards the lich''s Orb of the Dead on the ground. I wasn''t able to keep my hold on the Orb of the Dead, so it flew out of my hand in the end and went towards the lich''s Orb of the Dead.

    The moment that the two orbs made contact, it was as if there was some kind of external force that pressed the two of them together.

    The two orbs continued to go into each other until they finally...

    Fusion.

    The two of them fused together to form a singr Orb of the Dead.

    The moment that this Orb of the Dead appeared, all of the undead suddenly reacted.

    They all turned in the direction of the Orb of the Dead and looked at it as itid there on the ground.

 Chapter 1076: Lichâ€™s nightmare (1)

    Chapter 1076: Lich¡¯s nightmare (1)

    ?

    Everyone immediately tensed up when they saw the undead turning in the direction of the Orb of the Dead.

    With the way that they tensed up, it seemed like they were ready to fight at any moment if a fight did break out.

    Only the undead horde didn''t do anything in the end.

    All they did was look at the Orb of the Dead that was there on the ground as if they recognized something before turning back as if they didn''t see a thing. With the way that they lost interest, it was as if they were never interested in this thing in the first ce.

    That was just how fast they lost interest in the Orb of the Dead.

    Everyone let out a sigh of relief when they saw this, but then Klein said, "We''re heading back."

    He wasn''t saying this for everyone, he was saying this for me alone.

    After all, I was the one that had caused all of this.

    The way that he said this was almost as if he was scolding a child, but he didn''t say anything beyond that.

    I raised my hand to stop him as he was about to grab my arm and said, "Wait a minute." Klein deeply knitted his brows and seemed like he was done with me, but I didn''t care as I went forward and jumped off Joan to pick up the Orb of the Dead on the ground. Before picking it up though, I made sure to tap it with the Staff of Earth just in case something happened.

    I was using the Staff of Earth as if it was something that could purify the Orb of the Dead.

    Though the Orb of the Dead didn''t seem to react at all even when the Staff of Earth touched it. It justid there on the ground as if nothing changed.

    Seeing this, I picked it up and quickly put it away before jumping back on Joan.

    When the others saw this, they also started getting ready to leave.

    The only one that was a bit hard to bring away from this ce was Alidus with how big he was, but we were able to do it with four different wyverns grabbing him at the same time.

    He hung from the wyverns like he was doing some kind of wyvern surfing.

    As for why he couldn''t just walk back...

    Even if the undead horde didn''t seem like it would do anything, it was better not to provoke them. If Alidus were to start stomping around on the undead, there was no telling what would happen.

    While they were calm now, if they were to provoked and start attacking...they would cause quite a bit of trouble.

    So it was better if Alidus wasn''t allowed to walk through them.

    As we flew above the undead horde, we were able to clearly see just how many of them were still left. With the amount of undead that were left in this horde, it was clear that they would do a lot of damage if they were to charge all of a sudden.

    But for now, it seemed like they were calm.

    With the wyverns, it shouldn''t be a problem for us to slowly whittle down these undead as long as they didn''t do anything unexpected. After all, the main backbone of this undead horde, the lich was now gone.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It was just that we had spent quite a bit of energy to defeat the lich and it would be hard to defeat the undead horde if we were to fight it now.

    It was best if they just remained there and let us recover some of our power before fighting them.

    After returning to the wall, it didn''t seem like the undead horde were nning to do anything. It was at this point that I couldn''t hold on any longer.

    I did my best to keep my consciousness, but the Staff of Earth really had a terrible mileage and

    I just wasn''t able to hold on any longer. So the moment that we flew over the wall, I fell onto Joan''s back and lost consciousness.

    "Your majesty!" I could hear them shouting around me, but I just couldn''t do a thing as my vision faded away.

    ...

    "How could lowly mortals possibly take me down like that!"

    I could hear this voice ringing through my ears, which forced me to open my eyes.

    When I opened them, I found that I was in apletely dark space.

    This was unlike any other ce that I''ve seen before, so I had no idea where I currently was.

    But looking around, it really didn''t seem like I''ve been in this ce before.

    After all, I don''t remember ever being in a ce that was as dark as this before.

    Looking around, it didn''t seem like there was anything around me.

    That was until I heard...

    "How dare you kill me!"

    This voice was a familiar one since I had heard this voice not that long ago.

    It was the voice of the lich.

    When I looked around though, it didn''t seem like I was able to find the source of this voice. At the same time, it also felt like the voice wasing from all around me, as if it wasn''ting

    from a single spot.

    It was as if it was just all around the area.

    Then all of a sudden, there was arge bone hand that appeared above me.

    When I looked up, I found that there was a giant version of the lich that was standing there over me with its hand reached out. With the way that it was reaching out, it really seemed like it was trying to grab me.

    I didn''t know what was happening, but it wasn''t as if I could just stand there.

    So I jumped out of the way of the hand that wasing down at me.

    But after jumping out of the way, I just stood there with a confused look on my face.

    After all, I had no idea what was happening here.

 Chapter 1077: Lichâ€™s nightmare (2)

    Chapter 1077: Lich¡¯s nightmare (2)

    ?

    There was no time for me to think about what was happening either as the giant lich didn''t seem to stop what it was doing.

    After missing me with one hand, the lich switched to the other hand and tried to grab me.

    It was just too bad for the giant lich that it was moving slowly and it was so big that it was quite easy for me to dodge out of the way. It took no effort at all on my part to move out of the way of the giant bone hand that came down at me.

    I didn''t understand what was happening or what the lich was doing.

    After all, if it was the lich, then why didn''t it just use its dark energy to grab me.

    Why was it relying on a crude method like trying to catch me with its hands like this? Especially when it was clear that this just wasn''t working.

    It didn''t seem to make any sense at all.

    The more that I thought about this, the more that this seemed like some kind of dream... Then I remembered what happened after we returned from the fight with the lich.

    I had fallen unconscious from overusing my mana by continuously using the Staff of Earth during the fight with the lich. That had caused me to lose consciousness as soon as we had returned behind the walls.

    So did that mean that this was all a dream?

    But if it was, why would I dream about the lich and it trying to catch me like this?

    None of this made any sense at all...

    While I was distracted thinking about this, the lich suddenly changed what it was doing. Instead of reaching down towards me to grab me like it had been doing this entire time, the lich suddenly brought both hands around me so that it would cup me in its hands rather than grabbing me.

    With the way that it did this, the lich was able to trap me and there wasn''t a way for me to run.

    I couldn''t do anything as the lich''s bony hands came around me and it seemed like I was trapped inside of a cage formed by its hands. That was just how big the lich was that it was able to form a cage with its hands like this.

    Once I was caught, I looked up at the lich to see what it would do now that it had caught me. The lich that had beenining about how it had been taken down by lowly humans the entire time suddenly stoppedining about this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    I could see the purple mes in its eye sockets looking down at me.

    As it looked at me, it almost seemed like it was looking at some kind of product or some kind of prey.

    After a long silence, the lich finally spoke.

    "I''ve finally caught you. Now, let me have your body."

    I deeply knitted my brows when I heard this, but I knew that there was something wrong with this, so I started looking around for a way to escape. It was just that with how tightly the lich had closed its hands, it didn''t seem like there was a way out for me.

    After the lich said this, the dark energy that had been missing the entire time finally showed itself.

    It was weaker than before, but the dark energy came from the lich''s hands and was slowly creeping towards me. It was as if it wanted to enter my body with the way that it was approaching me.

    When I saw this, I finally figured out what was happening.

    There was no way that this was just a dream, it must be that there was something left inside of the Orb of the Dead that my Orb of the Dead absorbed.

    If I had to guess, it was most likely a portion of the lich''s essence that was left inside of the Orb of the Dead.

    That Orb of the Dead should have been with the lich for a long time, so it wouldn''t have been strange if a part of the lich entered the orb.

    In that case, that part of the lich was now trying to take over my body now that its main body had been destroyed. The ce that we were in should be a representation of my mind and this giant lich should be the essence that was left behind by the lich.

    If I allowed this dark energy to enter me...it was hard to say if I would be able to remain as I was.

    There was no doubt that it would be dangerous to let this dark energy near me.

    Only...what was I supposed to do here?

    I didn''t have a single thing on me, so it wasn''t as if there was anything for me to fight with.

    The only thing that came to mind was that this ce was inside of my mind, so I should have some kind of power here...

    Right?

    "Back!" I shouted at the dark energy that was approaching me, doing my best to will the dark energy away from me. However, it didn''t seem like I was able to push this dark energy away with just my mind.

    The dark energy seemed to creep closer and closer towards me, as if it was about to take over at any moment.

    Before I could say anything else though, there was something that appeared that stopped the dark energy right in its tracks. There was thisyer of white light that appeared around me that immediately started pushing back the dark energy.

    With the way that the dark energy disappeared when it made contact with thatyer of white light, it was almost as if this dark energy was being purified by the white light.

    I didn''t understand where thisyer of white light came from at first, but then I noticed that there was something that was glowing on my hand.

    "The Mark of God?"

 Chapter 1078: Absorbing knowledge

    Chapter 1078: Absorbing knowledge

    ?

    It was the Mark of God that suddenly lit up on my hand and created this barrier around me. But this Mark of God was only just beginning.

    The lich looked like it was in pain because of the Mark of God, but it didn''t give up. That was because the lich knew that this was its only chance, if it let this chance go, then it wouldn''t have another chance toe back to life.

    So even if it was being purified by that barrier of white light, it couldn''t give up.

    The dark energy that was around me started to surge, as if it was bing stronger. But at the same time, I could see that the purple light that was inside of the lich''s eyes were getting weaker.

    It seemed that it was using everything that it had to attempt to take me over.

    Unfortunately, the lich just wasn''t able to crack through the barrier of white light that was set up by the Mark of God.

    The more that the dark energy mmed against the barrier of white light, the stronger the barrier seemed to be. It was as if it was being spurred on by the dark energy that mmed into it and was growing stronger because of it.

    "No, how could this be? Just what is this power?" The lich said in a voice that was slowly being filled with despair.

    It was as if the lich could see its end getting closer and closer.

    It seemed that it was only a matter of time before thest bit of its power and consciousness was dissipated by this barrier of white light.

    "I''m not willing to ept this! How could this possibly be true? How could a lowly human have this kind of power? Just what are you?" When thest line of defense copsed for the lich, it really couldn''t take it anymore and had a mental breakdown.

    Normally, it wouldn''t act like this, but it just couldn''t take it anymore.

    There was a trace of bitterness that filled me when I heard this.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    I want to say that I did this on my own, but I really couldn''t say that since I knew that this wasn''t the truth. If it wasn''t for the fact that I had received divine intervention, then I really wouldn''t have been able to do anything.

    It was all because I had the help of the gods themselves that I was able to stop the lich.

    Though it wasn''t as if I could really exin this to the lich.

    So all I could do was...

    With a bitter smile, I said, "I didn''t do it alone, it''s the power of the gods that are helping me."

    "Huh?" The lich looked visibly surprised and confused when it heard this, but that confusion onlysted for a second as it was still being purified by the barrier of white light that was around me.

    It knew that it would be dead in a moment if it stalled any longer, so all it could do was keep pushing with the dark energy that it had.

    There was no other way for the lich, it could only take over my body or it would be purified. In the end, the lich was purified.

    The barrier of white light came from the Mark of God, which meant that it was a power that came from the gods themselves. It was not the kind of power that would be easily defeated even if it was the remnant of a lich that was attacking it.

    If liches could defeat gods, then the world order would have changed already.

    The lich said one more time in an aggrieved voice, "Just how could this be? Just what are you?"

    There was nothing I could say as I watched the lich fade away.

    Though the moment that the lich faded away, I realized that there was another problem. After the lich grabbed me with both hands, I was carried up into the air by the lich. While I didn''t know just how far up it had brought me, it was a fact that I had been lifted into the air by the lich.

    That meant that now that the lich was gone, I would fall down to the ground.

    Without knowing how much of a drop it was...

    Would I really just die like this after being dropped down like this?

    Would I even die since this was just a world inside of my mind?

    At the same time, what would happen to me if I were to die in this ce?

    There were all kinds of thoughts that passed through my mind as I felt myself falling, but that falling sensation soon slowed down. It was as if I was falling slower and slower until I came to

    a stop.

    I didn''t know what it was that stopped me, but I had a good guess.

    It was very likely that it was the barrier of white light that was still around me.

    Once Inded, the barrier of white light suddenly disappeared from around me and it disappeared in a way that it didn''t leave a trace at all. If it wasn''t for the fact that I had seen it protecting me from the lich, I would have doubted that the barrier had been there before.

    However, after the barrier disappeared, there was something else that appeared.

    There was this ck ball that fell down in front of me, though it didn''t fall all the way down to the ground.

    After reaching the same height as me, the ck ball suddenly stopped falling down.

    It just floated there in front of me.

    With the way that it floated there, it was almost as if the ck ball was just waiting for me to reach out and take it. But I didn''t do that since I didn''t know what this thing was.

    But the ck ball didn''t just remain floating there forever.

    All of a sudden, the ck ball suddenly came forward and entered my forehead before I could

    stop it.

    Once it entered my forehead, it was as if there was something that was filling my brain.

    "Ah!" I shouted out in pain as a sharp sting filled my head.

 Chapter 1079: Give it a try (1)

    Chapter 1079: Give it a try (1)

    ?

    This sharp stinging sensation was as if someone was taking an ice pick right to my head.

    It was as if they were stabbing that ice pick right into my brain with the way that the stinging sensation was hitting me.

    But I knew that this pain wasn''t there for no reason.

    The reason why I was in this kind of pain was all because of therge amounts of information that was filling my brain. It was as if there were several volumes of an encyclopedia that was being pumped into my brain at once.

    I wasn''t confused about what this information was or where it was from.

    That was because the first piece of information that I saw was a memory from the owner of this knowledge.

    It was the memory of the lich before it became a lich.

    The lich was actually an orphan who had died a tragic death one day.

    He used to work as an adventurer, but he was the lowest grade adventurer.

    One day, he was apanying a merchant group during a storm and lightning struck the bridge that they were crossing. Because of the storm, the river was much higher than usual and flowing much faster, which resulted in the lich being carried away in an instant.

    That was how he died.

    Then he was revived as an ordinary skeleton by a necromancer, but that necromancer eventually died as well.

    With the magic books of the necromancer, the lich was eventually able to gain its own intelligence and be a lich after gathering enough dark energy.

    That was how the lich had be a lich in the end.

    After that came the endless knowledge that the lich had gained over its many centuries of life. This knowledge seemed to have been purified and stuffed into my brain, which was what the ck ball was. It was all of the knowledge that the lich possessed condensed into a single ball. Of course, this was just too much knowledge for one person, namely for one human to absorb all at once.

    So when it was all over, I could tell that there was a seal that was ced on the knowledge from the lich that had been crammed into my head. I would be able to ess it from time to time, but the seal was there to prevent it from overflowing into my brain and overwhelming

    me.

    So I was able to keep my mind even though it was now overflowing with information. Though there was one part of the knowledge that did interest me.

    The lich had received the Orb of the Deadter on in life.

    Namely, it had received it from a demon that had visited it and gave it some instructions on where to channel this Orb of the Dead.

    It seemed that the demons were behind this undead horde that came to attack our kingdom. Only why would they do this?

    There were too many holes that I couldn''t figure things out and at the same time, I didn''t really get the time to think about this. That was because after the knowledge filled my brain, the space around me seemed to fade away.

    It was hard to tell if it was the space that was disappearing or if there was something wrong with my eyes.

    But in the end, the space disappeared and I found myself opening my eyes.

    The moment that I opened them, I heard someone saying, "He''s awake! His majesty is awake!"

    After this, it didn''t take long for a group of people to rush into the room that I was sleeping in. But this room wasn''t that big in the first ce since it was just a room in one of the few buildings at this ce.

    It was supposed to be the captain''s room, but it was taken by me currently.

    They crowded around the bed and the one that grabbed me by the shoulder before thrusting his face in front of me was Klein.

    Aftering in front of me, he said, "Your majesty, are you alright?"

    Even though he was being rough, I could tell that this was his way of being worried about me.

    So I raised my hand and waved it before saying with a casual smile, "I''m fine, I''m fine. I was just exhausted from using that staff, I''m not injured at all."

    Though I said this, I could feel the pain that was still in my head, though that was for apletely different reason.

    Seeing that I was smiling like this, Klein narrowed his eyes before saying, "Do you even know what you''ve done? Do you know how much trouble you''ve caused?"N?v(el)B\\jnn

    I was caught off guard by this sudden change in his tone and expression, but a bitter feeling filled me. I didn''t say anything in the end since he was right, I had caused quite a bit of trouble by deciding to take action like that.

    So I just sat there and listened to his lecture.

    His lecture showed his concern for me, but there really wasn''t anything that concerned me about the lecture. That was until he reached the end of it and said something that scared me.

    "The prime minister and the queens are waiting for you back in the capital."

    That was like a bucket of cold water suddenly being sshed on me.

    It was like a wakeup call from a dream with the way that he suddenly said this.

    But there was nothing that I could do about this since it was my fault in the first ce. With a sigh, I pushed aside this matter and asked, "What happened to the undead?" This time, Klein revealed an awkward look.

    It wasn''t awkward because he was in a bad situation, it was awkward because it seemed like he didn''t know how to respond to this question which just confused me.

    In the end, Klein said with a sigh, "Let''s go and take a look. You''ll understand once you see."

    But at the end of this, he added, "Of course, we''ll be watching from the walls and you won''t be allowed near a wyvern."

    A bitter smile appeared on my lips, but I nodded in agreement in the end.

    Even if I wanted to fight, I clearly wasn''t in the shape for it.

 Chapter 1080: Give it a try (2)

    Chapter 1080: Give it a try (2)

    ?

    I had recovered enough that I was able to walk on my own, but they had already prepared a wheelchair for me just in case.

    But I didn''t use it in the end since I wanted to at least walk on my own two feet.

    That was a mistake as walking up the walls really was hard on me. When it was over, I was bent over and panting in an attempt to catch my breath.

    After catching my breath, I looked out at the scene in front of me.

    Seeing this, I immediately understood why Klein had revealed that awkward look.

    That was because the undead horde wasn''t doing a single thing.

    From time to time, there might be one or two undead that seemed to wander off, but the majority of the undead just seemed to be standing there. It was as if they were standing there in a daze, without a single thought in their minds.

    Though in the first ce, it wasn''t as if the undead would have any thoughts in their heads. They were the undead after all, they were supposed to be creatures that didn''t have any intelligence or thought.

    So it was normal that they would be like this.

    Or it would be if they were in a ce where there was no one around.

    For them to be acting this way when they were this close to a ce inhabited by humans, these creatures that actually wanted to take vitality of their own, it was strange for them to be standing around like this without attacking.

    It really made it seem like there was something else that was keeping these undead in their ce.

    "Do you know what''s happening?" Klein suddenly asked from beside me.

    I slowly shook my head as I kept my eyes on the undead.

    Even with the knowledge that had been imnted in my head, I had no idea what was happening here.

    Based on the knowledge that I had, this was certainly strange behaviour for these undead creatures.

    After looking at them for a bit, I couldn''t help revealing a strange look on my face.

    That was because...I could feel some kind of connection with these undead that were standing there in front of the walls. These undead were supposed to be undead that were raised by the lich, so they shouldn''t have anything to do with me.

    But it really felt like there was some kind of connection between me and them...

    I couldn''t help pulling out the Orb of the Dead.

    The moment that the Orb of the Dead came out, all of the undead suddenly turned in the direction that I was standing in. Though they didn''t look up at me who was standing on the wall, they did look in the direction that I was standing in as if they were reacting to me pulling out the Orb of the Dead.

    Klein who was beside me also saw this and he didn''t hesitate to pull out his sword to stand right in front of me.

    Only, the undead didn''t do anything even though they were looking in this direction.

    After a while, it was as if they had suddenly lost interest in whatever they had been looking at before and turned back to seemingly stand there in a daze again.

    Once Klein was certain that none of the undead were about to do anything, he turned to me with a questioning gaze. The way that he looked at me was as if he wouldn''t let me leave unless I gave him an answer to his doubts.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It was just that I didn''t have any answers that I could give him since I had no idea what just happened either.

    The moment that I pulled out the Orb of the Dead, it seemed like there was this strange connection that was formed between me and the undead.

    Even now, it seemed like I could connect to them as long as I used a bit of the energy from the Orb of the Dead. Though I had no idea why it was even acting this way...

    After a moment of silence, I once again shook my head and said, "I have no idea...but I think that there''s something that I can try."

    "No." Klein said in a firm voice with a stern look on his face.

    He even took a step forward as if he was about to grab the Orb of the Dead out of my hand, but I moved out of the way in time to keep it from him.

    Seeing that I did this, he knitted his brows and seemed even more determined.

    It was almost as if he wouldn''t give up as long as he didn''t take this orb out of my hand.

    I knew that there was some kind of misunderstanding, so I put the Orb of the Dead on the ground in front of me and said, "You can''t touch it, the dark energy will corrode you if you make contact with it. That''s why I moved it away."

    Klein narrowed his eyes to look at me and then the Orb of the Dead before slowly giving a nod.

    But then he said, "We''re heading back down. The wyverns will start clearing out the undeadter and that''ll be the end of it."

    He came forward as if he was about to lead me down the wall, but I shook my head once more and said, "Wait, there''s something that I want to try."

    Klein had a very serious frown on his face when he heard this before shaking his head, "No, what if you provoke something that you can''t handle. We can''t let anything happen to you."

    I calmly looked at him and took a deep breath before gathering my prestige to say, "I can guarantee that nothing will happen to me. I can also guarantee that nothing will happen with the undead."

    Klein knitted his brows even more when he heard this.

    So to seal the deal, I just calmly said, "This is an order."

    When he heard this, there was a slightly hurt look that was in Klein''s eyes, but there was

    nothing that he could say once I said this.

    There were still our positions to consider, so he had to at least let me give it a try.

    But if anything were to happen, there was no doubt that he would step in.

    I didn''t mind as I picked up the Orb of the Dead and faced the undead horde.

 Chapter 1081: If they found out

    Chapter 1081: If they found out

    ?

    Picking up the Orb of the Dead, I was once again able to feel the connection between me and the undead.

    Only this time, it seemed as if it was stronger.

    It was as if by looking for it, I was able to sense it even more deeply.

    With this connection, it seemed that I was able to...

    There was some dark energy that came from the Orb of the Dead.

    This dark energy seemed to flow into nothing as it disappeared after leaving the Orb of the Dead. With the way that it disappeared, it was as if it didn''t have any effect at all before disappearing without a trace.

    But that wasn''t the case.

    The undead that had been unresponsive under the wall suddenly reacted.

    Only this time, it wasn''t all of the undead that reacted.

    It was only a single zombie that suddenly turned its head to look up at the wall.

    I walked forward so that I was standing on the edge of the wall and looked down at this zombie. Looking down like this, I could see that the zombie was looking right up at me as well.

    The two of us looked at each other for a bit before that zombie turned in a certain direction and headed off.

    I didn''t watch that zombie head off in that direction as I started looking at the undead horde once more.

    My eyes swept over the horde and picked out several undead that were standing there in the middle. When my eyes fell onto them, the undead also started to react and turned to look in my direction.

    These undead kept looking in my direction for a bit before they also turned and headed off in the same direction as the zombie from before.

    Once I finished testing this, I pulled back the Orb of the Dead and turned around to look at Klein.

    Seeing the way that he looked at me, I could tell that he understood what happened.

    Even if he didn''t look at me like this, I would have thought that he would understand what had happened. After all, I had made things quite clear with the way that I acted with the undead.

    Anyone with a brain would have been able to figure it out.

    So there was no hiding what had just happened.

    After looking at me with this strange look for a bit, Klein just said with a sigh, "Have you thought about the consequences if the Holy Empire was to find out about this?"

    I was surprised to hear him suddenly mention the Holy Empire like this, but I did understand where he wasing from.

    The Holy Empire was the empire that was formed by those different religions, so of course they had a strong opinion on undead. In their minds, the undead were impure creatures that didn''t deserve to exist.

    If they encountered the undead, they would certainly do all that they could to put them to rest.

    With the natural suppression that their holy powers had on undead, it could be said that they were the best at taking down the undead.

    At the same time, if they found that someone was colluding with the undead or even controlling the undead, they would certainly disapprove of this. As for how far they would go, that would all depend on the degree of the association.

    But it was safe to say that for those fanatical members of the Holy Empire, they would have a very strong opinion on this matter.

    So if they were to find out about this...

    I could understand what Klein was concerned about, but I knew that the Holy Empire was still nothing more than just a gathering of humans that believed in the gods.

    It wasn''t as if they represented the gods themselves.

    If the gods truly disapproved of this, would they have allowed me to have formed a connection with the Orb of the Dead after granting me the Mark of the God?

    So in a way, there must be some kind of misunderstanding between the Holy Empire and what the true will of the gods were.

    There was even a God of Darkness that was worshipped within the Holy Empire, though it wasn''t as popr as the main gods of therge religions.

    Still, the God of Darkness was where this dark energy came from in the first ce.

    So if they truly disapproved of this, then they wouldn''t have allowed the religion that worshipped the God of Darkness to exist.

    After a moment of silence, I said to Klein, "We''ll deal with that bridge when wee to it. There''s no need to stress ourselves out thinking about it right now."

    Klein didn''t seem convinced when he heard this.

    I just raised my hand and made the Mark of God visible before saying, "At the very least, I have the protection of this thing, so they won''t do anything to me right away. They''ll at least hesitate because they have to consider the fact that I have this thing."

    Finally, Klein gave a slow nod in agreement.

    But he didn''t let his guard down yet as he said, "What if you lose control?"

    I just calmly said, "I won''t, I can guarantee it."

    Klein raised a brow as if he was doubtful of this, but he didn''t say anything in the end.

    I turned back to look at the undead for a moment before saying, "For now, I''ll move them slowly and gather them in a safe ce. We''ll keep them in that safe ce until we have a use for them."

    Hearing the tone in my voice, Klein knew that he wouldn''t be able to talk me out of this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So all he could do was nod with a sigh.

    Though it wasn''t as if he couldn''t see the value that these undead brought.

    The undead were soldiers that didn''t fear death, so on the battlefield...

    If these undead could be used properly, they were certainly powerful soldiers.

    It was just that they were a double edged sword that were hard to use.

 Chapter 1082: What were you thinking?

    Chapter 1082: What were you thinking?

    ?

    Even with the Orb of the Dead being enhanced by absorbing the other Orb of the Dead, it still took two more days to control all of the undead into moving to a certain area.

    It was partly because of just how many undead there were.

    It was also partly because the Orb of the Dead was not something that could be used that easily.

    That meant that I just wasn''t strong enough to use the Orb of the Dead properly.

    Even if I had my mana pool enhanced with the Staff of Earth, that didn''t mean that my mana pool was at the point where I was considered invincible. My mana pool was still only on par with a normal magician now and couldn''tpare to those powerful magicians that had insanelyrge mana pools.

    So I wouldn''t be able to use the Orb of the Dead continuously even if I wanted to.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if I was stalling because I knew that I would be in trouble after returning to the capital.

    It wasn''t as if I was stalling because I knew that I would receive a scolding for everything that I had done.

    But once all of the undead had been moved, it was time for me to face the music and head back.

    As expected, I was immediately pulled into the royal study where it wasn''t just the prime minister and the chancellor who were waiting for me. There was also Rose and Anglea who were in the room waiting as well.

    The other wives weren''t here, but that was only because they had Rose and Ang as their representatives.

    They didn''t need to be here if they knew that Rose and Ang were here.

    The two of them would be enough to give me the scolding that I deserved.

    The only thing that I could hope for was that the prime minister and the chancellor would help hold them back a bit. But based on the way that they were standing on the side, it didn''t seem that was likely.

    "What were you thinking?"

    That was the first thing that Rose said after I sat down in front of them.

    She didn''t even say anything about what I had done or exin what this question was for, she just directly asked me this question.

    That put me in an awkward situation as I looked at the way that she was looking at me.

    After thinking for a bit, I bowed my head and said, "I''m sorry."

    Rose didn''t say anything at first, but then she shook her head and gave a sigh as she said, "Why do you need to apologize? Weren''t you doing it because you thought that you were right?"

    I slowly looked up at her with a trace of disbelief in my eyes.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    It was as if I couldn''t understand the words that came out of her mouth.

    After all, I didn''t think that she would say something like this.

    It was a bit too hard for me to believe that she would be this understanding...

    No, the way that she looked at me made it clear that she wasn''t this understanding. There was something that she wasn''t saying in her eyes as she looked at me, so I knew that there had to be something that she was holding back.

    I calmly said, "I didn''t think things through properly, that was my fault."

    At this, Rose suddenly gave a nod as if confirming this before saying, "Did you think about what kind of effect your actions would have on us? Have you thought about what we would do if something happened to you?"

    Ang gave a strong nod of agreement before looking at me just like Rose did.

    At this, I was taken aback since I had never seen Rose like this before.

    This was different from the other things that I''ve done.

    I really put myself in danger this time by charging out onto the battlefield with Joan, so it was different from all of the other risks that I''ve taken.

    So that was why I understood why she was acting this way.

    I didn''t have anything to say or rather it was hard for me to say anything when I saw the way that the two of them looked at me.

    The guilt that I felt made it hard for me to respond since I knew that I had put them through a lot.

    After all, I could imagine how they must have felt when they read the report from Klein on what happened in the fight with the lich.

    So all I could do was bow my head again as I said, "I promise that I won''t do anything reckless like that again."

    The two of them were silent once more and when I peeked up, I could see that they were looking at me with the same worried looks on their faces. I really didn''t know what to say or what to do in this situation.

    So all I could do was lower my head and wait for them to react.

    In the end, what happened was that I wasn''t able to avoid the scolding that I had expected.

    There was a part of me that thought it wasn''ting after the worried looks that they gave me, but the bigger part of me knew that it was stilling in the end. So I didn''t say anything as I just sat there and epted their scolding.

    It took quite a long time before they were finished with their scolding, but I knew that there was a reason for this.

    It was their way of showing that they cared, so I just calmly listened to all of it.

    When it was over, that was when the prime minister who had been on the side acting as if he

    was made of air finally spoke.

    "There''s something that we need to talk about."

    After saying this, he pulled out some pieces of paper to show me.

 Chapter 1083: Same situation

    Chapter 1083: Same situation

    ?

    I looked at the pieces of paper that were ced in front of me and found that these were reports.

    Only they weren''t just any kind of reports, they were reports about certain ces.

    They were reports that came from different countries that were all around us.

    There was one thing inmon about the countries that were mentioned in this report.

    All of these countries were the ones that had received some kind of interference from one of the four empires. They were the countries where the four empires stepped in to help with the monster outbreaks.

    As for why there were these reports...

    It was because all of them were in the same situation as we were.

    All of them were attacked by an undead horde.

    This undead horde appeared out of nowhere and started attacking their borders.

    At the same time, there were high grade undead that suddenly showed themselves during the attack like the golems and Death Knight that we encountered. There were even some reports that there were liches hiding among these undead hordes as well.

    Even now, the reports stated that these countries were still being sieged by these undead hordes and it didn''t seem like they would be able to break out that easily.

    After all, they had been suppressed by the monster waves in the first ce.

    If they had been suppressed by the monster waves, that meant that their armies weren''t strong enough to fight back the monsters to begin with. Otherwise, they wouldn''t have turned to the empires for help.

    So it wasn''t strange that they were losing to the undead hordes.

    At this rate, the reports made it seem like these countries would be broken into by these undead hordes that were attacking them.

    I turned to look at the prime minister before asking, "Why are you showing me this?"

    I wasn''t questioning that this was an important matter since it was clear that all of this was connected, but for the prime minister to show me these reports all of a sudden like this clearly meant that there was something else that he was trying to show me.

    The prime minister just calmly said, "It''ll be a while before they can send support to these countries. At the same time, it seems that the empires will be upied by these countries for a while, so they won''t be able to do anything to us during this time."

    I slowly narrowed my eyes to look at the prime minister as a look of understanding gradually appeared in my eyes.

    I understood why he was telling me this.

    It was because of the report that Klein had sent back.

    Since it was a report on what had happened in the fight with the undead horde, Klein had naturally added in information on some things that happened after the fight.

    After all, it wasn''t as if he could just say that all of the undead suddenly went missing.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    He had to truthfully report where the undead went.

    So that meant that the prime minister knew about what I did with the Orb of the Dead.

    It meant that he knew about the undead army that we currently had.

    The prime minister wasn''t a fool and could tell what kind of trouble this would get us in with the Holy Empire. But at the same time, he also could see the potential that was in the undead army.

    That meant that the reason he showed me these reports was to...

    Since I knew what his intentions were, it was easy for me to think of a response.

    But I was still silent for a bit before speaking.

    Instead of answering the question that he was posing me with these reports, I asked him instead, "How long before they finish taking care of the undead."

    The prime minister wasn''t surprised at all to hear this and just calmly said, "With the abilities of the empires, it shouldn''t take long." Then after a pause, he said, "Though it will take some time for them toe as far as our kingdom since they still have other things to deal with."

    I gave a nod before asking my next question, "Do you think that we can do anything with the nearby kingdoms?"

    The prime minister slightly knitted his brows after hearing this before slowly shaking his head.

    It could be seen by the look in his eyes that he had already considered this before, but he also knew that it would be difficult to actually do something like this. That was why he hadn''t even thought about this and threw it to the back of his mind.

    But after hearing what I said, there was a part of him that wanted to see if he could think of a way to achieve this.

    But in the end, he just wasn''t able to think of a single way to make this happen.

    "By the time that we do this, the empires will have arrived. At the same time, there are still things that need to be arranged in our own territory, so we don''t have the time to do this." As he finished, the prime minister couldn''t help letting out a sigh. It was as if he was regretting the missed opportunity that was here.

    It was just that there was nothing that we could do in this situation.

    With this, I had all the information that I needed toe to a decision.

    "I should be able to figure something out during this time."

    The prime minister gave a slow nod before saying, "Then I''ll leave this matter to you."

    But after a pause, he felt like adding in a serious tone, "If you feel that you can''t achieve this matter, don''t force it. It isn''t worth it to dig ourselves in a hole just for the sake of a few

    undead."

    I was surprised by how decisive he was, but I gave a simple nod in response since I knew that he was right.

 Chapter 1084: Testing the undead

    Chapter 1084: Testing the undead

    ?

    I was standing in a forest in the middle of nowhere.

    This was a ce near the border of the former Darius Kingdom, but it was a ce that was inside of thend that was now controlled by our Kite Kingdom.

    It seemed like a ce that shouldn''t have anything here, but I wasn''t alone.

    I wasn''t just referring to the guards that followed me, I was talking about the undead that were just standing there in front of me.

    These were the undead that had been raised by the lich and sent to attack our border.

    After the lich was destroyed and I gained the power of the lich''s Orb of the Dead, I had used the Orb of the Dead to control the undead toe to this location.

    Looking at the undead that were in front of us, my guards revealed worried looks.

    After all, the undead that were here was arge horde that looked quite terrifying. This was a horde that would have caused quite a few injuries if we were to fight them.

    So even if they looked docile, the guards didn''t dare let their guard down for even a second. They were ready to react the moment that the undead did anything, but they didn''t do anything.

    I looked at Klein who was standing in front of me and just shook my head before taking out the Orb of the Dead.

    With the Orb of the Dead in my hand, I focused on the undead that were in front of me.

    With this Orb of the Dead, I could feel the connection that formed with the undead.

    At the same time, the undead looked up at me as if they were responding to the connection that was formed.

    Seeing all of the undead reacting, Klein and the other royal guards drew their swords. At the same time, the wyverns that were nearby acted like they were ready to spew mes at any moment.

    I put my hand on Klein''s shoulder and shook my head with a bitter smile on my lips.

    Klein knitted his brows to look at me and there was a look of concern in his eyes, but I just kept showing him a look to trust me.

    Eventually, he waved his hand for the others to rx.

    Though they looked at him with unwilling and worried looks, they still followed his orders.

    I didn''t care about this as my attention was on the undead.

    With a thought, a group of the undead separated from the rest of the horde and started moving forward towards us.

    When Klein and the other royal guards saw this, they looked like they wanted to charge forward at this group of undead. Only I stopped them with another squeeze of Klein''s shoulder that made him lower his weapon again.

    This group of undead hade forward because I had controlled them toe forward.

    There was something that I wanted to test with this group, which was why I had theme forward like this.

    This group of undead stepped forward until they were in front of us and then they suddenly stopped. With the way that they stood there, it was almost as if they were waiting for orders.

    Klein and the others looked tense seeing the undead just standing there in front of them, but at least they didn''t attack them like before. Though they still had their guard up as if they would be ready to act at any moment.

    Seeing the undead just standing there in front of us, Klein couldn''t help asking, "Your majesty, what are you doing?"

    "I''m testing something." That was all I said.

    I didn''t even look at Klein when I said this, I just looked at the group of undead in front of me while focusing on the Orb of the Dead.

    As I focused on the Orb of the Dead, there was this faint dark energy that came out of the Orb of the Dead.

    This faint dark energy was simr to the dark energy that the lich used when it was controlling the undead, but it was also different since it wasn''t as strong as the dark energy that the lich controlled.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    The dark energy that I released almost seemed to be see through with how light it was. That was just how weak I waspared to the lich.

    It really seemed strange that someone like me was able to take down the lich and take its power for myself.

    I had to admit that if it wasn''t for divine intervention, there was no way that would have happened in the first ce.

    With the dark energy that came from the Orb of the Dead, the undead started to move.

    They all raised one hand and then...suddenly brought it up to their heads as if they were saluting.

    They all stood at attention and saluted me.

    Klein and the others had shocked looks on their faces before slowly looking at these undead with strange looks. It was as if they couldn''t believe what the undead were doing, but there was no denying it when it was right there in front of their faces.

    So in the end, they had no choice but to ept this.

    After making the undead salute, I suddenly had them turn in the direction of each other before they started attacking each other.

    This surprised Klein and the others again, but they saw that the undead weren''t really attacking each other. With the way that they were acting, it seemed more like some kind of y than an actual attack on each other.

    I was testing each of the undead to see what kind of movements they had, as well as letting them attack on their own to see how automating the undead would work.

    It was all about seeing what were the limits in controlling the undead and how much they could do on their own.

    After a while, I stopped the undead from attacking each other as a glint appeared in my eyes and I said, "Alright, it''s time to get serious."

 Chapter 1085: Gathering dark energy

    Chapter 1085: Gathering dark energy

    ?

    "Step back." I turned and said to Klein and the others.

    Though I gave them an order, it didn''t seem like they were going to follow it as Klein and the other guards just stood there.

    But I knew that wasn''t because they were going against me.

    They were still standing there because I was still standing there. They were still standing there because they were protecting me from the undead in case anything happened.

    With a faint smile, I said, "I''m moving back too."

    At that, they revealed awkward looks before stepping away from the undead with me.

    Once we took several steps back, I turned back to the undead and started focusing on them. As I did, the dark energy that came from the Orb of the Dead seemed to be stronger until it was almost as dark as the energy that the lich released before.

    Seeing this, Klein and the others looked like they were worried again, but I raised my hand to them and said, "I''m fine, I''m just using a bit more power."

    They looked at me with skeptical looks, but it seemed like I was in control, so they didn''t say anything and waited to see what happened.

    This denser dark energy was released from the Orb of the Dead and it went to where the undead were standing. Since it was so dense, it was actually visible to the naked eye and the others were all able to see the dark energy flowing over towards the undead.

    That dark energy didn''t gather under all of the undead, it just gathered under a single one.

    The rest of the undead also moved away when this dark energy gathered under that one skeleton that was chosen. With the way that they were trembling, it was almost as if they were afraid of the dark energy that was there.

    However, that skeleton stood there as if this dark energy wasn''t doing anything to it.

    With the way that it stood there, it was almost as if it was excited to see this dark energy.

    After this dark energy gathered under the skeleton for a bit, it suddenly started entering the skeleton.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    As the dark energy entered the skeleton, it was as if the aura of the skeleton became stronger. At the same time, there seemed to be bones that were forming out of thin air.

    These bones gathered around the skeleton and seemed to form ayer of armour around it. With thisyer of armour, it looked like some kind of skeletal warrior.

    At the same time, the skeleton raised its hand and there was this sword that started to gather. This sword was made of bones just like the armour and it seemed to have traces of the dark energy flowing around it.

    When Klein and the others saw this skeleton gathering thisyer of armour and the sword, they couldn''t help knitting their brows.

    That was because this skeleton was slowly starting to look like...the Death Knight that they faced before.

    The only difference was that the pressure that came from this skeleton was much weaker than the pressure that they felt from the Death Knight. This skeleton was clearly much weaker than the Death Knight that they faced before.

    It was better to call this a Death Soldier rather than a Death Knight with the difference between them.

    When it was over, the skeleton stood there fully d in armour with sword in hand.

    It just stood there as if it was waiting for an order.

    It was looking at me as it stood there like this, which made it seem like it was waiting for an order from me.

    I gave a nod when I saw this, but I also had other problems.

    Namely...it took a lot of energy to advance this skeleton into a Death Knight.

    Right, this skeleton had be a Death Knight even though the aura that it possessed seemed to beckingpared to the Death Knight that the lichmanded.

    That was because even between Death Knights, there were tiers.

    The Death Knight that the lichmanded was an advanced tier Death Knight that had been nurtured by the lich for a long time with its own energy. That Death Knight had power that wasparable to the lich itself, so it definitely was not a low grade undead.

    This Death Knight that I raised with the knowledge from the lich was one that had been raised not that long ago, so it hadn''t developed its power properly. At the same time, this Death Knight was one that was raised with my dark energy.

    This dark energy wasn''t even close to being at the same level as the lich, so naturally this Death Knight was weaker.

    But weaker as it may be, it was still a fully fledged Death Knight.

    It wasn''t considered that weak either.

    Klein and the others came forward when they saw me fall forward slightly, but I raised my hand and said, "I''m fine, I''m just a bit tired from using the Orb of the Dead."

    They looked at me with concerned looks, but they didn''t force it when they saw that I was still able to stand. Instead, they turned their attention to the Death Knight as if they were on guard against it still.

    But there was something that I wanted to test.

    I looked at Klein and asked, "Do you want to fight it?"

    Klein was caught off guard by this sudden question, but looking at me for a few seconds, he slowly gave a nod.

    He actually had the idea of fighting this thing since he wanted to see how strong it was, but he had held back because he thought that this would be inappropriate.

    He definitely never thought that I would offer him this fight.

    I just gave a nod before saying, "Go on then. Be careful, it can follow orders, but they are simple orders. Don''t get caught off guard and stop if you think that it''s in danger."

    With that, I turned to the Death Knight and said, "Spar with him."

    The Death Knight seemed to react after hearing this before turning to look at Klein with red glowing eyes.

    Klein gave a gulp when he saw this, but there was an excited look that appeared on his face at the same time.

 Chapter 1086: Smashing together

    Chapter 1086: Smashing together

    ?

    "Huff, huff." When the spar was over, Klein found it hard to catch his breath.

    The difference in appearance between him and the Death Knight really was something else.

    The Death Knight didn''t seem to suffer any damage at all, but Klein was covered in cuts. Even bits of his armour had been cut off by the bone sword of the Death Knight and were scattered all over the ground.

    That was more than enough to show just how sharp the Death Knight''s sword was.

    "How is it?" I asked Klein while he was catching his breath.

    He looked at me and there was a trace of bitterness that appeared on his face before he said, "Honestly, I can''tpare to this thing. However, this Death Knight is still far from being able topare to the one that we faced before. That one was even strong enough to disregard the mes of the wyverns, so it was on apletely different level."

    I gave a slight nod in response since everything that he said was already something that I knew.

    It wasn''t hard to see that there was a difference between my Death Knight and the Death Knight of the lich.

    It was just that hearing someone put it in such blunt words was still hurtful.

    Still, it wasn''t as if I was that fragile either that I would fall from just a few words.

    I knew that the Death Knight that I summoned was still a young one and it would be able to develop as long as I kept nurturing it. Eventually, it would be able to reach the same level as the lich''s Death Knight as long as it wasn''t destroyed earlier.

    No, with the knowledge and power that I had, I might be able to bring it even higher.

    Of course, that depended on how I would be able to develop as well.

    For that, I still needed a few more things.

    I patted Klein on the shoulder and said, "Alright, rest up while I prepare the next thing."

    Klein knitted his brows when he heard this before shaking his head to say, "No, I''ll guard you."

    I shook my head with a faint smile, but I didn''t say anything to stop him.

    While he had been sparring with the Death Knight, I had been watching and resting on the side while recovering my power. Now that I had recovered, it was time to continue testing the undead.

    As I raised the Orb of the Dead, there was another group of undead that came forward.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Seeing this, Klein and the other royal guards didn''t tense up like they did before, but they also didn''t let their guards down. They were ready for a fight if it came to this, but they didn''t take the initiative to attack since they knew that things were under control.

    Watching the undead step forward, Klein and the others were a bit confused.

    After all, this was different from what I had done before.

    It was a group of zombies that walked forward this time.

    This group of zombies didn''t seem like they would be suited to be turned into Death Knights since they were considered the lowest of the low in terms of undead. Even the skeleton from before seemed to have more dark energy than these zombies.

    These zombies seemed like nothing more than walking piles of dead flesh.

    After seeing the zombiese forward, Klein looked over in my direction as if he was trying to ask me with his gaze what I was nning to do.

    However, I just ignored him as I focused on the zombies.

    Since I called them forward, I naturally had a use for them.

    I could have used the same dark energy to create a few more Death Knights since there were more skeletons that were capable of bing Death Knights, but Death Knights weren''t the only high tier undead that I could create.

    The knowledge that hade from the lich had provided the method of making more than one type of high tier undead.

    Even on the day that the undead horde attacked, there was another kind of undead that had attacked.

    It was the golems.

    These golems were considered powerful tanks that could be used to charge the enemy''s frontlines, so of course they couldn''t be missing from the undead army that I built.

    As for the production method of these golems, they relied on these zombies that I called forward.

    After the zombies stepped forward, they seemed to split up into different groups.

    There were around ten zombies in each group and there were over ten groups, for a total of around a hundred zombies.

    After they gathered in their groups, it seemed like they were standing there as if they were just waiting for orders.

    I looked at them for a bit before giving a nod and raising the Orb of the Dead in my hand.

    Once this Orb of the Dead was raised, the zombies started moving.

    All of a sudden, the zombies turned so that they were facing each other.

    Or it was better to say that they all turned so that they were facing a single point in the center of their group. It seemed like they were about to move towards each other, but it wasn''t that

    gentle.

    All of a sudden, the zombies charged into each other and started mming together.

    With the way that they hit each other, it was almost as if they wanted to destroy the other zombies that were in their groups.

    It didn''t seem like they were doing anything productive.

    Klein couldn''t help looking at me with a strange look as he said, "Your majesty, this is..."

    I just calmly said without looking at him, "Just wait and see."

    He had a skeptical look on his face, but he still followed my orders and turned back to look at

    the zombies.

    There was dark energy that suddenly appeared under all of the groups of zombies and then all of a sudden...it seemed like the zombies were starting to fuse together.

    It was as if they were bing a single mass.

 Chapter 1087: Upgraded skeleton

    Chapter 1087: Upgraded skeleton

    ?

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    The zombies continued to congeal together until they came together as one single mass of dead flesh.

    What the golems were was a mass of dead flesh that was bound together by the dark energy in the first ce. So that was why the method of creating the golem involved smushing all of these zombies together.

    Once the zombies were together, the dark energy that had been under them suddenly came up andpletely covered them.

    This dark energy seeped into the mass of dead flesh and almost seemed like it was nurturing it. With the dark energy seemingly strengthening the mass of dead flesh, it didn''t take long before the seams that were there slowly disappeared.

    It was as if the mass of dead flesh wasing together as one single thing.

    The dark energy that was used to create these masses of dead flesh wasn''t as strong as the dark energy that was used to create the Death Knight, but the golems were terrifying to look atpared to the Death Knight.

    That was just because of the difference between the Death Knight and the golem.

    One was a skeletal knight while the other was arge mass of dead flesh.

    It was only natural that the two of them would seem different.

    They werepletely different in terms of undead creatures.

    After they finished congealing together, the golems started to take proper form. They were just a mass of dead flesh before, but now they were taking the shape of a human, though the shape that they took was a bit strange.

    Fat.

    That was the only word that could be used to describe the golems.

    The golems looked like bloated figures with how round they looked.

    That was only because I wasn''t able topress them properly.

    The golems that I made lookedpletely different from the golems that the lich made and that was a problem of experience. I simply didn''t have as much experience as the lich did with controlling the dark energy.

    The golems were supposed to bepressed by the dark energy, but mine was just too weak and not skilled enough topress the golems enough.

    A golem that wasn''t aspressed didn''t have the same kind of defense and power that a golem that waspressed had.

    But when I tested it, I was still satisfied with the power that the golem had.

    A single punch was enough to shatter the trunk of a tree.

    It didn''t just knock the tree over, it shattered the part of the trunk that its fist hit, showing just how much power was contained in that single punch. It was more than enough to shatter a normal person''s head if this punch hit them.

    That was just how much power this golem had.

    This was more than enough for me for now, until I figured out how topress the golem

    even more.

    After making the golem, it still felt like I had a decent amount of dark energy left, so I turned to some of the skeletons that were standing there as well.

    With a thought, the skeletons came forward until they were standing in front of me.

    With the Orb of the Dead, I gathered the dark energy once more and injected it into the skeletons that were here.

    However, I wasn''t making another Death Knight.

    This time, I injected several skeletons with the dark energy at the same time and it was only a small amount of the dark energy. It wasn''t enough to turn them into Death Knights, but it was still enough to mutate them.

    I was using the dark energy to upgrade these skeletons.

    There were two different kinds of skeleton that appeared in the end.

    One of the types of skeleton was a magician kind that formed a hat and a staff.

    The other kind was an archer kind that formed bow and arrows.

    All of these things that they obtained were formed from bones that seemed to be made from the dark energy.

    After they formed their weapons, the aura that was around the skeletons seemed to change.

    It was as if the concentration of dark energy around them became denser and they were much more powerful than before.

    The first ones that I paid attention to were the ones that had the staff and wizard''s hat. Since they had this, there was no doubt that they would be skeleton magicians. Magicians were rare to have in armies, so a skeletal magician would certainly be a wee addition to any army. Especially since they would be easier to usepared to other types of magicians.

    They would be much easier to control since they were undead that followed orders.

    But it turned out that these skeletal magicians weren''t that strong in the first ce. Whether that was because they had been newly formed or if it was because they were formed by my weak mana, they were only able to cast simple fireball spells.

    The damage that was caused by the fireball spells weren''t even as strong as a single punch from the golem.

    That was all because they didn''t have enough dark energy when they had been formed. To my surprise, the archer skeletons were actually stronger than the skeletal magicians. Magic was something that required experience to use properly and these magician skeletons had just be magicians, so they weren''t able to wield their magic properly.

    As for the skeleton archers, they found that they were in control of their abilities much more since it was a matter of just controlling their bows to shoot arrows with.

    But it wasn''t just them shooting their arrows.

    When they shot their arrows, they would gather the dark energy within them in the head of the arrows and shoot it out along with the arrows.

    The buff from the dark energy gave their arrows enough prative force to create a hole in the trees they shot.

    It was a hole that seemed to have formed from nowhere.

    That was just how much prative force there was behind these arrows.

 Chapter 1088: Undead Legion

    Chapter 1088: Undead Legion

    ?

    A few dayster, the prime minister and the chancellor came with me to see the undead that I had been working on these past few days.

    They looked like they were expecting something, but I really didn''t know what to say.

    After all, I didn''t feel that the undead army was ready yet.

    Compared to the undead army of the lich, it really wascking...

    When we arrived at the clearing where the undead were, the prime minister and chancellor immediately revealed shocked looks which surprised me. I didn''t think that they would be that surprised by the undead that were here since there was nothing special about them.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    But it looked like they werepletely taken aback by the undead that were here. It was as if they had been blown out of their minds.

    The exaggerated way that they reacted made me feel a bit embarrassed, so I said, "It''s nothing special, I just gathered what I could to create this group..."

    "Nothing special?" The two of them repeated as they looked at me with a strange look.

    I didn''t know why they were looking at me like this, but it made me feel strange as well seeing them like this. The way that they looked at me was almost as if they were looking at some kind of strange creature.

    I didn''t think that what I said was that strange.

    After all, in my eyes, this was nothing more than a normal group of undead.

    Seeing that my expression didn''t change, the two of them looked at each other before giving exasperated sighs. The way that they did all this was as if they were just done with me, which just confused me even more.

    I didn''t think that anything that I did would elicit this kind of response from them.

    It was just that it really seemed like they couldn''t stand me anymore.

    After looking at them like this for a bit, I asked, "What''s wrong?"

    "What''s wrong?" The prime minister slowly repeated before asking, "Do you know what you''ve done?"

    I shook my head in a confused manner as I really didn''t know what they were talking about.

    The two of them shook their heads again before turning to look at the undead that were there. As they looked at the undead that were in the clearing, there was another strange look that appeared on their faces.

    "You summoned all these high grade undead and you say you don''t know what you''ve done..." The prime minister said with a sigh.

    The chancellor nodded in agreement before saying with a sigh as well, "There really is no way of describing him..."

    I was surprised to hear this.

    After all, in my mind, these undead that I created weren''t considered high grade undead. These undead were just basic enhanced undead that were created with the power of the Orb of the Dead.

    But thinking about it, I realized that it was a difference in perspective, which was why there was this difference in definition.

    For the prime minister and the chancellor, the undead that I had created were considered high grade undead because that was just the level that they were at.

    The Kite Kingdom that I took over was only considered the beginner area in the game, which was why for the prime minister and the chancellor, the undead that I had summoned were above their level. For them, they really regarded these undead as high grade undead.

    But for me who had seen the end of the game, I knew what level these undead were really at whenpared to truly high grade undead.

    They were nothing more than cannon fodder when facing those truly powerful undead monsters.

    So I just couldn''t see these things as powerful undead.

    I understood how the prime minister and chancellor felt, but I really couldn''t go along with it since these undead weren''t anything in my eyes. So the only thing that I could do was...

    "There will be even stronger ones in the future, so they aren''t considered that powerful in the first ce."

    The prime minister and chancellor both looked at me in silence without any expressions on their faces. The way that they looked at me made me feel really strange and I couldn''t say anything in response.

    But in the end, the two of them shook their heads again and shared a look before the prime minister said, "Do you hear him? Only he can say something like this."

    The chancellor said with a nod, "Right, only he can call this army that can even destroy a mid tier kingdom a group of weak undead. If it was the past Midra Kingdom or the Kite Kingdom, neither of our kingdoms would have been able to resist the power of the lich in the first ce."

    The prime minister nodded in agreement before saying, "Right, if it wasn''t for the power of the wyverns, that lich and the undead would have turned this ce into and of the dead."

    I revealed an awkward smile after hearing this, but the prime minister suddenly said, "We''re not praising you."

    The chancellor nodded in agreement.

    I just looked at them with a calm look on my face, refusing to be shaken by his words.

    The two of them just looked at me in silence for a bit before both of them suddenly broke out inughter.

    Afterughing for a bit, the prime minister said, "Alright, let''s not talk about this right now. Let''s talk about the other important thing."

    The chancellor quickly nodded in agreement, but I had a confused look on my face as I had no idea what he was referring to.

    But it turned out that they were just as crazy as me.

    "Can you create more undead if you were provided with the corpses? Can you also make them

    stronger?"

    The two of them looked at me expectantly as they asked this.

    I was caught off guard by this beforeing back to my senses to ask, "Why are you asking

    this?"

    "Of course it''s to create an Undead Legion." The prime minister said this as if it was a natural

    thing and it seemed like the chancellor agreed with him.

    I could only look at the two of them like they were crazy.

 Chapter 1089: Reviving corpses

    Chapter 1089: Reviving corpses

    ?

    I thought that the two of them were crazy, but it turned out that I hadpletely underestimated them.

    By that, I meant that I hadpletely underestimated how crazy the two of them really were.

    That was because it turned out that they had ideas that would have been considered insane by normal people.

    Even though they had never consulted me about this matter, it turned out that the two of them had already prepared corpses all on their own. At the same time, it seemed that they had already gathered the corpses and had prepared them for me to revive.

    After all, the corpses had been delivered not far from where the undead army gathered.

    It was actually amazing that I had never noticed this ce while traveling to where the undead army was each day. But of course, the prime minister and chancellor said that it was all because they had kept this secret.

    They didn''t want any of the other countries to find out what they were nning to do since it wouldn''t be good for them if the other countries knew about this. So they had made sure that all information about this was kept hidden.

    They had even gone so far as keeping it hidden from me.

    I really didn''t know what to do about the two of them, but I knew what kind of extremes the two of them would go to. I had already witnessed it firsthand when it came to how the two of them acted for their countries.

    Of the two of them, one was willing to sacrifice himself as the greatest viin by starting a coup.

    The other was willing tobel himself as the greatest traitor by taking down the rulers of the country, which included the royal family that he was a part of.

    It was clear just how far the two of them would be willing to go as long as they believed that what they were doing was right. As long as they were doing it to protect their country and their people, it seemed that they would be willing to throw away everything.

    So in a sense, I shouldn''t be surprised by the two of them doing something like this.

    When I looked closely, I found that there was still a line that the two of them weren''t willing to cross.

    After all, even if they were willing to turn corpses into undead, that didn''t mean that the corpses had to be human.

    Rather, what they had gathered were the corpses of beasts.

    There were all kinds of beasts and monsters that were gathered here, these should be the corpses that came from clearing out the monsters in three countries that we had recently conquered.

    These were the monsters that had arisen because of the monster wave, but now it seemed like they were nning on using these monsters for something else.

    Instead of having them hurt the people of this country, they were having them protect the people of this country.

    As the king, this wasn''t something that I was against.

    It was just that I had no idea what would happen if I tried it with a monster.

    Most of the experience that the lich had was with raising humans as undead. That was why the lich''s army waspletelyposed of human shaped undead.

    There weren''t any monsters turned into undead that were a part of the lich''s army.

    It wasn''t because the lich wasn''t capable of doing this, it was because the lich knew that it would be dangerous to do so.

    Unlike humans, the monsters had strange powers and strange forms of energy in them. It was unknown what the reaction between these strange forms of energy and the dark energy that the lich used would be, which was why it had been cautious of this.

    That was why the lich didn''t try to turn any monsters into undead.

    But now...the prime minister and the chancellor wanted to do this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So of course, I had to say something first, even if I was willing to try it.

    As expected, the two of them agreed with my idea of trying it first.

    The two of them were extremists that would be willing to do some crazy things just to protect the country and the people that they loved, so it was only natural that they would agree to something as crazy as this.

    Though before doing this, they made their preparations.

    Instead of raising that first undead in the ce where the corpses were gathered, one corpse was brought to a location that was away from the rest of the corpses and Klein and his group were gathered.

    With their wyverns, they formed a perimeter around the corpse that was to be raised.

    With the formation that they took, it seemed that they were prepared topletely turn this ce into a sea of fire the moment that things seemed like they were going wrong.

    They really didn''t leave a single gap here.

    That was how seriously they were taking it.

    It was only after all of this was set up that the prime minister looked at me with a serious look and said, "Go ahead."

    I shook my head with a bitter smile since I thought that he was going overboard with this, but

    I just kept this in my heart and didn''t say any of this as I turned my attention to the corpse in

    front of me.

    This was the corpse of a goblin.

    It was just a simple goblin, not any of the higher tier goblins since they didn''t want

    something that would be too hard to handle if things went wrong.

    I just calmly raised the Orb of the Dead and released the dark energy from it. The moment that the dark energy was released, there was a shadow of dark energy that appeared under the goblin corpse. This shadow of dark energy came out of the ground and entered the goblin corpse, seemingly changing it as it entered the goblin corpse.

    But after a while, I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

 Chapter 1090: Strange connection

    Chapter 1090: Strange connection

    ?

    The prime minister didn''t miss the look on my face and immediately came forward to grab my arm before saying, "What''s wrong?"

    With the way that he grabbed my arm, it was as if he was ready to rip the Orb of the Dead out of my hand at any moment.

    I couldn''t help feeling a bit touched since he and I both knew what would be the danger of this.

    I made the Orb of the Dead recognize me as a master, so I was able to control the powers of the Orb of the Dead. However, the prime minister hadn''t done the same and didn''t have protection against mana like I did, so he would be hurt by the Orb of the Dead if he were to touch it with his bare hands.

    In fact, this was something that we had already confirmed since all of us had been curious about if anyone else could use the Orb of the Dead.

    But of course, it resulted in mild corrosion of the hand that had to be purified by a priest. So it was not something that could be done that easily.

    I shook my head at him before saying, "I''m fine, it''s just that I''ve noticed something strange while trying to raise this goblin as a zombie."

    "Strange?" The prime minister repeated in a confused voice.

    I slowly nodded before turning back to look at the goblin corpse without exining anything.

    The prime minister knew that I was still trying to figure something out, so he let go of my arm and watched as I used the Orb of the Dead to inject dark energy into the goblin corpse. But the way that both him and the chancellor stood there beside me was as if they were ready to step in just in case anything happened.

    I just ignored the two of them as Ipletely focused on the goblin corpse.

    That was because during the process of trying to turn the goblin corpse into a zombie, I had encountered something strange.

    It was the residual energy that was inside of the goblin.

    Even though the goblin was dead, there was still this form of energy that resided inside of the goblin corpse.

    This wasn''t a form of energy that came from the goblin when it was still alive, rather this was a form of energy that came from outside of the goblin.

    As for why I was certain of this...

    I knew the moment that I felt the energy, I knew that there was something familiar about it.

    It didn''t take long for me to realize that it was the dark energy that came from the orbs that the dark elves nted in different parts of the country. This was the energy that had been used to corrupt the monsters, turning them aggressive and causing them to form a monster wave like that.

    This was the n of the demons.

    It seemed that even though the monsters died, this energy resided inside of them. Though I could tell that there was nothing dangerous about this energy, it was just that it lingered in them. It was as if it was draining something away from the corpse...

    It was hard to tell what it was, but that wasn''t the only thing that surprised me. Even though both the energy that was used to incite the monsters and the dark energy that came from the Orb of the Dead were ck in colour, there was something different about them.

    One of them seemed to be some kind of demonic power while the other seemed to be rted to the power of death.

    So there was something different about these two different forms of power.

    "But why is there a simrity between them?" I couldn''t help thinking to myself as Ipared the two forms of energy.

    It was a very faint feeling, but it really felt like there was something that seemed to be connecting the two forms of energy together. It really seemed like there was something that was simr about the two of them.

    It took me a while to realize it, but I eventually figured it out.

    "The source!" I suddenly shouted out loud.

    The prime minister and the chancellor looked at me with very strange looks when they heard this before the prime minister asked, "Source? What do you mean by source?"

    I realized that I had identally said this out loud, which caused an awkward look to appear on my face. But since I had said it out loud, it wasn''t as if I could just ignore it now.

    So I said, "The energy of the Orb of the Dead and the energy that came from the orbs that were used to incite the monsters came from the same source, even if they had different functions. It seemed like they came from the same ce."

    "That''s not surprising since all of these were plots of the demons." The prime minister said as if this was natural.

    I slowly gave a nod, but I also shook my head afterwards before saying, "It''s like that, but it''s also different. It seems like there''s something divine about this power."

    "Divine?" The prime minister and chancellor repeated in confused voices.

    I nodded, but I didn''t exin since this was a bit too hard to exin.

    I really didn''t know what to say about this since it wasn''t easy to say.

    So in the end, I just said with a sigh, "Forget it, it''s too hard to exin. All you need to know is that it isn''t a problem to revive this goblin as a zombie."

    The prime minister and chancellor looked like they wanted to ask me more, but they didn''t say anything in the end since they knew that I wouldn''t say anything else. This was something

    that they were used to since I had kept many secrets before.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    "Just what is the source of this power?" I asked myself in a soft voice.

 Chapter 1091: New form of energy

    Chapter 1091: New form of energy

    ?

    Even though there was doubt that filled me, there was nothing that I could do about it in the end since it wasn''t as if I could find any answers like this.

    So instead of agonizing over this matter, I turned my attention back to the goblin corpse.

    Even with this dark energy inside of the goblin corpse, it was easy for me to drive that out with the power of the Mark of God.

    With the Orb of the Dead in one hand, I pointed my other hand at the goblin corpse and there was this faint glow that appeared around my hand. At the same time, the Mark of God appeared on the hand that had the faint glow around it.

    It was just that before I could use this faint glow to get rid of the dark energy inside of the goblin corpse that I suddenly stopped myself. That was because I had suddenly realized something and no longer wanted to use the Mark of God to take care of this dark energy.

    Instead, I put my hand with the Mark of God down and raised the hand with the Orb of the Dead instead.

    Since I could tell that they were from the same source, there was a part of me that wondered if it was possible tobine the two forms of dark energy.

    Even if that wasn''t possible, I wondered if it was possible to use the dark energy of the Orb of the Dead to absorb the dark energy that was inside of the goblin corpse.

    It would be a bit dangerous, but if it was possible...

    It might even make this Orb of the Dead stronger.

    While I didn''t know how far I could get with this Orb of the Dead, I knew that it was a very useful item.

    So while it wasn''t as if it would be a bad thing to make it a bit stronger.

    At first, it didn''t seem like there was a reaction from my experiments.

    I was controlling the dark energy from the Orb of the Dead to wrap around the dark energy inside of the goblin corpse. The way that the dark energy from the Orb of the Dead wrapped around the other form of dark energy was as if it wanted to swallow it.

    It was just that nothing was happening even though the dark energy from the Orb of the Dead surrounded it.

    It was as if the two of them were like water and oil, they just wouldn''t mix no matter what happened.

    Seeing this, I couldn''t help feeling a bit disappointed, but I knew that this was just a normal thing.

    Even if they were from the same source and seemed familiar, it wasn''t as if they were the same kind of energy. So it was a bit of a long shot trying to see if it was possible for them to absorb each other.

    I was about to give up when all of a sudden, the Mark of God appeared on my hand again. There was this strange feeling that came over me as a spark of energy also flowed through me. This was different from the other times that the Mark of God appeared, this time, the energy was inside of me instead of being outside.

    This time, it seemed as if it was flowing through me.

    It reached the dark energy inside of the goblin corpse and then entered that mass of dark energy without hesitation.

    The moment that this energy from the Mark of God entered that mass of dark energy, there was a change that happened. As soon as that energy entered the mass of dark energy, it seemed like there was some kind of catalyst added where both forms of dark energy started to meld with each other.

    They were actuallybining together to form some kind of new energy.

    It was just that the most shocking thing was that this new form of dark energy was not one that I was able to control. It was as if there was some kind of strange new energy that was being formed that pulled the dark energy of the Orb of the Dead away from me.

    This new energy was pulled away from my senses and I wasn''t able to connect with it anymore like with the dark energy of the Orb of the Dead.

    But even then I was able to tell where this new energy was going.

    The goblin corpse, that was where the new energy was going.

    It seemed to fill this goblin corpse and in no time at all, it seemed to spread all over the goblin corpse. It even reached the point where this new form of dark energy wasing out of the goblin corpse.

    At the same time, it seemed that there was this faint sense of dangering from the goblin -corpse.

    This sense of danger was enough to make even the wyverns be wary, which was a show of just how much potential danger there was here.

    The prime minister also recognized this, so he looked at me and asked, "What''s going on?"

    For once, I didn''t have an answer for him since this was something that was out of my scope of knowledge. I really didn''t know what was happening with this goblin corpse right now, but it seemed like the goblin corpse was absorbing that dark energy.

    After absorbing it for a bit, the hand of the goblin corpse suddenly started to move.

    It seemed like the dark energy had actually reanimated the goblin corpse and had turned it into an undead.

    It was just that the process seemed different from the process that happened before this. The way that the goblin corpse seemed to change, it was as if there was some kind of mutation that was happening.

    I deeply knitted my brows seeing this, but even though the prime minister looked at me like he wanted to do something, I shook my head as I said, "Not yet, let''s wait and see."

    As soon as my voice dropped, there was this burst of energy that came from the goblin corpse.N?v(el)B\\jnn

 Chapter 1092: Descent of the demon god

    Chapter 1092: Descent of the demon god

    ?

    This was a burst of dark energy that was simr to the kind that had been in its body and the kind that came from the Orb of the Dead.

    However, at the same time, it seemed like it was also a different kind of dark energy.

    It seemed stronger than both of the forms of dark energy that had been there before.

    At the same time, the goblin suddenly stood up as if there was something that was raising it up.

    The prime minister looked at me as if he really wanted to give the order, but I shook my head again as I said, "Wait and see what happens.''

    He slightly knitted his brows, but he didn''t say anything as he waited with me.

    After the goblin stood up, it didn''t seem like anything was going to happen until the dark energy seemed to morph the goblin''s body. It was as if the dark energy was making it evolve with the way that it morphed the goblin''s body.

    This really seemed dangerous no matter how one looked at it, but I still didn''t let them give the order to attack.

    Since I was the one that had caused this, I wanted to be the one that saw this through.

    Or it was better to say that I wanted to see what the results of this would be since it would give me an idea of how to use this power in the future. It would give me an idea of how I would be able to use the rest of these monster corpses.

    After that dark energy morphed the body of the goblin for a while, its new appearance was revealed.

    The goblin looked much differentpared to before.

    The goblin was now around five feet tall as opposed to the three feet height that it had before. At the same time, it seemed to have gained quite a bit of musclepared to before.

    It seemed like it had grown from a child to an adult.

    But seeing this, I could recognize what this goblin was.

    It had turned from a goblin into a hobgoblin...n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    This was strange since this kind of evolution would only happen when a goblin was alive, not after it was dead and being turned into a corpse. Somehow, the energy had been strong enough to mutate the goblin into a hobgoblin.

    It really was amazing what kind of power this dark energy had.

    After the goblin finished mutating, it just stood there as if it was in a daze.

    Though the way that it looked down at itself was as if it was still getting used to its new body. It was as if it was exploring to see what kind of things it could do with its body.

    After looking at it for a bit, the hobgoblin looked up and looked around it as if it was seeing if there was anything worth noting around it.

    That was until its eyes fell onto me.

    When it did, it seemed to stop looking around and seemed like it was focused on me.

    Seeing this, the prime minister and the chancellor both tensed up as if they were prepared to fight this hobgoblin. But I raised my hand once more to make them calm down since I could tell that there was this connection with the hobgoblin.

    As if it didn''t even notice the wyverns that were around it, the hobgoblin started moving towards me.

    The way that it walked was the same way that a zombie would walk and there were parts of it that fell when it started moving, showing that it was just a moving corpse. Even if it had evolved into a hobgoblin, this thing was still a zombie that was nothing more than a decaying corpse.

    But then the hobgoblin suddenly caught everyone off guard by disappearing.

    When it reappeared, it was already in front of me.

    It was different from all of the other slow zombies, it seemed that this hobgoblin zombie was able to move quite quickly with the way that it suddenly appeared in front of us like this.

    The two who were by my side wanted to step forward to shield me, but they didn''t get a chance to do so.

    Instead, it was the hobgoblin that moved first by kneeling down.

    The hobgoblin fell to one knee in front of me and bowed its head as if it was recognizing that I was its master. It seemed that this hobgoblin was fully acknowledging that I was the one in control.

    I felt the same since I could feel a connection with this hobgoblin through the Orb of the Dead.

    The prime minister and chancellor both looked at me, but there was nothing that I could say since I had no idea what was happening either.

    ...

    "Your majesty, what''s wrong?"

    "The connection that I had with one of the connecting orbs has just disappeared...I can''t sense the power that the lord gave to us."

    There was a serious look on the face of the one that spoke.

    As soon as his voice fell, the others that were in the room with him all had serious looks as well since they knew exactly what he was talking about.

    If what he said was true, then...

    This would be a very big deal since this was a matter that was rted to the descent of the demon god.

    The reason that they had been doing all of this was to allow the demon god to revive and return to this world, so that the demon god could take over this world.

    As for why they wanted to revive the demon god, it was naturally because they were the race that worshipped the demon god.

    The one that was called ''your majesty'' was the current demon king, the ruler of then demon

    race.

    All of the others that were present were also demons.

    The demon king deeply knitted his brows before saying, "Find out what happened."

    The demon ministers all nodded in agreement before heading off.

    They knew that they couldn''t waste any time at all, they had to find the source of this disturbance as soon as possible.

 Chapter 1093: Appeal for help

    Chapter 1093: Appeal for help

    ?

    As for the rest of the corpses...

    Only the goblin corpses were turned into zombies in the end.

    It was too unpredictable what would have happened if the other corpses were turned into zombies, so the prime minister and chancellor didn''t want to take this risk.

    But they were still crazy enough to want to turn the goblin corpses into hobgoblin zombies...

    That was theint that I made in my heart, but I didn''t say it out loud.

    Of course, there were just too many corpses for me to revive all of them on the spot. Even if I wanted to, it would be impossible since I would run out of mana before that happened.

    This was just how many goblin corpses that they had gathered.

    Naturally this wasn''t strange since they were the ones that ran this country. They could mobilize the forces of the equivalent of five small kingdoms. It was easy for them to gather monster corpses like this, especially with the way that monsters were being killed all over the territories of the five countries.

    After all of these goblin corpses were turned into hobgoblins, they were brought into the Undead Legion.

    It turned out that each of these hobgoblin zombies were actually as strong as the Death Knight that I created, which showed just how powerful the new form of energy created was.

    It took a few days for me to finish creating these hobgoblin zombies, but it didn''t seem like they were about to call me back to the capital yet. With the way that no one seemed toe looking for me during this time and how Klein and his men seemed to want to keep me here... It was almost as if they were trying to keep me here so that I wouldn''t get into any trouble. But that didn''tst as someone called me back to the capital in the end.

    It seemed that they still needed me for something, which was why they called me back to the capital in the end.

    When I arrived in the study, the prime minister threw down a letter on the table and said, "It''s an appeal for help."

    I raised a brow as I didn''t understand what was happening, but I went forward to take the letter from the table and see what was written on it. The moment that I read it, I understood why the prime minister was acting this way.

    This letter requesting help was from a country that we had a connection to.

    Even though we weren''t able to connect to theirnds yet, there was still a connection between us.

    That was because this ce was where I had gotten a certain item before that had helped me quite a bit.

    It was the ce where I had gotten the ring of the previous demon king.

    This Nergiante Dukedom was also the ce that had already sworn that they would follow us.

    So now that they had asked us for help, we were obligated to a certain extent to send help to them.

    Though there was a small problem there.

    It was that we weren''t connected to them, which meant that there was still a kingdom that was between us and the Nergiante Dukedom, even though we had already taken over the four kingdoms around us.

    In a time like this where there were monster waves and undead attacking the human race, it wasn''t a time where the human kingdoms would wee a force from another country entering their borders.

    So if we were to try and help the Nergiante Dukedom, there might be the chance of us starting another war.

    That was why this situation was a problem and why the prime minister had called me back to the capital like this.

    I was the one that had caused this problem by epting the subservience of the Nergiante Dukedom, so he must want me to solve this.

    "Is there no way of negotiating with the Antwerp Kingdom in between us and the Nergiante Dukedom?" I looked at the prime minister as I slowly asked this.

    He slowly knitted his brows and shook his head.

    He didn''t even say anything, but the look on his face made it clear what he was trying to convey.

    "If that worked, would we still need you toe?"

    In a way, this could be considered insubordination with how he treated me, but I didn''t mind it at all.

    There was a silence that filled the room before I looked at him and slowly asked, "Is there a way that I can..."

    "No." The prime minister and chancellor said at the same time.

    Neither of them seemed to be cutting me any ck as they cut me off at the same time like this.

    It was as if they weren''t even going to entertain the idea that I was about to propose.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    But I knew that it would have been close to impossible for them to agree to it, unless it was a very desperate situation. After all, going by myself to the Nergiante Kingdom was just absolutely crazy and asking for trouble.

    It was only natural that they wouldn''t agree to this.

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything, the prime minister instead asked, "What if we just give up on them? We can send a few supplies, but there''s no real way that we''ll be able to support

    them."

    This time, it was my turn to shake my head as I rejected this suggestion, "I''ve already epted them, so they can already be considered our allies. At the same time, they are rare allies in this world where our enemies were even from the empires, so we''ll need all the allies

    that we can get."

    The prime minister and chancellor knitted their brows when they heard this, but they didn''t refute me in the end since they knew that I was right.

    I knitted my brows to think for a bit, but then they suddenly rxed as my eyes lit up.

    "Right, why didn''t I think of this before? It isn''t as if we have to conquer the country ourselves!" I said in an excited voice.

 Chapter 1094: Conquer for them

    Chapter 1094: Conquer for them

    ?

    The prime minister and chancellor both looked at me with confused looks when they heard this.

    The way that they looked at me was as if they were waiting for me to exin what I meant by this, but I didn''t say anything as I continued working things out in my mind.

    Even if I had the idea, I had to think it through first before proposing it or else it would certainly be rejected by the two of them.

    Only after I had finished organizing my thoughts did I turn to them to say, "What if we conquer the Antwerp Kingdom and give it to the Nergiante Dukedom? We''ll make them a proper kingdom so they can be a proper ally of ours."

    Both the prime minister and chancellor revealed surprised looks after hearing this before knitting their brows again.

    Neither of them denied this suggestion and looked like they were considering it, but eventually they shook their heads with sighs as if they couldn''t think of a way to approve of this.

    "It''s impossible to guarantee that they won''t betray us if we do help them like this. At the same time, there''s the problem of them not even being able to defend their territory if we were to do this." The prime minister said with a serious look on his face.

    With a nod, the chancellor continued by saying, "Right, they can''t even defend their own territory against the monster waves, what would happen if their territory suddenly increased like that? It would just be speeding up the copse of the Nergiante Dukedom."

    Both the prime minister and chancellor seemed convinced that this would be a bad idea and they both rejected it, but I wasn''t discouraged yet. I had been silently listening to theints that they made, but the look on my face didn''t seem like I had given up.

    That was because...what they said was what I had already expected.

    Since they could think of this right away, I naturally hadn''t missed this while I was formting my n.

    I had already expected them to make theseints.

    "That''s only if we don''t interfere, but isn''t there a way for us to give them troops to protect their newly founded kingdom?" I said with a mysterious smile on my face.

    Both the prime minister and chancellor looked at me with confused looks once more, as if they were trying to figure out what I meant by this.

    A look of understanding slowly appeared on the prime minister''s face as he started figuring out what I meant by this.

    For a moment, he looked at me as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. Then after realizing that I was serious about this, he knitted his brows to look at me as if I was crazy.

    "Are you serious? That is much too dangerous, it''s almost as if you''re publishing this power. Once the Holy Empire finds out about this, you and I both know what will happen. At the same time, can you guarantee that they still won''t betray us if you give them control of it? Also, can you even give them control of those things?" The prime minister just seemed to bombard me with questions aftering to his realization.

    I just calmly waited for him to finish before saying, "I can guarantee that they will be able to control them and that even if they control them, they will still follow my orders above theirs. As for the Holy Empire, you already know that this is impossible to hide in the first ce, so we can only try to make our allies as strong as possible before ites to that. Not to mention, this Mark of God of mine should have some use when the timees."

    The chancellor had been confused at first since he wasn''t following the conversation, but he eventually picked up on what we were talking about. When he did, there was a serious look that appeared on his face just like the one that the prime minister had.

    Even with the two of them grouping up on me like this, I didn''t back down as I looked right back at them with a calm look on my face.

    Eventually, the prime minister said, "Even if you''re confident about this, why would you need to do something like this? We have plenty ofnd to develop and all kinds of different avenues to expand our power. Is there really a need to care about a smaller country like this?"

    The chancellor looked at me as if he agreed with what the prime minister said.

    It seemed that both of them just wanted to slowly develop our power and then deal with the empires when they came.

    They didn''t understand why I did something like drawing attention to ourselves like this. But that was only because they didn''t know what woulde in the future of the game. Now that I was in charge of this country, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before the truly dangerous stuff came. What had happened so far was nothing more than the early game content, once thete game content came...

    Well it was hard to say if we would even survive.

    After all, thete game content was content that involved the great war with the demon king and the different empires from the different races.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It would be a very dangerous war, one that would envelop the entire continent.

    So I knew that I had to gain as much power as I could during this time.

    Perhaps I wouldn''t need to if I wasn''t locked into the developing my own kingdom route, but there was no helping it since I was locked into this route.

    In that case, I would develop this kingdom as much as I could.

    As for my answer...

    I looked at the two of them and calmly said, "I can feel that something big will be happening, so we should gather as many allies as possible before thates. I hope that you will trust me on this."

 Chapter 1095: Flying spear

    Chapter 1095: Flying spear

    ?

    "Has anything happened recently?"

    "Not that I''m aware of, it doesn''t seem like the monsters are even bothering toe out anymore."

    "Don''t let your guard down."

    Thest one to speak was the captain of the guards that had juste on duty.

    This was a group of guards of the Antwerp Kingdom who were currently surrounding an entire forest.

    This forest was one of the ces where the monsters had been stirring in their kingdom, so they were here to keep the monsters contained while they were waiting for reinforcements from the empires to arrive.

    Their Antwerp Kingdom had already contacted the Holy Empire for help and had received notice that the Holy Empire would be sending troops soon, so all they had to do now was keep the monsters contained until the reinforcements came.

    It was just that all of the soldiers knew that it wasn''t that simple.

    Over the past period of time, more than half of them had been injured because of the monsters that came out of the forest. It really seemed like at this rate, it would only be a matter of time before they were overwhelmed by the goblins in this forest.

    That was why the captain of the guard was angry with these guards for gossiping, even though he knew that they were just trying to keep their moods light in this situation.

    He knew that they were just trying to stop themselves from losing all hope.

    The soldiers didn''t say anything in response to what the captain said since they knew that everyone was tense here.

    But before any of them could say anything else, there was a sound that came from in front of them.

    Everyone''s brows immediately knitted when they heard this since they knew what this meant.

    Right after this sound, there was a voice that rang out.

    "It''s an attack!"

    At this, everyone raised their weapons and prepared for a fight as they watched the trees in the distance.

    It didn''t take long for small and green figures toe out of the trees.

    These small and green figures were goblins, but they were already used to seeing goblins running out like this since it had been happening almost every day for the past while.

    The soldiers moved with precision and experience as they took a line to stop the goblins from getting past them.

    Behind that line of shield soldiers was another line of archers that shot arrows without stopping at the goblins. It was just that the goblins were able to ignore most of the arrows since they just weren''t sharp enough to pierce their skin.

    There were only a few arrows that they had to be careful of, the arrows that came from special archers that were strong enough to hurt them.

    These arrows were able to take down a few goblins, but it wasn''t nearly enough to stop the wave of goblins that were charging at the soldiers.

    So the soldiers had no choice but to engage them.

    Or it was better to say that they had no choice but to block them.

    They didn''t really fight the goblins, they just formed the line of shields to stop the goblins from getting any further away from the forest. At the same time, there were spears that came from the gaps in the shield wall that stabbed the goblins.

    Though they had sturdy shields, not everyone was able to stop the goblins and it didn''t take long for a few holes to appear in the line of shields. It didn''t take long before there were deaths that came from the side of the soldiers.

    Even if they didn''t die, they were still injured by the goblins that were stronger than them.

    It really seemed like the soldiers would be overwhelmed by the goblins at this rate, but then there was a loud sound that came from behind the soldiers. None of the soldiers had to turn around to see what it was since they all already knew.

    This was the n that they had to deal with these goblins in the first ce.

    There was a group of cavalry that suddenly charged out from behind the shield wall that swept through the goblins.

    This group of cavalry was the elite cavalry of the Antwerp Kingdom, each one of them was an elite knight that had undergone severe training. Which was why they were able to sweep right through the goblins.

    The shield soldiers were the distractions while the cavalry knights were the main forces.

    It was just that doing this meant having to sacrifice shield soldiers to stop the goblins.

    It would only be a matter of time before they ran out of shield soldiers to block the goblins. But seeing the cavalry knights charge through the goblins like this raised the morale of the soldiers and the shield soldiers even pushed back against the goblins.

    After a single charge, the cavalry knights turned around as if they wanted to head back behind the shield soldiers. They had run out of momentum from their first charge, so they wanted to use the space that they created to head back to the safe area behind the shield soldiers.

    It was just that they never got a chance.

    "Woosh!"

    There was a loud sound that cut through the air before...

    "Crunch!"

    One of the knights suddenly fell from the back of his horse and mmed into the ground. When hended on the ground, everyone saw what had picked him off the horse and pinned

    him to the ground.

    It was a spear.

    As for the sound, it was the sound of his metal armour being crushed by the force that the spear had been thrown at. It actuallypressed it to the point where the front and back of the metal armour actually touched each other.

    The knights only remained in a daze for a second before turning to look at where this spear hade from.

    Standing there at the edge of the forest was a single hobgoblin.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

 Chapter 1096: What are those monsters?

    Chapter 1096: What are those monsters?

    ?

    The moment that the knights saw the hobgoblin, all of them felt a chill run down their spines. That was because all of them could feel the sense of danger that wasing from the hobgoblin.

    The moment that they saw this hobgoblin, they knew just how dangerous this hobgoblin was.

    So there wasn''t a single knight that dared to remain idle as they immediately turned their horses around. They were all nning on running back behind the shield soldiers to use them as cover against the spears of the hobgoblin.

    It was just that before they could run, there were four more spears that suddenly came flying at them. These spears cut right through the air and caught four more knights that were on their horses.

    They were picked off the back of their horses and mmed down into the ground.

    There was no resistance at all as they were picked off the back of their horses. The armour that they wore provided them no protection at all against the spears that hit them.

    It was as if they were wearing armours made of paper rather than metal.

    "Run!"

    The leader of the cavalry unit no longer hesitated as he called for their retreat and all of the knights scattered as they knew that grouping up would hurt them more. But even though they scattered, the spears still flew through the air.

    There were ten more spears that came at them and each of these spears hit one of the knights in the back.

    The knight that was hit with the spear flew off his horse and was pinned to the ground with a look of fear and regret in his eyes. It was just that there was nothing that the knight could do as it was pinned to the ground like this.

    With the force that the spear had been thrown with, the internal organs of the knight had actually been shattered.

    So the only thing that was waiting for the knights that were hit was death.

    The other cavalry were able to reach the wall of shield soldiers and hide behind them, so the spears of the hobgoblins no longer reached them. Instead, the spears of the hobgoblins fell into the line of shield soldiers.

    The spears were strong enough to pull the knights off their horses and pin them in the ground, so when they hit the shield soldiers who only relied on their shields to defend themselves...

    There wererge explosions that rang out along the line of shield soldiers.

    At the same time, there were holes that were created in the line of shield soldiers as a result of these explosions.

    It wasn''t as if the shield soldiers could do anything against these spears.

    They couldn''t even follow the spears to get out of the way in time.

    Once the holes appeared, it didn''t take long for the goblins to push forward.

    It seemed that the formation was about to break at any moment.

    "What are these monsters?" The captain of the cavalry knights couldn''t help saying in a shocked voice.

    After all, this captain was an elite that had been fighting with the army for many decades now and this was his first time seeing a monster like this.

    So there was no need to mention the other knights that had far less experience than their captain.

    With gritted teeth, the captain said, "Retreat."

    It was a hard decision for him, but he had no choice but to make this decision since there was nothing that they could do against those hobgoblins.

    Even if they were to charge them, it was certain that half of them would die from the flying spears. After all, they could see that there were more spears that were on the back of the hobgoblins, so there was no doubt that they would have more than enough spears to shoot them all down if they were to charge them.

    Then there was no telling if they would even be able to take down the hobgoblins in the end. Those hobgoblins were strong enough to throw these spears with such force, so they certainly wouldn''t be weak if a fight were to happen.

    It wasn''t guaranteed that they would be able to take down these hobgoblins if they were to charge them.

    Not to mention that these cavalry knights were elite troops of the kingdom, the final line of defense for the Antwerp Kingdom.

    It would be a tragedy to the kingdom if they were to lose them here.

    So that was thest thing that the captain could do.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Even if it meant sacrificing all of these soldiers that were blocking the goblins.

    It was a matter of the kingdom''s survival.

    It wasn''t just that he was terrified of the hobgoblins.

    Once he made this decision, even though the cavalry knights found it hard to ept, they had

    no choice but to ept it.

    All of them turned to leave, but...

    They found that there was another spear that flew towards them from behind.

    The one that was the most shocked was the knight that was hit with this spear and knocked off his horse. He was pinned to the ground just like the other knights that had been hit with the

    spears.

    He was pinned to the ground in the same manner.

    The knights were shocked to find that there was another hobgoblin standing there.

    No, it wasn''t just a single hobgoblin.

    There were five of these hobgoblins that were standing there and four of them still had their spears raised as if they were looking for targets.

    When they threw them, the captain of the knights saw that he was one of the targets, but he wasn''t able to dodge out of the way in time and was pinned onto the ground.

    There was a look of regret that was on his face as he died.

    How did he miss these hobgoblins?

    But it wasn''t just him that died like this.

    All around the Antwerp Kingdom, the same thing was happening where all of the monsters

    were gathered.

 Chapter 1097: Crisis (1)

    Chapter 1097: Crisis (1)

    ?

    "m!"

    "What is going on in our kingdom?" The king of the Antwerp Kingdom roared at the ministers that were all around him, but it didn''t seem like any of them were willing to say a thing.

    All of them looked down as if they were afraid of being chosen.

    That was because not a single one of them knew what was happening either.

    All that happened was that this morning, they received reports from all over the country of what happened with the monsters. All of them had beenpletely caught off guard by the fact that this happened.

    After all, even if they hadn''t been able to suppress the monsters, they had at least been able to keep them back.

    With the rate that it was going, it should have bought them enough time for the Holy Empire to send troops to help.

    So they just couldn''t understand why the monsters suddenly became this active.

    They couldn''t understand where the monsters drew their power from to break through their defensive lines.

    Seeing that not a single person was saying anything, the king mmed his fist down on the throne''s armrest once more before roaring, "What do you n to do about this?"

    Then pointing at one of the ministers, he said, "General Harry, you are themander in chief of our Antwerp Kingdom''s military, so I want an answer from you!"

    The general that had been called out couldn''t help revealing a bitter smile while the rest of the ministers all let out internal sighs of relief. They didn''t dare give an external sigh of relief just in case they attracted the attention of the king.

    Since he had been called out like this, General Harry had no choice but to speak.

    Only the first thing that he said drew the curses of all the other ministers.

    "Before I give an answer, I have a question for everyone. Has anyone ever encountered the monsters that were mentioned in the reports before?"

    All of them were angry at this since it pulled them back into this discussion.

    It was only the king that wasn''t angry since General Harry was indeed touching on the main issue with the reports.

    It was those hobgoblins that had shown up in the reports that had caused the most trouble for their Antwerp Kingdom.

    They had no idea where these hobgoblins came from, but they had appeared in every single incident and had always been the ones that had led the other monsters to attack their elite troops.

    So the real problem was these hobgoblins.

    Especially since the spears of these hobgoblins had been what wiped out their elite troops all over the kingdom.

    Seeing that no one was saying anything, General Harry deeply knitted his brows before asking, "So even with all the elites of the Antwerp Kingdom gathered here, there''s not a single person that knows a thing?"

    No one said a single thing since it was true that none of them were able to answer this question.

    No one had a single clue what those hobgoblins were and they didn''t know how to deal with them.

    After all, even by the standards of hobgoblins from the books that they read before, there wasn''t a single hobgoblin that should have had the strength that these hobgoblins demonstrated.

    So it was only natural that they didn''t have any idea what these hobgoblins were.

    General Harry felt a bead of sweat drip down his forehead since his whole n was to use the other ministers to find an answer.

    He didn''t have an answer himself, so he could only rely on this method to get an answer from them.

    But since no one had an answer...then that meant that this was very bad...

    "Regardless of if you have an answer or not, the most important thing is thinking of a way to survive this." The king suddenly spoke which drew everyone''s attention.

    They turned to him and found that there was a serious look on his face.

    "Right now, our Antwerp Kingdom is in a crisis. This is a crisis that will determine the future of our kingdom, so it doesn''t matter what ideas you have, just think of something."

    There was even a trace of desperation that was in his voice as he said this.

    It was clear what he was thinking, but no one med him since they knew that he was right. If they didn''t think of anything, there was no doubt that their Antwerp Kingdom would be overrun by the monsters that were being led by the hobgoblins.

    It was just that no one knew what to do.

    If they had an idea of how to take down the hobgoblins, they would have already suggested it.

    The only thing that anyone could think of was thest line of defense for their Antwerp Kingdom, the three knight orders that were located around the country.

    There were three different headquarters that were in three different locations, all of which reported to the king.

    All of them had knights that wereparable and even stronger than the knights that had fought against the hobgoblins.

    In a worst case scenario, they would have to call these knights to fight the hobgoblins and the monsters.

    It was just that no one could suggest that they move these three knight orders since it would mean betting everything that they had.

    That was just too dangerous.

    It was just that they really didn''t have a choice.

    Before anyone could say anything, there was someone that suddenly burst into the thronen/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    room.

    This was a normal looking soldier based on their armour.

    This was clearly not someone who was qualified to burst into the throne room like this, but

    here they were.

    No one said anything as they waited to see what this soldier had to say.

    After all, they knew that no one would be foolish enough to burst into the throne room for no

    reason.

    "Wyverns have crossed the border and are attacking the three knight orders."

    A crisis, it was a true crisis.

 Chapter 1098: Crisis (2)

    Chapter 1098: Crisis (2)

    ?

    "What do you mean by that?" Even though the king asked this question, he wasn''t actually looking for an answer from the soldier.

    That was because not only the king, everyone in the room already knew the answer to this question.

    After all, there was only one ce that wyverns coulde from.

    So for wyverns to suddenly show up in their territory and attack them like this, they knew exactly what the reason was.

    The soldier didn''t know how to respond to this question since he knew that it was a rhetorical question. At the same time, he knew that if he were to actually say anything, all it would do is make the king angry with him and he would suffer the wrath of the king.

    So the soldier smartly kept silent and didn''t say anything.

    But even if he remained silent, it wasn''t as if this matter would be swept under the rugs.

    Seeing that no one said a single thing, the king''s attention turned to the ministers that were standing there around the room. All of them had their heads slightly turned as if they were trying to avoid drawing any attention to themselves.

    Only there was no way for them topletely avoid the king''s gaze.

    The king mmed his fist on the armrest of his throne and roared, "Well? What do we do about this?"

    No one said a single thing again.

    They all acted like they were mute so that they wouldn''t attract his attention.

    In the end, the king just gave a sigh before saying, "What are their demands?"

    All of the ministers revealed strange looks when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything in response. They knew that this was the best choice that they could make since in front of the might of these wyverns, there really wasn''t anything that they could do.

    The soldier didn''t say anything since he didn''t have any information on this.

    Seeing this, there was anger that slowly appeared on the king''s face.

    Only he didn''t get to say anything as someone else came in and said, "The Kite Kingdom just sent their demands to us."

    The king''s attention was diverted to the new soldier that came in and he waved his hand before saying, "Read them out."

    "Surrender or die." The soldier hesitated a bit before reading this out.

    The faces of the ministers all became ugly when they heard this.

    They slowly turned to look at the king to see what his reaction was, but they found that he didn''t seem to show any signs of anger. Instead, he had the same ugly expression on his face that they had.

    After all, even the king never would have expected the Kite Kingdom to be this direct.

    Even if there was a clear difference in power, one would at least try to act with some kind of decorum. They wouldn''t be this direct to tell them to surrender like this since it would just be an insult.

    If they were this direct, it might have the opposite effect of making the enemy angry and determined to fight to the end.

    That was only if they were fools that couldn''t think things through.

    This was not the case with the king of the Antwerp Kingdom.

    The king of the Antwerp Kingdom knew that if he were to fight to the end, all that would happen is that they would all be wiped out. The only thing that he could do for not just himself, but the people of his kingdom was to not fall for this provocation and surrender still.

    It was just that it really hurt to surrender like this.

    It also didn''t seem to make any sense at all how the Kite Kingdom would act like this.

    Just why were they attacking them all of a sudden?

    If they were to do this, weren''t they afraid of offending the Holy Empire that had agreed to send help to their Antwerp Kingdom?

    This didn''t seem like a smart thing to do.

    With a sigh, the king said, "Send them our deration of surrender. There''s nothing that we can do against them."

    Then after a pause, he said, "Tell them to send our deration of surrender as soon as possible and try to stop the attacks on the knight orders. If those knight orders are destroyed, all that will happen is that our people will suffer. We need to preserve the knight orders as much as we can to negotiate."N?v(el)B\\jnn

    The soldier quickly nodded in agreement and ran off.

    The ministers looked at the king with strange looks on their faces, but they didn''t know what

    to say.

    After all, this was a matter of their entire kingdom surrendering to another kingdom.

    This was not an easy thing to talk about.

    "Your majesty..." In the end, the prime minister felt that he should say anything.

    The king just raised his hand and said with a sigh, "I know what you want to say, but there''s

    no other choice. I know that if we were to fall for their provocations and fight them, there''s no doubt that we will all be ughtered."

    Then in a more serious voice, he said, "But it is strange that they would attack right when the monsters started attacking us..."

    He left his voice hanging as if he was implying something.

    All of the ministers had serious looks on their faces when they heard this.

    Seeing that they understood what he was implying, the king said, "For now, keep your eyes

    open and see what you can find. If we do find enough evidence, it will be easier for us to go to the Holy Empire when the timees."

    All of the ministers nodded in agreement after hearing this.

    But what they were actually thinking...

    The most important thing was one''s life.

    "Boom!"

    There was a loud sound that came from outside before a voice shouted out.

    "The gates have been destroyed!"

    The king and ministers revealed looks as if they were preparing to face the reaper.

 Chapter 1099: Crisis (3)

    Chapter 1099: Crisis (3)

    ?

    Half an hourter at what remained of the gates to the Antwerp Kingdom''s capital. The king and his ministers all gathered in front of the wyverns that hadnded.

    They already knew what was about to happen, so they had looks on their faces like they had already braced themselves. It was just that what happened next waspletely different from what they thought would happen.

    Instead of surrendering to the Kite Kingdom, instead...

    "I am the tenth king of the Antwerp Kingdom and I hereby wish to dere the surrender of my country." The king of the Antwerp Kingdom said in a firm voice that showed his

    determination.

    Though that determination wavered when one of the wyverns suddenly came forward.

    This tremble that came from the single step of the wyvern made many of them tremble and some of the ones with weaker wills couldn''t help taking a step back.

    That just went to show how much power was in this single step from the wyvern.

    The king was one of those that didn''t take a step back, even though there was a part of him that wanted to.

    He knew that in the face of these invaders, showing weakness was not something that he could do.

    If he were to show any signs of weakness, it wouldn''t just be him and the ministers that suffered, it would be the people of his kingdom that also suffered.

    The king of the Antwerp Kingdom wasn''t the greatest king, but he was at least someone who cared about his subjects which was why he was able to remain on his throne this whole time without any real problems.

    It was only when the monsters came that the problems began.

    After that one wyvern took several steps forward, the one that was sitting on the back of the wyvern suddenly jumped down andnded in front of them.

    This wyvern rider looked right at the king and said, "You''re saying that you''re the king and that you''re surrendering?"

    The king slowly nodded in agreement, almost as if he didn''t understand why this wyvern rider was asking him this.

    The wyvern rider didn''t seem to care at all as he said, "Then can you prove that you are the king?"

    All of the ministers were taken aback when they heard this.

    It was clear that this person was the king with the way that he was standing in front of them all and was leading them, so why was this wyvern rider suddenly asking this question? But they quickly revealed serious looks since they could guess what the situation was. He was trying to put pressure on them with this question, which was why he said it like this. The king just calmly took out a token and raised it in front of the wyvern rider before saying, "This is the token of the Antwerp Royal Family, I think that this should be enough to prove that I''m the king, right?"

    The wyvern rider calmly looked at the token for a bit before slowly nodding.

    At this, the ministers rxed a bit, but they didn''t let their guards down yet.

    The actions of the wyvern rider was already enough to prove that there was hostility on his mind.

    In that case...all they could do was be wary and see what he was nning.

    There wasn''t anything that they could actually do to stop this wyvern rider from being hostile towards them after all.

    The wyvern rider didn''t seem to care at all as he turned around and waved his hand at the other wyverns.

    The king and all of the ministers tensed when they saw this.

    There were a few soldiers that gripped their weapons as if they were preparing for a fight, but most of them seemed like they were getting to run just in case something happened.

    The king and ministers also wanted to run, but they weren''t in a position to do so.

    They had to remain here in the face of these wyverns or it was unknown what would happen to their Antwerp Kingdom.

    So all they could do was hope that whatever was happening was a good thing for them.

    After that wyvern rider waved at the others, there was another wyvern that suddenly came forward.

    The booming sounds and the shaking of the footsteps from this wyvern made them tremble again, but it wasn''t as bad as the first time.

    With experience, they learned how to deal with the trembles of these footsteps.

    Once that wyvern came over, there was someone that came down from its back. Thoughpared to the first wyvern rider, this person didn''te down as gracefully as him.

    It seemed that he was still a bit shaky on getting off a wyvern.

    "It''s him..."

    The king of the Antwerp Kingdom said to himself as he recognized the person that came off the wyvern.

    He recognized him because he had met with him before.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They were fellow rulers of their respective countries, so it was only natural that they had met each other before.

    The one that came off the wyvern was Duke Nergiante of the Nergiante Dukedom. However, the king of the Antwerp Kingdom clearly didn''t expect to see Duke Nergiante here.

    No one would have expected to see Duke Nergiante here...

    Once Duke Nergiante came off the wyvern and came to the side of the wyvern rider, the wyvern rider turned back to the king of the Antwerp Kingdom to say, "The Antwerp Kingdom''s surrender will be epted by the Nergiante Dukedom. All of theirnds and people will fall under the domain of the Nergiante Dukedom. From now on, the Nergiante Dukedom will be known as the Nergiante Kingdom."

    Everyone was shocked when they heard this since this was definitely not what they expected.

    It was one thing to be epted by the Kite Kingdom, but to be taken under the Nergiante Dukedom was apletely different matter.

    This was a big crisis for their Antwerp Kingdom.

 Chapter 1100: Crisis (4)

    Chapter 1100: Crisis (4)

    ?

    "This is..." The king of the Antwerp Kingdom had no choice but to speak up.

    This was not a decision that could be epted that easily by him or the ministers, so he had no choice but to speak up.

    It was just that it didn''t seem like the wyvern rider cared about his opinion.

    Though Duke Nergiante had already expected this, he was also a bit surprised by this deration.

    After all, it had been a long time dream of his and his family to be able to do something like this. It was just that their Nergiante Dukedom had been too weak to actually do something like this.

    But now...it has been achieved for them by someone else.

    Duke Nergiante couldn''t help feeling emotional over this, but he quickly calmed himself down before turning to look at the king... No, it was now the former king of the Antwerp Kingdom and the rest of the ministers.

    The way that he looked at them, it was as if he was waiting for a response from them.

    The former king and the ministers still had ugly looks on their faces, which became even uglier when they saw the way that Duke Nergiante looked at them.

    So the former king said, "Sir wyvern rider, to surrender to the Nergiante Dukedom like this... Our Antwerp Kingdom has value that will surely benefit the Kite Kingdom, so it would be better for us to..."

    He didn''t even get to finish these words as the wyvern rider said, "Not interested. The Kite Kingdom is not interested in taking over the territory of the Antwerp Kingdom, so this is your only choice."

    His voice turned a bit cold and he narrowed his eyes as he continued, "If you do not choose to ept this, then the only thing left for all of you is..."

    A chill ran down the spines of the former king and the ministers when they heard this.

    At the same time, looks of shock appeared on their faces.

    After all, not a single one of them had expected the wyvern rider to speak with such a firm and -cold tone.

    They thought that their Antwerp Kingdom would have some worth in the eyes of the Kite Kingdom, they didn''t think that the Kite Kingdom would think so little of their Antwerp Kingdom that they would treat them like this.

    It really made it so that they couldn''t say a thing in response.

    Duke Nergiante had acted the way that he did to provoke those from the Antwerp Kingdom. Seeing the way that they acted, he knew that it was time for him to say something.

    Or rather, it was time for him to say the lines that he had been given.

    "We don''t need them either. We will be bringing in our own people to manage our new territories."

    Perhaps Duke Nergiante wouldn''t have dared to say this if it wasn''t for the Kite Kingdom backing him like this. But since they were backing him with those wyverns, he naturally had the guts to say this.

    After all, this was the best way for him to handle this situation.

    If he were to keep the people from the old regime, there was no doubt that they would try to influence the new Nergiante Kingdom in some way. The best thing was to kick them all out and only use his own people since safety was the most important thing.

    Even if it meant losing some talents, it was better to be safe than sorry.

    When the former king and ministers all heard this, they all had even uglier expressions on their faces.

    They thought that since they had surrendered peacefully, they would at least leave them something.

    But it seemed that they had invited wolves into their homes.

    The former king and ministers were about to say something, but the wyvern rider cut him off by saying with a nod, "Alright, that''s not a problem. We''ll exile them with some of their wealth and make sure that they won''t be able to do anything to gain power again. If they do, then we''ll be sure to execute anyone that tries anything."

    The cold and firm tone that he said this in made the former king and minister swallow their words.

    After all, the way that he said it made it clear that if they were to say anything against it, they might be executed on the spot.

    This was a personal crisis at this point, it wasn''t even a national crisis anymore.

    There were a few of them that wanted to say something regardless, but they knew that there was nothing that would be gained if all that led to was their execution.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Once they were dead, it was all over.

    Once they were dead, nothing mattered.

    So the only thing that they could do now was hold their silence and see what would happen to them.

    While they didn''t know what they would be able to do once they were exiled, it was still better than the other option of being killed.

    The former king and the ministers all had helpless looks on their faces.

    As for fighting their way out...how could they do that with all these wyverns here?

    The soldiers were already terrified, so there was no way that they would fight for them.

    If it came to it, they might even lose their lives on the spot.

    "Is this how the Antwerp Kingdom will end? We will be taken as ves by the invaders?" The former king couldn''t help thinking this to himself.

    Seeing that they weren''t going to make a fuss, the wyvern rider turned to the captain of the guard on the side and said, "Take them away."

    The captain of the guard hadplicated feelings about this order that he was given, but there was nothing that he could do in the end.

    The former king and minister had already surrendered, so by all right, the wyvern riders were

    the ones that were in charge now.

    All they could do was follow orders.

 Chapter 1101: Giving control (1)

    Chapter 1101: Giving control (1)

    ?

    After the former king and the ministers were taken away, there was a great change that came over the former Antwerp Kingdom.

    There was another group that suddenly arrived after the arrival of the first group of wyverns.

    This group seemed to bepletely different from the group of wyverns.

    It was a group that seemed to have apletely different function from the soldiers on the back of the wyverns.

    That was because the aura that they gave off was fundamentally different from those wyvern riders. They still had a powerful aura around them, but they didn''t have the same aura that those that rode wyverns had.

    It seemed that they were here to organize the former Antwerp Kingdom and make it smoothly fall under the Nergiante Dukedom.

    So those that had wanted to find a chance to cause a bit of trouble knew that it would be impossible for them to do that. If they were to try anything, there was no doubt that these people would catch them.

    During this time, Duke Nergiante was led away by a group of wyvern riders.

    It seemed like they had something else to do, so they were leaving the handling of the capital to this group that arrived afterwards.

    Duke Nergiante had a serious look on his face when he was being taken away, almost as if he was prepared to face anything. It was almost as if he was some kind of criminal that was being led to an execution with the way that he was brought off.

    There were many people that wondered where he was going, but they didn''t actually follow.

    Though it wasn''t as if they could actually follow since that group was heading off on the wyverns.

    It wasn''t as if normal horses would be able to keep up with wyverns in the first ce.

    ...

    Half an hourter, this group of wyverns arrived in a forest.

    When theynded, they could smell the blood that was in the area which made them slightly knit their brows.

    Duke Nergiante looked like he was the most tense one out of all of them, but that wasn''t strange since he wasn''t a member of their group in the first ce.

    It was only normal that he would feel out of ce here.

    Especially since he could see where the smell of blood wasing from.

    It wasing from the corpses that were on the ground.

    These were all human corpses that were wearing the armour of the Antwerp Kingdom.

    These were the soldiers that had died facing the monsters that had suddenly started attacking.

    The corpses that were on the ground were difficult to look at because of the way that they had been treated. Most of the corpses seemed like they had been ripped apart by something with the way that they had been thrown to the side in pieces.

    It really was the scene of a terrible ughter...

    But Duke Nergiante didn''t have time to properly process all of this as he heard somethinging from the distance.

    When he turned over, he saw that it was somethinging out of the forest.

    It wasn''t just anythinging out of the forest, it was something that Duke Nergiante immediately recognized since he had faced this kind of creature before.

    There were a group of goblins that suddenly appeared out of the forest.

    It seemed like they were heading right for them.

    While these goblins didn''t really pose a threat since they had wyverns, Duke Nergiante found it unnerving how no one did anything as they watched the goblins approach.

    With the way that the wyvern riders just stood there, it was almost as if they didn''t see the goblins at all.

    "Sir Klein, are you really not going to do anything?" Duke Nergiante couldn''t help asking.

    Klein, who had been the one that dered the deration to the Antwerp Kingdom, just stood there looking at the goblinsing out of the forest. Eventually, he said, "It''s fine, they''re on our side."

    "Huh?" Duke Nergiante immediately revealed a stunned and confused look when he heard this.

    It didn''t seem like that would change with the way that he continued looking at Klein like this, but Klein didn''t bother exining anything as he continued looking at the goblinsing out of the forest.

    Eventually, there was a bigger goblin that came out from behind this group of goblins.

    This wasn''t just a goblin, it was a hobgoblin that was much bigger than the other goblins. As soon as this hobgoblin came out, the rest of the goblins stopped moving and turned to face it before falling to one knee as if they were bowing to their king.

    Duke Nergiante snapped out of his daze and deeply knitted his brows when he saw this.

    He could feel the sense of dangering from this hobgoblin, so he knew that this thing was anything but normal.

    Duke Nergiante turned to Klein again and was about to say something, but Klein just raised his hand to stop him before heading forward with a group of royal guards.

    Duke Nergiante was surprised to see this, but he watched them closely as they headed towards this hobgoblin.

    Then to his surprise, Klein and the royal guards walked past this hobgoblin to where a smaller figure wasing forward.

    Duke Nergiante had actually missed this smaller figure since he had been focused on the hobgoblin, but now he saw that it was a human that was walking behind the hobgoblin.

    It wasn''t just any human that was there.

    It was one that he recognized.

    It was a person that he just would never forget since that person had left a deep impression onn/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    him.

    That person walked past the hobgoblin who suddenly stopped and fell to one knee behind

    that person.

    Klein and the others went forward so that they were between that person and the hobgoblin, almost as if they were protecting him.

    But that person just ignored all of this as he walked over to Duke Nergiante and asked, "Are

    you ready?"

 Chapter 1102: Giving control (2)

    Chapter 1102: Giving control (2)

    ?

    There was a stunned and confused look on Duke Nergiante''s face when he heard this.

    He looked at this person that he recognized, this person who had left a deep impression thest time that he came to the Nergiante Dukedom.

    With the way that he looked at him, it was as if Duke Nergiante just couldn''t believe what he was seeing.

    The way that he looked at him, it was almost as if he was meeting him for the first time and trying to figure out just what he was.

    This person was the king of the Kite Kingdom, Zwein.

    When I saw him looking at me like this, there was a faint smile that appeared on my face before asking him, "So does that mean that you''re not ready?"

    Duke Nergiante didn''t seem to react at first, but then he slowly asked, "Ready for what?" I pointed at the hobgoblin zombie and said, "To be that thing''s master."

    "Huh?" There was a look of absolute confusion on Duke Nergiante''s face when he heard this.

    He could understand the words that wereing out of my mouth individually, but when they were put together like this...

    It was as if they just made no sense at all.

    But then again, this was something that no one would have been able to understand simply since the understanding that humans had was that monsters couldn''t be controlled.

    The understanding of monsters that humans had was that they were creatures that only wanted to cause death and destruction.

    They were not things that could be controlled and were not things that could be used. They could only be destroyed before they could hurt anyone.

    Seeing the look that was on Duke Nergiante''s face, I could guess what he was thinking.

    So I just said, "It''s different from what you''re thinking. This hobgoblin can be controlled and it can control the other goblins."

    Doubt appeared on Duke Nergiante''s face as if he couldn''t believe this.

    I just calmly waved my hand at the hobgoblin and it stopped kneeling to stand up behind me.

    I didn''t even look back at it as I just simply gave it a signal with my hand.

    At that, the hobgoblin turned to look at the goblins and it gave a grunt.

    Once they heard this grunt, the goblins immediately reacted.

    All of them suddenly stood up and then moved around as if they were following a pattern. After watching them for a bit, Duke Nergiante understood what was happening.

    The hobgoblin were making these goblins move in a figure eight formation. They were walking around to form a figure eight for whoever was watching them from above.

    He never thought that the goblins would move in such a manner.

    No one had actually thought that this was possible until they saw it happen with the hobgoblin.

    Even we hadn''t expected this to be the result when we sent these hobgoblins into the Antwerp Kingdom.

    We thought that what would happen is that the hobgoblins would disrupt the monsters and make them attack the Antwerp Kingdom. We never thought that the hobgoblins would directly gain the ability to control the goblins to attack the Antwerp Kingdom.

    This was something that waspletely out of the scope of our expectation, but it was a pleasant surprise.

    Though it was hard to figure out why this was the case.

    Regardless, since it was possible to control the monsters, that meant that this was a powerful tool in the future.

    Of course, there was the risk of being called a traitor to humanity for using the monsters like this.

    That was a bridge that had to be crossed when the time came.

    Especially since we were already using the undead in the first ce.

    Once the demonstration was over, I waved my hand for the hobgoblin toe over to my side.

    Klein and the others still seemed a bit worried, but I wasn''t worried at all.

    I just looked at Duke Nergiante and said, "Now, if I tell him to follow you, he will take you as his master and follow you around." After a pause, I added, "Not just this hobgoblin, but all of the other hobgoblins as well. I''m sure that you already know about that."

    Duke Nergiante was a bit surprised to hear me admit this, but he slowly nodded in agreement since he had already heard the news.

    If the hobgoblins really could be controlled, then that would mean that they wouldn''t have to worry about the monsters that were in the Antwerp Kingdom.

    If they couldn''t take care of the monsters, then it might be hard for them to hold this Antwerp Kingdom even if they were to take it over.

    But now they were given the perfect solution to solve this problem.

    Duke Nergiante hesitated a bit, but he eventually nodded in agreement to bing the master of the hobgoblin.

    I just gave a simple nod before pulling out the Orb of the Dead.

    This was an order that would be given directly through the Orb of the Dead instead of verbally since that would be more binding.

    Duke Nergiante looked a bit afraid when he saw me pulling out the Orb of the Dead, but he didn''t say anything as he waited for me to do what I needed to do.

    The look on his face was almost as if he looked like he was prepared to sacrifice his soul if it was necessary, which I found a bit funny.

    It wasn''t that serious.

    The hobgoblin suddenly turned to Duke Nergiante and looked at him with a strange look before falling to one knee in front of him.

    Duke Nergiante was taken aback seeing this, but then he slowly looked at me as if he was confirming something.

    I just gave a nod before saying, "He recognizes you as his master now. You can give him an order to test it."

    I just silently watched as Duke Nergiante tested this by giving an order to the hobgoblin.

    Though what he didn''t know was that this was only temporary control.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    If I wanted, the hobgoblin would immediately turn on him and follow my orders.

    But he didn''t need to know that.

 Chapter 1103: Arrival of the Holy Empire

    Chapter 1103: Arrival of the Holy Empire

    ?

    It took two days to organize the territory of the former Antwerp Kingdom.

    As soon as the prime minister''s aides came in, it was easy to organize everything.

    They got everything that they needed from the Antwerp Kingdom''s former king and his ministers and then organized everything with the system of the Kite Kingdom.

    The system that the prime minister and the chancellor came up with could be considered close to perfect with how it ounted for almost anything that could happen.

    The only things that it didn''t ount for were those rare events that could happen that didn''t happen often.

    But they were so rare in the first ce which was why they didn''t ount for them.

    It was very unlikely that any of those things would happen in the first ce.

    With the aides working hard, it didn''t take long to bring the Nergiante Dukedom''s people into the positions that needed to be filled.

    With them shadowing the aides, they were able to learn the things that they had to do.

    That was how they developed into people that could hold these positions by learning all that they could from the aides that the prime minister sent.

    On the third day, it was the day when the Nergiante Dukedom would announce that it would be the Nergiante Kingdom.

    There was arge ceremony that was held in the capital of the Nergiante Dukedom.

    Even though the Antwerp Kingdom''s capital was bigger and more prosperous, Duke... No, it was King Nergiante now, who decided to hold the ceremony in the capital of the former Nergiante Dukedom.

    That was his way of announcing to the world that even if the dukedom became a kingdom, that didn''t change who they were at the core.

    The core of the new Nergiante Kingdom would still be the same old Nergiante Dukedom.

    So they wouldn''t abandon thends of the former Nergiante Dukedom now that they had obtained thends of the Antwerp Kingdom.

    As for the former king and ministers of the Antwerp Kingdom, they were not allowed toe to the ceremony at all.

    What happened to the former king and ministers was that they had been exiled to remote parts of the former Antwerp Kingdom''s territory. They would be trapped there forever and would never have the chance to step into the politicalndscape of the future Nergiante Kingdom.

    Though it could be said that they were lucky since the other option was death.

    If it wasn''t for someone making a decision to spare them, they might have been killed in secret so that they wouldn''t be able to cause any harm in the future.

    It was only because of someone''s insistence that they be kept alive that they were allowed to live and instead be punished with being exiled.

    "How are you feeling?" I asked in a calm voice.

    King Nergiante looked at me with a bitter smile before saying, "I never thought that something like this would happen in my lifetime. I always thought that I would run the Nergiante Dukedom like my forefathers did and never aplish anything in my life. But everything has changed since I met you."

    A faint smile appeared on my lips, but I didn''t say anything in response.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Though that was mainly because I couldn''t really say anything in response.

    It wasn''t as if I could tell him the real reason for everything that had changed in his life.

    It was hard for anyone to even believe the reason for this if I were to tell them.

    So all I could do was smile and hide it all.

    But there was a bad feeling that was deep inside of me.

    It felt like something was about to go wrong...

    After all, the former king and the ministers of the Antwerp Kingdom had already admitted that they had asked the Holy Empire for help. At the same time, they had admitted that the Holy Empire had already stated that they would be sending reinforcements to them.

    So that meant that the troops of the Holy Empire should already be on the way here.

    We didn''t know this when we chose to take down the Antwerp Kingdom and it was already toote since the Antwerp Kingdom no longer existed.

    Once the troops of the Holy Empire arrived, it was hard to tell what they would do.

    It might be hard for them to say anything once the Nergiante Kingdom was officially established, but before that...they might be able to argue that the Nergiante Kingdom had no right to be established.

    They might even be able to bring the former king of the Antwerp Kingdom back onto the throne.

    It all depended on how far the Holy Empire wanted to take this.

    That was why I had kept the former king of the Antwerp Kingdom and the ministers alive.

    I knew that it was impossible to avoid them, so the only thing that could be done was face them head on and see what happened.

    It was impossible to avoid the influence of the Holy Empire, it was only possible to avoid it

    temporarily.

    But it didn''t seem like they would arrive in time.

    Or that was what it seemed like until there was a soldier that suddenly ran in.

    The moment that he ran in, both King Nergiante and I looked at him with knitted brows. That was because both of us knew that he must have a reason for running in here like this. After the soldier ran in, he said with a serious and worried look, "The Holy Empire''s delegation has just arrived."

    "How many?" I asked without any hesitation.

    The soldier was surprised to hear me asking this, but he didn''t hesitate to answer since he

    already knew who I was.

    "It''s a small group of a few priests and a few knights."

    Both of us couldn''t help knitting our brows even more as neither of us could understand what

    the Holy Empire''s group was nning to do.

    I looked at King Nergiante and he looked at me, neither of us said anything.

    Eventually, I turned back to the soldier and said, "We''re going to meet them."

    The soldier looked at King Nergiante with a worried and doubtful look, but he eventually led

    the way when he saw King Nergiante nodding to him.

    But that worried look didn''t disappear.

 Chapter 1104: Sending congratulations

    Chapter 1104: Sending congrattions

    ?

    "Your majesty, thank you for taking the time to meet us before the ceremony."

    The tone of voice of the priest that led this group was polite, whichpletely caught both me and King Nergiante off guard.

    After all, neither of us expected this since we thought that the Holy Empire group hade with ill intentions. We thought that the Holy Empire group hade to cause trouble.

    Only looking at them now, it seemed like they didn''t have any intentions of doing so.

    But we didn''t let our guard down since it was possible that they were just acting.

    After a moment of silence, King Nergiante went forward to say with a smile, "Thank you foring to our ceremony. It would mean a lot to us to have a delegation from the Holy Empire at our kingdom establishment ceremony."

    Though there was a smile on his face, King Nergiante''s eyes were on guard since he didn''t know what this Holy Empire group was here for.

    The priest gave a simple nod before saying, "Of course. You''re the one that ended the monster waves in this area, so naturally it''s your right toy ims on thesends."

    Then after a pause, he said in a meaningful manner, "Just like the empires have done."

    Both me and King Nergiante were surprised again to hear this.

    After all, neither of us had expected the priest to admit something like this.

    This was something that was regarded as a secret that everyone glossed over because there was nothing to gain from acknowledging and confronting the empires about this.

    So for the priest from the Holy Empire to actually admit this...

    Just what was his n?

    While both me and King Nergiante were caught off guard, the priest continued by saying, "The Holy Empire wishes to present our blessings and congrattions during the kingdom establishment ceremony. I hope that your majesty will not mind this."

    Once again, both me and King Nergiante were caught off guard.

    Our thoughts were that the Holy Empire would try to do something to stop the Nergiante Kingdom from being formed or they would try to raise the matter of the zombies.

    We never thought that they would actually ept the Nergiante Dukedom taking over the Antwerp Kingdom like this.

    Especially since the Antwerp Kingdom was supposed to go to them.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if they were doing this for free.

    "Our Holy Empire is also nning on opening a few more branch churches in your majesty''s kingdom in the future. I hope that we will be able to have your majesty''s cooperation on this matter when the timees."

    For the Holy Empire, the most important thing was their believers.

    After all, they were an empire that was based on religions, so the most important thing to increase their power was to increase their number of believers.

    It didn''t seem like a harmful request on the surface, but...

    There were religions where their believers would go quite far for that religion.

    As such, letting these churches into the territory of the new Nergiante Kingdom was without a doubt letting a snake into one''s house.

    It was just that there was nothing that they could do about it when the alternative was going to war with the Holy Empire. It could be said that this was apromise that the Holy Empire was offering the Nergiante Kingdom to settle this matter.

    King Nergiante looked over at me as if he was confirming something and I just gave a slight nod in response.

    With a sigh, King Nergiante said, "We''re still trying to stabilize our new Nergiante Kingdom, so I hope that you won''t mind if the locations and resources are a bitcking."

    The way that he said this made it clear that he was trying to ask for a little bit back.

    Namely, he was trying to either get the Holy Empire to give some resources or to take a step back and ept a few more smaller locations.

    This wasn''t the kind of request that a newly crowned king should make, but he made it without any hesitation.

    The surprising thing was that the priest wasn''t actually offended by this.

    Instead, he just said with a smile, "Alright, that''s not a problem. We''ll be sure to help your Nergiante Kingdom when the timees."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Both me and King Nergiante immediately knitted our brows after hearing this.

    I had King Nergiante make this proposal to see what the response of the Holy Empire would

    be, but this certainly wasn''t the response that was expected from them.

    It was almost as if they were conceding to all requests from King Nergiante...

    It was almost as if they were being too cooperative that it became suspicious.

    Which was why the next words from the priest weren''t surprising.

    The priest finally turned over to look at me and said, "Your majesty, I hope that we can talk in private now."

    We had been sitting down, but King Nergiante stood up and moved in front of me after hearing this. The way that he stood there, it was as if he was determined to protect me if anything happened.

    Even though the priest had spoken in a voice that was almost as if he was telling King Nergiante to leave, King Nergiante didn''t seem to falter as he moved in front of me.

    It seemed that all the time and effort that I spent on him really had paid off.

    It seemed that he was quite the loyal person.

    But this wasn''t something that he could get involved in.

    Or rather, this was something that he couldn''t do anything about since this was a matter between me and the Holy Empire.

    I had already expected something like this to happen since they had been so conceding, I just wasn''t certain how they would do it.

    But being direct like this was also a good thing.

    I stood up and put a hand on King Nergiante''s shoulder before saying, "It''s fine, I''ll talk to

    them."

    He looked at me with a worried look, but he still nodded in agreement in the end before leaving the room.

 Chapter 1105: Small request

    Chapter 1105: Small request

    ?

    Once it was just the two of us left in the room, I looked at the priest with narrowed eyes and asked, "What are you looking for?"

    Once King Nergiante was gone, the semnce of courtesy was also gone since there was no reason to show this person courtesy.

    He wasn''t here to be courteous either, so what would being courteous to him give me?

    The priest didn''t seem to mind as he just calmly said, "There''s no need to rush. How about sitting down first before we talk about this?"

    I was still standing up after standing up to pat King Nergiante on the shoulder.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the priest before sitting down without showing any expressions.

    Once again, the priest didn''t seem to mind as he calmly took a sip of the tea that was on the table.

    It was as if he felt no worry at all.

    It was almost as if he was certain that I would agree with whatever request that he made. That made me slightly knit my brows.

    I just looked at the priest and waited to see what he would have to say.

    The priest looked at me with that same calm smile on his face, but then he slowly looked down at my hand.

    The moment that he looked down, I knew exactly what he was looking at.

    I didn''t bother hiding my hand, but I also didn''t bother showing him the thing that he was looking for.

    Seeing that I wasn''t going to do anything, there was a trace of disappointment that appeared on the priest''s face. However, that trace of disappointment quickly disappeared as he looked at me and said, "Your majesty, there''s no need to be this tense. Since you have the Mark of God on you, it could be said that we are on the same side. After all, we all worship the same lord, so there''s no need to consider us outsiders."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at him.

    If I didn''t know better, I might have actually been fooled by him.

    The words that the priest said could be considered convincing, but it didn''t work on me who had experience with this.

    With how many scammers there were on Earth, it really was hard to fall for any tricks here.

    Let alone this kind of religious scam.

    After looking at the priest for a bit, I said, "You can say that, but I don''t think the same thing. Now, why don''t you tell me why you''re really here."

    The priest''s smile didn''t change even though I showed my aggression.

    Instead, he just calmly said, "We just have a simple request for your majesty in return for all of this."

    As expected, there was no free lunch in this world.

    As expected, they wanted something from me for letting all of this go.

    But that didn''t mean that I would just agree with whatever they asked of me.

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything, the priest continued by saying, "It''s actually a very simple request. We''re just asking your majesty to take a trip to the Holy Empire when you have the time."

    I didn''t say anything as I just kept looking at the priest with narrowed eyes.

    With the way that he said this, it really seemed like he didn''t have any ulterior motives in making this request.

    Not to mention that as the official delegation from the Holy Empire, the things that he said had quite serious consequences.

    Even if it was in a private setting, the things that he said were not easily taken back.

    So in that case...

    "Are you saying that just so you''ll trap me once I go to the Holy Empire?" I asked in a calm voice.

    "Of course not." The priest shook his head before saying, "If your majesty is worried about that, we''re willing to write a statement that promises that we''ll let your majesty return after a certain period of time and leave it with your country."

    I was surprised to hear this.

    After all, if they really did this, then it would be the same as leaving a binding contract for themselves.

    The moment that they broke this and the written statement was revealed, it would apply more than enough pressure for them to follow this written statement.

    So it didn''t make sense that they would do something like this to themselves.

    I narrowed my eyes to look at the priest for a bit before saying, "Then you''ll use different methods to make me stay? Small threats or are you going to use the honey trap? No, then again, it''s unlikely that you would use a honey trap, right?"

    The priest just had the same smile on his face as if he wasn''t bothered by this at all. When I finished asking this question, he just calmly said, "We just wish for your highness toe to our Holy Empire for a bit and then we''ll send you back right after. We will not try anything to force your majesty to do anything that you wouldn''t want to do."

    The more that he acted this way, the more confused I was.

    I just couldn''t understand what his goal here was.

    Even if I were to visit the Holy Empire, it didn''t seem like there would be anything to gain from a short visit like that.

    It really seemed like they weren''t gaining anything from this...

    But if this was enough to keep them off my back in the future, then it was something that

    could be considered.

    So in the end, I said, "I''ll consider it."

    The priest didn''t seem to mind this at all as he gave a simple nod in response and said, "I hope

    that you will think about this favourably."

    I once again narrowed my eyes to look at the priest.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    I just couldn''t see through the actions of the priest at all...

    It really didn''t seem like he was plotting anything...

 Chapter 1106: What will you do?

    Chapter 1106: What will you do?

    ?

    The kingdom establishment ceremony went by in a blur.

    I didn''t remember anything that happened since I wasn''t in the right state of mind during the ceremony.

    My mind was still on what happened with the priest.

    I just still couldn''t understand what he meant by his proposal.

    Though the one thing that did pull me out of my daze was seeing the priest go up on stage and offer the blessings of god on this new Nergiante Kingdom.

    The way that he and his group did it was almost as if they were blessing this ceremony with the blessings of god.

    It really felt strange seeing the priest act this way...

    When the ceremony was over, I didn''t stay around as I wanted to head back to the Kite Kingdom.

    The most important thing for me right now was getting back and discussing this matter with the others.

    "So they really didn''t have any other demands?" The prime minister asked in a strange voice after I told them what happened.

    I slowly gave a nod in response before waiting to see what their reactions were, but it didn''t seem like any of them had any special reactions. It seemed like they all fell into deep thought with the looks on their faces.

    Of course, I couldn''t me them for this since I had the same reaction.

    It was just that no matter how I thought about it, I couldn''t figure out what the priest and the Holy Empire were nning. No matter how I thought about it, it didn''t seem to make any sense at all.

    There was a long and awkward silence that lingered in the room for a while.

    It was finally broken by Rose who asked, "What will you do? It''s clear that you already have a n, so I want to know what you are thinking."

    It wasn''t just everyone else who was surprised by these words, I was also surprised and a bit caught off guard to be asked this by Rose all of a sudden.

    In the end, there was a smile that had a trace of bitterness in it that appeared on my face as I looked at her.

    It seemed that she was able to read me quite easily as she was able to figure out that there was already something that was on my mind.

    While I wasn''t able to figure out what the ns of the priest and the Holy Empire was, there was an idea that formed in my head on how to respond to this.

    I took a moment to gather my thoughts before saying, "I''m nning on going with them."

    The moment that they heard this, everyone looked at me with deeply knitted brows.

    It was clear by the looks on their faces that they didn''t approve of this, but they held themselves back from reprimanding me right away.

    Rose was the one that broke the silence again as she asked, "Why?"

    It was a single word, but the meaning behind the word was vast.

    There were many different emotions that were inside of this word, but the one that prevailed was worry.

    She was worried that something would happen to me if I were to actually go to the Holy Empire.

    I didn''t answer right away as I looked at her, but then I said, "It''s simply because I want to learn more about this Mark of God. The best ce to do that is the Holy Empire, right?"

    They once again deeply knitted their brows when they heard this, but they didn''t reprimand me.

    The way that they looked at me was almost as if they didn''t believe what I had just said.

    It would be a lie to say that I believed what I said either.

    After all, this was a bit of a lie.

    So with a sigh, I said, "I want to protect everything that I care about and this is the best way to do that. It seems like they won''t do anything as long as I cooperate with them this time, so it''ll be the best time to get more information. At the same time, we all know that they won''t give up no matter what."

    Everyone still had deeply knitted brows on their faces, but they didn''t deny what I said.

    They all knew that I was speaking the truth, which was why they couldn''t say anything. After all, if they were to allow me to do this, it would be as if they were sacrificing me to protect themselves.

    I could naturally see what they were thinking, so I said, "I''m not doing this to sacrifice myself, I''ll definitely being back. I''m doing this so I can keep my people safe and find out what they were nning, so stop looking at me like that."

    Though I tried to lighten the mood, it was clear that it didn''t work.

    After a long silence, Rose finally said with a sigh, "Sometimes I wonder if it''s a good thing or a bad thing that there are so many mysteries with you. If only you were a normal man...But then again, I wouldn''t have fallen in love with you if that was the case." A slightly astringent smile appeared on her face as she said thetter half of this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    To the side, Ang and Cecilia revealed simr smiles.

    The prime minister and the chancellor were the only ones that looked a bit awkward in this situation.

    Taking a moment to gather herself, Rose then said, "It''s not as if we can stop you, so let''s think of ways to help you. I''m sure that we cane up with a few things that''ll help you on your way to the Holy Empire."

    The others were surprised to hear this at first, but then epting looks appeared on their faces.

    That was because they knew that Rose was right.

    In that case, it was best to make the most of their time and think of things that could help.

    I couldn''t help looking at them with a grateful look when I heard this.

 Chapter 1107: Burst of light

    Chapter 1107: Burst of light

    ?

    Even though the ceremony was over, there were still things that had to be done in the Nergiante Kingdom.

    Just like how the Kite Kingdom needed time to reorganize themselves after taking over the three kingdoms, the new Nergiante Kingdom also needed time to organize themselves after taking over the Antwerp Kingdom.

    So there was a lot of work to do.

    As our allies, it was only natural that we helped the Nergiante Kingdom organize themselves.

    But at the same time, I knew that the prime minister and chancellor were helping them so they couldy down some foundations in the future Nergiante Kingdom.

    They wanted to use these foundations to have some control in the Nergiante Kingdom if it came down to it. They were used to nning out everything, so they just wanted that option if it came to it.

    King Nergiante also knew this, but he didn''t say anything as he allowed them to do what they wanted.

    As for me, I didn''t actually have any part in this.

    This kind of stuff was in their domain of expertise, so it was best to leave this matter to them. If I were to get involved, there was no doubt that I would make plenty of mistakes that they would have to fix.

    So it was best just to leave this matter to them.

    What I had to do was...nothing.

    During the time that I had been away, the others had worked out a system where I wouldn''t have to be involved at all. In a way, because of my frequent absences, I had been downgraded to a figurehead king.

    The ones that now held all of the power were Rose and Ang.

    If they didn''t need me, it would have been easy for them to take over as the rulers of the country.

    But it wasn''t as if I was worried that they would throw me away.

    We were married and in love after all, they were even about to have my children.

    And it was because they were pregnant and about to have my children that I was able to get some free time, that I wasn''t always tired. After all, it wasn''t as if they could continue night time activities while they were pregnant.

    It had been some time and Rose''s stomach was already growing bigger.

    It seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the baby came.

    I was worried about her, but she insisted that she was fine and that she would continue with her duties.

    When she said it this strongly, it really was hard for me to say anything.

    After all, I was the kind of scumbag husband who went out and left his wife alone at home most of the time. Though the things that I did were for the benefit of our kingdom, it was a fact that I left them all on their own at home most of the time.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    So it wasn''t as if there was anything that I could really say that would be convincing enough.

    Though the one thing that I insisted on was having Cecilia stay to guard Rose.

    She was also starting to show signs of being pregnant, so I couldn''t have her running around as part of the royal guard. But at the same time, it wasn''t as if she would ept being ordered to stay still that easily, so all I could do was give the order for her to stay with Rose and guard her.

    That would keep her in a safe ce at the very least.

    But even though I had more free time, I couldn''t spend it with my wives like I wanted to.

    That was because there was a guest that followed me back to the Kite Kingdom.

    It was the group from the Holy Empire.

    The priest had followed me all the way back to the Kite Kingdom just so I wouldn''t be able to run away. Though in the first ce, it wasn''t as if there was anywhere for me to run since I was the king of the Kite Kingdom.

    From time to time, he woulde looking for me to discuss the matter of me heading to the Holy Empire.

    This was one of those times.

    "Your majesty, I have something to show you today." The priest said as soon as he found me.

    On other days, he would just talk about a few random things with me before slipping in a small reminder to head to the Holy Empire soon.

    But today was different as he said that he had something to show to me.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if I could just reject meeting him, so I had no choice but to meet him.

    Though when he said that there was something that he wanted to show me, I couldn''t help being curious what this was.

    He hadn''t done anything like this before, so it was certainly strange and provoked a bit of interest in me. I couldn''t help wondering just what kind of item he would have to show me.

    Once we were seated, he took out a small thing that was wrapped up in a cloth that he put on the table in front of us.

    After putting it down on the table, he slowly pulled aside the cloth to reveal what was inside.

    What appeared was a ring, but it didn''t seem like a special ring.

    It seemed to be a normal ring that was made of metal, but it surprised me since I didn''t recognize the metal that it was made of. Since I had spent a decent amount of time with the dwarves, I could say that I had a good idea of different kinds of metals.

    For me to not recognize what kind of metal this was, it had to be some kind of special metal.

    "This is...?" I slowly asked before looking at the priest, but he didn''t say anything in response as he gestured at the ring, as if he wanted me to take a look at it.

    I raised a brow, but I still reached out to touch the ring.

    The moment that my hand made contact with the ring, there was a burst of light that appeared around it.

    At the same time, the Mark of God appeared on my hand.

 Chapter 1108: Sacred item

    Chapter 1108: Sacred item

    ?

    The moment that this happened, I looked at the priest to see if he knew what was happening. It was just that all I saw was him looking intently at my hand and the glowing ring.

    The look on his face showed that he knew what was happening, only I had no idea why he was acting this way. With the trace of excitement that was in his eyes, it seemed like he had discovered something that he was very happy to see.

    At the same time, the way that he looked at the glowing ring was almost as if he had expected this to happen.

    After looking for a bit, it seemed that he turned to look at the Mark of God that was on the back of my hand.

    I didn''t hide it as I waited for him to calm down since I knew that it would be meaningless to ask him a question like this.

    Only when he seemed a bit calmer did I ask, "What is this thing?"

    The priest didn''t look up at me as he continued looking at the Mark of God that was on my hand. As he looked at it, he said, "It''s very simple, this is a sacred item."

    "Sacred item?" I repeated in a confused voice before suddenly realizing something.

    I knew what he was talking about since I had a sacred item as well.

    It was the Staff of Earth that the dwarves had given me, though they called it a relic instead of a sacred item.

    Though it didn''t matter what they called it since it had the same meaning.

    It meant that this item was something that was bestowed upon this world by the gods.

    While I didn''t know which god this sacred item was rted to, I could guess if it was activated by the Mark of God on my hand.

    After a moment of silence, the priest looked up at me and said with a smile, "It''s easier if I show you. Can you take your hand off the ring for a moment?"

    I nodded before following his instructions.

    Once my hand came off the ring, the priest reached out to grab it.

    However, the moment that his hand came in contact...he didn''t actually make contact with the ring. His hand seemed to go right through the ring, as if the ring wasn''t even there.

    After moving his hand through the ring for a while, he pulled his hand back and grabbed the cloth that was around the ring to lift it up.

    Holding that ring on the cloth in his palm, he looked at me to say, "As you can see, this ring isn''t an object of this world. It is an object that was bestowed upon us by the lords in heaven themselves, so it cannot be touched by a mortal. That is why it''s a sacred item."

    Then as if he felt like he should exin, the priest added, "Of course, I can touch it since this cloth is a special cloth that is imbued with holy energy that allows us to touch this sacred item."

    In a more excited voice, the priest continued by saying, "As for you...you have the ability to touch it without the cloth because of the mark that is on your hand. It''s a sign that you are the one that was chosen by the lord."

    The way that he said this, it was almost as if there was a trace of fanaticism in his voice. Especially with the way that he looked at the Mark of God that was on the back of my hand. I knew that I had been tricked in a sense.

    This was an item that would react to the power of god, which meant that it would react to the Mark of God that was on my hand. The moment that I touched it, it would draw on the power of the Mark of God to reveal its true powers like that.

    Though I didn''t really know what kind of powers it had since it didn''te to me like with the Staff of Earth.

    I would have needed to check this ring in depth to understand what powers it held.

    But there was no need for that as the priest actually exined what kind of sacred relic this

    was.

    It was a ring that was bestowed upon them by Solista, a ring that contained the power of the

    sun.

    By that, it meant that this ring contained the power of purification and the power of mes. If one had the holy energy needed to activate this ring, they would be able to conjure the purifying light and the purifying mes of Solista.

    Just based on this, there was no doubting the power of this ring.

    Though from my experience with the Staff of Earth, I was almost certain that the mileage on this thing wouldn''t be good. It would be just like the Staff of Earth, where it would take a lot of mana to activate.

    Still, this was certainly a very good relic to have if I could have it.

    If this was still the world of the game, there was no doubt that this thing would be considered a S Rank item.

    So there was a part of me that wanted this thing for myself.

    Though I knew that this wouldn''t be possible since it was a special sacred item that belonged to the Holy Empire. Or it was better to say that this was a special sacred item that belonged to the Solista Religion.

    It was not something that they would give up that easily.

    After he finished exining what the powers of the ring were, the priest suddenly looked up at me which caught me off guard.

    Looking at me with a serious look, he said, "Your majesty, do you want to try it out?"

    I looked at him with a confused and surprised look, but the expression on his face made it seem like he wasn''t joking about this.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    So my curiosity overwhelmed me and I slowly gave a nod.

    "Then let''s find a ce to test this out." The priest said while revealing a smile.

 Chapter 1109: Surprise gift

    Chapter 1109: Surprise gift

    ?

    Half an hourter, we arrived at the training grounds.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The royal guards had been in the middle of their training when we arrived, so they were surprised to see us appearing here.

    Klein looked like he wanted to lead a group over to help me, but I shook my head at him to show that we were fine.

    Though he looked at me as if he had his doubts, he didn''te over in the end and just watched from the side.

    The priest didn''t seem to care at all about the way that he was being treated.

    There was no doubt that he saw all of this since Klein and the others didn''t hide the way that they looked at the priest. With the way that they looked at him, it was almost as if they wanted him to see them looking at him like this.

    It was as if they wanted to put pressure on the priest so he wouldn''t do anything that he shouldn''t do.

    Only the priest didn''t seem to care as there was only one thing that was on his mind.

    The look in his eyes was more than enough to show what he cared about.

    The two of us stepped forward until we were in front of a wooden dummy and I turned to look at him as if I was asking him what I should do.

    The priest just looked at me with a calm look on his face and said, "Just will the power of the ring toe forth."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this.

    If that was all that was necessary, did I need you toe all this way to tell me this?

    But then again, it wasn''t as if this ring was mine in the first ce.

    It was the property and treasure of the Holy Empire, especially the Solista Religion.

    If it wasn''t for the fact that I had the Mark of God, they never would have allowed me toe in contact with it. They would have kept it in the safe ce that they had kept this thing all this time.

    So in a sense, it was only because he was here that I was able to use this ring.

    I turned my attention back to the ring and then focused on it like I did with the Staff of Earth.

    After tuning myself to the ring for a bit, I started to understand it and what it was capable of, just like with the Staff of Earth.

    At that point, it only took a single thought for me to draw out the power of the ring.

    All of a sudden, there were mes that appeared around my hand.

    However, these mes didn''t burn my hand.

    These weren''t even normal coloured mes, these were white mes that didn''t seem to have any heat to them at all with the way that they wrapped around me.

    These were the sacred mes that were released by the ring.

    With these sacred mes, it would have been even easier to take out the lich since these were mes made from divine power. They had a natural ability to purify anything that they came in touch with.

    With them, the lich wouldn''t have stood a chance.

    After looking at the mes for a bit, I suddenly pointed at the wooden dummy that was in front of me. The moment that I did, the mes immediately reacted and jumped at the wooden dummy that was there.

    Once the mes wrapped around the wooden dummy, it didn''tst a single second as it was turned into ashes.

    The intense heat that came from the mes hit me right in the face and I could tell from that just how powerful these mes were. It only made sense that the wooden dummy didn''tst a single second against these mes.

    These were the mes of a god after all.

    Once the mes had finished burning the wooden dummy, I gave a satisfied nod at this.

    The power that these mes had really was satisfying.

    It was just that I didn''t get the time to enjoy this as a feeling of dizziness came over me and I couldn''t help swaying.

    Seeing this, Klein and some of the other royal guards came forward as if they wanted to catch me.

    I stopped myself from falling and stood firm before waving my hand at them to show that I was fine.

    It was the same problem as with the Staff of Earth, this thing had bad mileage. It took a lot of mana just to activate the power of this ring and there was no safety feature that stopped it from draining mana if the person using it was running low.

    So that was why I felt weak after using the ring.

    Once I recovered, I took the ring off my finger with a bit of hesitation before handing it back to the priest.

    But to my surprise, the priest raised his hand to stop me before saying, "Your majesty, there''s no need for you to give it back. You can take this as a present from our Holy Empire to you."

    I immediately knitted my brows the moment that I heard this.

    After all, there was no free lunch in this world.

    There had to be something that they wanted in return for this ring.

    Especially since it was a sacred relic that was one of a kind in this world.

    After silently watching the way that I looked at him, the priest finally said, "All that we ask for

    is for your highness toe to our Holy Empire as soon as possible."

    He still didn''t say what his intentions were, he just wanted me to go to the Holy Empire.

    But the bait that he used really was enticing this time...

    A sacred item definitely wasn''t something that could be bought with money and at the same time, I had already decided to go, it was just that I hadn''t thought of a good time yet.

    If they were going to give me this, wasn''t this the perfect excuse?

 Chapter 1110: Airship

    Chapter 1110: Airship

    ?

    In the end, I chose to go with the Holy Empire group.

    It was the sacred relic that won me over in the end.

    It wasn''t the value of the sacred relic that won me over, but rather the fact that they were willing to give up something of this value.

    This was a clear sign that they were already desperate for me toe with them if they were willing to give up something this precious. So if I were to keep rejecting them, there was no telling what they would have been willing to do.

    If I''ve alreadye to the decision that I would go to the Holy Empire, pushing them too far wasn''t a good idea.

    Though there were some people that were unhappy that I came to this decision so quickly, they held their tongues and didn''t say anything about this decision.

    That was how I set off for the Holy Empire.

    In a carriage with the priest, I sat in front of the priest who had a smile on his face.

    The way that he looked at me was as if he was happy that I had finallye to my senses and decided to go with him.

    There was a part of me that wasn''t happy seeing this look on his face, but I didn''t say anything about it in the end. I knew that nothing that I said would actually help me in this situation, so I didn''t bother addressing it.

    Instead, there was something else that I asked, "Where are we going?"

    Even though I agreed to go to the Holy Empire, the way that we were heading wasn''t in the direction of the Holy Empire.

    It seemed like we were going to apletely different ce with the direction that we were heading in.

    After all, the statement that was written by the priest didn''t mention anything about where they were taking me other than the Holy Empire. There was the argument that they could be taking me to another ce before taking me to the Holy Empire...

    So there was the chance that they could be ying me still.

    But it turned out that this was an unnecessary worry.

    After all, they wouldn''t y such a petty trick.

    "I know that it seems like we''re going to an unrted ce, but it''s where our ride is." The priest said with a smile on his face.

    "Ride?" I asked with a brow raised.

    The priest just looked at me with the same smile on his face as if he was saying...

    "It''s a surprise."

    I couldn''t help shaking my head after seeing this, but I didn''t say anything and waited to see what he wanted to show.

    Though I was heading to the Holy Empire, it wasn''t as if I was going alone.

    Klein and the royal guards were escorting me since they were royal guards, it''s only natural that they woulde along as the royal guards.

    After a while, we arrived at the ''ride'' that the priest mentioned.

    The moment that I saw this ride, I couldn''t help being surprised. However, that didn''t mean that I didn''t recognize this ride.

    It was one of the methods of traveling from the game, so of course I recognized it.

    It was an airship.

    This was one of the methods of traveling in the mid tote game, only because it was so expensive to use an airship like this.

    As expected of one of the four human empires, they had the resources of an empire that was certain to be able to take out an airship like this.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    As someone with knowledge from the game, I knew how hard it was to create these airships in the first ce and what kind of consumption it took to use these airships.

    For them to be willing to use one just to bring me to the Holy Empire, it could be seen what kind of value I had in their eyes.

    Once we arrived, the priest opened the door and stood outside the carriage. With his hand gesturing forward, he said, "Shall we?"

    The way that he stood there was almost as if he was offering me the chance to take a closer look at the airship.

    Though I knew what the airship was like, it was apletely different thing seeing it in real life instead of as a CG in a game. This was something that had the smell of a fantasy setting, so it made me a bit excited.

    I could also see that Klein and the others were a bit excited seeing this.

    Even though they flew regrly on the back of wyverns, it was apletely different thing to be flying on an airship.

    They had naturally heard about the airships of therge empires, but to see it in person like this was certainly a different feeling.

    It was different from flying on wyverns.

    It could be considered safer since it was a proper vessel.

    Since the priest was inviting me, I went onto the airship.

    It wasn''t really that different from a normal ship, other than therge crystal that was at the center of the airship. Thisrge crystal was the reason why creating an airship was that expensive in the first ce.

    Thisrge crystal was as expected a magic crystal, but to get a magic crystal of this size was rare and it wasn''t as magic crystals could bebined together to form arge magic crystal

    of this size.

    The way that airships worked was that magic was used to generate wind that lifted up the airship and carried it to its destination.

    Only a magic crystal of this size was able to support therge amounts of magic that was necessary to lift up an aircraft of this size.

    These kinds of magic crystals were rare and hard to find, so they were very expensive.

    One could see the power that an empire had just based on the fact that they possessed these magic crystals for airships.

 Chapter 1111: Saintess (1)

    Chapter 1111: Saintess (1)

    ?

    The speed of the airship was not something to look down on.

    The power that was contained within that magic crystal was immense, if it was any other country, this thing would have been used to power arrays that contained forbidden spells and such.

    So when it was converted into wind that propelled the airship, the speed was not something to scoff at.

    With this speed, it took only a single day to arrive at the borders of the Holy Empire.

    It was still light outside when we arrived at the borders.

    Since we arrived in the airship of the Holy Empire, the treatment we received waspletely different from the others that were still waiting to enter the territory of the Holy Empire.

    There were plenty of people that were kept waiting at the gates of the border and it was clear that they wouldn''t all be able to enter the Holy Empire today. But it didn''t seem like these people cared since they had even brought tents and such, making it clear that they were prepared to camp outside the gate at night.

    That was their determination to head into the territory of the Holy Empire.

    Though looking closely, I could see that some of them seemed to be in bad shape. If I had to guess, they were most likely refugees that had fled from the surrounding countries after they were hit with the monster waves.

    So it only made sense that they had no choice but to wait to enter the Holy Empire.

    There was nowhere else for them to go in the end.

    With the airship of the Holy Empire leading the way, we easily entered the territory of the Holy Empire and were allowed to head to the capital.

    The moment that we entered the territory of the Holy Empire, it made it clear what it meant to be one of the four empires of the human race.

    The territory of the Holy Empire waspletely untouched by the chaos of the monster

    waves.

    There was lush greenery that was found everywhere in the Holy Empire.

    It was as if this ce was a paradise that was found nowhere else.

    Of course, I knew that it was only the Holy Empire that would look like this. The other empires wouldn''t have the same scenery in theirnds since they had other specialties.

    The only reason the Holy Empire was like this was because of their specialty, which was their faith.

    Namely, it was the religion that followed Vivrum, the Goddess of Life that created this scenery. Their faith and powers blessed thends of the Holy Empire, which allowed all of these nts to grow.

    Of course, it wasn''t just this that was the specialty of the Holy Empire.

    There were many different religions and many different deities that were worshipped in the Holy Empire. There were many different blessings that were given to thend of the Holy Empire because of the faith of their many followers.

    It was night time when we arrived in the capital and there was a group that came out to greet us as soon as wended.

    This group was led by a specific person that caught everyone''s attention as soon as she came out.

    This was a woman who was beautiful enough that it almost seemed like there was this glow that was around her...

    No, when one looked closely, they could see that there was something that seemed to be a halo that was around her. The light that was around her seemed to be some kind of holy light that surrounded her.

    Even without any prior knowledge, one would be able to guess that this person was an important person.

    As for someone like me who had prior knowledge from the game, I knew exactly who this person was. I even knew her to the point where I could even imagine what her body was like...

    That was because she was also one of the targets that one could capture in the game if they ever chose to go to the Holy Empire.

    She was the saintess of the Holy Empire.

    She wasn''t the saintess of a single church, but the saintess of the Holy Empire itself since she was someone that had the ability tomunicate with the gods. This wasn''t an ability that was exclusive to a single god, she was able tomunicate with all of the gods.

    That was why she was considered the saintess of the Holy Empire instead of the saintess of a single religion.

    The ability tomunicate with the gods was a must for any religion and none of them would be able to monopolize her like this.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Her status wasparable to the popes of therge religions in the Holy Empire.

    Or it could even be said that her status was even higher because of her special abilities.

    She was not someone that could be met that easily...

    Yet here she was to greet us.

    Once we came down from the airship, I was surprised to see the saintess suddenly bowing her head. She bowed to me as she said, "This lowly servant of the lord greets the holy son."

    It wasn''t just me who was caught off guard, even the others who were with her were caught off guard.

    The only one that didn''t seem surprised was the priest that had guided me.

    After a long silence, I looked at her with a strange look and said, "Saintess, there''s no need for you to act this way around me. Rather, it should be me showing this kind of respect to you."

    But before I could give her a proper greeting, the saintess raised her hand to stop me before saying, "Holy son, you must be joking. I am nothing more than a voice for the lords, I am a lowly servant that works for them. How could I be worthy of this kind of honour?"

    I looked at her with an even stranger look after hearing her say this.

    I really didn''t know what to say in response...

    This reaction seemed a bit too much from her...

 Chapter 1112: Saintess (2)

    Chapter 1112: Saintess (2)

    ?

    After another long silence, I said with an awkward cough, "Let''s not act like this then. Let''s just address each other casually."

    The saintess once again raised her hand before saying, "Holy son, there''s no need for you to treat me this way. In fact, please allow this lowly servant to guide you on your visit to our Holy Empire."

    I just didn''t know how to react to this.

    The way that she acted made it really seem like she was cing herself as a servant to me...

    But with her status in the Holy Empire, the situation should have beenpletely turned around.

    After all, I was just the king of a small kingdom that could barely reach the ranks of the middle sized kingdoms. It wasn''t anythingpared to the saintess of the Holy Empire that was above most of the human race.

    The others all thought the same as they looked at the saintess with simr strange looks. But since it was the saintess who said this, no one said anything against it.

    Seeing that I wasn''t saying anything, the saintess took the initiative to push the issue by suddenly gesturing forward and saying, "Holy son, shall I guide you to your residence for the night? I''m sure that you''re tired after your long journey."

    Looking at her in silence for a bit longer, I slowly gave a nod.

    At this point, it really didn''t seem like there was anything that I could say that could make her change her mind. In that case, I might as well go along with it and see what she was nning.

    Though by acting this way, I could see that there were some people that were dissatisfied with the way that I was acting.

    They were the ones that followed the saintess toe and greet us.

    Though the ones that looked displeased were young men who followed the saintess.

    In this world that was based on a H-game, naturally there weren''t the same rules for those that were part of a religion. Unlike my past world where holy figures had to maintain an oath of celibacy, it wasn''t the case in this world.

    They could choose to do so, but they were allowed to have sex if they wanted to.

    That was the way to cater to people''s fetishes about nuns...

    They couldn''t just lock that content away and that tranted to this world that was based on the game.

    So these young men that followed the saintess were most likely those that were interested in her.

    The saintess was a beautiful woman with herrge clear blue eyes, her long flowing golden hair, and her fair white skin that wasn''t too pale. She was almost like a doll with the beautiful appearance that she had.

    At the same time, even though she served the gods, the figure that she had was that of a devil.

    With a chest that wasn''t small orrge and an hourss shape, she definitely was capable of turning heads with just a single walk by.

    It was no wonder she would have many admirers.

    The saintess didn''t seem to care at all as she was focused on her job of guiding us, but she did turn around to look at me while leading the way. The look on her face was as if there was something that she wanted to ask me.

    I hesitated a bit, but I still asked, "Is something the matter?"

    The saintess didn''t answer right away as she looked like she was hesitant to speak, but she eventually asked, "Holy son, is it possible to see the Mark of God?"

    At this, there were many people that suddenly turned to look at me.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Most of these gazes were filled with curiosity, but there were also a few that contained a trace of hostility.

    These were from the young men that seemed to be admirers of the saintess.

    As for the reason that they had traces of hostility, there was something that they wanted to see from me. They had their doubts about whether the Mark of God was even real, but it wasn''t because they were devoted followers.

    It was because they wanted to see me in a bad situation.

    With everyone''s eyes on me like this, it was hard for me to say no.

    So I raised my hand and the Mark of God appeared with a thought.

    There were shocked looks that appeared on their faces when they saw this, but the one that recovered the quickest was the saintess. The look of shock that was on her face was quickly reced with a look of excitement.

    Though she didn''t move closer to the Mark of God that was on my hand.

    There were some people that slowly recovered and then there was someone that wanted to say something, but the saintess cut them off.

    "This is the warmth of the lord''s glow. I can''t believe that I have the chance to bask in this glow." The saintess said in a slow and excited voice.

    Everyone slowly turned to look at the saintess as if they were waiting for something.

    I knew why they looked at her like this, it was rted to the special power that she had.

    So after a while, I couldn''t help asking, "Did you hear something?"

    My words pulled the saintess out of her daze.

    She looked up at me with a smile and shook her head as she said, "No, I am just in awe at bathing in the warmth of the lord''s glow. I didn''t hear anything at all."

    The ones that were standing around us had disappointed looks when they heard this before turning away to continue walking.

    What they didn''t see was the look that was in the saintess'' eyes as she looked at me.

    This was a look that filled me with worry...

    After all, there was this trace of fanaticism that was in her eyes that scared me a little.

    I didn''t remember the saintess being this kind of character...

 Chapter 1113: Scary side

    Chapter 1113: Scary side

    ?

    In the end, the saintess backed off even though it looked like she wanted to do more.

    It really seemed like she wanted to grab my hand and lift it right up in front of her face so that the light from the Mark of God would cover her.

    But she was able to hold herself back in the end.

    There was nothing that was like this in the game, but then again...

    One couldn''t obtain the Mark of God in the game.

    Since obtaining this Mark of God, there were many different things that happened that I had

    no idea of. There were all kinds of things that happened that didn''t happen in the game because of the power of this Mark of God.

    Though to be fair, this was all because the Mark of God didn''t exist in the game.

    Or as far as I knew, it didn''t exist or someone would have found it already.

    Not to mention, the Mark of God was something that came from a god itself.

    So it wasn''t something that was even essible in the game.

    Even if the Holy Empire was made up of religions that worshipped the gods, they didn''t actually have a way to ess the realm of the gods. It was a ce that was only mentioned and never actually visited in the game.

    It wasn''t that strange that there was no mention of the Mark of God in the game.

    At least for now, it seemed like she was able to hold back.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    But in the future...

    That was something to worry about when the time came, it wasn''t something to worry about right now.

    Or that was what I thought until morning came.

    When I opened the door to the room in the hotel that I was staying in, I found the saintess waiting outside.

    I waspletely caught off guard since she was standing right in front of the door.

    With the way that she was standing there, it was almost as if she had been waiting there for a long time now. Especially with how there was a crowd that had gathered in the hallway watching her.

    The only reason that I was even able toe out was because the holy knights had been deployed to keep the crowd away from her.

    It really seemed like she had caused arge mess, but the saintess didn''t seem to care...

    That was because the moment that she saw mee out, she said with a smile, "Holy son, you''re awake. Shall I show you around this morning? There are many beautiful ces in our Holy Empire for you to see."

    I looked at her with a strange look after hearing her say this.

    I could see that many people had strange reactions as well, but they didn''t do anything since the holy knights were keeping them back.

    After looking at her with this strange look for a bit, I asked, "What are you doing here so early in the morning?"

    The saintess said with the same smile, "Of course I was waiting to guide you around. It''s the holy son''s first time in the Holy Empire, of course it''s this lowly servant of the lord''s duty to guide the holy son around."

    There was a part of me that strongly wanted to reject this, but it was hard when I saw the way that she was looking at me.

    I knew that no matter what I said, it would be hard to convince her when she had this look in her eyes.

    So in the end, I just gave a nod in response to show that I epted her off to guide me.

    The smile grew wider on the saintess'' face before she said, "Then holy son, pleasee with me."

    She moved aside and gestured forward as if I should go first.

    But I didn''t go forward, instead I just looked at her with an awkward look on my face before saying, "Is there a need to call me holy son like this? You can just address me by my name, especially since your status is higher than mine."

    The saintess firmly shook her head before saying, "I am nothing more than a lowly servant of the lord, how could Ipare to the holy son?"

    I really didn''t know what to say when the saintess was this insistent on this.

    It really made me feel awkward...

    But at the very least, I was able to convince her that it wasn''t a good idea to address each other like this. It would attract too much attention and attention wasn''t something that we wanted right now.

    "Then please call this lowly servant Irene."

    That was thepromise that Saintess Irene made in the end, it seemed like she wouldn''t go any further than this.

    I could see that from the look on her face, so I said, "Saintess Irene, then please show us around."

    She gave a nod before leading the way.

    This time, she walked in front, though it looked like she was acting like a guide.

    At least it was better than before where she wanted to follow behind me...

    I was certain that I would be torn to pieces by the citizens of the Holy Empire if they were to

    see me leading the way for their saintess.

    As we headed out, I couldn''t help noticing something.

    I remembered a few faces yesterday because they looked at me with hostile gazes.

    I didn''t see those faces today.

    "It seems like your group is missing a few people, what happened?" I couldn''t help asking Saintess Irene.

    She had the same calm smile on her face, but this time her smile didn''t reach her eyes.

    She looked at me with that smile and said, "It seems that something came up and they were predisposed, which is why they couldn''t join us today."

    I didn''t even need to think to know what happened...

    I just never thought that she would be this decisive about this, especially since I was an outsider and those were members of the Holy Empire.

 Chapter 1114: Statue reacting

    Chapter 1114: Statue reacting

    ?

    With Saintess Irene leading the way, there was no one that dared to get in our way.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    With her beauty, anyone would be able to recognize her from miles away, so there was no mistaking her as she walked through the streets of the city.

    Since she was the saintess, there was no one that dared to get in her way.

    But at the same time, there was arge crowd that gathered because of her.

    They all stood in the streets and looked at her. There were many that also seemed like they wanted to cheer for her or even ask for her autograph, but they held themselves back in the end.

    It wasn''t just the holy knights that kept them back, it was more their respect for her that kept them back.

    The way that they looked at Saintess Irene was already more than enough to show how popr and influential she was.

    The same could be said about the way that they looked at me.

    It was clear that many of them were dissatisfied that an unknown person like me was with someone like her.

    It was just that Saintess Irenepletely ignored these people as she continued leading the way.

    With Saintess Irene leading the way, we quickly made our way to a garden in the middle of the city. It was strange that there was a garden in a ce like this, but it was quite therge garden that was here.

    It wasn''t a garden that was outside of a church or an important building or anything, this was a garden that really seemed to be out of ce as it was in the middle of nowhere.

    However, this was the ce that Saintess Irene brought us to.

    Once we arrived at the garden, the holy knights didn''t even need instructions as they spread out to surround the garden. With the way that they took their ces around this garden, it seemed like they were nning on keeping everyone out of the garden.

    When we entered the garden, it was like entering apletely different world.

    It was as if we had entered a world that no one else was in with how quiet it was in this garden. It waspletely different from when we had been in the streets and surrounded by people.

    It seemed like we were the only ones that were in this world with how quiet this ce was. This really didn''t seem real with how fast the transition was.

    I looked at Saintess Irene as if I was asking for an exnation, but it didn''t seem like she noticed as she continued acting as a tour guide.

    "This garden is filled with different kinds of flowers that were imported from many different countries. It could be considered one of the most beautiful ces in the entire Holy Empire."

    As she continued introducing the different parts of the garden to us, she also led the way forward into the deeper parts of the garden. With the confident way that she moved forward, it was as if she was leading us to a specific ce.

    It didn''t seem like she was going to hesitate for even a second with the way that she pushed forward.

    Since she didn''t stop, there was nothing that we could do other than follow her.

    There was one time that I had tried stopping to test her and she immediately stopped as well before turning to look at me. She looked at me in a way as if she wouldn''t move unless I moved...

    It had put quite a bit of pressure on me, so I knew that it was better to go along with her than to fight her for now.

    At least it didn''t seem like she meant any harm.

    After walking forward for a bit, the flowers and nts that were around us seemed to fade

    away a bit. It was as if there was something that was ahead of us that warranted them to move the flowers and nts away.

    When we came out of the path, we found ourselves in arge square.

    But that wasn''t what caught everyone''s attention.

    The thing that everyone immediately noticed was therge statue that was in the center of the square.

    It was a statue of a beautiful woman that stood there.

    I didn''t know who this beautiful woman was, but it felt a bit familiar when I saw her.

    Then I realized why it felt familiar when I saw the que that was at the bottom of the statue.

    Solista.

    This was a statue of Solista.

    It was also the fact that I saw this que that I realized why this garden was situated in the middle of the city like this.

    This ce was a monument for the statue of Solista that was here.

    It wasn''t strange that there would be a ce like this in the Holy Empire.

    Though I didn''t understand why Saintess Irene brought us here in the first ce.

    That was until I noticed something.

    My attention had beenpletely on the statue of Solista that I didn''t notice it. But when I came back to my senses, I realized that my hand was glowing.

    It was the Mark of God.

    This Mark of God had suddenly appeared on my hand and had suddenly started to glow, almost as if it was reacting to something.

    Though I had no idea what exactly it was reacting to.

    That was until there was something else that suddenly started to glow as well.

    It was only a faint glow at first, but it slowly became stronger until it waspletely covered

    in this glow.

    It was the statue of Solista that suddenly started to glow, as if it was resonating with the Mark of God that was on my hand.

    There was a bitter smile that appeared on my face.

    That was because I could see the look that was on Saintess Irene''s face when she saw this

    statue of Solista begin to glow.

 Chapter 1115: Walking battery

    Chapter 1115: Walking battery

    ?

    That look on her face made it very clear why she brought us here.

    At the same time, it filled me with this feeling as if I had just been used...

    But there was nothing that could be said since we were in their territory.

    In a way, it could be said that this was just the price that had to be paid toe to this ce. Since I was the only one that had this Mark of God, it was only natural that I would be used in this way.

    After staring at the statue for a while, Saintess Irene turned back and said with bright glowing eyes, "Do you see this? I''ve never seen this statue glowing with this kind of holy light before. It must be because it can feel your presence, holy son."

    She didn''t even hide the fact that she had led us here on purpose.

    The way that she said this, it was almost as if she was openly admitting this to our faces.

    It was just that the way that she said this didn''t seem to have any malice, so it was hard to get angry with her...

    After listening to her for a bit, I asked, "What do you mean by feel my presence?"

    While I had an idea of what it was, I wanted to hear what she had to say about this.

    I was surprised to find that this was all that was needed to trigger her.

    It was as if there was something that had been unleashed with Saintess Irene as she started letting the words flow out.

    "You see, this statue was a special statue that was made by Master Juliano. It is the greatest statue of the lord that was ever created in our Holy Empire. It took several days and nights of continuous carving even from Master Juliano to create this statue, but the product is worth it. If you look closely..."

    The way that she continued on describing all of the small details of the statue, it was almost as if she was some kind of fanatic for the statue.

    No, in the words of my previous world, it was better to call it an otaku.

    Of course, it wasn''t as if she was an otaku for statues.

    She was a religious fanatic, one that seemed to have a level of faith that one would find in a cult.

    This was definitely the kind of faith that would be considered dangerous.

    After all, if there was something that jeopardized their faith, they would do what was necessary to get rid of that thing that was threatening their faith.

    In some cases, they wouldn''t hesitate to go all out against that thing that was threatening their faith.

    So it was dangerous to be near this kind of person.

    It was just that we didn''t have a choice but to be with her.

    After around ten minutes, she finally finished giving her exnation about what was special about the statue. Though it really seemed like there was a part of her that wanted to continue talking about the statue, or even continue talking about the lord that she served.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Though the reason that she stopped wasn''t because she was holding back.

    Rather, it was because...

    "Now, let''s go and see the next spot." Saintess Irene said with a smile before gesturing at us as if she wanted to follow.

    The statue of Solista in the center of this garden was still glowing even though we left the clearing.

    Though the Mark of God that was on my hand seemed to have calmed down even though the statue was still glowing.

    I had no idea how long the statue would continue glowing, but my guess was that it would stop soon since the source of the energy which was me was leaving.

    It was just that I had no idea what I was getting myself into...

    ...

    By the end of the day, I was exhausted.

    That was because Saintess Irene had dragged us to several different ces in the Holy Empire''s capital city. These were ces that were scattered all around the city, so it took quite a bit of traveling to reach all those different ces.

    Even with horse carriages, it was still a lot of walking since most of these ces wererge empty spaces.

    As one would guess from the first ce that she took us, all of the ces that we were dragged were religious monuments. They all contained special monuments that were dedicated to the gods.

    And at each of these locations, the Mark of God would always appear without fail and cause a reaction from those monuments.

    It was like the statue of Solista that we went to first.

    As soon as we arrived, the Mark of God would appear and there would be a glow that appeared around these things. But that wasn''t the only thing that happened as there were more signs that appeared.

    At one of the fountains, there was this glowing water that was released by the fountain. When it was tested, they found that this was holy water that was released by the fountain. At one of the other monuments which was just a hole, that was where trouble urred. That hole was the hole that was left behind by one of the gods, though no one knew why the god had left this hole behind. Still, since it was a thing that was left behind by one of the gods, it was treated as a holy ce and worshipped by the followers of that god.

    When the Mark of God appeared though, the hole suddenly started filling itself up...

    It was as if there was something guiding it to fill itself up...

    It was just a good thing that the Holy Empire was filled with people that had fanatic belief towards their gods and they treated this as an act of god, so that now filled up hole was still treated as holy grounds.

    The way that they brought me around to all their monuments and caused all of these things to happen...it was as if they were treating me as some kind of walking battery.

    But judging from the look on Saintess Irene''s face, it didn''t seem like she had any ulterior

    motives.

    "I really don''t understand these religious types..." I couldn''t help muttering to myself as I entered my room.

 Chapter 1116: Special trip

    Chapter 1116: Special trip

    ?

    When morning came, I was surprised to find that there was still a group that was waiting outside of my hotel.

    It was surprising since I had made sure that Saintess Irene wasn''t waiting for me this time.

    I had told her toeter since I wanted some alone time before this morning''s activities. The look that was on her face when I told her this almost made her seem like some kind of lost puppy, but I just steeled myself and told her to give me a bit of time beforeing to get me. So it didn''t make sense that there was still this group that was gathered outside of the hotel.

    I even made sure that Saintess Irene wasn''t here by going down and checking the rest of the hotel myself.

    "What''s going on?" I asked Klein who came in from looking around outside.

    He looked at me with a strange look and he didn''t say anything. With the way that he looked at me, it was almost as if he didn''t know what to say. Or it even looked like he had difficulty putting what he wanted to say into words.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    That just made me even more confused since I had no idea why he was acting this way.

    I looked closely outside the hotel and I found that there were even some people that seemed to be kneeling in front of the hotel, as if they were praying to something. It was just that there wasn''t anything that was worth praying to inside of this hotel...

    As I was about to go out myself and see what was happening, that was when Saintess Irene arrived.

    When she arrived, she also gave me the answer that I had been looking for.

    "It''s very simple, they all know that the holy son is staying in this hotel. With all of the miracles that you performed yesterday, it is only natural that they would treat you this way."

    A look of shock appeared on my face before I slowly turned to look at Klein.

    He had an awkward look on his face, but he slowly gave a nod to show that this was indeed the case.

    "Miracles?" I asked in a bitter voice.

    Saintess Irene didn''t hesitate at all as she said with a nod, "Of course those were miracles. It was only through the grace of the lord that all of those things happened and you as the holy son are the vessel that this grace flows through."

    The way that she looked at me as she said this sent a chill down my spine.

    The way that she looked at me really was a dangerous look...

    So I changed the topic by asking, "What do you have nned for us today?"

    Saintess Irene didn''t answer right away as she continued looking at me with this same strange fanatical look for a bit, but she eventually stopped and said, "We are going on a special trip."

    "Special trip?" I asked in a confused voice.

    But all that Saintess Irene did was look at me with a smile before saying, "It''s going to be a special ce that we''re going to."

    There was a worried feeling that filled me after she said this.

    A part of me really didn''t want to go with her, but then again...what was I going to do if I didn''t go with her?

    It wasn''t as if there was anywhere else that I could go right now, especially with how my hotel waspletely surrounded by people like this.

    If I were to try and go out, there was no doubt that I would be surrounded by these people.

    It was just a good thing that I didn''t try to go out earlier...

    After a moment of hesitation, I still followed her out of the hotel.

    Saintess Irene hade with a group of holy knights who kept order, but there were still a few people that were able to make their way over to me. It was hard to keep these fanatical believers away, so the ones that were allowed toe forward were those that were considered harmless.

    For the first time, there was someone who asked me to bless their baby.

    It was a strange feeling, but it also seemed like they wouldn''t go away unless I did it. Even Saintess Irene looked at me with an encouraging look as if she wanted me to do this. So I really didn''t have a choice as I called out the Mark of God and tapped my finger on the baby''s forehead.

    The mother thanked me profusely and there were others that wanted me to do the same, but they were kept back by the holy knights and we were taken away in a carriage.

    It was only in the carriage that Saintess Irene told us where we were heading.

    "The main church, that''s where we''re heading. I told you that it''s a special ce." Irene said with a smile on her face.

    I didn''t deny what she said since it was the truth.

    The main church of the Holy Empire.

    That seemed like a strange thing for the Holy Empire that was a mix of different religions, but this main church wasn''t actually a church for a single god. This was a church that celebrated all the different religions.

    Though the main purpose of this main church was a ce where the different heads of the different religions gathered to discuss the governing of the Holy Empire.

    So it could be said that this was the political center of the Holy Empire.

    It seemed that those people who were in charge of the Holy Empire couldn''t wait any longer and wanted to meet us.

    I thought that it would take some time before they wanted to meet me, but it seemed like this wasn''t the case.

    Of course, this was both a good thing and a bad thing.

    It was a good thing since it meant that there would be less time wasted in this Holy Empire.

    It was a bad thing since they were in a situation where they wanted to see me as soon as

    possible.

    That was never a good sign since this most likely meant that there was something that then

    wanted from me.

    It was just...

    What did they want?

 Chapter 1117: Holy Council

    Chapter 1117: Holy Council

    ?

    The main church was grand.

    That was a fact.

    When we arrived at the main church, I had to look up to get a better look at it.

    This was bigger than any of the monuments that Saintess Irene had taken us to.

    This was the center of the Holy Empire, so naturally it was a ce that was built up in a grand fashion.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    At the same time, this was a good representation of just how rich and powerful the Holy Empire was that they were able to build such a ce for the center of their government.

    There were many people that were going in and out of this building as well, which showed just how important it was. The people that went in and out were all people that dressed in clothes that made them seem important.

    The people that were able to move freely in this ce were all people that were important in the Holy Empire.

    But even if they had status in the Holy Empire, they still weren''t at the same level as Saintess Irene.

    She was the saintess that was on the same level as the popes of therge religions. No, she was actually at a higher level than the popes of therge religions.

    So they didn''t approach us as they walked past.

    Though I could feel their gazes falling on me as they passed by.

    The way that they looked at me was as if they were scoping me out, as if they were trying to see through me.

    But I didn''t let that bother me as I focused on the main church that was in front of me. After admiring it for a bit, I turned to Saintess Irene and asked, "Where do we go now?"

    Saintess Irene had been silently waiting on the side with a faint smile on her face, almost as if she was proud to see us looking at the main church with the looks of admiration that we had.

    When I asked this, she waved her hand and said, "Please follow me. The council has been waiting for your arrival."

    I was surprised to hear this, especially when she said that they were waiting.

    The council that she mentioned was the Holy Council, the ruling body of the Holy Empire.

    They were made up of the major figures of almost all the different religions, though the religions that had more followers would have more sway on the council. That was just how it was when there was a nation that was ruled by religion.

    The number of followers was the most important thing.

    Since they were the ruling body of the Holy Empire, they were a group that was far beyond me when it came to status. That was why I was surprised to find that they were actually waiting for me instead of just directly summoning me.

    The way that Saintess Irene acted was as if we were free to take our time.

    It was as if she didn''t care that we were keeping the Holy Council waiting at all.

    But I didn''t think the same thing since the Holy Council was made up of the different heads of the religions. It was one thing to keep one person waiting, but to keep an entire group of super influential people waiting...

    That was not a good idea.

    So I started heading into the main church, though I did go slowly to let Saintess Irene lead the way.

    With her leading the way, we quickly arrived at the center of the main church.

    There were a pair ofrge doors that were waiting for us.

    When these doors were open, arge assembly room appeared in front of us.

    Sitting in this assembly room were quite a few people and it seemed that most of them were old men, but there were also a few middle aged men and even a few old women sitting there.

    As soon as the door opened and we came in, all of them suddenly turned to look in our direction.

    Or it was better to say that all of their eyes were gathered on me.

    At the front of the room, there was a table that had seven people sitting there.

    These seven were the head counselors of this Holy Council, the heads of the sevenrgest religions in the Holy Empire.

    Among them was one face that I recognized.

    It was the pope of the Solista Religion.

    The other six faces were unknown to me since I had never met them before.

    Even in the game, I had never seen them before.

    But that wasn''t strange since these counselors weren''t that important in the game, the plot had focused more on Saintess Irene.

    Saintess Irene didn''t seem to mind at all as she walked into the room without any hesitation. Though when she saw that I didn''t follow her, she stopped to turn around to look at me before saying, "Holy son, is something wrong?"

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this.

    Though I knew that there was nothing wrong with the way that she acted since she was already used to appearing in front of the Holy Council.

    The same couldn''t be said for me and the guards that apanied me.

    Now that I was a king, I naturally felt pressured meeting the ones that governed the Holy Empire, one of thergest human countries in this world.

    Seeing that I didn''t say anything and I didn''t even move as I just stood there with a bitter smile on my face, Saintess Irene came over and took my hand before pulling me forward.

    I was surprised to see her act this way.

    This was a saintess that never touched anyone because she didn''t want toe in contact with anyone, but here she was grabbing me without any hesitation.

    I really didn''t know what to say.

    I could also see that there were a few people that were looking at this with strange looks as

    well.

    But in the end, Saintess Irene pulled me to the front of the room where the seven popes were

    sitting.

 Chapter 1118: Special room

    Chapter 1118: Special room

    ?

    The one that spoke first in the end was the pope of the Solista Religion.

    "Your majesty, we meet again." He said with a simple smile on his face.

    I looked at him before shaking my head with a sigh.

    The pope didn''t seem to mind as he kept looking at me with the same smile on his face.

    I honestly never thought that I would see him again, even if I was pulled intoing to this Holy Empire. I thought that I would be able to sneak around and not see this pope again.

    I never thought that I would be pulled in front of the Holy Council like this.

    After all, I shouldn''t be considered that special to the Holy Empire that they would bring all of their leaders together like this.

    But it seemed that I was wrong.

    After that sigh, I said, "Indeed, I never thought that we would meet again so soon."N?v(el)B\\jnn

    "It''s all the arrangement of the lord." The pope of the Solista Religion said with the same smile on his face.

    "Enough of that, let''s get down to business." An old man in ck robes said from the other end of the table. He turned his eyes from the pope of the Solista Religion to look at me before saying, "Show us the Mark of God."

    The way that he said this was as if he wasmanding me instead of asking me.

    I couldn''t help slightly knitting my brows at this since it was the first time that I had been talked to like this sinceing to the Holy Empire. Though I also couldn''t help finding it strange that I was feeling this way since this should have been my expectation whening to this Holy Empire.

    It was the way that they had treated me this entire time that had been strange now that I thought about it.

    But regardless of what it was, this was not a situation where I could get distracted.

    Though before I could say or do anything, another one of the popes spoke. This time, it was an old man in a brown robe that said, "Now, now, there''s no need to rush this. He is our honoured guest that we''ve invited all this way, we shouldn''t treat him like this."

    It seemed that even the Holy Council was divided as some of the others in the room nodded in agreement to this, while the others seemed to agree with the pope in the ck robes.

    Though looking closely, it seemed that the ones that seemed to support me were the ones that were in the majority. It seemed that the ones that were behind the pope in the ck robes weren''t as numbered as the ones that supported the pope in the brown robes.

    Judging by the reactions that were spread out across the room, it seemed like two thirds of the people that were on the Holy Council seemed to support the pope in the brown robes.

    So it seemed that the majority of them had decided to support me.

    But it was still worrying to see how many people supported the pope in the ck robes. If they ever wanted to do anything...they had enough people and power to do something.

    I just hoped that the ones that supported me would be able to stop them.

    The words of these two seemed to have opened up a can of worms as others at the table also started to speak up.

    It turned out two of the seven popes were of the same mind, they were the pope in the ck robes and the pope in the red robes.

    The other five seemed to support me, which was a good sign.

    They were the ones that had the most power in the Holy Empire, so more of them on my side was always a good thing.

    Even if they were spatting with each other, there was one thing that they were fighting over and it was rted to me.

    While I did want to see them keep fighting, there was nothing to gain from letting them fight like this.

    So I raised my hand and made the Mark of God appear.

    The moment that the Mark of God appeared, the fighting suddenly stopped as everyone''s eyes fell onto the Mark of God.

    "It really is the Mark of God..."

    "This is the light of the lord, it''s so warm..."

    "How can the Mark of God appear on someone unrted to our Holy Empire?"

    Thest words were said in a soft voice, but I had picked them up which made me slightly knit my brows.

    I had already thought that there would be these thoughts in the minds of some people, but I never thought that they would admit it so openly...

    It seemed that there were things that I had to watch out for in the end.

    "Bring them to the special room." The pope in the ck robe suddenly said, bringing everyone out of their daze.

    The other popes didn''t react at first, but then they slowly nodded in agreement.

    It was Saintess Irene who took the initiative toe forward as if she wanted to guide me, but this time I didn''t follow her right away.

    When I heard them mention this ''special room'', I immediately had several things pop into my mind.

    Since I had the knowledge from the game, I knew immediately what they were referring to when they said ''special room''. And if it was what I was thinking of, I could guess why they had brought me here.

    Of course, I wouldn''t just follow them without a word.

    Instead of following Saintess Irene, I looked at the popes sitting there with narrowed eyes before asking, "Which room is it?"

    The popes were surprised to hear this before the popes in ck and red robes narrowed their eyes to look at me as if they didn''t trust me.

    But before they could say anything, the pope of the Solista Religion said, "It''s the one with

    the crown."

    A shocked look appeared on my face when I heard this.

 Chapter 1119: Crown (1)

    Chapter 1119: Crown (1)

    ?

    The one with the crown, that was more than enough to tell me which room they wanted to take me to.

    There were many different special rooms in this main church, but there was none that was as special as the one with the crown.

    These special rooms were where the religions of the Holy Empire kept their sacred relics.

    For these relics to be kept at the main church, it was clear that these weren''t normal relics. These were powerful relics that could decide the fate of an entire country, these were relics that containedrge amounts of divine power.

    Since they were relics that contained this kind of power, they couldn''t be left to a single group.

    As such, they were left in the main church where they were shared by the various religions. They were regarded as the property of the Holy Empire that they all belonged to, rather than to a single religion.

    The crown that they mentioned was a special one even among these relics.

    This crown was known as the Crown of Wisdom, it was the single strongest trump card in the entire Holy Empire. It was the relic that they would use as their final resort, so it was not something that could be seen easily.

    Even the popes and the saintess wouldn''t receive permission to see this crown that easily.

    So it was certainly surprising that I would be allowed to enter the room where this Crown of Wisdom was.

    Though I wasn''t a fool, I knew exactly what they wanted.

    It seemed that something had happened with the Crown of Wisdom and they wanted to borrow my power to fix that problem, or else they wouldn''t have allowed me to enter the room with the crown that easily.

    Only, what kind of problem was it?

    And, would I even be capable of solving that problem?

    This was a super relic that was regarded as the final resort of the Holy Empire, one of the four human empires of this world. Would someone like me really be able to fix it even if I had the Mark of God?

    It didn''t seem likely...

    If something were to happen to this Crown of Wisdom while I was trying to fix it, there was no doubt that the me would fall onto me.

    After a moment of silence, I asked the popes, "What happened?"

    This time, it didn''t seem like they were as willing to answer my question.

    This time, it seemed like there was something that was stopping them from saying anything.

    I couldn''t help feeling anxious when I saw them like this.

    After all, for them to act like this, it just meant that the situation was much more serious than it seemed.

    I deeply knitted my brows when I saw this as I knew that the consequences of going along with this would be bad if I failed. So I didn''t really want to take this risk if I didn''t have to.

    Seeing the look on my face, the popes could already guess what I was thinking.

    The pope in ck and red looked like they wanted to say something, but they were restrained by the others that were at their sides.

    It was the pope of the Solista Religion who said, "We won''t me you if anything happens. The saintess will fill you in on everything that you need to know."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face as I ignored him and looked at the pope in ck and red. The look on my face made it very clear what my answer was.

    With the way that the two of them were acting, it was hard for me to believe the words of the pope of the Solista Religion.

    Even if he guaranteed that he wouldn''t do anything, it was hard to say that these two wouldn''t.

    Of course, they could also understand what I was implying with the look that I showed.

    The other popes looked at the two popes with bitter smiles as well since there was nothing that they could do about them. Before anything actually happened, they didn''t want to do anything that would cause harm to their Holy Empire.

    It was a bnce that they created between them that allowed the Holy Empire to prosper, so naturally they didn''t want to break the bnce.

    Naturally, they also knew that if something were to happen, there was no doubt that this bnce might break.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Taking a deep breath, the pope of the Solista Religion said, "As long as you help us with this matter, you can head back to your kingdom right away. Regardless of the result, we''ll send you back to your kingdom in our fastest airship."

    The other popes were surprised, especially the ones in ck and red robes.

    I was also surprised since I didn''t expect him to make this kind of offer.

    I had to admit that it was tempting to hear this offer, but I wouldn''t be fooled that easily.

    After all, he didn''t say when I would be allowed to leave. He only said that I would be allowed to head back right away, but there was always the chance that they would try to hold me back before I left.

    There were many excuses that they could give...such as the airship needs to be prepared.

    So I just calmly looked back at him and said, "Prepare the airship first. Once I see that it''s ready, then I''ll go."

    This time, it was the pope''s turn to reveal a bitter smile. Looking at me with that bitter smile, he asked, "Do you not trust me this little bit?"

    "No." I said as simply as possible, looking back at him with a calm look on my face.

    That made the pope''s smile fill with even more bitterness, but he didn''t say anything else to

    me.

    Instead, he waved his hand at the holy knight on the side to give him some instructions before that holy knight ran out.

    The popes in ck and red robes didn''t seem satisfied with this, but they didn''t say anything. Half an hourter, I received news that the airship was prepared from the royal guards that I sent to the airship port to ensure that they were following my demands.

    It was only then that I followed the saintess to the special room with the crown in it.

 Chapter 1120: Crown (2)

    Chapter 1120: Crown (2)

    ?

    As we were heading to the special room with the crown, I could feel Saintess Irene looking at

    me.

    She didn''t even bother hiding the fact that she was looking at me, she was openly looking at me with this gaze that seemed like there was something that she took issue with.

    I didn''t even need her to say anything to know what she was thinking.

    It was no doubt rted to the fact that I was leaving the Holy Empire as soon as the matter with the Crown of Wisdom was over.

    I had seen the way that she had looked at me...or rather the way that she had looked at the Mark of God on my hand, so I knew exactly what she was thinking.

    I knew exactly what she wanted.

    So of course she wasn''t happy to see that I was leaving this ce, or once again, it was better to say that she wasn''t happy to see the Mark of God leaving this ce. This Holy Empire could be considered the holynd for all religions, the ce that one would want to go if they had anything to do with religion.

    So the Mark of God was the thing that they wanted in their territory the most.

    It was just that I didn''t have any reason to stay here since this wasn''t the ce for me.

    I just ignored the way that the saintess looked at me as I followed her to the special room with the crown.

    When we arrived at that room, it was clear just how important this ce was to the Holy Empire. The amount of guards that were here was not something to look down on and at the same time, it was clear that every single one of them was an elite.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    Klein and my guards immediately narrowed their eyes to look at these knights that were here, as if they could feel the threat from them.

    When I looked at Klein, he just simply shook his head.

    He was admitting that he and the others wouldn''t be able to do anything against these knights.

    Simply put, it would be a ughter if there was a fight.

    However, we weren''t here to fight them.

    Saintess Irene was the one that went forward to say to the knights, "We''re here to see the Crown of Wisdom, this is the holy son."

    Though she said this, the knights didn''t move out of the way. With the way that they stood there, it didn''t seem like they were nning on letting us pass.

    It wasn''t because they wouldn''t let us pass, it was because of something else.

    The knights turned to look at Klein and the others before their leader said, "They cannot enter."

    It was to be expected that they wouldn''t let Klein and the others in, I had already assumed that this was the case.

    Only to my surprise, they suddenly moved forward to stand in front of me like they were protecting me before saying, "We go in with him."

    Shaking my head with a bitter smile, I said, "It''ll be fine. Just keep guard out here, it''s not as if I''m going anywhere dangerous."

    They looked at me with worried looks like they wanted to say something else, but they also knew that this wasn''t the ce for that.

    However, Klein still said, "Let us keep guard as well."

    I looked over at the captain of the knights and he seemed like he was about to say something. Only before he could say what he wanted to say, Saintess Irene suddenly cut in by saying, "It''s fine, let them do what they want."

    The captain of the knights seemed like he didn''t want to agree to this, but seeing the way that Saintess Irene looked at him, he had no choice but to agree.

    But it wasn''t as if he didn''t have his own conditions.

    "They have to stay a certain distance from the room itself and they can''t get closer than us. As long as they follow those rules, we won''t say anything to them standing guard."

    It was already a concession, Klein was aware of that.

    So he gave a nod of agreement before turning to me to say, "Good luck."

    I gave a nod back without saying anything as a determined look appeared in my face.

    With Saintess Irene, the two of us walked into the room.

    This room was a very simple room, but there was no need for there to be extra things in this room in the first ce. After all, this was a room that was made to keep something safe.

    The more things that were in here, the more dangerous it would be to keep that thing in here.

    It was a room that only had a single thing in it.

    There was this pedestal that was at the center of the room and there seemed to be this beam of light that came down from the roof that lit up this pedestal. On the pedestal itself was a ss case and in the center of the ss case was a pillow.

    Atop this pillow was the thing that was the most important in this room.

    Atop this pillow was a simple looking crown.

    The most eye catching thing about this crown was the diamond that was in the center of it and the glow that this diamond released.

    It wasn''t a strong glow, but there was something special about it that immediately caught one''s attention when they looked at it.

    It was almost as if there was some kind of holy nature to the light that was released by the

    crown.

    It was as if one was basking in the warm glow of some kind of being from an upper realm.

    However, I couldn''t help finding it strangely familiar.

    That was because this glow was something that I had seen before.

    It was the same glow that came from the Mark of God when it appeared on my hand.

 Chapter 1121: Crown (3)

    Chapter 1121: Crown (3)

    ?

    As if on cue, the Mark of God suddenly appeared on my hand.

    It was just that the Mark of God was not the same as usual.

    When the Mark of God appeared on my hand, there was this blinding light that suddenly came from it.

    This light was much stronger than the light that it usually released.

    At the same time, it seemed that the light from the crown also seemed to be getting stronger. It was as if there was some kind of resonance that was happening between the two of them. This resonance between the two of them onlysted for a minute before it suddenly cut off. With the way that the light suddenly disappeared, it was almost strange since it had happened too suddenly. It was almost as if there was something that had suddenly cut off the light from the two things that were glowing.

    I didn''t think too much about it and started moving closer to the Crown of Wisdom.

    It was just that before I was able to approach the crown, Saintess Irene suddenly came forward to stand between me and the crown.

    I raised a brow as I looked at her, but I also took a step back just in case something happened. Even if she seemed like she was harmless, she was the saintess for a reason.

    She was able tomunicate with the gods and was able to use their powers, so the holy magic that she possessed was not something that could be looked down on.

    I didn''t think that she would do something like this with the way that she had looked at me before, but it wasn''t as if I could just assume that nothing would happen.

    Anything was possible in this world.

    When Saintess Irene saw this, she quickly raised her hand and shook it as she said, "Holy son, it isn''t like that. It''s just that before you approach the Crown of Wisdom, there''s something that I have to do to ensure your safety."

    I didn''t move back as I raised a brow to look at her, but I also didn''t move further away as I wanted to see what she meant by this.

    Saintess Irene took this as if she had been given a chance to exin, so she didn''t hesitate at all as she suddenly turned around to look at the pedestal. Then bringing her hands together, she started to chant something that almost seemed like she was praying.

    There was this faint light that appeared around Saintess Irene, but then it suddenly gathered in her hands that were still together. This light seemed to build up for a bit before suddenly being released in the direction of the pedestal.

    Before I could react to what happened, there was this cracking sound that suddenly rang out. Then there seemed to be this crack that formed in the air in front of us.

    It was strange seeing this crack appear in the air itself, but I soon realized what it was.

    It was some kind of barrier that had been around the pedestal that Saintess Irene just cracked with her holy magic. If I had gone forward without letting her do this first, then there was no doubt that I would have bumped right into it.

    After cracking the barrier, Saintess Irene suddenly let her hands move away from each other before letting out a long breath. She quickly started taking in deep breaths as if she was exhausted.

    It seemed that it took quite a bit of power from her to crack that barrier.

    If that was the case, then it would have been very hard to check on the Crown of Wisdom each time...

    But this was what they deemed was necessary to protect the Crown of Wisdom, so it wasn''t as if it was my ce to judge.

    The only thing that I had to worry about was the Crown of Wisdom itself.

    Only I didn''t step forward yet as I looked at Saintess Irene.

    When she caught her breath, I asked, "Can I move forward now?"

    Saintess Irene turned back and gave a slow nod before moving aside for me to pass.

    I walked past her and moved towards the pedestal that the Crown of Wisdom was on, but there was still the ss that was separating me from it. I wasn''t in a rush to open this ss as I looked at the Crown of Wisdom for a bit before turning back to look at Saintess Irene who had followed behind me.

    "What''s wrong with it?"

    The only thing that I had been told so far was that there was something wrong with the Crown of Wisdom, but no one had told me what exactly was wrong with the Crown of Wisdom. Without knowing that, it was hard for me to actually think of a way to solve their problem, whatever it was.

    Saintess Irene didn''t say anything as she revealed a faint bitter smile, but she didn''t do anything as she went over to the pedestal and lifted the ss box off the pedestal.

    Then she reached out to touch the Crown of Wisdom.

    The moment that she touched the Crown of Wisdom, there was a light that appeared around

    it.

    It was just that this light...seemed like it was weaker than the light that had appeared when it resonated with the Mark of God that appeared on my hand. It was almost as if there was something off about this light.

    Saintess Irene just kept her hand on the Crown of Wisdom as she turned back to say, "As you can see, the power of the Crown of Wisdom is weakening. We don''t know what is weakening it, but since it''s divine power that powers this Crown of Wisdom, it isn''t something that we can replenish. The only thing that we can hope for is that..."

    She didn''t finish her words, but the way that she looked at my hand made it clear.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    What had happened before was just a test.

    They wanted to use me as a battery to power up this Crown of Wisdom.

 Chapter 1122: Crown (4)

    Chapter 1122: Crown (4)

    ?

    While I didn''t actually have a problem with being used like this since it didn''t seem like there would be any harm, there was a problem that I did have with this matter.

    Even if I had the Mark of God, was there a guarantee that I would be able to power this Crown of Wisdom?

    Even if I had the Mark of God, would the same thing happen with the Crown of Wisdom as those other monuments?

    I didn''t think that it would be that easy.

    After all, this was a super relic that was left behind by the gods, so it wasn''t something that could be powered that easily. The amount of power that this Crown of Wisdom could release required arge amount of divine energy, would the Mark of God have that much?

    That was why I couldn''t help feeling a bit afraid...n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Saintess Irene could see the look that was in my eyes and as if she could guess what I was thinking, she said, "Holy son, you don''t have to worry. The Mark of God is bestowed upon the one chosen by the gods, so it allows you to tap into the divine power of the gods themselves. As long as you allow it, it will flow through you as a conduit and you''ll be able to use it as you wish. There won''t be a problem filling up the Crown of Wisdom as long as you use the Mark of God."

    The way that she said this was as if she was filled with conviction towards what she said.

    It was as if she fully believed the words that came out of her mouth.

    It was just that I didn''t feel the same conviction from her.

    I didn''t believe that the Mark of God was something that could solve all problems. Seeing that I still didn''t move or say anything after she said all of this, Saintess Irene suddenly picked up the Crown of Wisdom and brought it towards me.

    It was as if she wanted to show me that the Mark of God would solve all problems.

    Only I didn''t have the courage to give this a try, so I pulled my hand away and stepped back from Saintess Irene.

    To my surprise, she stepped forward faster than I could move away from her.

    Her hand with the Crown of Wisdom came up and the Crown of Wisdom touched the hand that the Mark of God had appeared on previously.

    The moment that the Crown of Wisdom made contact with my hand, both the crown and the Mark of God reacted. Both of them suddenly lit up and released a bright light that was hard to look at directly.

    It was even brighter than the light that had been released earlier.

    At the same time, it didn''t seem like it was getting any weaker. With the way that it shined, it was almost as if the light was getting stronger and stronger.

    It seemed like it was about to fill the whole room with the way that it happened.

    But eventually, the light disappeared.

    Or rather, the lighting from the Mark of God disappeared. The light that was around the Crown of Wisdom was still there and it seemed like it was stronger than before.

    It seemed like whatever had happened had strengthened the Crown of Wisdom.

    Of course, Saintess Irene didn''t just leave things as they were as she didn''t know if this was just because I was in contact with it or not.

    So she pulled the Crown of Wisdom away from me and held it up in her hand.

    Even though the Crown of Wisdom was separated from me, the light that was around it didn''t seem to fade. The light that was around the crown even seemed like it was getting stronger now that it was only Saintess Irene holding it.

    When she saw this, her eyes lit up with excitement.

    "This is it, this is how the Crown of Wisdom should be!" She said in a soft, but excited voice. After admiring the Crown of Wisdom that she was holding up for a bit, she turned back to me and said, "Holy son, you did it! You restored the Crown of Wisdom!"

    With a smile, she said, "I told you that it would work. All that is required is the Mark of God!"

    I didn''t seem to notice this as I was lost in thought.

    My eyes were on the Mark of God the entire time.

    That was because during the time that the Mark of God and the Crown of Wisdom had been releasing that bright light, I had...

    Seeing that I was just standing there in a daze, Saintess Irene knitted her brows.

    She put the Crown of Wisdom back down beforeing over to tap me on the shoulder and asking, "Holy son, is something wrong?"

    It was when she tapped on my shoulder like this that I was pulled out of my thoughts.

    I looked at the Crown of Wisdom, but I wasn''t surprised to see that it was glowing.

    Instead, I turned to Saintess Irene and asked, "Is that all that needs to be done?"

    Saintess Irene was surprised by this question since she didn''t expect to hear it, but she slowly gave a nod. It seemed like there was something that she wanted to say, but she didn''t say it in the end.

    "Do you know where the chapel in the main church is?"

    Saintess Irene was once again taken aback when she heard this since she didn''t expect this question.

    But once again, she slowly gave a nod in response.

    Only she didn''t remain silent this time as she asked, "Holy son, is there something that you need from the chapel?"

    I said with a nod, "I want to visit it before leaving."

    Saintess Irene looked at me with a strange confused look, but I didn''t say anything else as I calmly looked at her.

    Eventually, she gave a nod to show that she would show me there.

 Chapter 1123: Prophecy (1)

    Chapter 1123: Prophecy (1)

    ?

    When we came out, everyone was surprised to see us since it hadn''t been that long since we had gone into the room.

    The captain of the knights seemed like he wanted to ask Saintess Irene what happened, but she shook her head to show that it wasn''t the right time before leading the way for me.

    Klein and the others looked at me with questioning looks as if they were asking me what happened, but I also ignored them as I followed behind Saintess Irene.

    Unlike the knights that couldn''t leave their positions, Klein and the others followed behind

    me.

    Though there were still confused looks that were on their faces as they followed behind me. However, since neither Saintess Irene and I said anything, they could only follow behind me with these confused looks.

    "Go and report to the council." The captain of the knight said as he watched them walk away and one of the knights quickly ran off to report this matter.

    Saintess Irene didn''t seem to hesitate at all as she led the way forward.

    After walking for a bit, we finally arrived at our destination.

    It was a set of doors that seemed to be quite simple, but there was also this feeling of holiness that came from them. Or it was better to say that there was this feeling of holiness that wasing from behind these doors.

    When we arrived, Saintess Irene suddenly stopped and turned around to say, "We''re here." Though she said this, she was looking at me as if there was something that she wanted to ask. It wasn''t just her that was looking at me like this, Klein and the others were also looking at me like this. They could see the way that Saintess Irene was looking at me, so they knew that I must have been the one that wanted toe to this ce.

    At the same time, there were others that were around the area that were also looking at me with strange looks.

    These were people that worked in this main church and tended to this chapel, so they had been going about their business until they recognized Saintess Irene.

    Since Saintess Irene was leading the way for me, they looked at me with strange looks as if they wanted to know what I was doing.

    I didn''t say anything as I just looked at the doors in silence for a bit before asking, "Can I go in and have a look?"

    Saintess Irene was caught off guard by this question, but she slowly gave a nod in response. I didn''t care about the way that she looked at me as I went forward to push the doors open. When they opened, I saw the chapel for myself.

    It was a ce that was very simple with just a few pews, a lectern, and a single statue.

    This statue wasn''t of a single god, but was a representation of all the gods. It was a generic looking statue that had a holiness to it that was hard to describe.

    Since this was the main church that brought together all of the religions, naturally there wasn''t a single god that was chosen to be worshipped inside of this chapel.

    After taking a look around this chapel, I started moving forward down the aisle of this chapel until I was standing right in front of the statue. I looked up at the statue for a bit before looking down at my hand.

    However, I was disappointed to see that there was no reaction from my hand at all.

    The reason that I had asked toe to this ce was because when the Mark of God lit up on my hand while I touched the Crown of Wisdom, I heard a voice.

    It was a voice that I was familiar with and a voice that I hadn''t heard in a while, but it wasn''t a voice that belonged to this world.

    It was a voice that belonged to a god.

    It was Solista''s voice that spoke in my mind.

    "Go to the chapel."

    That was what she had said to me.

    I didn''t know why she had suddenly said this to me, but since it was Solista...

    I followed her words and came to this chapel, but now it didn''t seem like anything was going to happen.

    As I stood there in silence, I waited for anything to happen.

    Only before something happened, there were sounds that came from behind me. It was then/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    sounds of someone, or rather arge group approaching.

    I didn''t get a chance to turn around as a voice said, "Holy son, what are you doing here? Aren''t you going to the airship port to leave?"

    It was the voice of the pope of the Solista Religion.

    Even without turning around, I could guess that the others that came with him were the popes from the other religions.

    The way that he said this had a trace of pleasant surprise in it.

    Based on that I could tell that they had already heard about what happened with the Crown of God, so they were pleasantly surprised to see that I hadn''t left yet. For them toe all together like this, I could already guess what they were nning to do.

    It was just that none of them had the chance to say anything as the Mark of God suddenly lit up on my hand.

    It seemed as if the Mark of God was reacting to the arrival of this group with the way that it suddenly lit up like this.

    As if reacting to the Mark of God as well, the statue that was in the center of the chapel also started to light up. It was a faint glow at first, but it didn''t take long before this glow became stronger and brighter.

    It became so bright that it was almost too bright to look at.

    At the same time, it felt as if there was this holy sensation that came from this light.

    "You''re finally here."

 Chapter 1124: Prophecy (2)

    Chapter 1124: Prophecy (2)

    ?

    I turned to look at the statue with a surprised look the moment that I heard this.

    I didn''t know what expressions the others had, but I did hear one thing.

    "Thud."

    There was this sound as if there was something that dropped to the floor after this voice spoke.

    I didn''t even need to turn around to guess what happened.

    However, there were others that needed rification still.

    "Saintess, what are you doing?" One of the popes asked in a confused voice.

    The one who asked this was one of the ones that wasn''t in charge of arge religion, so there were things that he didn''t know. As for the others that were in charge ofrger religions, they naturally knew why Saintess Irene was acting this way.

    It was just that they wanted confirmation still.

    "Don''t you know whose voice that is? It''s the voice of her Lady Solista!" Saintess Irene didn''t even raise her head as she said this, she continued bowing her head on the ground like that.

    The way that she said this was almost as if she was urging them toe to their senses and act the same way as her.

    "Thud!"

    There was another sound that rang out before more simr sounds followed.

    Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see that it was the pope of the Solista Religion who fell to his knees first before the others followed.

    Even if they weren''t followers of the Solista Religion, that didn''t mean that they weren''t going to respect Solista. She was still a god after all and one of the main gods of this world.

    As men and women that were in high ces in the religious world, it was only natural that they would be respectful to a god.

    I could even hear the sounds of prayinging from behind me that made a trace of bitterness fill me.

    It seemed that there really was no changing the religious types.

    After saying those first words, the statue had been silent as if the connection had been lost. But then...

    "Sorry for calling you out here, but there was something that I wanted to tell you before you left. I can only contact you here because the connection to the divine realm is strongest here."

    The moment that Solista said this, the praying suddenly stopped.

    There were shocked looks that appeared on everyone''s faces when they heard this, except for mine since I already knew that she had called me out. After all, it was because of the message that she sent me that I came here in the first ce.

    "Oh, they finally stopped praying. It really was getting a bit annoying with all the noise that they made, but I guess that I don''t have to say anything now."

    The religious people of the Holy Empire were even more shocked, but also they had bitter smiles on their faces when they heard this.

    Being told by their god that their praying was annoying...n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    This was certainly a kind of experience that none of them had encountered before and they couldn''t say that it was the kind of experience that they wanted.

    It was just that the other side was a god, so it wasn''t as if they could say anything in response.

    I knew what they were feeling, but I didn''t want to speak up for them either.

    A part of me was annoyed with them too for how they had persisted in trying to bring me to the Holy Empire. At the same time, I was a bit annoyed at how they had used me as a walking battery for their holy relics.

    I also didn''t want to turn around and look at them since I could feel a passionate gazeing from behind me.

    Even without turning back, I knew who this gaze came from.

    None of them were fools, so they knew exactly who Solista was talking about. Especially the one that had been in the room with me when the Crown of Wisdom and the Mark of God lit up, so she could guess everything that happened.

    After a moment of silence, I gave an awkward cough before saying, "Your excellency Solista, is there anything that you need from me that you''ve summoned me to this ce?"

    I wanted to get rid of the awkward mood in the air, but who would have thought that these words would just make things worse.

    "Eh? Why are you talking like that? Is there a need for you to be this formal with me? I thought we were closer than that." Solista''s voice rang out once more from the statue to the shock of everyone that was here.

    It was especially shocking to the religious people of the Holy Empire.

    After all, they never thought that one of the gods would actually speak in such a manner to a human.

    Even though he was a human that possessed the Mark of God, he was still a human in the end. For a god to treat a human like this...

    It really put them in a situation where they didn''t know how to react at all.

    It also put me in an awkward situation since I never thought that Solista would do something

    like this.

    I knew that this was her way of helping, but it really wasn''t helping at all.

    Even if gods ruled over humans, it wasn''t as if the gods could understand what it was like to be a human.

    As such, it was hard for Solista to understand the rtionship between humans. With an internal sigh, I said, "Solista, is there a reason why you called me here?"

    At this point, there was nothing that I could say to fix the situation.

    So the best move was to end this matter as soon as possible by seeing what she wanted and then sending her off.

    While it might make some of the religious people of the Holy Empire a bit unhappy, it was

    better than the alternative.

    "I have a prophecy for you."

    That was Solista''s response.

 Chapter 1125: Prophecy (3)

    Chapter 1125: Prophecy (3)

    ?

    There was only silence that followed after Solista said this.

    This couldn''t be med on the people that heard what she said.

    After all, a prophecy from a god was a shocking thing, it wasn''t something that people could easily react to.

    This was knowledge that directly came from a god, there was no doubting that.

    Not to mention...Solista never mentioned whether this was a good prophecy or a bad prophecy.

    There were all kinds of prophecies out there and sometimes a prophecy would be bad since it would be a sign that something bad wasing.

    Without knowing what Solista wanted to say, there was no telling what kind of prophecy this was.

    When I came back to my senses, I asked in a heavy voice, "What kind of prophecy is it?"

    Solista didn''t say anything in response to this.

    Others might have thought that she was offended by this question, which was how some of the popes looked at me. However, I knew that this wasn''t the case since I had experienced something simr before.

    It was that she was struggling to say what she wanted to say.

    There were a few of the popes that seemed like they wanted to say something, but the popes of therge religions stopped them. At the same time, the pope of the Solista Religion had a few of the people who maintained this chapel go get some parchment.

    It seemed that they wanted to record the prophecy that was given to them.

    I just continued waiting for her to speak, but it didn''t seem like she was going to say anything. That was until all of a sudden, there was a sigh that rang out through this chapel.

    This was a very human sigh, as if the one who gave this sigh really couldn''t do anything else about what they were sighing about.

    In the end, Solista just said in a voice that almost seemed like she gave up, "It''ll be a hard prophecy for you to listen to, but I have to give it in the end. You''ll be in for some hardships."

    I deeply knitted my brows upon hearing this, but I still gave a slow nod.

    I knew that she wasn''t doing this because she wanted to harm me, the reason she was giving this prophecy was to help.

    After all, knowing what was toe was a good thing as well.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Knowing what was toe would allow me to think of ways to deal with it.

    "Thends will run ck with the invaders. When the timees, only the one thatbines the knowledge of this world and another will be able to save thisnd."

    Silence once again followed after Solista gave this prophecy.

    There was not a single person that had a calm look on their faces after hearing this prophecy. After all, it was a deration that there would be chaos in this world and that there would be invaders. No matter how one looked at it, it seemed like this world was about to fall into danger.

    As for how they could prevent it...

    The knowledge of this world and another?

    Who had something like that?

    The people of the Holy Empire were confused when they heard this since they had no idea what this part of the prophecy meant.

    But in my case, I immediately knew what she was talking about.

    That caused a bitter feeling to fill me.

    "If you say it like this, isn''t that throwing me under the bus?" I really wanted to shout at the statue that had given this prophecy, but I was able to hold myself back in the end.

    This wasn''t the ce to shout at Solista after all.

    After another long silence, I gathered myself and wanted to say something.

    Only before I could say anything, Solista continued by saying, "Gather the pieces of power from the various gods and repel the strange invader from this world."

    The first part of what she said didn''t really give any instructions on how to defeat the ''invaders'' that she mentioned, so that was why I thought that there was something that was still missing from her prophecy.

    As expected, there was a second part.

    Only the second part didn''t seem to make any sense either.

    After all, if we were talking about the relics that were filled with the power of the different gods, most of them would be here. In that case, that meant that all that was necessary was to dip into the resources of the Holy Empire to solve this matter.

    But she specified that the relics were scattered all around the world...

    "The Staff of Earth." I couldn''t help saying to myself in a voice filled with realization.

    The Staff of Earth was a relic that was filled with the power of the god of earth, Terra.

    This god was the god that was worshipped by the dwarves, which was why his relic had been in the hands of the dwarves.

    In that case, was Solista saying that she wanted me to find the relics that the other races were holding and bring them together to face these ''invaders'' that were about toe?

    The different races...

    The only problem that I was currently facing was the elves.

    I had gotten close to the dwarves, the giants, and the mermen, but the elves...

    There was a grudge between me and the elves that hadn''t been solved yet...

    "It seems that you''ve understood the meaning behind my words. In that case, I wish you luck." Solista''s voice rang out again.

    Once her voice fell, the light around the statue started to fade as if it was about to disappear.

    Before anyone could even say anything, the light disappeared without a trace and the statue returned to normal.

    All of the popes turned to look at me, but I just looked at the statue with a bitter smile on my

    face.

    What kind of prophecy was this?

    All she did was throw me under the bus...

 Chapter 1126: Invasion

    Chapter 1126: Invasion

    ?

    "Are you sure that you wouldn''t rather stay here?" Saintess Irene asked in a voice that almost seemed to be pleading.

    After the matter of the prophecy, there were many that had wanted to keep me here in the Holy Empire.

    Only they stopped themselves because of what had happened.

    This was someone that could even speak on casual terms with Solista, one of the main gods.

    If they were to offend him, there was no telling what would happen.

    Even if they were men of the cloth, those that had worshiped the gods for as long as they could remember, they just couldn''tpare to those that had the favour of the gods.

    The Mark of God was the mark of the one that was considered the true son of god.

    The true holy son as the saintess put it.

    However, I knew that if I were to stay here, all that would happen is that I would get caught up in a big mess.

    Now that the Holy Empire knew how important I was, there was no doubt that there would be all kinds of plots against me. It wasn''t that they would try to hurt me, it was that they would try all that they could to bring me to their side.

    This was thest thing that I wanted to get caught up in, so I should leave while I could.

    With a nod, I said, "I still have other things to take care of. If anything happens, please contact me right away and we''ll work together to solve it."

    Since I was the one that had caused Solista to give a prophecy like this, the ones from the Holy Empire naturally took this very seriously. They had promised that they would work with me to prevent whatever disaster the prophecy foretold.

    I was assured since it was rted to a prophecy from god.

    If there was anything that could be trusted in the Holy Empire, a country that was run byrge religions, it was the word of god.

    They wouldn''t go against the word of god no matter what happened.

    Which meant that I had effectively gotten the support of one of thergest empires in this world.

    It wasn''t just support in terms of words, it was the actual support of this Holy Empire since I was their holy son now.

    That was worth its weight in gold.

    Though they looked like they wanted to keep me here, they still allowed me to leave on the airship that was prepared.

    The agreement that we hade to was that the Holy Empire would do their own investigation into the ''invaders'' mentioned by the prophecy and would send information my way.

    Though I didn''t really have much expectations in the first ce.

    The Holy Empire had just too many different religions in the first ce and there were too many voices. When there were all these voices speaking at the same time, it was hard for them toe to an agreement.

    It was hard for them to get anything done when everyone had their own agenda.

    So for now, just having them off my back was good enough.

    With the airship, it didn''t take long for us to arrive back in the territory of the Kite Kingdom.

    Though the moment that the airship appeared, there were several wyverns that came up to guide us.

    With the way that they appeared, it was as if they were on alert.

    It was as if they were scared to see this airship appear like this.

    That was strange since they should have already known that an airship would bring me back. They should be aware that the arrival of this airship meant that I was back, but it didn''t seem like this...

    "Your majesty, you''re finally back!" The wyvern riders said as soon as they saw me on the deck of the airship.

    "What''s wrong?" I asked the one thatnded on the deck.

    "It''s an invasion." He said in a heavy voice.

    "What?" A look of shock appeared on my face when I heard this.

    Invasion?

    Right after the prophecy that there would be an invasion, I received news that there was actually an invasion...

    But was it the invasion that Solista had mentioned?

    The wyvern rider said in a heavy voice, "It''s the demons. They suddenly attacked several kingdoms near the border. Everyone has been on guard against any possible invasions in our territory."

    "Demons?" I asked in a slightly confused voice.

    I had already expected this to a certain extent since the demons had already been plotting against the humans.

    It was just that I didn''t expect them to suddenlyunch an invasion like this.

    At the same time, I couldn''t help wondering why the Holy Empire didn''t tell me anything about this.

    I turned to look at the captain of this airship and there was an awkward look that appeared on his face before he said, "We just received the report from the empire. It was a recent attack by the demons, but it doesn''t seem serious."

    "What do you mean by that?" I asked with narrowed brows.

    "It''s just a few small countries that have been invaded by the demons, it''s not as if the foundation of the human race has been damaged. It seems like it''s just a test of the defenses of the human race, which is why no one is worried about this. This kind of thing has happened quite a few times already."

    The way that the captain said this was almost as if this was a very normal thing.

    But I couldn''t help knitting my brows.

    That was because I didn''t remember any of this happening before...n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    It really seemed like things were deviating from the story in the game.

    It really seemed like there was something happening under the surface with the demon race...

    Was it because of me or was it because of something else that was changing the plot of this world?

 Chapter 1127: Ignore it?

    Chapter 1127: Ignore it?

    ?

    After arriving at the capital of the Kite Kingdom, I was surprised to find that the captain of the airship didn''t actually leave.

    "We have been stationed here to transport you when necessary, holy son. If you need to go anywhere, please contact us at any time. Though from time to time, we will need to get more supplies from the empire to refuel the airship."

    Thest part of his words seemed like there was some kind of implication.

    As if he wanted me to go with him back to the Holy Empire when they needed more supplies.

    In a sense, this could be considered an exchange...

    They were lending us this airship for the price of me heading to the Holy Empire from time to time.

    However, the offer really was hard to refuse.

    The airships were actually faster than the wyverns, which made it a good travel option when necessary. It was at least three times faster than the wyverns, which meant that it would save quite a bit of time when it was needed.

    At the same time...n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    There was also a squad of holy knights that came with the airship.

    These were elites just like the ones that had defended the room with the Crown of Wisdom, so they would be a good group of reinforcements if necessary. At the same time, they would also be able to help Klein and the other royal guards train.

    So it was killing two birds with one stone.

    "Alright, I ept your offer." That was all I could say in response to the captain of the airship who only introduced himself as Chris after I epted the deal.

    He and the captain of the knight who was known as Leon followed me into the castle where I met with the prime minister and the chancellor.

    If it was just the three of us, we would have gone to the royal study.

    But since Chris and Leon were here, we went to the throne room instead.

    The Holy Empire had information that was beyond what we knew since their informationwork was much more developed than ours. That was just how it was when considering the difference in length that our nations had existed for.

    The prime minister and chancellor were able to learn quite a bit about the distribution of the demon army from Chris and Leon.

    Once they learned all of this and had a map set up, they looked at me to ask, "Do we help or do we ignore them?"

    I knitted my brows slightly and didn''t answer this question as I looked at the map.

    After a long silence, I said, "No, we won''t help them."

    The prime minister and chancellor were surprised to hear this, but they slowly nodded in agreement.

    It wasn''t as if they didn''t understand why I said this, but there was a bit of a strange look on their faces after hearing this. It was as if there was a part of them that had wanted to do something for these countries.

    For once, it wasn''t because they wanted to take theirnd and fold them into the grasps of our Kite Kingdom. Instead, it was because they wanted to do something for the human race.

    We were all human kingdoms and now that we were being invaded by the demons, they still felt that it was their duty to do something for these human kingdoms.

    I knew what they were thinking, so I turned to Chris and Leon to ask, "What is the Holy Empire and the other three empires nning to do?"

    The two of them were surprised to hear this, but then Chris answered, "We will do the same thing that we''ve always done. We will send reinforcements to the countries that were invaded and push back the demons."

    I gave a nod in response to this before saying, "Then that buys us some time. I need to make the best use of this time."

    Chris and Leon both knitted their brows when they heard this.

    They didn''t seem happy to hear what I said since it was almost as if I was saying that the four empires would fail in repelling the demon race. However, they chose not to say anything since they wanted to see what else I had to say.

    The prime minister and chancellor just looked at me as if they were waiting for me to say something.

    With how long they''ve known me, they already knew that I had some kind of n in mind.

    I didn''t waste any time as I said, "I''m heading back to the Land of Giants."

    At this, the prime minister and chancellor frowned while Chris and Leon had confused looks since they had no idea what I meant by this.

    I looked at them and said, "Do you remember the prophecy?"

    The prime minister and chancellor revealed confused looks along with Chris and Leon.

    With a faint smile, I said, "Do you remember the part about gathering the pieces of power from the various gods?"

    They still had confused looks on their faces as they didn''t really understand what I was saying.

    I waved my hand at Chris and Leon toe over to the throne. The two of them had confused looks on their faces as they walked over, but they still came over to stand in front of him. Then I had them raise their hands before reaching out with the Staff of Earth.

    The two of them were shocked when I dropped the Staff of Earth and it fell right through their hands.

    As high ranking members of the Holy Empire, they naturally knew what this phenomenon

    was.

    As for the prime minister and the chancellor, they had looks of understanding slowly appear on their faces.

    I exined to Chris and Leon, "This is a relic from Terra, the god of earth that I received from the dwarves."

    After hearing this, they also slowly understood what I was implying with this.

    The prime minister was the one that put it in words when he said, "Then you''re saying the

    giants..."

    I slowly gave a nod in response.

    Everyone had serious looks on their faces when they saw this.

 Chapter 1128: Once again to the Land of Giants

    Chapter 1128: Once again to the Land of Giants

    ?

    "Thank you." Alidus said as we were about to head out.

    Though I had a calm look on my face when I nodded in response, there was actually a bitter feeling that filled me.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    The excuse that I gave him was that we were heading back to warn the giants about the invasion of the demon race.

    Though the giants didn''t care about the other races and kept to themselves, there was still an old grudge between them and the demons from the racial wars. The demons were one of the races that had attacked most other races in a bid for racial supremacy, so there were few races that actually liked the demons.

    It was just that the demons were powerful and could control monsters, which was why the other races were wary of them and could never wipe them out.

    When Alidus heard about the invasion of the demon race, he was naturally worried about the Land of Giants that was isted from the rest of the world.

    In reality, I was just using this as an excuse to see the rulers of the giant race.

    These were the elders that governed over the giant race as a whole and usually didn''t make an appearance unless something threatened the entire giant race.

    A demon invasion was one of those things that could threaten them.

    In this meeting with the elders, what I was looking for was information about the relics that the giant race might possess.

    Unlike the other races that worshiped certain gods that were moremon, what the giant race worshiped was the Origin Giant. It was the progenitor of the giant race and the one that protected the giant race to this day.

    While I wasn''t certain if this was simr to a god, it was still a good ce to start.

    The mermaids were too far away for now and the elves were hard to get close to.

    As for the other races...well I hadn''t even made a dent in getting closer to them and it would take too long to approach them.

    So for now, the giants were the safest bet.

    But there was a part of me that was also filled withints towards Solista.

    You said relics of power from the various gods, can you at least give me a concrete number so I don''t have to go all over the continent?

    There were all kinds of different races in this world and to find all of the relics of power...

    It was hard to tell when it would be enough without some kind of confrontation and if it wasn''t enough, then that would just result in our defeat.

    This kind of prophecy could be more clear and precise...

    But there was nothing that could be done.

    The others in our group hade along for a different reason.

    This time, there were far more people that came with uspared tost time. This time, there were carriages that were filled with different pieces of art that had been gathered from all of thends in the Kite Kingdom.

    That included art that came from all four of the other kingdoms that had been incorporated into the Kite Kingdom, so there were quite a few different kinds of art that were brought along.

    The reason that we could do this was because of Haley.

    She had been preparing all this time to bring this art to the Land of Giants to trade with them after what I had set upst time.

    But now...

    "I know that you need it for a good reason."

    That was what she said to me when I told her about this visit to the Land of Giants, but the look that she gave me...

    So it was decided that we would be using a bit of the art as gifts and the rest would be sold to the giants.

    In a way, the gifts could be considered free samples that would draw the giants in to buy the rest of our goods.

    With thisrge group, we crossed into thends of the giants.

    It didn''t take long for a group of giants to find us, but we weren''t scared when we met these giants.

    That was because this was a group that we were familiar with.

    It was Olmir and the hunters from the Harakka Tribe.

    When they saw us, they immediately weed us when they found us, as if they had already been expecting us.

    That was because they had been expecting us.

    Alidus had brought a hawk with him when he left the Land of Giants that would bring letters back to the Harakka Tribe from time to time. He used that hawk to send a letter back to the Harakka Tribe, telling them that we would be arriving soon.

    That was why Olmir and the hunters from the Harakka Tribe knew to be waiting for us.

    They weed us and it seemed that the hunters from the Harakka Tribe were very happy to see Klein and the others again.

    During the time that we had stayed in the Harakka Tribe, it seemed that they had left quite the impression on them. It seemed that the rtionship between humans and giants had gotten closer without any of us realizing it.

    Sometimes absence did make the heart grow fonder.

    However, this was not the ce for this.

    "Let''s head back to the Harakka Tribe. There''s something that we want to talk to Chief Olos about." I said to Olmir.

    Alidus gave a serious nod of agreement to this.

    Olmir was surprised to hear this since he hadn''t heard anything about this before.

    I had made sure that Alidus didn''t tell them anything in his letters since this was the kind of

    thing that was better to hear in person.

    It was the kind of news that one really needed to brace for.

    So in the end, Olmir just gave a nod before leading the way to the Harakka Tribe.

 Chapter 1129: This is difficult

    Chapter 1129: This is difficult

    ?

    Leaving Haley with the others to explore the Harakka Tribe since this was their first time here, I went off to see Olos with Olmir and Alidus.

    He was waiting for us in the center of the Harakka Tribe, just like before.

    This was the same ce where we had discussed the matter of the giant market and the Great Wolves.

    Back then, matters had been simple.

    But now...

    "What is it that was so important that you had to meet with me?" Olos asked as soon as we came in.

    It seemed that he was impatient to hear what we had brought to him.

    Or rather, it seemed that he recognized that whatever this was was important enough that even his son was acting this way. It was his son, so naturally Olos knew what kind of personality Alidus had.

    So for him to be making a big deal of this...

    Whatever this was certainly wasn''t anything small.

    "It''s serious, very serious." Alidus said in a heavy tone.

    Olmir and Olos both had traces of a bitter smile on their faces when they heard this.

    "Could you not speak so mysteriously and just tell us what it was already?" That was what they wanted to say, but they held themselves back as they had to consider their position as Alidus'' elder.

    Alidus didn''t continue saying anything else after that and instead turned to look at me, as if he was letting me speak now.

    Olos and Olmir also turned to look at me when they saw Alidus looking at me like this.

    Unlike Alidus who seemed to have a firm look on his face, the two of them had one brow raised as if they were curious about what was happening.

    I didn''t keep the two of them in suspense as I directly said, "The demon race is invading."

    When they heard this, the two of them slightly knitted their brows.

    Then Olmir said, "The demon race has always tried to invade other countries, this is just how it is with the demons. It isn''t as if it''s anything special that they''re invading again."

    Olos didn''t say anything as he just slowly nodded in agreement to this.

    The way that the two of them acted, it was as if they had experience with this kind of stuff. Far more experience than what a normal person should have had.

    It was almost as if they had personally experienced some kind of event rted to this before. But this time was different.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Alidus still didn''t say anything as he kept looking at me, as if he was leaving this all to me to exin.

    A faint smile appeared on my lips and I shook my head when I saw this, but then I said with a serious look, "It''s different this time."

    "Different? How?" Olmir asked in a serious voice.

    Olos also looked at me with a serious look when I said this.

    The two of them didn''t seem to doubt what I said at all, it seemed that they were taking what I said quite seriously with the way that they acted.

    As such, I responded in kind by telling them about what had happened so far.

    Thest time that I was here, I had left out quite a few things since I didn''t want to overwhelm them with information. Giving them too much information might seem suspicious and would hurt our rtionship.

    But in the face of the crisis that was about toe...

    "I see..." Olmir muttered to himself as he knitted his brows.

    Olos had the same frown on his face when I finished telling them what happened.

    After a moment of silence, the two of them slowly looked at each other as if they weremunicating with their gazes. It seemed that the two of them had quite the opinion on this with the way that they looked at each other, but it also didn''t seem like it was a bad opinion.

    The only thing that we could do was wait to see how they would react.

    After looking at each other for a bit, Olos and Olmir turned back for Olos to say, "It is indeed a bit hard to believe all of this, but since even my son seems to agree with this, it must be true. It seems that you''ve seen quite a bit on your journey."

    Alidus gave a simple nod that was also filled with emotion.

    Olos and Olmir both gave sighs all of a sudden before Olos said, "We''ve always known that the demon race wouldn''t remain still, but to think that they would even start doing these kinds of strange things. It''s clear that their ambition will no longer be held back."

    "That was how it was back then and it''s how it is now. We already knew that the demons were like this."

    It seemed that the two of them were quite lost in their memories as they said this.

    But once they came back from those memories, Olos said in a serious voice, "We''ll have to report this to the elders."

    Olmir nodded in agreement.

    Then the two of them suddenly turned to look at me.

    I was caught off guard since I didn''t think that they would suddenly look at me like this, but what really caught me off guard was the way that they looked at me.

    It was as if there was something difficult for them to say.

    Eventually, Olos was the one that said, "I know what you were thinkinging to warn us about this, but I can''t bring you to see the elders."

    I was even more taken aback when I heard this since I didn''t expect him to directly say this.

    Olmir said, "It''s not that it''s impossible to do, it''s just that it''ll be very difficult. The elders have isted themselves from the world and it''s even hard for us to see them. So there''s no need to mention a human outsider like you."

    I slowly nodded to show that I understood, but...

    Seeing the look on my face, Olos said with a sigh, "Give us some time, we''ll think of a way. You came all this way to warn us, so that''s the least that we can do for you."

    Once again, I nodded to show that I understood.

 Chapter 1130: Hunting wolves (1)

    Chapter 1130: Hunting wolves (1)

    ?

    Alidus and I were sent out of the room after this.

    It seemed like the two of them wanted to discuss something in private, but when we came out of the room, Alidus said, "I know that look. The two of them are going to drink."

    I raised a brow in doubt when I heard this, but he said with a smile, "It''s just how the two of them are. Whenever they talk about the demons, that''s how they will act. We''ll have some time before they recover, so let''s go take care of something before that."

    I had an even curious and confused look on my face when I heard this.

    "Let''s go and hunt some wolves." Alidus said with a smile.

    I was surprised, but I gave a nod in response.

    Though I certainly didn''t expect him to suggest this out of all things.

    ...

    "Is everyone ready?" Alidus said to the group of giants that had gathered.

    They nodded in response when they heard him ask this question.

    The group that had been gathered was the group of giants that had followed Alidus previously when he had been in the Harakka Tribe. During the time that he had been away, they had been following one of his friends who was the vice leader of their group.

    But now that Alidus was back, naturally they went back to following him.

    Technically, this group was a group of guards, so their duty should have been to guard the Harakka Tribe.

    However right now, it didn''t seem like anyone was nning on guarding anything.

    It seemed like everyone was preparing a banquet to wee us back, while also starting to trade for the goods that we had brought with us. These giants appreciated art very much, so they were happy to see all these pieces of art that we brought with us.

    For them, it was as if the market hade to them.

    That was why they were celebrating.

    Though a part of it was that they were celebrating the return of their human friends.

    I was surprised to find that the ice had broken far more than I thought. It seemed that at least for the Harakka Tribe, it wouldn''t be long before the scene of humans and giants getting along would bemon.

    But that was for after we came back.

    For now, we were nning on going to the den of the Great Wolves.

    This was the agreement that I hade to with Alidus.

    The Great Wolves were just abandoning their young, so it wasn''t as if anyone was going to take them in the first ce. In that case, it was better for me to see if we could rescue them.

    I had my way of training them, so it would be good to have a pack of Great Wolves under our control in the future.

    Once everyone showed that they were ready, we headed off.

    Though there was a trace of bitterness that was on my face as we headed out.

    That was because there was someone here that shouldn''t have been here.

    I turned to look at her and asked, "Should you really leave them all alone? Don''t they need you for the trades?"

    Haley just said with a smile, "It''s fine, they can handle themselves. That''s what I trained them for."

    Then in a more serious voice, she said, "Are you trying to leave me here because you think that I''ll get in the way?"

    I quickly shook my head to deny this.

    Haley narrowed her eyes to look at me as if she was scrutinizing me before suddenly going back to the smile to say, "Good. You know that I need to see the products first before we bring them back."

    Though she said this like a businesswoman, I knew that there was a different meaning behind her words.

    I had seen the way that she treated the Great Wolf cubs that we had brought back with us.

    Though after some time, it was hard to call them cubs anymore...

    It was better to call them fully grown Great Wolves with howrge they were now.

    They had already grown to the point where they could breed if they wanted, but it didn''t seem like they were nning on doing that yet.

    Especially with the way that they were spoiled by those that were supposed to train them.

    It was all because of Haley and the other wives of mine who saw them as pets rather than as powerful Great Wolves.

    Still, I didn''t say anything since the Great Wolves would protect them when the time came, so it wasn''t as if it was bad for them to get closer to the Great Wolves.

    Even if I couldn''t stop her, there was something that I had to say.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    "If there''s any danger, you will be leaving right away. It doesn''t matter what happens, you''ll be leaving first."

    Haley didn''t say anything this time as she just nodded with a serious look on her face.

    She knew that I wasn''t joking about this and she didn''t want to go against this either since she knew that I was doing this for her good.

    If the Great Wolves found what we were doing and attacked us, it would be dangerous.

    So it wasn''t a joke if something were to happen.

    Seeing that she agreed, I didn''t say anything else as I focused on the path that we were traveling.

    Alidus led the way and soon we made it back to the territory of the Great Wolves that we had visited before.

    Of course, we didn''t go to the main nest of the Great Wolves since there was no doubt that they would be there. They hadn''t been therest time because they had been out attacking us, but it was different this time as there was nothing distracting them.

    If we were to poke that ho''s nest, it would be troublesome.

    So instead, we focused on where they dumped the unwanted cubs.

    We hade at just the right time.

    There was a cub that was being carried out when we arrived near the Great Wolves'' nest.

 Chapter 1131: Hunting wolves (2)

    Chapter 1131: Hunting wolves (2)

    ?

    It seemed like the same fate as the cubs that we saved before was waiting for this cub that was being carried out of the pack.

    It was just that this cub didn''t seem to realize this as it was being carried out.

    The cub looked around as if it was excited about going on an adventure.

    It was as if it was seeing this wide world for the first time, which it technically was since it had been raised inside of their pack the entire time.

    The cub had never actually been outside of the den of the Great Wolf pack.

    So it could be understood why it was so excited.

    Haley bit her lip as she watched the mother wolf carry the cub away from the pack.

    After a moment of silence, she asked in a soft voice, "How could they do such a thing?" No one said anything as we kept watching the cub being carried out like this, though the looks in everyone''s eyes made it clear that they knew exactly what the answer to her question was. It was just that no one said anything since it was hard for them to talk about this.

    In the end, I was the one that said it out loud.

    "It''s because of the survival of the strongest." I said with a sigh.

    She turned to me with a look as if she couldn''t ept what I said.

    I gave another sigh before saying, "At least it''s considered strong in our human society, so there will be a ce for it."

    Haley looked a bit surprised when she heard this, but then she revealed a smile as if she found this funny and said with a nod, "That''s right. We''ll take care of it and we won''t abandon them."

    The way that she said this was almost as if there were still some unresolved issues in her heart.

    Almost as if she was still clinging to something from the past...

    I could guess what it was, but I didn''t say anything.

    If she didn''t want to face it, then she just wasn''t ready to face it.

    When she was ready, I would be there to support her. Until then, I wouldn''t say anything about it.

    We followed the mother wolf to the same hole as before.

    As we approached, we could hear that there were a few faint whimpers that wereing from the hole. It seemed that there were some cubs that had already been abandoned in the hole, waiting for death.

    When the cub that the mother wolf was holding heard this, it started whimpering as well as if it finally realized that something was wrong.

    But even though it did this, the mother wolf acted like she didn''t hear a single thing.

    She just continued bringing the wolf cub forward towards the hole.

    Once they were over the hole and the wolf cub saw what was under it, it started to panic. The wolf cub struggled as if it wanted to break free of the mother wolf''s grip, but it wasn''t able to break free.

    There was a reason why this wolf cub was being abandoned in the first ce.

    This wolf cub wasn''t strong enough to remain in the pack, so naturally it wasn''t strong enough to break out of the grasp of its mother.

    The mother wolf just stood over the hole for a moment.

    With the way that it stood there looking down while holding the wolf cub, it was almost as if she was regretting this decision. It was as if she was hesitating on dropping her cub into this

    pit.

    The wolf cub seemed to pick up on this and looked up at its mother, as if it was begging her to let it go.

    But the mother wolf let the wolf cub go in a different way.

    All of a sudden, the mother wolf released its jaws and dropped the wolf cub into the pit. The wolf cub was whimpering the entire time as it fell, but the mother wolf didn''t seem to care about it at all. The mother wolf just turned around and prepared to leave, as if she no longer felt anything towards the wolf cub.

    There were only the sounds of whimperinging from the hole, but we didn''t go out right away.

    Instead, we just watched as the mother wolf walked away from the hole without looking back once. We were waiting for the mother wolf to leave this ce before making our move. During this time, I could feel the way that Haley grabbed my hand as if she wanted to do something, but was holding herself back.

    So I just silently held her hand without doing anything.

    Once the mother wolf was gone, we went out slowly and approached the hole.

    When we looked down, we saw that there were a few bundles that were moving at the bottom of the hole. Though they were moving, it didn''t seem like they were strong enough to actually move around.

    It seemed like they were only moving because they wanted to survive, but there was nothing that they could really do.

    Haley was the one that wanted to go down first, but I could see that and immediately reached out to grab her shoulder.

    She looked back at me with a frown, but I shook my head and pointed at the others before shaking my head.

    She understood what I meant by this, even if she didn''t seem happy about it.

    But in the end, she moved back and let us go down first to take care of the wolf cubs.

    We already had experience with this, so it was easy for us to subdue the wolf cubs. At the same time, we had experience taking care of them, so it was easy for us to stabilize their conditions.

    We had even brought milk and such to feed the wolf cubs just in case.

    Once we had stabilized the wolf cubs, the others looked like they wanted to leave.

    But as I looked at the pile of bones that were here...N?v(el)B\\jnn

    "Wait, I have an idea."

 Chapter 1132: Creating guards

    Chapter 1132: Creating guards

    ?

    Everyone looked at me with surprised looks when they heard this, but this wasn''t the only surprise that they felt from this.

    That was because they saw that I took out the Orb of the Dead.

    Klein and the others were used to seeing me with the Orb of the Dead, but the same couldn''t be said about the giants.

    When they saw me with the Orb of the Dead, there were many of them that looked at me with looks of suspicion.

    It wasn''t hard to guess what they were thinking based on the looks on their faces, but Alidus just raised his hand to stop them from doing anything and gave them a look to tell them to trust me.

    There was a moment of hesitation from the giants as they didn''t know what to think, but eventually they nodded in agreement and decided to give me the benefit of the doubt.

    It wasn''t because of what they thought of me, but rather because of their respect for Alidus. It was because they respected him that they decided to go against what their basic instincts were telling them to do.

    That just went to show how much respect they had for him.

    Though Alidus stood up for me, the way that he looked at me after calming them down made it clear what he was thinking.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    He also wanted to know what I was nning to do with this Orb of the Dead.

    The Orb of the Dead was not a good thing, but it wasn''t a bad thing either. Whether it was used for good or bad depended on the person that it belonged to and used it.

    As for what I was nning on using it for.

    I looked around the hole that we were in to look at the different bones that were on the ground.

    There were many piles of bones that were here which showed that there were many generations of wolf cubs that were abandoned in this ce.

    All of them had died from being abandoned here.

    The amount of resentment in this ce would be very strong, which would make this the perfect ce to...

    Holding up the Orb of the Dead, I closed my eyes and slowly started releasing the dark energy. Once the dark energy came out, it seemed to fall to the ground before seeping into the piles of bones that were here. After the dark energy seeped into the bones on the ground, there was a reaction that came from them.

    The bones that were on the ground seemed to shake in response to this dark energy.

    The bones continued to shake and shake, bing more and more intense until there were some of the bones that suddenly started to move. These bones didn''t just shake back and forth and seemed to move towards each other.

    It was as if the bones that were moving were gathering in a single point.

    These bones were small...that was just a fact.

    The creatures that these bones came from were wolf cubs that hadn''t fully developed yet, so there was no way that they would have proper bones.

    It was just that when it came to the undead, it didn''t matter if the bones were big or small. Once they were gathered together, the small bones seemed toe together to form bigger bones. They all gathered together to form aplete adult wolf skeleton.

    Though the ones that had watched this process would be able to tell just how many bones were used to form this one wolf skeleton.

    After the wolf skeleton was formed, it just stood there for a few seconds before a ball of mes appeared in its chest. At the same time, there were two smaller mes that appeared in the eyes of the skeleton wolf.

    Once that happened, it turned to look at me.

    I didn''t reach out right away towards the skeleton wolf, instead I looked at the skeleton wolf with a wary look on my face.

    That was because there was no telling what kind of attitude this skeleton wolf would have towards me.

    Even if it was created by me, this was a ce that was filled with resentment.

    If this resentment was gathered together, there was no telling what would happen...

    Only I felt that I should at least attempt this to see what would happen.

    After a moment of silence, the skeletal wolf suddenly ran over to my side.

    I waspletely caught off guard when it jumped at me and I wasn''t able to dodge out of the

    way, so the skeletal wolfnded right on top of me.

    However, I wasn''t afraid of it since I could see that it didn''t mean any harm to me.

    Rather, it brought its face down as if it was about to lick my face.

    The only problem was that it was a skeleton, so it didn''t actually have a tongue.

    So all that it could do was awkwardly move its face in front of mine, trying to lick me with its non-existent tongue.

    Looking at the skeletal wolf for a bit, a faint smile appeared on my face.

    Even if there was resentment, the bones belonged to cubs that hadn''t matured before they

    died. So the personality that this skeleton wolf had was that of a child as well, even though it had the powerful body of an adult.

    Holding the Orb of the Dead, I could tell that I was able to control it if I needed to, which was more than enough for me.

    I slowly pushed the skeletal wolf back and then stood up to say to the others, "It''s fine, it''s friendly."

    There were still cautious looks on their faces, but seeing the way that the skeletal wolf acted, they at least put down their weapons.

    Alidus was the one that asked, "What are you nning to do with this thing? Are you going to attack the Great Wolves?"

    I just simply shook my head and said, "Nope, not at all. I have a job for this skeleton wolf."

 Chapter 1133: Caretaker

    Chapter 1133: Caretaker

    ?

    Everyone had confused looks on their faces when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything as they waited to see what I was nning to do with the skeleton wolf that I summoned.

    With a wave of my hand, the skeleton wolf followed me.

    Though before we could go anywhere, we had to leave this hole first.

    The skeleton wolf seemed a bit afraid when Joan reached out for it, but I calmed it down with a single order.

    It was strange seeing the skeleton wolf afraid since it was an undead in the first ce, but it seemed like it was affected by the souls of the wolf cubs that were used to create it.

    That was why it seemed to act like a child from time to time.

    But at the very least, it seemed like it followed my orders, which was a good thing.

    If it was one of those undead that developed its own will and only followed the orders of its owner from time to time, then that would be bad. Especially with the role that I wanted this skeleton wolf to y

    After leaving the hole, I brought the skeleton wolf away from the hole and started looking around as if I was looking for something specific.

    Seeing the way that I looked around like this, Alidus asked, "What are you looking for?"

    The way that he asked this was as if he was implying that he would be able to help me find whatever I was looking for. The other giants seemed to be nodding as if they agreed to this.

    I didn''t argue with that since he was right.

    This was a ce that they were more familiar with since they lived in the area.

    After taking one more look, I said, "I want to see if I can find some kind of hollow in a tree that could serve as a den."

    Alidus and the giants all looked at me with strange confused looks when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything as they started going around the area looking for the thing that I asked them for.

    It didn''t take long for one of the giants to find it.

    Unlike me who didn''t have any experience, they all had experience searching the forest for different things. This experience told them exactly what they needed to look for, which was why they could find what they were looking for so fast.

    It didn''t take them any time at all to find this hollow.

    I had to admit that the hollow that they found really was a good ce.

    It was spacious and well sheltered, making it a good ce to live in.

    After finding this, Alidus asked, "What do you need this ce for?"

    I waved at the skeleton wolf and it came over into the hollow. I watched as the skeleton wolf made itselffortable in the hollow before giving a satisfied nod.

    Only then did I answer Alidus'' question.

    "I was looking for a ce for the skeleton wolf to live." I said in a calm voice.

    Though my voice was calm, there were three ck lines that appeared on Alidus'' face.

    It wasn''t just his face that had these three ck lines appear, it was the rest of them that had the same look on their faces. And it wasn''t just the giants that had this look on their faces, it was also Klein and the others that had the same look.

    Clearly none of them understood what I was nning to do here.

    I didn''t mind the way that they looked at me as I went over to take the wolf cubs from Haley.

    After taking them, I put them down on the ground and allowed them to run around in this hollow. Though they didn''t actually run that far since they had just recovered from their weakened state.

    It didn''t take long for the wolf cubs to be tired.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    During this, the skeleton wolf hade over and watched over the wolf cubs as if it was a caretaker for them.

    It seemed that the wolf cubs weren''t afraid of the skeleton wolf. It even seemed like the wolf cubs were eased by the presence of the skeleton wolf.

    Was this because it was made of the bones of those other wolf cubs or was it something else?

    Regardless of what it was, it was just a good thing that the cubs were epting of this skeleton wolf.

    I gave amand to the skeleton wolf and it went over to the supplies that we had brought to pull out some food. It brought that food over to the wolf cubs and started feeding them, which the wolf cubs devoured with vigor since they were tired from ying.

    It seemed that the skeleton wolf had no problems taking care of the wolf cubs.

    Only after confirming this did I turn to Alidus to say, "I''m thinking about having this skeleton wolf and possibly more skeleton wolves in the future take care of the wolf cubs."

    Alidus was surprised to hear this before slowly looking over at the skeleton wolf who was still taking care of the wolf cubs.

    As he looked at them, I continued by saying, "The skeleton wolves will rescue the wolf cubs and bring them here to look after. You''ll just have toe here from time to time to pick up the wolf cubs to bring back to your tribe to hold temporarily for us and to bring supplies for the skeleton wolves to feed the cubs with. With the caravans that we''re sending, we''ll be able to easily bring them back to our Kite Kingdom to train them."

    Alidus didn''t seem to react to what I said at first, but then he gave a slow nod as if he could see the vision that I wasying out.

    But that didn''t mean that he didn''t have his questions.

    "How can you guarantee that they won''t act up if you''re not here? You''re the only one that seems to be able to calm them down and control them." Alidus asked me this question.

    I gave a nod to show that it was a good question before saying, "I can leave something that you can use to calm the cubs down."

    Alidus paused for a moment as if he was thinking about it before slowly giving a nod of agreement.

 Chapter 1134 This is my wife

    1134 This is my wife

    There were still a few more details that had to be hashed out, but they weren''t details that would be hashed out in a ce like this.

    So after leaving the skeleton wolf in the hollow, we headed back to the Harakka Tribe.

    Though as we were leaving the skeleton wolf did look at us with a look that almost seemed like it was sad.

    It was as if it didn''t want to leave the wolf cubs.

    But in the end, it let us take them away since that was the order that it was given.

    It didn''t disobey the orders that I gave it, though it did make me feel a bit bad about taking the cubs away. It was almost as if I was taking its children away or at the same time, it was as if I was taking its friend away.

    As I was leaving, I thought about creating a friend for the skeleton wolf the next time we came back.

    It took a surprising amount of mana to raise this single skeleton wolf, so I didn''t have enough to do it a second time.

    But based on the number of bones that it took to raise this single skeleton wolf, it was no wonder it took that much mana. It was the same as raising a bunch of skeletons at the same time with how many bones there were.

    At the same time, it wasn''t as if too many of these could be raised at the same time. The Great Wolf pack would certainly be suspicious if too many bones and cubs disappeared.

    It made me curious just how strong this skeleton wolf was, but that was for next time.

    Since we were done with this ce, it was time to head back to the Harakka Tribe.

    When we arrived, I was surprised to find that there were more giants here than when we left.

    I raised a brow and looked at Alidus as if I was asking him what happened. When he saw this, he just shook his head to show that he didn''t know either.

    As far as he knew, there shouldn''t have been any other guests.

    But that doubt was soon answered by a loud voice.

    "There you are! I''ve been looking for you this entire time!"

    This voice was alone that had impatience, but also a trace of joy in it when it rang out.

    When we turned to look in the direction that it came from we found a giant running over to us.

    A bitter smile appeared on both my face and Alidus'' face when we saw who it was. Though the reason that we had bitter looks on our faces was different.

    Alidus was like this because this was the childhood friend that he couldn''t get rid of.

    Mine was because of that way that she acted around me, which was made worse with the way that Alidus stoked the mes.

    It was Isra from the Vale Tribe.

    Since she was the young miss of arge giant tribe, it wasn''t as if I could say anything to her¡­

    But there was something else that made the smile on my face turn bitter.

    That was because I could feel a grip grabbing onto my arm. It was like an iron vice that had tightly wrapped around my arm.

    I didn''t even need to turn around to see who it was that was holding my arm like this. There was only one person that would hold my arm like this in this situation and only one reason they would be doing this.

    Still, I turned to look in the direction that the arm wasing from.

    As expected, it was Haley who had my arm in an iron vice.

    Though she held my arm like this, there was a smile that was on her face as if everything was fine.

    But I could see that the smile didn''t reach her eyes.

    It was obvious what the situation was even though not a single word was said.

    I was in trouble¡­

    Before she did anything, it seemed like she wanted to see what the situation was first.

    So we waited for Isra toe over.

    When Isra came over to us, the first thing that she did was look at me and narrow her eyes.

    It was better to say that she was looking at the way that Haley was holding my arm.

    Though she was still gripping my arm, she had leaned in so that she was pressed up against me while holding my arm. It looked more intimate, rather than just her holding me against my will. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    After looking at us like this for a bit, Isra slowly asked, "This is¡­?"

    She didn''t even ask Haley who she was, she just asked me directly.

    There was a bitter feeling that filled me as I knew that this would get me in more trouble, but I still said with a calm look on my face, "This is my wife."

    Haley revealed another smile as she said, "Thank you for taking care of my husband previously. I hope that we can get to know each other in the future."

    Isra gave a slow nod, but the look in her eyes didn''t seem good.

    It was as if she had suffered some kind of strong blow.

    Even though she knew that he had a wife, she had never met his wife which was why she had thrown it into the back of her mind.

    But now that she met Haley¡­

    She could tell that while she was a beautiful girl herself, she didn''t seem to be a match for Haley.

    At the same time, there was one important difference between the two of them.

    It wasn''t just that they were from different races¡­

    It was the height difference between them.

    Haley was a human just like him, but she was a giant.

    Even ignoring the friction that was between the two races, it was already hard enough.

    But she had been deluding herself since she hadn''t seen anything.

    She couldn''t do that anymore now that Haley had appeared.

    If it doesn''t fill you up, then it''s not a meal.

    Please send power stones and give reviews to show your support!

    Come check out my stream for sneak peeks: https://twitch.tv/dxhaseoxd

 Chapter 1135: Tense relations

    Chapter 1135: Tense rtions

    ?

    There was nothing that happened after that.

    One might have thought that the situation would have exploded after the provocation from

    Haley, but it seemed like Isra understood the situation and didn''t push it.

    Instead, she backed down and went back to help her parents with the banquet.

    It was almost as if she had given up...

    "She won''t give up."n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    I was surprised to hear Alidus say this.

    But I was feeling more bitter because he had said this while Haley was still by my side.

    The moment that he said this, I could feel the grip tightening around my arm.

    It seemed that it only served to make her even more jealous.

    I didn''t say anything as I just waited for her to let go of my arm and allow me to head to the banquet that had been prepared.

    But before that, we made sure to drop off the wolf cubs since it wasn''t as if we could bring them with us to the banquet.

    After making sure that the wolf cubs were settled, we headed off to the banquet that had been prepared.

    There were many different dishes that were ced out, which showed how weing the giants were to us.

    At the head of the table was Olos who represented the Harakka Tribe and Isra''s father who represented the Vale Tribe. Beside them was an empty seat that seemed to be left for someone else.

    There was no need to guess who that seat was for.

    It was clearly for me who represented the humans that were here.

    The others that had been helping out were already sitting in their ces and they were all looking at me as if they were waiting for me to sit down as well.

    But it was awkward for me because of what happened just now.

    If it wasn''t for the appearance of the Vale Tribe, I wouldn''t have felt this awkward.

    But since they were here...

    Still, it wasn''t as if I could just now sit down since they were all waiting for me. Even the giants were looking at me as if they were waiting for me to sit down.

    The only thing that I could do was walk over to where the two chiefs of the tribes were waiting and sit down with them. Though Haley also came with me and sat down beside me.

    It didn''t seem like they minded at first until...

    Isra came over with her mother and sat down beside her father.

    After sitting down, Isra''s mother leaned in and whispered something to her father before the two of them looked at Haley and me. The way that they looked at us was almost as if they were sizing us up.

    I didn''t even need to think about it to know what they were thinking about.

    Olos seemed a bit confused when he saw this, but then he also figured out what happened. Though part of that was because Alidus came over to his side and whispered a few things. There was an awkward tension that filled the air as we all sat there in silence.

    Finally, Isra''s father was the one that broke the silence to everyone''s surprise.

    To their further surprise, Isra''s father said to me, "Why don''t you introduce this lovelydy to us?"

    I waspletely caught off guard by this question.

    It was already clear that he knew who Haley was based on what had been whispered between them, so there was no reason he should have been asking this question. But still, he asked this question right to my face and in front of his daughter.

    It really seemed like an insensitive thing to do...

    But to my surprise, it didn''t seem like anyone minded this.

    It even seemed like they were waiting for me to speak.

    Though in Olos and Alidus'' case, it seemed like they were more about having fun at my expense than actually caring about how this turned out.

    I really wanted to say something to them.

    After all, if this turned out bad, then that meant that even the good rtionship that they had with the Vale Tribe would be destroyed. This certainly wasn''t something that could be taken

    lightly.

    Yet...they looked like they were having fun...

    With an internal sigh, I said, "This is my third wife, Haley."

    This time, I introduced her as my third wife and not just my wife. I wanted to make sure that they knew everything so that things could beid out on the table and there would be no further misunderstandings.

    To my surprise, Isra''s father just gave a simple nod before turning to Haley to say, "I''ve heard that you''re the one that is in charge of finances for your human kingdom. That means that in the future, you''re the one we''ll be trading with?"

    Haley gave a simple nod since she didn''t know what he meant by this, but she didn''t want to offend him either.

    Even though she had experience dealing with all kinds of people, these giants were different from the kind of people that she dealt with. She didn''t know enough about them to know what to make of this.

    After seeing her nod, Isra''s father continued by saying with a smile, "Then we''ll have to ask you to take care of us in the future. We''ll have plenty of things that we''ll want from your

    human kingdom."

    Haley had a slightly confused look as she gave another simple nod.

    I had the same confused look on my face as I turned to look at Alidus.

    He didn''t seem like he wanted to exin at first, but then he eventually leaned in and said, "Did you think that we hold grudges that easily? Especially when we know the truth of the matter? It''s not your fault in the first ce, so why would they hold a grudge against you? They''re just trying to look out for their daughter."

    I was a bit surprised to hear this, but not as surprised as I was by what Isra''s father said next.

 Chapter 1136: Another one

    Chapter 1136: Another one

    ?

    "Since we''ll be working closely with each other in the future, I want to establish a closer rtionship with each other." Isra''s father said in a calm voice that didn''t show any clues as to what he was implying to.

    Haley and I looked at each other, but we could see that both of us had no idea what he was nning.

    Since neither of us knew what was happening, the only thing that we could do was...

    "What kind of cooperation are you looking for?" Haley slowly asked this in response.

    Isra''s father just said with a smile, "Of course it''ll be a cultural exchange. Just like how you don''t know much about our culture, we don''t know much about human culture. This is no way for us to get closer to each other, right?"

    The two of us had strange looks on our faces, but we slowly nodded in agreement since he was technically right about this.

    Seeing us nod in agreement, he continued by saying, "As such, I propose that we send people to each of our ces so we can get to know each other better."

    Once again we slowly nodded with strange looks on our faces.

    Isra''s father didn''t wait for us to say anything as he continued to say with a smile, "Then Isra will be the one that will go to the human kingdom for us."

    As soon as he said this, it made it very clear what he meant by this.

    Though when I looked at him closely, I found that there was something strange about Isra''s father when he said this.

    The look in his eyes was as if he wasn''t as willing to say this.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    It was almost as if he was being forced to say this.

    As for what was forcing him...there was only one thing that could force Isra''s father, who was the chief of the Vale Tribe to say something that he didn''t want to say. It was the real chief of the Vale Tribe who ruled from the shadows.

    It was Isra''s mother who was pinching him.

    There was a trace of sympathy that filled me when I saw him being treated like this, but that didn''t mean that I would let my guard down. That didn''t mean that I would agree to his request that easily.

    In a softer voice, I said, "I''m sure that you''ve already heard from the chief of the Harakka Tribe, but it''s a dangerous time in the outside world right now. This might not be the best time for someone toe visit us. Perhaps after the matters outside have settled, we can..."

    Before I could finish, Isra cut me off by saying, "It''s only because these are dangerous times that I have to go now."

    I slowly turned to look at her with a confused look.

    She just looked right at me with a confident expression as she said, "It''s more dangerous to iste ourselves and not know anything about the outside world. If there''s something dangerous happening, it''s better to go and learn about it than to be ignorant. If we truly ignore it, then we''ll be putting ourselves in danger."

    The way that she said this made it seem like she had a very good reason for this, but...

    The way that she looked at me made it clear that it was different...

    However, it was hard to reject her since she had a good reason and she was doing this in front of everyone.

    With a bit more hesitation in my voice, I said, "We won''t be able to guarantee your safety in these dangerous times. Even if you do want to send someone to our kingdom, it would be better to choose someone else."

    At first, it seemed like Isra''s father was nodding in agreement to this.

    But then he suddenly said with a serious look, "There is no one that I trust more than my daughter."

    Though under that serious look, there was a trace of pain in his eyes.

    And looking down, one could see that Isra''s mother''s hand was behind him.

    It was clear what was happening there.

    With a bitter smile, I said, "I''m sure that you''re worried about your daughter, this really isn''t the best time."

    He shook his head and insisted this time.

    "It''s her or no one else."

    It was almost as if this was a threat to cut off rtions if we didn''t agree.

    Once it reached that point, Haley said with a sigh, "Alright, we''ll leave one of our people here to learn about your tribes as well."

    Isra''s mother gave a satisfied nod when she heard this before saying, "Good, now that that''s settled, let''s eat."

    The way that she said this was as if she was putting a close to this matter.

    It was as if she wouldn''t hear anything else on this matter.

    Isra also happily nodded in agreement.

    They were the only two that seemed happy about the way that things ended.

    Everyone else seemed to feel a bit bitter about how things turned out.

    Almost as if they couldn''t do anything to change the results of this matter.

    While everyone was enjoying themselves, Alidus leaned in and said, "I told you that it was useless to resist. She won''t give up."

    I looked at him with a bitter smile on my face before saying, "Isn''t she your childhood friend? Can''t you say anything to her?"

    He immediately turned away as if he was pretending that he didn''t hear me.

    He acted like he didn''t want a single part in this.

    Well, as childhood friends, it was only natural that they would know all the little details about each other. It was only natural that he didn''t want to get involved in this since he knew more

    than I did.

    But still, I felt that our bond was close enough that he should at least try to do something.

    In the end, all that happened was that I got another giant following me.

 Chapter 1137: Surprising summons

    Chapter 1137: Surprising summons

    ?

    A few days passed since that banquet.

    During that time, there were other tribes that came to visit the Harakka Tribe toe and see

    us.

    These were the tribes that had bought from us previously at the giant market and hade to see if we would sell them anything else.

    It wasn''t all of the tribes in the area that came.

    There was a group that didn''te to visit the Harakka Tribe.

    This was the group that was led by the Korin Tribe that seemed to be hostile towards the Harakka Tribe. They were also the group that seemed to be against interacting with humanspletely.

    They didn''t buy anything from us previously, so it was only natural that they wouldn''t buy anything from us now.

    The only surprising thing was how they didn''t try to do anything.

    It was as if they werepletely leaving us alone, which was a strange thing.

    I would have thought that at least Dorian would want to try something once he knew that I

    was back. Especially with the news that the Vale Tribe had been spending quite a bit of time at the Harakka Tribe.

    With his feelings towards Isra...

    But it turned out that nothing was happening.

    As for the reason for that...

    It was because Olos and Olmir had left the Harakka Tribe the day after the banquet was over. The tribe was being held down by a few elders and Alidus who stepped up to take the position of recement chief.

    The two of them didn''t abandon the Harakka Tribe, but rather they made the journey into the heart of the Land of Giants to see the elders.

    These elders were the ones that were the highest power in the giant race, so they didn''t dare to do anything when the elders were involved. Once the elders were involved, all of the tribes had no choice but to act honestly.

    That included the Korin Tribe.

    Though if the elders weren''t interested in this matter anymore...then it would be hard to say what would happen.

    For now, it would all depend on what Olos and Olmir had to say once they came back from their trip to see the elders.

    That was what happened a few days after the banquet.

    While everyone was busy trading, Olos and Olmir came back silently and summoned everyone to a meeting.

    That included Isra''s mother and father who represented the Vale Tribe.

    When we arrived at the meeting, everyone was surprised to hear their report.

    "They want to see me?" I slowly asked in a confused voice while everyone looked at me with a strange look.

    Olos and Olmir slowly nodded in agreement as they had strange looks on their faces.

    Seeing that no one said anything, I slowly asked, "Why?"

    Both Olos and Olmir slowly shook their heads to show that they didn''t know.

    In their meeting with the elders, they had reported everything about the demons and their rtionship with the humans.

    After hearing this, the elders said that they would need some time to deliberate on what to do about the demons which was what they had expected.

    What they didn''t expect to hear was that the elders actually said that they wanted to meet Zwein.

    Olos and Olmir took a chance and asked the elders why they wanted to meet him, but the elders just simply said...N?v(el)B\\jnn

    "It''s because we''re interested in him."

    Olos and Olmir had no idea what this meant or if it was even good or bad, but the elders had dismissed them before they could ask anything else.

    "What do you make of this situation?" I asked the two of them with a serious look on my face.

    They didn''t say anything at first as looks of thought appeared on their faces. They just continued looking like they were thinking about it for a bit before both of them suddenly gave sighs.

    The two of them both shook their heads and Olos slowly said, "It''s impossible to figure out what the elders are thinking. All we know is that they want to meet you..."

    The two of them looked at me again with strange looks.

    I looked back at them and slowly asked, "Do they want to hurt me?"

    Neither of them said anything at first, but they eventually shook their heads and said, "The elders wouldn''t do something like that for no reason."

    Though it did feel like there were traces of hesitation in their voices as they said this.

    This did make me feel a bit anxious, but...

    "Alright, I''ll go and meet them." I said with a sigh.

    I could feel someone grabbing my arm in concern when I said this, but I didn''t turn back to look since I had already made up my mind.

    Olos and Olmir looked at me with surprised looks, but they eventually nodded in agreement after seeing the look on my face.

    "I''ll go too." Alidus suddenly said as if he was showing his support.

    It was just that Olos and Olmir shook their heads before saying, "No, you can''t go. Even if you go, they won''t see you since you''re not authorized to see them."

    Alidus knitted his brows and looked like he wanted to say something else, but Olos cut him off by saying, "It''s not your time yet. Don''t force this matter. Just the sentiment is enough." Though he still seemed like he was a bit unwilling to ept this, he didn''t say anything in the end.

    Once everyone seemed like they didn''t have anything to say, I looked at them and asked, "When do we leave?"

    Olos and Olmir thought about it before Olos said, "It''s best if we leave as soon as possible. This matter is important if they''re summoning you. Even without that, the demons won''t wait forever, so we should settle this matter as soon as possible."

    I gave a slow nod to show my agreement.

    Though I could still feel the hand that was gripping my arm.

 Chapter 1138: Valley of Origin (1)

    Chapter 1138: Valley of Origin (1)

    ?

    The next morning, I headed off on the back of Joan while following Olos and Olmir.

    I had agreed to go see the elders with them, so we were heading to where the elders were.

    Though normally, outsiders wouldn''t be allowed to go on this journey.

    Normally, even ordinary giants wouldn''t be allowed to go on this journey.

    The elders had a special status in the giant race, so they weren''t those that anyone was allowed to meet. Only those that had a certain amount of status in the giant race were able to meet them.

    But Olos and Olmir weren''t as simple as they seemed.

    That was what I learned when we arrived at the ce where the elders were.

    Since it was the ce where the elders were, it was only natural that it was well guarded.

    Even if the elders were among the strongest in the giant race, they were also the most important giants. So it was only natural that there would be guards that were ready to die for the elders if there was a need for it.

    These were the ones that approached when Olos and Olmir led me into this valley.

    They immediately raised their weapons as if they were ready to attack, but it wasn''t because of Olos and Olmir that they acted this way. The reason they acted this way was because I was with them and I was riding on the back of Joan.

    It was only natural that they would be on guard against this wyvern, even if it came with two giants.

    "Commander Olos, this is?"

    The guard seemed to recognize Olos based on what he said, but to my surprise, the guard actually called Olos mander''. It seemed that there really was a backstory to Olos that I didn''t know about.

    Olos just calmly said, "This is the human that the elders wanted to see."

    The guards all seemed surprised when they heard this before turning to look at me.

    The way that they looked at me was as if they were sizing me up.

    I knew why they were looking at me like this, so I didn''t show any signs of difort and calmly looked right back at them all.

    Seeing me look back at them like this, there were looks of surprises that appeared on their faces again. It was as if they didn''t expect me to look back at them like this with such a confident look.

    After looking at me for a bit, they still looked down at Joan that I was riding on.

    Joan had been silent, but it seemed like she could feel the way that they were looking at her. After a long silence, the guard from before said, "Even if he''s the human that was summoned here, it''s too dangerous to let this wyvern in to see the elders. He''ll have to get off before we let him in to see the elders."

    I immediately knitted my brows when I heard this.

    Olos and Olmir could see the expression on my face, so they said, "It doesn''t seem like he''s willing to ept this."

    The guard just calmly said, "This is what has to be done to meet the elders. The safety of the elders is the most important thing."

    Bitter smiles appeared on Olos and Olmir''s faces when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything. The looks on their faces already made it very clear what they were thinking as they turned back to look at me.

    "Alright, then I won''t meet with your elders." I said in a calm voice.

    The guards were shocked to hear this, but Olos and Olmir looked like they already expected this result.

    The guards looked like they clearly didn''t expect me to say something like this since I had been summoned by the giant elders, but I didn''t care what they thought.

    If they wanted me to leave Joan behind, then this was over.

    It was very simple, just like how they wanted to keep the giant elders safe, I also wanted to keep myself safe. If I didn''t know that I would be safe, then I wouldn''t go and meet them.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    After all, I had no idea what the giant elders wanted in the first ce when they summoned me.

    As such, there was no way that I would put myself at risk.

    The guards just had that stunned look on their faces for a while before they finally revealed frowns showing that they weren''t happy with my answer.

    The guard from before said, "You were summoned by the elders."

    He said this as if this was stating a fact.

    He said this as if I had no choice but to follow orders.

    But I just calmly looked back at him and said, "Since they won''t allow my wyvern in, then I won''t be going."

    The guards knitted their brows even more when they heard this.

    Some of them even raised the weapons that they had put down earlier, as if they were about to use force if there was a need for it.

    Olos and Olmir both revealed frowns as well, but they put their hands on their weapons as

    well.

    However, unlike the guards that seemed to be targeting me, they looked like they were prepared to protect me if something happened.

    It seemed that the two of them were quite loyal, or at least they were quite adamant about keeping their word.

    There was a tense silence that filled the air as no one said a single thing.

    Finally, the guard from before said, "You don''t have a choice."

    "I think I do." I said once more in a calm voice.

    The guard raised his hand as if he was about to call the others to attack, but then...

    "What do you think you''re doing?"

    When the guards heard this, they were all surprised and quickly turned to look in the direction

    of this voice.

    There was an elderly giant that was standing there.

 Chapter 1139: Valley of Origin (2)

    Chapter 1139: Valley of Origin (2)

    ?

    "Elder Ogrin, what are you doing here?" The guard that represented the others asked this in a slow and shocked voice.

    The elderly giant that had been called Elder Ogrin narrowed his eyes and said, "If I wasn''t here, would no one see the way that you''re treating our honoured guest? Or are you saying that I''m not allowed to be here."

    The guards were all shocked hearing this.

    They looked at each other as if they were trying to figure out what was happening, but it didn''t seem like anyone knew what was happening.

    After all, they didn''t understand why the elder would be acting this way.

    The way that the elder was speaking, it was clear that he was defending this human... But why?

    That was the question that was on everyone''s minds.

    The guards didn''t know how to respond when Elder Ogrin confronted them like this, so all they could do was stand there in silence.

    Elder Ogrin just looked at them for a bit before giving a snort and turning to look at me.

    I was also surprised by this since I never expected one of the elders to show up to defend me like this.

    With the way that the guards treated this person, there was no mistaking it.

    This elderly giant was clearly one of the elders that were at the peak of the giant race.

    He was one of the elders that had summoned me here.

    Only...I was also wondering what he was doing here as well.

    It didn''t seem to make sense that this elder would suddenlye here and support me like this.

    After all, I was a human in the territory of the giants.

    They should be supporting their fellow giants instead of me.

    After looking at me silently for a bit, Elder Ogrin suddenly revealed a friendly smile and said, "I apologize for this. I wanted to meet you under different circumstances, but it seems that our instructions had been misinterpreted."

    As soon as his voice fell, he turned to look at the guards to say, "We intended to invite you as an honoured guest, but it seems that they thought that we summoned you here as a criminal."

    The guards had further looks of shock on their faces when they heard this.

    All they could do was awkwardly look away to avoid looking at Elder Ogrin.

    I didn''t respond right away even though it seemed like Elder Ogrin seemed to be acting friendly. I just carefully looked at him as if I was trying to figure out what his motive was.

    However, it didn''t seem like Elder Ogrin minded as he looked at me with the same smile on his face.

    Eventually, I said, "It''s not a problem, I''m sure that they must have been eager for sess which is why they acted that way."

    The smile finally disappeared from Elder Ogrin''s face as he shook his head and gave a sigh before saying, "It''s just the way that our giant race is. The scars run deep in the rtionship between our two races, which is why it''s hard to change things."

    Then with a bit of a bitter smile, he said, "But I hope that things will get better in the future. We''re no longer in the age of racial wars, so the only path to peace is to cooperate with the other races."

    The giant guards seemed like they werepletely surprised by Elder Ogrin''s words, but Olos and Olmir seemed to nod in agreement to this.

    I didn''t give a response to this as I just looked at him with narrowed eyes, almost as if I was judging him.

    Even if he said this in a natural way, it was still possible that he was lying about this.

    But there was a part of me that wanted to see how this would go, so I said...

    "Is it alright for me to bring my wyvern with me?"

    Elder Ogrin nodded in agreement as he said, "Of course. We know the difference in stature between us giants and you humans, so we know how hard it will be for you without the help of your wyvern."

    The guards seemed like they still wanted to say something, but Elder Ogrin shut it down by ring at them.

    Like that, I was allowed entry into this Valley of Origin.

    "Do you know why this ce is called the Valley of Origin?" Elder Ogrin asked as we entered the valley and followed him to where we would be meeting the other giant elders.

    I didn''t know what he was doing bringing this up, but I shook my head to show that I didn''t know.

    "This Valley of Origin is said to be where the Origin Giant was born. It was here that our giant race originated, which is why it is the most important ce in our entire giant race."

    After saying this, Elder Ogrin looked at me with a meaningful look as if he was implying something.

    I didn''t miss this and I understood why he was saying this.

    He was letting me know the importance of this ce to the giant race, which would allow me

    to understand just how big it was that they were allowing me here to meet the elders.

    It was to make me feel touched that they were doing such a thing to me.

    It was to make it easier for them to aplish whatever goal they were trying to aplish.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    After all, when one had good feelings for the other side, it was easier to negotiate. However, I wasn''t fooled by this trick.

    All it told me was that this Elder Ogrin was quite the sly old fox that he was able to do such a thing without even batting an eysh.

    Old ginger was the spiciest.

    That was an idiom that remained true regardless of the world.

    After following him and listening to him talk about the Valley of Origin for a bit, we finally arrived at the ce where the other elders were.

 Chapter 1140: Elders of the giant race

    Chapter 1140: Elders of the giant race

    ?

    This was a ce that was at the center of the Valley of Origin.

    It was arge tree that had a door carved into it.

    The door didn''t seem thatrge or grand when it came to giants, but when it was in front of a human like me...

    It was a veryrge door.

    But it opened quite easily as Elder Ogrin just simply pushed on it and it opened.

    What was revealed was arge room inside of the trunk of the tree.

    This was a simple looking room that didn''t seem to have any decorations at all. The only thing that was in this room were mats for the elderly giants to sit on.

    They were all sitting there with their eyes closed as if they were meditating.

    That was the first thing that I saw when Joan walked into the room.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    As if they sensed us, the giant elders suddenly opened their eyes to look in our direction. Or more specifically, all of the giant elders immediately looked in my direction.

    With the way that they looked at me, it was clear that they were sizing me up.

    I didn''t back down from the looks that they gave me, which made them nod their heads in approval.

    After a short silence, one of the elders said, "He''s the human that the Origin Giant wanted to meet?"

    Elder Ogrin gave a nod of acknowledgement before saying, "Before that, let''s have a talk with him. I''m sure that he has some questions for us."

    The other giant elders nodded in agreement to this before turning back to look at me.

    With the way that they looked at me, it was as if they were waiting for me to ask them something.

    However, there was no way that I would be able to ask them anything with what they just said.

    All I could do was look at Olos and Olmir, but I saw that the two of them had the same stunned expression on their faces.

    We were all stunned because of what the elder had said.

    We were stunned because the elder had said that it was the Origin Giant that had summoned

    me.

    The Origin Giant was considered a myth in the lore of the giants.

    It was the first giant to appear in this world and the one that all of the other giants were descended from.

    This had put the Origin Giant on the same level as the other gods in this world.

    At the same time, it also made people wonder if the Origin Giant was even real with how many rumours surrounded the Origin Giant.

    But now, they had confirmed that it was real and that the Origin Giant was even in contact with the elders to the point where it could summon me.

    However, if the Origin Giant was the one that was summoning me, then this was much moreplicated than it seemed.

    For the Origin Giant to go as far as to summon me...

    It was just that before that, it seemed like the giant elders still wanted to talk to me.

    "So this is the human that Lord Origin Giant summoned."

    One of the elders suddenly said this, to which all of the other elders slightly narrowed their brows.

    The way that the elder said this was as if he had something against me.

    But when I looked at him, it didn''t seem like that was the case.

    Rather than having a hostile look on his face, it seemed like he had a curious look.

    It was almost as if he wanted to know more about me.

    Instead of answering the doubts that he had, I just simply said, "I don''t know why I''ve been summoned either."

    To my surprise, all of the giant elders seemed surprised to hear this.

    With the way that they reacted, it was almost as if they had expected me to know exactly why I had been called here by the Origin Giant.

    "Do you really not know why?" Another one of the elders asked in a slow voice, almost as if they wanted to confirm this.

    I just gave a simple nod in response.

    Once the elders heard this, they all had strange looks on their faces.

    After all, they had beenmanded by the Origin Giant to bring this person here and they had been told that it was of the utmost importance. But if this human didn''t even know the Origin Giant, then why would their Lord Origin Giant act this way?

    It just didn''t make any sense at all.

    In the end, Elder Ogrin said with a sigh, "It doesn''t matter why you''ve been summoned here, does it? In the end, it was Lord Origin Giant that called you here and that''s all that matters." After he said this, the expressions of the other elders rxed and they nodded in agreement to this.

    After all, it was impossible for them to understand what the Origin Giant was thinking.

    All they had to do was follow the order that the Origin Giant gave them.

    At that, they all suddenly turned to look in a certain direction.

    When I followed their gaze, I saw that there was another door that was here.

    I hadn''t noticed this since it was a door that blended into the wall and I had been focused on

    the giant elders, but this was the only other door in this room.

    As for where it led, I had no idea at all.

    Though I did have an idea of what this door was.

    After turning to look at it, Elder Ogrin said, "Lord Origin Giant is waiting for you behind that

    door."

    "The Origin Giant is still alive?" I asked in a shocked voice.

    There were strange smiles that appeared on all of their faces when they heard this before

    Elder Ogrin said, "Not exactly."

    Then in a mysterious voice, he added, "You''ll see what we mean when you go in."

    I had my doubts, but I still had Joan head towards the door that they pointed me towards.

 Chapter 1141: Origin Giant (1)

    Chapter 1141: Origin Giant (1)

    ?

    After I came over, there were two giant elders that came over with me that pushed the door open.

    Once the door was opened, I could see what was inside.

    I was surprised to find that there wasn''t anything that was here.

    It was a small room by the standard of the giants and there seemed to be only one thing that was in the center of the room.

    It was a pedestal that had something on top of it.

    When I looked at it closely, I found that it was a club.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    It was simr to the club that Olos had given to Alidus, but it was also very different since there was a strange feeling that wasing from this club.

    This feeling was a bit oppressive with how much power wasing from it, but there was also something simr about this feeling. It was like the feeling that I got from Solista and the other gods when I met them.

    Only it wasn''t exactly the same.

    It was a divine feeling, but it felt like there was something missing.

    As Joan stood there, I looked at the elders and asked, "What am I supposed to do here?"

    The giant elders just gestured for me to go in before saying, "All you have to do is stand there inside and you''ll be able to meet Lord Origin Giant."

    I raised a brow to show my doubt, but they didn''t say anything else as they seemed to wait for me to enter the room.

    After a moment of hesitation, I had Joan walk in.

    The moment that I did, the doors closed tightly behind me before I was even able to react.

    It was as if they wanted to lock me in this room as soon as possible.

    If this was a trap, it really was a strange trap.

    After all, the club was in the room with me.

    This club should be the relic that I was looking for, so locking me in here was actually not a bad thing for me. Though it did mean that I didn''t have a way to get out of this ce.

    In a worst case scenario, I could always just have Joan go on a rampage if they locked me in here...

    But it seemed that it wasn''t necessary.

    There was a glow that suddenly came from the club while I was debating what to do next. When the glow appeared, my eyes immediately fell onto the club. Only when I looked at the club, I found that the glowing from it was getting stronger and stronger.

    It became so strong that it was hard to look at the club directly.

    Even though I turned away from the club, the light was still getting stronger and stronger that even turning away wasn''t helping me. Finally, there seemed to be onerge sh of light before the bright light seemed to have disappeared.

    When I turned back, I found that the pedestal with the club had disappeared.

    It wasn''t just the pedestal with the club that had disappeared, it was the entire room that had disappeared.

    All around me was nothing but white light and it seemed that there was nothing else in this space. It seemed that this ce was nothing more than a space that was filled with empty nothingness.

    This reminded me of another ce that I had been brought into before...

    It was simr to the ces that the gods dragged me into whenever they wanted to talk to me. "Is anyone there?" I suddenly asked out loud.

    There was a sh of light before arge figure that was too tall for me to look at appeared in front of me.

    Since I was no longer on Joan, this figure was just too tall for me to see the entirety of. But at the same time, with how tall it was, I could tell that it was even taller than some of the giants that I had seen before.

    If I had to guess...

    "Are you the Origin Giant?"

    "That''s right." There was a booming voice that rang out that made me cover my ears.

    This voice was so loud that it echoed through this space even though it seemed endless.

    At the same time, it hurt my eardrums if I didn''t cover them.

    "Can you speak a bit softer?" I shouted at the Origin Giant.

    The Origin Giant didn''t seem to respond at first, but then it said in the same booming voice, "This is just my natural voice, is there something wrong with it?"

    "Other than the fact that it''s destroying my ears?" That was what I wanted to shout at the Origin Giant.

    However, I held myself back and just calmly said, "It''s a bit too loud for my human ears. If you don''t speak softer or shrink down, I don''t think we''ll be able to have a proper -conversation."

    "Then there''s no need for that, you can just listen as I..."

    Before the Origin Giant could finish, there was a voice that shouted out, "Too loud!"

    Then there was a loud smacking sound that rang through the air.

    When I looked up, I found the Origin Giant looking down at me.

    Or rather, I saw that he was facing forward as if he was about to fall, almost as if he had been

    hit by something from behind.

    "Shrink down!" The same voice as before shouted out.

    There was what seemed to be a bitter smile that appeared on the Origin Giant''s face before he slowly started to shrink.

    As if the voice wasn''t satisfied, it said, "Faster!"

    The bitterness grew in the Origin Giant''s smile before he started shrinking even faster.

    In no time at all, he shrank down to the same size as me and stood there in front of me.

    But I didn''t care about the Origin Giant.

    Instead, I was looking at the glowing figure that was floating down from above.

    After all, I recognized that voice.

    It was Solista''s voice.

 Chapter 1142: Origin Giant (2)

    Chapter 1142: Origin Giant (2)

    ?

    As if they didn''t care about me at all, Solista continued by saying, "Who told you to act like a big shot? All I wanted was a simple favour from you and you let it go to your head?"

    The Origin Giant had a bitter smile on his face when he heard this before saying, "This is my domain, I have to at least act like a god here, right?"

    Solista just simply gave a snort before crossing her arms.

    As I looked at the two of them like this, I couldn''t help noticing a strange thing.

    It was that the Origin Giant was visible to me.

    Normally, gods would be invisible to me. Or at least to a certain extent since they would be surrounded by the light of their power that prevented me from seeing their true appearance.

    But this wasn''t the case with the Origin Giant.

    Even though there was a glow around him, it didn''t seem to obscure me from seeing his true appearance.

    He had the appearance of a handsome young man with blonde hair and blue eyes,pletely different from the rest of the giants that were outside who had more brown hair and brown eyes.

    With the appearance that he took, it was almost as if he was trying to make himself look as handsome as he could be.

    That appearance actually pissed me off a bit, but I held myself back in the end since this was his space. At the same time, there was someone else who was venting this anger for me that I didn''t have to do it myself.

    "So you''re saying that you won''t give me any face? You only care about your own appearance?" Solista said as she pped the back of the Origin Giant''s head again.

    Another bitter smile appeared on the Origin Giant''s face as he held the back of his head, but he didn''t dodge out of the way of her p.

    Even though it seemed that it was impossible with how fast he moved, he didn''t move out of the way. He just stood there in front of her hand and allowed her to p him.

    The way that he stood there was almost as if he was afraid to move out of the way of the p. After taking this, he said with the same bitter smile, "We can talk this out, is there a need to hit?"

    "Will you listen if I don''t?" Solista said with another snort.

    Finally, the Origin Giant yed hisst card, "We''re in front of him right now. Do you really want him to see you like this?"

    Solista''s hand froze when she heard this.

    She slowly turned to look at me before lowering her hand again, but that didn''t stop her from giving onest snort.

    The Origin Giant let out a sigh of relief when he saw her act this way, but then he said with a serious expression, "I''m sure that you already have an idea why I called you here."

    A faint smile appeared on my lips before I slowly gave a nod.

    The bitter look in the Origin Giant''s eyes became even more bitter when he saw this smile of mine, but he didn''t say anything as he could still see Solista floating over him.

    It took a while for the Origin Giant to calm himself down, but when he did, he said, "Since you have an idea, then there''s no need for me to say too much. All I''ll say is that for you to be deemed worthy, you''ll have to pass my..."

    "Pa!"

    Solista couldn''t hold herself back anymore and pped him on the back of the head once

    more.

    This time, the Origin Giant waspletely caught off guard by the p to the back of the head that he wasn''t able to guard against the p in time.

    With a shocked look on his face, he turned around to look at Solista before asking, "What was that for?"

    Solista just said in a cold voice, "You know exactly what that was for."

    A confused look slowly appeared on the face of the Origin Giant since he had no idea what she was talking about.

    Seeing this, Solista raised her hand as if she was about to p him again which actually made the Origin Giant take a step back.

    Seeing this made a strange look appear on my face.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    These two were supposed to be powerful gods, but here they were bickering like this.

    Solista suddenly stopped when this thought passed through my mind, almost as if she could hear my thoughts.

    Right, she could hear my thoughts...

    It was what she had done before when she met me, so it would only make sense that she would be able to do it again.

    Giving a cough, Solista slowly lowered her hand and said, "I already asked you for a favour and you still act like this? Just give it to him already."

    A bitter smile appeared on the Origin Giant''s face when he heard this, but it didn''t seem like he was about to go against what Solista was saying. It even seemed like he was being forced into this with the way that she was treating him.

    In the end, the Origin Giant said with a sigh, "Alright, forget about the trial. I''ll just give you my approval since three of the elder gods have already given you their marks."

    "Elder gods?" I couldn''t help asking the Origin Giant when I heard this.

    As soon as I said this, there was a tremble that ran through the Origin Giant''s body, almost as

    if he realized that he had made a mistake.

    At the same time, he slowly turned around as if he was looking at someone who was behind

    him.

    That person was Solista who was floating over him.

    She had gotten a bit closer after he made this mistake.

    But then she suddenly changed the topic by saying, "Since I caused you trouble before, I figured that I should help you a bit."

 Chapter 1143: Origin Giant (3)

    Chapter 1143: Origin Giant (3)

    ?

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when she said this.

    Caused trouble for me?

    That was certain!

    After all, if it wasn''t for that prophecy of hers, then I wouldn''t have been caught up in all of this.

    "It''s not my fault, I''m just the messenger." Solista said in a soft voice that I was still able to hear.

    "Just the messenger? A messenger for who?" I immediately asked after hearing this.

    As if she realized that she made a mistake, Solista gave an awkward cough and said, "Nothing, it''s nothing that you need to know about."

    I narrowed my eyes to look at her.

    These were eyes that were filled with doubt, eyes that clearly didn''t have any trust in her.

    But this kind of tactic didn''t really work on a god.

    It wasn''t as if I could hold her to the same convention as a human since it wasn''t as if I could even be in this ce if they didn''t call me here. But she didn''t send me back even though I was looking at her like this.

    Finally, I said, "Alright, just tell me what else I have to do. You were too vague with your other prophecy that I had to scramble my brain even to think of the other relics from the other races. The least you can do now is tell me where I have to go, right?"

    Solista gave an awkward cough before saying, "I mean, you already figured it out. Is there a need for me to tell you anything?"

    I narrowed my eyes even more when I heard this and didn''t say anything as I stared at her with this gaze.

    In the end, Solista gave a sigh before saying, "Alright, I''ll give you a few clues."

    I was surprised to hear her say this.

    I really didn''t have anything to rely on to threaten her like this, so I hadn''t actually expected her to agree to this request.

    Not to mention that she was a god in the first ce, so she should have been able to read my mind and know that I didn''t expect anything. She clearly didn''t have to tell me anything since she was a god and the one that held all the cards.

    But in the end, it seemed like there was something thatpelled her to give me an answer. Though I had no idea what it was.

    Because I had gotten her to do this, I could see that the Origin Giant was looking at me with a strange look.

    It was almost as if he was looking at me with admiration over the fact that I had convinced Solista to agree to my request.

    I didn''t think that what I did was that impressive, but if that was what he wanted to think...

    After a moment of silence, Solista said, "You''re already on the right track with the rtions that you''ve already created. Of course, the more races that you can bring to your side, the easier it''ll be for you when the timees."

    A bitter smile appeared on my face when I heard this.

    It seemed like she wasn''t nning on giving me a specific number.

    After all, she had said that the more races that I brought to my side, the better.

    That was a clear indication that she wanted me to befriend as many races as possible.

    "I can''t tell you more than that, I really can''t. Even if I wanted to, I''m not allowed. I hope that you understand that." When Solista said this, it was as if she was saying this in a voice that was hoping that I would cut her some ck.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    It was just that I couldn''t understand this at all.

    What could get a god in trouble?

    Solista didn''t say anything, but based on the way that she was silent as this thought passed through my mind, it seemed that this was something that she couldn''t talk about.

    So in the end, even if I had my doubts, I didn''t say anything since it would put her in a hard position.

    So far, Solista had done what she could to help me and it didn''t seem like she wanted to harm me. In that case, I shouldn''t make things hard for her.

    It was just that...

    "I know that you''re frustrated, but I promise that this is for your good. I hope that you will keep working hard on this since dark times are about toe." There was a trace of a heavy tone in Solista''s voice as she said this.

    It was almost as if there was something that she was worried about when she said this.

    I didn''t say anything as I just silently looked at her, but there was nothing that I could figure out since I couldn''t see her face in the first ce. There was that light that was obscuring my view of her, so I couldn''t get any clues from her even if I wanted to.

    In the end, all I could do was ept what she said.

    "Alright, I''ll keep what you''ve said in mind." That was all I could say in response to this.

    There was a soft sound that seemed like a sigh that rang out through the air after I said this.

    I couldn''t help shaking my head with a faint smile when I heard this before turning to look at the Origin Giant to ask, "How do I get back to that ce?"

    "Oh, I''ll send you back when you''re ready. I''ll also give you my mark so you can take my club away." Then as if he remembered something, the Origin Giant added, "When you get back, be sure to call the elders in and I''ll tell them about you."

    I was surprised by the way that the Origin Giant said this since it waspletely different from how he talked to me before.

    It was as if there was a trace of politeness that was in his voice now.

    "Alright, I''m ready."

    Thest thing that I heard was...

    "My name is Aurgel by the way."

 Chapter 1144: Alliance (1)

    Chapter 1144: Alliance (1)

    ?

    There was a sh of light that appeared in front of me before the scene changed. When I came back to my senses, I found that I was standing on top of Joan again.

    It didn''t even seem like any time had passed with the way that she was just standing there. It was as if she hadn''t noticed that my mind and soul had beenpletely pulled out of my body and into another realm.

    But now that I was back, I could see that I was in the same room as before.

    It didn''t seem like there was anything that had changed during this time.

    Feeling me finally move, Joan looked up at me as if she was curious about something.

    I looked at her and asked, "Did nothing happen just now?"

    Joan had a confused look on her face when she heard this as if she didn''t understand why I was asking her this. After a moment of hesitation, she slowly shook her head to show that she didn''t know what I was talking about.

    It seemed that the power of the gods really couldn''t be understood by mortals.

    With a shake of my head, I said, "It''s nothing, don''t worry about it."

    Joan looked at me as if she was still confused by what I was saying, but she didn''t do anything else.

    I looked at the club that was on the pedestal and then thought about taking it, but then I remembered the size difference between me and the club. This was a club that was used by the Origin Giant, which meant that it was as big as a buildingpared to me.

    It wasn''t something that I could just take on my own.

    But before having Joan take it as well, I remembered what the Origin Giant had told me.

    As this thought passed through my mind, I patted Joan on the back and said, "Let''s leave this room."

    Joan gave a simple nod before turning to open the door.

    Standing in the room outside were the giant elders who all seemed to be gathered in a circle. With the way that they were standing, it was as if they had been waiting for me toe out. Then the moment that I dide out, I was immediately turned into the center of attention. At the same time, I was surrounded by all of these giant elders who came forward.

    Elder Ogrin was the one that spoke for them by asking, "What happened in there?"

    I just calmly looked at them and said, "Come in with me. Lord Origin Giant wants to see you all."

    The giant elders were all surprised to hear this, but they still nodded in agreement before following me into the room.

    Once we were all in the room, there were strange looks that appeared on all of their faces as they seemed to wait for something to happen. However, it didn''t seem like there was anything that was about to happen.

    A bitter smile appeared on my face as I stood there on the back of Joan.

    It was as if the Origin Giant had lied to me...

    As the giant elders seemed like they were getting impatient, there was a voice that suddenly rang out through the room.

    "Elders of the giant race, listen to my words."

    As soon as they heard this, looks of shock appeared on the faces of the elders before they had excited looks. They all seemed to recognize the voice that had suddenly rang out through the

    room.

    I wasn''t surprised by this since I also recognized this voice.

    They had said that I would know after entering this room and now I knew.

    The Origin Giant was able to talk to them through the relic that he left, which was why that voice rang out now.

    "Lord Origin Giant, whatmand do you have for us?" Elder Ogrin represented the others to ask this.

    "Ogrin, is that you?" The Origin Giant asked.

    "Yes, ancestor. The twenty third direct line descendant is here."

    It turned out that Elder Ogrin was the direct line descendant of the Origin Giant.

    While all giants were rted to the Origin Giant ording to the myth, the reality of it was that it was impossible for that to be true.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    They might be rted in some way because of marriage, but it was impossible for them to all be direct descendants.

    There had to be one line of direct descendants and it seemed that Elder Ogrin was from that line.

    "Good, since you''re here, I want you to pass down this order from me to the rest of the giant race."

    The giant elders all bowed their heads at this before Elder Ogrin said in a respectful voice, "Yes, ancestor."

    "This human, Zwein, has passed my trials and has earned my acknowledgement. He is entitled to use my relic as he pleases."

    "Huh?" Shocked looks immediately appeared on the faces of all the giant elders when they heard this before they slowly looked at me with strange looks.

    Another bitter smile appeared on my lips when I saw them looking at me like this, but then I revealed a calm look as I stood there without any reactions.

    "Ancestor, this is the relic of our giant race...Can we really give it to someone else like this?" With a gulp Elder Ogrin added, "Especially when that person is a human?"

    "He is the one that has received my acknowledgement, so he will decide what to do with the relic. Or is there anything else that you want to say?" The Origin Giant''s voice rang out again with a trace of a threatening tone to it.

    All of the giant elders lowered their heads when they heard this before Elder Ogrin said, "We will follow your orders."

    As if to save them, I said, "Lord Origin Giant, thank you for this trust."

    "I''ve already said it, you can just call me by my name, Aurgel."

    Once again, shocked looks appeared on the faces of all the giant elders.

    This time, they were more shocked than they were previously.

 Chapter 1145: Alliance (2)

    Chapter 1145: Alliance (2)

    ?

    The giant elders just slowly turned to look at me as if they were trying to figure out what was going on.

    But there was nothing that I could say about this.

    After all, I had no idea why the Origin Giant wanted me to do this in the first ce.

    Even if he had some kind of admiration towards me for standing up to Solista, it shouldn''t be at the level where he would treat me like this.

    There was a long silence that lingered in the air before the giant elders slowly came back to their senses.

    Even though it was clear by the looks on their faces that they didn''t seem willing to ept this, they didn''t seem like they were going to go against the orders that the Origin Giant gave. Elder Ogrin was the one that spoke for them by saying, "Ancestor, we will obey your orders." The way that he said this was as if he wanted to end this before the Origin Giant could do anything else.

    It was just that the Origin Giant remained silent as if he was waiting for something else.

    Or it was better to say that he was waiting for someone else.

    Seeing that their god wasn''t saying anything else, the giant elders slowly turned to look at me. Even if there were traces of unwillingness in their eyes, it seemed like they were trying topel me to do something.

    I gave a secret bitterugh before saying, "Thank you for this trust, Aurgel."

    It was only after I said this that the Origin Giant startedughing.

    Theughter boomed through the room, showing just how happy he was that I had called him by his name to the shock of the giant elders.

    But after he finishedughing, he said, "Ogrin, there''s something else that I want to tell you all."

    Elder Ogrin and the other giant elders had slightly bitter smiles on their faces when they heard this, but those bitter smiles quickly disappeared before they revealed serious looks.

    Elder Ogrin then said, "Ancestor, if there are any orders you have, please tell us. We are ready to ept them."

    The Origin Giant didn''t answer right away, but then he said, "Create an alliance with the humans."

    "Huh?" All of the giant elders had confused looks on their faces when they heard this.

    It was clear that they didn''t expect to hear the Origin Giant say something like this.

    As if the Origin Giant had expected this from them, he said, "The world is changing and not for the better."

    All of the giant elders knitted their brows when they heard this, but they didn''t say anything as they waited for the Origin Giant to continue his words.

    "There''s a wave of darkness that is about to wash over thends and we need to prepare. Right now, the best choice for us is to ally ourselves with the humans because there''s a certain individual of the human race that is there."

    Though the Origin Giant didn''t say who this was, it was clear to the giant elders who he was referring to.

    There was only one person that he could be referring to.

    But the giant elders didn''t seem to mind that the Origin Giant was talking about him like this.

    After all, they cared more about what the Origin Giant had said before about the wave of darkness.

    After a moment of hesitation, Elder Ogrin took a deep breath and asked, "Ancestor, the wave of darkness that you mentioned...Does it have something to do with the invasion of the demons?"

    All of the elders immediately revealed serious looks.

    After all, this was what they had been concerned about as well.

    They had heard the news of the demons acting up, so they wanted to see if the Origin Giant knew anything about this.

    The Origin Giant didn''t answer right away, but eventually he said, "It does. Only the demons are just a part of it, they aren''t the main thing. There are still other things to worry about, so it''s best if our race finds some allies."

    All of the giant elders knitted their brows even more after hearing this.

    It seemed like Elder Ogrin wanted to ask something else, but before he could...n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    "Other than this, I can''t tell you anything else. If I were to tell you more, it would vite the agreement that I have with the elder gods."

    "Elder gods..." I softly repeated under my breath.

    There was that term mentioned again, but I still had no idea what he was referring to.

    Last time, Solista had stopped me from questioning him.

    This time...

    Well, it would be hard to question him with all of the giant elders here.

    So I had to hold myself back in the end.

    Especially since I already knew what the answer would have been.

    There was another moment of silence as if they were all in deep thought before Elder Ogrin said, "Ancestor, we will follow your orders."

    "Good. Remember that the future of our giant race will depend on your actions. I hope that you will take care of not just yourselves, but also the rest of our giant race."

    The giant elders all had looks of pride on their faces that also had traces of responsibility as they said, "Lord Origin Giant, please leave it to us."

    With that, the club on the pedestal stopped glowing and the voice of the Origin Giant

    disappeared.

    Once again, the room fell to silence as all of the giant elders looked like they were thinking about something.

    But in the end, Elder Ogrin led the other giant elders to surround me again.

    It didn''t seem like they wanted to harm me, but it was a strange feeling being surrounded by these giants like this. It would have been even worse if it wasn''t for Joan who I was riding on.

    Elder Ogrin suddenly said with a smile, "Your majesty, King Zwein, I would like to extend an offer of alliance between our races."

 Chapter 1146: For me?

    Chapter 1146: For me?

    ?

    Though there was a part of me that wanted to ept this, I really couldn''t.

    After all...

    "I can''t represent the entire human race, the only thing that I can represent is my Kite Kingdom that borders the Land of Giants." I said with a sigh.

    The giant elders nodded to show that they understood before Elder Ogrin said, "For now, that''s enough of a first step."

    I gave a nod in response before adding, "I do have some influence with one of the empires of the human race, so I can help you approach them. As for the rest, it''ll all depend on them."

    At the end, I couldn''t help giving a sigh.

    After all, I knew just how slow bureaucracy was sometimes.

    Elder Ogrin gave another nod as he said, "It''s not easy taking the first step, but it''s a process that will require time. Even if it''s just one human empire, it''s at least a step forward to restoring our rtionship."

    I was surprised to hear this, but it seemed that the Origin Giant''s words had really sunk into the minds of the giant elders as they all seemed to agree with this.

    It seemed that all of them took it seriously that they wanted to build up a rtionship with the human race.

    But I had to think about what the Origin Giant said before.

    He said that it wasn''t just the demons that we needed to worry about, he said that there were other things that were out there.

    It was just that I couldn''t even begin to imagine what there would be out there.

    From my knowledge of the game, there shouldn''t have been anything that was worse than the demons when it came to viins.

    So what could control the demons and make them start a war against the other races?

    To be able to control the demons, there was no doubt that it had to be something powerful... It didn''t seem like a good thing to be against whatever was behind the demons.

    But there really was no choice since their target was us humans in the first ce.

    The giant elders didn''t follow us when we left, it was just Elder Ogrin who came with us. However, the reason he came with us was because I asked him to hold onto the club relic of the Origin Giant for now.

    When he lifted it up, there was a pleasantly surprised look that appeared on his face.

    I learnedter that the reason for this was because none of them had been able to lift the club before. Whenever they tried to lift the club, it was as if the club suddenly became ten thousand times heavier than before.

    It gained a weight that seemed like it would crush the pedestal that it would be on.

    It was too heavy for any of them to lift it.

    They knew that this was because they hadn''t obtained the approval of the Origin Giant to lift this club. Even Elder Ogrin who was from the direct descendant line of the Origin Giant wasn''t able to lift the club since he didn''t have the approval of the Origin Giant.

    Only after Zwein touched it and seemed to give him permission was he able to lift it.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    This was the relic of his ancestor, so it wasn''t strange that Elder Ogrin was excited to hold it.

    Though he also knew that this club wasn''t for him.

    Aftering out, Elder Ogrin gave some instructions to the guards that seemed to shock them. They looked at me as if they couldn''t believe something, but they still went off to fulfil Elder Ogrin''s orders.

    Their job was to head to the different giant tribes to tell them about the alliance.

    Elder Ogrin didn''t seem to care about supervising them, the only thing that he cared about was going with us back to the Harakka Tribe.

    After all, it was his duty to carry the club.

    Even though I told him that it would be fine for Olos or Olmir to carry it, it didn''t seem like he was willing to let it go. It seemed that before it reached the person that it was meant to go to, he wasn''t willing to let it go.

    So I just let him carry it for us.

    After arriving back at the Harakka Tribe, there were many that were surprised to see Elder Ogrin.

    They recognized him with a single nce, which showed that Elder Ogrin was quite well known among the giants.

    Though the giants looked at him and at me as if they wanted to know what he was doing here, I didn''t care about that as I went over to Alidus.

    Alidus was surprised at first, but he was even more surprised when he saw Elder Ogrin handing him the club. As he did this, there seemed to be this unwilling look that appeared on Elder Ogrin''s face.

    However, he still handed the club over to Alidus in the end.

    "Is this for me?" Alidus asked in a shocked voice.

    I gave a simple nod before gesturing for him to take it.

    Alidus slowly took the club from Elder Ogrin and the moment that he did, the club started to change shape.

    It didn''t really change that much, but it did be a bit smaller so it fit perfectly in Alidus'' hands. It seemed like it was a perfect match for him with the way that he swung it around.

    It was almost as if this club was perfectly made for him.

    That caused a bitter smile to appear on Elder Ogrin''s face.

    I just gave a satisfied nod when I saw this.

    I knew what Alidus would be in the future, so I thought that it was only natural that the club would ept him like this.

    Since I wasn''t able to use the club, it was best that it went to someone that could use it.

    That person was Alidus, my future muscle.

 Chapter 1147: Youâ€™re the only one

    Chapter 1147: You¡¯re the only one

    ?

    With the relic of the giant race in hand, there really wasn''t anything left for us to do here. Though there was the matter of selling our goods still.

    So in the end, we split up into two groups that would be in charge of different things.

    There was one group that I was leading that would be heading back to our kingdom.

    There was another group that would stay here with some guards to sell off the rest of the items to the giants, while also getting closer to them.

    Elder Ogrin stayed behind and promised that he would help us take care of this group just in case something happened. With him here, there was no worry that something would happen since the status of an elder of the giant race wasn''t something to look down on.

    Especially since it was Elder Ogrin who came from the direct descendant line.

    The only real problem was that there was another giant that came with us. Even with Elder Ogrin speaking up for us, it didn''t seem like she was convinced. It didn''t seem like she would give up the idea of following us...

    So in the end, Isra came with us back to the Kite Kingdom.

    The trip itself wasn''t that special.

    What was special was when we arrived back at the castle.

    Since Isra was a giant in a human kingdom, naturally she wasn''t able to follow us into the castle. She was led by Alidus to the ce that we had prepared for giants previously, though it didn''t seem like she wanted to part with me.

    But there was no other choice since there was just nowhere for her to go even if she wanted to stay.

    In the end, she had no choice but to follow Alidus there.

    As for what was special...

    "You''re the only one. I need your help."

    That was the first thing that Moon said to me as soon as I came back to the castle.

    I waspletely caught off guard when I heard this and I looked over at Rose and Ang for an exnation, but neither of them seemed to want to give me an answer.

    So the only thing that I could do in the end was ask Moon, "What do you mean by that?"

    She gave me an answer that wasn''t an answer at the same time.

    "Pleasee with me to the vige."

    I raised a brow as I looked at her in a confused manner, but it didn''t seem like she was going to say anything else with the way that she looked at me.

    I really didn''t know what she was talking about, but it seemed like it was quite serious with the way that she was acting.

    In the end, I said with a sigh, "Alright, I''lle with you then."

    Moon''s expression rxed a bit after hearing this, but it seemed like there was still something that she was worried about.

    It seemed like she wouldn''t be able to rx until this was all over.

    So we headed off the very next day.

    "What did you say?" I asked the elder as soon as I heard what she had to say.

    "The Elven Kingdom wishes to meet with you to discuss the demon''s invasion." She said back in a calm voice.

    If I didn''t know her and knew that she didn''t joke, then I would have thought that she was kidding.

    After what happenedst time, I thought that they wouldn''t want anything to do with me.

    But now they were suddenly asking to meet me like this...

    It really didn''t seem to make any sense at all.

    At the same time, there was something else that confused me.

    Why had Moon acted the way that she had done before?

    It was almost as if they were worried that something was going to happen to their vige with the way that they acted.

    This was just an invitation to talk to me, it wasn''t as if the Elven Kingdom would do anything to an elven vige.

    Still, I couldn''t let this go, so I asked, "What''s wrong? It seems like you''re still worried about something."

    The elder and Moon looked at each other before suddenly giving sighs.

    "A high elf is getting involved this time. It seems like it''s very serious with how even a high elf is moving..." Moon said in a serious voice.

    High elf...

    That was what I had used before to trick these elves into believing that I was their friend.

    And now there was another high elfing.

    For even a high elf to be involved in this matter, it really seemed like this was serious.

    It was hard to tell just what the Elven Kingdom was nning to do.

    "Where do they want to meet?"

    At this point, that was the most important question.

    Once again, Moon and the elder looked at each other before turning back to me to say, "They want to meet you in this vige."

    "Here?" I couldn''t help asking to confirm this since I was surprised by this answer.

    One would think that they would try to get me to go to the Elven Kingdom where they had the advantage for this talk, but they were actuallying here to talk to me.

    It really was a strange thing that they were doing...

    After thinking about it, I asked, "Are they nning on threatening this vige?"

    Neither Moon or the elder said anything.

    It seemed like I had hit the nail on the head and it exined why they had been acting this

    way.N?v(el)B\\jnn

    It seemed that they were worried that the high elf that would being would want to do something to the vige to threaten me.

    After all, Moon was my wife now, so the vige was like family to me.

    If they were to do something to the vige...

    Well, it would be hard for me to stand by and do nothing.

    It really seemed like there was nothing that I could do about this.

 Chapter 1148: Elven Kingdom delegation (1)

    Chapter 1148: Elven Kingdom delegation (1)

    ?

    The notice that the Elven Kingdom sent wasn''t really a notice, it was more of a deration.

    The delegation of the Elven Kingdom were already on their way and would be arriving soon. If the vige didn''t ept them and help them meet with the humans, then there was no telling what would happen.

    In the end, the elven vige was part of the Elven Kingdom and it was impossible to escape their grasps.

    So all they could do was ept the Elven Kingdom''s delegation.

    Only...

    Who knew what the Elven Kingdom delegation and the high elf that wasing with them wanted.

    The days spent waiting for them were quite hard as I couldn''t do anything during this time. There was just no telling when they would arrive, so all I could was stay in the kingdom and wait.

    During this time, there were reports from the Holy Empire about the exploits of the demons.

    The demons had been getting more and more aggressive with their attacks and it seemed like they had done many things that were out of the expectations of the human empires. It seemed that they had more tricks up their sleeves that the human empires weren''t able to actually push them back.

    So far, the demons had actually gotten quite far into thend of the humans and it seemed like nothing would stop them.

    That was just how powerful their cards were.

    At a time like this, I was stuck here because I was waiting for the elven delegation to arrive.

    It really felt like the elves were somehow involved with the demons with the way that they were dying me.

    The Origin Giant had said that there were others that were also working with the one that was behind the demons...

    So it was possible that the elves had gotten involved with this.

    Though there was no concrete proof right now.

    The Holy Empire had also been interested when I told them about how the giants wanted to create an alliance with the human race.

    The giants were very powerful, that was how they were able to create the Land of Giants for themselves. If they were to ally with the human race, then there was no doubt that they would be very helpful in the war with the demons.

    At the same time, there were resources that only the giants had that the humans wanted.

    If they could open up trade routes with the giants, there was no doubt that both the human race and the giant race would benefit.

    The only problem was that they hadn''t been able to find a way to contact the giants since the giants had kept to themselves all this now.

    But that was different since I had already opened up the lines ofmunication for them.

    So after Chris and Leon both went to the Land of Giants to talk to the elders, it seemed like a temporary alliance had been formed and there would be a chance to connect the giant race to the other human empires.

    It really seemed like it was only a matter of time.

    In the end, it took ten days for the Elven Kingdom''s delegation to arrive.

    When they arrived, there was something strange about them.

    Unlike the envoys that had been sent to the vige before, this delegation seemed... respectful.

    When they arrived, they didn''t look down on the elders of this vige that greeted them. They treated them with respect and asked them not to give them any special treatment.

    It waspletely different from the ones that came before...

    It was even more strange because there was a high elf that was here with them.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    The high elf had a head of pure green hair to show their status, as well just looking at them was more than enough to tell that they were a high elf. After all, there was this powerful energy that was around them that made them seem like they were one with nature.

    When they had this kind of energy around them, it was impossible to mistake them.

    Only it was a bit hard for me to tell if they were male or female.

    They looked like they were female, but the figure that they had...it was a bit too t to tell if they were a female.

    After the leader of the delegation greeted the elders of the vige, that was when the high elf suddenly came forward and said, "I''m here to meet the human king."

    The way that they said this was almost as if it was natural that the one that they were looking for should be here.

    The elders slightly knitted their brows when they heard this, but they couldn''t say anything since the other side was a high elf.

    I stepped forward and shook my head at the elders to show that it was fine before looking at the high elf to say, "I''m the one you''re looking for. What did you want to meet me for?"

    The high elf''s eyes immediately turned to me and there seemed to be this green glow that appeared in them. The way that they looked at me was as if they were trying to see through me, especially with the sharp look in their eyes.

    However, I didn''t back down even though the high elf looked at me like this.

    There was a moment of silence before a smile suddenly appeared on the face of the high elf and they said, "Indeed, you are the one that I''m looking for. I''ve been waiting quite a while to meet you and I have to say that I''m not disappointed."

    I immediately revealed a confused look when they said this, but it didn''t seem like the high elf was nning to exin any further as they turned to the elders to say, "Is there a ce where we can talk in private?"

    The elders hesitated, but I gave them a nod to show that it was fine.

    It was then that Moon''s grandmother said, "Follow us then."

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